Jesselyn Radack

Last updated
Jesselyn Radack
Jesselyn Radack on Whistleblower TV.jpg
Radack on the Government Accountability Project's "Whistleblower TV" in 2009
BornJesselyn Alicia Brown
(1970-12-12) December 12, 1970 (age 53)
Washington, D.C., United States
OccupationAttorney
Alma mater Brown University (BA)
Yale Law School (JD)
Notable worksTraitor: The Whistleblower and the "American Taliban"
Notable awards2014: Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow [1]

2013: Foreign Policy Leading Global Thinker [2]

2012: Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award [3]

2011: Sam Adams Award [4]

2007: BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award [5]

1991: Feminist Majority Foundation Feminist of the Year Award [6]

Jesselyn Radack (born December 12, 1970) is an American national security and human rights attorney known for her defense of whistleblowers, journalists, and hacktivists. She graduated from Brown University and Yale Law School and began her career as an Honors Program attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Contents

She is notable for defending prominent whistleblowers, including National Security Agency whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake, each of whom was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, as well as for her own experience as a whistleblower at the U.S. Department of Justice.

While working at the Justice Department, she disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) committed an ethics violation in their interrogation of John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban", captured during the United States invasion of Afghanistan, without an attorney present. Radack alleged that the Department of Justice attempted to suppress that information. The Lindh case was the first major terrorism prosecution after 9/11. [7] Her experience is chronicled in her memoir, TRAITOR: The Whistleblower and the "American Taliban", and in the documentary Silenced.

Radack is the director of National Security & Human Rights at ExposeFacts' Whistleblower and Source Protection Program. [8] She has been widely published and quoted regarding whistleblowing, surveillance, Internet freedom and privacy. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, the L.A. Times, Washington Post, Guardian, The Nation, Legal Times, and numerous law journals. She frequently appears in the press, including on the major television networks, NPR, PBS, CNN, Al Jazeera, and the BBC.

Early life and education

Radack was born in Washington, D.C., and attended Brown University. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year and graduated in 1992 as a triple major in American civilization, women's studies, and political science, with honors in all three majors. [9] While in college, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. [10]

In 1995 Radack graduated from Yale Law School and, through the Attorney General's Honors Program, joined the Department of Justice. [11] When the Department's Professional Responsibility Advisory Office (PRAO) was created in 1999, [12] she served as a legal advisor [13] until leaving Justice in April 2002. [11]

John Walker Lindh case

Initial inquiry into Lindh case

On December 7, 2001, Radack received an inquiry from Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutor John DePue, regarding the ethical propriety of interrogating Lindh in Afghanistan without Lindh's legal representative being present. He told her that Lindh's father had retained a lawyer for his son; Lindh was not aware of this arrangement. Radack responded that interrogating him was not authorized by law. [14] The principle at issue was that a person represented by a lawyer cannot be contacted by agents of the Justice Department, including the FBI, without permission of that lawyer. [15] According to Radack, the advice she gave had been approved by Claudia Flynn, then head of PRAO, and Joan Goldfrank, a senior PRAO attorney. [16]

The FBI proceeded to question Lindh without Lindh's lawyer having given permission. DePue informed Radack of the interrogation on December 10, 2001, and she advised him that Lindh's "interview may have to be sealed or only used for national security purposes; however, I don't have enough information yet to make that recommendation". [17]

Radack continued to research the issue until December 20, 2001, when Flynn told her to drop the matter, because Lindh had been "Mirandized". It was later learned that the FBI agent who read Lindh the Miranda warning had, when noting the right to counsel, ad-libbed: "Of course, there are no lawyers here". [9]

On January 15, 2002, five weeks after the interrogation, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that a criminal complaint was being filed against Lindh. "The subject here is entitled to choose his own lawyer", Ashcroft said, "and to our knowledge, has not chosen a lawyer at this time". [14] On February 5, 2002, Ashcroft announced Lindh's indictment, saying that his rights "have been carefully, scrupulously honored". [18]

In early 2004 Radack said that she disagreed with Ashcroft's view but could see its logic, that because Lindh did not pick the lawyer himself, the lawyer did not represent him at the time of interrogation and therefore the questioning did not violate Lindh's rights. "You can debate it one way or another," she said. [19] In early 2005 Radack recalled her reaction to Ashcroft's statements more starkly: "I knew that wasn't true". [20]

