https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.htmlPolice, Phone Company Implicated : Alleged Wiretap Scheme Investigated in Cincinnati
BY ERIC HARRISON
JAN. 14, 1989
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.htmlTAPPING INTO A SCANDAL - Chicago Tribune
Apr 2, 1989Leonard Gates and Robert Draise say they even tapped the hotel room where then-President Gerald Ford stayed during two visits to Cincinnati, a tale substantially corroborated by the hotel`s...
https://irp.fas.org/congress/1989_cr/s890418-bug.htmTapping Into a Scandal--Fired Workers Say Cincinnati Bell, Police Bugged Lines
Cincinnati.--The Pete Rose gambling affair isn't the only story that has Cincinnatians scratching their heads these days.
In what some have dubbed the `reach out and tap someone' scandal, two former telephone installers for Cincinnati Bell claim they set more than 1,200 illegal wiretaps from 1972 to 1984 on orders from city police and phone company supervisors.
Among the alleged targets of the snooping: past and present members of Congress, federal judges, scores of the city's most prominent politicians, business executives, lawyers and media personalities.
Leonard Gates and Robert Draise say they even tapped the hotel room where then-President Gerald Ford stayed during two visits to Cincinnati, a tale substantially corroborated by the hotel's retired security chief.
Newspaper accounts have given Cincinnatians a disquieting inside look at a Police Department that apparently spied on itself, and at a grand jury probe that has prompted one former FBI official to suggest that the Justice Department seems more interested in discrediting the accusers than in seeking the truth.
The phone company says Gates and Draise are just trying to get even with the company for firing them. But disclosures thus far suggest there is at least some truth in what the two are saying.
The men portray themselves as mere foot soldiers in the alleged conspiracy who never paused to question the motives behind the wholesale wiretapping.
But their allegations have raised concerns about possible stock manipulations, industrial espionage and political blackmail. Gates and Draise say they tapped phone lines at the Cincinnati Stock Exchange and at General Electric's aircraft engine plant in suburban Evendale.
A federal grand jury began looking into the case last September, but so far no indictments have been returned. The city has hired a private detective to conduct its own investigation. And four alleged targets of the wiretapping have brought a class-action suit against the city and the phone company.
The phone company is fighting back with a libel suit against Gates and Draise, who, in turn, have countersued Cincinnati Bell. The company also has gone public with the unseemly details of an extramartial affair by Gates.
The conspiracy began in 1972, according to Draise, when he was approached by a Cincinnati police sergeant who said he was from the department's clandestine intelligence unit. The sergeant wanted him to tap the lines of black militants and suspected drug dealers, Draise said.
The officer assured him that the wiretapping would be legal, and that top phone company officials had approved, Draise said. He agreed and suggested the recruitment of Gates, a co-worker. Soon the two were setting several wiretaps a week at the request of their police handlers, he said.
But in the mid-'70s, the direction and scope of the operation changed, according to Draise and Gates. The wiretap requests no longer came from the police; instead, they came directly from James West and Peter Gabor, supervisors in Cincinnati Bell's security department, Draise and Gates say.
And the targets no longer were criminal elements; instead, Draise and Gates say they were asked to tap the lines of politicians, business executives and police officers.
Draise said he `began to have doubts about the whole thing in 1979' when he was asked to tap the phone of a newspaper columnist. `I told them I'm not gonna do this anymore,' he said last week.
Gates said he got cold feet in 1984 when West asked him to tap the phone lines connected to GE's computers at the Evendale plant.
`This is a fantasy of two renegades, both of whom we fired for good cause and who seek retribution,' said Dwight Hibbard, Cincinnati Bell's chairman.
Indeed, Draise was fired in 1979, after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with an unauthorized wiretap--which Draise says he set for a friend who wanted to listen in on his girlfriend's conversations.
Gates was fired in 1986 for insubordination. He claims the company was retaliating against him for taking the side of two employees who sued the company for sexual harassment, but his firing was upheld in court.
The scandal began to unfold last August when Gates and Draise took their story to the Mt. Washington Press, a fiesty suburban weekly.
