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The GOON Squad
During his January 30, 2025 conformation hearing Kash Patel stated:
“America is not safer because President Biden’s commutation of a man who murdered two FBI agents agents. Coler and Williams family deserve better than to have the man that Point Blank Range fired a shotgun into their heads and murdered them released from prison.”
https://www.wdayradionow.com/news/local-news/fbi-director-nominee-slams-bidens-commutation-of-leonard-peltier-in-confirmation-hearing/
Gunfight at Pine Ridge Reservation
The person that Patel refers to is Leonard Peltier. The incident he alludes to took place at the Jumping Bull Ranch on June 26, 1975 when FBI agents Coler and Williams drove onto the Ranch in pursuit of Jimmy Eagle who was wanted for an alleged theft of a pair of used cowboy boots.
A firefight erupted which, although wounded, both Coler and Williams survived only to be shot in the head at point blank range with a high powered rifle. The deadly firefight was the culmination of years of animosity between the traditional Native Americans and the FBI.
For example, William Muldrow retired from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1999 wrote:
“A history of mistrust of the FBI for the traditional Indian people was intensified during the period following the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 when over 500 indictments resulted in dismissal or acquittal due to spurious actions by the FBI.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20021113132433/www.freepeltier.org/peltier11.htm (Emphasis added.)
Four Native Americans, including Peltier, were charged for the brutal slayings. Peltier fled to Canada while his three co-defendants were tried in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Much to the chagrin of the government all were found NOT GUILTY. The jury, after hearing all the evidence, reasonably concluded that the defendants were shooting in self-defense.
After the not guilty verdicts were rendered, jury foreman Robert Bolin noted how the jurors came to distrust the FBI and the U.S. Marshals:
“If anyone (of the jurors) were frightened it was by the FBI. After the verdicts were read I thought the U.S. Marshals were going to kill us on the spot.”
Incident at Oglala https://vimeo.com/791671741?cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww&utm_campaign=5250933&utm_source=affiliate&utm_channel=affiliate&cjevent=8ef1ca9ce32911ef8373067c0a82b839&clickid=8ef1ca9ce32911ef8373067c0a82b839 50:00 – 50:09 Minutes
Peltier was extradited from Canada, tried before a different federal judge and in 1977 was found guilty of murder for which he was adjudged to serve two consecutive life sentences. Fast forward to 2017 when the Chicago Tribune published an editorial titled: Clemency for Leonard Peltier? Never.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-peltier-obama-clemency-edit-0116-20170113-story.html
In response response to that editorial, James Reynolds, the United States attorney who supervised the prosecution of Leonard Peltier wrote, It is a gross overstatement to label Peltier a “cold-blooded murderer” on the basis of the minimal proof that survived the appeals in his case.
https://www.b12partners.net/wp/2017/01/18/leonard-peltier-should-be-released-in-the-interest-of-justice/
(Emphasis added.)
In July 2021 Reynolds wrote to President Biden stating in part:
We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/leonard-peltier-prison-clemency-biden_n_618049f3e4b059d0bfc19e5c
Reynolds’ admission closely resembles the sentiments of former Federal Prosecutor Lynn Crooks when in a rare moment of candor blurted out, “But we can’t prove who shot those agents!”
Crooks refused to repudiate U.S. government use of fabricated evidence stating: ‘I don’t agree that we did anything wrong but…it don’t bother my conscience one whit if we did!’
This amazing statement from a Justice Department officer outraged then-Senator Daniel Inouye to exclaim, “I was a U.S. Attorney once and that man is a disgrace to the profession!”
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2000/07/20/united-states-v-leonard-peltier/ (Emphasis added.)
Judges too excoriated the government:
“Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.” — Per Curiam Judges Seymour, Anderson and Brorby, Peltier v. Booker, 348 F.3d 888, 896 (10th Cir. 2003)
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/2016clemencyapp.pdf Page 2 (Emphasis added.)
