Free Martha Stewart: Joseph Farah blasts double standard in government prosecutions

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Tuesday, March 9, 2004 | Joseph Farah

[JohnHuang2]

Free Martha Stewart

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 9, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

I don't like Martha Stewart.

Like so many other average Americans, I detest her cult of celebrity. I find her perfectionism annoying. I, too, would be severely tempted to convict her if I saw her pal Rosie O'Donnell in the courtroom. Her financial support for Bill Clinton, Al Gore and any other breathing Democrat is enough to make me sick.

However, let's face facts. She's guilty of nothing. The charges against her amounted to trumped-up nothingness. Unless the conviction last week is reversed on appeal, she almost certainly faces jail time.

This is not right. This is not justice. This is not the American way.

For those of you who haven't followed the details of the case closely, here's what really happened.

One of Stewart's many friends is a man named Samuel D. Waksal, the founder of a company called ImClone that developed a promising cancer-fighting drug. A day before the company announced the Food and Drug Administration had refused to approve the drug, she dumped 4,000 shares of ImClone stock, valued at $51,000.

Waksal is serving a seven-year sentence on several charges of security fraud related to ImClone stock. Ironically, the FDA later approved the drug – which offers great hope to cancer patients throughout the country.

So what is the big offense that will send Martha Stewart up the river with Waksal? Lying. More specifically lying to government officials.

What did she lie about? She maintained her innocence about stock fraud – a charge she never actually faced because of lack of evidence. But because she said right along that she was innocent, the government tried her on the bogus charge of lying.

What ever happened to the notion in this country that we oppose self-incrimination? Martha Stewart got herself in trouble with her own words – in trying to protect herself, in trying simply to maintain her innocence.

Outside the courtroom, U.S. Attorney David Kelley said all Americans were victims of Stewart because lies to investigators weaken the nation's law enforcement system.

I hope he was joking. We have judges in this country making up laws. We have judges enforcing unconstitutional orders. We have government officials breaking the law with impunity. Chaos is reigning in the streets of America because of government law-breaking, lies and deceit. So, to set an example, a government prosecutor pursues – at a cost of over $10 million to the taxpayers – this nothing case against Martha Stewart to plaudits of those who relish class warfare.

"When we first indicted this case, we said it was about lies, all about lies," Kelley said. "As you saw in the evidence, that's what it was."

Yes, that's all it was.

Now, I don't like liars, but let's face it: Nobody lies nearly as much as government officials. They lie. They steal. They defraud the American public on a daily basis. Lying to them shouldn't be a crime, it should be a constitutional requirement.

Let's recall that Bill Clinton lied under oath while serving as president. He lied in a lawsuit charging him with sexual harassment. But we were told that was no big deal.

Perjury is a much bigger deal – and should be – than lying to a government official.

Yet, the way things actually work, government officials – who should be required to live under a higher standard of ethical behavior than ordinary taxpayers – have some kind of immunity.

The Martha Stewart case is a travesty of justice. The real lesson is that the government can put away anyone it wants, any time it wants.

That's not a lesson that should give comfort to any American – no matter what our station in life.

[JohnHuang2]

Tuesday, March 9, 2004

Quote of the Day by jigsaw

[TheSpottedOwl]

Bump!!!

[genghis]

It is just sickening how much power these low life prosecutors have.
There doesn't seem to be any practical solution to the problem and it is just bloody depressing.

[SedVictaCatoni]

So... it's now our side which is using the "everybody does it" excuse. Why did we bother pursuing impeachment, again? We're supposed to be the good guys?

[jwalsh07]

Now, I don't like liars, but let's face it: Nobody lies nearly as much as government officials. They lie. They steal. They defraud the American public on a daily basis. Lying to them shouldn't be a crime, it should be a constitutional requirement.

Farah invoking the Clinton defense, "THEY ALL DO IT."

Sickening.

[Nick Danger]

It is just sickening how much power these low life prosecutors have.

What am I missing here? Did some prosecutor sentence Martha Stewart to prison? I thought they had to have a trial, with a judge and a jury and stuff. Did they skip over that part?

Or is it that judges and juries are stupid and lame, and we shouldn't allow such idiots to decide things like this? And if that's true, what system should we have instead?

When OJ walked, the story was that anybody with enough money to buy the right lawyers could get away with murder. This time it's that anybody with a lot of money will automatically be convicted. This time it's all about class warfare. Why?

I had the impression that there had been a trial. And some jury sat there and listened to both sides of the argument, and decided that she was guilty as charged.

I would never claim that juries are 100% accurate, but we used to have an agreement among ourselves as citizens that this system is how we settle these disputes. There is an appeals process, and that has yet to play out. It may well be that there was some error in the trial and that one or more of her convictions will be overturned. I do not claim to know.