Poor performance review

On February 4, 2002, the day before the Lindh indictment was announced, Flynn gave Radack an unscheduled, "blistering" performance evaluation, despite Radack having received a merit raise the year before. [14] The evaluation covered December 27, 2000, to September 30, 2001, two months prior to the Lindh inquiry, and did not mention the Lindh case, but it criticized her legal judgment in issues related to the case, as well as in other matters. [19] [21] Flynn had not yet signed the review. She advised Radack to find another job, or the review would be put in Radack's official personnel file. [14] Radack, who had planned on being a career civil servant, soon found a new job outside of government, at the law firm Hawkins, Delafield & Wood, from which she was effectively fired in November 2002 for refusing to either sign an affidavit stating that she had not leaked the government documents, or resign. [14] [22]

Missing emails

On March 7, 2002, while Radack was still working at PRAO, the lead prosecutor in the Lindh case, Randy Bellows, messaged Radack that there was a court order for all of the Justice Department's internal correspondence about Lindh's interrogation. [14] He said that he had two of her messages and asked if there were more. [11]

Radack immediately became concerned that the court order had been deliberately concealed from her. [7] She had written more than a dozen emails on the subject, and neither of the ones Bellows had received copies of reflected her fear that the FBI's actions had been unethical and that Lindh's confession, which was the basis for the criminal case, might have to be sealed. [9] After checking the hard-copy file, Radack said the files were tampered with to include only three of her emails; official records indicated that only those three emails were received by the Lindh prosecutors, but which emails DOJ supplied to the court and when cannot be determined as the court records were sealed. [9] [23] Radack confided in a senior colleague, former U.S. Attorney Donald McKay, who examined the file and told her that it had been "purged". [24]

With the assistance of technical support, Radack then recovered 14 email messages from her computer archives and gave them to Flynn with a cover memorandum. When Flynn asked Radack why the messages weren't in the file, Radack said she didn't know, and her supervisor said "Now I have to explain why PRAO should not look bad for not turning them over," indicating her belief that Radack had overlooked the additional correspondence when originally turning over the messages and attempted to correct her error by presenting the recovered emails while asserting ethical misconduct. [25] Radack took home a copy of the recovered emails to ensure they wouldn't "disappear" again. [26]

Which emails the Department of Justice supplied to the court, and when, cannot be determined directly because the court placed them under seal. [22] In March 2003 investigative journalist Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reported that "[a]n official list compiled by the prosecution confirms that the Justice Department did not hand over Radack's most critical e-mail in which she questioned the viability of Lindh's confession until after her confrontation with Flynn". [9]

On December 31, 2003, Radack requested the court appoint a special prosecutor to probe the alleged suppression of the emails. [27] The government responded that it had supplied the emails to the court in its initial response to the court order seeking them, i.e., on March 1, 2002. [28] The description of the 24 documents (probably including duplicates) provided to the court at that time matches Radack's emails, including the one that states interviewing Lindh is not authorized by law. [29] DePue, the recipient of the emails, also had copies and states that they were submitted to the court. [30] The judge rejected Radack's request as "impertinent". [31]

In 2004 Radack filed suit against the government (see below). In 2005, the court found that "[t]hough Flynn informed Radack that she would send the emails to Bellows, Radack maintains that she had a 'good faith belief' that this never occurred...Radack was mistaken, for in filings submitted to the Virginia District Court on March 1, 2002, and March 11, 2002, Bellows turned over thirty-three PRAO-related documents, including Radack's fourteen emails, ex parte and under seal, for in camera review". [32]

Disclosure to Newsweek of emails believed to have been purged

Radack resigned from the Justice Department on April 5, 2002. In June 2002 she heard a broadcast on NPR stating that the Department said they had never taken the position that Lindh was entitled to counsel during his interrogation. She later wrote, "I knew this statement was not true. It also indicated to me that the Justice Department must not have turned over my e-mails to the Lindh court ... because I did not believe the Department would have the temerity to make public statements contradicted by its own court filings, even if those filings were in camera ." She reasoned that "disclosure of my e-mails would advance compliance with the Lindh court's discovery order while also exposing gross mismanagement and abuse of authority by my superiors at the Justice Department." [33] After hearing the broadcast, Radack sent the emails to Michael Isikoff, a Newsweek reporter, who had been interviewed in the NPR story. [19] He then wrote an article about the Lindh case emails, quoting Radack but not naming her as the source of what he called "internal e-mails obtained by Newsweek." [34]

