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A USS Cole case defense attorney read aloud from just disclosed emails Tuesday in a ongoing bid to portray a recent order to war court judges to live permanently at Guantánamo as unlawful meddling meant to rush justice in the death-penalty case.Navy Cmdr. Brian Mizer, defending Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, said the documents he got through a court order overnight demonstrated that the Pentagon office knew that the rule change adopted last month would not just make waves but could constitute the U.S. military crime of unlawful influence.“In trying to speed up a trial, are we affecting its fairness?” wrote a legal adviser, Cmdr. Raghav Kotval, on the staff of the Convening Authority for Military Commissions. “If, for example, the judge is less inclined to grant a continuance because it means more time on Gitmo, is that adverse to the accused?”The Nov. 14 email circulated among U.S. military legal staff reviewing a proposed war-court regulation for the Convening Authority, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Vaughn Ary, the Pentagon–based overseer of military commissions. Less than a month later, on Dec. 9, Ary formally asked Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work for the change. Work did just that on Jan. 7, ordering judges assigned to Guantánamo cases to give up their prestigious day jobs.

Defense lawyers cast the open-ended relocation order to judges living with family in more comfortable settings in Italy and the East Coast of the United States as punishment that exiles them for not proceeding swiftly through a complicated pretrial phase to trials. The 9/11 and USS Cole case judges have spent years navigating thorny pretrial issues — such as torture and secrecy, CIA involvement in the court and evolving war court law.A case prosecutor, Navy Lt. Paul Morris, dismissed the documents as nothing more than routine “brainstorming of potential issues” among colleagues. Another prosecutor, Army Col. Robert Moscati, said there was no proof that their boss, Ary, knew of the reservations they raised.Ary was scheduled to testify Wednesday by video-teleconference from his headquarters outside Washington, D.C.

In a filing, prosecutors defend the judge’s move-in order as simply surging staff to the war court for “the increased operational tempo that’s expected.”The three war court judges hearing Guantánamo cases have not complied, in part, because the top lawyers in the Army, Navy and Air Force were taken by surprise by the decision that strips them of judges who handle the courts-martial of American service members, too. Mizer cast Kotval as a potential whistleblower, and asked the judge to order his testimony along with that of two other U.S. military officers serving as Ary’s legal advisers in the email chain that received this from Kotval:“Issue: Are we coercing or by unauthorized means influencing the action of a judge?” he wrote. “If not, why are we intruding on what is not typically or traditionally a convening authority’s role. What is the explanation for the action?”Defense attorneys call the order an example of unlawful command influence — a crime in the U.S. military — designed to rush the judges to trial so they can leave this remote base. They want the case dismissed.

In an abrupt retreat Friday, the Pentagon revoked an order to war court judges to drop their other military duties and take up residence at this remote base until their cases are over.The 9/11 case judge swiftly responded by lifting a freeze on preparations for the terror trial of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four accused accomplices; the judge had imposed the freeze 48 hours earlier with a ruling that found the move-in order appeared to be an illegal bid to rush justice.Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 and USS Cole death-penalty cases described the Jan. 7 relocation order as “unlawful influence,” a pressure play designed to exile military judges to the remote base in Cuba, cut short pretrial hearings and move straight to trial. Commanders meddling in the judicial function is a crime in the U.S. military. The about-face also averted testimony in the USS Cole bombing case by three three-star officers, the top lawyers of the Navy, Army and Air Force, on how the Pentagon order to move the judges took them by surprise — and its impact.

But it did not settle the conflict. Defense lawyers for Saudi Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, 50, argued that the way the order was adopted and withdrawn was illegal.They asked the judge, Air Force Col. Vance Spath, to dismiss the death-penalty charges against Nashiri, who is accused of orchestrating al-Qaida’s Oct. 12, 2000 suicide bombing off the coast of Yemen. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed and dozens more wounded in the warship attack.Alternatively, Nashiri’s lawyers asked the judge to exclude from the case the architect of the move-in order — retired Marine Maj. Gen. Vaughn A. Ary, as well as his legal staff, who oversee the war court in the so-called Office of the Convening Authority. The new Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, should replace them with officials untainted by the relocation order, said Nashiri’s civilian lawyer, Rick Kammen.

Ary “can’t be trusted” to act impartially, said Kammen, noting Ary’s role includes funding the defense and choosing the jury pool of U.S. military officers — Kammen called it driving “the death train” by handpicking “the people that he wants to kill Nashiri.”Prosecutors said, with the move-in order gone, the issue was over. They urged Spath to drop it. “We get that there is an appearance issue,” said the chief war crimes prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins. “We all are guardians. The independence of the judiciary is at the heart of this.” Spath disagreed. Testimony earlier this week by Ary, the judge said, demonstrated there was “some evidence of unlawful influence.” Spath never dropped his other duties and never moved to this base. But hearing evidence this week disclosed a behind-the-scenes plan to remove Spath from the USS Cole case rather than relieve him of his other job as chief of the Air Force judiciary.Ary undertook this change “knowing it could remove a sitting trial judge,” said Spath, adding he would rule Monday morning on the defense motion to dismiss the charge

The 9/11 trial judge on Wednesday froze pretrial hearings in a death-penalty case over a controversial Pentagon order requiring the judges to move permanently to this remote outpost until their cases are over.In a 10-page order, Army Col. James L. Pohl abated the prosecution of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four accused accomplices until the Pentagon rescinds its move-in order.He ruled that the circumstances surrounding the controversial Jan. 7 relocation order “raise the issue of Unlawful Influence by creating the appearance of improper pressure on the military judge to adjust the pace of the litigation.”Defense lawyers in both the Sept. 11 and USS Cole death-penalty cases have alleged the move is an attempt to illegally rush justice, describing it as a pressure play designed to exile the military judges to Cuba, cut short pretrial hearings and move straight to trial. Unlawful Command Influence, or commanders meddling in the judicial function, is a crime in the U.S. military.

Prosecutors have defended the order, designed by a retired Marine general functioning as a war court overseer, as part of an effort to improve resourcing at the crude compound here called Camp Justice.Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work signed it within a month of getting a recommendation from the overseer, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Vaughn A. Ary. It stripped military judges hearing Guantánamo cases of their other duties, including presiding at U.S. service members’ courts martial, without consultation with the top lawyers of the Army, Navy and Air Force.So far none of the judges has obeyed it pending clarifications from their overall commanders, called The Judge Advocates General.

One 9/11 defense attorney, Jay Connell, said that Pohl “was right to pull the plug on the case” — and recited what he saw as a pattern of government interference.“The FBI has infiltrated a defense team, a former CIA contractor became a defense interpreter, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense has unlawfully attempted to influence the military judge,” said Connell, the death-penalty defender of Mohammed’s nephew, Ammar al Baluchi.

The military judge presiding at the USS Cole death-penalty trial ordered the Pentagon to replace the senior official and his staff overseeing the war-court process, ruling a since-revoked requirement for judges to live at Guantánamo until a trial is over appeared to be unlawful meddling.Air Force Col. Vance Spath, the judge, issued the ruling in court Monday following a week of hearings that showed behind-the-scenes planning at the Pentagon on how to perhaps replace military judges and speed along the pretrial process.Prosecutors defended the planning by the legal staff of the so-called convening authority for military commissions, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Vaughn Ary, as routine brainstorming on resourcing of the war court.Defense lawyers called the move-in order illegal, a crime in military justice called “unlawful command influence,” that was designed to unfairly rush the death-penalty trial of Saudi captive Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, 50, as the alleged mastermind the USS Cole bombing.

They wanted the judge to dismiss the case. But while Spath was still taking evidence, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work quickly revoked the controversial order — meaning judges hearing war-crimes cases now may keep their prestigious regular duties and simultaneously preside at Guantánamo military commissions cases.Spath, in court Monday, called dismissal “not appropriate” in this instance. Instead, he disqualified Ary and four lawyers who worked on the move-in requirement: retired Army Col. Mark Toole, Army Reserves Lt. Col. Alyssa Adams, Navy Reserve Cmdr. Raghav Kotval, and Army Capt. Matthew Rich.He ordered the Pentagon to replace them in the USS Cole case — meaning a new convening authority would fund and assign Nashiri’s legal-team resources and pick the pool of military officers for his eventual jury.

Spath also cut an upcoming two-week pretrial hearing at Guantánamo back to just one week, he said, to demonstrate “this detailed trial judge feels no pressure to accelerate the pace of this litigation.”