At first, police denied the existence of the intelligence unit. Later, when called before the grand jury, five retired officers, including the former chief, took the 5th Amendment. But last month, the five issued a statement admitting to 12 illegal wiretaps from 1972 to 1974.
Evidence of a much larger wiretapping scheme began to mount when Howard Lucas, the former security chief of Stouffer's Hotel in Cincinnati, recalled a 1975 incident in which he stopped Gates, West and several police officers from going into the hotel's phone room about a month before a visit by President Ford.
Two days later, Lucas found a voice activated recorder and wiretapping equipment in the locked room. He said he told the Police Department and the phone company about the equipment, `but I couldn't get anybody to claim it, so I just threw it in the dumpster.'
The allegations of industrial espionage prompted GE executives to meet with Draise and Gates. According to Draise, GE counsel David Kindleberger expressed astonishment when told the extent of the tapping at the plant and liked it to the apparent loss of proprietary information to Pratt & Whitney, a competing manufacturer of aircraft engines.
Kindleberger, through a GE spokesman, now says he never discussed Pratt & Whitney or any competitive situation with Draise, but an attorney who sat in on the meeting supports Draise's version.
http://phrack.org/issues/26/10.htmlReach Out And TAP Someone April 3, 1989
Two former employees of Cincinnati Bell, who were fired by the company for
"good cause" according to Cincinnati Bell Chairman Dwight Hibbard are claiming
they installed more than 1200 illegal wiretaps over a 12 year period from 1972
- 1984 at the request of their supervisors at the telco and the local police.
Among the alleged targets of the snooping were past and present members of
Congress, federal judges, scores of the city's most prominent politicians,
business executives, lawyers and media personalities.
Leonard Gates and Robert Draise say they even wiretapped the hotel room where
President Gerald Ford stayed during two visits to Cincinnati; and this part of
their story, at least, has been verified by the now retired security chief at
the hotel.
As more details come out each day, people in Cincinnati are getting a rare look
at a Police Department that apparently spied on itself, and at a grand jury
probe that has prompted one former FBI official to suggest that the Justice
Department seems more interested in discrediting the accusers than in seeking
the truth.
Cincinnati Bell executives says Gates and Draise are just trying to "get even"
with the company for firing them. But disclosures thus far seem to indicate
there is at least some truth in what the two men are saying about the company
they used to work for.
According to Gates and Draise, they were just employees following the orders
given to them by their superiors at Cincinnati Bell. But Dwight Hibbard,
Chairman of the Board of Cincinnati Bell has called them both liars, and said
their only motive is to make trouble for the company.
Cincinnati Bell responded to allegations that the company had specifically
participated in illegal wiretapping by filing a libel suit against Gates and
Draise. The two men responded by filing a countersuit against the telco.
In addition to their suit, four of the people who were allegedly spied on have
filed a class action suit against the telco.
In the latest development, Cincinnati Bell has gone public with (according to
them) just recently discovered sordid details about an extramarital affair by
Gates. A federal grand jury in Cincinnati is now trying to straighten out the
tangled web of charges and countercharges, but so far no indictments have been
returned.
Almost daily, Gates and Draise tell further details about their exploits,
including taps they claim they placed on phones at the Cincinnati Stock
Exchange and the General Electric aircraft engine plant in suburban Evendale.
According to Draise, he began doing these "special assignments" in 1972, when
he was approached by a Cincinnati police officer from that city's clandestine
intelligence unit. The police officer wanted him to tap the lines of black
militants and suspected drug dealers, Draise said.
The police officer assured him the wiretapping would be legal, and that top
executives at the phone company had approved. Draise agreed, and suggested
recruiting Gates, a co-worker to help out. Soon, the two were setting several
wiretaps each week at the request of the Intelligence Unit of the Cincinnati
Police Department.
But by around 1975, the direction and scope of the operation changed, say the
men. The wiretap requests no longer came from the police; instead they came
from James West and Peter Gabor, supervisors in the Security Department at
Cincinnati Bell, who claimed *they were getting the orders from their
superiors*.
