The Public Policy
Bovard, James
THE PUBLIC POLICY by James Bovard Another Justice Cover-Up W bile many are appalled that the Justice Department has degenerated into a White House puppet, few pay attention to the other ways in...
...The more powerful the Justice Department becomes, the more such injustices the American people can expect...
...Gonzalez labeled the men "heroes...
...Instead, there was substantial evidence that FBI law enforcement efforts were undertaken by on-site supervisors with the actual, although not completely accurate, belief that Randall Weaver and Kevin Harris posed a severe threat to law enforcement officers requiring the use of deadly force...
...Thanks to this investigation, the Justice Department will hold no one responsible for giving or carrying out the orders to "go kill them on the mountain...
...The only FBI official to take a hit is Michael Kahoewho copped a plea bargain in October 1996 and was sentenced a year later to eighteen months in prison and a $4,000 fine...
...After pleading guilty, he was permitted to stay on the payroll for two more months to qualify for an annual pension of $67,000...
...BATF officials made false reports to a federal prosecutor, who indicted Weaver...
...If you prefer that your name not be rented please check here...
...In the same spirit, Justice's official statement on the two-year investigation declares: the little circumstantial evidence from which it could be argued that there may have been an intent [by FBI snipers] to use more force than was necessary was far outweighed by a significant amount of evidence that law enforcement had no such intention here...
...He reasonably believed at the time that what he was doing was proper...
...The announcement outraged many people, such as Sen...
...More recently, the federal appeals court concluded that marshal Cooper shot and killed the 14-year-old even after effectively disarming him...
...Marshals Service (one of the four sub-agencies of Justice) obtained an arrest warrant...
...2. Attach the mailing label from your most recent issue...
...The Justice Department's continued stonewalling, obstruction of justice, and lying on Ruby Ridge exemplify its dedication to covering up crimes against the American people...
...Initial FBI internal reports contained such ludicrous claims as that Vicki Weaver had been in the front yard pointing her gun at a helicopter when she was gunned down...
...TAS Address Changes Made Easy...
...But the real lesson of the Kahoe sentence is: Cover up a Killing, Get a Pension...
...City: State: Zip: Date of change: L VCAFRM 1 Name: (Please Print) Address: The American Spectator • December 1997 59...
...Within an JAMES BOVARD, the author ofLost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St...
...But a federal appeals court on September 25 cleared the way for the case to go to trial...
...Charles Grassley, who believe that the government may still be covering up its role in the killing of Vicki Weaver...
...This raises the question: How many mothers holding babies does an FBI agent have to gun down before the FBI Director loses faith in him...
...No threatening movement was made by Harris with respect to Horiuchi or anyone else, even after Horiuchi shot Randy Weaver...
...1. Please write your new address in the space provided...
...A month later, Deputy Director Larry Potts and four other high-ranking officials were suspended from their positions (with full pay) — on suspicions of having destroyed evidence, or for their role in issuing illegal rules of engagement...
...To call it "not completely accurate" that Weaver and Hams "posed a severe threat to law enforcement officers" is to understate the case abysmally: the FBI snipers were hidden in the woods hundreds of yards away, simply biding their time before making a killing...
...Freeh, who has always defended Horiuchi for firing the shot that killed Vicki Weaver,declared that Horiuchi "was within the scope of his authority...
...Yet a 1994 Justice Department internal investigation cast grave doubts on the marshals'credibility, and the report of the Senate subcommittee concluded that it had "seen no evidence which would support the Marshals' claim" of how Sammy Weaver was killed...
...Marshals Service bestowed its highest valor awards to the marshals involved in the August 21, 1992 confrontation...
...Yet the Justice Department investigation dismissed the plain evidence of the rules' illegality as "little circumstantial evidence...
...Renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues—$34.95) • Payment enclosed • Bill me later CI At various times TAS rents its subscriber list to other organizations...
...The appeals court called the rules of engagement "a gross deviation from constitutional principles and a wholly unwarranted return to a lawless and arbitrary wild-west school of law enforcement" A 1995 Senate Judiciary subcommittee report on the rules of engagement declared them blatantly unconstitutional...
...Just be sure to allow six weeks for your change to take effect...
...After his suspension, Kahoe was allowed to remain on the FBI payroll (at $112,000 a year) for fifteen months...
...Naturally, a major investigation was launched amid all the usual solemn promises that no stone would be left unturned...
...The press releasebespoke a typical Clinton administration investigation: after proudly bragging about the number of pages examined, computer disks checked, and people interviewed, it announced that there was nothing prosecutable that had not already been known at the beginning of the process...