Nir Hefetz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "spin doctor" and confidant, will hand over recordings of Netanyahu and his wife Sara as part of a deal with police to turn state's evidence in the bribery case involving the Bezeq telecom giant and the Walla news site. Netanyahu, currently in the U.S. for AIPAC and a meeting with Trump, received the news at the Blair House, where he is a guest of the White House. In return for testifying against Netanyahu, Hefetz will not stand trial, face prison time or be fined. While he testifies, he will be housed at an isolated installation.

According to assessments regarding the deal, Hefetz will also give information regarding the other cases against the prime minister and his wife. Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter Email* Please enter a valid email address Sign up Please wait… Thank you for signing up. We've got more newsletters we think you'll find interesting. Click here Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. Try again Thank you, The email address you have provided is already registered. Close Hefetz is the third Netanyahu confidant to turn against the prime minister in the ongoing corruption cases. Hefetz is suspected of receiving bribes and obstructing justice as part of what is called Case 4000. He is also a key figure in 1270, and is second fiddle in Case 2000. In Case 4000, Hefetz liaised between the Netanyahu couple and the Walla news website, owned by Bezeq. Hefetz arranged for flattering items on the couple and censorship of less flattering items, Haaretz's Gidi Weitz reported. In Case 1270, Hefetz allegedly served as the prime minister's confidant who sought to elucidate how Judge Hila Gerstl felt about closing a case against Sara Netanyahu. Allegedly a trial balloon was floated, hinting to Gerstl that she would be promoted to Israel's next attorney-general if she closed the case down. Hefetz claims that it all boiled down to idle chatter and hadn't been coordinated with the prime minister and his wife. In Case 2000, Hefetz had involvement on both sides of the coin. He was head of public relations for Netanyahu, before which he served as senior editor in the Yedioth Ahronoth group, owned by Arnon Mozes. In 2009, Mozes is suspected of agreeing to provide sweetheart coverage of Netanyahu, who in turn allegedly promised to get the rival (free) newspaper Israel Hayom to stop printing a weekend edition, which stood to hugely benefit Yedioth.

Channel 10 reports that Hefetz will be providing information on other cases – some of which the public hasn't even heard of yet.

This week, the Associated Press exposed a secret program run by the U.S. Agency for International Development to create “a Twitter-like Cuban communications network” run through “secret shell companies” in order to create the false appearance of being a privately owned operation. Unbeknownst to the service’s Cuban users was the fact that “American contractors were gathering their private data in the hope that it might be used for political purposes”–specifically, to manipulate those users in order to foment dissent in Cuba and subvert its government. According to top-secret documents published today by The Intercept, this sort of operation is frequently discussed at western intelligence agencies, which have plotted ways to covertly use social media for ”propaganda,” “deception,” “mass messaging,” and “pushing stories.” These ideas–discussions of how to exploit the internet, specifically social media, to surreptitiously disseminate viewpoints friendly to western interests and spread false or damaging information about targets–appear repeatedly throughout the archive of materials provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Documents prepared by NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ–and previously published by The Intercept as well as some by NBC News–detailed several of those programs, including a unit devoted in part to “discrediting” the agency’s enemies with false information spread online.

he documents in the archive show that the British are particularly aggressive and eager in this regard, and formally shared their methods with their U.S. counterparts. One previously undisclosed top-secret document–prepared by GCHQ for the 2010 annual “SIGDEV” gathering of the “Five Eyes” surveillance alliance comprising the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S.–explicitly discusses ways to exploit Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media as secret platforms for propaganda.

The document was presented by GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). The unit’s self-described purpose is “using online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world,” including “information ops (influence or disruption).” The British agency describes its JTRIG and Computer Network Exploitation operations as a “major part of business” at GCHQ, conducting “5% of Operations.” The annual SIGDEV conference, according to one NSA document published today by The Intercept, “enables unprecedented visibility of SIGINT Development activities from across the Extended Enterprise, Second Party and US Intelligence communities.” The 2009 Conference, held at Fort Meade, included “eighty-six representatives from the wider US Intelligence Community, covering agencies as diverse as CIA (a record 50 participants), the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.” Defenders of surveillance agencies have often insinuated that such proposals are nothing more than pipe dreams and wishful thinking on the part of intelligence agents. But these documents are not merely proposals or hypothetical scenarios. As described by the NSA document published today, the purpose of SIGDEV presentations is “to synchronize discovery efforts, share breakthroughs, and swap knowledge on the art of analysis.”

