Crumbling under decades of lies, US punishes Hashemi for her truthfulness

BY Scott Bennett

One of the possible explanations about why the US Department of Justice and the FBI are seemingly so aggressive—if not out of control—in their rush to arbitrarily violate the constitutional rights of citizens and presume that as a government agency they are immune to any corrective action, admonishment, or legal repercussion, is because they have gotten away with it for so long and are irreversibly infected with the virus of absolute power.  For this reason, an entire “brain and heart transplant,” politically speaking, needs to be performed on these agencies before they become so monstrously arrogant and powerful that every other government institution and citizen fearfully submits to their every authoritarian whim.

This week we have seen the arbitrary abduction, shackling, insulting abuse—if not spiritual torture—of Press TV anchorwoman Marzieh Hashemi, who had travelled to the US to visit her family.  Seemingly impervious to any oversight, the FBI took Ms. Hashemi into custody, not because she was charged with a crime or a warrant had been issued or evidence had been submitted to a grand jury indicting her—all of which are required by the US Constitution in order to deprive a person of their constitutional rights to liberty, property, and Due Process; but rather because allegedly Ms. Hashemi is supposedly a “witness” to some other case, crime, indictment, or suspicion.  We know not, because the agencies that abducted her—the DOJ and the FBI—are not answering questions.  

Hashemi’s son, Hossein, has said that he and his siblings have received subpoenas to appear before the grand jury in Washington, DC.

"Currently, the information that is available to us is that she has been detained as a material witness. There aren’t any charges against her," Hossein told Press TV.

The US law defines a material witness as a person who is presumed to have information about the subject matter of a lawsuit or criminal prosecution, which is critical to the outcome of the case or trial.

In an interview Ricardo J. Bascuas, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law, elaborated on the legal aspects of Hashemi's imprisonment.

He said "the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution plainly makes it unconstitutional to detain any witness because, by definition, there is never “probable cause” to believe a witness committed a crime, adding that the Fourth Amendment forbids “unreasonable” seizures."

"An unreasonable seizure is one that is irrational or arbitrary — i.e., based on hunches or gut feelings rather than facts. By definition, there is never good cause to believe a witness probably committed a crime. So, the Fourth Amendment plainly forbids arresting a witness," he added.

The expert went on to say that "when federal authorities arrest a material witness despite the Fourth Amendment, they are making up the rules as they go... Only the government knows whether a material witness is also a target, a suspect, a person of interest, or just someone they can’t rule out as one of those things."

Bascuas added that the word "material" cannot be precisely defined, giving the government a free hand to arrest just anyone "especially when the 'proceeding' is an investigation that only the government knows the contours of."

What is important to recognize is the DOJ and the FBI—and indeed all of the federal US law enforcement agencies—have done this to other American citizens, most recently the Bundys, ranchers who had been imprisoned for refusing to abandon lands they had owned or freely used for their cattle for hundreds of years—and indeed before the land they lived on had become a State in the United States of America.

Recently the Bundys were released from prison and their case thrown out of court and the Department of Justice was rebuked by a judge for “violating the universal sense of justice,” which explains why these agencies are so blind and unrepentant about their current violations against Marzieh Hashemi.

The judge in the case, Judge Navarro, admonished the government for "flagrant prosecutorial misconduct" and withholding evidence.  In a stunning rebuke, US District Court Chief Judge Gloria Navarro scolded the prosecution for violating the Due Process rights of the four defendants — Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and Ryan Payne — and dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning they cannot be retried on felony conspiracy and firearms charges stemming from the 2014 Nevada standoff.  “The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated,” said Judge Navarro, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2010, as reported by the Arizona Republic.

The story of Marzieh Hashemi, and most importantly how it will eventually conclude, is not a woman’s story, or a black woman’s story, or a journalist's  story, or an Iranian’s story, but rather it is the story of a human being who analyzes the news and information of the world’s events, and explains them to others as truthfully and multi-dimensionally as she can—and has been punished for doing it by a nation state crumbling under the weight of a half-century of lies.  It is the story which will either rise to the highest courts in the world  and affirm that a person—any person—in the United States of America has an inviolable and constant right to be free, left alone, and able to enjoy life, liberty, and happiness, unless “Due Process” of law determines through presentations of a complaint, evidence, testimony, and indictment that the government can arrest and imprison this person.  The government, in no way nor at any time, can violate these rights or this “Due Process” of determining a person’s guilt or innocence of committing a crime.  In the case of Marzieh Hashemi, the United States Justice Department and the FBI and Homeland Security and the State’s co-conspirators, are guilty of conspiring to deny this Due Process of Hashemi, violate her civil rights, and abduct and imprison and psychologically pressure and abuse and intimidate her for political purposes rather than lawful purposes; and every person involved in these actions should be criminally prosecuted for 18 USC 242 (violation of civil rights under color of law) and 42 USC 1983, 84, 85 (civil suit for deprivation of civil rights). 

On another level, President Trump may have also been victimized by the actions of a rogue Department of Justice and FBI, as well as CIA and State Department managed by John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Gina Haspell, and he may not have been aware of this abduction of Hashemi until after it happened. If so, then this obviously has been an attempt to provoke the Iranians into a tantrum of angry, violent, or prejudicial actions, perhaps to explain a future false-flag attack which the MEK, Israeli Mossad, or MI6  and CIA may be planning to unleash in Syria or Europe (at the Poland conference perhaps). Luckily for Trump, the Iranians have shown restraint and patience, as has Russia, despite  having their citizens kidnapped and imprisoned.  Syria too has shown patience, despite the fact that Israel has attacked, once again, Syria with over 30 missiles this past weekend—perhaps in an attempt to distract the world away from the Hashemi story. 

However it ends, all free people should understand what happens to Hashemi at the hands of the American government, is what will happen to every person delusional enough to believe the American Constitution is still alive.  So the question becomes, are the people of the world alive enough to rise up and stop it?  Time will tell.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir