Joe Arpaio: Misprision of felony

"Misprision of felony" is one of those shiny objects the birthers discovered a few years back. The concept is knowing about a felony and not reporting it. Douglas Vogt's court action in Washington State was framed as a report of his belief that a felony was committed in regard to President Obama's birth certificate, and his desire to obtain a certification from the court that he wasn't guilty of hiding it.

Birthers aimed misprision at their opponents and members of Congress, saying that they knew Obama had forged his birth certificate and were covering it up.

Under federal law, "misprision of felony" is codified in 18 U.S. Code § 4, which says:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

They want the Obots dragged away and hung for this crime (or perhaps for the more severe "misprision of treason"). The reason this is nonsense is that the opponents of birthers do not believe that there is any felony, nor that they have any information indicating the commission of a crime. The courts have ruled that in order to be guilty of misprision of felony, a person must actively cover up the felony. Anti-birthers widely discuss birther claims, and nothing is covered up by anybody. Arguing that someone is wrong is not "covering up."

However, let's consider another possible charge of misprision of felony, this time on the birther side, and in particular against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The felony is possession of classified documents, codified as 18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. According to news reports, Dennis Montgomery came to Sheriff Arpaio and stated that he had made copies of data developed by him under contract with the CIA. The very existence of this material was classified. Montgomery then offered to mine the data for Arpaio for money.

Sheriff Arpaio paid Montgomery for information, and did not inform the US Attorney or the CIA of Montgomery's representations. Further, Sheriff Arpaio assigned Montgomery a confidential informant number, and instituted procedures whereby even people in his own department were unaware of possible felonious activity by Montgomery. Arpaio knew of crimes Montgomery claimed to have committed, and actively participated in keeping it secret. That sounds like misprision of felony to me and I am not the only one thinking this. Phoenix New Times Reporter Stephen Lemons, somewhat of an expert on the misdeeds of Joe Arpaio, raised the issue (after this article was initially published) based on a discussion with former U. S. Attorney for Arizona, Paul Charlton:

Charlton offers a couple of possible federal statutes that could apply, including 18 USC 371, conspiracy “to commit any offense against” the U.S. government. 

“Even if the information is not classified, it is still conspiracy,” Charlton says.
“Ask any narco who is currently in prison for conspiracy to transport, sell, or buy cocaine when in fact there was no cocaine, only a DEA agent pretending to deal in cocaine.” 

Then there is 18 USC 4, which has the rather exotic title “misprision of a felony.”
Charlton says this would entail Arpaio’s not alerting, say, the FBI upon learning that someone wanted to sell him classified information.

Mike Zullo: Following the money

Reprinted from Obama Conspiracy Theories

The transcript of Day 3 in the Melendres v. Arpaio contempt hearing is now available, courtesy of the Friends of the Fogbow. It contains a somewhat confusing exchange between Judge G. Murray Snow and Sheriff Arpaio relating to the Cold Case Posse’s involvement with confidential informant Dennis Montgomery in Seattle, and in particular with money.

Q. And is zoo -- did you say Zulu? Zullo. Is he a posse member?
A. Yes.
Q. And did you pay funds from Maricopa County for Mr. Zullo to
go to the Washington area?
A. Yes.
Q. And then I assume you paid Anglin and Mackiewicz their travel costs?
A. We don't pay for Zullo, but --
Q. But you paid Mackiewicz and Anglin.
A. Yes.
…
Q. And so Mr. Montgomery proposed to -- who did he propose to at the MCSO that the DOJ was inappropriately -- I assume it was of interest to you if they were wiretapping my phone, among others?
A. Yes. And mine, too.
Q. And yours, too. And so were you conducting this investigation?
A. No.
Q. Who was in your department?
A. This is Zullo and I think Mackiewicz.
Q. What rank does Mackiewicz have?
A. He's a detective.
Q. Who did he report to about this investigation?
A. I think he and Zullo worked together.
Q. And who did they report to?
A. And Jerry Sheridan.
Q. They reported to Deputy Chief Sheridan?
A. At one time, but let me just say that the information we're -- we've been getting is the informer's not very viable.
Q. Well, I understand that, I think the article itself says, that you became aware after a considerable amount of time that the reporter was giving you junk. Is that fair to say?
A. Yes.
Q. Or the informer was giving you junk?
A. Yes
Q. How much money did you spend on the informant?
A. I don't recall.
Q. How much money did you spend on the investigation?
A. I don't have the figures.
…
Q. Did you keep any of the materials that Mr. Montgomery has
provided you?
A. I don't have them.
Q. Who does?
A. I believe Zullo does.
Q. And is he subject to your control --
A. Yes.
Q. -- as a member of your posse?
A. Yes.
…
THE COURT: I just wanted to reiterate some of the
things I said during my questioning of you to make sure
everybody was clear. I was told over lunch that posse funds
like Mr. Zullo -- Mr. Zullo's the head of one of your posses.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Is it the Cold Case posse?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: I was told that you also have various sources of funding within the MCSO, like the Cold Case posse has its own funds. Is that possible?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Okay. Do you know what the possible funding sources were for the investigations that were related to the Seattle operation? When I say "operation," I mean the one involving Mr. Montgomery and the investigations with Brian Mackiewicz and Mr. Anglin.
THE WITNESS: I'm not sure if it was our RICO, which is drugs seized -- I mean moneys seized from drug peddlers, or our general funds.
THE COURT: Were there other possible funds that might be involved that fund various like, for example, the Cold Case posse?
THE WITNESS: They're independent 501(c) --
THE COURT: 501(c)(3).
THE WITNESS: -- and they raise their own money.
THE COURT: All right. And you don't have any control over those funds?
THE WITNESS: No.

