Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them
January 16th, 2008
As noted last month, the always gullible anti-Churchill bloc has been spending its collective free time slobbering over the pages of the vanity press offering American Indian Mafia, penned by Joseph H. Trimbach. Mr. Trimbach is a former FBI Special Agent in Charge responsible in part for the carnage visited upon the Pine Ridge Indian reservation during the 1970s.
Now, I haven’t read the book — it’s a quirk of mine, I tend to eschew the vanity press dribblings of drooling lunatics — but our own Court Reporter has been providing a little backstory on Mr. Trimbach, here. Turns out that Mr. Trimbach’s got a well-deserved reputation for lying like Bill Clinton on Viagra night.
Court Reporter’s posts as follows, in full. (The Laurie who he’s addressing is one of the aforementioned anti-Churchill bloc. A remarkably — though not atypically — ditch-water dumb example thereof.)
I came across this while doing a little bedtime reading last night, Laurie. Since you profess such concern with lies and the lying liars who tell them, I thought you’d be interested. It’s based on the trial transcript for U.S. v. Dennis Banks and Russell Means (374 F. Supp. 321, 331 (S.D., Feb 12-Sept. 16, 1974), and will be found in Rex Wyler, Blood of the Land (1982) at pages 114-115. I’ve added emphasis at certain points, for what will be obvious reasons.
“The first government lie was not discovered until a year after the trial, but was suspected throughout: because of apparent government knowledge of supposedly secret defense strategy, the defense began to suspect that one or more of the volunteer defense aides was an FBI informer. On March 24, 1974 lawyer Mark Lane asked witness JOSEPH TRIMBACH, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI for Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, if…FBI…informers had infiltrated the defense camp, TRIMBACH said: ‘The answer is no.’ Judge Nichol ordered that prosecutor [Richard] Hurd check FBI informer files against a list of defense team personnel, and to report any material that might indicate government infiltration of the Banks/Means defense. On March 28, Hurd met with Attorney General William, Saxbe and FBI Director Clarence Kelley, and then submitted an affidavit to the court claiming that FBI files contained no material ‘which would arguably be considered as evidence of an invasion of the Legal Defense Camp.’ Both TRIMBACH and Hurd had lied to the court, although the truth was concealed behind FBI ‘top secret’ status, not to be revealed until [February 1975].”
What was the lie, you ask? That the FBI had not infiltrated the Banks/Means defense team, when in fact Trimbach’s office was paying Douglass Durham—Dennis’s Banks’s personal bodyguard and AIM’s nominal “Security Director”—$1,000 per month as a “key informant.” Durham attended every defense strategy meeting before and during the Banks/Means trial, and met regularly with Trimbach’s agents to report what he’d heard.
It’s marginally possible that Hurd was not deliberately providing false to Judge Nichol in his affidavit, but this would be true only if Trimbach had lied to him as well as the court about Durham.
Either way, Trimbach himself unquestionably lied under oath.
Okay, Laurie, that’s one very well-documented example of Trimbach’s dishonesty. There’s more, but I find it appropriate to follow your lead and dribble the examples out, one post at a time.
. . .
Round 2, Laurie, using the same citations and with the same emphasis as last time.
“Other lies…were discovered by the defense. On March 12, [1974] TRIMBACH assured Judge Nichol that there had been no illegal FBI wiretaps during the Wounded Knee occupation or investigation. On March 20 he testified on the stand that no such wiretap interceptions had taken place. But on March 29 the defense obtained from FBI agents Gerald Bertinot and Susan Rolley-Malone an affidavit signed by TRIMBACH which outlined conversations illegally monitored by Bertinot and Rolley-Malone. It was further discovered that prosecutor Hurd’s secretary had notarized a wiretap affidavit signed by TRIMBACH…”
There’s a legal term for this sort of lie, Laurie. It’s called perjury.
. . .
Round 3, Laurie, again relying on the same sources.
