PRIVATE EYE AND JERSEYGATE:

The Beginning of The End?

Private Eye magazine has published an article concerning events in Jersey. They examine one of the things that I exposed – and the consequent actions taken against me by what they describe as “the intensely political system of justice in Jersey”. Click on the image to make the article expand to a readable size.

 Even though you’re able to read that particular article here, taken from the current edition, I urge people to buy Private Eye. Not only is it often very funny – it is the journal to read if you want to understand what’s really going on in the dark underbelly of power in Britain.

Whether they open its pages in pleasure – or fear – everyone in the country who is seriously involved in politics or the media reads Private Eye.

That means it is a main source of hard-core information for everyone who has power over you.

The article is short – eight paragraphs; but what do those few elements mean?

How to understand the gravity of what is revealed?

Not all readers will be familiar with the true nature of ‘Politics’ – just as many readers won’t be familiar with the wholly corrupted power-structure of the British Channel Island of Jersey; a tiny island through which hundreds of billions of dollars pass each year – and in which there is no separation of powers – no independent judiciary - no checks and balances – and not even an independent prosecution system. Although situated in the seemingly “respectable” heart of Western Europe, this island – an off-shore “protectorate” of the British establishment in London – is virtually totally lawless.

In the coming months – just how lawless – is going to be revealed.

But perhaps you don’t want to wait that long? Perhaps you want to know the score – truly “understand” the situation - right now?

OK - I’m going to tell you a story.

Or rather – Wikipedia is going to recount some modern history to you.

I reproduce below some sections of the Wikipedia entry for the Watergate scandal.

As you read the quotes – I invite you to bear in mind certain key words and phrases that Watergate has in common with Jerseygate. For any thinking person – it’s all here; all you need to know:

Democracy.

Democratic sabotage.

Cover-up.

Money.

Election.

Re-election.

Breaking and entering.

Documents photographed.

Theft.

Bugging.

Wiretaps.

Attorney General.

Corruption.

Denial of involvement.

Slush-fund.

Tip of the iceberg.

Reporters.

Information.

Solicitor General.

Interception of communications.

Funds.

Unauthorized and improper.

Fiduciary responsibility.
  

Criminal.

Lobbyists.

Lieutenant governor.

Government officials.

Finance Director.

Deep Throat.

Secret fund.

Accounts.

Bank records.

Malfeasance.

Blackmail.

Hush money.

Obstruction of justice.

Secret deals.

Lawyers.

Redacted.

Perjury.

Abuse of power.

Refusal to disclose evidence.

Conspirators.

Jail.

It isn’t only those words that Watergate and Jerseygate share; the parallels between the two criminal enterprises are remarkable; extraordinarily close. Save for a few, key, differences.

As bad as it was, Watergate only involved illegal wiretapping, burglary, assault upon democracy, political espionage, bribery, abuse of Office, blackmail, abuse of power and perjury – for the “cause” of partisan political advancement.

Jerseygate - absolutely – parallels all of those actions and motives. But it’s worse.

When you’re reading the following quotes from Wikipedia - just imagine - if you can – how much worse Watergate would have been – if self-enrichment – the commercial racketeering of public Office – the outright theft of public money – child abuse - the use of the police force as a private army of burglars – misuse of the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund - the criminal concealment of child-abuse – the criminal concealment of clinical murder – and the suborning of the judiciary - had been involved?

Imagine that – then you start to get close to understanding Jerseygate.

Wikipedia on Watergate; selected quotes:

“The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, on August 9, 1974, the first and only resignation of any U.S. President. It also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction and incarceration of several Nixon administration officials.

The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The FBI connected the payments to the burglars to a slush fund used by the 1972 Committee to Re-elect the President.....”

“.....The men who broke into the office were tried and convicted on January 30, 1973. After much investigation, all five men were directly, or indirectly, tied to the 1972 Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, or sometimes pejoratively referred to as CReeP). The trial judge, John J. Sirica, suspected a conspiracy involving higher-echelon government officials. In March 1973, James McCord wrote a letter to Sirica, claiming that he was under political pressure to plead guilty and he implicated high-ranking government officials, including former Attorney General John Mitchell. His letter helped to elevate the affair into a more prominent political scandal.....”

