Pictured above (using images from the Public Domain) is Task Force Treason -- [from left to right] Judge David J. Barron, Maj General Steven G. Edwards and Maj General Albert "Buck" Elton
I have not provided many details about the time I was unlawfully ordered to assassinate an American citizen without charge or trial who was outside a war zone and who presented no imminent threat. The reason is simply because doing so wouldn't have changed anything, there was nothing for the nation to gain, and few Americans even care about the topic. I have declined several
"media" requests and have instead discussed the issue on this blog with its half dozen readers. Today, however, with the current administration and nomination of
Matthew Lohmeier to be part of the administration, our nation may actually have a rare opportunity to reform itself at a time where treason has flourished and entrenched itself in the highest levels of government, even to the unfathomable point that a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs literally worked with the Chinese military
to subvert a sitting president of the United States. President Trump immediately, when he took office the first time, ended Obama's treasonous secret kill list and today he is taking greater steps to reform our military. As such, I would like to provide some additional details about the time I refused a treasonous order and resigned my commission, and I would humbly offer up the three men of TF Treason for consideration as the Trump administration continues its goal of reforming our sickly federal government. The three individuals pictured above are literal traitors to the United States of America and are unfit for public office. I have personal and/or professional experience with all three men.
I don't make this serious charge in the ill-defined and insulting way that many have thrown around the word "treason" over recent years. I mean it quite literally. The Constitution of the United States defines treason in Article Three as:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The individuals discussed in this blog post all levied war against the United States when they empowered and/or directed weapons of warfare to be used to assassinate an American citizen outside a war zone who presented no threat (leaving aside several other American citizens also murdered in similar circumstances by president Obama, which can also be laid at the feet of Judge Barron). Whether an American tank, bomber, drone or other military weapon of warfare is used to target an American citizen without due process, or a group of Americans, or a small American town, a large American city or an entire American State or the nation as a whole, the action of planning, directing, or using military weapons of warfare against American citizens, regardless of target scope, is by definition levying war against the United States. The members of TF Treason all levied war against the United States, adhered to, or aided enemies who were making war on the United States and are therefore guilty of treason as I will explain.
Judge David J. Barron
David Barron is currently the Chief Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Prior to his nomination to this position, which I blogged about a decade ago
here and
here, Barron worked for President Obama in his Office of Legal Counsel. In that position, while the Obama administration was seeking to use American military assets to target American citizens for assassination outside war zones without due process (an act of treason), Barron aided and adhered to the treason by drafting a legal "white paper" to justify the act of a sitting president using military assets to murder American citizens without due process. Barron's memo was leaked and later released as part of a FOIA suit and
can be read here.
Before summarizing Barron's embarrassing memo that failed to muster an ounce of legal credibility, I will first note that I have attended several functions where David Barron was also in attendance given that Barron, like my wife, clerked for the late
Justice John Paul Stevens. At the late justice's final clerk reunion, Barron hovered over the justice in a manner that reminded me of an unworthy son attempting to secure an inheritance near the end of his father's life. Unfortunately any such efforts worked and he was clearly favored by the justice. At Justice Stevens' funeral at Arlington, I was truly appalled to witness David Barron as the main speaker while his treason blemished the proceedings, the military legacy of the justice, and while the traitor spoke just yards away from patriots buried outside and opined from his treasonous mouth just mere feet from the widow of the iconic American and late justice, Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall, and his widow in attendance at the funeral, were keenly aware of perverted government force being used to violate the rights of American citizens as justified by shoddy reasoning masquerading as legal analysis from government lawyers. I found it deeply offensive that a traitor like David Barron was permitted to disgrace the proceedings on hallowed ground.
Barron's legal memo was astonishingly bad and evidence of a complete lack of professional ethics and personal pride. No lawyer with any concern for the law would ever dream of crafting such a document. But I'm far less concerned with the embarrassing product produced by the former Harvard Law professor and much more interested in its purpose. Its purpose was to waive a magic wand nullifying the Constitution of the United States to give plausible deniability to a treasonous president who sought to murder Americans. The memo lays out its goal, to analyze whether it would be legal to use lethal military force against American citizens who were allegedly plotting violence against America and who were located outside war zones. The memo mentions the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment in its portended "analysis" but completely fails wholesale to even mention the most relevant portion of the Constitution quoted in this blog post already. Article Three, Section Three which defines treason (and very clearly covers American citizens accused of plotting violence against the United States) also includes the recourse for Americans accused of treason. It states:
No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Since the purpose of Barron's memo was to aid and adhere to a treasonous President intent on levying war against the United States, it makes perfect sense that Barron would fail to mention the relevant part of the Constitution in his "constitutional analysis." Barron's treasonous memo, reminiscent of the pigs in Animal Farm, also provided a ridiculous attempt to re-define the term "imminent threat" to simply mean "threat." It also tried to float the concept of capture being infeasible without wrestling with the question "if military assets are present in order to kill an American, why could they not capture the American?" And Barron's memo doesn't mention Operation Just Cause and the massive expense and resource intensive operation to capture a non-American named Manuel Noriega down in Panama over drug charges (which do not come with due process explicitly spelled out in the Constitution as in the case of treason); an operation that resulted in Noriega being jailed, after receiving due process in court, and which cost the lives of service members in that endeavor. There was also no mention of the capture of OBL in Pakistan (a nation we were not at war with). In fairness, I don't expect Barron to have any understanding of martial conflict. I do expect him to know the law. That he pretended he didn't in order to aid treason wasn't the result of his intelligence. It was a result of his complete lack of character and his total lack of respect for the rule of law.
