Update: Attkisson v. DOJ for government surveillance


Read more about Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI here.

The following is a news analysis and update of the Attkisson legal case.

After more than eleven years of fighting, we have our small victory, a clerk’s default against one of the ex-agents involved in the surveillance of me and others. That’s the first such decision we know of in a case of the government spying on a journalist. That’s all thanks to the support of thousands who have supported a legal fund started by First and Fourth Amendment advocates, as well as whistleblower advocates. I am extremely grateful.

But as I’ve separately noted, the ex-agent supposedly died after we got this default (how odd), so we cannot get crucial information from him pointing to the larger players, which is what we really need.

Since he’s supposedly dead, it’s unclear how the upcoming trial for damages will go. It’s important to note that we didn’t expect a significant monetary award: we were hoping for information.

As I write about some of the happenings in court, they almost seem unreal because they sound so absurd.

The larger government players we believe are responsible, as you may know, have immunity from lawsuits under our current laws and have been removed from the case. (Congress could and should fix this.)

One other federal agent we know of, an ex-Secret Service agent who has since served years in prison for separate corruption, is getting dismissed from the case because–and I kid you not–the judge is simply taking his word for it that he wasn’t one of the agents involved in the spy operation. Because he said so in a deposition.

The judge for whatever reason has decided to accept this word of an ex-con who has been convicted of other felony crimes while working for the US Attorney’s Office in Baltimore under Rod Rosenstein during the same time period of this surveillance operation against me and others.

It’s like asking a robber if he’s guilty and, when he says “no,” just dismissing the case. But that’s where we stand with him right now.

By the way: You’ve been paying for the defense of this ex-Secret Service agent in my lawsuit. When he got out of prison, the Dept. of Justice hired counsel at taxpayer expense to represent him in my case.

Meantime, in order to get to trial, the forensic proof and admission from one of those involved aren’t enough, believe it or not. It’s not about whether the government “did it”– that’s not in dispute. But the court requires us to name more government people with documentary connections to the spying, and present proof, or the remainder of the case gets dismissed.

It seems to me, as a layperson, that the courts require the citizen plaintiff to somehow conduct a professional criminal investigation on her own and produce the whole case and all the evidence about who exactly did what and when…prior to getting to court, even though the citizen has no access to this material.

From where I stand, I’m extraordinarily lucky that I had contacts in the intel community and resources to prove the government nature of the intrusion very early on. But I was naive to think that proof of the crime was what would be necessary to get the case to court and hold people responsible.

Obviously, we need “discovery” to get testimony and documents to provide this required information that the government has withheld all these years. I have tried to get it by asking for it. I’ve tried to get it by filing Freedom of Information Act requests which are ignored or simply not properly answered. We don’t have the power to go in and take the information the way a prosecutor could.

Incredibly, the way it works, we have to ask permission from the government/guilty parties to get documents and other information and, of course, the government is saying “no.”

Again, it’s like the prosecutor having to ask the robber for permission to gather evidence and interview witnesses, and the robber just says “no.”

The final frustration I will express today is that, in a recent filing, the judge adopts (as if true) all kinds of fact errors presented by the Dept. of Justice even though these fact errors are contrary to the clear documentary evidence (with the documents specifically referred to and presented in our complaint).

I’m not sure why and how this happens. It’s hard to know if the judge simply isn’t reading the material our side presents and why that would be. It’s difficult to imagine she would intentionally misrepresent the facts. Whatever the case, there seems to be no recourse on that for me, the plaintiff.

For now, there are still some avenues we are fighting in this case and I remain ever grateful to attorney Tab Turner, the forensics teams, and all of you who have at least made it where we are on record with something of a victory with the clerk’s default. The goal is to force accountability to try to help stop this from happening to others.

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10 thoughts on “Update: Attkisson v. DOJ for government surveillance”

  1. Thomas Joseph Hussman

    The Criminal Prosecution System (aka) “The Legal System” could do a lot more for justice in this country if the “defendant” was asked one simple question – Did you do what you are accused of? If the accused said yes, then a sentence would follow. If the accused said no, then he would be released. In consideration of all the lies told by judges and lawyers and police officers and federal agents in court rooms, the system would function much better and more fair if the defendant himself determined his fate. The current system does not work well because everyone in the system is telling whopper lies. The Criminal Prosection System in the USA is a joke. See State of Minnesota v Thomas Joseph Hussman for an example of fiction and perjury. Minneapolis Police Officer Wagner blatantly lied during the trial. The alleged victim – Wesley McKeon Francis Gubbin also told lies, and later killed an innocent man named Thomas Malloy. Wagner, the liar, emboldened Gubbin, and Gubbin later went to Prison for the killing of Malloy. Wagner has filthy dirty bloody hands, and Gubbin is now a convicted KILLER !

  2. Gee, I wish a judge would ask me if I was speeding. The ticket says I was but your honor I wasn’t speeding. OK, I take your word on that……..case dismissed.
    Some system of justice now isn’t it. The criminal, in this case, our very own government says we did not do that.
    WE ARE LIVING IN A FAILED STATE. I suspect things will only get worse. Just read/watch the news to see criminal elements all around us.

