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No, I had my entire legal strategy mapped out in the first couple of hours after my arrest. I could see mistakes in the indictment, and I quickly identified which witnesses and evidence would be necessary to repudiate the whole lot.
My witness list was outstanding. It included international attorneys from the Lockerbie Trial, former Congressional staffers, even a couple of international journalists. One of Scotland's finest Solicitors, Edward MacKechnie, who won acquittal for his Libyan client in the Lockerbie Trial, immediately promised to travel at his own expense to testify for me as to the identity and credentials of Dr. Richard Fuisz, my CIA handler. I have the emails to prove it. His participation was beyond dispute.
There was no question that I had an outstanding defense. What's more, I have outstanding bona fides to go with it. I took perverse satisfaction in knowing that once the jury received witness corroboration of my extensive credentials dealing with Libya and Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Syria/Hezbollah and Malaysia for 9 years from 1993 to 2002, they would be appalled by the prosecution's arguments to convict me.
Any jury would recognize that I had legitimate reason for participating in the 9/11 investigation as a "first-responder," not to mention that I'm one of the few individuals who openly warned about 9/11 for several months before the attack. I still think a New York jury would have applauded me.
The public just didn't know who I was-- yet-- or the extensive work that put me on the cutting edge of anti-terrorism for so many years.
That would change with witness testimony at trial. It would not be boring.
Collins: What was your reaction to getting arrested in March, 2004?
I was disgusted and perversely amused. At my home, while FBI agents were handcuffing me, I asked what I was charged with. That's a natural question when FBI agents come pounding on your door.
They wouldn't tell me. That's the Patriot Act for you. The arresting FBI agent said that I could read the indictment when I got to Baltimore-- Not Washington D.C. or Greenbelt, Maryland, which are 15 minutes from my home. They processed me in Baltimore, a city that's 45 minutes away and out of the sphere of Washington media. All through the drive, the FBI agent only told me that I would be extradited to New York. I had no idea why I'd been arrested at all.
When I finally got to read the indictment, I was purple with outrage. After 9 years of hard work and devotion to Anti-Terrorism as an Asset for the U.S. government, I was now accused of acting as an "unregistered Iraqi agent" and "conspiracy with the Iraqi Intelligence Service." Oh My!
I told the arresting FBI agent, "This is bullshit. This is political. You want me out of the way so you can lie about Iraq and 9/11 during the (2004) election."
Collins: You were arrested in March 2004, when President Bush was locked in a tight race with John Kerry and appeared to be losing. Do you think presidential campaign politics was involved in your indictment?
Lindauer: There was never any question that it was a cheap, political indictment engineered by ruthless White House staff, including my own cousin, Andy Card, afraid of losing Bush's re-election.
A few weeks before my arrest, I contacted the offices of Senators Trent Lott and John McCain and asked to testify before the new blue-ribbon Presidential Commission on Iraqi Pre-War Intelligence. As part of that testimony, I would have detailed Iraq's efforts to cooperate with the 9/11 investigation, and, before 9/11, our threats to bomb Baghdad in April and May, 2001 if they failed to serve up any fragments of intelligence relating to a new conspiracy involving airplane hijackings. I, personally, bickered with Iraqi diplomats at the United Nations for several months seeking that information. Iraq had nothing to give us.
Under the circumstances, arresting me must have presented an irresistible temptation.
Collins: How so?