About the same time, and related to Barron's treasonous memo offered up by the lapdog Shoe Shine boy pretending to be a lawyer, I was given an order to assassinate an American citizen without due process outside a war zone and without congressional authorization to even operate in the nation we were not at war with, who was presenting no imminent threat (as in, you know, the imminent kind of threat rather than Barron's re-defined "not writing this garbage would be a threat to my insecure ambitions" kind of threat). I refused the order and
tendered my resignation because the order violated the Constitution; something so clearly the case that even a politician, who now wears a dress and pretends to be a judge and disgraces our federal judiciary, just as he disgraced Justice Stevens' funeral, would have known. My resignation was not accepted, an attempt to separate me from service failed, and the Air Force found for me despite the efforts of my local chain of command.
The unlawful order to conduct a mission to assassinate an American citizen outside a war zone who was no imminent threat, which I refused, was given to me by then Lt Col Steve Edwards.
Major General Steven Edwards
More than a decade ago I went into work to "fly" the MQ-9 on a mission. I had volunteered to fly drones because I was a proponent of the technology despite the fact that the location of the unit and the mission itself were not enjoyable. It was merely a job and I winced when I volunteered for the assignment but I figured it would be my last assignment, it was an important technology that I had vocally advocated for, and it might well save some poor 2Lt from graduating from pilot training and being sent to spend the rest of his days outside an actual aircraft. Because this was the job that I wanted, I actually had to fight Air Education and Training Command (AETC) for it as then-Colonel "Pulse" Wills pulled the assignment to try to punish me for, among other things, telling him to his face that he was un-American while standing at attention in my blues with my Director of Operations in the room. But that's another story. At any rate, Pulse must have been too busy getting ready to become a general officer (which he later did and then did great damage to the Air Force's ability to create competent aviators, but I digress) since I was able to sidestep his little plan for my future by contacting leadership in my community who secured the job I sought.
So, as I said, one day I went into work to fly a mission. During the pre-mission briefing I was informed of the target. An American citizen. I explained to the crew that I would not be flying the mission since it was unlawful and I explained why. The intelligence individual briefing us and the crew thought I was kidding. Then they were stunned when I walked out and contacted the squadron Director of Operations, then Lt Col Steven Edwards. I explained to him why I wouldn't fly the mission. He later got back to me and arrangements had been made. I would not be scheduled to fly that particular mission.
Months went by. In that time Lt Col Edwards then became the commander of the squadron and he informed me that I had to fly the mission. He gave me an order to fly the mission and I refused. He then brought in a witness and gave me the order again. I again refused. He then gave me the order in writing and I refused in writing. He gave me a Letter of Reprimand (LOR), a referral performance report, and suspended my security clearances. Meanwhile, the Pentagon's top lawyer (and not a good one),
Jeh Johnson, was dispatched to my unit in the middle of BFE to talk to my squadron to convince them that it was lawful to assassinate Americans. I was not allowed to attend the briefing, ostensibly because my clearances were suspended. In reality it was because I would have torn Johnson to shreds during the discussion and my command definitely knew that would be the case. As is a trend, the traitor Jeh Johnson was advanced as Obama later nominated him to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. In response to the LOR, I
tendered my resignation. FOIA documents show that the command made efforts through the JAG office to try to separate me from the military for refusing the unlawful order but they ceased those efforts when they realized who my wife was. The acting DO of the squadron told me, "Ryno, I probably shouldn't be telling you this but I just got off the phone with the JAG. She was like, do you know who his wife is? Dude, they are terrified of your wife!" It turns out that not only was the command's O-6 JAG terrified of my wife, she
tried to ruin my wife's military career simply for being married to me. The JAG failed though. The command then appeared to hope the Air Force would suspend my clearances after an investigation (so the order wouldn't even come up in the proceedings, I'd just be separated because I didn't have clearances). Again, I had already resigned so they could have just sent my resignation up the chain of command and been done with it but they chose not to do that (likely because the Secretary of the Air Force would have to accept my resignation and the command was too embarrassed to elevate my resignation). At any rate, the Air Force found for me during the investigation, lauded my fidelity to the Constitution, restored my security clearances and the command then gave me a plum flying assignment (actual flying) in Florida where I retired after twenty years of service.
