The trial of Hal Turner
This is one of those stories that has slipped under my radar. I had never heard of Hal Turner until I came across his name on my homepage news portal and after doing a cursory examination of what is going on, found a much more detailed story from The Bergen County Record. From all appearances, it looks as if this is one tangled up mess, involving an inflammatory blogger, white supremacy groups, and the FBI.
Hal Turner has actually been around for several years. He first served as the coordinator for Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign in 1992 and moved from that to organizing rallies for the white supremacist group Nationalist Movement in 1994. In 1997, he managed the New Jersey gubernatorial campaign of Libertarian Murray Sabrin and in 2000, he ran for governor of New Jersey himself, coming in last place. From there he moved into talk radio in 2002 (seems like a natural move to me) and began speaking out in favor of white supremacy groups.
From the documents The Record was able to obtain and from interviews they conducted, it seems the FBI recruited Turner in 2003 to become a confidential informant. He was supposed to be gathering information on the same groups he was supporting. I know very little about law enforcement and the methods they use to get information, so I will refrain from too much criticism in that regard. I do know they may not always be able to pick and choose their informants, so they may have just played the cards they were dealt. One has to wonder if the value of information an informant gives outweighs any criminal activity he may be involved in himself. One also has to wonder about the monetary value of the information. Hal Turner was paid thousands of dollars for information he provided to the FBI.
Those lines evidently were very blurry when it comes to Hal Turner and the FBI. Turner is in the news because he has been in jail, awaiting trial for making threats to the Chicago judges who upheld the handgun ban in that city. He made those threats on his blog, saying they deserved to die, and also posted their pictures, phone numbers, and office addresses online. The entire time he was supposedly being used by the FBI as an informant, his usefulness was being questioned. Some of the documents obtained by The Record show his FBI handlers worried that the rhetoric he spouted was too dangerous and wondered if the information he was supplying was worth the trouble.
Even though the trial is about Turner and the threats he made to the Chicago judges, there is another issue that will surely come up. That is the claim by Turner that the FBI coached him to make the inflammatory statements, attempting to solidify his anti-government credentials. The FBI is denying they told him to go as far as he did, but his defense lawyer, Michael Orozco, is bound to bring it up in the trial. He almost certainly will try to lay the blame onto the FBI and it will be up to the jury to sort through the details and to determine what actually happened.
The trial of Hal Turner also has the potential to change the way bloggers are looked at by law enforcement, in general. Turner is saying the statements he made on his blog are protected under the 1st Amendment and while that may be true to some degree, one has to question how far a blogger can go with what they say. It is one thing to disagree with a particular decision by a judge, but quite another to say they deserve to die and to post their numbers and office addresses online. I would have to question the validity of any blogger who made such statements.
Let’s just suppose it’s me for a moment. I am certainly a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment and I also strongly disagree with a lot of the policies President Obama has enacted since he took office. I have been very vocal on both counts, giving chapter and verse for my arguments. If I went off the deep end and started making inflammatory statements and threats, where would that leave me? Granted, I am just an average American who has a not so popular blog, but I believe making statements such as Hal Turner has made would destroy any creditability I may have with the readers of Political Realities. It would also draw the attention of law enforcement officials and to be honest, could I expect anything less?
There has to be a line drawn somewhere and I have to wonder if Hal Turner crossed that line. What are your thoughts?
Turner has been in and out of the news in the tri-state area (NY,NJ,CT) for several years because of his inflammatory language and threats of violence against those who disagree with his politics. My recollection is that he was generally allowed to slide because his threats were general not against specific individuals. He has spoken about using violence and assassination of government officials in order to stop tyrannical threats against the constitution. But when he got personal (and it was first against government officials in CT — I hadn’t heard about the Illinois judges) he absolutely crossed the line. We cannot allow anybody to advocate violence or worse against anybody — ever. Isn’t it ironic that he talks about mudering public officials in the name of defendiing the Constitution? That needs to be nipped in the bud immediately and everywhere. By the way, there was also a lot of chat about his “freindship” with Sean Hannity. No doubt they knew each other thru Turner’s call-ins to Hannity’s radio show but I doubt it went any further. Still, it doesn’t speak well of Hannity to encourage call-ins from self-described anarchists, white supremicists, and supporters of violent means to address grievances. IGood post.
I think there are a couple reasons that this is making news. One, talk radio (under attack right now by both conservatives and liberals) and Sean Hannity. Hannity and friends made such a huge deal about Obama’s guilt by association. And, while there is some dispute as to the out-of-studio relationship the two had (Turner says they were close at one point and tha the and Hannity agree on a lot, disagree on some) there is absolutely no dispute that Hannity used Turner to churn up ratings and make a name for himself. Associations that last a period of time and have mutual benefit…Hmmm. And, after trying unsuccesfully to say he never knew Turner, Hannity has basically said “Well, I wasn’t running for President” to justify giving airtime to Turner and his positions.
I also think it’s making news now because New Jersey Governor-elect Christie is possibly a player in this. Orozco, at this point, plans to subpeona Christie to question him about his possible role in communicating with the FBI about Turner when he was a US Attorney in Newark.
Juicy stuff-thanks for bringing it up.