“Following TRIMBACK’s lies…the court learned that the FBI had worded a teletype to its agents warning them to tailor responses to court questions so as not to provide a basis for a motion to dismiss. Nichol considered this a green light to the agents to shade the truth. The court also discovered that the prosecution and the FBI had mislead the court by earlier denials that there were paid informers assigned to AIM prior to the Wounded Knee seige, and that there was a general FBI Wounded Knee File” (facts which TRIMBACH, for one, had denied under oath—although, once again, at least some of the paid informants reported to Trimbach’s Minneapolis Field Office).
Having fun yet, Laurie?
. . . .
Hi, Laurie, ready for Round 4?
Bearing in mind that there’s more than one way of lying, consider the fact that the FBI, as the Justice Department’s investigative arm, is responsible for locating and vetting the credibility of witnesses whose sworn testimony is then elicited by federal prosecutors before a jury. Remember as well that, in the Wounded Knee cases, the FBI’s responsibilities were carried out under the direct authority of Joseph Trimbach.
With those things in mind, it is quite revealing to discover that, “a sixteen-year-old youth, Alexander Richards, was given immunity from prosecution on Wounded Knee charges in exchange for testimony against Banks and Means. Under cross-examination, Richards admitted that he had lied on the stand, and documents surfaced showing that he had been in jail during the time of events which he claimed to have witnessed at Wounded Knee. It was later revealed that Richards had signed three affidavits for the FBI prior to his release from prison,” only one of which was introduced at trial, mainly because the other two directly contradicted it (and each other, for that matter).
This is called subornation of perjury, Laurie, and, like perjury itself, it’s a crime. It is, moreover, hardly the only time Trimbach and his agents resorted to such tactics during the Banks/Means trial.
“By late August, six months into the trial, the prosecution had yet to connect either Banks or Means to any of the alleged crimes. Hurd, however, produced a surprise witness, Louis Moves Camp, who testified that he’d witnessed virtually every crime with which the defendants had been charged… If Moves Camp’s testimony was true, the defendants could be found guilty of every charge contained in the eleven-point indictment presented by the government” (Weyler, Blood of the Land, p. 118).
Rather convenient, wouldn’t you say? Here’s the reason.
“The witness’s mother, Ellen Moves Camp…told the court that her son Louis had left Wounded Knee about March 12, 1973, not on May 1 as he had testified. She said he had traveled to California, had not returned, and could not have witnessed some of the events which he had described to the court. Further investigation revealed that a BIA employee had seen Moves Camp in California from March 17 through the end of June. Records from the Monterey Peninsula Cable Television Company revealed that Moves Camp had appeared on a television show there on April 23 and 26, days that he supposedly witnessed events at Wounded Knee. Other witnesses testified that he had been on the San Jose State College campus in April.” (Weyler, pages 119-119).
Ready for the best part?
“Investigation further revealed that legal aides for the proosecution had suggested that, prior to his court appearance, Moves Camp be given a polygraph (lie detector) test, but that FBI Special Agent TRIMBACH hard ordered that the test not be given.” (Weyler, p. 119).
Getting the picture yet, Laurie?
January 16th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Great work, CR.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:00 am
[Deleted.]
January 17th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Waaaaaaa!
January 17th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I agree with Rockabilly Baby, Court Reporter. It does appear that you overlooked one form of lying of which SAC Joseph Trimbach was guilty during the 1974 Banks/Means trial.
This concerns the systematic withholding of exculpatory or potentially exculpatory evidence—that is, evidence that might have served to undermine, or in some instances perhaps nullify, the charges against the defendants—turned up by his agents during the course of their investigations in the Wounded Knee cases.
Actually, you did provide an excellent example—the entry of a false affidavit by Alex Richards into the record, while withholding two other contradicting affidavits from the same individual—but never really emphasized the point that deliberate suppression of the latter was every bit as dishonest as false testimony itself.
And it was equally illegal.
As Rex Weyler quite accurately summarizes this aspect of the Banks/Means trial record at page 117 of his Blood of the Land, “a court search revealed ‘131 discoverable or arguably discoverable pieces of evidence which hadn’t been turned over” by the FBI in response either in response to routine discovery motions by defense counsel, or in response to subsequent and repeated instructions by Judge Nichol.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Speaking of lying–you posted my name twice above.