But I still have the same reaction to rants like Farah's that I have to the Mayor of San Francisco marrying gays. "Yes, the law says X, but we don't want that. We want it to be some other way instead. Never mind that there was Grand Jury indictment and a jury trial. We don't like it."

I don't understand the utility in proclaiming that the legal system is broken, so we should have mob rule instead. In San Francisco the mob is gay, so never mind the law, let's do what the mob wants. Martha Stewart has a mob of "fans," and they know better than the jury whether Ms. Stewart is guilty. So never mind the trial, let's do what the mob wants. There cannot be good news down this path.

[weegee]

Rather than letting Ms. Stewart go, how about pushing harder after government crooks?

We know about Martha Stewart's case because she was a celebrity (who apparently traded on inside information just before stock plummeted, even if it was not proven).

Couldn't Joseph find another defendant to hold up for us?

I know when I worked in the corporate world (and barely had 1,000 shares of company stock) I was made to feel as if the weight of the SEC would come down hard on me and the company in general if I ever gave a tip to a friend or family member.

Not that we were privy to any kind of concrete data anyway.

[Moonman62]

I don't understand the utility in proclaiming that the legal system is broken, so we should have mob rule instead. In San Francisco the mob is gay, so never mind the law, let's do what the mob wants. Martha Stewart has a mob of "fans," and they know better than the jury whether Ms. Stewart is guilty. So never mind the trial, let's do what the mob wants. There cannot be good news down this path.

And in Washington DC the mob is Republican and Democrat. The accounting tricks they are using now are just as bad as those used by Enron. The whole reason they went so aggressively after Martha and the others is they didn't want to take the blame for the bad economy during the 2002 midterm elections.

[goldstategop]

Martha Stewart deserved to have the book thrown at her but Joe Farah's right that the people in charge of our government are even more dangerous to our free way of life than the Queen Of Good Living.

[familyop]

Why doesn't Joe just go all the way and join the N.O.W. gang? ...or better yet, Amazon Worshippers Anonymous.

[Fledermaus]

Good points.

[claudiustg]

I agree with Farrah 100%. When the legal system is as capricious as ours has become, we are all in danger. Who or what is it going to cut down next?

Martha's being turned into an Aztec sacrifice to atone for the sins of the rich.

Enough already.

[Ben Chad]

When are Worldcom heads going to roll?

[Tribune7]

couldn't agree more.

[Mo1]

She lied and has herself to blame

[Carolinamom]

Farah says "She's guilty of nothing."

Martha dumped her own stocks while assuring the SEC and her stock holders that she was not guilty of getting illegal info which led to her dumping those stocks.

Nothing??

[Donna Lee Nardo]

I would be so tickled if Joe Farah investigated the "insider traders" in Congress -- in both political parties. Can correlations really be made in their holdings and trading practices with key information available to them and/or sometimes made by them? Some outfits do this sort of "extrapolation after the fact" with the campaign finance system; I would like to see this done for Congress' stock trading as well. The mainstream media will not touch it. It is probably too dangerous for anyone to do it. That means it should be done.

Interested investigative reporters can start with the report mentioned by WND on this thread which was also posted by JohnHuang2:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1093666/posts

[Way2Serious]

And some jury sat there and listened to both sides of the argument, and decided that she was guilty as charged.

True enough. But we are not so unsophisticated as to believe there's no such thing as a "showcase prosecution," and this one certainly smells like one - no "Eat the Rich" implications about it. Everything I've been able to read about this case tells me that Stewart was prosecuted for lying to the feds about a crime they established she didn't commit - insider trading. Was she guilty of lying? Yes, the jury has spoken. But I'd feel more comfortable knowing just how often and how hard such cases are routinely prosecuted before I wrote the episode off as "just one of those things."

Limbaugh's illegal pill purchases are another example of this kind of thing. Almost universally, prescription drug addicts are given a pass if they cooperate with authorities and seek treatment. Not that there are many good Samaritans to be found among prosecutors, but because there's rarely a chain of evidence or "risk to the community" in such cases to make it worth the while. But give a prosecutor - essentially a lawyer in apprenticeship for public office - a shot at getting his name in the paper for six months, and they would prosecute their own mothers for littering.

[BurbankKarl]

I see Rush is now defending Martha Stewart...talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

[Nick Danger]

we are not so unsophisticated as to believe there's no such thing as a "showcase prosecution,"

I prefer the term "public hangings." So long as the hangee in fact did the evil deed, I do not have a problem with hanging celebrities in the town square, even if there's a fair amount of unpunished evil going on. A big part of why we even have a justice system is deterrence. If people see that even the "rich and powerful" will be hung for doing X, they are much less likely to do X themselves.