“.....The unravelling of the cover-up began in the immediate aftermath of the arrests, the search of the burglars' hotel rooms, and a background investigation of the initial evidence, most prominently thousands of dollars in cash in their possession at the time of arrest. On June 19, 1972, it was publicly revealed that one of the Watergate burglars was a Republican Party security aide. Former Attorney General John Mitchell, who at the time was the head of the Nixon re-election campaign, denied any involvement with the Watergate break-in or knowledge of the five burglars. On August 1, a $25,000 cashiers check earmarked for the Nixon re-election campaign was found in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. Further investigation would reveal accounts showing that still more thousands had passed through their bank and credit card accounts, supporting their travel, living expenses, and purchases, in the months leading up to their arrests. Examination of the burglars' accounts showed the link to the 1972 Committee to Re-Elect the President, through its subordinate finance committee.....”

“.....The investigative finding, which cleared Bernard Barker’s bank of fiduciary malfeasance, led to the direct implication of members of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, to whom the checks had been delivered. Those individuals were the Committee Bookkeeper and its Treasurer, Hugh Sloan.

The Committee, as an organization, followed normal business accounting standards in allowing only duly authorized individual(s) to accept and endorse on behalf of the Committee any financial instrument created on the Committee’s behalf by itself, or by others. Therefore, no financial institution would accept or process a check on behalf of the Committee unless it had been endorsed and verified as endorsed by a duly authorized individual(s). On the checks themselves deposited into Bernard Barker’s bank account was the endorsement of Committee Treasurer Hugh Sloan who was duly authorized and designated to endorse such instruments that were prepared (by others) on behalf of the Committee.

But once Sloan had endorsed a check made payable to the Committee, he had a legal and fiduciary responsibility to see that the check was deposited into the account(s) which were named on the check, and for which he had been delegated fiduciary responsibility. Sloan failed to do that. He was confronted and faced the potential charge of federal bank fraud; he revealed that he had given the checks to G. Gordon Liddy and was directed by Committee Deputy Director Jeb Magruder and Finance Director Maurice Stans to do so.

On September 29, 1972 it was revealed that John Mitchell, while serving as Attorney General, controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance intelligence-gathering against the Democrats. On October 10, the FBI reported that the Watergate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of the officials and heads of the Nixon re-election campaign. Despite these revelations, Nixon's re-election campaign was never seriously jeopardized, and on November 7 the President was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides ever in American political history.....”

“.....The connection between the break-in and the re-election campaign committee was highlighted by media coverage. In particular, investigative coverage by Time, The New York Times, and especially The Washington Post, fueled focus on the event. The coverage dramatically increased publicity and consequent political repercussions. Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information suggesting that knowledge of the break-in, and attempts to cover it up, led deep into the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and even the White House. Chief among the Post's anonymous sources was an individual they had nicknamed Deep Throat, who was much later (2005) revealed to be former Deputy Director of the FBI William Mark Felt, Sr.. It was Deep Throat who met secretly with Woodward, and told him of Howard Hunt’s involvement with the Watergate break-in, and that the rest of the White House staff regarded the stake in Watergate extremely high. Deep Throat also warned Woodward that the FBI wanted to know where he and the other reporters were getting the information which was uncovering even a wider web of crimes than first disclosed. In one of their last meetings, all of which took place at an underground parking garage somewhere in Washington DC at 2:00 AM, Deep Throat cautioned Woodward that he might be followed and not to trust their phone conversations.....”

“.....A taped conversation that was crucial to the case against President Nixon took place between the President and his counsel, John Dean, on March 21, 1973. In this conversation, Dean summarizes many aspects of the Watergate case, and then focuses on the subsequent cover-up, describing it as a "cancer on the presidency". The burglary team was being paid hush money for their silence and Dean states: "that's the most troublesome post-thing, because Bob [Haldeman] is involved in that; John [Ehrlichman] is involved in that; I am involved in that; Mitchell is involved in that. And that's an obstruction of justice." Dean continues and states that Howard Hunt is blackmailing the White House, demanding money immediately, and President Nixon states that the blackmail money should be paid: "…just looking at the immediate problem, don't you have to have –handle Hunt's financial situation damn soon? […] you've got to keep the cap on the bottle that much, in order to have any options." At the time of the initial congressional impeachment debate on Watergate, it was not known that Nixon had known and approved of the payments to the Watergate defendants much earlier than this conversation. Among later released recordings, Nixon's conversation with Haldeman on August 1, 1972 is one of several tapes that establishes this. Nixon states: "Well…they have to be paid. That's all there is to that. They have to be paid" During congressional debate on impeachment, those who believed that impeachment required a criminally indictable offense focused their attention on President Nixon's agreement to make the blackmail payments, regarding this as an affirmative act to obstruct justice as a member of the cover-up conspiracy.

