Andy Card's Cousin Says Bush Administration Had Her Illegally Jailed

[No Exit]

Cousin of White House Chief of Staff Tells How Illegally Jailed by Bush administration

Andy Card's cousin finally released after year in jail for telling truth about no WMD's in Iraq.

3 Oct 2006

By Greg Szymanski

The frightening story of Susan Lindauer should make every American stand up and take notice about how the U.S. government --gone mad with power -- is jailing innocent citizens who speak out against the policies of the Bush administration. Lindauer, 42, the cousin of former White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, was released in September from a New York correctional facility after spending a year in jail, awaiting in horrendous conditions government-imposed psychiatric evaluations.

A former journalist, congressional aide and U.S. intelligence asset in the Iraqi Embassy, Lindauer tried to notify the Bush administration through her cousin that Iraq posed no WMD threat and wanted to cooperate with U.S. authorities to avert a conflict.

(snip)

"After I sent the letter to my cousin, they came down on me hard," said Lindauer recently on Greg Szymanski's popular radio show, The Investigative Journal, on the Genesis Radio Network at www.gcnlive.com. "I was working for the benefit of the people, trying to get out the truth. But the Bush administration wanted no part of that and labeled me a terrorist because they intent on going to war even though there were no WMD in Iraq and, in fact, the Iraqi's wanted to cooperate with weapons inspectors in order to avert war.



"But I found out the hard way that the Bush administration already made up its mind to go to war and anybody who got in their way was going to be stepped on hard. The government charged mw with a serious crime and I was out on bond for more than 18 months, but then about a year ago, without any intention of going to trial, they mandated psychiatric evaluations based on my statements and actions opposing the war.

(snip)

http://www.arcticbeacon.com/3-Oct-2006a.html

[aquart]

1. Just like the Soviet Union. Aww.

I assume Andy Card is just fine with it.

[Lars39]

2. K&R

Damn.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I 'll bet their family gatherings are interesting

[dubykc]

4. Why the hell did it take a year to get psych evals??

[w4rma]

11. In Russia, Psychiatry Is Again a Tool Against Dissent

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 30, 2006; Page A01

DUBNA, Russia -- On March 23, police and emergency medical personnel stormed Marina Trutko's home, breaking down her apartment door and quickly subduing her with an injection of haloperidol, a powerful tranquilizer. One policeman put her 78-year-old mother, Valentina, in a storage closet while Trutko, 42, was carried out to a waiting ambulance. It took her to the nearby Psychiatric Hospital No. 14.

The former nuclear scientist, a vocal activist and public defender for several years in this city 70 miles north of Moscow, spent the next six weeks undergoing a daily regimen of injections and drugs to treat what was diagnosed as a "paranoid personality disorder."

"She is also very rude," psychiatrists noted in her case file.

In person, Trutko presents a different profile, reserved and formal as she recounts her legal and psychiatric ordeal and invokes the minutiae of Russian law without having to refer to texts. An independent evaluation found that although she did not have an "ordinary personality," she was "very gifted and creative" and displayed no psychiatric symptoms.

Trutko is new evidence that Soviet-style forced psychiatry has reemerged in Russia as a weapon to intimidate or discredit citizens who tangle with the authorities, according to human rights activists and some mental health professionals. Despite major reforms in the early 1990s, some officials are again employing this form of repression.
…
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2266625
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901592.html

[cui bono]

20. They needed time to drive her crazy.

[Bonobo]

5. Link to NBC story of her arrest in 2004! Shame on "U.S."

"Ex-Senate aide charged with giving Iraq secrets"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4506229/

Later she was charged with being "Psychotic". Here's the article from Seattle Weekly:

From 'Spy' to Psychotic
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0607/lindauer.php

[ret5hd]

8. from the seattleweekly article:

<snip>
Judge Mukasey, after reading the assessments of two psychiatrists, decided more thorough observation was needed. He ordered Lindauer to turn herself in on Oct. 3 at Carswell federal medical center in Fort Worth
</snip>

read about the torture, mistreatment, and negligence at the Carswell facility here:
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=4112

and here:
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3980

and here (excellent story):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3881

and here (at bottom of page):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3792

and here (another excellent article):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3325

and here (another excellent article):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2691

and here (about Susan McDougal's stay there):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=671

and here (seventh guard at Carswell convicted of sexual abuse)
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=1479

and here (guards and doctors sexually abuse inmates at Carswell):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2119

and here (nuns protesting "School of the Americas" sentenced to Carswell):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2211

and here (more Carswell prison rape):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2489


need I go on?

