Earth First! Sues the FBI

Earth First! Sues the FBI--Civil Rights Trial Scheduled for October 1, 2001 Contact: Darryl Cherney 707/923-4949 or ensopro@asis.com; Alicia LittleTree 707/462-9145 or Dennis Cunningham, Esq. 415/285-8091; for more info www.judibari.org

Upcoming bombing case events: July 27, 2001 One of the last court appearances before trial. Judge Wilken will hear arguments from both sides, including the "Motion for Justice" (see Bombing Case Update). Motions will be heard at 9:30am, Status Conference at 1pm. Oakland Federal Courthouse, 1301 Clay Street, downtown Oakland. Judge Claudia Wilkens courtroom. October 1, 2001

THE FIRST DAY OF TRIAL! Mark your calendar, tune up that fiddle, and be ready to take the FBI and Oakland Police to task. Specific plans will be announced closer to the date, but please plan to join us at the Oakland Federal Courthouse to help kick off the two-month trial.

FBI Lawsuit Background and Update with Up to the Minute Breaking Information

As lead attorney Dennis Cunningham declared at the Oakland rally commemorating the 11th anniversary of the bombing of Earth First! organizers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, "Its a good time to go to trial against the FBI!" Eleven years ago, on May 24, 1990, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were the victims of a motion-triggered car bomb as they drove through Oakland on a tour to promote a campaign of nonviolent logging blockades called Redwood Summer. The FBI and Oakland Police showed up at the scene within minutes and had the pair arrested for transporting the bomb, then announced to the world that the assassination attempt had been a terrorist plot gone awry.

Even though there was no evidence to warrant these absurd charges, no real investigation of the bombing was ever done, and the true culprits remain at large to this day. In 1991, Judi and Darryl sued the FBI and Oakland Police for false arrest, illegal search and seizure, and conspiracy to violate their First Amendment right to organize by falsely associating them with terrorism--literally for continuing to use the tactics of the notorious FBI Counterintelligence Program, or COINTELPRO. Judi Bari died of breast cancer in 1997, but the court case survives, and is scheduled to go to trial just months from now on October 1, 2001.

Today the Bureau is awash in scandals, and the publics skepticism about the FBI is running high. After the FBI admitted it failed to turn over thousands of pages of files to lawyers for Timothy McVeigh, a revelation that delayed the Oklahoma City bombers execution, a majority of people polled rejected the FBIs claim that the files were withheld "accidentally." On June 20, the Senate Judiciary Committee, now chaired by Democrat Patrick Leahy, held the first in a series of hearings to explore oversight for the FBI. Last week, President Bush nominated the head of the US Attorneys office in San Francisco, Republican Robert S. Mueller, to take over as the new FBI director. Muellers confirmation hearings will no doubt be another forum for discussing the need for big changes at the FBI. But just as Judi and Darryl's nationally significant federal lawsuit against the FBI for conspiracy and rights abuses is coming to trial, the historic FBI policy of targeting political dissent is completely absent from the drumbeat for reform on Capitol Hill.

Although FBI crimes against right-wingers in Ruby Ridge and Waco are on the top of the list, not one of the proposed Senate Hearings deals with FBI political abuses against progressive social activists. But the government will not be able to ignore the trial of Judi Bari vs. USA if we are vocal and organized! Were putting the FBI on the stand just as they are the most vulnerable and when real change could be possible. We can use the upcoming trial to draw national attention to continuing FBI rights abuses of activists like Earth First!er Judi Bari and American Indian Movement political prisoner Leonard Peltier.

In the months and weeks left before trial, its time to up the profile of these cases by planning rallies and demonstrations, organizing informational events and fundraisers, and encouraging our alternative press--as well as the mainstream media--to cover the issue of FBI crimes against the left. We must encourage everyone to contact their Congressional representatives and demand that the continuing use of COINTELPRO tactics by the FBI be included in the Senate oversight hearings.

The "Motion for Justice" With less than three months left before trial, the legal team is taking one last shot at bringing notorious COINTELPRO operative Richard W. Held back into the case, along with other top FBI supervisors. (In 1997, Judge Wilken ruled inexplicably that Held and the others had immunity from prosecution.) The unconventional motion--the actual title is "Plaintiffs' Status Report and Motion for Revision of Orders"--dubbed the "Motion for Justice," asks Judge Wilken to revisit some earlier decisions in order to restore the FBI agents, and the integrity of the case as it comes to trial. This would also eliminate the need for an individual appeal after the trial regarding Held, who was in charge of the San Francisco office of the FBI at the time of the bombing, and a second trial just for him. Restating what would appear to be clear evidence of Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Helds direct knowledge and involvement in the bombing "investigation," the motion argues that Wilkens 1997 ruling giving immunity to Held and three other supervisors distorted the central meaning of the case: that the FBIs framing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney as bombers was right in line with the overall FBI policy of political disruption. Without the higher-ups, the abuses in the bombing case can be dismissed as the actions of a few rogue agents, instead of deliberate, historically documented FBI "counterintelligence."

