Did You Know?

9/11 Buyers of PUT Options

A mysterious caller who would not identify himself began to unfold an eyebrow-raising story about who those pre-9/11 investors were, and promised to put me in touch with another mysterious source who had copies of Chicago Mercantile Exchange transactions clearly identifying who those investors were.

The PUT options bought on Sept. 5-7, 2001, he insisted, were purchased by agents of two trusts, the Carousel group and the Carlyle group. Moreover, these transactions, he asserted, were executed through the Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch brokerage houses, and NOT reported in the next day's Bloomberg Report (which, not being a stock trading type, I assume records all stock transactions of note).

Provided by John Kaminski, the author of the soon-to-be-published "America's Autopsy Report," a collection of his Internet essays.

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The Moussaoui Trial

Under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an accused person is entitled to call witnesses on his behalf. Moussaoui's desire to question bin al-Shibh is about as clear an exercise of a Sixth Amendment right as can be found. According to press reports, bin al-Shibh has told his interrogators that Moussaoui was considered untrustworthy by the al-Qaeda leadership, and that he was not part of the 9/11 attacks. Irrespective of the truth or accuracy of such reports, Moussaoui is certainly entitled to call such a witness, who could offer exculpatory testimony. The judge has agreed, and has ordered prosecutors to make bin al-Shibh available for questioning by Moussaoui's attorneys, as a potential defense witness.

Editor's note: The foregoing implies that al-Qaeda was part of the 9/11 attacks. However, that is not the case. Indeed, that is why John Ashcroft does not want the defense to produce bin al-Shibh to testify.

The Justice Department and the Defense Department have totally refused to cooperate with the judge's order, grandiosely claiming that any questioning whatever of bin al-Shibh, could jeopardize the entire US war on international terrorism. To date, even the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has upheld most of the government's actions in terrorism cases (such as the "unlawful combatant" designation), has declined to overturn the judge's order.

The Justice Department has been dropping broad hints that it will abandon the Federal court case, and transfer Moussaoui to military custody, if faced with no choice but to produce bin al-Shibh. Of course, even the military tribunals may grant defendants the right to call witnesses, so that may not work either. But there is nothing in the way the Justice Department interprets the law, or in the President's military order, that says that the government has to put "unlawful combatants" on trial. They can just be held indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, the courts, or even to their families.

From the New Federalist of August 11, 2003