OK, you got that?

Where the hell is Mike Zullo?

This is a real question, and I hope that someone who knows will tell me in a comment to this article. I don’t want an address or anything, just whether Zullo is still in the Phoenix area or not. I received a report that all of his and his family’s property was sold last year, and I am not aware of any public sightings of him this year. I ask the question because Mike Zullo may be needed. Here’s why.
Mike Zullo was intimately involved in the Dennis Montgomery confidential informant investigation by Sheriff Arpaio’s office. There is a pivotal question hanging in the Melendres contempt proceedings against Joe Arpaio and Chief Deputy Sheridan: Was the purpose of the investigation to get something on Judge Snow or not? Mike Zullo may have the answer, and the question will surely be asked. Stephen Lemons reported:

But at the recent status hearing, Snow said documents confiscated by the monitor suggested that “previous testimony offered in this matter may have been untruthful.”

Mike Zullo can put things in context, but he cannot be subpoenaed if he can’t be found, and he cannot be compelled to testify if he is outside the court’s jurisdiction.

Update:

Zullo has been found in the Phoenix area, he was subpoenaed, and he did testify at the Melendres trial.

Did Joe Arpaio buy stolen CIA secrets?

Dennis Montgomery claims to have worked for the CIA, intercepting Internet communications of American citizens. He says he was bothered by what he was doing. Did he go to the New York Times or the Washington Post? No, he just made copies.

What did he do with this information he claims to have gathered for the CIA? He sold it to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office for what is reported to be between $500,000 and a $1,000,000.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan testified in a contempt hearing before Judge G. Murray Snow in federal court in Phoenix that Montgomery was indeed on their confidential informant payroll. Sheridan’s testimony is now available, in part, in an emergency petition for writ of mandamus filed by Montgomery’s attorney Larry Klayman with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking the removal of Judge Snow. Here is part of what Sheridan testified:

Okay. Here's where the plot thickens a little bit with Mr. Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery worked for the CIA. … 2007 to 2010, [note that Montgomery’s security clearance was revoked in January of 2006] sometime -- I may have the dates wrong, because this has been a few years, and I've had other things on my mind since this thing kind of got cold. He would -- when he worked for the CIA, he pulled data from American citizens for the CIA. I mean, we heard a lot about this a few years ago; it was very much in the media. And he said he was one of the individuals that was tasked with doing that, and he knew that was incorrect, it was wrong, and so he made backup copies that he took and he kept. And he was mining that data to find these e-mail breaches, to find the bank information that he originally came to us with.

We learned that 2 terabytes of information was provided to Arpaio by Montgomery, two terabytes of information allegedly private information, bank records, probably passwords, love letters, proprietary business data, all illegally obtained, illegally taken from the CIA, and sold to Joe Arpaio. If this is true, I find it outrageous. Why isn’t this guy in jail?

But is it true?

Here’s what Chief Deputy Sheridan said:

And we continued to work with him [Montgomery], we continued to keep him on our informant payroll, so to speak, as he was producing information. But it became very slow, it became very stale, and we finally realized that he was stringing us along.

Perhaps Sheriff Arpaio is only guilty of being gullible.

Confirmed: Cold Case Posse’s investigation was junk

In a court brief, Dennis Montgomery, named by Playboy Magazine as “The Man who Scammed the Pentagon,” confirmed what many of us already knew. He was the source for the “universe-shattering” investigation of the Cold Case Posse. The brief states:

16) I [Dennis Montgomery] have become concerned that Judge Snow’s personal interests in these matters could cloud the judgment of any normal human being so as to confuse the work of the “Cold Case Posse” and myself as being only about Judge Snow.