  3. Not responding to an FOIA, someone should be held accountable and I am not talking about a low level person. No accountability is what is wrong with this nation. Congress will not fix this because they are part of the problem. Not sure what the answer is because after all the facts about COVID that has come out Fauci is still running around free.

  4. How is that government officials have immunity? they have, as I understand it, “qualified immunity”but this is treated as “universal immunity”. They are not the same thing. Legally, government officials are not allowed to break the law any more than the ordinary citizen, yet they do and suffer no negative consequences.

  5. Democrat deep state and their union should scare every single living American, and probably scared a lot of the dead. Big Government is unaccountable. We should never be forced to pay for it.

    Repeal 16th Amendment. Rebalance the power between the people and the taxpayer funded but autonomous Deep State.

    When the state becomes the enemy of the people, we do better defunding it and closing down. Then we rebuild because governing is necessary; just not the bloated and arrogant greedy and punitive version of it. Cancel in and start over.

    We are with you Sharyl. You are Everywoman for us all. We do feel you pain. It is ours too. Meanwhile, Everyone do pitch in to this legal defense fund. She is taking these hits for all of us. We are all online warriors too. Just as easily it could be us next.

  6. Sharyl and Full Measure Team,

    If it had been I advising you, I’d
    have dissuaded you from A N Y
    challenge to PSYCHOTIC, Deep
    State agencies—because applica-
    tion of any laws in your defense
    necessarily must be similarly
    HONORED by those PSYCHO-
    MANIACS.

    Any honor there ?
    (( who had removed
    honor-building prayer
    from schools, and Ten
    Commandments from
    the public square ? ))

    See the problem ?

    -Rick

  7. P.P.S.

    See problems
    E X P O S E D,
    below.

    Forwarded Message :

    Dear Helena Glass,

    Let’s keep in consideration,
    all of today’s Middle East
    turmoil is product of Jimmy
    Carter’s stopping/halting/
    blocking Iran’s slow but sure
    —- WESTERNIZATION ! —-
    under secular SHAH-type rule
    (( Balfour, Great Britain, and
    Rothschild House of Banking
    notwithstanding, re ROOT
    Causes of Israel’s CREATION )).

    Discover who had controlled
    Jimmy Carter via the State
    Department (( all U.S. turmoil
    springs from the “they-answer-
    to-no-one” 7th-floor of that
    building—see captured e-mails
    from John Podesta’s mail !,
    which emails also had predicted
    a planned murder of Scalia :
    “wet work” and “vineyard,”
    M E N T I O N E D therein,
    WEEKS before that comically/
    ludicrously/cryptically/female-
    deputy-Sheriff-handled,
    “position of Scalia’s pillow,”
    controversial death )).

    Reminds of an influential U.S.
    ambassador marginalizing
    Nationalist China F O R Mao’s
    Communism—via that seat-
    of-U.S.-power : 7th-floor of
    “our” State Department.

    Mensheviks try and avoid war
    while they secretly/cleverly
    advance ( incrementally )
    socialism/communism in America,
    shying away from Bolsheviks’ EVIL,
    BRUTALITARIAN machinations,
    ( feared by Hitler, and ) witnessed in
    once-Christian/
    -CIVILIZED/
    -Rational/
    -Autocratic/
    Pre-WW-I
    Russia (( all class-struggle
    issues stem from IRREMEDIABLE
    G E N E T I C INEQUALITIES
    between races, between men and
    women, and even between intra-
    racial ethnic groups, which genetic
    inequalities make of COMMUNISTS
    mere doltish DUPES, advancing
    COMMUNISM and its INSANE drive
    for a U N I V E R S A L equality-
    of-OUTCOMES; and read my report
    about Pol Pot’s I N S A N E Commie
    efforts in, “Anatomy of a Revolution”
    —read postscript therein )) :

    Regarding Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky—Bolsheviks vs. Mensheviks :
    https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bolshevik-revolution-prighozin/

    See below, regarding Jimmy Carter’s
    removal of Iran’s ( civilizing ) Shah :

    https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi
    Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – Wikipedia
    The Shah of Iran meets the clergy in the 1970s. American inaction. The US State Department drew criticism for doing little to communicate with Tehran or discourage protest and opposition to the Shah. The intelligence community within the US has also been subject due to criticism particularly for reporting to . . .

    Above Report of Capture of
    Speaker Johnson [ by 7th-Floor of State ? ] Found here :
    https://thecommonsenseshow.com/agenda-21-conspiracy-economics/edward-snowden-believes-speaker-johnson-showing-textbook-signs-congressional-capture

    -Rick

  8. I’ve been following your misfortune for over the 11 years and you have my sympathy and support. Keep up the good fight and keep up with your good work. We love real journalists.
    But, the justice system was always flawed. IMO. When anyone defends themselves in court it is already rigged against them 2 to 1. The prosecutor is the State and the judge ( impartial , lol ) is the State. And when theses prosecutors get elected judges, well they feel BIGGER.
    After our local prosecutor( Crane ) convicted the wrong people in a highly publicized case in the ‘90s, who I knew and didn’t like, was elected to judge, I thought, how can this guy get promoted for doing a bad job?
    I vote, but never for judgeships. The State should not have any power over me. We should have the power over the State.

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