Part One of Four
-
And Why the Facts Matter Now
“I'm
not a journalist and the facts don't matter.” -
Rayelan Allen, RMN owner and editor
“All
politics is personal,” or
“the personal is political.”
Early feminist sayings
In
November of 2002 we had been lied to about Weapons of Mass
Destruction, the reason given for invading Iraq, resistance to the
war was waning. Standing in the way, though this was not publicly
known at the time, was Saddam Hussein, who was very willing to leave
Iraq forever – if he was paid.
Paying
him off would have been far cheaper than the cost of the war. But it
would not have accomplished the real goals.
The
real drive for war was oil and the dollar. The details were carried
out by a group of people who had no conscience, willing to lie
themselves into power and lie, cheat, steal and kill, to keep it.
Together, they have changed our world, bringing us to the precipice
of destruction. These are the acts of individuals who behave in
exactly the same way in their personal lives. I know.
The
build up to war, constructed by the Bush White House, took place as
events in my own life played out in shocking ways but which proved to
be highly informative in a horrible way.
The
strategies used by those I was forced to deal with personally were
the same as those used by the NeoCons who were driving us to war. At
the time, I was fighting to protect my daughter, Morgan, from the
consequences of her life-long bad behavior and judgment. Later, I
realized this was not possible.
She
is a psychopath acting on the mistaken belief she can get away with
anything. Harming others, or even killing them, was perfectly
acceptable to her.
Our
internal values determine all parts of our lives and for all parts we
are responsible and accountable.
How
many people died because of the War in Iraq and the lies told to us?
At least a million and a half, though the total is probably higher.
How
many people misdirected their life efforts through patriotic fervor
incited by people who had intentionally used the symbols and language
of honor to defraud us? The number is unbearably high.
How
many of us have struggled to understand how this could have happened?
Hold
the impact of the war and how this was accomplished in mind as we
consider what happened from the time this story began in 1997 until
the invasion of Iraq began in the spring of 2003.
The
Personal
I
first became active in politics during the Goldwater campaign. My
goal was to achieve social justice and individual empowerment. While
pursing these goals I joined the Libertarian Party in 1974. I managed
campaigns, ran for office, did fundraising and organized. I left when
it was clear the Kochs had destroyed any potential for effective
action in 1988.
I
studied the problem of organizations while remaining active. In 1997
I was a Regent for the National Federation of Republican Women and
coping with the continuing crises generated by my husband, Craig
Franklin. Not filing his taxes, when he owed nothing, was typical of
Craig's irresponsible behavior. I wrote this article about what we
called, “The Tax Crisis,” in 2008. You're
Not Paranoid – The IRS is out to get you.
After
I solved the problem Craig decided to leave me and take all the money
with him.
Beginning
in 1997 Morgan, who had committed the incredibly ugly act of working
with Craig to defraud me of millions of dollars during our divorce,
had, in October of 1998, started a sexual relationship with an old
boy friend of mine, John Fund, then on the Editorial Board of the
Wall Street Journal. She wanted a rich husband and decided he would
do.
Always
ambitious, she had emerged from her childhood, which had traumatized
her entire family, functionally illiterate – and her previous
prospect for marital bounty, Eugene
Volokh, had
flown the coop the month before.
She
was actually traveling with my estranged husband, on a tour of New
York, London, and Paris, when she and John started their affair.
Would she have hesitated if she had known how promiscuous John had
become, enabled by the power accrued as a NeoCon operative? Probably
not. But she might have played things differently.
John
Fund was placed at the WSJ in 1984 by connections who maintained
close ties with the people who were already working to put Bush in
office by stealing the election in 2000. Positioned as a journalist
he is actually a political operative, his first experiences in this
coming through the Koch Brothers' attempt to take over the
Libertarian Party.
Taking
up with your mother's former boy friend, someone you have referred to
as 'Uncle John' since you were a child, is scandalous behavior, there
is no other word for it. This type of behavior is normal for Morgan.
I
had no idea this was going on because I was thousands of miles away
caring for my oldest son, Arthur, who had attempted suicide by
shooting himself through the brain on March 22, 1998. It would be
another year before he would be able to even go to the bathroom
himself. My entire focus was on his care.
Morgan
and I were not talking because her deviousness and lies had included
attempting to persuade me she needed a heart transplant in an attempt
to get me to turn off her brother's life support. She called me to
ask for his heart. This happened, I later realized, soon after she
had been paid $10,000 to do this by my estranged husband, Craig
Franklin.
