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Snowden’s Ride, Part 6: Why Did Glenn Greenwald Represent Neo-Nazis Pro Bono?

POSTED BY DAVE EMORY ⋅ JULY 16, 2013POST A COMMENT  EMAIL THIS POST  PRINT THIS POST 
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Matthew Hale, Glenn Greenwald's Client
Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books avail­able on this site.)
COMMENT: We’ve covered Eddie “The Friendly Spook” Snowden’s exploits in numerous previous posts: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII.) Users of this website are emphatically encouraged to examine these posts in detail, as it is impossible to do justice to the arguments in those articles in the scope of this post.
Suffice it to say, for our purposes here, that Snowden’s activities are–quite obviously–an intelligence operation directed at Barack Obama’s administration at one level and the United States and U.K. at another.
We note that the individuals and institutions involved with Snowden, as well as Fast Eddie himself, track back to the far right, Nazi, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers and elements and individuals involved with the Underground Reich. Again, PLEASE examine the previous posts on the subject, as there is no way to flesh out this line of inquiry in this post. 
In past discussion of Eddie the Friendly Spook’s leaker of choice, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, we noted that he has professionally networked with the Koch brothers funded Cato Institute. Greenwald’s professional associations include far more odious relationships.
Greenwald launched his own legal business, representing “unpopular clients,” including neo-Nazis. For five years, Greenwald defended Matthew Hale, head of the World Church of the Creator, currently serving a 40-year prison term for plotting against the life of a judge. (See text excerpt below.)
(We’ve spoken of the World Church of the Creator in FTR #’s 168, 222, 633.)
We highlight a number of considerations in light of Greenwald’s efforts on behalf of Nazi bloodletters:
  • As is the case with Snowden’s embrace of Nazi Ron Paul for President, this association negates any pretense on the part of Greenwald of being “for humanity.”
  • In his defense of Matthew Hale (being sued by shooting victims, who were set upon by one of Hale’s foot soldiers) Greenwald violated legal ethics by taping witnesses. (See text excerpt below.) Apparently, Greenwald’s belief in the incorrectness of secret taping of private communications is highly selective.
  • Greenwald labeled and insulted the plaintiffs in the case in very strong terms, calling them “odious.” (See text excerpt below.)
  • We wonder about Greenwald’s lover of some 11 years–an Austrian-born lawyer named Werner Achatz. Might he have been Underground Reich? Might Achatz have recruited/assisted Greenwald? Greenwald’s legal representation of Nazis was largely pro bono. How was he paying his bills? Did he have money saved up? Were other “unpopular clients” more fiscally forthcoming?
  • It is quite clear that Greenwald is a “conservative/libertarian mole” within the progressive movement, whose intent is to damage Obama.
  • In past discussion of L’Affaire Snowden, we opined that part of the goal of this psy-op was to alienate younger and more idealistic voters from Obama, in order to permit the GOP to grab the White House and both houses of Congress.
  • In an article about Greenwald by Out.com, Greenwald touted the necessity for a third party, lauding GOP governor Charles Johnson of New Mexico as a possible candidate in 2012. (See text excerpt below.) 
  • It will be interesting to see if another pied-piper in the Ralph Nader mode is fashioned in 2016 to siphon off votes from the Democrats.
“Vanfield” posted an interesting comment, noting that Stephen Walt, whose anti-Israel Lobby tome appears to be a manifestation of doctrinaire anti-Semitism and probable Muslim Brotherhood influence has lauded Snowden as another “Edward R. Murrow”–as grotesque a misnomer as one could think of.
EXCERPT: . . . . Greenwald also spent roughly FIVE YEARS defending the First Amendment rights of neo-Nazis, including Matthew Hale, the “Pontifex Maximus” of the Illinois church formerly known as the World Church of the Creator, one of whose disciples went on a murderous spree in 1999.
“I almost always did it pro bono,” Greenwald said. “I was interested in defending political principles that I believed in. I didn’t even care about making money anymore.” . . .