Radack has said she did not turn the documents over to the court or prosecutors at the time she recovered them because she felt intimidated by Flynn, who had told her to drop the matter. [35] Later, no longer working in government, she reasoned, "I couldn't go to the court because Justice Department lawyers would argue (as they did when I eventually did try to tell my story to the court) that I had no standing. I couldn't go to a Member of Congress because, as a resident of the District of Columbia, I didn't have a voting representative. What I could do is disclose my story to the press--a judicially-sanctioned way of exposing wrongdoing under the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, which provides protection to federal government employees who blow the whistle on what they reasonably believe evidences a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; or an abuse of authority". [36]

Radack and some others believe her disclosure of the emails may have contributed to the plea agreement that led to a sentence of 20 years instead of possible multiple life sentences for Lindh. [37] The plea deal was reached on July 15, 2002, a month after the Newsweek article on the emails appeared online and just hours before the hearing to consider the motions to suppress the Lindh interviews was set to begin. [38] According to Lindh defense attorneys, the prosecution first approached them about a plea deal around the beginning of June. [39] On June 14, the day before the emails were disclosed, and June 17, the Lindh defense filed their arguments to suppress all the interviews conducted in Afghanistan, including the ones that Radack had advised might have to be suppressed. [40] The defense reasoning was different from Radack's; it did not assert that Lindh was represented by a lawyer at the time, which was the basis for Radack's advice in the emails. [41]

Justice Department actions against Radack

On June 19, 2002, the Lindh court ordered the Justice Department to file a pleading "addressing whether any documents ordered protected by the Court were disclosed by any person bound by an Order of this court". The Justice Department launched a criminal investigation of Radack that remained open for 15 months. [42] No potential criminal charge was ever specified, but as leaking is not a crime, the most likely charge would have been theft of government property, [22] as she had taken home copies of her emails before she resigned from the PRAO, [26] and her PRAO supervisor later insinuated she was suspected of having removed other files that had gone missing. [43] Radack says an agent of the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) told her new employer and coworkers that she was under criminal investigation [44] and would steal client files. [45]

Radack believes the OIG agent pressured her employer to fire her. [45] The firm was initially supportive, but after it obtained phone records of calls between Newsweek writer Isikoff and the firm's office showing that Radack appeared to be the leaker of government emails, that changed. A partner in the firm, which represented mainly government bond issuers, told her they could not be perceived to have an ex-government lawyer who broke confidence when she thought the client was wrong. When she continued to refuse to sign a statement that she did not leak the emails, she was placed on paid and then unpaid leave. [46]

When Radack was granted unemployment benefits, her now-former employer was assisted by the Justice Department, she says, [45] in challenging the benefits on the grounds of her alleged misconduct and insubordination. She won the appeal. [46]

The Lindh court issued an order on November 6, 2002, concluding that Radack's disclosure did not violate any order of the Court, but this order was not made available to Radack until two years later. [47]

The Department of Justice notified Radack that the criminal investigation was closed on September 11, 2003. On October 31, 2003, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) sent letters to the bar associations of the two jurisdictions in which she was licensed to practice law referring her for a possible ethics violation. The referrals proposed that in disclosing the emails she may have knowingly revealed information protected by attorney-client privilege. [48] There is disagreement about whether the government or the public is the client of government attorneys. [19] Radack bypassed that issue by invoking the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), which she argues provides the legal basis for an exception to attorney-client privilege, i.e., for disclosure when permitted or authorized by law. [49] The Justice Department responded that the WPA may not apply to former employees, and that it does not authorize any disclosure, only prevents retaliatory personnel actions for certain disclosures. [50]

OPR did not follow its own policies in making the referrals, according to Radack, including in not allowing her to formally respond to its findings. [51] She has contrasted the way she was treated by the Department of Justice and the way the department attorneys who authored the memos giving a purported legal basis for waterboarding and other controversial interrogation methods were treated. [52]