[Supersedeas]

60. Politics before family for some Bush loyalists, I suppose.

[rzemanfl]

6. I am shocked that I am no longer even shocked to read this.

How far we have gone the tubes and so quickly.

[Imagevision]

16. I'm surprised Bushco didn't ship her out to Gitmo, - disgusting!!!!!

[struggle4progress]

7. Story is wrong. Lindauer is not charged with espionage but with ..

.. being an unregistered foreign agent IIRC: it's a technical violation which does not involve spying.

[Joe Chi Minh]

32. Don't be pedantic, there's a good chap/chapess. To say the story

wrong seems a gross distortion - the technical violation, a taradiddle. And if anything, the administration's response all the more scandalous.

[struggle4progress]

33. Calling for correct identification of the charges is not a quibble to me

and never has been, as you can see by inspecting some old threads:

American Citizen Charged With Spying for Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Government
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=414619&mesg_id=414619
Not espionage
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=414619&mesg_id=416658

Susan Lindauer's Mission to Baghdad (NYT)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=70605&mesg_id=70605

It seems clear enough that the Administration took advantage of Lindauer's personal peculiarities in order to use her for propaganda purposes -- and the claim that Lindauer was involved in espionage played a major role in rightwing noise justifying the Administration's response.

Getting the story straight does matter ...

[Joe Chi Minh]

43. Still don't see a scale of priorities, eh?

[struggle4progress]

46. "Lindauer's espionage" was the core of a rightwing disinfo campaign,

as you can easily learn by search-engine.

The links I provided show that essentially everyone, who was interested in the facts, could see that these claims were untrue beginning on the day the story broke.

That, alone, suggests the real significance of the case: repeating that Lindauer was involved in espionage merely reinforces a dishonest rightwing factoid, which was intended to scare everybody into believing that disloyal Americans with contacts at the highest level were spying for Saddam.

Why would you dismiss an interest in getting the facts right as evidence of misplaced priorities?

[Joe Chi Minh]

47. The outrage in relation to this story is not to be gauged in terms

of a penal scale facing the victim in a US court, but in terms of the use of one of the worst practices of the Russian Communist regime under Stalin, subverting even psychiatry to demonic ends. Nothing new to the CIA of course, nor perhaps to MI5.

But what is that you find so difficult to understand about that? The over-riding priority in the whole matter.

[struggle4progress]

48. Is Andrew Card's cousin Susan a political prisoner? (DU Mar 06)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2540341&mesg_id=2540341

Thanx for your newfound interest in this case ...

[Joe Chi Minh]

49. My sincere apologies. I still deplore your pedantry as a

diversion from the issue - you might have mentioned parenthetically that it was hardly an extenuation of the administration's sinister and wicked conduct - but you seem to have absolutely nailed it with this:

"The judge sent her to Carswell for observation. It seems that the only psychiatric interviews that have been conducted are with employees of the Justice Department - her acusers. She is sane enough to be asking for a day in court to confront her accusers before a jury ...".

[struggle4progress]

50. Quote not mine but from LTTE Anchorage Press Vol. 15, Ed. 9

March 2 - March 8 2006
http://www.anchoragepress.com/archives-2006/lettersvol15ed9.html

[Joe Chi Minh]

51. A great read. A proper perspective.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I have a dim memory of this, from back when it happened ('03). It's a

good example of people just slipping away into oblivion. How easy it is. Even someone in the news.

There needs to be an archive of all the heroic people who tried to stop this horrible war or resisted risking their personal safety and careers, the soldiers who deserted after seeing what was going on in Iraq, and some who have turned themselves in and are being PUNISHED for doing the right thing according to their consciences(--I'm thinking, for instance, of a US army Sgt. native of Nicaragua, I think--Camilo Mejia--and others), the jag lawyers who wouldn't go along with torture (and whose names I don't know), people like Capt. James Yee who got targeted, persecuted and then put under a gag order, for nothing (possibly for merely doing his job of counseling prisoners at Guantanamo--Muslim chaplain). I remember some diplomats quitting, too. I have particular admiration for people who risked so much to resist this fascist government.