EXCERPT: . . . . By the third year of law school, he was working for a large law firm. But realizing that representing Goldman Sachs would have destroyed him psychologically, he set up his own firm, which represented several neo-Nazis and other unpopular clients.
When he and his former boyfriend, Werner Achatz, an Austrian-born lawyer, tried to lease an apartment, they were told they couldn’t aggregate their incomes. “They said they only do that for married couples,” Greenwald recalls. “We said we were a married couple.” When that didn’t fly, Greenwald became his own lawyer, suing the landlord for sexual orientation and marital status discrimination.
By 2004 he had tired of litigating, and was also at the end of an 11-year relationship with Achatz. He rented an apartment in Rio de Janeiro, expecting to remain there for two months. Emotionally drained, he says, “The last thing I was looking for was another relationship. Especially in Rio.” But on his first day on the beach, he met Miranda. . . .
. . . . One of his hopes for 2012 is that candidates will emerge to take on the red and the blue teams — he is keeping an eye on Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, who is pro-gay and antiwar, and who could run with a Democrat like former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold. He would also be happy to see a billionaire run without the help of either party, to disrupt the two-party stranglehold. . . .
EXCERPT: . . . .Case in point:
Glenn Greenwald made a choice to defend Matthew Hale in a series of civil lawsuits that Hale faced after he encouraged shooter Benjamin Smith to go on a two-state shooting rampage.
If you don’t know who Hale is, well, he’s a pretty famous white supremacist who is currently serving 40 years for soliciting the murder of a federal judge who ruled against him in a trademark case. Who put him away? Patrick Fitzgerald. (Yes. And Mr. Greenwald got an FBI visit regarding the passing of coded messages by Hale while under SAMS restrictions.)
Mr. Hale, for his role in the shootings, was sued by a number of survivors. This included a case filed by two teenage Orthodox Jewish boys. And another case filed by a Black minister. These people were selected by Benjamin Smith because they looked like the religious/ethnic minorities they are.
And Glenn Greenwald called them ‘odious and repugnant’ for suing his client–
Indeed the Center’s suit appears to link Hale’s rejection into the bar to Smith’s “rampage.” In late June, the state bar’s Committee on Character and Fitness again denied Hale’s petition to join the bar. Smith, who had testified as a character witness for Hale that April, began shooting two days later. “Immediately after the Illinois State Bar’s decision and as part of the World Church of the Creator’s war, Smith … began a rampage of genocidal violence,” the lawsuit states.
And while Hale himself has linked the shootings to his bar application in the past, he said Tuesday that it’s ridiculous to think he had any control over Smith.
SNIP
Further, Greenwald said, “I find that the people behind these lawsuits are truly so odious and repugnant, that creates its own motivation for me.”
The first suit, filed in state court by Chicago attorney Michael Ian Bender on behalf of two Orthodox Jewish teens shot at in Rogers Park, is pending, though a circuit judge in Chicago threw out allegations that Smith’s parents were somehow responsible for the shootings.
It wasn’t enough that Glenn took the case, which was his right to do. No–he had to insult the Plaintiffs–shooting victims. And then, he unethically taped the witnesses he subpoenaed, even directing their statements. A court found that he violated TWO separate rules–
“The magistrate judge granted both motions, finding defense counsel’s conduct unethical under two separate rules: Local Rule 83.58.4(a)(4), prohibiting “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;” and Local Rule 83.54.4, stating “a lawyer shall not … use methods of obtaining evidence that violate the legal rights of person.””ANDERSON v. HALE 159 F.Supp.2d 1116 (2001)
He also attempted to manipulate the witness statements, per the magistrate’s findings of fact-
“A 52-page transcript of one conversation showed defendants’ counsel steered the conversation by eliciting particular responses to detailed questions, leading to more detailed questions, to lure the witness into damning statements for later use.” Anderson v. Hale, 202 F.R.D. 548 (N.D.Ill. 2001),
That’s right–Glenn Greenwald, self-proclaimed civil rights lawyer, violated the civil right of witnesses. The New York Bar later wrote a clarifying opinion on the ethics of said taping, referencing this case–
And of course, Glenn Greenwald thinks Matthew Hale is wrongly imprisoned by Prosecutor Fitzgerald.
