Someday the "MHT" will Come to the Affordable Housing Crisis
SEARCHING FOR THE MOOSEHEAD TRUTH
From Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton Whitehouse
by Gary Aldrich
~ ~ ~
Special agents of the FBI are trained to find truth, document truth, and present it to a judge, to a jury, or even to the counsel of the president of the United States.
In the many assignments that I was privileged to have over the course of a twenty-six-year career with the FBI, I would often come across a special kind of truth. Everyone has experienced moments of great clarity when we see or hear evidence that is irrefutable. Judges have a name for it - they call it prima facie evidence, facts that are indisputable and require no explanation.
Water is wet, fire burns, con men con.
When I was a young agent in Los Angeles, my prosecutor partner was an assistant U.S. attorney, fresh from Stanford University Law School. We had a bribery case to take to trial. We needed to prove that a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inspector took bribes from contractors so they could pocket money earmarked for home repairs that they never made - repairs paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Our evidence, frankly, was weak, but the crimes were especially heinous, because when the "repaired" roof leaked like a sieve or when the electrical outlet shorted out or when the furnace didn't work, the poor couldn't afford to make the repairs. When they walked away from their defective homes, because they had been defrauded and could not repair them, they walked away from their small chance to have the American Dream. Their credit could be destroyed by a mortgage foreclosure and eventual bankruptcy. Their neighborhoods, full of similarly defrauded people, would disintegrate, and disintegrating neighborhoods were breeding grounds for serious crime.
It was a hard case to prove because the bribes were paid in cash, and the HUD inspector-I'll call him Raymond-never put the money in a bank. Of course Raymond denied the bribes and blamed the contractors for not doing the work. . . .
The inspector was very slick in his defense. In the end only one contractor had the guts to testify for the government, and he was on the witness stand.
He had some serious problems in his past, including alcoholism and divorce, and the defense attorney took him apart, destroying his credibility. The assistant U.S. attorney and I were worried. The defense attorney's withering attack on our witness's character meant we might lose the case.
Our witness was now 'on trial', and he was unraveling. But the defense attorney, not knowing when to quit, asked, "Mr. Smith, you didn't pay any bribes, did you? You were drunk all of the time. Your wife threw you out of the house. In short, you were a mess, weren't you?"
"Well, actually now that you ask, there is this one thing...," Smith began.
The defense attorney, sensing danger, tried to cut him off. "Never mind, Mr. Smith, I think the jury has heard enough of your lies. We all know what your answer is going to be. No further questions, your honor."
The prosecutor stood up. He had a hunch our witness had something important to say. "Wait a minute, your honor, I think we are entitled to hear Mr. Smith's answer, don't you?"
The judge concurred. "Go ahead, Mr. Smith, you can finish your answer."
Smith looked alarmed. "Judge, if I tell it, I gotta use some, well, bad language, and I don't feel right about that." He looked over at the jury.
The judge smiled at Smith. "Mr. Smith, I am sure that this Los Angeles jury has probably already heard whatever words you might need to use." All eyes turned to the jury. They nodded.
"Well, your honor, there was this one thing. Raymond always made us come to his office to pay the bribes. He insisted that it had to be in his office because it was safe there. Behind his desk, where he sat when we paid him, was this big mounted moosehead. Well, when Raymond looked into the envelope to count the hundred dollar bills, he would always laugh. He'd point up at the moosehead behind his desk and say, "If that f--ing moosehead could talk, we'd all go to jail!"
There it was. The moosehead truth. The MHT.
The guilty look on Raymond's face said the rest. It was all over.
The jury came back inside of thirty minutes with guilty verdicts on all counts.
I've always remembered that trial and the discovery of the MHT, and in every case I handled thereafter, I searched for the moosehead truth....
In this book I hope to help the reader find the moosehead truth about the Clintons, their friends, and their political agenda, an agenda that I conclude is at odds with the Constitution I had been sworn to uphold....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton Whitehouse
by Gary Aldrich
~ ~ ~
Special agents of the FBI are trained to find truth, document truth, and present it to a judge, to a jury, or even to the counsel of the president of the United States.
In the many assignments that I was privileged to have over the course of a twenty-six-year career with the FBI, I would often come across a special kind of truth. Everyone has experienced moments of great clarity when we see or hear evidence that is irrefutable. Judges have a name for it - they call it prima facie evidence, facts that are indisputable and require no explanation.
Water is wet, fire burns, con men con.
When I was a young agent in Los Angeles, my prosecutor partner was an assistant U.S. attorney, fresh from Stanford University Law School. We had a bribery case to take to trial. We needed to prove that a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inspector took bribes from contractors so they could pocket money earmarked for home repairs that they never made - repairs paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Our evidence, frankly, was weak, but the crimes were especially heinous, because when the "repaired" roof leaked like a sieve or when the electrical outlet shorted out or when the furnace didn't work, the poor couldn't afford to make the repairs. When they walked away from their defective homes, because they had been defrauded and could not repair them, they walked away from their small chance to have the American Dream. Their credit could be destroyed by a mortgage foreclosure and eventual bankruptcy. Their neighborhoods, full of similarly defrauded people, would disintegrate, and disintegrating neighborhoods were breeding grounds for serious crime.
It was a hard case to prove because the bribes were paid in cash, and the HUD inspector-I'll call him Raymond-never put the money in a bank. Of course Raymond denied the bribes and blamed the contractors for not doing the work. . . .