We need to create a special American Peoples' Medal of Honor for their courage.

[bigbrother05]

10. kick

[Imagevision]

12. And now not one freegin Dem stepped up to the plate to right a wrong?!!

utterly fucking disgusting...!

[EST]

13. For this, alone, bush should be cashiered and sent to Carswell,

just before being sentenced to prison, at Gitmo, for the rest of his miserable existance.

[peacetalksforall]

14. If this is true and if there isn't some missing piece to the other

side of the story - then - this is big. It needs investigation and a lot of attention and focus - if true. I think Andy Card should stay at home.

[WCGreen]

15. Andy Card is a Piece of Shit Plane and Simple.....

[civildisoBDence]

30. And Bush is a piece of shit PLAME and SimpleMINDED

I'm afraid that if Democrats take one or both houses in November, I'm gonna die of sheer pleasure.

Newsprism

[JMDEM]

17. This one deserves your vote

This one deserves to be put on the front page

[robinlynne]

18. ok. This is what we have been afraid might happen for so long. It happened

over a year ago. What the hell do we do? working for candidates in a fake election isn't going to do it.

[Divine Discontent]

39. we do the following

we are being told by independent pollsters that the the dems, and yes the votes still have to be cast, are going to win the house based on all their findings. www.electoral-vote.com shows the dems gaining 6 seats at this juncture.

so, if they some how come back to keep control by ridiculously close wins (51-49 52-48) when they were supposed to lose 52-48 etc, then you either find out who you can get involved with to march and demand action, or give what little money you have to help fund the organizations fighting the fascists.

THIS STORY IS HORRIBLY DISTURBING... and it surely isn't the only one of it's type. :(

It's gonna be okay, there's a HECK of a lot more of us then their are of them; justice will win out no matter what.



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[robinlynne]

45. well, let's see. we won in 2000. we won in 2002. we won in 2004.

and.

[SammyWinstonJack]

57. And.....here we are.

:-(

[Straight Shooter]

19. Nixon era afficionados, what does this remind you of?

Yes. Martha Mitchell, smeared as a nutcase because she dared to tell the truth about The Powers That Be.

The mental health literature contains numerous examples of the 'truth games' which surround paranoia -- Laing & Esterson (1964) give an example of this in their discussion of the Abbott family. We have seen in chapter 2 how much paranoid humour is derived from these truth games -- as Henry Kissinger has noted 'even a paranoid can have enemies' (quoted in Cohen & Cohen, 1980, p.188). Thus there are cases where those diagnosed as paranoid are reported to have fears which appear to be warranted and are, therefore, 'rational' (Menuck, 1992; Mayerhoff et al., 1991). Maher (1988) has termed such cases examples of the 'Martha Mitchell Effect' after the late wife of President Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell. Martha Mitchell alleged illegal activity was taking place in the White House. This 'was regarded as evidence that Mrs Mitchell was suffering from some kind of psychopathology until the revelations of the Watergate affair cast a new light on it all' (Maher, 1988, p.17). Such truth games, although appearing to undermine the validity of paranoia as a concept inadvertently strengthen it in using 'a foundationalist metaphor of a concrete reality lying behind or beneath a veil of deceptive appearances' (Stenner & Eccleston, 1994, p.89). Rather than beliefs thought to be delusional turning out to be true, I would argue that certain versions of events win the day through their political power rather than their inherent truth. Thus Martha Mitchell was 'proved right' because of the public political struggles over Watergate, not just the mere existence of, for example, Nixon's tapes.

http://www.criticalmethods.org/thesis3.htm

[Blue_In_AK]

21. How interesting...

I didn't realize she was related to Andy Card. Her father John ran for governor (R) up here in '98, I believe, but was handily defeated by Tony Knowles because of Lindauer's unethical campaign issues.

According to a USA Today article published at the time:

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Lindauer, who won the primary in 1998 with a lavish campaign funded largely by his wife, was charged in August with perjury and 22 violations of campaign laws. Lindauer was accused of providing false information in campaign disclosure statements, soliciting illegal contributions and failing to report illegal campaign contributions.

