Are Members of Congress Accountable for Anything?(Murtha & Haditha)

American Thinker ^ | October 04, 2007 | Clarice Feldman

[vietvet67]

Are Congressmen above the law? The case of Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich against Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) tests this basic question.

Of course there are other reasons to ask the same question. In a year when Congressional committees see no limits to what they will subpoena from the executive branch or about what they will interrogate its officers and employees, they rushed to court to keep the Department of Justice from subpoenaing the records of a Congressman caught with tens of thousands of dollars in his freezer.

Bad as shielding suspicious Congressional cold cash from view may be, insulating Congressmen when attacking ordinary citizens, or worse yet active duty Soldiers, is an invitation to tyranny. We are all potential targets if this holds true. Are they totally unaccountable for their conduct against ordinary citizens? I certainly hope not, but if that ultimately proves to be the case in court, I hope we have the strength to demand a change in the law.

The news that Staff Sgt Wuterich was going to be permitted to proceed to discovery in his defamation suit against Congressman Murtha was a cheering note to people like me who have consistently considered the Congressman's conduct unacceptable. As you will recall on November 19, 2005 there was an incident in the then-insurgent infested town of Haditha in which a number of people were killed. Beginning in May of 2006, long before a full official inquiry, and prompted by a very suspect bit of anti-US propaganda in Time, Congressman Murtha hit the media circuit repeatedly. He publicly and falsely accused SSgt Wuterich and the men of the Marines' Kilo Company of being involved in cold-blooded (premeditated) murder and of covering up the events of that day.

[brityank]

I just went back into David's lists, and can find no specification charge of Dereliction from the prosecutors. The Specification 1, all for the murders, was judged as unfounded. Specification 2 was Soliciting Dela Cruz to make untrue statements, all negated by Dela Cruz's own testimony. Specification 3, making a false official statement. Nothing in Ware's report mentions that he believed that charge, in fact he did comment that he found Wunterich's testimony as matching the evidence more nearly than the prosecution's description. So again, I just wonder where this Dereliction came from.

Well, it's early on your side of the rock -- here it's beddy-bye time. :^) 'See' you tomorrow; take care.

[jazusamo]

You too, brityank. Don’t know how y’all back there do it cause it’s about time for me to hang it up here. Talk to you tomorrow.

[brityank]

Being a night-owl helps.     ;^)

[Shelayne]

Finally, although I believe the Government will fail to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that SSgt. Wuterich committed any offenses other than dereliction of duty, due to the serious nature of the charges, I recommend referral to a general court-martial.

Are you kidding me?? Who wrote this--Harry Reid?

How does he come down with dereliction of duty? Just because of the SERIOUS NATURE of the charges? Next I'll see a statement that says, "I question the timing."

What am I missing?

[Shelayne]

Yeah, brit, I’m scratching my head on that one, too. I guess I will just have to wait to read the whole recommendation.

I am hopeful that General Mattis will see through this crapola and dismiss all charges.

[Shelayne]

OOPS. Should be—negligent homicide

I obviously need to go nighty-night.

[freema]

I am with you, jaz. What’s more, Ware does not have the ‘luxury’ of being able to decide absolute bullshit.

Quite often, lost in and to the civilian world, is the first lesson learned at boot camp:

Marines don’t enjoy the freedoms they die to protect.

They can’t say what they want, when they want.
They can’t even refuse to say what they don’t want to say.

[freema]

My take is this (and I’ll beg your forgiveness before I even get started):

It looks to me as though it’s Ware’s translation that IF anyone had half a brain, IF there were any charges that MIGHT stick, this is the only charge a perverse mind could bother to explore, and if a perverse mind actually did bother to explore it, it would end up looking like a jack off. Or, to sum it all up tidily, WTF.

(But one must bear in mind that I love reading the President’s remarks and speeches to see what he’s REALLY saying : )

[xzins]

e. Wuterich will explore who provided Murtha the information he said he relied on. His pleadings refer, in fact, to leakers from among people inside the Department of Defense.

And this info will Wuterich to claim command influence on his hearing and trial.

[xzins]

e. Wuterich will explore who provided Murtha the information he said he relied on. His pleadings refer, in fact, to leakers from among people inside the Department of Defense.

And this info will ENABLEWuterich to claim command influence on his hearing and trial.

[freema]

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-delinquency expert Edward M. Barrows, who lived in and reported his findings from the Hell's Kitchen area.

...the children of Hell's Kitchen were arrested more frequently than children of other neighborhoods.