There was never any serious investigation of how Radack's emails disappeared from the PRAO file, she believes, a conclusion reached in part because no investigator questioned her about it. She says the OIG told her attorney they had "looked into" her allegations and they were "not going to pursue it". [52]

The criminal investigation and subsequent ethics referrals prevented Radack from finding suitable work as an attorney for years, she says. [19] [36] [53] The Maryland Bar dismissed the referral February 23, 2005. [32] At the District of Columbia Bar, the referral was not resolved until 2011. [52]

Radack has said that one or more anonymous Justice Department officials "smeared" her in the media as a "traitor", "turncoat", and "terrorist sympathizer" [45] [52] [54] "to alienate me from all my neighbors, all my friends", [55] sometimes specifying it was in The New York Times . [55] [56] [57] In May 2003, Eric Lichtblau reported at The New York Times that "Government officials suspect she is a turncoat who leaked documents on one of their most important investigations, the John Walker Lindh case." [58]

For a time beginning in 2003, Bruce Fein, a noted constitutional scholar and former associate deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan, represented Radack pro bono . [19] Rick Robinson of Fulbright & Jaworski [19] and Mona Lyons [11] also represented her.

Congressional questions

At a May 7, 2003, hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Ted Kennedy questioned Michael Chertoff, who was before the committee as a nominee for a circuit court judgeship, [59] and who, as an Assistant Attorney General during the period in which Lindh was prosecuted, headed the Justice Department's Criminal Division. Kennedy later said that Chertoff's initial answers about Radack's case were "nonresponsive, evasive and hyper-technical" but that after follow-up questions, Chertoff provided more "direct and forthcoming" answers. [60]

On May 22, Kennedy issued a statement saying, "I am concerned about inconsistencies in the responses Mr. Chertoff provided with respect to the debate over the legality of the interrogation of John Walker Lindh. … I understand that Mr. Chertoff does not believe that Mr. DePue played a major role in the Lindh investigation and prosecution, and does not understand why DePue asked PRAO for its opinion on this matter. Nevertheless, Mr. Chertoff should have fully shared his knowledge regarding this situation from the outset, rather than deny that PRAO was asked for its opinion." Kennedy also said, "Mr. Chertoff has told me that [he] has no knowledge of the facts surrounding Ms. Radack's employment, performance, or departure from the Department, and I take him at his word. Nevertheless, I remain very concerned about Ms. Radack's situation. According to press reports—and the Department has never issued any statement disputing them—Ms. Radack was in effect fired for providing legal advice on a matter involving ethical duties and civil liberties that higher-level officials at the Department disagreed with." In the same statement, Kennedy said he had submitted questions in March to Attorney General Ashcroft about Radack having been "in effect fired for providing legal advice on a matter involving ethical duties and civil liberties that higher-level officials at the Department disagreed with." [61]

On May 23, by a vote of 13 to 0, the committee sent Chertoff's judicial nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. Six Democrats, however, voted "present," saying they wanted more time to review Radack's accusations. [60]

Whistleblower defense lawyer, after DOJ

In the mid-2000s, Radack served on the D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Committee and worked with the ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants. [13]

Law office of Congressman Alan Grayson

From 2006–2008, she worked as a lawyer in the law firm owned by of Congressman Alan Grayson, "Grayon and Kubli", representing government contractors blowing the whistle on fraud in the reconstruction of Iraq. [62]

Government Accountability Project

From 2009–2014, Radack was Homeland Security & Human Rights Director at the Government Accountability Project. [63] [10]

Institute for Public Accuracy

Since 2015, she has been National Security & Human Rights Director of the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) at ExposeFacts. [64] Radack is one of the attorneys for National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. [10] She was also one of the attorneys who represented National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Andrews Drake, with whom she won the 2011 Sam Adams Award, given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. [4] [65] They also both won the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. She is also the lawyer of whistleblower Brandon Bryant. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, [66] Wall Street Journal , [67] Los Angeles Times , [68] The Washington Post , The Guardian , [69] [70] The Nation , [71] Salon , [72] and numerous law journals. She maintains a blog at Daily Kos .