The inspector was very slick in his defense. In the end only one contractor had the guts to testify for the government, and he was on the witness stand.
He had some serious problems in his past, including alcoholism and divorce, and the defense attorney took him apart, destroying his credibility. The assistant U.S. attorney and I were worried. The defense attorney's withering attack on our witness's character meant we might lose the case.
Our witness was now 'on trial', and he was unraveling. But the defense attorney, not knowing when to quit, asked, "Mr. Smith, you didn't pay any bribes, did you? You were drunk all of the time. Your wife threw you out of the house. In short, you were a mess, weren't you?"
"Well, actually now that you ask, there is this one thing...," Smith began.
The defense attorney, sensing danger, tried to cut him off. "Never mind, Mr. Smith, I think the jury has heard enough of your lies. We all know what your answer is going to be. No further questions, your honor."
The prosecutor stood up. He had a hunch our witness had something important to say. "Wait a minute, your honor, I think we are entitled to hear Mr. Smith's answer, don't you?"
The judge concurred. "Go ahead, Mr. Smith, you can finish your answer."
Smith looked alarmed. "Judge, if I tell it, I gotta use some, well, bad language, and I don't feel right about that." He looked over at the jury.
The judge smiled at Smith. "Mr. Smith, I am sure that this Los Angeles jury has probably already heard whatever words you might need to use." All eyes turned to the jury. They nodded.
"Well, your honor, there was this one thing. Raymond always made us come to his office to pay the bribes. He insisted that it had to be in his office because it was safe there. Behind his desk, where he sat when we paid him, was this big mounted moosehead. Well, when Raymond looked into the envelope to count the hundred dollar bills, he would always laugh. He'd point up at the moosehead behind his desk and say, "If that f--ing moosehead could talk, we'd all go to jail!"
There it was. The moosehead truth. The MHT.
The guilty look on Raymond's face said the rest. It was all over.
The jury came back inside of thirty minutes with guilty verdicts on all counts.
I've always remembered that trial and the discovery of the MHT, and in every case I handled thereafter, I searched for the moosehead truth....
In this book I hope to help the reader find the moosehead truth about the Clintons, their friends, and their political agenda, an agenda that I conclude is at odds with the Constitution I had been sworn to uphold....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
posted by Bob at Tuesday, September 19, 2006
1 Comments:
Yet again taken from Edem, love doing this by the way: Crime is increasing? Yah. Poster ask to share your stories? Close enough to halloween so I guess so. Why aren't these young men (I assume) out working or in school. We can give aid and visas to non-Americans. Why don't we really care about the why's? Why is it taboo for the Edemers to discuss these things? Who here thinks it's just the tip of iceberg and the wave of homeless will be revealing it's destiny. No home, no job, no hope.
by Tim Erickson
In response to the subject of crime in St. Paul, I'd like to take a minute to
share some personal experiences and hear from others. It's always risky to
bring up this topic, while remaining both constructive and positive.
After living in the Midway area of St. Paul for most of my 40+ years, I've
been relatively lucky in terms of having little real trouble with crime. For
over 10 years in our current home, we experienced nothing more than a broken
window on one of our cars and the loss of $30 portable CD player and 2-3 CD's
(same incident).
Once, while renting a basement apartment (about 18 years ago), we believe
that a burgler entered our apartment thru a window, but apparently was frighted
away before having the opportunity to take anything.
However, in the last two months - we've been "victimized" once and nearly
"victimized" another. A little over a month ago, while I was in Germany (my
wife was at home) we had a car stolen from the front of our house (on Thomas
Ave). The car was recovered the next day, with about $700 of damage done to
it.
More recently, I emerged from the basement of our house at about 11:50 PM to
find a young man wearing a hooded sweatshirt playing with the lock at the
rear of our house (or so it appeared). When I shouted "hey," he took off
running down the alley.
I have to assume that his intention was to break in.
My first reaction, was NOT to call police. I figured that the suspect was
long gone, no damage had been done, and I couldn't identify the suspect
anyway as I'd not seen anything but the hood of his sweatshirt.
Upon further thought, I realized that this charater might still be in the
neighborhood scoping out other homes - and that I really needed to alert the
police. The police arrived within about 10 minutes (after I told them it was
NOT an emergency) and suggested to me, that the presence of a "lock bock" on
our back door might have been the reason for attempted entry. The police
officer suggested, that a lock box often idicates and empty house - which is
encouragement for these individuals.
Anyway, I'm not sure that there are any policy implications for my story, other
than:
1) I was satisfied with the reaction of our police department, even though
little could be done other than check out our neighborhood after the event
for anything suspicious.
2) I think its very important that people DO report this kind of
"attempted" crime, so that the police are aware that it happened and can try to
prevent other attempts.
I'm still quite happy with my neighborhood. I've always recognized that crime
is always a threat and its important to take care.
Without any intention of scaring folks or suggesting that there is any kind
of "crime wave" in St. Paul, I'd love to hear other stories of how fellow
SPIF'ers have recently been affected by crime.
I think that hearing from others, can help us all understand the nature and
reality of the problem and make sure that we are all taking the necessary steps
to remain as safe as possible.
Best wishes,
Tim Erickson
Hamline Midway Resident
(For almost 40 years)
tim ( at ) politalk.comtop
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