And the targets of the spying were no longer criminal elements; instead, Draise
and Gates say they were asked to tap the lines of politicians, business
executives and even the phone of the Chief of Police himself, and the personal
phone lines of some telephone company employees as well.
Draise said he "began to have doubts about the whole thing in 1979" when he was
told to tap the private phone of a newspaper columnist in town. "I told them I
wasn't going to do it anymore," he said in an interview during the week of
April 2, 1989.
Gates kept on doing these things until 1984, and he says he got cold feet late
that year when "the word came down through the grapevine" that he was to tap
the phone lines connected to the computers at General Electric's Evendale
plant. He backed out then, and said to leave him out of it in the future, and
he claims there were hints of retaliation directed at him at that time; threats
to "tell what we know about you..."
When Dwight Hibbard was contacted at his office at Cincinnati Bell and asked to
comment on the allegations of his former employees, he responded that they were
both liars. "The phone company would not do things like that," said Hibbard,
"and those two are both getting sued because they say we do." Hibbard has
refused to answer more specific questions asked by the local press and
government investigators.
In fact, Draise was fired in 1979, shortly after he claims he told his
superiors he would no longer place wiretaps on lines. Shortly after he quit
handling the "special assignments" given to him he was arrested, and charged
with a misdemeanor in connection with one wiretap -- which Draise says he set
for a friend who wanted to spy on his ex-girlfriend. Cincinnati Bell claims
they had nothing to do with his arrest and conviction on that charge; but they
"were forced to fire him" after he pleaded guilty.
Gates was fired in 1986 for insubordination. He claims Cincinnati Bell was
retaliating against him for taking the side of two employees who were suing the
company for sexual harassment; but his firing was upheld in court.
The story first started breaking when Gates and Draise went to see a reporter
at [Mount Washington Press], a small weekly newspaper in the Cincinnati
suburban area. The paper printed the allegations by the men, and angry
responses started coming in almost immediately.
At first, police denied the existence of the Intelligence Unit, let alone that
such an organization would use operatives at Cincinnati Bell to spy on people.
Later, when called before the federal grand jury, and warned against lying,
five retired police officers, including the former chief, took the Fifth
Amendment. Finally last month, the five issued a statement through their
attorney, admitting to 12 illegal wiretaps from 1972 - 1974, and implicated
unnamed operatives at Cincinnati Bell as their contacts to set the taps.
With the ice broken, and the formalities out of the way, others began coming
forward with similar stories. Howard Lucas, the former Director of Security
for Stouffer's Hotel in Cincinnati recalled a 1975 incident in which he stopped
Gates, West and several undercover police officers from going into the hotel's
phone room about a month before the visit by President Ford.
The phone room was kept locked, and employees working there were buzzed in by
someone already inside, recalled Lucas. In addition to the switchboards, the
room contained the wire distribution frames from which phone pairs ran
throughout the hotel. Lucas refused to let the police officers go inside
without a search warrant; and they never did return with one.
But Lucas said two days later he was tipped off by one of the operators to look
in one of the closets there. Lucas said he found a voice activated tape
recorder and "a couple of coils they used to make the tap." He said he told
the Police Department and Cincinnati Bell about his findings, but "...I could
not get anyone to claim it, so I just yanked it all out and threw it in the
dumpster..."
Executives at General Electric were prompted to meet with Draise and Gates
recently to learn the extent of the wiretapping that had been done at the
plant. According to Draise, GE attorney David Kindleberger expressed
astonishment when told the extent of the spying; and he linked it to the
apparent loss of proprietary information to Pratt & Whitney, a competing
manufacturer of aircraft engines.
Now all of a sudden, Kindleberger is clamming up. I wonder who got to him? He
admits meeting with Draise, but says he never discussed Pratt & Whitney or any
competitive situation with Draise. But an attorney who sat in on the meeting
supports Draise's version.
After an initial flurry of press releases denying all allegations of illegal
wiretapping, Cincinnati Bell has become very quiet, and is now unwilling to
discuss the matter at all except to tell anyone who asks that "Draise and Gates
are a couple of liars who want to get even with us..." And now, the telco
suddenly has discovered information about Gates' personal life.
FBI/Bell Wiretapping Network?