Lindauer also was accused of perjury-the only felony charge among the 23 counts-for claiming to have received an Alaska Permanent Fund dividend in 1997, a year in which he did not apply for a dividend.

Lindauer spent more than $1.7 million on his campaign, claiming at one point that he raised the money through consulting fees, real estate deals and selling art and his radio stations. His campaign fell apart after he admitted that nearly all the money came from his second wife, Dorothy Oremus, a Chicago attorney and heiress.

The Republican Party of Alaska withdrew its support, and he received only 17 percent of the vote as incumbent Democrat Tony Knowles easily won a second term.



Small world....

[RadiDem]

22. I think she DOES have mental problems >

Read the entry and links on Wiki.

She claimed to have knowledge of the Lockerbie bombing (she may have) and said:

"Lindauer says that she has been subject to intense surveillance, threats, and attacks since she began meeting with Libyan officials in 1995 to discuss her knowledge of the Lockerbie bombing. "Someone put acid on the steering wheel of my car on a day I was supposed to drive to NYC for a meeting at the Libya House. I scrubbed my hands with a toilet brush, but my face was burned so badly that 3 weeks later friends worried I might be badly scarred," Lindauer told MEIB. "Also, my house was bugged with listening devices and cameras -- little red laser lights in the shower vent. And I survived several assassination attempts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Lindauer

I don't endorse what Bushco did to her, but she might be a little paranoid.

[1932]

23. I'm not interested enough in this story to check her Wikipedia entry, BUT

I do think it's important to recognize that, with a story like this, Wikipedia isn't the most credibly source.

Anyone who didn't like her could write just about anything and cite the most specious sources to support their entry.

[struggle4progress]

36. Lindauer's former paper, The Herald, quoted the same MEIB text

when she was arrested, as indicated in this post from the DU archives:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=415097&mesg_id=416313

[SaveOurDemocracy]

27. I agree ... Wikipedia is not a valid source

Stephen Colbert explains 'Wikiality'>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmHm0rGns4I


Imagine how easy it would be for BushCo to make a seriws of false entries to skew anything in their favor. Many people use Wikipedia as a favored resource.

[Pacifist Patriot]

29. Do not rely on Wikipedia as an unbiased source.

The folks who run Wikipedia may have no particular agenda, but entries can bear the stamp of those with an axe to grind. I'd try to get independent confirmation of that information before buying into it.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[struggle4progress]

35. Neighbor Seemed Activist, Not Agent (WP Mar 04)

Md. Homeowner Called 'Eccentric,' Always in 'Crisis'

By Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 12, 2004; Page B05

... She was the nervous type, but affable nonetheless, according to Rich Willet, a neighbor when she lived in Silver Spring ...

One day, he said, he spotted her on her roof, scissors in one hand, trying to cut a wire that hung near her chimney ...

As he recalled it yesterday, Lindauer told him she believed she was under surveillance, that someone had secreted a camera in her house. And when she moved out a short time later, in 2000, the new owners found the windows nailed shut ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51972-2004Mar11?language=printer

It's unclear how seriously to take such anecdotes. Perhaps Lindauer is both quirky and bright, extremely competent in some ways and bit nutsy in others ...

[struggle4progress]

37. "... People were watching her, she often said, although, as it turned out,

federal agents in 2003 indeed had set up surveillance and tapped her phone ..."

Court Rules For P-I Journalist-'Spy'
Posted Sep. 7 at 8:55 am by Rick Anderson
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/blogs/dailyweekly/2006/09/court_rules_for_pi_journalists.php

[RadiDem]

56. In retrospect, any mental problems pale in comparison to her treatment

at the hands of the BFEE, and I should have made that more clear.

Sorry some people got the mistaken idea that I was excusing the Bush Reich for their persecution of her, just because I speculated that she might be paranoid and questioned some of her prior claims.

