BoRev.Net

By Revolter:

The "Suitcase Scandal" trial of Franklin Duran is finally underway in Miami, and everyone is on the edge of their seat to find out how the Department of Justice's campaign corruption allegations will impact Venezuela and Argentina. Stop. Repeat: the US DOJ somehow managed to find a way to get jurisdiction over alleged corruption in other people's countries.

But it gets better. This pretrial analysis in the Miami Herald contains this important nugget:

"[Argentine President Cristina] Fernández de Kirchner has denounced the accusation as complete ''garbage.'' Following a meeting in February between Fernández de Kirchner and U.S. Ambassador Earl Wayne, prosecutors no longer referred to the Argentine connection."

If true, this means that the Department of State has ordered the Department of Justice to ignore half of it's evidence. So much for judicial independence.

There's more. With the "Objective of the Conspiracy" (indictment) apparently off limits, the State Dep. and DOJ had to come up with something to fill the time and headlines so, voila! A recently unsealed DOJ Motion alleges 10 years of corruption involving Venezuelan officials and the defendant (the judge has not yet ruled on the admissibility of the evidence). So now the only point of the trial is what, to embarrass the Chavez government ahead of elections? Classy.

Everyone knows that Bush's DOJ is hilariously politicized, but why would the US make a risky pact with Argentina? Is Cristina's surprise announcement on the trial's opening day really about hush-money? In June, the State Dep. re-listed Argentina as a "key country" in the region before holding high-level meetings in Buenos Aires, again. And just last week, a mature Tom Shannon offered Cristina "help" but only if "she plans to have an adult and harmonious relationship with the White House," according to Clarin.

Various Latin American papers have noticed that there seems to be some sort of "understanding" going on here. And no wonder, the prosecution isn't even trying to hide it. According to Perfil, when the defense attempted to question prospective jurors about the suitcase, Prosecutor Mulvihill objected because, "this trial has nothing to do with what happened in Argentina." Um, excuse me? The whole thing is supposed to be about "what happened in Argentina."

Judge Joan Lenard upheld, stating that no one "needs to mention the Suitcase Scandal." So no valijagate in the valijagate trial? Deal or no deal, conviction or acquittal, the administration has managed to make this trial about judicial independence and grand-scale corruption in the United States. That's so Bush!