Bob Draise was an employee of Cincinnati Bell Telephone between 1966 and
1979. He, and others, are involved in a wiretapping scandal of monumental
proportions. They say they have installed more than 1,000 wiretaps on the
phones of judges, law enforcement officers, lawyers, television personalities,
newspaper columnists, labor unions, defense contractors, major corporations
(such as Proctor & Gamble and General Electric), politicians (even ex-President
Gerald Ford) at the request of Cincinnati police and Cincinnati Bell security
supervisors who said the taps were for the police. They were told that many of
the taps were for the FBI.
Another radio amateur, Vincent Clark a technician for South-Central
Bell from 1972 to 1981, said he placed illegal wiretaps similar to those done
by Bob Draise on orders from his supervisors -- and on request from local
policemen in Louisville, Kentucky.
When asked how he got started in the illegal wiretap business, Bob said that a
friend called and asked him to come down to meet with the Cincinnati police. An
intelligence sergeant asked Bob about wiretapping some Black Muslims. He also
told Bob that Cincinnati Bell security had approved the wiretap -- and that it
was for the FBI. The sergeant pointed to his Masonic ring which Bob also wore
-- in other words, he was telling the truth under the Masonic oath -- something
that Bob put a lot of stock in.
Most of the people first wiretapped were drug or criminal related. Later on,
however, it go out of hand -- and the FBI wanted taps on prominent citizens.
"We started doing people who had money. How this information was used, I
couldn't tell you."
The January 29th "Newsday" said Draise had told investigators that among the
taps he rigged from 1972 to 1979 were several on lines used by Wren Business
Communications, a Bell competitor. It seems that when Wren had arranged an
appointment with a potential customer, they found that Bell had just been there
without being called. Wren's president is a ham radio operator, David
Stoner/K8LMB.
When spoken with, Dave Stoner said the following;
"As far as I am concerned, the initial focus for all of this began
with the FBI. The FBI apparently set up a structure throughout the
United States using apparently the security chiefs of the different
Bell companies. They say that there have been other cases in the
United States like ours in Cincinnati but they have been localized
without the realization of an overall pattern being implicated."
"The things that ties this all together is if you go way back in
history to the Hoover period at the FBI, he apparently got together
with the AT&T security people. There is an organization that I
guess exists to this day with regular meetings of the security
people of the different Bell companies. This meant that the FBI
would be able to target a group of 20 or 30 people that represented
the security points for all of the Bell and AT&T connections in the
United States. I believe the key to all of this goes back to Hoover.
The FBI worked through that group who then created the activity at
the local level as a result of central planning."
"I believe that in spite of the fact that many people have indicated
that this is an early 70's problem -- that there is no disruption to
that work to this day. I am pretty much convinced that it is
continuing. It looks like a large surveillance effort that
Cincinnati was just a part of."
"The federal prosecutor Kathleen Brinkman is in a no-win situation.
If she successfully prosecutes this case she is going to bring
trouble down upon her own Justice Department. She can't
successfully prosecute the case."
About $200 million in lawsuits have already been filed against Cincinnati Bell
and the Police Department. Several members of the police department have taken
the Fifth Amendment before the grand jury rather than answer questions about
their roles in the wiretapping scheme.
Bob Draise/WB8QCF has filed a suit against Cincinnati Bell for $78 for
malicious prosecution and slander in response to a suit filed by Cincinnati
Bell against Bob for defamation. Right after they filed the suit, several
policemen came forward and admitted to doing illegal wiretaps with them. The
Cincinnati police said they stopped this is 1974 -- although another policeman
reportedly said they actually stopped the wiretapping in 1986.
Now the CBS-TV program "60 Minutes" is interested in the Cincinnati goings-on
and has sent in a team of investigative reporters. Ed Bradley from "60
Minutes" has already interviewed Bob Draise/WB8QCF and it is expected that
sometime during this month (April) April, we will see a "60 Minutes" report on
spying by the FBI. We also understand that CNN, Ted Turner's Cable News
Network, is also working up a "Bugging of America" expose.