One
of the reasons psychopaths get away with so much is our inability to
believe the ugliness of their real motives. This is also true in
politics.
When
John started his liaison with Morgan he expected a job as
speechwriter for the Bush administration, still two years in the
future. They were already discussing war with Iraq. John would
assist, pushing the agenda in the media.
After
years of dealing with Morgan I knew not to believe her if she did not
offer proof but I had no reason to distrust John. So, in September,
1999, for practically the only time in her life, Morgan told the
truth, with proof.
Puzzled
at the persistent rumors about a relationship between her and John, I
called to ask him. John and I had been chatting regularly for over
twenty years. Asked about the relationship he expressed shock. He
denied it, saying he had fed her cat for her once or twice. I
believed him. He was completely persuasive, giving the impression of
absolute openness.
It
was the WeaselSearch
Tape, recorded
by Morgan in September of 1999, which changed my mind.
This
is a man who helped lie us into war. His personal ethics match the
ones he uses professionally.
One
afternoon that September Morgan called me to beg for help. She was
broke and about to be evicted from her apartment in Jersey City.
John, she said, had forced her to abort his baby the previous March
and then dumped her. A heated discussion ensued as I relayed to her
my recent conversation with John.
Hearing
a call coming in, Morgan put me on hold. It was John. She recorded
her conversation with him. You can listen to it on the tape above. A
few minutes later I had heard the whole of it.
I
was stunned and confronted him on the phone soon afterward. He hung
up on me. His cover blown he moved to the next strategy, distancing.
As
a result of a fax
I sent to the WSJ moments later, the job
as a speechwriter for the Bush White House, already being promised,
vanished. The fax, I was told, was copied at least five times on its
way to his office.
The
illusion of family values needed to be retained.
Instead
of a job in the White House, which John had earned through his work
as an operative for the NeoCons, then coming to power, he was told to
write a book about how liberals steal elections. This would provide
cover for the electronic hacking about to begin.
The
relationship between John and Morgan seemed to stabilize for a while.
Fund spent nearly half his time at the apartment I rented in NY at
the Rivergate. I was rarely there. John told me he intended to marry
Morgan, who he said really loved. I wished them well, glad they had
come to some resolution.
But
then, in December of 2000 Morgan realized he was sneaking into my
empty room to call
other women,
including Federal judge Diane Sykes, late at night. He left emails
where Morgan could find them.
I
received copies of these from Morgan via email. This one, Fund sent
on July
22 this
same year, was typical.
Morgan's
relationship with John continued, headed for rockier and rockier
ground as the number of 'other women' Morgan discovered increased.
Despite
this, they moved in together in Jersey City in July of 2001, just
days after Morgan had vented to John Connolly of Vanity Fair. From
those interviews Connolly wrote an article titled, “Sex,
Lies and the Tape.”
Over my objections Morgan had given him a
copy of the tape she had made in 1999.
The
article was published September 4, 2001, along with the tape.
Connolly
had arranged for the article to be published in Talk Magazine - but
Fund intimidated Tina Brown into canceling the story by having his
attorney, John J. Walsh, call and make threats. Walsh later billed
for services, producing this letter.
Morgan also found a Work
Memo later.
Instead,
the article was published only online on a site called WeaselSearch,
from which it got its name. When the site folded it was hosted on
American Politics Journal, where it is today.
What
Fund did to stop publication is standard operating procedure for
NeoCons. He used this later against me.
But
because the article refuted the lies John had continued to tell, a
scandal erupted anyway.
Understandably,
this event did not contribute to bliss in John and Morgan's
relationship but the reasons were far more complex than just one
little article.
Morgan
called me, outraged. She had refurbished John's apartment at his
request and he was refusing to pay her back. When she moved in the
utilities had been turned off because of his non-payment and the
plumbing did not work. I made her produce the receipts since I still
did not trust her. She kept track of payment for cleaning supplies
and repairs, which were complete before she told me John was
battering her in the later part of September.
The
violence, she later said, had begun one evening after an event at the
ALEC Conference in New York in early August.
I
had hoped the relationship would work out. To say it didn't vastly
understates the case.