“Mr. Greenwald, who said he believed that Mr. Hale was wrongly imprisoned, said he did not recall the exact message Ms. Hutcheson relayed to him, or the person it was intended for, but that he had declined to deliver it. He called the message “a caricature of what a coded message would be.””
After listening to Chris Hayes and reading that one of his references to the story about Obama assassinations was Glenn Greenwald, I perused many of Greenwald’s anti-Obama articles cleverly disguised as “civil libertarian” and wonder how anyone in the progressive movement can take Glenn Greenwald seriously. Greenwald admits to being a civil libertarian, much in the mold of Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and most libertarians on the far right. After doing a stint at a Wall Street corporate law firm (Wachtel, Lipton) he strikes it out on his own by representing white supremacist Matthew Hale, who was the leader of the World Church of the Creator, and is now doing forty years in prison for authorizing a hit on a federal judge. Greenwald has not written a single article that has been favorable toward the Obama Administration, and he was one of the leading voices pushing this disproven idea that Obama is “the same as Bush” to try to undermine Obama’s support in his progressive base. The conservative magazine Forbes indicates Greenwald is “one of the 25 most influential liberals in the media,” despite his libertarian views and admission that he is not a liberal.
With this backdrop, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Glenn Greenwald is a conservative/libertarian mole within the progressive movement with the sole mission of undermining the movement. Specifically, with respect to authorized killing of Al Qaeda operatives: since when does one need a trial when one admits in writing continuously that they are part of Al Qaeda and are found to be engaged in an operational role in killing Americans? When have we ever asked on the battlefield whether one is authorized to defend oneself against the guy with the gun shooting at you, who is dressed in enemy gear and who has promised to kill you? Should we do as Greenwald suggests, and call a “time out” during the heat of battle and have a civil trial to determine whether this guy really is what he has demonstrated to be? I am all for due process when it make practical sense, but during the heat of battle when someone is actively trying to kill you, I think defending oneself first in battle and then defending oneself in court later if necessary appears to be the appropriate course of action. Maybe we should put Greenwald on the battlefield and see if he really thinks it’s practical to call a time-out and go to court. Only in the wildest fantasy of an obsessed lawyer would such a thought even be possible, and Greenwald appears to be obsessed with second-guessing commanders on the ground, even though he himself could never really imagine what it is like to be on the battlefield of war.
War sucks, and I at least agree with Greenwald that we should avoid war if necessary, and quickly bring to an end any outstanding wars, as long as it is done responsibly so we do not have to go back in after we leave. But Greenwald’s obsession with undermining Obama in this effort should make any progressive pause, especially given his right-wing background, his inability to write a single positive story about the Obama administration and his inability to write about anything other than civil liberties that progressives care about.

DISCUSSION

5 COMMENTS FOR “SNOWDEN’S RIDE, PART 6: WHY DID GLENN GREENWALD REPRESENT NEO-NAZIS PRO BONO?”

  1. Here is an interesting article from May, before the whole Snowden thing blew up, that shows our guy Glenn was pretty light on Islamic terrorism.
    Glenn Greenwald Terrorizes Logic
    On the Guardian columnist’s response to the terror attack in London
    By Zach Novetsky|May 24, 2013 11:18 AM|Comments: 0
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    (itvnews)
    Whenever a radical Islamist commits a horrific act of violence or an act of terrorism, Glenn Greenwald is there with the same all-powerful explanation: it is our fault. More specifically, it is the fault of anyone living in the United States or any “loyal, constant ally” state, as he put it on Twitter. Terrorists, it seems, have no agency.
