Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Some high-profile convicts past and present are among more than 2,000 people asking President George W. Bush to pardon them or commute their prison sentences before he leaves office. Junk-bond king Michael Milken, media mogul Conrad Black and American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh have applied to the Justice Department seeking official forgiveness.

He's a gentle man, lean and soft-spoken, careful to begin his lecture with an explanation of principles like the right to counsel. The passion in Frank Lindh builds only when he describes the details of what happened to his son, John Walker Lindh, the bearded young man who was tagged as the American Taliban. In the waning days of George Bush's administration, the senior Lindh is asking the president to commute the rest of his son's 20-year sentence, now seven years along. It's almost certainly a hopeless quest. Bush is not a man prone to second-guess himself. ... In retrospect,...

The father of John Walker Lindh, who has spent nearly seven years in federal prison for serving in an Afghan army, told a room full of law students at University of San Francisco on Wednesday his son has been used as a scapegoat for the faults of the U.S. government. Frank Lindh of Marin County spoke for the fourth consecutive year about how he believes U.S. troops in northern Afghanistan in 2001 illegitimately captured his son, known as an "American Taliban," for fighting as a Taliban soldier just after the Sept. 11 attacks. Frank Lindh said he believes his son...

<p>The media furor surrounding Marin County's "American Taliban" has turned into a full-fledged frenzy, with cash being waved about as if it were a Hollywood production . . . which it may well become.</p> <p>John Walker's family has been besieged almost from day one by book and movie offers, sources say. And even Chronicle reporters covering the story have been queried by agents looking to do a deal.</p>

All red-blooded Americans hate the Taliban. But what did red-blooded Americans think of the Taliban seven months ago? That's about when John Walker, 20-year-old American citizen, disappeared from sight until he surfaced earlier this month in a prisoner-of-war camp for Taliban fighters. Now many Americans want Walker tried, punished, executed . . . nothing is too terrible to say about, or contemplate doing to, this traitor who abandoned his country and joined up with that incarnation of evil, that rats' nest of anti-Americanism, that oppressor of women, that harborer of terrorists: the Taliban. All this about the Taliban was about ...

Felons Seeking Bush Pardon Near a Record By CHARLIE SAVAGE WASHINGTON — Felons are asking President Bush for pardons and commutations at historic levels as he nears his final months in office, a time when many other presidents have granted a flurry of clemency requests. Among the petitioners is Michael Milken, the billionaire former junk bond king turned philanthropist, who is seeking a pardon for his 1990 conviction for securities fraud, the Justice Department said. Mr. Milken sought a pardon eight years ago from President Bill Clinton, and submitted a new petition in June. In addition, prominent federal inmates are...

War On Terror: After 9/11, Pakistan promised to close its radical madrassas as part of anti-terror reforms. Now we learn they're not only still open, but also recruiting and brainwashing American boys.All told, 600 American children are being indoctrinated into jihad in 22 madrassas across Pakistan. A U.S. filmmaker stumbled on them while tracing the path of the London suicide bombers. He discovered they attended the same radical Islamic schools. A congressional delegation has confirmed his findings. One particularly radical school in Karachi freely displays a banner at its main gate urging Muslims to join the Taliban. At least 80...

John Walker Lindh's lawyers and parents appealed to President Bush for the fourth time Tuesday to commute the Marin County man's 20-year prison sentence for aiding the Taliban in 2001, saying the nation has grown less fearful since then and that others convicted of similar charges have been treated more leniently. "John Lindh had no involvement whatsoever in terrorism or criminal activity," his mother, Marilyn Walker, said at a news conference.... "Others have received a lot less in the way of a sentence even when they were convicted of a lot more," the lawyer said. Bush has not responded to...

Hoping a new attorney general will be more sympathetic to their cause, John Walker Lindh's parents again asked the White House to commute the sentence of the Marin County man who fought in Afghanistan for the Taliban. The family filed a petition today asking that Lindh's 20-year sentence be commuted. Lindh pleaded guilty in 2002 to providing services to the Taliban and carrying explosives during a felony. His attorneys first applied for a commutation in 2004, and have regularly beseeched the government since then to shorten Lindh's sentence. "We hope that President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush will find...

Parents of captured American Talib 'have been given no word of him' The parents of Talib John Walker say the US government has not given them any word about his condition or whereabouts. The Californian was taken into custody nearly a week ago after a bloody prison uprising in northern Afghanistan. Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker say they are "desperately worried" about their son. Attorney James Brosnahan says he has sent a fax to the US Department of Defence seeking information on Walker's whereabouts, and also contacted the US State Department. Neither agency provided information, he says. "John's parents ...