Also pending in the Motion for Justice is a request for Judge Wilken to force the FBI to turn over the many blacked-out and "missing" documents that have been withheld, including the names of alleged informants. In particular, the judge is asked to unravel the long-standing mystery about a purported tip the FBI claims they received soon before the Oakland blast that Earth First "heavy hitters" were going to be involved in a bombing. Most likely, the FBI just made up the tip after the fact to justify the quick arrest. But, in the event that they did have a tip that there was going to be a bombing, the chilling implications of FBI prior knowledge and cover-up are something we want to get to the bottom of.

Our request for full disclosure comes in the wake of the FBIs failure to turn over key evidence and documents in two high-profile cases; the 1964 church bombing by Ku Klux Klansmen that killed four young black women in Birmingham (see attached Op-ed by Bill Baxley), and the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. The delay of McVeighs execution triggered ongoing Senate hearings on the need for oversight of the FBI. Now, were asking the judge to order an independent review of the FBIs files on the bombing of Judi Bari.

Air Force Blows Up Subarus in New Mexico The FBI, too, has been busy preparing for trial. They hired the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland AFB to conduct a series of tests in order to reconstruct the 1990 explosion in Judi Baris car. The Air Force bombers reached the same (false) conclusion as the FBI agents at the scene of the Oakland blast--that the bomb was on the back seat floorboard when it exploded. Never mind that these "unbiased" experts determined there were dozens of variables that could substantially change the outcome of their experiments, or that they utterly failed to reproduce the damage to Judis car. Indeed, weve managed to stay in court this long precisely because the polices own photos show the bomb was unmistakeably underneath the drivers seat when it detonated, and that the FBI agents and Oakland Police must have been lying when they said it was visible in the back seat. The Air Force bomb experts did all sorts of high-tech computer simulations, and blew up pipe bombs in controlled environments to see what happens when they go "boom!" But in each of the four Subarus they bombed in their field study, with test bombs both under and behind the drivers seat, they used different amounts of explosives.

By changing two key variables at once, it is impossible to say whether it was the location or amount of explosives that caused the different results. They readily admitted that there were dozens of other variables that could have dramatically changed the damage to the cars. For instance, they could only guess at the original explosives mixture. And they placed sandbags in the drivers seat, which would react very differently than a human body to the impact of a bomb. Amazingly, the Air Force tests ignored the two most reliable pieces of evidence for determining the location of the bomb: Judis injuries and the telltale "end cap impact points" in the bombed car itself. Their report states incorrectly that Judi had "back and hip injuries." In fact, Judis shattered pelvis, pulverized coccyx, and massive internal injuries demonstrate the bomb blew up directly beneath her. Most stunning, while the experts acknowledge that pipe bomb end caps blow straight off in a trajectory, they ignored the indentations left by the impact of the end caps against the drivers door and the inside frame of Judis car--proof that the bomb blew up under the seat.

It seems incredible that at trial the FBI is actually going to stand by their original lie that the bomb was on the back seat floorboard, where they say Judi and Darryl would have seen it. It even contradicts the testimony of their own bomb expert from the FBI lab. We hope the jury finds it incredible, too. Discovery Goes On, and On... Youd think that ten years would be enough time to prepare for trial, but inevitably were in a race to the finish line. After endless delays by the OPD and FBI lawyers, Darryl Cherney was finally deposed in December, 2000. The defendants also subpoenaed members of the lawsuit support team, and several other friends and allies who will be witnesses for our side at trial.

Theyve questioned our expert witnesses, too, including Professor Howard Zinn, who is set to testify at trial about the FBIs long and shameful histroy of repression aimed at social movements. Meanwhile, weve taken the opportunity to question some notorious timber industry people, namely Pacific Lumber president John Campbell and former Louisiana Pacific Corporation security chief Frank Wigginton. Among other issues, we asked them about their role in creating the climate of violence that preceded the bombing, as well as their meetings with the FBI after the blast where they turned over their files on environmentalists to investigators. Weve called even more FBI agents, and lots of other law enforcement officers from agencies like the Alameda County Sheriffs, the Berkeley Police, and the Oakland Fire Department. Each deposition offers juicy little revelations, all of which together will become the basis of our case this October. Bit by bit we come closer to trial, to exposing to FBIs illicit political policing, and hopefully to finding out who built and placed that bomb in Judis car on the eve of Redwood Summer in 1990.

Thank you for persevering with us on this long road toward justice for Judi Bari. Funds Still Needed Contributions to the expenses of the lawsuit can be made out to the

Redwood Summer Justice Project and sent to PO Box 34, Garberville, CA 95542. Thank you. --Darryl Cherney