    Wednesday, on a crowded street in Woolwich, London, Michael Adebolajo and a second individual beheaded Lee Rigby, a drummer in the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Both attackers are British citizens of Nigerian descent. Adebolajo converted to Islam in 2003. At the time of his murder, Rigby was not in uniform. After butchering Rigby, Adebolajo approached a bystander who recorded the attack and said:
    “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. Your people will never be safe. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
    “We apologize that women had to see this today, but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you.”
    Instead of wondering if these two butchers were part of a larger terrorist cell, Greenwald tells us that he is going to discuss the “vital” matter of whether this barbaric act should be considered terrorism. Yes, it is “vital” to know whether beheading a drummer in the British army on a crowded street in London is an act of terrorism. But fear not. Greenwald only asks rhetorical questions so that he may provide his own answers. And his answers are always simple ones. Rigby, the drummer in the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was a soldier. An act of terrorism must be carried out against civilians. A drummer in the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers is not a civilian. Therefore, beheading a drummer in the British army on a crowded street in London cannot be an act of terrorism. For Greenwald, it really is that simple. Things are always that simple.
    But things are simpler still for Greenwald. Does the fact that Rigby was not wearing a uniform complicate things at all? Of course not, because, Greenwald tells us, “the same is true for the vast bulk of killings carried out by the US and its allies over the last decade.” The US has even re-defined “militant” to mean “any military-aged male in a strike zone.” Do you get it yet? It is not terrorism to behead a drummer in the British army on a crowded street in London because the US and its allies do it too. It does not matter that when the US and its allies carry out these killings in clear and recognized warzones, they wear uniforms to identify themselves as combatants, whereas here, the two individuals were dressed in plainclothes. It does not matter that, according to the Laws of Armed Combat, Rigby would not have been considered a lawful combatant because, among other things, he was not wearing “fixed distinctive emblems recognizable at a distance, such as uniforms.” No, what Greenwald endorses as sound logic is Adebojo’s brutish logic: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
    But Greenwald is not satisfied with already having answered his own question. Greenwald goes further and entertains another possible definition of terrorism: “any act of violence designed to achieve political change, or more specifically, to induce a civilian population to change their government or its policies of out fear of violence.” Surely, not even Greenwald can explain how this attack in London, done with an overtly political purpose (e.g. “the only reasons we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily” and “you people will never be safe. Remove your government”), fails to meet that definition of terrorism.
    Dear reader, never lose the ability to be surprised.
    Greenwald tells us that if we prefer this definition, then the vast majority of violent acts undertaken by the US and its allies over the last decade are likewise examples of terrorism. The US/UK “shock and awe” attack on Baghdad, the ongoing US drone attacks, the massive air bombings in World War II, all of these must also be terrorism.
    Why these things matter in the context of two civilians (i.e. not States) who beheaded a drummer in the British army on a crowded street in London is unclear, because according to terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, “‘terrorism’ is understood to be violence committed by non-state entities” (emphasis mine). This may be a definitional issue, but it helps explain why people are quick to call a violent act committed for political purposes by two civilians an act of terrorism, despite being unwilling to say the same when a state engages in a similar act.
    Why Greenwald includes the attack on Baghdad as an act of terrorism despite the fact that, during the second battle of Fallujah, civilians were evacuated from the city in advance of the fighting (which lasted several weeks and was assisted by the US Marines), is unclear. (In other words, those who chose to remain effectively declared themselves combatants.) Of course, there were families that did not or could not leave Fallujah during the evacuation. But according to Michael Totten, who spent a month in Fallujah during the surge, Marines spray-painted the word “FAMILY” in red on the walls outside their houses so no one would accidentally shoot them.
    Why Greenwald must look to famously controversial tactics employed in World War II–a war fought over sixty years–when he claims to have available the vast majority of violent acts undertaken by the US and its allies over the last decade as examples of terrorism is, likewise, unclear.
    But do not overthink things. Everything is actually simple.
