From: Michael Rivero <rivero@ACCESSONE.COM>
Date: Saturday, April 17, 1999 12:00 AM
THE "OTHER VERDICT" IN THE
JAMES SANDERS TRIAL
Last week, in the case brought against investigative journalist
James
Sanders by the United States government, the jury, to the
surprise of
court observers including the judge, convicted James Sanders and
his wife
Elizabeth of possession of a piece of seat fabric from the
wreckage of TWA
800.
They were charged under an obscure law intended to deter souvenir
hunters, and in one of the case's many bizarre twists, the FBI
agent in
charge of the TWA 800 investigation, James Kallstrom, also broke
that same
law. Kallstrom, as was reported in the newspapers and admitted to
in court
documents, removed an item from the wreck of TWA 800 to give away
as a
memento; the very act the law in question was written to deter.
In contrast, the seat fabric obtained by TWA pilot and crash
investigator Terrell Stacy and given to James Sanders was not
handled as a
souvenir, but was sent to a lab for analysis of a strange red
residue
which tainted three rows of seats in the wreckage of the 747.
Journalists are always exhorted to "check their facts".
James Sanders
did just that. The government stated, as a fact, that the red
residue was
3M seat glue, and James Sanders checked that fact.
For such insolence, James Sanders and his wife were arrested and
charged
and convicted. Meanwhile, James Kallstrom, guilty of the same
exact
offense of removing pieces of the TWA 800 wreckage, walks free.
But in the rush by the government to remove the Sanders from the
public
eye, and in the concern for the Sanders by their friends and
supporters, a
key point is being overlooked.
The results of the lab test on the Sanders' swatch of TWA 800
seat
fabric called into question the official government declaration
that the
strange red residue was 3M seat glue. And evidence entered into
the court
record proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the government not
only lied
when it stated that the red residue was seat glue, more damning
yet, did
so knowingly.
The government claimed that a lab test done by a NASA scientist,
Dr.
Charles Bassett, proved that the residue was 3M seat glue. On the
basis of
that one result, the government maintained and maintains to this
very day
that the red residue was seat glue.
But during the discovery phase of the Sanders trial, Dr. Charles
Bassett swore under oath that his tests did not link the red
residue to
seat glue. More to the point, the tests he was asked to perform
for the
NTSB could not have made such a determination. Even more damning,
efforts
by Bassett to coax the normally pale green 3M seat glue into
assuming the
reddish color of the residue all failed.
This is the "other verdict" in the trial of James
Sanders.
The government lied when it said it had a lab test proving that
the red
residue was seat glue. In fact, now documented in a court of law,
what
they had was a lab test which proved exactly the opposite.
In the trial of James Sanders, regardless of the verdicts handed
down by
the jury, it is the government that leaves the courtroom branded
a liar.
It's official now. The government is lying to the public about
TWA 800.
And not just about the red residue and bogus lab tests, many
other lies
have been exposed, including the initial denial of the status of
the
warning zones, the presence of military vessels near the crash
site, the
workability of the pingers on the flight recorders; even the
government's
explanation for a suspicious line of flight recorder data has
been proven
to be a lie. The claim that a noseless 747 can maintain stable
flight and
climb 1000 feet per the government's cover story is both
aerodynamically
and structurally impossible.
But the government's claim that a lab test proved that the red
residue
was seat glue is not only another in a long list of proven lies,
it's a
lie which was exposed in a court of law.
Just think about what that really means, to know for a fact,
proven in a
court of law, that the government is lying to the public about
TWA 800.
It means, for one thing, that the mainstream media, which still
parrots
the claim that the red residue is seat glue, is also lying; yet
another
nail in the coffin of the mainstream media's credibility.
It means that the government is using your tax money to pay
public
relations firms, intelligence operatives and media assets to lie
to you.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the government given the right to
lie to
the public, much less use the public's money to do so.
Most of all, it means that the government's story that TWA 800
was
brought down by a fuel tank explosion of undetermined origin, now
proven
to be supported by lies, is itself a lie. Something else brought
down that
747 and killed 230 people. Something the government is provably
lying to
keep the public from learning about.
And behind it all is the red residue itself, and even though the
government has since stripped the seats in Rows 17, 18, and 19 of
the TWA
wreckage right down to the bare metal, the existence of the
residue is
recorded in photographs and lab results, both Dr. Bassett's and
those from
the lab James Sanders used.
If the red residue had a benign origin, if it were, for example,
tomato
sauce from the in flight dinner service, there would hardly be a
need for
the government to misrepresent the results of Dr. Bassett's pab
tests to
claim it was seat glue. Ergo, the government already knows what
the red
residue is, and it has clearly decided that the public is not
allowed to
know what that is.
James and Elizabeth Sanders are appealing their verdict. There is
much
reason to be hopeful that the appeals court will throw out the
verdict
based on the laws which hold that journalists are not legally
liable for
the actions of their sources. But on the other hand, the
government is
well motivated to make an example of the Sanders in order to
deter other
investigative journalists from the heresy of doubting the
official
explanation, and to judge by the actions of the Federal
Prosecutors as
recorded in the trial transcript, they clearly do not feel
required to
abide by the rules.
There is more here at stake than just the Sanders. If the
convictions
stand, the government will move swiftly to silence any other
journalist
who is daring to question the official explanation for anything,
based on
the precedent set in this case.
James Sanders has a legal defense fund, and he needs your help.
Make check payable to: United States Justice Foundation, and mail
to:
James Sanders
P.O. Box 336
Charles City, VA, 23030