On May 9, 2019, Radack described her client Daniel Everette Hale, an analyst for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, as a "classic whistleblower". [73]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">False Claims Act of 1863</span> United States federal law enacted in 1863

The False Claims Act of 1863 (FCA) is an American federal law that imposes liability on persons and companies who defraud governmental programs. It is the federal government's primary litigation tool in combating fraud against the government. The law includes a qui tam provision that allows people who are not affiliated with the government, called "relators" under the law, to file actions on behalf of the government. This is informally called "whistleblowing", especially when the relator is employed by the organization accused in the suit. Persons filing actions under the Act stand to receive a portion of any recovered damages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Walker Lindh</span> American Taliban member (born 1981)

John Philip Walker Lindh is an American Taliban member who was captured by United States forces as an enemy combatant during the United States' invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001. He was detained at Qala-i-Jangi fortress, used as a prison. He denied participating in the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi, a violent uprising of the Taliban prisoners, stating that he was wounded in the leg and hid in the cellar of the Pink House, in the southern half of the fort. He was one of the 86 prisoners who survived the uprising, from an estimated 400 prisoners in total. CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed during that uprising. Brought to trial in United States federal court in February 2002, Lindh accepted a plea bargain; he pleaded guilty to two charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released on supervision on May 23, 2019, for a three-year period of supervised release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Espionage Act of 1917</span> United States federal law

The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18. Specifically, it is 18 U.S.C. ch. 37.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaser Esam Hamdi</span> Suspected Taliban member who got captured

Yaser Esam Hamdi is a former American citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. The United States government claims that he was fighting with the Taliban against U.S. and Afghan Northern Alliance forces. He was declared an "illegal enemy combatant" by the Bush administration and detained for almost three years without charge. On October 9, 2004, on the condition that he renounce his U.S. citizenship and commit to travel prohibitions and other conditions, the government released him and deported him to Saudi Arabia, where he had been raised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alberto Gonzales</span> 80th United States Attorney General

Alberto R. Gonzales is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General from 2005 to 2007 and is the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date. He previously served as Secretary of State of Texas, as a Texas Supreme Court Justice, and as White House Counsel, becoming the first Hispanic to hold that office.

In the United States, Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to many federal executive departments, independent federal agencies, as well as state and local governments. Each office includes an inspector general and employees charged with identifying, auditing, and investigating fraud, waste, abuse, embezzlement and mismanagement of any kind within the executive department.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Chertoff</span> American government official (born 1953)

Michael Chertoff is an American-Israeli attorney who was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security to serve under President George W. Bush. Chertoff also served for one additional day under President Barack Obama. He was the co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. Chertoff previously served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a federal prosecutor, and as Assistant U.S. Attorney General. He succeeded Tom Ridge as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security on February 15, 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Office of Legal Counsel</span> Office of the United States Department of Justice

The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is an office in the United States Department of Justice that assists the Attorney General's position as legal adviser to the President and all executive branch agencies. It drafts legal opinions of the Attorney General and provides its own written opinions and other advice in response to requests from the Counsel to the President, the various agencies of the Executive Branch, and other components of the Department of Justice. The Office reviews and comments on the constitutionality of pending legislation. The office reviews any executive orders and substantive proclamations for legality if the President proposes them. All proposed orders of the Attorney General and regulations that require the Attorney General's approval are reviewed. It also performs a variety of special assignments referred by the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto</span> American law firm in Washington, D.C.

Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto is a Washington, D.C.-based international whistleblower rights law firm specializing in anti-corruption and whistleblower law, representing whistleblowers who seek rewards, or who are facing employer retaliation, for reporting violations of the False Claims Act, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, Sarbanes-Oxley Acts, Commodity and Security Exchange Acts and the IRS Whistleblower law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Kiriakou</span> American counter-terrorism consultant

John Chris Kiriakou is an American author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of Political Misfits on Sputnik Radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard W. Roberts</span> American judge (born 1953)

Richard Warren Roberts is an inactive Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmet G. Sullivan</span> American judge (born 1947)

Emmet Gael Sullivan is an American attorney and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trailblazer Project</span>

Trailblazer was a United States National Security Agency (NSA) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet. It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as cell phones and e-mail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas A. Drake</span> Former NSA senior executive, military veteran, and whistleblower (born 1957)

Thomas Andrews Drake is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history. Drake's defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project. He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.