    The thing is, Greenwald’s predictability is the only thing that is simple. There are only so many times you can say, as Greenwald does in this column, that “nothing about [his article] has anything to do with justifiability” before it has everything to do with justifiability. Nearly every column that Greenwald writes about Islamist terrorism is about how we brought terrorism upon ourselves, as if history only began the moment we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Greenwald never takes a moment to feel sorrow for the innocent victims of Islamist terrorism in the West (or elsewhere, for that matter) because he is too busy feeling an implacable rage towards the West and the victims of its wars, regardless of the justness of those wars. Right after the Boston Marathon bombing, for example, Greenwald engaged in this hallmark victim competition:
    “[W]hatever rage you’re feeling toward the perpetrator of this Boston attack, that’s the rage in sustained form that people across the world feel toward the US for killing innocent people in their countries. Whatever sadness you feel for yesterday’s victims, the same level of sadness is warranted for the innocent people whose lives are ended by American bombs.”
    The most loathsome part about Greenwald’s columns is that they quite literally employ the very logic and propaganda tactics employed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates. (If you do not believe me that I mean this literally, click here and see how many of those ten he satisfies.)
    Underlying Greenwald’s column on the London beheading is a soft-racism that assumes that because the two attackers were Muslim, they can claim to be at war with the West and engage in attacks against the West as part of the “War on Terrorism.” What Greenwald misunderstands is that these two attackers were British citizens, not Afghanis, Iraqis, Pakistanis, or Yemenis i.e. people who can make a claim that the West is at war with them. By assuming that these two British citizens could legitimately claim to be at war with Britain, Greenwald adopts the al-Qaeda narrative that the West is at war with Islam, not with certain states that happen to be Islamic or have sizable Muslim populations. This is no exaggeration. Greenwald approvingly cites a tweet from Michael Moore saying just that: “I am outraged that we can’t kill people in other counties [sic] without them trying to kill us!” To repeat the point, then, these two terrorists who beheaded a drummer were not part of “other countries.” They were British citizens. What else can we call this conflation of Muslims if not bigotry?
    Despite Greenwald’s repeated insistence that he is not justifying Islamist terrorism, he regularly does just that. He takes on the case of any terrorist pro bono from his comfortable home in Brazil. When his case is not going well, he resorts back to the time-tested tactic of blaming Israel. That is right. Israel is responsible for the beheading of a drummer in the British army on a crowded street in London.
    It is not difficult to see through Greenwald’s elementary logic, his many red herrings, and sleight of hand tricks. No amount of Western wrongdoing can justify beheading a drummer in the British army on a crowded street in London. This is terrorism, plain and simple. And no amount of columns by Glenn Greenwald can change that.
    POSTED BY VANFIELD | JULY 16, 2013, 4:54 PM
  2. Biased creep Stephen Walt (see http://spitfirelist.com/news/the-company-they-keep-mearsheimer-walt-and-the-socialism-of-fools/) compares Greenwald to Edward R. Murrow in this article…
    POSTED BY VANFIELD | JULY 18, 2013, 9:31 AM
  3. Frank Gaffney interviewed Lee Stranahan recently on the Snowden case. What he has to say about it intersects to a large extent with the analysis you already made, Dave. It complements your remarks with other information and details. In a nutshell, Stranahan says that the Snowden case is an “op” designed to hurt U.S. intelligence. He believes that Snowden went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton with the precise intention of doing what he did and that he is in cahoots with not only Greenwald but also Assange. Interview airs in segment #4.
    POSTED BY CLAUDE | JULY 19, 2013, 7:04 PM
  4. Very disturbing and very confusing, for relatively well-informed and well-intentioned people like myself that do not follow this stuff every day like you do, Dave. The neo-Nazi connections are very, very bad. Much worse than I imagined. Greenwald is of Jewish ancestry, which makes it even more confusing. Thank you for shedding this new light on events, which I am afraid I could not have imagined.
    POSTED BY JG | SEPTEMBER 7, 2013, 4:09 PM
às

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