I didn’t post last night because a family member was dying.
This morning I had to go to work.
You are scum.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Shit, Snapple, I thought that was you. In that case, allow me to extend my humble apologies to the prankster for the deletion.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
You mention the lawyer Mark Lane.
The Mitrokhin Archive (documentation smuggled out of the KGB archives) mentions Mark Lane as a person who advanced fabricated theories of the Kennedy assassination.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
That’s the best you got to the series of fucking lies and perjuries in which your hero has been caught dead to rights? In a court of law, no less?
January 17th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Dude, is that Dewey Cox in your masthead?
(As for the women on the left, I guess its a chorus line of Ward Churchill’s ex-wives.)
Don’t whopper freakout, bro.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Our condolences Snapple. I hope they didn’t have a painful decline. I know how it can be with cancer and diseases like that. Maybe you should take a long weekend or week off from various duties, unless you are at work right now.
By the way, was it Johnson who ordered Kennedy killed? Rolling Stone had an article about that.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
As I recall, according to Paul Krassner, Johnson was caught fucking the wound in Kennedy’s head. Heh.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Actually, wait. She/he says ‘you’re mean, my relative just died”, then comes back a couple hours later to talk about the Mitrokhin archive. Time to get off the internet. Is this blog supposed to be a polite (I avoid the word civil) forum where people come to either disrespect Ward Churchill or tolerate this in harmony?
January 17th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
How is it, again, that we’re sure that Snapple isn’t really just Joe Trimbach in drag? I forgot.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
We don’t, Rama. They could very well be one and the same.
Meanwhile, where, oh where, is the Scrunt? Or is it “Fred” this week?
Either way, we’re no way overdue on being set straight by her usual fact-free announcement of what she “thinks” about the matters at hand.
Don’t suppose she finally just rotted away into nothingness, dooya?
January 17th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Stop calling me Trimbach!
January 17th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Trimbach.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Please…
January 17th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
As I said: Trimbach.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Waaaaaaaaaaa!
January 17th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I just gotta get in on this.
trimbach, m’kay?
January 17th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
This AIM Lawyer Mark Lane tried to brink the materials for Molotoff cocktails to the AIM terrorists.
Mark Lane was also the lawyer for Jim Jones.
Mark lane was one of only 9 people to save himself by escaping into the forest when 913 people were murdered by cyanide cocktails, shooting, and strangling.
You mean THAT mark Lane? You mean the Mark Lane that got encouragement from the KGB for his “research”, according to the Mitrokhin files?
You mean THAT Mark Lane!
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2008/01/mark-lane-aimster-attorney.html
January 18th, 2008 at 9:14 am
that’s pretty weak snapple.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:12 am
So the entire defense for Trimbach’s lies is that it was all Mark Lane’s fault?
January 18th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
That sounds like Tony Serra. I heard the Jonestown people were kept on the same drugs by the CIA’s MKULTRA they tried on Ted Kaczynski
January 18th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Genrikh Borovik is a Russian publicist, writer, playwright and filmmaker, and a KGB operative.
He promoted conspiracy theories about the John F. Kennedy assassination through Mark Lane, according to the Mitrokhin file. The books on these notes from the KGB files were written by the head of the History department at Cambridge, Christopher Andrew, so I think they are pretty authoritative.
Mark Lane wrote a book that disseminated anti-CIA conspiracy theories about the Jonestown murders. If the CIA was killing people at Jonestown, how come they missed someone like Mark Lane? How come he was one of only 9 people who did not die? How come he got away when 913 died? He was the Jonestown lawyer and the AIM lawyer.
The FBI caught Mark Lane trying to get into Wounded Knee with stuff in his car that could be made into Molotov cocktails.
Those AIM burned up/wrecked the whole town.
Luckily it didn’t turn into a Jonestown.
