First, the latest news from CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling: “The transition from prison to ‘freedom’ continues to pose its challenges, but Holly and I are making our way through it together,” Jeffrey told us. “One of the main challenges has been trying to finally slough off the shackles of the wrongful conviction back in 2015.”
The CIA and the U.S. Justice Department tried to destroy Jeffrey’s life. Now, after two and a half years in prison, he’s trying to rebuild it.
 “This past June, I was expecting to be able to finally be ‘free’ of supervised release, but it seems the system does not want to let me go,” Jeffrey said days ago. “It is pretty standard that as long as an individual under supervised release has complied with the arbitrary conditions placed on him or her by the court and the probation office, the last year of so-called supervision will be waived. Not for me.”
He added: “With one year to go, it seems the U.S. attorney who spearheaded my wrongful conviction and the probation office object to my being fully released. This despite the fact that I have been compliant and adhered to every condition of supervised release.”
The government’s anti-whistleblower crusade has tried to crush Jeffrey. That effort has been unsuccessful, in part due to assistance that he has received from RootsAction Education Fund supporters.
The Education Fund was proud to work in solidarity with Jeffrey during his long imprisonment, and we’re now equally proud to sponsor his work as the coordinator of The Project for Accountability. You’ll give him a lift with the project if you make a tax-deductible donation in support of this exciting new venture.
Jeffrey readily acknowledged going through channels to blow the whistle on an ill-conceived and dangerous CIA operation against Iran involving flawed diagrams for nuclear weaponry. But the government prosecuted him on charges that he provided classified information to a New York Timesreporter who included it in a book.
The January 2015 trial had a jury that included no African Americans and was filled with people sympathetic to local Northern Virginia mega-employers like the Pentagon and CIA. By early summer, Jeffrey was in prison.
Now, Jeffrey is getting ready to go on a national book tour! And he wants you to know what a big difference it has made to receive support from thousands of people.
“Despite the continued stress,” Jeffrey writes, “it is due to the ability to reach out to so many of you through this Project for Accountability that I am keeping my head up and looking forward to what can and will be, instead of the negatives that have happened and continue. I am definitely looking forward to my book Unwanted Spy being released this October. The accompanying book tour will also be an effort on my part to bring more into the light of accountability that is so lacking.”
Jeffrey went to prison after a prosecution that BBC News called “trial by metadata.” Now, he says, “I would like to address the need for accountability of power.”
You can help Jeffrey do that by supporting his new work.
The RootsAction Education Fund is sponsoring this project for the same reason that we’ve actively supported Jeffrey for more than four years, while he withstood the vengeful weight of the “national security” state.
Jeffrey infuriated powerful CIA officials when he sued the agency for racial discrimination, and later when he went through channels to tell Senate Intelligence Committee staffers about a botched and dangerous covert operation by the CIA. In retaliation, the CIA unleashed its unaccountable power against Jeffrey.
You can help The Project for Accountability if you click here and make a tax-deductible contribution. Half of every dollar you donate will go directly to Jeffrey as he works to rebuild his life, while the other half will go to sustaining his project.
If you don’t already know about Jeffrey’s real-life nightmare of harassment, legal threats and persecution by the CIA hierarchy and the Justice Department, please take a look at the Background information we link to at the bottom of this email.
Jeffrey is an attorney, and he has gone through legalistic harassment, prosecution and imprisonment -- and now parole -- as a target of persecution with astute eyes wide open to the multifaceted abuses of power being committed under the cover of supposed legality.
For several years, the government stifled Jeffrey’s voice. This autumn, his voice will be heard loud and clear, from coast to coast and beyond.
We plan to keep you informed about Jeffrey’s future activities on behalf of The Project for Accountability. A tax-deductible donation of whatever you can afford would be greatly appreciated.
We asked Jeffrey to share with you some of his current assessments of the nation’s highest court. Here’s what he wrote:
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 There is so much to talk about, but recently there have been some developments that reminded me of not only the idealism of law in this country I had when I was in law school, but also the ugly truth of the law when I was persecuted by it. When I was in the desolation of prison, I found it quite interesting how my fellow inmates were so acutely aware of the machinations of the Supreme Court. I thought it somewhat sad that a direct impact like incarceration was what encouraged a person to pay attention to the decisions of the highest court of the land. But, that is typical of people outside prison walls as well, isn’t it? Most Americans pay little attention to the day’s issues unless and until there is either a direct or perceived impact. The latest round of decisions from the highest court reminds me of the dangers of not paying attention to decisions of the Supreme Court.
