Time To Reopen LaRouche Exoneration
April 2—Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to move on April 1 for dismissal of all charges against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens raises the issue, once again, of when the Justice Department will exonerate Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., a victim of prosecutorial misconduct far more egregious than that employed against Stevens.
Stevens was convicted of seven counts of filing false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. The case centered on work done renovating Stevens' Alaska home, which was paid for by Veco Corporation and not disclosed by Stevens on his Senate disclosure forms. Stevens requested a bill for the work in a note to Bill Allen, Veco's former CEO, and the central witness in the government's case against the Senator. Allen testified dramatically at trial that while he received the note requesting a bill from Stevens, he was told by a Stevens confidant that the Senator's bill request was not serious and should be disregarded: "Ted was just covering his ass," Allen stated.
Post-trial investigation of the controversial case by Attorney General Holder revealed that DOJ prosecutors deliberately suppressed an earlier interview with star witness Allen in which he did not recall anything about the note from Stevens, a development which, in turn, suggests that Allen's trial testimony was fabricated.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who represented LaRouche in his appeal, noted at the time that the LaRouche case involved "a broader range of deliberate cunning and systematic misconduct over a longer period of time utilizing the power of the Federal government than any other prosecution by the U.S. Government in my time or to my knowledge."
With Holder's demonstrated interest in cleaning up Bush Administration prosecutorial misconduct, it is surely time for a new look at the LaRouche case.
Railroad
LaRouche was indicted in 1988, in Alexandria, Virginia, home of the "rocket docket," for conspiracy to conceal his tax liabilities from the IRS. He was also charged with complicity in alleged loan fraud and conspiracy to commit loan fraud.
An earlier Federal prosecution in Boston, for credit card fraud and loan fraud, collapsed amidst findings from U.S. District Judge Robert Keeton that the Justice Department engaged in "systemic prosecutorial misconduct." Jurors in that case stated publicly that had the case not mistried, they would have found LaRouche and his co-defendants not guilty, because of the government's role in creating the case.
The new Federal case in Alexandria, Virginia, was rushed through indictment and trial, in order to be brought to a decision during the last months of 1988, prior to the scheduled retrial of the Boston case, in January 1989.
The new Alexandria Federal case depended crucially on a key false witness against LaRouche on the tax conspiracy charges—charges which were crucial to bringing and prosecuting the new case. One Marielle Kronberg presented false testimony suggesting that LaRouche took steps to intentionally conceal his actually, virtually non-existent income from the IRS during his 1979-80 Presidential campaign. In fact, he had had no known personal Federal income liability for the year 1979-80. The supposed income was a proffer of payment of author's royalties to LaRouche, but for which no means to pay existed at that time, or later.
LaRouche was certain that no royalties had existed or would exist, and had no knowledge of the existence of the fraudulent checks which had been uttered by Kronberg, despite the lack of funds available to support them. Kronberg knew this. Yet she kept phony checks in the checkbook in her custody, and her testimony suggested that LaRouche acted to conceal income through the royalties scheme. Without her false testimony, the tax charge against LaRouche could not have been brought, and the rest of the fraudulent Federal case against LaRouche in Alexandria would probably have been kicked back to Boston for lack of credibility on the tax charge.
Kronberg was facing possible criminal charges for kiting checks and other mismanagement of the company which published LaRouche's books, and testified falsely in order to avoid prosecution and imprisonment on those charges.
After LaRouche's conviction on the Alexandria charge, the Boston Federal case was dropped by the U.S. Justice Department. Government memoranda released long after the Alexandria trial revealed that the tax case against LaRouche was considered a civil matter by the IRS, until two LaRouche associates won the March 1986 Democratic primaries for lieutenant governor and secretary of state of Illinois. Thereafter, the simmering efforts to indict and destroy LaRouche and those associated with him were significantly escalated.
The loan fraud portion of the LaRouche case involved witness "deprogramming" and other witness tampering by government prosecutors, rewards to key government witnesses, use of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Department and private agents and investigators employed by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) to engage in witness tampering, illegal searches, and black-bag jobs. The use of these tactics, thoroughly documented in LaRouche's post-trial filings, was adamantly denied by the Justice Department, despite defense requests for disclosure prior to LaRouche's trial.
As documented in the post-trial filings by LaRouche's legal team, the government's participation in a constant black propaganda media campaign and deliberate financial attacks against LaRouche and his associates, dates from President Reagan's endorsement of LaRouche's Strategic Defense Initiative program in March of 1983. Yet, by early 1987, according to government documents released after LaRouche's trial, the government discovered that individuals who had loaned money to companies associated with LaRouche still refused to testify against him, despite thousands of negative media articles, huge raids, and Federal indictments. As a result, in April of 1987, the United States brought an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding against the LaRouche companies holding the loans. The bankruptcy ensured that lenders would not be repaid and, according to post-trial disclosures, facilitated the government's witness recruitment efforts.
The unprecedented involuntary bankruptcy was subsequently denounced by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Bostetter as "a fraud on the court." The fraud had been the work of the Federal prosecution in the LaRouche cases.