The silent witness rule is the use of "substitutions" when referring to sensitive information in the United States open courtroom jury trial system. An example of a substitution method is the use of code-words on a "key card", to which witnesses and the jury would refer during the trial, but which the public would not have access to. The rule is an evidentiary doctrine that tries to balance the state secrets privilege with the bill of rights. In practice the rule has been rarely used and was often challenged by judges and civil rights advocates. Its use remains controversial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global surveillance whistleblowers</span>

Global surveillance whistleblowers are whistleblowers who provided public knowledge of global surveillance.

Sharon McGowan is an American lawyer and a partner at Katz Banks Kumin LLP, an employment and whistleblower firm based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining KBK, she was the legal director and chief strategy officer for Lambda Legal. McGowan was an Obama administration appointee in the role of Acting General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel for Policy at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. She also served as Principal Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section of the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. In 2019, she was honored with the Stonewall Award, bestowed by the American Bar Association's Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of investigations into Donald Trump and Russia (2020–2022)</span>

This is a timeline of events from 2020 to 2022 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, both before and after July 2016, until November 8, 2016, election day, the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first and second halves of 2019.

<i>United States v. Flynn</i> Criminal case in U.S. courts

United States v. Flynn was a criminal case in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia which was dismissed without any convictions in December 2020 following a presidential pardon. Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general in the United States Armed Forces, had accepted President-elect Donald Trump's offer for the position of National Security Advisor in 2016 and then briefly served as National Security Advisor. He pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Flynn's alleged false statements involve conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when Flynn was incoming National Security Advisor to President-elect Trump, and Flynn agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel investigation as part of a plea deal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sidney Powell</span> American lawyer and conspiracy theorist (born 1955)

Sidney Katherine Powell is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and conspiracy theorist who attempted to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. In August 2023, she was indicted along with Donald Trump and eighteen others in the prosecution related to the 2020 election in Georgia, arising from the attempt by the former president and his allies to subvert the election outcome in Georgia and other key states lost by Trump. In October 2023, as part of an agreement with Georgia prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties. She was sentenced to six years of probation and agreed to testify against the other defendants.