It is clear at the very start that the punishment, as far as law goes, has little relation to the alleged crimes as listed above. The same section of the penal code punishes baseball and burglary, and both of these acts are punishable under several other sections of the penal code. Frequently the arrest brings out a series of acts, committed in previous days or weeks, which bear little relation to the direct cause of the arrest. We find cases of children arrested for playing ball but whose story in court reveals stealing, assault and burglary. Again, we find a child rearrested under three or four different sections of the penal code for the same repeated act, be it the kicking of a garbage can or assault and battery. We find in the court records the most indiscriminate blending of arrest and punishment for innocent play with arrest and punishment for deviltry or perverse crime of a serious nature. Be it remembered that this is the hand of the law as the child knows it. This is the real organized society - the political state with which he is in contact.

Barrows then used records from the 20th precinct to further illustrate his point:

John C. was arrested for creating a disturbance. This is a nuisance and, from the standpoint of the adult, a moral offence in a crowded city. Special inquiry developed that John C. was one of a number of boys who gathered in front of a tenement home late one evening and sang in chorus. Incidentally, only one of the several malefactors was caught. Most of the arrests of children are for acts committed by groups of children ranging from two to fifty, and as often as not there is only one boy in the whole group who is caught.

Charles C. was arrested for violating Penal Code Section 675, relating to disorderly conduct and committing nuisance. His act consisted in throwing a baseball on a public street.

William C., arrested for disorderly conduct, was charged with playing football on the street. The record showed that he was an athletic enthusiast, and there was no other football field but the street. In contrast with this fact, it should be mentioned that the New York Board of Education maintains an elaborate and costly organization for encouraging the athletic spirit among boys.

George C. was arrested for throwing stones. The record showed that George C. had been one of a group engaging in a street fight, the street fight being a typical form of vigorous play among children of this district.

Thomas C. was arrested for throwing stones. He had thrown a stone in revenge and with murderous intent at an unsuspecting enemy. His motive was wholly different from that of George C., but they were classified together in law.

William L. was arrested for playing ball. Actually, he had been holding some bats while the other boys were playing. He remonstrated with the police officer, but the officer told him he could not get the other fellows and so had to take him.

Harry M., charged with pitching pennies, had been actually playing marbles near by, but the boys who were pitching pennies ran faster than he.

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December 1938, writer Herman Spector documents historical narratives for the Federal Writer's Project. Joe Einstein, a Dutch Schultz mobster:

One day he persuaded me, against my better instincts, to make the rounds with him. It wasn't busy that day and I had lots of time; I guess that's why I let him take me along.

~

"You're taking beer from the Dutchman," Joe tells him, "and that's all you gotta know. He's treating you right, ain't he? So don't be foolish." - And he signals to me, and out we walk. I'm shaking in my shoes all the time, understand. If one of those Coll babies came across us, I'd have been cooked.

So when we get outside I turn to Joe: "For chrisssakes, this ain't no joke! It's alright for you maybe, this is your bread and butter, but it doesn't mean a cent to me. I've got a mother to take care of, and she's expecting me home tonight." And I made him take me over to the Morris Park trolley line, and I got into a trolley-car and went home, and believe me, I felt I had escaped from the jaws of death. I don't care how much dough this guy makes, I said to myself, from now on I stick to my own business.

www.irishinnyc.freeservers.com/hellskitchen.jpg

[freema]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/10/03/kin_say_soldier_hinted_at_concerns/ “She did say to us that she had concerns about things she was seeing when she was over there,” Ciara Durkin’s sister, Fiona Canavan, said in an interview with WGBH-TV. “She told us if anything happened to her, that we were to investigate it.”

[freema]

Ping to Post #18

[bigheadfred]

Not knowing the military, how should “command influence” affect the outcome of Gen. Mattis’s rulings in this case? Does it give him more leeway in granting a complete dismissal?
Also, do you think the Murtha debacle will keep other senators and congresspeople from weighing in on the other end of the spectrum, i.e., stopping , or never starting, favorable investigations in what I call Malicious prosecutions of our soldiers?

[brityank]

Jeez, and I thought I was a night owl!       ;^)

[Calpernia]

Murtha and Kerry may be accountable soon. The Stolen Valor investigations have been STEPPING UP. We even have a Mayor in our state that WENT INTO HIDING (love it!).

So, there is hope that they will be held accountable :)

THANK YOU CONGRESSMAN SALAZAR!

[RedRover]

Shame she wasn’t more specific. Seems like a conveniently vague statement, if she ever made it.

[freema]

No relation to Chandra, eh....

Waiting patiently for that day!

[freema]

It is a shame she wasn’t more specific, dead women don’t talk. She worked with money. Her family says they thought the investigation remark was a joke.

[Calpernia]

Chandra Levy, Bob Levy. That is interesting. I didn’t even catch that.