Story of the Day: My Report at Raw Story on CO USA and 'Obama Plot'

Don't miss my investigative piece published over at Raw Story: "Legal Experts Question US Attorney's Decision Not to Prosecute Obama 'Assassination Plot.'" Its central focus is on whether the claims made by Colorado US Attorney Troy Eid during his August press conference were legally sound. I interviewed some of the top legal experts in the country, in addition to the CO US Attorney's office, the FBI and the Secret Service, as well as leading narcotics experts and others. It also includes some pretty shocking and exclusive revelations about the main suspect in the assassination plot, Sean Robert Adolph, made by a Weld County CO investigator who had been in pursuit of Adolph for two years.

And here's some inside baseball exclusive to MediaBloodhound readers (I couldn't squeeze this info into the RS piece): Mark Hosenball, an investigative correspondent for Newsweek, is the only mainstream journalist that I could find on record who questioned Eid’s handling of this case. Yet not in the pages of Newsweek, in which Hosenball wrote a lengthy piece covering the arrests and only vaguely hinted at Eid’s unorthodox playing down of the threat, but during an obscure August 28 radio appearance on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation."

Hosenball said at the time:

"Well, in fact, the way it was explained to me was that merely uttering a threat against such an official is a federal crime,” adding, “I think if these people were from a different persuasion, or were of a different color, it’s arguable as to whether this might not have already been a giant sort of terrorism story with the Attorney General and the Homeland Security secretary out there, uh, you know, banging for blood. So it’s a little bit puzzling to me that the government, the prosecutor anyway, have played it down as harshly as they can. These people were clearly drug-crazed but, you know, people who do these things are often crazy anyway and drugs just add an element to it. It might degrade their ability to actually carry something out but it doesn’t necessarily degrade their danger to either themselves or the people or to somebody like Obama.”

The mainstream press completely ignored Hosenball’s statement, as if it were uttered not by an esteemed national reporter but by a member of the "angry left" or, worse, someone from the "tinfoil crowd." So thorough was mainstream media's obliviousness to his very newsworthy comments, they received no attention in alternative media and the blogosphere either, revealing how and why, even with the rise in influence of alternative media circles, mainstream news retains an ability to punt certain stories into a black hole. (I just happened to stumble across Hosenball's appearance during my research. Not a single site had linked to it.) Nor did Hosenball ever write a follow-up article for Newsweek, addressing the deep skepticism of Eid’s actions that he expressed during his radio appearance.

I did not interview Hosenball for my article. But reading between the lines, my guess is that he wanted to reveal more in the pages of Newsweek regarding the reasons to be skeptical of Eid's actions and either knew his editors wouldn't go for it, or he tried and his editors overruled him. This might explain his appearance and extremely candid comments on "Talk of the Nation."

An interesting detail that speaks volumes about the importance of investigative journalism and maybe even more about how it demands editors who are beholden first and foremost to the facts.

Comments

[Brad Jacobson]

My Report at Raw Story on CO USA and 'Obama Plot'

[Limp-Dick Blimpaugh]

If this was McInsane being threatened the Reslug prosecutors would be all over this. Then again smells like the Reslugs may have had been involved in the plot. Reslugs are just so transparent in their personal biases, bigotry and not caring or forcing the laws on the books for certain criminals.

[Batocchio]

Good digging!

[The Oracle]

Republicans have become a danger to our democracy, our children and even to themselves.

A corrupt Republican U.S. Attorney in Colorado refuses to prosecute some right-wing, meth-head, skin-heads for plotting to assassinate a presidential candidate...while at the same time the FBI under a corrupt Republican U.S. Attorney General launches a purely-partisan pre-election investigation into ACORN over alleged voter registration irregularities, even though ACORN, by law, must turn in all voter registrations, even suspect ones that ACORN flags, to public election officials.

The scum has definitely risen to the top of the Republican Party, with a bunch of Republican scoundrels having severely damaged our democracy over the past eight years.

An example of Republican "priorities," placing the Republican Party and their hardcore, right-wing agenda first...and our country (and Constitution) last.

The list goes on and on and on.

9/11 attacks: The incoming Bush administration completely blows off outgoing Clinton administration warnings about the al Qaeda threat. Bush Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft even downgrades the al Qaeda threat on his list of "priorities," elevating the national "threat" from pornographers, prostitutes and druggies over the al Qaeda threat. Right-wing religious fundamentalists attack America on 9/11, killing thousands of U.S. citizens.

Lethal Anthrax attack: (within weeks of 9/11): A right-winger mails deadly, weaponized anthrax to liberal U.S. Senators. Seven years later, this case still remains unsolved. Following the lethal mailing, hundreds of thousands of copy-cat, non-lethal mailings have ensued, with over 99 percent being sent to liberal individuals and organizations. (CNN reported in December 2001 that the FBI at that time was conducting 15,000+ investigations into domestic terrorist mailings). Along with the lethal anthrax mailing, we haven't heard much in seven years about all the right-wing copy-cat domestic terrorist mailings, have we?

Iraq War: Purely Republican partisan war, started with the intent of shifting hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars overseas (and to domestic crony Republican companies) while shortchanging domestic programs that directly benefit all U.S. taxpayers.

Hurricane Katrina and now Hurricane Ike: Purely Republican partisan response, with the Bush-controlled DHS and FEMA deliberately withholding federal disaster relief after New Orleans flooded (to score political points against the Democratic governor of Louisiana and the Democratic mayor of New Orleans), with the post-devastation Republican Gulf Coast Recovery policy being to shift hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to crony Republican companies, through no-bid contracts and hardly any oversight, wasting a whole lot of taxpayer money in the process (just like over in Iraq).

Wall Street financial meltdown: Same corrupt Republican response as in Iraq War and following recent hurricanes, with the goal not being to solve the crisis, but to direct truckloads of taxpayer dollars into the hands of crony Republicans, with the most corrupt use of taxpayer money being Paulson's plan to allow larger U.S. banks to buy up smaller U.S. banks to consolidate even more power (and money) in the hands of the few, the elitists, the ones responsible for the Wall Street meltdown in the first place.

Do you see a pattern forming?

[B]

Are you people serious?! Wow...