References

  1. ↑ "Jesselyn Radack Archived 2014-07-14 at the Wayback Machine ", Council of Independent Colleges
  2. ↑ "Jesselyn Radack, For championing the rights of whistleblowers", Foreign Policy Magazine
  3. ↑ "D.C. Lawyer Jesselyn Radack Wins Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award For Whistleblower Work". HuffPost . June 3, 2012.
  4. 1 2 Blaylock, Dylan (2011-11-17). "Radack, Drake Win Sam Adams Award". Government Accountability Project. Archived from the original on 2012-01-15. Retrieved 2012-01-05.
  5. ↑ "BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award, Jesselyn Radack". BuzzFlash.com. February 28, 2007. Archived from the original on 2010-04-04. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  6. ↑ "BDH Digital Archive". Dl.lib.brown.edu. 1991-01-24. Retrieved 2015-12-21.
  7. 1 2 Charlie Savage (2007). Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy . Little, Brown. pp.  108–109. ISBN   9780316019613 . Retrieved 2019-05-10. Charlie Savage: Takeover.
  8. ↑ "WHISPeR Staff". 29 February 2016.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Jane Mayer, "Lost in the Jihad", The New Yorker, 10 March 2003, p. 57-59
  10. 1 2 3 Brandom, Russell (24 June 2014). "The Verge: Edward Snowden's Lawyer Will Keep Your Secrets, Jesselyn Radack is a Whistleblower's Best Defense". Government Accountability Project . Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Laurie Abraham (January 2004). "Anatomy of a Whistleblower". Mother Jones . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  12. ↑ "Jesselyn Radack Was the Justice Department Official Who Knew Too Much -- A BuzzFlash Interview". BuzzFlash.com. February 16, 2007. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  13. 1 2 "About the Contributors". University of Colorado Law Review. 77 (1). 2006.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jane Mayer (2009). "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals". Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. pp. 93–97. ISBN   9780307456502 . Retrieved 2019-05-10.
  15. ↑ The application of the "no-contact rule" to the Department of Justice is discussed by James S. Montana Jr. and John A. Galotto "Right to Counsel: Courts Adhere to Bright-line Limits." Criminal Justice Magazine 16:2 Summer 2001, see section "Ethical rules in lieu of constitutional protections". Radack has indicated that she was relying on that principle, e.g., in "Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct in Chertoff’s Prosecution of John Walker Lindh," Democracy Now, January 13, 2005.
  16. ↑ David McGowan, "Politics, Office Politics, and Legal Ethics: A Case Study in the Strategy of Judgment", University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 07-55, September 7, 2006, p. 7.
  17. ↑ Proffer of Facts in Support of Suppression Motion, at 19, United States v. John Philip Walker Lindh, Crim. No. 02-37-A (E.D. VA 2002), cited in McGowan, p. 7.
  18. ↑ "Transcript of John Ashcroft – February 5, 2002". Transcripts.cnn.com. 2002-02-05. Retrieved 2010-03-22.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Emily Gold Boutilier, "The Woman Who Knew Too Much," Brown Alumni Magazine, March/April 2004, p.35.
  20. ↑ Jesselyn Radack "A Whistle-Blower's Inside View of the Homeland Security Nominee", Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2005.
  21. ↑ McGowan, p. 8-9.
  22. 1 2 3 Laurie Abraham, "Anatomy of a Whistleblower", Mother Jones, January/February 2004 p. 62
  23. ↑ Complaint Against United States Department of Justice Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶18.
  24. ↑ McGowan, p.11.
  25. ↑ Complaint Against United States Department of Justice Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶22.
  26. 1 2 Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1 Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , ¶18, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).
  27. ↑ Boutilier
  28. ↑ McGowan, p. 15; a copy of the government's response is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/MoDismissExh8.pdf.
  29. ↑ McGowan, p. 13-14, 47; a copy of the government's motion that includes the description is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/ProtectiveOrderMotion.pdf.
  30. ↑ McGowan, p. 14; a copy of his statement is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/OppDePueDecl.pdf.
  31. ↑ McGowan, p 15; a copy of the order is at http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/files/UnsealingOrder.pdf.
  32. 1 2 Radack v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, Memorandum Opinion and Order, August 9, 2005, 402 F. Supp. 99 (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia 2005).
  33. ↑ Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1 Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , ¶¶20, 23-24, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004); quoted by McGowan, p. 12-13.
  34. ↑ Michael Isikoff (2002-06-23). "The Lindh Case E-Mails". Newsweek . p. 8. Retrieved 2019-05-10.
  35. ↑ Emily Gold Boutilier "Mail Room: Senior writer Emily Gold Boutilier replies," Brown Alumni Magazine May/June 2004.
  36. 1 2 Jesselyn Radack "Whistleblowing in Washington," Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine Reform Judaism Spring 2006.
  37. ↑ Radack "Whistleblowing in Washington"; on the sentence: "'I plead guilty,' Taliban American says," Archived 2007-01-03 at the Wayback Machine CNN July 17, 2002.
  38. ↑ Toni Locy and Kevin Johnson, "Lindh plea removes risks of trial," USA Today July 16, 2002.
  39. ↑ Terry Frieden and Laura Bernardini, "Lindh plea bargain talks began last week," CNN July 15, 2002.
