Alert ! regarding criminal entering Minnesota 4/17 Letter to AG Lugar re: Condi Rice

The Honorable Andrew M. Lugar
United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota

Dear Mr. Lugar:

I recently read that one of your areas of focus as the new United States Attorney will be violent crime.

So I thought I should alert you to the imminent presence in our jurisdiction of a potentially dangerous individual, whose past involvement in violent criminal activity is massive.

Dr. Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor and former Secretary of State, will once again enter our jurisdiction this Thursday, April 17, when she will be speaking at Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus at 5:00 p.m. Perhaps she is not aware of your office's increased attention to violent crime.

There is probable cause to believe Dr. Rice has been involved in violent crime on a level against which ordinary street crime pales in comparison. A summary of the evidence, with links and multiple references to further documentation, has been accumulated at this website: http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/mediawiki/index.php?title=Condi_coalition_letter_draft. I have also attached that summary to this email.

With respect to the allegations regarding torture, Dr. Rice, of course, has claimed she acted on the "advice of counsel." That is, she claimed her actions and actions she authorized had been cleared by the Justice Department. But since that evidence was gathered, Dr. Rice has admitted in writing that she doubted the validity of that "legal advice."

In her 2011 book No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington, she questioned whether the legal interpretations or how they would be implemented would be legal. On pages 104-105, she wrote of her concerns that the views of David Addington, the Vice President's legal counsel, were infecting the legal advice:

But in terms of bureaucratic warfare, he [National Security Council lawyer John Bellinger] was no match for David Addington, the Vice President's legal counsel. Addington, with the full support of the Vice President, had a view -- an expansive view -- of presidential prerogatives during wartime and, drawing on opinions by lawyers such as Jay Bybee and John Yoo in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, was determined to push the boundaries of executive authority....That means that the State Department, the military, and even the attorney general were outflanked on occasion.

At a minimum, the evidence shows that Dr. Rice has violated the following statutes:
18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340A(c), which criminalizes a conspiracy to torture, which underlying offense is codified in Sec. 2340A(a) and defined in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 2441 -- War Crimes, in particular the violations codified in Section 2441(d)(1), which concerns acts prohibited by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

While the United States has neither signed nor ratified the Convention on the non-applicability of statutory limitations to war crimes and crimes against humanity, customary International Humanitarian Law may make any statutes of limitations inapplicable.
In fact, "in 1986, the United States wrote a note to Iraq (also not party to the UN Convention) to the effect that individuals guilty of war crimes could be subject to prosecution at any time, without regard to any statute of limitations."
(See "Rule 160. Statutes of Limitation may not apply to war crimes," at
the ICRC website: http://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_cha_chapter44_rule160#refFn_49_11.)

Moreover, some of the offenses Dr. Rice has allegedly committed have resulted in the deaths of the victims of her conduct, so at least for those cases, there should be no statute of limitations problems.

Jurisdiction is clear for these types of crimes. As President Ronald Reagan said at the time he signed the Convention Against Torture, which was later ratified by the United States Senate:

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

That is, for these types of crimes, any court in the world may charge and try an alleged perpetrator located within its jurisdiction.

Dr. Rice is a 59-year-old African-American woman, 5'8" tall, and will be present on Northrop Auditorium's main stage at the aforementioned time. If you need a picture of her, one will be provided, but it might just be easier for you to access one online.

Both the Chief of Police for the University's Police Department and the Office of the General Counsel at the University have already been notified, so, in all likelihood, their assistance will be forthcoming.

These are serious allegations. We are confident that you will at least bring Dr. Rice in to be questioned. We hope, however, that you do not employ the interrogation techniques she so willingly approved.

Finally, as you may know, there has been considerable concern recently about crime on or near the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus. But until this invitation, there has not been such a flaunting of a violent criminal by the University itself.

It is almost as if the University and Humphrey School administrations became aware that you were going to focus your efforts on violent crime, and they decided to say to you: "Oh yeah? Take that, U.S. Attorney Lugar!" If this attitude from a power such as the University goes unchallenged by your office, I think we could say your term as U.S. Attorney will be off to an inauspicious start.
If you need any further clarification or assistance, please do not hesitate to ask.
Sincerely,