Of course, anyone who has been following the bizarre story as it unfolded before Judge Snow, knows that it included a tale of stolen CIA data, hacking bank accounts, and spying on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and their legal team.
As reported in the press:

Snow asked Arpaio about the result of the Montgomery investigation being "junk."
Arpaio agreed with that assessment but said the investigation was still ongoing.

Chief Deputy Sheridan said that Montgomery was just “stringing us along.” So now we have it. Dennis Montgomery was the confidential source, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Sheriff’s Office. He was baby sat in Seattle by Mike Zullo, and the two deputies that Zullo disclosed made up the team of the new super-secret criminal investigation. It was all a scam, and Arpaio confirmed it under oath.

Former judge says: Joe Arpaio is Domestic enemy

Universe-shattering investigation revealed in court testimony Friday

It was somewhat of an anticlimax when Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan revealed in federal court Friday details of the “universe shattering” investigation Mike Zullo hinted about a year and a half ago. We already knew much of the story. Let’s view the facts chronologically.

Mike Zullo was the one who exposed the universe-shattering investigation in November, 2013. Carl Gallups tweeted:

BREAKING! BREAKING! ANNOUNCED TODAY - Zullo: We have universe-shattering information! PLUS: Arpaio is fully... http://t.co/MSy3DJMHDd

— PPSIMMONS (@PPSIMMONS) November 23, 2013

Zullo spoke to the Surprise Arizona Tea Party Patriots about that time. Sharon Rondeau interviewed an attendee:

Zullo “said that the investigation that they started ‘turned very dark…’

We can place a proximate time on the start of the investigation from a confidential informant inside the Sheriff’s Office. Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times newspaper wrote (in June 2014) that he had discovered:

My sources -- one of whom is a former detective with the MCSO's Special Investigations Division and is well-acquainted with SID and those in it -- say Anglin and Mackiewicz were involved in an odd investigation dating back to October 2013.

Explosive: Arpaio Admits Awful Accusation

Day 3 of Arpaio contempt hearing

Arpaio critics have known for some time that Sheriff Joe Arpaio was involved with a Seattle con man named Dennis Montgomery. He sent two deputies plus Mike Zullo to Washington State to meet Montgomery, reports of payments in excess of $100,000 plus $50,000 in computer equipment have appeared, and there was also a meeting between Arpaio and a Montgomery associate in Phoenix. Phoenix New Times reporter Stephen Lemons spilled the beans from a confidential source early last June.

I also believe that the "universe-shattering" reveal from Mike Zullo and the Cold Case Posse was also based on the Montgomery information, explaining why it was very suddenly hushed up when Montgomery's identity and past history became public.

Despite third-party denials, Sheriff Arpaio admitted in court today that he did indeed pay Montgomery for information on Judge Snow, and that he had paid a private investigator to dig up information on the judge's wife. Phoenix New Times article in hand, Judge Snow grilled Arpaio about all of this. This comes on the heels of a negative barrage of publicity in the local news media.

By way of explanation of why he deliberately ordered staff not to implement the court's orders, Arpaio said that it "slipped through the cracks."

Read more at KPHO:

• Arpaio admits to hiring private agents to investigate judge's wife
• 'Meeker' Arpaio testifies a 2nd day in racial-profiling case
• Arpaio shifts blame over disobeying court order
• Arpaio attorney quits; top deputy turns on boss
• Sheriff Joe Arpaio in court over profiling case
• AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio faces contempt hearing in profiling case

Read more at the Phoenix New Times:

• Noose Tightens Around Arpaio's Neck as He Channels Ronnie Reagan in Day Two of Contempt Trial

Universe shattering: Arpaio faces contempt charges

Arpaio to face Judge

It's a dangerous day for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who will have to explain under oath why he shouldn't be held in contempt of court for a willful violation of the Court's order to end racial profiling and to take remedial action to prevent it from happening again. His contempt hearing starts today, scheduled to run for 4 days.

In private Maricopa County Sheriffs Office staff ridiculed the court order in the Melendres v. Arpaio lawsuit. Sheriff Joe has already admitted to being in contempt, offering $350,000 in taxpayer money in restitution (and $100,000 from himself and Deputy Sheridan).

Will the slippery Arpaio escape with a slap in the wrist, or will Federal Judge Snow throw the book at him, even possibly referring Arpaio for criminal prosecution and imprisonment? Perhaps Arpaio will resign, bringing down the tissue of legitimacy he gave the Cold Case Posse and its politically-motivated investigation into President Obama's public documents.

Stay tuned for the story that Birther Report is afraid to cover.

Update:

Judge Snow Judge Snow was not happy with the continued delays in defense providing documentation to plaintiffs. Maricopa County has now been added as a party to the lawsuit. Hearing will be continued to June 16-19 with possible supplemental hearings between April 24 and June 16.

Anti-Arpaio protest outside courtroom