House Speaker John Boehner and his cronies removed North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones from the House Financial Services Committee in late 2012, as part of a purge that removed Republicans who were not all in for Wall Street -- and for Boehner's brand of "service" to the industries that are supposed to be regulated by Congress -- from the one panel with the power to hold bankers and brokers to account. But Jones, who had opposed bank bailouts and favored Wall Street regulation, did not go quietly. He spoke up about the purge and made little secret of his sense that -- though he had split with Boehner on a number of issues -- his biggest "sin" in the eyes of the party leadership was his refusal to bow to the demands of big campaign donors. “This whole place is all about money. Money is more important than policy,” complained Jones, who has in recent years co-sponsored most major pieces of campaign-finance reform legislation in the House -- including a call for a constitutional amendment designed to restore the ability of federal, state and local officials to regulate campaign spending.

The congressman's bluntness did not go over well with the masters of the universe on Wall Street. So, this spring, they set out to purge Walter Jones from Congress altogether. They found a consummate DC insider with close ties to the financial-services industry, Taylor Griffin, and filled the challenger's campaign treasury with PAC checks from J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, as well as political powerbrokers like former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour and Wayne Berman of the Blackstone Group. It did not stop there. Jones' independence extended far beyond debates over Wall Street bailouts and regulation. The Republican is a social and economic conservative -- make that a social and economic very conservative -- but he has repeatedly broken with the party establishment on issues of war and peace, privacy rights, trade policy and budgets. He even voted against proposals by the darling of Wall Street and the party establishment, Congressman Paul Ryan

Bush administration aides and apologists rushed in with public statements and "independent" expenditures to attack Jones for his opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for his refusal to go along with moves that might lead to wars with Iran and other countries. Former Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer gave his enthusiastic backing to Griffin, as did former national security adviser Juan Zarate. Sarah Palin, one of the party's most consistent militarists, came in big for Griffin, who hailed her as an "old friend." A neo-conservative group, the Emergency Committee For Israel, spent at least $250,000 on ads that claimed Jones "preaches American decline." What Jones actually said was that, “Lyndon Johnson’s probably rotting in hell right now because of the Vietnam War, and he probably needs to move over for Dick Cheney.” At the same time, the wealthy champions of Ryan's crony-capitalist approach to budgeting were in with big money for TV ads and direct mail from the "Ending Spending Action Fund" -- a super PAC backed by billionaire businessman Joe Ricketts. By a lot of DC measures, Jones should have been doomed.

Dozens of former senior members of Israel's defense establishment have published an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday urging him to accept the nuclear accord with Iran as an "done deal." The letter also called on Netanyahu and his government to renew the trust with the U.S. in order to prepare for the deal's challenges, and to "initiate a political move which will provide credibility to Israel's support of a two-state solution." This, according to the letter, would enable the formation of a moderate Sunni-Western axis which will act against extremists in the region. The letter was signed by former Shin Bet chiefs Amy Ayalon and Carmi Gillon, former MK Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amram Mitzna, Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shaul Arieli, former MK Roman Bronfman, former police chief  Assaf Heffetz, among others.

The letter, as will be published on Tuesday's English newspaper:

In the aftermath of the historic nuclear deal with Iran, as attention increasingly focuses on Iran’s supposedly menacing regional policies, the European Parliament (EP) has turned to a different target. At its plenary session in Strasbourg in mid-July, it adopted a strongly worded resolution condemning Saudi Arabian aggression in Yemen.