Cox's refusal to drop his subpoena influenced Nixon to demand the resignations of Richardson and deputy William Ruckelshaus, on October 20, 1973, in a search for someone in the Justice Department willing to fire Cox. This search ended with Solicitor General Robert Bork. Though Bork believed Nixon's order to be valid and appropriate, he considered resigning to avoid being "perceived as a man who did the President's bidding to save my job." However, both Richardson and Ruckelshaus persuaded him not to resign, in order to prevent any further damage to the Justice Department. As the new acting department head, Bork carried out the presidential order and dismissed the special prosecutor. Allegations of wrongdoing prompted Nixon to famously state "I'm not a crook" in front of 400 Associated Press managing editors on November 17, 1973.

Nixon was compelled, however, to allow the appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued the investigation. While Nixon continued to refuse to turn over actual tapes, he agreed to release transcripts of a large number of them; Nixon cited the fact that any audio pertinent to national security information could be redacted from the released tapes.....”

“.....On March 1, 1974, former aides to the president, known as the "Watergate Seven" — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson — were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. John Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, and other figures had already pleaded guilty. On April 5, 1974, former Nixon appointments secretary Dwight Chapin was convicted of lying to the grand jury. Two days later, the Watergate grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.

Nixon's position was becoming increasingly precarious, and the House of Representatives began formal investigations into the possible impeachment of the president. The House Judiciary Committee voted 27 to 11 on July 27, 1974 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the president: obstruction of justice. The second (abuse of power) and third (contempt of Congress) articles were passed on July 29, 1974 and July 30, 1974, respectively.

On August 5, 1974, the previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972, was released. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented Nixon and Haldeman meeting in the Oval Office and formulating a plan to block investigations by having the CIA falsely claim to the FBI that national security was involved. Haldeman introduces the topic as follows: "…the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the–in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have… their investigation is now leading into some productive areas […] and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go." After explaining how the money from CRP was traced to the burglars, Haldeman explained to Nixon the coverup plan: "the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, 'Stay the hell out of this …this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.'" President Nixon approved the plan, and he is given more information about the involvement of his campaign in the break-in, telling Haldeman: "All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest." Returning to the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI, he instructs Haldeman: "You call them in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it."

Prior to the release of this tape, President Nixon had denied political motivations in his instructions to the CIA, and claimed he had no knowledge prior to March 21, 1973 of any involvement by senior campaign officials such as John Mitchell. The contents of this tape persuaded President Nixon's own lawyers, Fred Buzhardt and James St. Clair, "The tape proved that the President had lied to the nation, to his closest aides, and to his own lawyers – for more than two years." The tape, which was referred to as a "smoking gun", hampered Nixon politically. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the committee announced that they would all support impeachment when the vote was taken in the full House.....”

“.....Charles Colson pleaded guilty to charges concerning the Daniel Ellsberg case; in exchange, the indictment against him for covering up the activities of the Committee to Re-elect the President was dropped, as it was against Strachan. The remaining five members of the Watergate Seven indicted in March went on trial in October 1974, and on January 1, 1975, all but Parkinson were found guilty. In 1976, the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Mardian; subsequently, all charges against him were dropped. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell exhausted their appeals in 1977. Ehrlichman entered prison in 1976, followed by the other two in 1977.

The effect on the upcoming Senate election and House race, only three months later, was significant. The Democrats gained five seats in the Senate and 49 in the House. Watergate was also indirectly responsible for changes in campaign financing. It was a driving factor in amending the Freedom of Information Act in 1974, as well as laws requiring new financial disclosures by key government officials, such as the Ethics in Government Act.....”

