Editing Jesselyn Radack (section)

===Disclosure to ''Newsweek'' of emails believed to have been purged===
Radack resigned from the Justice Department on April 5, 2002. In June 2002 she heard a broadcast on [[National Public Radio|NPR]] stating that the department said they had never taken the position that Lindh was entitled to counsel during his interrogation. She later wrote, "I knew this statement was not true. It also indicated to me that the Justice Department must not have turned over my e-mails to the Lindh court ... because I did not believe the Department would have the temerity to make public statements contradicted by its own court filings, even if those filings were ''[[in camera]]''." She reasoned that "disclosure of my e-mails would advance compliance with the Lindh court's discovery order while also exposing gross mismanagement and abuse of authority by my superiors at the Justice Department."<ref>[http://radackvdoj.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/radack6-1.pdf Declaration of Jesselyn Radack, Exhibit 1] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407151104/http://radackvdoj.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/radack6-1.pdf |date=April 7, 2014 }}, ¶¶20, 23-24, Response to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, Response to Defendant's Motion for
Summary Judgment, March 15, 2005, ''Radack v. United States Department of Justice'', No. 04-1881 (D.D.C. 2004); quoted by McGowan, p. 12-13.</ref> After hearing the broadcast, Radack sent the emails to [[Michael Isikoff]], a ''[[Newsweek]]'' reporter, who had been interviewed in the NPR story.<ref name="Boutilier Woman"/> He then wrote an article about the Lindh case emails, quoting Radack but not naming her as the source of what he called "internal e-mails obtained by ''Newsweek''".<ref name=LindhEmailIsikoff/>

Radack has said she did not turn the documents over to the court or prosecutors at the time she recovered them because she felt intimidated by Flynn, who had told her to drop the matter.<ref>Emily Gold Boutilier [http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/view/781/40/ "Mail Room: Senior writer Emily Gold Boutilier replies,"] ''Brown Alumni Magazine'' May/June 2004.</ref> Later, no longer working in government, she reasoned, "I couldn't go to the court because Justice Department lawyers would argue (as they did when I eventually did try to tell my story to the court) that I had no standing. I couldn't go to a Member of Congress because, as a resident of the District of Columbia, I didn't have a voting representative. What I could do is disclose my story to the press--a judicially-sanctioned way of exposing wrongdoing under the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, which provides protection to federal government employees who blow the whistle on what they reasonably believe evidences a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; or an abuse of authority".<ref name=Whistleblowing>Jesselyn Radack [http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1104 "Whistleblowing in Washington,"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928170534/http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1104 |date=September 28, 2007 }} ''Reform Judaism'' Spring 2006.</ref>

Radack and some others believe her disclosure of the emails may have contributed to the plea agreement that led to a sentence of 20 years instead of possible multiple life sentences for Lindh.<ref>Radack "Whistleblowing in Washington"; on the sentence: [http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/07/15/walker.lindh.hearing/ "'I plead guilty,' Taliban American says,"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070103042243/http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/07/15/walker.lindh.hearing/ |date=January 3, 2007 }} CNN July 17, 2002.</ref> The plea deal was reached on July 15, 2002, a month after the ''Newsweek'' article on the emails appeared online and just hours before the hearing to consider the motions to suppress the Lindh interviews was set to begin.<ref>Toni Locy and Kevin Johnson, [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-07-16-lindh-inside_x.htm "Lindh plea removes risks of trial,"] ''USA Today'' July 16, 2002.</ref> According to Lindh defense attorneys, the prosecution first approached them about a plea deal around the beginning of June.<ref>Terry Frieden and Laura Bernardini, [http://edition.cnn.com/2002/LAW/07/15/lindh.deal.behind.scenes/ "Lindh plea bargain talks began last week,"] CNN July 15, 2002.</ref> On June 14, the day before the emails were disclosed, and June 17, the Lindh defense filed their arguments to suppress all the interviews conducted in Afghanistan, including the ones that Radack had advised might have to be suppressed.<ref>U.S. District Court Eastern District of Virginia High Profile Cases (Alexandria), [http://notablecases.vaed.uscourts.gov/1:02-cr-00037/DocketSheet.html Criminal Docket for Case #: 1:02-cr-00037-ALL] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090512172805/http://notablecases.vaed.uscourts.gov/1:02-cr-00037/DocketSheet.html |date=May 12, 2009 }}</ref> The defense reasoning was different from Radack's; it did not assert that Lindh was represented by a lawyer at the time, which was the basis for Radack's advice in the emails.<ref>The defense arguments are summarized in Tony Locy [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/07/15/usat-lindh.htm "Court hearing begins on use of Lindh statements,"] ''USA Today'' July 15, 2002.</ref>