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Excerpt - Don't blame Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, her new lawyer said Wednesday, for the convulsions the company's board have suffered in the wake of its troubled investigation of boardroom leaks. "She's neither a lawyer nor is she an investigator," said James Brosnahan, the Morrison & Foerster litigator whom Dunn hired this week. "And she's not the kind of person, frankly, who would advise people to do something illegal." Dunn has come under scrutiny for her role in directing the troubled probe -- The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that she closely supervised it -- and she's the latest figure...

<p>THE BIZARRE CASE of John Walker Lindh, the young American who fought for the Taliban, achieved a legal conclusion last week when he pleaded guilty to charges of providing support to terrorists and carrying and using firearms and explosives during crimes of violence. Lindh will receive a 20-year prison sentence, of which he will have to serve at least 17 years.</p>

'U.S. Taliban' Inspires Controversial Ballad Mon Jul 22,11:00 AM ET By Aly Sujo NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - A new country-rock song that compares American Taliban John Walker Lindh to Jesus Christ is drawing both raves and howls of indignation just days after the 21-year-old pleaded guilty to aiding the former Afghan regime. Recorded in Nashville by the maverick Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Steve Earle, "John Walker's Blues" is a stately ballad punctuated by the sound of Arabic prayers, and makes reference to Lindh's interest in music videos, boy bands, and religious fanaticism. Over a layered backdrop of electric guitars recorded backward, the...

John Walker Lindh should have been hauled before a military tribunal. He probably would have been, were it not for the provision in President Bush's executive order limiting military tribunals' jurisdiction to non-citizens (a move thought by some to have been a preemptive strike against the Fifth Column's legal crowd). If Lindh had been tried by a military tribunal - whatever the specific charge(s) - given the facts, he almost assuredly would have been convicted. The death penalty was a distinct possibility. Instead, Lindh was transferred from military to civilian control, and put into the civilian judicial system. Once that...

On July 15, 2002, Taliban John Walker Lindh pleaded guilty to criminal charges levied against him for his association with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Heralded as a "surprise deal" by the Associated Press, Lindh's capitulation was anything but a surprise — not to me, nor to readers of Front Page Magazine. Ever since Lindh was flushed out of that prison basement in Afghanistan, I've been predicting that he'd cop a plea because of the strength of the government's case and the lack of a defense. For example, in February I wrote a piece entitled "Reading Brosnahan's Mind," and said: The...

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jul 12, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A judge on Friday rejected a freelance reporter's effort to avoid testifying about his videotaped interview with American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan last year. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III ruled that journalists don't enjoy a First Amendment privilege to avoid testifying except in very limited circumstances involving protection of confidential sources or harassment. His ruling means that for the time being freelance reporter Robert Pelton is required to testify next week at Lindh's pretrial hearing. While refusing to grant Pelton's request to reverse his subpoena,...

TALIBAN JOHN: THE NOOSE TIGHTENS Henry Mark Holzer If there has been doubt in anyone's mind about the nature of the government's principal case against John Walker Lindh, last week's court filing by the United States Attorney should have dispelled it. To understand the significance of what the government's motion papers said, it's necessary to remind ourselves about what "conspiracy" means in federal criminal law, and then about what the indictment charges Lindh with having done. Conspiracy is proved by evidence showing an agreement (which can be tacit, so long as it is clear) to do something illegal (e.g., killing...

TALIBAN JOHN: THE DESPERATE DEFENSE Henry Mark Holzer It’s obvious that despite its bravado, the John Walker Lindh defense camp is desperate. First, we saw two examples of “graymail,” a tactic used by defense lawyers in national security cases. The idea is for the defense to seek in the discovery stage of the case highly sensitive documents and testimony so that the government is put on the horns of a dilemma: comply with the request, and risk compromising important secrets (which the government, understandably, is loathe to do), or refuse to comply, and risk dismissal of the case (which the...

Taliban John: The Conventional Wisdom—And the Truth By Henry Mark Holzer FrontPageMagazine.com | April 16, 2002 NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE'S April 15, 2002, issue has published an article by Steven Brill titled, "End of Their Rope," carrying the subtitle "The Feds threw the book at John Walker Lindh, whetting the nation's appetite for vengeance. Too bad the evidence is so weak." Putting aside that the Justice Department has, unfortunately, not thrown the book at the American Taliban - he should have been indicted for treason (see www.talibanjohn.info) - Brill's analysis reveals how little he understands about the law of conspiracy that Lindh...

Taliban John: The Discovery Motion By Henry Mark Holzer FrontPageMagazine.com | April 5, 2002 ON MONDAY, JOHN WALKER LINDH’S LAWYERS were in Virginia federal court making what lawyers call a “discovery” motion, trying to obtain information from the government bearing on their client’s defense. Apparently treated as routine by the media – Associated Press ran a short wire service story; CNN had little to report – the hearing was anything but routine, especially because of one particular card the defense tried to play. To understand the defense tactics at play in its discovery motion, we have to differentiate between different...