  40. ↑ U.S. District Court Eastern District of Virginia High Profile Cases (Alexandria), Criminal Docket for Case #: 1:02-cr-00037-ALL Archived 2009-05-12 at the Wayback Machine
  41. ↑ The defense arguments are summarized in Tony Locy "Court hearing begins on use of Lindh statements," USA Today July 15, 2002.
  42. ↑ Complaint Against United States Department of Justice Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶¶34-35, 39.
  43. ↑ Sworn Statement of Claudia J. Flynn, Exhibit 4 Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , ¶10, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).
  44. ↑ Complaint Against United States Department of Justice Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶35.
  45. 1 2 3 4 Jesselyn Radack, "When whistle-blowers suffer", Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2010.
  46. 1 2 Douglas McCollam, The Trials of Jesselyn Radack, The American Lawyer, July 2003, p. 19.
  47. ↑ Jesselyn Radack: The Canary in the Coalmine, p. 69. Sheridan, 2006; Complaint Against United States Department of Justice Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶37.
  48. ↑ Complaint Against United States Department of Justice Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶¶39-40.
  49. ↑ Complaint Against United States Department of Justice Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004), ¶¶30-32.
  50. ↑ Defendant's Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment [ permanent dead link ], p. 19 fn. 11-12, April 22, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004)
  51. ↑ Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1 Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine , ¶40, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, Radack v. United States Department of Justice, No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004).
  52. 1 2 3 4 Scott Horton "Traitor: Six Questions for Jesselyn Radack," Harper's Magazine June 1, 2012.
  53. ↑ "Whistle-Blower: Protection Act Doesn't Cover Enough People," All Things Considered, NPR, August 01, 2013
  54. ↑ Jesselyn Radack Traitor: The Whistleblower and the "American Taliban," Whistleblower Press (2012), Chapter 1: "Shoot The Messenger"
  55. 1 2 Jenny Jiang, "Transcript: Panel Q&A on Bradley Manning and the media on June 2, 2013," Archived October 8, 2013, at the Wayback Machine All Souls Church Unitarian, Washington, D.C., What The Folly?!, June 17, 2013.
  56. ↑ "Jesselyn Radack Was the Justice Department Official Who Knew Too Much -- A BuzzFlash Interview" BuzzFlash (website), February 16, 2007
  57. ↑ Reprehensor (pseudonym) "Truthtelling with Rowley, Radack and Wright," Democratic Underground (discussion board), August 13, 2005. Interview with Radack, August 5, 2005.
  58. ↑ Eric Lichtblau "Dispute Over Legal Advice Costs a Job and Snarls a Nomination," New York Times May 22, 2003.
  59. ↑ Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Eight Congress, First Session, April 30, May 7, May 22, June 25, and July 9, 2003, Serial No. J-108-1, Part 3, U.S. Government Printing Office (2003)
  60. 1 2 Lichtblau, Eric (May 23, 2003). "Panel Clears 3 Bush Nominees for Senate Vote". The New York Times . Retrieved December 7, 2020.
  61. ↑ Edward Kennedy Sr., "Statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy Regarding the Nomination of Michael Chertoff to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit", May 22, 2003.
  62. ↑ "Jesselyn Radack, Homeland Security & Human Rights Director". Government Accountability Project. Archived from the original on 4 March 2010. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  63. ↑ "Whistle Where You Work #9 - Fixing the Department of Justice; Whistleblowing at the FDA". WhistleblowerTV. Government Accountability Project. 6 February 2009. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  64. ↑ "Protecting National Security Whistleblowers: A New Program". Institute for Public Accuracy. 17 November 2015. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  65. ↑ Radack, Jesselyn (2011-11-21). Attorney Jesslyn Radack: More whistle blowers have been charged during Obama admin. then all other presidents together (Flash). Washington, D.C.: Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.
  66. ↑ Jesselyn Radack, "Whistle-Blowers Deserve Protection Not Prison", New York Times December 18, 2013.
  67. ↑ Jesselyn Radack, "Why Edward Snowden Wouldn't Get a Fair Trial", Wall Street Journal January 21, 2014.
  68. ↑ Jesselyn Radack, "When whistle-blowers suffer", LA Times April 27, 2010.
  69. ↑ Jesselyn Radack, "Former whistleblowers: open letter to intelligence employees after Snowden", The Guardian December 13, 2013.
  70. ↑ Jesselyn Radack, "The We Steal Secrets documentary on WikiLeaks is incredibly biased", The Guardian May 30, 2013.
  71. ↑ Jesselyn Radack, "My Visit With Edward Snowden", The Nation October 17, 2013.
  72. ↑ Jesselyn Radack, "America’s leak hypocrisy: The double standard for exposing undercover identities", Salon May 30, 2014.
  73. ↑ "Ex-U.S. intelligence analyst charged with leaks to reporter". London Free Press . Alexandria, Virginia. 2019-05-09. Retrieved 2019-05-10. One of Hale's attorneys — Jesselyn Radack, who specializes in representing whistleblowers — said the investigation of Hale had essentially lay dormant for five years up until Hale's arrest. She said the Trump administration is continuing and escalating what she called "a toxic trend" started under the Obama administration of aggressively prosecuting legitimate whistleblowers.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.