...A federal jury found Weaver and co-defendant Kevin Harris innocent on almost all charges, and the federal government paid a $3.1 million wrongful death settlement to the Weaver family in 1995...
...Service Director Eduardo Gonzalez commended the five men for "their exceptional courage, their sound judgment in the face of attack, and their high degree of professional competence during this incident...
...Box 655, Mt...
...A federal appeals court, hearing a motion for civil damages by Kevin Harris, declared on September 27: "Horiuchi and his fellow officers were safely ensconced on the hill overlooking the Ruby Ridge goes the way of the fundraising scandals...
...marshals ambushed Weaver's 4-year old son and family friend Kevin Harris...
...3. Return this form to us at the address listed below...
...FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Randy Weaver in the back as he stood outside his shack, then killed Vicki Weaver as she stood in the cabin doorway holding their ten-month-old baby...
...Morris, IL 61054-8084 1-800-524-3469 ATTACH ADDRESS LABEL HERE IMPORTANT: Allow six weeks for address change...
...In July of that year, after a public squabble between high-ranking FBI agents and the leaking of the Justice Department report, Michael Kahoe, the director of the Bureau's Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Section, was suspended on the suspicion that he had shredded a key document on the FBI's actions at Ruby Ridge...
...The same Horiuchi shot that killed Vicki Weaver also hit and nearly killed Kevin Harris...
...A confidential Justice Department report indicated that numerous federal officials may have obstructed justice, perjured themselves, or otherwise broken the law—but the Justice Department dropped its investigation in early 1995...
...As soon as public attention shifts, the government rushes to proclaim that dissemblers and killers are really heroes...
...MOVING...
...The case began more than five years ago, when an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms entrapped Randy Weaver of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, into selling him two sawed-off shotguns...
...FBI Director Louis Freeh was outraged that a local court would seek to hold an FBI agent legally responsible for the killing, declaring that Horiuchi had an "exemplary record" and is "an outstanding agent and continues to have my total support and confidence...
...On August 21, 1992, after more than twenty intrusions onto Weaver's property, three U.S...
...Subscriber Service P.O...
...What sort of Justice Department keeps people on its payroll after they plead guilty to obstruction of justice...
...hour of the snipers taking position, every adult in the cabin was either dead or severely wounded, even though no one had offered any resistance...
...But last August 15—significantly on a Friday afternoon, with most news reporters off-duty — the Justice Department announced that it intended to file no criminal charges against high-ranking FBI agents in the Ruby Ridge case...
...Last August 21, a week after the DOJ whitewashed the FBI defendants, Boundary County, Idaho prosecutor Denise Woodbury announced the indictment of FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi for involuntary manslaughter in the killing of Vicki Weaver...
...58 December 1997 • The American Spectator r Weaver cabin...
...After Weaver received the wrong court date and did not show up for his trial, the U.S...
...Martin's Press), has written often about Ruby Ridge...
...That's all there is to it...
...Marshal Arthur Roderick shot the boy's dog, the boy fired back, and a firefight ensued in which marshal William Degan was killed...
...The next day, FBI snipers arrived on the scene and were given rules of engagement declaring that "any armed male adult observed in the vicinity of the Weaver cabin could and should be killed...
...To Justice, it seems, shredding paper is a worse offense than killing innocent people...
...The Justice Department, which is paying for Horiuchi's top-notch Washington attorney, is expected to try to have the charges moved to a federal court—where the Department can use its leverage to get all charges dropped...
...Harris is now suing Horiuchi and twelve other federal agents for damages...
...THE PUBLIC POLICY by James Bovard Another Justice Cover-Up W bile many are appalled that the Justice Department has degenerated into a White House puppet, few pay attention to the other ways in which the agency is proving its name an oxymoron...
...From the beginning of this case, Justice Department officials have repeatedly lied about Ruby Ridge...
...As Sammy Weaver ran from the scene towards the family's shack, Marshal Larry Cooper shot him in the back and killed him...
...Had he been fired when he entered his plea, his pension would have been significantly less...
...The agents' lawyers—hired by the Justice Department— argued in federal court that even if the defendants had perjured themselves, or given shoot-tokill orders, or gunned down Kevin Harris and Randy Weaver without pretext, they were completely immune from liability—simply because they were federal lawmen...
...The Justice Department eloquently expressed its official view of Ruby Ridge at a little-noticed ceremony last year, when the U.S...
...Typically, the Justice Department is using one legal stratagem and delaying tactic after another to prevent Harris's complaint against the government from being heard...
Vol. 30 • December 1997 • No. 12