This most recent Supreme Court term has been surprising in many ways. I was genuinely surprised when the court struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to put a citizenship question on the census, and genuinely saddened when the Court refused to see the obvious implications to the constitutional doctrine of the separation of church and state by allowing a giant cross to remain on public land as well as refusing to address partisan gerrymandering. Reading over those decisions, it seems apparent to me that basing an administration policy on outright, unsupported bias is frowned upon by the Court, but plain as day government support of religious favoritism and political/racial shenanigans which interfere with the sacred right to vote, are issues the highest court of the land does not see as counter to the principles of the Constitution.
In law school, I learned that The Constitution is supposed to protect the people from the government, but increasingly with political appointments, dogmatic inclinations, it is being used as a tool to protect the government from the people. Stagnating the principles of the highest law of the land is akin to killing a document that was meant to be a living, evolving protection for the people.
Given the ambivalence, yet deferential (read: conservative) bent of the Court, I continually wonder if there will ever be a challenge to the use of the Espionage Act, or more specifically, whether the Court will even bother to hear such a case. I wasn’t able to have my case and the important issues inherent within it brought before the Supreme Court and I will forever wonder, “what if?” However, we should keep an eye to the future and whether the government attempt to use the Espionage Act to prosecute Julian Assange will make it to the vaunted court. As with all whistleblowers, incredible deference is given to the government and its claims of violations of the ancient Espionage Act, so I have to think that the Supreme Court, given the opportunity, will turn a blind eye to the rampant and unreasonable use of the Espionage Act by this presidential administration as well as the previous. Much like this last term, I imagine, given the opportunity to question the Espionage Act, the Court will go out of its way to protect the government from the people.
This raises the question, who are Supreme Court judges accountable to? Certainly no reasonable application of the law can withstand the political leanings which usually result in decisions that show a propensity to arbitrarily mold the law to an issue as opposed to fitting an alleged act to the law. Seems many on this current Supreme Court are accountable to nothing but their own politically inspired and beholden whims and shortsightedness. Take for example the ravings of Justice Clarence Thomas. This term, his true self has sprung up loud and clear, particularly in some of his dissents. In particular, in one case, Thomas felt the obvious racist actions by a prosecutor against a black defendant were “blameless.” Astonishingly, he was not alone in that dissent. Dissenting opinions may not seem all important, but I remember in law school one of my favorite professors routinely encouraged his students to review dissenting opinions as a way of gaining better insight on the majority opinion and also to provide a snapshot of a particular justice or justices and what direction the court could potentially take. History has shown that dissent, particularly on the Supreme Court, can eventually turn into the majority. I’m not sure, given the current propensities of the Court, whether that is a good or bad eventuality.
I do believe judges, and particularly Supreme Court justices, have to be held accountable for their decisions. The confirmation process is nothing more than a litmus test of political support, not inquiry on the fitness of a person to sit on the highest court of the land. A start could be abolishing lifetime appointments and voting in elected officials who are more interested in the sanctity of the law as opposed to their dogmatic and political ambitions which do more to divide the country than to unify it.
Given the obvious ambivalence of the Supreme Court, I hope more attention will be given to their decisions. I fear the implications of not doing so. Like my fellow inmates, when you've waited until the last minute to be hopeful for a good outcome, most times it is too late.
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Jeffrey’s refusal to knuckle under to illegitimate power has come at a very steep personal cost. That’s the way top CIA officials wanted it. His enduring capacity to speak truthfully can help strengthen a wide range of whistleblowers -- past, present and future.
You can help make that happen with a tax-deductible donation of any amount.
Please do what you can to support Jeffrey’s work as coordinator of The Project for Accountability.
Thank you!
-- The RootsAction Education Fund team
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Background:
>> Jeffrey Sterling: “Unwanted Spy: The Persecution of an American Whistleblower”
>> BBC News: "Jeffrey Sterling's Trial by Metadata"
>> John Kiriakou: “CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Placed in Solitary Confinement”
>> ExposeFacts: Special Coverage of the Jeffrey Sterling Trial
>> Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts: "Sterling Verdict Another Measure of Declining Government Credibility on Secrets"
>> Norman Solomon, The Nation: "CIA Officer Jeffrey Sterling Sentenced to Prison: The Latest Blow in the Government's War on Journalism"
>> Reporters Without Borders: "Jeffrey Sterling Latest Victim of the U.S.' War on Whistleblowers"
>> AFP: "Pardon Sought for Ex-CIA Officer in Leak Case"
>> Documentary film: "The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling"
>> Slate: “Judge Roberts Rejects the Census Citizenship Question Because Trump Officials Lied About It”
>> NPR News: “Supreme Court: Cross Can Stand on Public Land in Separation of Church and State Case”
>> HuffPost: “Supreme Court OKs Excessive Partisan Gerrymandering”
>> Washington Post: “Why Julian Assange Is Unlikely to Find Refuge in Supreme Court”
>> The New Yorker: “Clarence Thomas’s Astonishing Opinion on a Racist Mississippi Prosecutor”
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