FBI treachery
The government’s intimidated witnesses is Myrtle Poor Bear who claimed that FBI agents outright terrorized her by threatening: “We’ll put you through a meat grinder and no one will ever know.”
Incident at Oglala
https://vimeo.com/791671741?cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww&utm_campaign=5250933&utm_source=affiliate&utm_channel=affiliate&cjevent=8ef1ca9ce32911ef8373067c0a82b839&clickid=8ef1ca9ce32911ef8373067c0a82b839 53:08 – 53:22 Minutes
As explained in a Supreme Court filing:
“The use of the affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear in the extradition proceedings was, to say the least, a clear abuse of the investigative process by the F.B.I.”
— Hon. Donald Ross, in conjunction with United States v. Peltier, 585 F.2d 314, 335 n.18 (8th Cir. 1978)
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/2016clemencyapp.pdf Page 2 (Emphasis added.)
The Frame-Up
In order to frame Peltier with a murder conviction the FBI fabricated what they termed “the most critical piece of evidence” then hid their deception from the jury.
A U.S. Supreme Court filings explains:
“Prosecutors called the .223 shell casing the ‘most critical’ piece of evidence against me and urged the jury to conclude that the matching shell casing proved that I fired the fatal shots into the heads of the two federal agents – in ‘cold blood.’
Unknown to my attorneys at the time, the FBI and the DOJ had in its possession all along – but withheld – exculpatory ballistics reports that showed that the .223 shell casing found at the scene did not match the AR-15 rifle the Government recovered and contended was mine.” http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/2016clemencyapp.pdf Page 31
When this chicanery was raised on appeal the 8th Circuit stubbornly refused to grant a new trial. Nonetheless one of the appellate judges, Gerald Heaney, very troubled by the many disclosures that were bought to his attention sought clemency for Peltier in an April 18, 1991 letter he sent to Senator Inouye.
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/2016clemencyapp.pdf Page 2
According to the Yale Journal of Law and Liberation, in 1989 Eighth Circuit Court Judge Gerald Heaney appeared on the CBS news program West 57 Street. During the national broadcast Heaney explained he was “deeply troubled” during his own investigation of the matter. What was it that troubled the judge? “[I]t became increasingly apparent to me that the FBI was at least as much to blame for what happened as Peltier.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20150920195801/http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=yjll Page 95 (Emphasis added.)
Here comes the GOONS
In his declaration of facts William Muldrow Director Director for the Rocky Mountain Regional Office U.S. Commission on Civil Rights also wrote:
“These tensions were exacerbated during the regime of tribal president Dick Wilson and his vigilante, self-termed ‘goon squad.’ During this period there were over 60 unsolved murders on the reservation of AIM [American Indian Movement] Indians for which the investigatory responsibility lay with the FBI.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20021113132433/www.freepeltier.org/peltier11.htm#top (Emphasis added.)
A U.S. Supreme Court filing further explains:
“Tribal Chairman Wilson’s GOONS regularly harassed, beat or otherwise physically abused hundreds of residents affiliated with AIM, AIM allies, and traditional tribal members who opposed his actions.
More than 50 AIM members and allies died through violence –bodies were found along roadsides or deposited in areas immediately adjacent to the Reservation – and more than 300 other AIM members or allies were victims of violent assaults. Despite its jurisdiction over major crimes on the reservation, the FBI did not take any significant measure to curb the daily violence of the GOON Squad on the Reservation; instead, the Bureau continued to closely collaborate with the GOON Squad.”
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/2016clemencyapp.pdf – Pages 18-19 (Emphasis added.)
A trail of deceit.
The FBI was closely collaborating with the GOON squad while the squad was terrorizing the Reservation with acts of guerrilla warfare that would turn the Reservation into the murder capital of the nation.
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/2016clemencyapp.pdf Page 11
After the June 26, 1975 firefight that resulted in the deaths of two of their agents the FBI, desperate for revenge, successfully framed Leonard Peltier. So far they have totally gotten away with it.
– National Security Commentator Mark Adam
