Ohio elections spat involves Turkish history

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Re: Ohio elections spat involves Turkish history

Schmidt v. Krikorian Hearing Continues...

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7444

live tweeting by Cincinnati Enquirer's Jon Craig,

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Re: Ohio elections spat involves Turkish history

Peter Musurlian is covering todays precedings and hearings.Here's he's excellent coverage of the last months hearings.

Schmidt vs Krikorian: Mark Geragos outclasses opposition at an Ohio Elections Commission hearing

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hah ha I love it
...It just got more personal: Mark Geragos notes Schmidt lawyer Bruce Fein is on the board and resident scholar of Turkish Coalition of America..

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I love Sara Cohen !

...Sara Cohan, education director with the Genocide Education Project, is now testifying about Turkish PAC money going to U.S. Rep. Schmidt...

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Bunch of nincompoops at the Ohio elections committee, after all that relevant testimony.They decided the to cut the Armenian Genocide out of the record to narrow the issue of Blood Money, how can you do that and still consider this case?????

Commission just voted 5-0 that a false statement was made with reckless disregard when Krikorian said Schmidt took money from Turkish PACs
less than a minute ago from web

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Some coverage by Geoffrey "Ohiobama" Sea's live blogging

Live-Blogging the Genocide Denial Trial: Schmidt v. Krikorian as it Happens Day 2
by Ohiobama
the Genocide Denial Trial: Schmidt v. Krikorian as it Happens Day 2 Thu Oct 01, 2009 at 10:08:54 AM PDT
I'm at the Ohio Elections Commission in Columbus for Day 2, the continuation of the hearing of Schmidt v. Krikorian, aka the Genocidal Denial Trial. If you're just joining, the OH-02 congresswoman, Jean "Hittite Microwave" Schmidt is suing 2008 and 2010 challenger David Krikorian over alleged "false statements" made during the 2008 campaign. At the time, Krikorian issued a letter to supporters charging Schmidt with taking "blood money" from the Turkish lobby, in exchange for her denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

Schmidt then served as co-chair of the Turkish-American Congressional Caucus, and she did, in fact, lead congressional opposition to a House resolution that would recognize the Armenian Genocide.

For background please consult the live-blog of Day 1 at http://www.dailykos.com/... of which this is the continuation.

Ohiobama's diary :: ::
UPDATE 1: The proceedings have just gotten under way at 1:11 p.m. The OEC took the morning to cunduct other business. The afternoon opens with Mark Geragos continuing direct examination of David Krikorian concerning his prior knowledge of direct funding of the Schmidt 2008 campaign by entities connected directly to the Turkish government. Krikorian is referencing a letter of Nov. 10, 2006, from Lydia Borland, an employee of the Livingston Group, a registered foreign agent of the government of Turkey concerning fundraising activities she conducted for Jean Schmidt, who had entered Congress in 2005.

UPDATE 2: Krikorian is now focusing on the links between the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATAA), an umbrella group registered as a 501(c)(3), and the Turkish government. The ATAA coordinated and included as members most other organizations collectively called the Turkish lobby. This linkage is key since the OEC has "bifurcated" the hearing and the initial stage of the hearing concerns only the question of whether money from the Turkish government passed to Jean Schmidt's campaign. Krikorian is showing that the transmission happened through the ATAA.

UPDATE 3: Krikorian is now citing documents from the Turkish lobby that demonstrate the principal goal of the Turkish lobby in the 2005-2008 time frame as being to stop recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the US Congress and other US organizations.

UPDATE 4: OEC Chairman Chuck Calvert is attempting to cut off the testimony by restricting the discussion only to the narrow question of whether Turkish government PACs contributed money directly to Schmidt, excluding testimony regarding intermediary individuals. In other words, let's not see the forest for the trees. Geragos is making strenuous objections, centered on the idea that all financial transactions must obviously pass through individuals, therefore testimony about the involvement of individuals must be allowed.