___________________________________________________________
http://www.thelandesreport.com/CraigDonsanto.htmFEDERAL COMPLICITY IN VOTE FRAUD - excerpts from Lynn Landes's 2007 'REPORT TO CONGRESS'
The unique vulnerability of electronic voting technologies has been long known to federal authorities.
“If you did it right, no one would ever know,” said Craig C. Donsanto, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Election Crimes Branch, Public Integrity Section (from 1970-present) in a July 4,1989 Los Angeles Times article about electronic voting machines and vote fraud.
So, why hasn't Donsanto sounded the alarm and informed Congress of this threat? Donsanto has the reputation of a gatekeeper. He was featured in the Colliers' book, VoteScam, for his unwillingness to investigate evidence they collected over the years of rampant vote fraud involving voting machine companies, the news networks' exit polls, and election officials in Florida and other states.
Furthermore, Donsanto made it official department policy that no federal investigator should enter a polling precinct on election day, nor should they begin any serious investigation of the voting process until after the election results are certified. It is this policy that gives those who commit vote fraud ample opportunity to destroy evidence and cover their tracks. (See official policy:
http://www.thelandesreport.com/Donsanto.htm)
There is more to be concerned about than obstruction of justice within the DOJ. It appears that elements within the FBI may have not only been aware of computer vote fraud, but participated in it. The following are excerpts from the Cincinnati Post of October 30th, 1987:
"Cincinnati Bell security supervisors ordered wire-taps installed on county computers before elections in the late 1970s and early 1980s that could have allowed vote totals to be altered, a former Bell employee says in a sworn court document. Leonard Gates, a 23-year Cincinnati Bell employee until he was fired in 1986, claims in a deposition filed Thursday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court to have installed the wire-taps. Cincinnati Bell officials denied Gates’ allegations that are part of a six-year-old civil suit that contends the elections computer is subject o manipulation and fraud. Gates claims a security supervisor for the telephone company told him in 1979 that the firm had obtained a computer program through the FBI that gave it access to the county computer used to count votes." (See: Pandora'sBlackBox.htm)
No state could match the staggering number of Voting Rights complaints due to voting machines and other election irregularities as Florida did in the 2000 presidential election. Yet the Bush Administration's DOJ under Attorney General John Ashcroft did not send federal observers to Florida to monitor the voting process in 2002, although federal observers were sent to several other states. This was surprising news to many people and organizations who were told by DOJ officials that "Justice" would be down there in force.
Even if federal observers had been sent to Florida, how would they 'observe' the accuracy of the voting machines there?
"They wouldn't know that," says Nelldean Monroe, Voting Rights Program Administrator for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in a phone interview. Her agency is responsible for the recruiting and training of federal observers who are sent by the DOJ to monitor elections if violations of the Voting Rights Act are suspected.
In a November 21, 2002 e-mail Monroe elaborated, "The only observance of the tallying of the votes is when DOJ specifically requests observers to do so. This rarely occurs, but when it does, it is most often during the day following the election when a County conducts a canvass of challenged or rejected ballots. In this case, federal observers may observe the County representatives as they make determinations on whether to accept a challenged or rejected ballot. Federal observers may also observe the counting of the ballots (or vote tallying) when paper ballots are used." (See e-mail:
http://www.thelandesreport.com/nelldeanmonroe.htm)
In other words, federal observers can only observe people, not machines, counting paper ballots. Monroe confirmed that there is no training and no opportunity for federal observers to observe the accuracy of voting machines.
Under Section 8 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.Code § 1973f, federal observers may be authorized to observe "... whether persons who are entitled to vote are being permitted to vote ...(and) whether votes cast by persons entitled to vote are being properly tabulated..."
America's nontransparent voting process (i.e., voting by machine, absentee, early, or secret ballot) violate those provisions. Federal observers cannot observe "whether persons who are entitled to vote are being permitted to vote” (and) “whether votes cast are being properly tabulated."
