Tea at Trianon: Lying About Spying

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Lying About Spying

From Sharyl's Substack:

As President Trump and his picks to head federal agencies contemplate their first steps, it’s helpful to recall one of the most serious abuses by FBI agents I uncovered as an investigative reporter.
FBI agents framed a Chinese man named Wen Ho Lee for spying.
The government misconduct included, as I reported at CBS News in 2000, claiming Lee failed a lie detector test when he’d actually passed it with flying colors.
Eventually, after I exposed the fraud, Judge James Parker released Lee from prison. He apologed for granting the Justice Department’s request to deny Lee bail and keep him in solitary confinement for a year.
The judge also lit up the government for its misconduct and misrepresentations to the court.
"I feel I was led astray last December by the executive branch of the government through the Department of Justice, through the FBI, and through the US attorney for New Mexico,” said Judge Parker. ”They did not embarrass me alone, but they embarrassed this entire nation and everyone who is a citizen of it.”
There is no public record of anybody being held accountable.
In 2006, the federal government settled a lawsuit filed by Lee over the misconduct. Lee received a settlement of $1.6 million from the government (US taxpayers) and five news organizations that Lee had sued for defamation. (Read more.)