There was plenty to like about Edwards and despite his treason and trying to separate me from the military five years prior to retirement, he was actually relatively decent to me with just a few exceptions. I imagine the reason is because I had a similar background to himself and had actual combat credibility. And despite being at odds with him, he respected the fact that I was doing the right thing and was willing to accept the personal consequences to defend the people of America who paid me to do just that, even against his career ambition and professional failure. He didn't say that but I found throughout my career that those above me that I fought and who tried to damage me were some of my biggest admirers. They knew I wasn't naive or ignorant of the risks and that I chose my nation and my countrymen over my own convenience. They admired me, knew they lacked the strength required to be like me (despite swearing before God they would be and getting paid to make good on their promise), and then tried to destroy me in pursuit of their shallow ambitions. It was easy to see the conflict in Edwards. He both wanted to help me and he wanted to destroy me. I'm sure by now he's had most of that humanity trained out of him but I bet he's still a likable guy. We did have some laughs. As is almost always the case with politicians who achieve a position where they can greatly damage our nation, he was likable. It's hard to be a politician if nobody likes you. But that is not what should concern Americans, whether you'd like to have a beer with your public officer or not. You should care about their character because many innocents and their families have been slaughtered by likable men.
I remember one conversation where I explained to Edwards in detail why the mission was unlawful and it's memorable given his reaction during it. He kept flip flopping from "I don't want to get into this with you" (a retort I was familiar with from commanders doing wrong when I challenged them) to trying to argue with me before quickly retreating back to "I'm not discussing this with you." His reaction was like a vampire being shown a cross or having holy water thrown on it or being shown light. At one point I said, "what are you going to do if the order comes down to take out Ron Paul? What if it's your wife? No day in court required, you're just gonna trust the president and pickle??" He said "they wouldn't do that, I don't want to discuss this with you!" The reason for his outsized defensive reaction where my words pained him, I imagine, was that he knew what he was ordering me to do was clearly unlawful but he simply had other values that he put higher than the rule of law and the rights of Americans and his oath of office. But he felt bad because he knew his treason was wrong. As an aside, it's for this reason I believe our military officer corps must be provided serious education on the Constitution where it relates to military action and recurrent training and testing with a failing performance resulting in the loss of a commission and serving the rest of any contract in the enlisted force. Officers today can get away with violating the Constitution because nobody actually knows or talks about it and that must change. Knowing the document will in no way guarantee it will be followed, but it will make it more difficult for traitors to do their dirty work. It should also be noted that the idea that it's a special topic that takes special expertise and training (ie law school), which is often voiced by idiotic lawyers, is patently false and flies in the face of the Constitution itself which requires all officers in all branches to know the document.
Major General Albert "Buck" Elton
I don't have much to say about the traitor, then-Colonel Albert "Buck" Elton, and had little to no interaction with him outside of attending some staff meetings. He was the wing commander and he was driving the bus locally regarding the unlawful order as well as the attempts to separate me from the military. There was plenty of treason to go around. It trickled down from President Obama through the chain of command through layers of traitors in uniform, making its way through Elton and then down to Edwards and then was executed by a great many traitor officers who made similar calculations (choosing themselves over their nation) and who when approached by me sheepishly and guiltily and shamefully lowered their eyes and responded
"sorry, Ryno." I was the only individual to refuse the unlawful order, but far from the only officer who knew the order was unlawful, and the American citizen in question was murdered not long after.
As it turns out, treason is a great career move and a little known strategy to advance your career if you live in a sickly nation that elevates and rewards traitors like
Mark Milley. A slimy lawyer who penned a legal memo that should have gotten him disbarred in a profession that had any standards was elevated to the federal bench and two field grade officers have now "achieved" two stars a piece and get special treatment with all kind of perks that a healthy nation and military would deny to traitors.
It is my sincere hope that the Trump Administration, with the very capable help of
Matthew Lohmeier, is able to take steps to rid traitors from our military machinery. With the rise of drones and artificial intelligence, it will not be long before the American people are surrounded by surveillance and lethal machinery. It will take professionals to secure the rights of those Americans should we have a president who declares them terrorists for protesting on Capitol grounds or at school board meetings. Traitors in military office will be a grave threat to our nation. They must not be allowed to continue to disgrace military office as Judge Barron disgraced Arlington.
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