I
did not believe her until I heard it happening over the phone, which
happened in late September. When I heard John's demonic glee as he
pounded her I felt obligated to take action. As I have said, Morgan
lies. Another friend of her's, Eric Buchanan, confirmed he had also
heard this taking place on another occasion. Both of us advised
Morgan to leave him. She refused.
During
this time Carol
Divine Molin,
a Republican Woman, called me to express concern for Morgan as a
battered woman. She told me she counseled women who had been
battered.
Then
it came out that her motive was reigniting her brief fling with Fund
by assisting him with Morgan. The fling had taken place some time
earlier, after Fund spoke to a group to which Molin belonged. Liking
what she saw, evidently, she took him home with her. Fund's parting
words were, by report, “You
got to swallow.”
We
learned Molin had complained to the management at the Wall Street
Journal about how she had been treated the year before.
The
beatings continued. Morgan filed police reports
in New Jersey.
Morgan
became aware John was still lying about their relationship, saying he
barely knew her, while she was living with him. At one point she used
her cell phone so I could hear him telling these lies to Lloyd Grove
from the Washington Post.
Listening
to him lie was stunning. Again, I begged her to leave.
After
she found even more emails, from a growing list of other women, she
agreed. The emails included these between him and Michele Davis, on
January
13th
and
18th,
and
this Email,
revealing the sexual relationship he had begun with law professor
Gail Heriot, also on the 13th
of January.
Christine
Hall Reis, a new bride, offered the services of herself and her
friend, Julie Currie, from Kroll Opposition Research to John on
January
21, 2002.
Christine had sent an unusual photo of herself to John, which he
printed and left on the floor, where Morgan found it.
Morgan
moved out of the apartment in Jersey City and into an apartment I
rented for her in New York around January 24 - 26, 2002. I breathed a
sigh of relief, but it was not over. The craziness escalated.
John
found out where Morgan was living and moved in with her. He left a
litter of papers there, some of which Morgan scanned and sent me to
prove this was happening. This letter from Fidelity
Investments
is dated January 25, 2002. Morgan picked it up off the floor in her
Manhattan apartment after John left it there. Another incident of
battery soon took place just moments before I arrived at the
apartment. When I walked in I saw Morgan bloodied and bruised.
John
had been told by his two closest friends, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove,
who occupied adjacent spaces on his speed dial, he needed to provide
evidence Morgan had lied. Which she might well have done. But there
were witnesses. Buchanan and I had heard beatings take place and were
ignored by authorities. Neither of us were ever called though the
authorities knew we were witnesses.
Fund
received help from some of the other women in his life. A few of
these were victims themselves, unaware of what was really happening
and are not named. Others, like Gail Heriot, whose relationship with
Fund began in a hotel room in December of 2001 or January of 2002,
assisted in building the website Fund used to insert lies into public
view and wrote letters for him, libeling both Morgan and myself.
Desperate,
we sought help from people who were politically at odds with the
NeoCons. One of these individuals was Sidney Blumenthal.
It
was at this time Blumenthal put a keylogger on Morgan's computer to
steal information about Fund. He had refused to help, trying to
persuade her it was enough to expose
him
politically. So Morgan returned the keylogger favor, against my
advice.
While
she can't write a literate sentence Morgan was a wiz with computers.
It was this act which would expose to us the strategy adopted by the
Bush White House to ensure the War in Iraq was not stopped in
November of 2002.
An
attempt to kill Morgan took place in May, 2002. I heard this over the
phone as the key turned in the door of her apartment. Morgan threw
herself against it and engaged the dead bolt. I believed her. She is
not that good an actress.
Then,
she went into hiding with a couple in Georgia.
As
the campaign to sell the fiction of Weapons of Mass Destruction was
hammered into accepted fact Morgan was following Sidney via his
emails and reading early chapters of his book, Clinton's War.
Occasionally she would forward me a copy.
By
November war appeared to be inevitable. Then, Morgan called me and
asked if U-Day was something like E-Bay. The keylogger had turned up
something with more surprises than Blumenthal's book.
Saddam,
in communication with Blumenthal, wanted to cut a deal to be paid to
leave so war would not be necessary. I had the origin of the email
checked out and the expert said it had come from the Emirates and
Baghdad was a likely source.
The
appointed agents for insuring Saddam would stay put were the Clintons
and their old friend, Sidney Blumenthal. This activism on their parts
is
likely the real source of the largess which flowed into the Clinton
coffers, not Hillary's public speaking abilities or investment savvy.