Under "Prohibited acts" in §1973i, the "Failure or refusal to permit casting or tabulation of vote"...can result in civil and criminal penalties. "No person acting under color of law shall fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote...(and) Whoever...knowingly and willfully falsifies or conceals a material fact... shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
Requiring voters to use voting machines, rather than allow them to mark and cast their own votes, constitutes "failure or refusal to permit casting". Any result produced by a machine is circumstantial (i.e., not direct) evidence of the intention of the voter.
Fundamentally, nontransparent voting makes the role of the federal observer moot and the Voting Rights Act unenforceable.
The Cincinnati Bell-FBI scandal: Leonard Gates, a Cincinnati Bell employee for 23 years, testified that in the late 1970's and 80's, the FBI assisted telephone companies with hacking into mainframe election computers in cities across the country. He spoke with agents from both the DOJ (U.S. Attorney Kathleen M. Brinkman) and FBI (Agent Love), but to his knowledge, neither agency took further action. Leonard Gates 1987Deposition, plus 1985 Background Material from Jim Condit, Jr. //Pandora's Black Box &
http://www.votefraud.org/expert_strunk_report.htm (contains case number)
* Gates testified, P. 28, "He (Gates's supervisor, Mr. Jim West,) said the programming was obtained out of California, and that the programming had been obtained through the FBI, and all this kind of stuff, and that was about it."
* Page 34 excerpt: "And I knew that we did do certain things under certain court direction, under certain court orders, and I just didn't see where they would have a court order to get into that, and I expressed my concern to Mr. Dugan (President of Cincinnati Bell). Mr. Dugan said it was a very gray area, and that they were into like New York and Atlanta, Georgia, and to the other computers, you know. This was just small compared to what was going on."
* Page 39, "...and I said, "Well, do you (Mr.Fedrich, vice president of Cincinnati Bell) have a blanket court order on this or what?" And he kind of weasel-worded me, to be honest with you. He said "Well, our relationship with the FBI is very, very close."
Excerpt from Nov 1996, Pandora's Black Box by Philip M. O’Halloran of Relevance, The Cincinnati Election Wiretapping Scandal:
Lewis and other skeptics of the vote-fixing scenario like to insist that there has never been any evidence of a "conspiracy" to fix elections by computer. But then, most of those we interviewed on both sides of the issue had never heard of the case of Leonard Gates of Cincinnati, Ohio. An employee of the Cincinnati Bell telephone company, Gates was watching a local t.v. news story, in which a Cincinnati man named Jim Condit was charging that the election system was vulnerable to vote fraud in the Hamilton county election process.
He based his charges on his experience as a candidate for city council in 1979, when, after an election night computer crash, Condit and seven other "feisty challengers" had suddenly "fallen to the very bottom of the heap" of 26 candidates. Gates called the station and later contacted Mr. Condit, telling him he knew firsthand how his votes were robbed. They met and shared information and ultimately Gates testified in Condit’s Cincinnatus PAC (political action committee) lawsuit against the Hamilton County Board of Elections.
The suit had earlier been decided against the plaintiffs and Gates took the stand during the appeal. He swore under oath that he was ordered by his Cincinnati Bell superiors to wiretap the election headquarters’ phones lines to provide a link-up between the county’s vote-counting computers and parties unknown on another phone line somewhere in California.
The following are excerpts from the Cincinnati Post of October, 30th, 1987:
Cincinnati Bell security supervisors ordered wire-taps installed on county computers before elections in the late 1970s and early 1980s that could have allowed vote totals to be altered, a former Bell employee says in a sworn court document.
Leonard Gates, a 23-year Cincinnati Bell employee until he was fired in 1986, claims in a deposition filed Thursday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court to have installed the wire-taps. Cincinnati Bell officials denied Gates’ allegations that are part of a six-year-old civil suit that contends the elections computer is subject o manipulation and fraud.
Gates claims a security supervisor for the telephone company told him in 1979 that the firm had obtained a computer program through the FBI that gave it access to the county computer used to count votes. [Emphasis added].
The FBI refused comment and Cincinnati Bell spokesmen vehemently denied the allegations, claiming Gates was a "disgruntled ex-employee", yet, according to Condit, the company ultimately admitted that one of its vans was involved in the wiretapping, although it claimed they were commandeered without the company’s knowledge. The Post continued:
In the deposition, Gates claims he first installed a wire-tap on a telephone line to the county computers before the 1977 election at the instruction of James West, a Bell security supervisor.