Mark Lane is the one who is around when bad things happen and then he blames the CIA or FBI.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2008/01/mark-lane-aimster-attorney.html
Churchill’s wife was married to Chimurenga Jenga a man who claimed that the Black police and Black mayor of Atlanta were covering up for KKK child murders. Black policemen and politicians do not cover up for the killers of black children.
These days, David Duke is an apologist for Putin, who was a high KGB lawyer.
The FBI caught “the” Atlanta child killer–but some FBI think there was more going on than just that one serial child-killer.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Lane’s Wikipedia notes:
“[Mark Lane] writes about Jonestown in his 1980 book The Strongest Poison. That book, since its publication, has been criticized by some as a long list of conspiracy theories, and as a repeat of the stories told by Rev. Jim Jones to keep his followers in a state of fear, such as that CIA-employed mercenaries were posted nearby and slaughtered Jonestown residents as they tried to flee through the jungle.”
How come, if these apocryphal “CIA mercenaries” were shooting people as they fled, they didn’t shoot Mark Lane?
This is the same kind of lie as Churchill tells about the FBI-backed death squads on Pine Ridge who supposedly massacred 342 Indians. And he published that in Phil Agee’s KGB mouthpiece.
According to an article I read in a college paper, Churchill claimed he was AIM security in the early 1970s. How come the apocryphal FBI-backed death squads didn’t shoot Churchill?
The purpose of these lies by KGB mouthpieces is to discredit the FBI and CIA.
January 19th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Snapple, I’m letting you comment in hopes you might actually have some kind of response to the numerous lies Trimbach has told. Mark Lane didn’t invent the lies; they’re a matter of court record. You got anything at all?
January 19th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
In a section on pages 215-224 of American Indian Mafia in a section called “The Wiretap that Wasn’t,” Joe Trimbach tells who claimed he gave perjured testimony–it was only the defense lawyers, not the judge.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2008/01/former-fbi-special-agent-in-charge.html
There were no illegal wire taps–there was a party line that everyone knew was a party line because the terrorists were talking to the FBI on it. It had been installed by and was paid for by the government.
Why would Mark Lane discuss confidential legal information on a party line moments before talking to his clients in person? This is just a lot of eye-wash.
Trimbach explains:
A few monitorings on a common phone line in the midst of a life-and-death situation could hardly constitute a violation of the perpetrator’s rights. Moreover, our ‘wiretap’ involved no wire and no taps. There was no attempt to conceal the telephone at RB1 [Road Block 1]. There was no electronic surveillance, no bugging equipment, no recording equipment, no recording equipment, no Nixonian tapes, none of the things Kunstler was sure we were trying to hide” (221).
…Had Judge [Fred] Nichol truly believed that I had lied in his courtroom, I am quite sure he would have held me in contempt, just as he had threatened. And if I had committed perjury, he might have been justified in doing so. This was a man who would have enjoyed savaging my reputation in front of an approving defense team (223).
…”Much to the disappointment of the defense, this was not how it played out. When it came time to issue his final ruling on the wiretap controversy, Nichol could not convince himself that I had deceived him…I walked out of the courtroom the same way I walked in; with clean hands and a clear conscience” (224).
Mr. Trimbach concludes:
“Despite my success in avoiding jail time, none of Nichol’s judicial conclusions prevented certain authors from claiming I lied under oath. Today, my name and the word ‘perjury’ are often found juxtaposed in accounts promoted by people who would not know the truth if it fell in their laps. For them, accusations from a small group of radical lawyers are sufficient justification for libelous bilge…I take solace in knowing the allegations come from otherwise unremarkable ideologues. In the fullness of time, truth wins out” (224).
January 19th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I have more details at the link below, but it is very complicated so you should read the book yourself and report honestly what Trimbach says and not mischaracterize his words.
Why would you want to argue with me when Trimbach is on the record?
Here is my article about what Trimbach says about perjury in a section called “The Wiretap That Wasn’t.”
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2008/01/former-fbi-special-agent-in-charge.html
Unless you want to believe Mark Lane—who was reportedly receiving anonymous funds from the KGB according to the Mitrokhin file as well as encouragement from a Russian writer notorious for his KGB affiliation, Genrikh/Henry Borovik.
