�During a recent deposition under oath, Peters denied knowing Bakinowski but said she may have met someone named Greenberg in Boston but couldn't recall the meeting, according to Mariani, speaking exclusively to TomFlocco.com.
�Mariani told us that Greenberg-Traurig attorney Daniel Bakinowski met with her late husband's daughter Lauren Peters in February 2003. However, before that time, Ms. Peters supported Mariani's suit against United Airlines (by law Peters participates in any settlement or judgment).
�Since the meeting with Bakinowski, Peters has continued to press for administrative and financial control of Neil Mariani's estate, accusing the New Hampshire widow of incompetence in her capacity as estate administratix because Mariani refused to accept a financial settlement from the 9-11 Victim Compensation fund.� And so on. Read it all, right through the abundant Bush-Greenberg-Traurig relationships, which are notoriously abundant.
For instance . . .
�a) Greenberg Traurig lawyer Barry S. Richard represented George W. Bush as his lead Florida attorney in the Bush-Gore 2000 election recount in the Sunshine State. And well into his presidency, Bush still owed the Greenberg firm nearly one million dollars for work done by dozens of lawyers and paralegals -- leaving some to question why a Republican candidate would hire a Democratic lawyer from a Democratic firm when the presidency hung in the balance. Greenberg's Richard also represented Bush�s brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
�b) On Election Day, November 7, 2000, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia�s son John Scalia accepted a position with Greenberg-Traurig; and on November 8 -- the day after the election, Greenberg Traurig partner Barry Richard said he was called about representing George W. Bush in the Florida presidential recount which ultimately led to the 5-4 Supreme Court vote placing Bush in the presidency. The timing of these actions raises significant questions about inner machinations between Bush-Cheney 2000 and Greenberg Traurig -- if not the Supreme Court itself.
�c) Greenberg-Traurig attorney Eric MacLeish chairs the board of the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund to benefit 170+ families in the state who lost loved ones in the attacks, while also offering free financial planning assistance and free legal services in estate administration and other related areas. Greenberg lawyers Dan Bakinowski and Erin O�Donnell assist MacLeish with 9-11 legal services; and Bush family banking house Brown Brothers Harriman investment account manager Page deGregorio handles all Mass911 fund donations . . .
�d) Three months before the September 11 attacks, Alberto Jose Mora -- counsel to the Washington, DC office of Greenberg Traurig -- was appointed by President Bush to be the General Counsel of the Department of the Navy. The position also places Mora with the responsibility of legal oversight for the elite Office of Naval Intelligence which assumed a joint intelligence role with the CIA and FBI prior to the September 11 attacks.
�e) Raquel A. Rodriguez, another Greenberg Traurig attorney, represents Florida Governor Jeb Bush as his personal general counsel.
�f) Jack Abramoff, Washington lobbyist for the Greenberg Traurig firm, raised $100,000 in bundled $2,000 dollar individual contributions for this year�s Bush-Cheney 2004 election campaign, raising him to the elite status of Bush "Pioneer" fundraiser.
�g) Greenberg Traurig partially financed a congressional-defense contractor delegation trip to Israel (Major General Taguba links defense contractor CACI International to prison torture techniques) with top U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committee members which raised unanswered questions regarding whether legislators exchanged prison �interrogation training� (known to insiders as �R 2 I,� short for resistance to interrogation) for the awarding of Homeland Security contracts to Israel. Legislators' names were not revealed.� And so on.
And so as I look the lawyer in the face . . .
He tells me he can�t talk about Miss Mariani�s case or her condition, which has in fact lasted over a long period of time, pre-dating the awful events of 9/11 and precludes her from appearing. And who am I, he asks, asking these questions? And I offer my hand, my name, my ethnicity (the same as his), my country (the same as his), my profession (writer), and that I am a friend of Mrs. Mariani, and share a mutual desire to see justice served.
And having spoken my piece, at least to him and his colleagues, which include one of the nation�s most lauded trial lawyers, I bid him and them a good day, or evening. For it is near six, and we, I, have been listening to this sonata of disinformation, non-discovery, and how to best hush speakers, for nearly two hours. It�s time to go, each man to his own family, his own conscience and discovery, his own assessment of liability and damages, in whatever order they proceed.
It�s time for each man to descend from this tower of justice, or is it Babel, onto Pearl Street, into the warm and humid air of the June 25 evening, joining the flow of the crowds bound east and west, north and south. Time for me to descend with two new friends I�ve made while witnessing these events, one a fireman, one a blogger, both hoping for truth and justice, despairing if either will come to pass. No matter how many hearings or trials are held, is the system hopelessly corrupted?
For justice as truth, both begin in the heart, with compassion and an honest desire for equality. Justice and truth do not begin or end in the grease pit, among the lubricators, the fabricators. Justice, as portrayed in its mighty statue, must be blind to rich and poor, to the powerful and the powerless. For justice as truth holds the scales of our lives and their quality. Justice must hold that scale high as the nearby Brooklyn Bridge, as high as the fallen towers once were or those liners that did not down them, as high as the sky grayed with gases and that awful cloud.
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