Susan of Grandeur

A Tough Sell on Capitol Hill, part four
May 22 2010

From Unregistered to Unfit
As a congressional aide in 1994 Susam Lindauer supported the claims of Dr. Richard Fuisz’, as explained in part three. This was a vague claim of knowledge of the true bombers of Flight 103, Syrians rather than the Libyans charged.

This was a small episode, however, and Lindauer is most famously known for activities a decade later. She got in serious legal/political trouble after a January 2003 attempt to urge the Bush administration to rethink its push for war in Iraq - and reportedly getting paid for it by Saddam Hussein’s government.

As it so happens, Lindauer’s second cousin was President Bush’s chief of staff Andy Card, and it seems it was her attempt to get leverage by playing the Andy card that got her noticed. Some kind of investigation then found she had met with Iraqi agents in Baghdad in 2002 and accepted $5,000 in cash and a vial of anthrax. Kidding on the second one. [1]

However she got the idea, Lindauer was jailed in March 2004 for the good advice and acting as an “unregistered agent” of Iraq. While the occupation ground on, Lindauer had her head examined and was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial or, by extension it’s implied, to do much else. This is a tactic used both to smear critics and also to protect the ill. In this case, multiple doctors and anecdotal evidence agree Lindauer has psychic powers and a special destiny, or suffers paranoia and delusions of grandeur, depending. [1]

It was decided she would have to take anti-psychotics to “become competent” for trial, and she refused to accept the need (or maybe was afraid of dampening her special powers). Judge Michael Mukasey of Federal District Court in Manhattan decided the Government’s case was not strong or important enough to warrant forced medication. So she was released on bail – 100 times her alleged payment from Iraq - in September 2006. On effectively dismissing the government’s case, Mukasey told the New York Times “there is no indication that Lindauer ever came close to influencing anyone, or could have.” [1]

2009: Sage Susan Speaks
She would continue to make furtive attempts, of course, and eventually returned to the Lockerbie case. In a letter that she sent to Professor Black’s site of that name, just before Abdelbaset al Megrahi’s release in 2009, Lindauer made an interesting string of statements. First, she supported the controversial decision to send Megrahi home, as he was fully innocent. But Abu Nidal was involved, based on “confessions,” and he had been harbored once by Libya. Therefore, “Libya would not be entitled to rescind its apology.” [2]

Nidal is suspected of working for the US all along, but I’ve not studied that nor seen any compelling evidence of his involvement in PA103. It was megrahi’s (and Fhimah’s) plot that was the case against Libya, not hosting Abu Nidal, and, as Professor Black pointed out, there has been no “apology.” “[Libya] has acknowledged responsibility for the acts of its citizens. If Mr Megrahi's conviction is overturned there is then no Libyan citizen convicted of anything for which the state has accepted responsibility.” [2]

Perhaps to build up her unfitness resume, she explained her special claims to authority:

“During negotiations for the Lockerbie trial -- which I started in New York with Libya's diplomats at the UN -- I saw documents* which prove Abu Talb and Ahmed Jibril orchestrated the attack. Abu Nidal was the third head of the hydra.” [emph mine]

She may have been involved in some way, but not in a position to “start” negotiations on such an issue. For this she cites papers that she delivered.in late 1997, plus “back-channel talks” where she personally “assured [Gaddafi’s] government that his two men would have access to witnesses and documents to prove their innocence.” [2] I could see Gaddafi being influenced by her, but otherwise, I'm with Mukasey.

She also explained in a follow-up letter and a comment her 9-year CIA/DIA job in “anti-terrorism” in both Iraq and Libya. From this she knew of “something very special” about her assignment the CIA wants kept quiet. But she was "strong enough to stand up to them,” and that was just why “they had to hit me so hard." The “unfit for trial” decision, she surmises, was both a government ploy to stop their own weak case going ahead and of course a "hit" to smear her reputation.

Susan Lindauer may in fact know something, and could have been targeted for discrediting by a Bush team bent on making examples of do-gooders. Nonetheless Lindauer and, more importantly, her information, seem quite a bit off. On Lockerbie she’s added nothing of value, and otherwise, to invert an old saying, even if they are out to get you, that doesn’t mean you’re not paranoid.
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Sources:
[1] New York Times. "Ex-Congress Aide Accused in Spy Case Is Free on Bail." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/nyregion/09spy.html?_r=1
[2] The Lockerbie Case. 13 August 2009. (letter, follow-up, R Black note, Lindauer comment.) http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-susan-lindauer.html