Mark Lane was also Jonestown’s lawyer and was one of only 9 people who saved himself from Jim Jones’ cyanide cocktail when over 900 of his clients perished. Then he claimed that CIA mercenaries were killing people as they fled. Isn’t this starting to sound like a rerun of a bad movie?
Soviet propagandists wrote a book that said the same thing and quoted Mark Lane.
Trimbach reports that the FBI removed molotov cocktail ingredients from Mark Lane’s car before letting him proceed into Wounded Knee.
This lawyer didn’t care about the lives of these people. They all staged Wounded Knee so they could try to draw the FBI into a confrontation so they could blame them.
This all was classic KGB “active measures.” They want to undermine our law enforcement in people’s eyes.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Snapple, in court your entire answer would have been striken as non-responsive.
Care to address TRIMBACH’s lies, or does that just strike too close to home for you?
January 19th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Well, that’s specious logic. It’s possible for the communists to support something that is right or good, or not specifically communist. It is possible for a communist nation history book to contain correct facts.
how come the CIA reported the massacre half a day before Guyanese army got there, who were the first on the scene. Also, why won’t our government release Jonestown documents, despite Freedom of Information act requests? Lots of thorazine found out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1mMQU1irhk
January 19th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
The problem with Trimbach’s denial of the perjury involved in his denial under oath that he’d ordered illegal wiretaps at Wounded Knee has nothing to do with who alleged what, Snapple.
The problem is that the actual order to install the wiretaps, signed by Trimbach, was produced in court.
So, unless you can produce evidence to the effect that “the KGB” forged Trimbach’s signature—something he himself has never claimed—his denial under oath that he ordered the taps was a lie (i.e., perjury).
So his current denial that his denial was a lie is just another lie.
January 20th, 2008 at 3:33 am
Why do you only want to argue with me? Why don’t you see for yourself what Trimbach wrote? He explains better than I why a court didn’t say he committed perjury. Just because some defense lawyer makes this claim as a defense maneuver, doesn’t make it so.
Trimbach writes that he did not order wiretaps. There was no wiretap, according to Trimbach in this section I commented on. That’s why it is called “The Wiretap that Wasn’t.” They sent a MEMO to Washington and ASKED for a wiretap and didn’t get it.
Mr. Trimbach reports that the main topic during the second round of cross examination was the Title III affidavit that had been requested by U.S. Attorney William Clayton after an airplane landed in the village and resupplied the AIMsters holding the town hostage (218-219).
Mr. Trimbach reports:
“This particular MEMO, with the knowledge and consent of all three government attorneys, made its way to the Justice Department, where it died a certain death in [President Richard Nixon’s] scandal plagued Washington. But like the other memos, a paper trail was enough to feed the conspiracy monster once again. The fact that I had no recollection of approving this request, as I surely must have…was not helpful” (219).
Mr. Trimbach explains:
[Defense attorney Mark] Lane was intent on exploring the history of wiretaps, in an attempt to get me on record as a government agent manifestly well-versed in spying on innocent civilians. I am sure he was disappointed to discover I was not conversant with the extensive approval process required to authorize a wiretap…The answer I gave was truthful, but again my choice of words was less than stellar” (219).
Mr. Trimbach testified in court that he had never seen a “general proceedure” wiretap affidavit, and explains in his book that he was referring to a “full blown Title III wiretap application—the kind I had never seen before—not to the preliminary memorandum and transmittal letter” from one of his Agents. He comments that “the judge’s interruption (of which there were several), helped clarify the question as referring back to a Title III affidavit, not the preliminary request” (219-220).
Mr. Trimbach writes:
“This was the only time I misspoke on the witness stand, if you can call it that. According to the defense, I had just committed perjury. I supposedly told a big whopper about not remembering the affidavit that I later acknowledged having authorized. But when I said I had never seen a “general proceedure’ wiretap affidavit, I was referring to a full blown Title III wiretap application—the kind I had never seen before—not to the preliminary memorandum and transmittal letter from one of my Agents” (219-220).