The
previous January Fund had forced Morgan to sign a 'confession' saying
no abuse had taken place. The documents were dated January 24, 2002,
just before she moved out.
Evidently,
Fund promised to pay her what he owned her if she signed and,
stupidly, she did. Since an accounting of what Fund owed matched what
was asked if you add in the outdated checks Morgan found while
cleaning, which Fund had given her, it is likely Rove and Cheney
decided this was not enough 'proof' to be persuasive.
Eric
and I knew the statement was hogwash and would have so testified.
The
real campaign to destroy our credibility began in 2003, after Fund's
friends realized they had more than one political operation to
protect. They needed to protect John, a pivotal political operative,
and the truth about Saddam.
So
evidence was sought and obtained through trade with those holding it.
Craig,
my former husband, was Senior Vice President of Green Hills Software,
Inc. He and the company's president, Dan O'Dowd, had made a deal in
1997 to defraud their partners. Dan would have a fake stock option
agreement made to deny me a marital share during our divorce and
Craig would lead a walk out to keep Glenn Hightower, Dan's partner,
from exercising his buy out option when Dan exercised it and made him
an offer.
Morgan
had supplied a recording of Craig gloating about this and in late
1999 I had filed a law suit. Morgan gave a deposition on February 22,
2001. The suit settled and the deposition was never certified, making
it illegal to copy.
Green
Hills Software, LLC. exchanged a copy of this deposition for defense
contracts. Today, Green Hills Software, Inc. is a billion dollar
company heavily into drone technology and supplying the Military
Industrial Complex.
The
campaign to destroy our credibility began in early 2003.
On
January
23, 2003 Fund filed an answer to Morgan's law
suit
in New York.
On
April 3, 2003, Dan O'Dowd decided the desperate need for
servicemembers was to provide a measly $5,000 for a child's college
education. He amount pledged, $100.000, with matching funds up to
$250.000. The non-profit was incorporated on the 9th
and
announced publicly on April 10th.
The is an embarrassingly minor contribution for a corporation which
made billions from contracts flowing from the military.
On
April
7, 2003 Craig Franklin handed an enveloped copy of Morgan's
Deposition
to Anne
Fisher,
his then girl friend, telling her it contained Morgan's deposition.
It was addressed to John Fund. It was a Green Hills
envelope
with the postage paid by the company in advance.
On
April 8, 2003 RuthlessPeople
was down.
On
May
11, 2003, Mother's Day morning, I
wrote
an email responding to questions received early that morning from
Eric Alterman for an article which would be published on the 15th.
On
May 15, 2003 Eric Alterman's hit piece, "Who
Framed John Fund?"
was published in The
Nation.
On May
16, 2003 Gene Gaudette,
Editor of American Politics Journal, received a Letter
via email
from Gail Heriot, one of Funds many girl friends libeling us.
On
June
21, 2003 JohnFund.com, a hit site, appeared online. The site came
down sometime after May 19th
this year. It can
be viewed through the WayBackMachine.
On July
22, 2003 Wendy MacElroy, who calls herself a feminist but focuses her
attack pieces on women, traded a hit piece on Morgan for a gig at Fox
News. Wendy, who has known Melinda since the 1970s, failed to call
her or Morgan. The article
is titled, False
Rape Charges Hurt Real Victims.
During
this time Melinda received notice from the IRS claiming she owed
money. The IRS refused to tell her why since her returns were
produced by a CPA and documented all expenses.
Carried
out this way, the NeoCon campaign was masked and did not appear to
have any relationship with the War in Iraq. It was all 'personal.'
But
all parts of our lives reflect our values, which is why trying to
separate the two in this was is wrong.
Clearly,
everyone else had agendas which had nothing to do with the simple,
provable fact John Fund committed domestic violence. This is a crime
and should be prosecuted even if the victim has lied previously and
is a jerk.
Saddam
also knew too much.
No
one read the book, though the reviews were very good.
I
wonder what would have happened if I had understood the ruthless lack
of conscience these people carry behind smiling, and lying, faces in
both their personal and professional lives. What choices would I have
made, personal and political?
The
next years were given over to stark survival and caring for my son.
Since Morgan had drained me of money this was much more difficult. I
fought back because I had to, using the only tool I could afford, the
truth.
Stay
tuned for Part Two -
What Happens When You Know Too Much
