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US Judge Gladys Kessler's decision yesterday to cancel a November 28 hearing on accused so-called "Washington Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey's civil case against a former escort of the defunct Pamela Martin & Associates (PMA) escort and "sexual fantasy" service came as the case was getting extremely close to Vice President Dick Cheney, previously reported by WMR to have been a client of the service while chief of Halliburton.
Palfrey's lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley, had successfully served subpoenas on Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter and attorney Kathleen Voelker, the lawyer for a former escort being used by Palfrey for violating the terms of her employment contract with PMA by allegedly engaging in prostitution activities with two high-profile "johns": Vitter and national security expert Harlan Ullman. The former escort in question is Paula Wells Neble, now known as Paula Kieren White MacTanish.
According to Sibley, both MacTanish and Ullman had successfully eluded witness subpoenas before Kessler canceled next week's hearings.
A former top government official told WMR that Ullman has long served as a close colleague and friend of Cheney. Ullman's authorship of the military "shock and awe" strategy, used against Iraq, made him a close confidante of the Vice President while he was Secretary of Defense and Halliburton chief.
Although Vitter is more politically damaging to the Republican Party, the focus of Ullman ultimately leads to Cheney, himself. One of Assistant U.S. Attorney William Cowden's original reasons for asking Kessler to order an injunction against Palfrey's civil suit against MacTanish/Neble was to avoid the "harassment" of witnesses. The government was never able to identify any "harassed" witnesses.
It now appears that Cheney, knowing that only one person -- Ullman -- stands between him and his public outing as a client of PMA, had pulled out all the stops to ensure the discovery process in the Palfrey civil suit remains dead in the water.
In a statement, Palfrey said she is "greatly distressed at the complete lack of due process afforded me in this situation."
