Replies

(I'm not sure if this is a valid Web site with valid information but I was interested to see this type of information about the FBI lawyer who received the torture memos....Valerie Caproni. Is she a Clinton gangster too?)

See http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/02-01-05/discussion.cgi.15.html

MEGA FIX
Top FBI lawyer helped destroy TWA Flight 800
Posted: December 3, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: In his extraordinary new DVD documentary, "Mega Fix," Emmy-award-winning filmmaker Jack Cashill traces the roots of Sept. 11 to the political exploitation of terror investigations by the Clinton White House in the desperate 1995-1996 election cycle. To arrange a showing in your city, contact Jack Cashill.

The "Mega Fix" DVD is available now at WorldNetDaily's online store.

James Sanders co-authored this commentary.

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

In August 2003, a former U.S. attorney in the Clinton administration, Valerie Caproni, was appointed to the top legal job within the Federal Bureau of Investigation – that of general counsel. As such, she provides legal advice to the director and other FBI officials and, among other duties, coordinates the defense of civil actions filed against the United States for the official acts of FBI employees.

"This is the coolest job in the world," the 5-foot-tall Caproni recently told Robert Vosper, author of a 4,000-word profile on Caproni in the Corporate Legal Times titled, "The Chosen One." "I can be doing national security stuff in the morning, a Patriot Act issue after lunch and an employment problem in the afternoon."

Caproni, however, has a clouded legal past that provides an unfortunate study in how the national security apparatus can function if placed in the wrong hands. Working in the Clinton Justice Department, Caproni did not need the Patriot Act to go awry.

The co-author of this article, James Sanders, learned about Caproni early in his investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800. Within days of the cra... was she who illegally took the investigation away from the National Transportation Safety Board and gave it to the FBI.

The relevant law [Title 49, section 1131(a)(2)] reads as follows: "An investigation by the Board ... has priority over any investigation by another department, agency or instrumentality of the United States Government." The "Board" in question is the National Transportation Safety Board. In other words, a "parallel" FBI investigation is by law inferior to the NTSB investigation.

Caproni, as head of the Justice Department Criminal District, Eastern District of New York, knew the law. She knew that the FBI was the subordinate agency. She knew that the NTSB could not legally be restricted in its pursuit of information. Still, in spite of the law, she used the full weight of the Justice Department, and the intimidating presence of the FBI, to order the NTSB witness group to cease and desist all of the critical eyewitness interviews.

"As for the charges that she and the FBI took over investigation," writes Vosper casually, "Caproni says she is guilty." The FBI never did declare TWA Flight 800 a crime scene, the only possible justification for Caproni's intrusion. An NTSB document reveals that Caproni and the Justice Department took over the investigation to ensure that only one story emerged from the witness interviews, the official story, their story. In this, she fully succeeded.

Caproni, alas, was just warming up. Her second major transgression was to place herself in charge of a grand jury investigating Sanders and his wife, Elizabeth. Sanders had received a residue sample from a source in the TWA Flight 800 investigation in his attempt to expose potential criminal misconduct by the same FBI that Caproni herself had illicitly imposed on site.

In the course of her investigation into the Sanders, Caproni crossed over the line into criminal territory [USC Title 18, section 1001]. She did so by declaring in writing that she did not know Sanders was a journalist, thus making it possible to seize his phone records and ultimately his computer and the information contained within its hard drive.

Caproni's purported ignorance of Sanders' profession defies belief. She, in fact, first learned about James Sanders from an account of his investigation in the Riverside Press Enterprise, March 10, 1997. Sanders' name was easy to find. It was on page one, above the fold, second paragraph of the lead story. To the immediate left of "James Sanders" were two words that challenge Caproni's innocence . The two words were "Investigative Reporter." Indeed, even the Corporate Legal Times' profile on Caproni describes Sanders as a "freelance journalist."

It was Sanders' reporting that first alerted Caproni to the problem at hand, namely that a journalist was probing into potential criminal acts within the TWA 800 investigation – acts likely committed by federal officials. These officials, she knew, included herself and the FBI head of the investigation, James Kallstrom, who had been coerced into cooperating. The conflict of interest here should have caused Caproni to recuse herself. If not Caproni, her supervisors in the White House, Jamie Gorelick and Janet Reno, should never have allowed Caproni to pursue a case against her own potential accuser. But then again, it was the future 9-11 commissioner Gorelick who had leaned on Kallstrom.

When Sanders first met with Caproni in April 1997, he had no idea of the hornet's nest he was walking in to. Escorted by Jeff Schlanger, a former New York prosecutor, Sanders sat across from Caproni and a senior FBI agent. A large video taping system recorded the entire meeting. As part of the federal system used for video meetings during times of crisis, it was hooked up to other systems in Washington, D.C. as well as at the FBI's New York City headquarters. The Clinton Justice department had its first look at the retired cop turned journalist who threatened its grip on power.

At this meeting, Caproni told Sanders he would become the "target" of a Justice Department/FBI investigation if he did not immediately turn over the names of those inside the investigation who were assisting him. Sanders refused. His attorney argued for Sanders' First Amendment rights as a reporter. Caproni was not impressed.

(...more at the Web site...)