Mr. Trimbach explains a few pages later that there was no “effort to hide evidence of a so-called wiretap, as [defense attorney William Kunstler] alleged. Had there been a real wiretap, we would have used special equipment—telephones are for amateurs—for the specific purpose of gathering evidence against the perpetrators. A few monitorings on a common phone line in the midst of a life-and-death situation could hardly constitute a violation of the perpetrator’s rights. Moreover, our ‘wiretap’ involved no wire and no taps. There was no attempt to conceal the telephone at RB1 [Road Block 1]. There was no electronic surveillance, no bugging equipment, no recording equipment, no recording equipment, no Nixonian tapes, none of the things Kunstler was sure we were trying to hide” (221).
……”Much to the disappointment of the defense, this was not how it played out. When it came time to issue his final ruling on the wiretap controversy, Nichol could not convince himself that I had deceived him…
“Despite my success in avoiding jail time, none of Nichol’s judicial conclusions prevented certain authors from claiming I lied under oath. Today, my name and the word ‘perjury’ are often found juxtaposed in accounts promoted by people who would not know the truth if it fell in their laps. For them, accusations from a small group of radical lawyers are sufficient justification for libelous bilge…I take solace in knowing the allegations come from otherwise unremarkable ideologues. In the fullness of time, truth wins out” (224).
And soom–I might add–John Graham may tell who all those people were who conspired in the murder of Anna Mae Aquash—lawyers included.
January 20th, 2008 at 3:40 am
These defense lawyers seem to be part of their clients’ criminal conspiracies—they aren’t just defending them.
The lawyers want to use attorney-client privilege to have privacy to commit crimes.
Lynne Sewart went to prison for that.
Attorney-client privilege is no good if the lawyer is in on the crime.
If the lawyer conspires with his clients to commit a crime, then he is just one of the criminals.
He can’t claim attorney-client privilege if he is one of the criminals and not just the lawyer.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Court Reporter alleges that Trimbach denied
“the perjury involved in his denial under oath that he’d ordered illegal wiretaps.”
He was initially talking about MEMOS he sent to ASK for a LEGAL wiretap which they didn’t get, and the defense attorneys seized on that.
If you look at the whole discussion, even the judge chimed in to clarify.
You can CLAIM it is perjury, but this judge didn’t, even tho’ he was inviting the defendents to his home.
The whole reason Wounded Knee was staged was not to help the Indians—it was to try to put the FBI on trial for supposedly violating the rights of “innocent” people who destroyed an entire town, raped, and murdered.
Their real goal was to damage the FBI.
But now we will see if John Graham names the conspirators who ordered him to murder Anna Mae.
One of them might even be that lawyer who claimed he was Anna Mae’s lawyer.
He is like the lawyer who ran away into the forest when his 900 clients were murdered.
Trimbach wrote a book that was endorsed by Judge William Webster. People like that don’t sign their names to lies.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:07 am
The lawyer who ran away into the forest when his 900 clients were murdered would be MARK LANE, darling of Genrikh Borovik. That would be MARK LANE, whose sugar daddy was the KGB, according to Mitrokhin.
MARK LANE’s goal—in my view—is to hurt America by hurting the people who protect us–the FBI and CIA.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:28 am
“I walked out of the courtroom the same way I walked in; with clean hands and a clear conscience.”–Former FBI SAC Joseph H. Trimbach (American Indian Mafia p. 224)
What does MARK LANE have to say for himself after he walked out of Jonestown and left his clients–the people of Jonestown–to die?
Does he have clean hands and a clear conscience?
And Ellison—Anna Mae’s lawyer—did he defend his client when she got in a mess with both the law and the terrorists who had tied her up and raped her?
Does Ellison have clean hands and a clear conscience?
We may find out when John Graham has his trial.
These lawyers didn’t defend their clients. That’s how I noticed what they are. They defend the BIG LIE, not their clients. They try to damage the police and FBI, but they don’t help their clients.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Court Reporter CLAIMS:
“The problem is that the actual order to install the wiretaps, signed by Trimbach, was produced in court.”
