11/28/12 – Kevin Zeese – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
The website is scotthorton.org.
You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at scotthortonshow.
And our first guest on the show today is Kevin Zeese from Voters for Peace and comehomeamerica.us.
And you're some kind of legal advisor to the Bradley Manning Support Network at bradleymanning.org, correct, Kevin?
Yeah, I'm on the steering committee of the Bradley Manning Support Network, which is at bradleymanning.org.
And I am a lawyer, and so I often answer a lot of legal questions around the Bradley Manning case.
Okay, right on.
And now you are – where is this hearing being held now?
I'm at Fort Meade, which is in Maryland, and that is where the hearing is being held.
The hearing today is part of a motion to dismiss filed by Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, and it's based on the fact that he was punished before trial.
As we all, anyone who's followed this case knows, he was held in solitary confinement at Quantico for nine months and mistreated, and it was a very restrictive solitary confinement.
He wasn't allowed to lay down in his cell or exercise in his cell or sit leaning against the wall in his cell.
He had to sit upright all day in his cell and a number of other restrictions on him as well.
And so this is a hearing where they're delving in deeply into his mistreatment.
Okay, now, so yesterday Manning took the stand himself, correct?
No, yesterday it was – Manning is likely to take the stand.
My guess is it will probably be tomorrow.
The other witnesses are going slower than they expected.
They originally thought it would be today.
So far we've heard from two people in the chain of command at Quantico, the base commander and the brig commander, and the brig commander is still testifying, and he'll be probably – after we have this lunch break, he'll probably be still testifying.
And we expect to hear from a prison psychiatrist who was always critical of Manning's conditions of confinement.
He didn't think Manning was a risk to himself.
And then if David Coombs still thinks it's a good move, we'll hear from Bradley Manning, which will be, I think, a very powerful testimony.
Okay, now, so have there been any surprises, or basically the testimony so far is just telling us what we already know?
Well, you know, we're getting into more detail.
What we're really learning is how involved the top brass at the Pentagon was in this case.
Now, closely they're monitoring it.
Yesterday the brig commander Czojki – not the brig commander, the base commander, Quantico base commander Czojki, he talked about how there was a lieutenant general who was very involved and kept very much informed about things.
What they seemed most concerned about at the Pentagon was media coverage and protests and people coming to the base to see Manning and that kind of thing.
They weren't really focused on Manning's conditions of confinement, but they really wanted to be out in front of any media that occurred.
There was talk that there was – in one email that was questioned, there was talk about the Marine commandant, who's the person in charge of the Marines, the chief of staff of the Army, who's the person in charge of the Army, having a meeting about Manning.
But there's no detail about what happened at that meeting, or if it even happened.
There was talk that their meeting was planned.
So that's pretty high-level activity.
The other things I think that were of interest was that it really seemed like the Quantico base, the brig there, was not really the right base for this.
The people at that brig felt like it was not designed for this kind of pre-trial, long-term pre-trial confinement.
Most of the people that went in and out of that brig were transient, 90 days there at the most, and this was an unusual case for them to have.
So they felt like they were not equipped to handle Manning.
So kind of a mixture of the wrong place, a little bit of incompetence, a little distrust between the military folks and the psychiatrists, and also the very big involvement of people at the Pentagon in this.
And they were given lots of details.
And it pretty much came out today in the testimony of Robert Altman, who's in charge of the brig, the Marine in charge of the brig, that any decision on Manning's confinement would have had the final say, would have come from the lieutenant general in the Pentagon.
All right.
Now, was there much talk of the specifics of the abuse?
Actually, before that, what was this about?
There was a dentist who was posing as a psychiatrist?
Well, I wouldn't say posing.
The dentist was, for some reason, in charge of the psychiatry there.
She was a member of the Marines, and she wasn't a psychiatrist herself, but for some reason she was responsible for that part of the brig.
We'll see.
Maybe we'll get more about that.
I'm very curious about that.
They didn't get into it very deep, but I'd like to hear more about what that involves.
It's kind of strange.
It sounds like this suspicion, I guess, would be right, that they put her in charge of that because she would be more willing to do what they say rather than someone who that's their real profession.
I don't think that's what it was.
It just happened to be a Marine who happened to be a dentist, and so she was, I think, already there before Manning got there, and there were also psychiatrists that were hired to come in as well.
So I'm not sure what the deal is, why a dentist was in charge of that, but I guess they thought she had some kind of a medical degree, so I guess that's good enough.
I don't quite get it.
Yeah, well, like you say, I guess we'll wait and see and find out more about that.
But now as far as the rules about the treatment that Manning was subjected to, did anyone justify that, or did they describe in detail?
Yeah, they're very much trying to justify it.
I mean, the key rule that the defense is focused on is that people held in pretrial confinement are not supposed to be punished before trial.
And the argument that Manning is going to be making is that he was punished before trial with this unusually restricted treatment.