Gates contends both West and Peter Gabor, security director, told him to install wire-taps in subsequent elections. Both men declined comment Thursday.
In the 1979 election, which is the focus of the deposition – Gates said he received instructions in the mail from West about installing wire-taps on county computers in the County Administration Building at Court and Main streets.
The wire-taps were installed on the eve of the election at Cincinnati Bell’s switching control center at Seventh and Elm Streets and terminated in a conference room in the building, Gates alleges.
In the deposition, Gates described in great technical detail installation of the wire-taps.
At about 8:30 p.m. on election day – Nov. 6, 1979 – Gates said he was called by West and told something had gone wrong, causing the elections computer to malfunction. At West’s instructions, Gates said he removed the taps.
The elections computer shutdown for two hours on election evening due to what was believed to be a power failure, Condit Sr. has said.
Gates said West told him they "had the ability to actually alter what was being done with the votes."
Gates said West told him the Board of elections did not know about the taps and that the computer program for the elections computer "was obtained out of California, and that the programming had been obtained through the FBI..."
Shortly after the 1979 election, Gates said he met with the late Richard Dugan, former Cincinnati Bell president, to express his concerns that the wire-taps were done without a court order.
"Mr. Dugan said it was a very gray area... This was just small compared to what was going on. He told me just, if I had a problem, to talk to him and everything would be okay, but everything was under control," Gates said [Emphasis added].
[Editor’s Note: This scandal’s alleged FBI connection raises the possibility of U.S. law enforcement and/or intelligence involvement in electronic vote-rigging.]
Another Cincinnati Bell employee, named Bob Draise, admitted to being involved in a second phase of the illegal operation, which involved wiretapping several prominent Cincinnati political figures including a crusader against pornography named Keating and the Hamilton County commissioner, Allen Paul.
Jim Condit told Relevance that, as a result of the ensuing scandal, Draise was convicted and five Cincinnati police officers, who were allegedly involved in the wiretapping operation, abruptly resigned. The alleged involvement of the FBI was never pursued and the Bureau itself did not follow up on the Gates allegations. In spite of all the evidence, the appeal by the plaintiff failed and the issue was laid to rest
https://www.globemagazine.com/content/h ... d-kennedysHOW FBI Director HOOVER BLACKMAILED THE KENNEDYS
https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/journali ... l-leaders/Comey Hints at J Edgar Hoover’s Blackmailing of Political Leaders
Fired FBI Chief Dropped FBI Myth That Founder was Honest Law and Order Man
MATT HARVEY 06/08/17
Comparing himself to murdered 12th Century Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket notwithstanding, fired FBI chief James Comey has been mostly circumspect in responding to Senate Committee inquiries about President Donald Trump and Russia.
But he did make one assertion Thursday that jolted some historically-minded viewers to the edge of their seats. It was a comment that represents a major break with the Bureau’s longstanding policy of whitewashing the troubling legacy of its founder and director for 48 years until his death in 1972, J. Edgar Hoover.
The startling answer came after Susan Collins (R-ME) queried Comey about three conversations he and Trump had in which the director purportedly assured the president he was not under FBI investigation. Comey replied in part, “I was briefing him about salacious and unverified material” — referring to independent British spook Christopher Steele’s questionable intelligence dossier.
Going on to tell Collins that he wanted to assure the president that he found the material untrustworthy, he said, “It was very important because it was, first, true [that he did not believe the document], and second, I was worried very much about being in kind of a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation. I didn’t want him thinking I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way.”
That J. Edgar Hoover routinely blackmailed (or tried to) politicians and civic leaders has long been proven. The director’s reams of compromising information struck fear across Washington, even while his own dark secrets were protected by a pliant media; a closeted homosexual in a long-time, open relationship with his second in command, Clyde Tolson, Hoover was also indebted to the mob for the numerous financial favors they showered him with.
Despite his well-documented malfeasance, the mainstream media makes periodic attempts to rehabilitate Hoover’s reputation.