UPDATE 5: Calvert and Geragos are disputing a question that will obviously be the central issue of an appeal, should one be necessary. Calvert wants to exclude all testimony at this stage regarding whether statements made by Krikorian in 2008 were made in good faith, without "malice of forethought." He wants to establish the absolute truth or falsity of the statements first -- a concept contrary to all modern epistemology, to get philosophical. Geragos is arguing, with court precedents, that the question of falsity and the question of malice are inseparable -- that the complainant Schmidt must show, at theis stage, that the statements were both false and malicious. It boils down to the old philosophical question of whether such a thing as absolute truth does exist and is knowable -- never mind whether it's knowable by a bunch of Ohio political hacks such as those who sit on the OEC.

UPDATE 6: I've just been tipped off to this Youtube Video of Day 1 of the hearing, done by filmmaker Peter Musurilian: http://www.youtube.com/... About a sixth of the way through the video, you will see Schmidt attorney Donald Brey smash his briefcase into Musurilian's camera twice, for which the filmmaker is pursuing assault charges.

UPDATE 7: Krikorian has testified, based on documentary evidence, that in 2008, Schmidt was the single largest recipient of Turkish PAC money of any member of Congress. Geragos and Krikorian are citing that fact as prima facie evidence for the truth of the statement under scrutiny that Schmidt had taken money "from Turkish-sponsored PACS."

UPDATE 8: Krikorian has identified two attorneys in the room, members of Schmidt's legal team (oops, he called it her "defense team" though Schmidt is supposed to be the complainant) ad board members and officers of the Turkish Coalition of America, the leading member of the Turkish lobby. A lame objection from Schmidt's lead counsel to the "attempt to besmirch my co-counsel."

UPDATE 9: Krikorian has cited an article published in 2008 by the Southern Poverty Law Center about the Turkish lobby's illegal influence on Congress as a major source informing the opinions he expressed in the letter under question.

UPDATE 10: Donald Brey, Schmidt's lead attorney is cross-examining Krikorian. It seems to me that this would violate the federal ban on torture. Brey's laborious strategy is to go through exhibits one by one, asking if each one shows that Schmidt received direct money from Turkey. Since many of the exhibits relate to entirely different points, the repeated answer is "no." The idea is to somehow influence the commissioners merely by getting Krikorian to say "no" many times. Hopefully the commissioners will penalize Brey for idiocy.

UPDATE 11: Sara Cohan will now testify as an expert witness for Krikorian. Cohan is Director of the Genocide Education Project in San Francisco. She was on the staff of the Southern Poverty Law Center and assisted on the article about Turkey's suppression of the Armenian Genocide. The article detailed the flow of money from Turkey to US lobbying groups. Two of the Republican commissioners have interrupted with a long discussion of whether Cohan should be permitted to testify. Chris Finney, co-counsel for Krikorian, is providing valiant justification for her testimony, since she can directly explain the flow of money from Turkey, through PACs, to US members of Congress, for purposes of denying the genocide. Hard to see how Finney's arguments can be rebutted but somehow the lawyers and commissioners have been going on for twenty minutes without letting Cohan speak.

UPDATE 12: Finally Cohan is allowed to testify after dramatically asserting that she has specific information showing the flow of money to Jean Schmidt specifically. Chairman Calvert: "I didn't think you had that." This could be the show-stopper. Cohan is now detailing the relationships among the leading figures and interlocking staffs of ATAA and TCA. She's now reading an incriminating quote from the president of TCA, the law partner of Schmidt's co-counsel sitting next to the congresswoman today. Republican Commissioner Harvey Shapiro is going nuts, trying to plead himself explanations that would bolster Schmidt's position, spewing hypotheticals such as that the lawyers might have been passing money only on behalf of clients, or some such nonsense. He's losing his cool at the prospect of Schmidt's case falling apart.