So why are pages 215-224 of Trimbach’s book “American Indian Mafia” called “The Wiretap that Wasn’t”?
Triimbach writes that one of his agents wrote a “preliminary memorandum and transmittal letter” to request a legal wiretap:
“This particular memo, with the knowledge and consent of all three government attorneys, made its way to the Justice Department, where it died a certain death in [President Richard Nixon’s] scandal plagued Washington. But like the other memos, a paper trail was enough to feed the conspiracy monster once again. The fact that I had no recollection of approving this request, as I surely must have…was not helpful” (219).
Mr. Trimbach writes:
“This was the only time I misspoke on the witness stand, if you can call it that. According to the defense, I had just committed perjury. I supposedly told a big whopper about not remembering the affidavit that I later acknowledged having authorized. But when I said I had never seen a “general proceedure’ wiretap affidavit, I was referring to a full blown Title III wiretap application—the kind I had never seen before—not to the preliminary memorandum and transmittal letter from one of my Agents” (219-220).
AIM, on the other hand, did violate the people’s rights—AIM terrorists cut off the people’s phones so they couldn’t call the police.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Thanks for proving my point, Snapple. Trimbach signed off. Period. And he “later acknowledged” having done so only when the document with his signature on it was introduced in court. Just as I said.
As to Trimbach attempt in American Indian Mafia to parse it all away by saying that he was referring to a “full blown Title III wiretap” rather than the sort of wiretap he’d actually approved, the fact is that he was never asked anything so specific.
Rather, he was asked whether he’d approved ANY wiretaps at Wounded Knee. And he denied that he had.
So, now that we’ve nailed down the fact that Joseph Trimbach perjured himself with regard to the wiretaps, would you care to try your hand at his other lies under oath?
How about starting with his repeated denials that the FBI had infiltrated the defense team? Please note before setting yourself to the task that you’ve already quoted Trimbach himself as insisting that he did not “misspeak” in such matters. So—unless you can show that Douglass Durham was not “really” an FBI infiltrator—Trimbach must have been through his teeth when he testified as he did. Right?
Oh, dear me. I almost forgot to repeat the answer—which I’d already provided—to your question about why pages 215-224 of “Trimbach’s book…are called ‘The Wiretap that Wasn’t.’”
This time, try paying attention: So that he could lie about the matter all over again, Snapple. That much should be clear by now, even to you.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Very good question, CR.
I’m almost as anxious to hear about Agent Trimbach’s refusal to allow Louis Moves Camp to undergo a polygraph before going on the stand to commit what was quickly shown to be false testimony.
The appearance that Trimbach was instrumental in Moves Camp’s perjury is very nearly as conclusive as that pertaining to Trimbach’s own perjury with regard to Douglass Durham’s infiltration of the defense team.
As concerns Moves Camp, I believe there is also evidence that Trimbach’s agents had shielded their witness from a rape charge in Wisconsin shortly before he testified. This could only have been done with Trimbach’s authorization.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Thank you, Professor. Those, too, are good questions.
Sticking with the wiretap issue for the moment, however, I would like to ask Snapple—or Mr. Trimbach, for that matter (and assuming that they’re actually different people)—to explain how it is that, if “the wiretap wasn’t,” one of Trimbach’s agents, Gerald Bertinot, testified during the Banks/Means trial that “he’d listened in on conversations from the Wounded Knee trading post” during the 1973 AIM occupation (see John William Sayer, Ghost Dancing the Law: The Wounded Trials [1997] page 135; Banks/Means trial transcript, vol. 76, pages 14589-14593).
There would seem to be only two alternatives. Either Trimbach is now accusing Agent Bertinot of having entered false testimony, or, contrary to Trimbach’s denials, a wiretap WAS very much in place.
Agent Bertinot’s testimony also indicates that—again contrary to Trimbach’s/Snapple’s assertions—the “AIM terrorists” did NOT “cut off the people’s phones so they couldn’t call the police.”
January 20th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
You rock, CR!