I wasn't

[southern_belle]

24. kick n/t

[AzDar]

25. K&R ...goddamn! n/t

[indepat]

26. Anyone who doesn't believe this cabal will do what's necessary for PNAC

implementation may be sadly mistaken 'cause you are either with them or a'gin 'em and if you disagree with any facet of their PNAC agenda, you are the enemy, hence a terrorist, an enemy combatant. :grr: And tens of millions of Americans still support their entire agenda :grr:

[NVMojo]

28. I AM SHOCKED! VALERIE PLAME and her husband could have been

jailed too!

[Bucky]

34. Yet they weren't.

This woman was singled out--probably because she's Andy Card's sister. The Bushies have some Stalinist tendencies, but as yet they don't have a Stalinst level of power.

[Divine Discontent]

40. this is quite disturbing...

if there's no evidence of her giving info away to foreign countries on tape or something factual, this is incredibly f'd up, and Keith will show somethin on it, hopefully



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[No Exit]

38. If she was an "intelligence asset", that, to me, means "CIA spy"

And if she was a CIA spy, I really don't think she is/was the least bit paranoid or crazy if she was "trying to cut wires with scissors" (thinking she was surveilled) or "finding acid on the steering wheel", etc., etc., etc. The damnedest things happen to people who have worked in espionage.

Case in point: William Colby.

There are dozens of other odd endings of spies, too.

[DrTorchwood]

41. Amazing and Scary

We are all in danger

[Thickasabrick]

42. This is the kind of TV movie people should see. I wonder if she'll

sell the rights to her story. This is amazing.

[Jack Rabbit]

44. Do you have this from a reliable source?

Szymanski is one of the reporters who said that Prime Minister Blair had been indicted by Fitzgerald's grand jury.

Jason Leopold was just wrong. Szymanski and Tom Flocco are just nuts.

[struggle4progress]

53. Susan Lindauer unfit for trial, judge rules

FREED: Anti-psychotic drugs won't be forced on woman in spy case.

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
The New York Times
Published: September 10, 2006
Last Modified: September 11, 2006 at 01:11 AM

A former journalist and congressional aide accused of working with Iraqi intelligence before the war was released from prison Friday after a federal judge ruled that she could not be forced to take anti-psychotic medication in an effort to make her competent to stand trial.

The judge, Michael Mukasey of U.S. District Court in Manhattan, said he was not convinced that the defendant, Susan P. Lindauer, 43 and the daughter of one-time Alaska gubernatorial candidate John Lindauer, would improve enough to be capable of standing trial even if she were to take the medication,

Mukasey also criticized the strength of the government's case, saying that the legal standard for forcibly administering medication requires a strong government interest in prosecution and that the government has not been able to establish that standard in this case ...

Although he was reluctant to analyze the government's case before trial, the judge said, "There is no indication that Lindauer ever came close to influencing anyone or could have." The indictment, he said, describes an attempt to influence an unnamed government official as unsuccessful ...

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/8178252p-8071066c.html


Ex-U.S. senate aide in Iraq spy case freed
Fri Sep 8, 2006 7:20pm ET
By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - ...

The judge ruled earlier this week the government could not force Lindauer to take psychotropic drugs in order to stand trial after she disagreed with the diagnosis of a half dozen mental health professionals and refused the prescribed drugs.

Talkin said Lindauer was released as a result of that ruling but "the case is still pending and if she were to become competent she could still go to trial." ...

She is a distant relative of Andrew Card, President George W. Bush's former chief of staff. Card is believed to be the unnamed U.S. official in her indictment who Lindauer sent a letter saying she had access to members of Saddam Hussein's government.

Prosecutors say the letter was an unsuccessful attempt to influence U.S foreign policy ...

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-09-08T232049Z_01_N0892769_RTRUKOC_0_US-CRIME-IRAQ-SPY.xml&archived=False

[Jack Rabbit]

55. Thank you.

OK, that's a reliable source.

I'll take the Weekly World News over Szymanski.

[Cha]

52. Poor thing...but maybe

her being out and having a relation to one of bushits' former staff..she'll be able to shine some light on this and get some Attention where no one else could?

[Eric J in MN]

54. here is a wikipedia article on Susan Lindauer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Lindauer

[Skidmore]

58. Chilling.

Was this the reason Card left? He should have from the first.

Chilling

K&R

[derby378]

59. Why not e-mail this to Keith Olbermann?

Let his staff chase this down the rabbit hole for a while.