UPDATE 13: Commissioner Shapiro, now nakedly pleading for Schmidt, is claiming that the law exempts "legal services" from the bar on legal lobbying by foreign governments. Geragos has demolished his argument with a correct definition of the legal services exemption. The chair has therefore overruled an objection that would have stopped Cohan's further testimony. A flurry of additional objections from the Schmidt bench. They REALLY do not want to let Cohan speak.

UPDATE 14: Cohan finally is able to say the obvious: Registered agents of the Turkish government, including Schmidt's co-counsel today, gave money to the Turkish PACs, and those PACs made contributions to Schmidt's 2008 campaign. This is exactly what Krikorian alleged in his 2008 letter. The statements were not false, the case should be over. But it isn't...

UPDATE 15: Cohan is now testifying about the illegality of PACs taking funds from foreign governments.

UPDATE 16: Respondent Krikorian calls his last witness, the real tour-de-force, Sibel Edmonds, the FBI whistleblower, via her videotaped deposition. Yesterday afternoon, Schmidt's attorneys filed a motion to suppress theEdmonds testimony based on her lack of personal knowledge about Jean Schmidt. The Commission now has to rule on that admissability -- this is a big one. As is now well known, Edmonds has testified about a vast web of illicit Turkish influence-peddling with members of the US Congress. Though Edmonds left the FBI in 2001, she was aware of some of the same key players with the Turkish PACs still in operation after Schmidt entered Congress. The question now is whether the OEC pulls a hard line to keep out the Edmonds testimony, or is sensitive to a blatant pro-Schmidt position being overturned on appeal.

UPDATE 17: OEC has accepted excerpts of the Edmonds testimony proffered by the Krikorian team. Now closing arguments on phase II of the hearing, the question of whether the statements made were false. The difference between Mark Geragos and Donald Brey in closing arguments is like the difference between a fish and a philodendron in a swimming contest. Brey was flat and inscrutable. Geragos is Shakespearean, gesticulating with conviction. The commissioners are rapt, watching the best display of lawyering in their lives. Geragos is shrewdly threatening them with the embarrassment of being overturned on appeal, with a reference to the word already getting out -- via this blog and the Twitter reports from the Cincincinnati Enquirer -- that the Krikorian team has proved today that Schmidt was on the take from Turkish agents.

UPDATE 18: The Commission now deliberating on each of five statements alleged by Schmidt to be false. Statement 1 is the "blood money" charge. WOOPS! Some commissioners just remembered that under the "bifurcation" process, both sides were prevented from submitting evidence regarding the use of money, and many other issues. Under the agreed procedure, they can only decide now whether money was taken, but now they can't decide how to decide that. Somehow this has degenerated from the Scopes Trial to Kafka's "The Trial."

UPDATE 19: The astounding fact is that ONLY the three Republicans and one Independent are talking and working out how the Commission will decide. The three Democrats are absolutely mum, they haven't said a word all day. It's as if the Democrats are under an order to remain silent and simply ratify whatever decision the Republicans make. Yes, this is the Ohio I know.

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There were 5 charges against Krikorian


False statement allegation about money from Turkish contributions is dismissed on a 3-2 vote.

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By a 4-1 vote, the Commission also dismissed a false statement charge against Krikorian related to contributions found on the FEC website

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In a 4-1 vote, this time against Krikorian, he made false statements about money from Turkish government-sponsored PACs from FEC database

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Summary: Of five statements alleged to be false and malicious, not counting an additional four already withdrawn by Schmidt from consideration, three were found by the OEC to have been false and malicious.

Armenian Genocide denial has now been officially sanctioned by the State of Ohio. Everyone together now: KANGAROO COURT:

The three remaining counts on which Krikorian was found to be in violation will be appealed, and are by no means settled.

Kafka is tossing in his grave.

The Commission now enters Phase 3, deliberation on whether a reprimand should be issued. Motions that there be a reprimand issued but no prosecution for each of the three violations: Unanimously carried.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/1/125946/764?new=true