<p>Were the story of John Walker Lindh not so horribly real, it could play as a parody of our times. Mr. Walker, a 20-year-old American, goes to war in Afghanistan. Except he fights not for America, but against us, on the side of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. By the time he's captured, AK-47 in hand, Mr. Walker is filthy, wounded and famished, but to a persistent reporter from Newsweek he manages to gasp out his support for the Islamic terrorist attacks that, out of a clear blue sky, killed more than 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11.</p>

Reading all these articles and hearing all these pundits talk about Johnny Bin Walker as being treasonous and being the lowest thing on earth has made me wonder. First, how can it be treason when he is no longer a citizen. Second, although I think the guy should be killed, he gets more respect from me for having the guts to go over their and live up to his anti-American sentiments, than do these cowardly America haters over here that still enjoy the benefits of being an American citizen. How many times have we told these creeps that if they ...

What should America do with John Walker Lindh, its 20-year-old former Californian who converted to Islam and became a Taliban foot soldier? As a citizen, he's ineligible for trial before an American military tribunal. Yet proving him guilty of treason in a civilian court would be tough because he joined the Taliban well before Sept. 11 and played no role in the attacks on this country. He could always claim that his goal was merely to fight the Northern Alliance, not the U.S. Yet Lindh is clearly an enemy of America. He trained in al-Qaida terrorist camps and he's voiced ...

ONGMONT, Colo., Dec. 6 — If John Walker Lindh's fate were in the hands of many people here, he might well be headed for execution, life in prison or any other penalty suffered by turncoats. "He's a traitor," said Ted Gaines, a Vietnam veteran who works at Grandpa's Pawn Shop. "He should be prosecuted as a traitor. He was fighting with our enemy. He was fighting with terrorists." Rod Brandenburg, the shop's owner, agreed. "I have no sympathy for him whatsoever." Those views reflect the degree to which many residents of Longmont, a fast-growing but still conservative community of 71,000 ...

Dec. 6 — Last week, just hours before Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners began their uprising at the Northern Afghan fortress of Kala Jangi, CIA agents interviewed John Walker, the 20-year-old American from northern California, NEWSWEEK has learned. The interrogation, which took place shortly before one of the agents was killed, was videotaped by an Afghan cameraman. THE TAPE REPRESENTS the first evidence that the CIA knew that there was an American, or at least a Westerner among the hundreds of prisoners. It also demonstrates that Walker came into contact with the U.S. agents; last week, he told NEWSWEEK ...

JOHN WALKER HAS TO PAY December 7, 2001 -- Americans are right to be mad as hell about the discovery of one of their own among a gaggle of captured Taliban fighters. John Walker may be a mixed-up "young man," as his father says. And clearly he was in the wrong place at the wrong time - doing the wrong thing. That is, bearing arms against other young Americans. For this he must pay. Dearly. And because he might have taken part in the treacherous killing of CIA agent Johnny Michael Spann. And because treating him leniently could make it ...

<p>In all worlds but the liberal one, adult choices have adult consequences.</p> <p>An American Talib from Marin County? Named for John Lennon; the son of a Catholic father and a mother who embraced Buddhism; a graduate of an alternative high school who converted to Islam after reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"?</p>

NEW YORK (AP) - CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann reportedly questioned fellow American and alleged Taliban warrior John Walker shortly before the Afghan prisoner uprising in which Spann was killed. Newsweek magazine said on its Web site Thursday the information came from a videotape of the incident taken by an Afghan cameraman. Spann, 32, was killed Nov. 25 after he questioned Walker, 20, of northern California, and other enemy captives who were imprisoned in the northern Afghanistan fortress of Kala Jangi. The prisoners were taken as the northern alliance, under cover of punishing U.S. airstrikes, finally overran the city of ...

James Brosnahan, attorney for Hillary Clinton's disgraced sugar daddy Norman Hsu, has not just defended Marin's Taliban warrior John Walker Lindh. Brosnahan is also a big Democrat party donor. Contribution records from the Center for Responsive Politics' website OpenSecrets.org show Brosnahan has contributed in excess of $80,000 to Democrat candidates since 1989. $86,550 to be exact. His most recent contribution was $10,000 to the Democrat Congressional Campaign on June 29th of this year. He also contributed $2,300 to Barack Hussein Obama on March 19, 2007. There are two other big money contributions; another $10,000 to the Democrat Congressional Campaign in...

James J. BrosnahanSenior Partner Primary Office: San Francisco Email: jbrosnahan@mofo.com Phone: (415) 268-7189 Fax: (415) 268-7522 Download vCard James J. Brosnahan is one of the nation's most respected and recognized trial lawyers, with expertise in both civil and criminal trial work. He was inducted into The State Bar of California's "Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame" in April 1996; was awarded the "Samuel E. Gates Award" by the American College of Trial Lawyers in October 2000; was named the "Trial Lawyer of the Year" by the American Board of Trial Advocates in October 2001; was named "Legend of the Law" by...