“.....Since Nixon and many senior officials involved in Watergate were lawyers, the scandal severely tarnished the public image of the legal profession. In order to defuse public demand for direct federal regulation of lawyers (as opposed to leaving it in the hands of state bar associations or courts), the American Bar Association (ABA) launched two major reforms. First, the ABA decided that its existing Model Code of Professional Responsibility (promulgated 1969) was a failure and replaced it with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in 1983. The MRPC have been adopted in part or in whole by 49 states (and is being actively considered by the last one, California). Its preamble contains an emphatic reminder to young lawyers that the legal profession can remain self-governing only if lawyers behave properly. Second, the ABA promulgated a requirement that law students at ABA-approved law schools take a course in professional responsibility (which means they must study the MRPC). The requirement remains in effect.....”

“.....Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because they had considerable information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released, and that Larry O’Brien had the information. O’Brien, who had received $25,000 from Hughes, didn’t actually have any documents but Meier claims to have wanted Richard Nixon to think he did. It is only a question of conjecture then that Donald called his brother Richard and told him that Meier gave the Democrats all the Hughes information that could destroy him and that O’Brien had the proof. The fact is Larry O'Brien, elected Democratic Party Chairman, was also a lobbyist for Howard Hughes in a Democratic controlled Congress and the possibility of his finding about Hughes' illegal contributions to the Nixon campaign was too much of a danger for Nixon to ignore and O'Brien's office at Watergate became a target of Nixon's intelligence in the political campaign. This theory has been proposed as a motivation for the break-in.....”

There is, of course, a particularly fundamental difference between Watergate and Jerseygate in that Nixon didn’t – quite – have the power to decide not to investigate and prosecute himself – unlike Philip Bailhache, Michael Birt, William Bailhache and Tim le Cocq – the London appointed and protected Jersey officials at the heart of the scandal.

Those readers who are familiar with Watergate may remember some very famous quotes. For example, this from special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski:

“From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during the Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law.”

I hope that Jaworski was right in respect of the USA. In the coming months we will discover whether his assessment runs in the British sphere. Because as far as the British island of Jersey is concerned – ‘our “constitution” has not worked’.

The journalist who was most prominent in exposing the Watergate scandal was Bob Woodward, and it is difficult to avoid finding parallels with the work of today’s citizens’ media - and Jerseygate - when reading some of his quotations:

“Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity.”

“The source known as Deep Throat provided a kind of road map through the scandal. His one consistent message was that the Watergate burglary was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“The fact of the Watergate cover-up is not nearly as interesting as the step into making the cover-up. And when you understand the step, you understand that Richard Nixon lied. That he was a criminal.”

There are a lot of “Richard Nixons” in Jerseygate – but most prominent amongst them are the London-appointed succession of Attorney Generals– not least William and Philip Bailhache.

For reasons that are going to become clear – they were behind the assault, aggravated burglary and theft conducted against me - as carried out by the States of Jersey police under the leadership of David Warcup and Mick Gradwell.

Private Eye – in the article quoted at the head of this posting - reports that part of the episode thus:

“This gave the Jersey authorities the excuse they needed to act against a thorn in their side. In an unprecedented move for alleged data protection offences, the police raided Syvret’s house without a warrant, seizing and copying papers and computer hard drives containing, among other things, confidential correspondence with his constituents and information on other Jersey scandals.”

The Jersey police – obeying the orders of a personally and professionally conflicted and compromised Attorney General– engaged in burglary – assault -illegal breaking and entering – the theft of the sacrosanct private communications between the Jersey public and their elected representatives.

As Senator Sam Ervin – Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee observed: -

“If the many allegations made to this date are true, then the burglars who broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate were, in effect, breaking into the home of every citizen.”

Jersey’s Attorney General, and a suborned police force – following the illegal suspension of Graham Power – mounting illegal raids - burglary, theft –political repression – against your democratically elected representatives – against you.

I genuinely wonder about the rationality of the Jersey oligarchs and their vassals.

It isn’t clear – even now – that they understand the territory they have chosen to occupy.

But even if they don’t recognise the terra damnata they’ve voyaged into and the gravity of their position – a lot of other people now do.

Stuart.