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To all my readers and friends, I’ve cancelled my appearance and will NOT be appearing or speaking at this weekend’s Intelligence Summit in the Washington, DC area, as I had originally planned. I apologize if you made plans to go to this conference to see and hear me.
You’ve probably heard a lot about how the “Saddam WMD Tapes” will be presented there. But Saddam tapes or not, I, for one, won’t be there. And it looks like former CIA Directors James Woolsey and John Deutch have followed suit and cancelled their appearances, as well.
This is the first time I have ever cancelled an appearance. I cancelled my appearance at the Intelligence Summit for a number of reasons. I reluctantly agreed to appear at this event, based on representations that were made to me that were never backed up. I had questions and issues, the answers and resolutions to which were never satisfactorily provided after repeated requests. Therefore, I felt it was not in my best interest to appear.
The chief organizer of the event–according the the group’s website–is John Loftus, a former Justice Department official who wrote “The Secret War Against the Jews,” about American cooperation with the Nazis. As a prosecutor, his work in that area, I am told, is highly commendable.
Mr. Loftus has presented himself–and continues to–as a “terrorism expert” over the years, and many foolish parties have bought in, including The Washington Post and FOX News Channel. FOX News hired Loftus as its terrorism expert, but fired him after he broadcast the address of a California home as being the home of an Islamic terrorist. It was not (the terrorist had since moved), and the innocent people who lived there had their homes vandalized. I’m sure that he did not do this on purpose and never meant for that to happen.
My first experience with Mr. Loftus, in 2002–well before FOX News hired him–showed me, glaringly, that he is a fraud. He spoke at a counter-protest to the University of Michigan Palestinian Students Divestment Conference. I was the keynote speaker at the event. At the time, Mr. Loftus had recently filed a lawsuit (which was dismissed) against Islamic Jihad terrorist/founder and South Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian, a man about whom I know, and have written, a great deal.
Mr. Loftus’ speech betrayed him to be almost completely ignorant on Mr. Al Arian, Islam in general (claimed Mohammed loved the Jews and treated them well; tell that to the Jews who built Medina, whom Mohammed slaughtered, forcibly converted to Islam, or expelled), and to be a blatant liar. I watched in amazement as he claimed to the large audience assembled, that he was the attorney for INS, Customs, and FBI agents, and others who’d investigated Sami Al-Arian. I know several of those parties, and to my knowledge, none of them have ever been represented by Loftus.
During his speech, Loftus passed out several court documents and affidavits about Al-Arian, all of which I and many others had had for years, as a result of FOIA requests done by Steven Emerson’s office. Loftus claimed these easily available, public documents (which, again, I had and were available for years) were secret, sensitive documents he got from his clients and that FBI agents came to him demanding to know where he got these documents. Right. He said he claimed “attorney-client” privilege. For what? Publicly available documents he got from Emerson’s office.
Loftus also showed bootlegged videos taken from the Florida Holocaust Museum (of which Loftus had been President) that came from Emerson’s operation, but which he presented as his own. Also of note, when Loftus sued Al-Arian, his press release thanked Rita Katz, who at the time worked for Emerson, for her help and research he used for the suit. Why would he need her help if he actually represented the agents who personally investigated Al-Arian?
Despite the fact that the Intelligence Summit has at least $100,000 in sponsorships and hundreds who are paying $600 to attend, the group claims it has no money and extracted a free ad on this website in exchange for paying my travel and hotel. I asked where the money was going. When I finally got a response, they claimed all or most of it is being spent on food for the conference. Gee, such an exorbitant price for food, and yet they aren’t even getting the sous-chef at Jean George to cook the meals. As one of my terrorism-expert friends asked, “Is Hussein Ibish eating at this thing?” (Ibish is a morbidly obese Islamo-fascist apologist and former spokesman for an Islamist Arab American group.)
The Intelligence Summit claims to be operated by a tax-deductible 501(c)(3) organization and pled poverty. Yet, I got a million excuses why I could not locate the organization’s tax returns on any number of free websites that would contain PDF files of those returns. I wanted to see these, based on my previous knowledge of Mr. Loftus. When I was finally sent a hint of a tax return, it was a link to a Florida Holocaust Museum of which Mr. Loftus was once President and for which he is apparently the registered agent. There is no record on the tax returns of any connection to the Intelligence Summit, or any recording of the Summit’s employees, officers, salaries, expenses, etc. from previous years of the event.
I was told Mr. Loftus delayed in responding to others who asked some questions for me because of serious illnesses of close family members. But those illnesses didn’t stop him from doing an interview with ABC News’ Brian Ross.
Given all this, I decided it was just not in my interest to appear at this event. Again, I’m sorry if you have chosen to attend to see and hear me. There will be other opportunities for that.