What the government's position on that is is that they received him and were told from his stay in Kuwait that he was a suicide risk, that he was distraught, that he was facing serious charges, and that they really wanted to make sure that whatever happened, they didn't want a suicide on their hands.
There had been a suicide within the last few months at Quantico, and so they already were a totally separate case, nothing to do with Manning, just a prisoner who put sock in his mouth and a plastic bag over his head and killed himself.
And so they didn't want to have that repeated, and so they were being extra cautious for that reason and also because this was a high-profile case.
And so they were being very restrictive on his confinement.
They're claiming this wasn't a punishment, this was for his own safety.
So that's really what it's going to come down to, who the judge believes on that.
Right.
And now, so was this a situation where there's examination direct and then cross and all that?
Yes.
So what we have is essentially, at this point, Bradley Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, has been pulling witnesses.
So far we've had two.
I don't think he's finished the second one yet.
And then we'll have a third, which will be a psychiatrist.
And after Coombs questions the witnesses, then they are cross-examined by the prosecutors.
Now, it's unusual in this because the first two witnesses were somewhat hostile witnesses.
They were in the military.
They were responsible for the brig, responsible for the Quantico base, and so they had some responsibility for how Manning was treated.
And so even though it was a direct examination, David Coombs was able to ask a lot of leading questions and kind of push the witness to respond.
On the other hand, the cross-examination is more friendly because, you know, on the government side they're pretty much with the brig commander and the base commander.
So it's an unusual thing.
But, yes, there is a direct examination, cross-examination of these witnesses, and if Manning testifies, which I hope happens, it will be really a tactical decision by David Coombs, whose judgment I trust a great deal.
It will be his decision whether or not it's a good tactic for Manning to testify.
From my perspective as a lawyer, I think for this hearing it would be a very good move for Manning to testify.
In fact, it will be critical, I think, to the success of this motion.
It's for Manning to describe what he went through.
All right, now, but when Coombs is examining these guys, are they pretty much getting away with it?
Like, put yourself in the position of the judge, for example.
Are they making the case that, no, really, we just, man, we could not have this kid end up dead on our hands, so we just did everything we could to protect them?
Or was the lawyer successful in making a fool out of that argument and saying, you know, come on, you were using this as an excuse to abuse him?
Well, he hasn't gotten that blatant.
He has to be very careful about how blatant he gets.
His audience is the judge, and the judge, you know, doesn't want to see him being abusive to witnesses, so he's got to be very careful about that.
But what Coombs is is extremely prepared.
And, you know, he had a fight, a lot of fights over discovery, and one of the last discovery wins that he had was to get thousands of e-mails between the Pentagon and people at the brig and at the base about Manning's treatment.
So he has lots of paper trail.
And so, you know, quite often when one of the witnesses doesn't remember or doesn't remember the way that it occurred in the e-mail, the paper trail, Coombs is able to pull out an e-mail and put it in front of the witness and ask the witness to read specific sentences that sometimes contradict what the witness had just said.
So I think he's been very effective at that.
Really, one thing was in yesterday's hearings, for example, the commander of Quantico tried to say that the Pentagon Lieutenant General Flynn didn't want details.
But then Coombs was able to go through e-mail after e-mail after e-mail after e-mail that dealt with very specific details.
I mean, one of the e-mails was a draft of a letter.
I don't remember who it was being sent to, but the general replied, I suggest we take the word A out in the second paragraph.
So he was obviously very much involved in the details.
And so I think Coombs did a good job without mocking the witness, but just by putting a paper record in front of the witness of contradicting the claim that the lieutenant general wasn't concerned about details.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I hope there's a lot more of that.
It seems like there's a lot riding on this guy Coombs.
I'm glad to know that, I mean, well, this is just the hundredth time I've heard someone express confidence in him.
And especially coming from you, it means a lot.
I sure hope that he's up to it.
He's got everything at his fingertips as far as this paper trail goes.
He's fought real hard for every bit of information he could get from the government.
I think he's done a very hard case.
I'm not promising a great outcome because it's a very difficult case.
But I think he's doing the best that can be done with the tools he has, and I think it's pretty impressive.
All right.
Well, I know you've got to go.
Thanks very much for your time.
I hope we can talk again soon.
Thanks a lot for having me on, Scott.
And people should visit BradleyManning.org.
We do weekly, daily updates on what happened in trials so you can get a really good briefing.
We have someone who's taking notes almost verbatim and doing a great update, summarizing what occurred each day.
So BradleyManning.org is a great place for summaries.
Right.
Yeah, I didn't have time to read that this morning, so I especially appreciate you coming on today.
No problem.
No problem.
Talk to you soon.
Talk to you again soon.
Bye-bye.
All right, everybody.
That is the great Kevin Zeese, voters for peace, comehomeamerica.us.
And like you heard right there, BradleyManning.org, that's the Bradley Manning Support Network.
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