What is novel about the EP resolution is that it also explicitly condemns the Saudi Arabian-led, pro-Hadi, anti-Houthi coalition for airstrikes killing civilians in violation of international humanitarian law. Also known as the Law of Armed Conflict or the Law of War, these international rules requires combatants to take all possible steps to prevent or minimize civilian casualties. The resolution also condemns the Saudi-imposed blockade of Yemen. According to the UN, the blockade has had a dramatic impact on the civilian population, with 22 million people—almost 80% of population—in urgent need of food, water, and medical supplies. It also criticized Saudi use of internationally banned cluster bombs. It concludes that Saudi actions further destabilized the country and created better conditions for the expansion of terrorist and extremist organizations like the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The resolution is notable as well for what it does not say. Contrary to alarmist reports about the Iranian role in inciting Houthis to violence and attempts of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group to insert such language, the final text does’t even mention Iran once. In this, it reflects the prevailing view of European officials, including the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, that although Iran has increased its support for the Houthis—for example, with an air transport agreement and by dispatching additional advisors—there is no evidence of a substantial direct Iranian military involvement in Yemen.

Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 death-penalty case are asking their military judge to disqualify a senior Pentagon official and his staff from the case over a since abandoned effort to make the judges live permanently at Guantánamo.The judge in Guantánamo’s other capital case, of the alleged USS Cole bombing mastermind, already disqualified retired Maj. Gen. Vaughn Ary and four legal advisors from that case earlier this month. No replacements have been named.

Now, attorneys for the alleged 9/11 plot mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four accused accomplices are asking their judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, to do the same thing in a nine-page legal motion filed Wednesday.

The 9/11 trial judge abruptly recessed the first hearing in the case since August on Monday after some of the alleged Sept. 11 plotters said they recognized a war court linguist as a former secret CIA prison worker.Alleged plot deputy Ramzi bin al Shibh, 42, made the revelation just moments into the hearing by informing the judge he had a problem with his courtroom translator. The interpreter, Bin al Shibh claimed, worked for the CIA during his 2002 through 2006 detention at a so-called “Black Site.”“The problem is I cannot trust him because he was working at the black site with the CIA, and we know him from there,” he said.This week’s is the first hearing for the five men accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania — since the public release of portions of a sweeping Senate Intelligence Committee study of the agency’s secret prisons known as “The Torture Report.”

Instead the issue became, apparently, a stony-faced translator who was sitting alongside Bin al Shibh in court when the hearing started. Lawyers for the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 49, and his nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, 37, said they learned about the recognition just as court began. The judge ordered a quick recess, excused Campoamor-Sanchez and summoned the chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, for questioning.Court resumed briefly with the linguist missing. Martins sought, and got, a continuing recess until 9 a.m. Wednesday, to look into the issue and file a written pleading with the court. Pleadings are sealed for at least 15 days for intelligence agencies’ scrub of secret information.Mohammed’s attorney, David Nevin, asked Pohl to order the suspected CIA worker to not leave this remote base in southeast Cuba and to submit to defense questioning.

War court translators are provided by one of two Defense Department contractors paid by the Pentagon unit that runs the war court, called the Office of the Convening Authority for Military Commissions. It’s run by retired Marine Maj. Gen. Vaughn Ary, a former military lawyer. The contractors are Leidos and All World.Ary’s office provides a list of qualified translators to the Office of Military Commissions Defense unit, and, in the capital cases, each one gets a dedicated translator assigned to the team. Teams can object to the choice, and have done so in the past, as unsuitable, according to earlier war court sessions.The war court’s Chief Defense Counsel, Air Force Col. Karen Mayberry, said after the court session Monday that the translator sitting with Bin al Shibh in court was not permanently assigned to his team, or the 9/11 case. The Bin al Shibh team had lost its translator after an FBI investigation secretly questioned Sept. 11 defense team members. Monday’s translator, the one that Bin al Shibh said he recognized from a CIA prison, had worked for years on war court defense teams, but none with the Sept. 11 death-penalty case, according to Mayberry. Monday’s translator was filling in for this session because, although the Bin al Shibh team had chosen a new team translator, the new permanent translator had not yet gotten a security clearance, which can be a lengthy process.

A third confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to turn state witness and testify against the prime minister, who faces a wave of corruption allegations, Israeli media reported Monday. Various outlets say longtime Netanyahu family spokesman Nir Hefetz agreed to testify in return for a more lenient punishment. He joins Shlomo Filber, another long-time aide, enmeshed in scandal. Both are under arrest on suspicion of promoting regulation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel’s Bezeq telecom company in return for favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family by the firm’s popular news website. Israeli police have recommended indicting Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two separate cases. Longtime aide Ari Harow is a state witness in one of those.