The military commission empowered to decide the fate of George W. Bush found the former president guilty of treason and murder, and decreed on Thursday that he be hanged by the neck until dead.
The 3-officer panel tasked with weighing the military’s evidence against Bush reached a decision after hearing days of heated testimony.
On Thursday Bush returned to Guantanamo Bay’s south courtroom without the benefit of having his lawyer present, the latter having been ejected from the proceedings on Wednesday for refusing to curb his theatrical, emotional outbursts. Aufhauser had vowed to file an appeal in response to his ejection, but it’s uncertain to whom he would take such action.
Two more witnesses—both appearing on ZOOM–on Thursday morning testified that George W. Bush had warned them to at all costs avoid New York City, and particularly lower Manhattan, on September 11, and with Bush’s message came a warning: Keep it confidential, or else.
Rick Osborne, a longtime friend of the Bush family and former investigator for the Texas Rangers Division, told the panel he and his family had been planning to vacation in New York the week of September 10, but cancelled on September 8 after receiving an ominous telephone call from the defendant.
“He told me his intelligence people got credible intel that a terrorist attack might go down in New York that week, and he urged me to postpone my trip. I pressed him for mor info—it’s what investigators do—but he wasn’t saying much more. Just told me in damn clear terms to keep my mouth shut about his caution as it was a matter of national security,” Osborne told the panel.
“And as a member of law enforcement you didn’t feel it necessary to investigate further, or tell anyone?” Rear Adm. Crandall pressed him.
“Who the heck was I going to tell? He was George W. Bush, the president. In retrospect I wish I had, but I can’t go back in time,” Osborne said.
The next to testify was none other than James Baker, who served as White House Chief of Staff and United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan, and as U.S. Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. The 91-year-old statesman had a physician at his side and a nasal cannula in his nostrils. He struggled to speak, and between gasping breaths said that he, too, had been told by the defendant to avoid New York and D.C. the week of September 10.
“I had a public speaking engagement scheduled in New York and Washington for that week,” Baker sputtered. “It was either two or three days before 9/11—I can’t remember what day—double-yew phoned me, telling me to stay home that week because something big was about to happen. I wanted more information, but he beat around the bush, no pun intended, and got silent. Told me, though, that both he and his father needed me to keep it a secret. I’ve known them all my life, but I knew better than to cross them. Lots of empty space in West Texas, if you catch my meaning.”
“Why are you coming forward now?” Rear Adm. Crandall asked.
“I don’t have much time left, and if there’s even a slim chance I don’t end up in hell, I’ll take it,” Baker replied.
Rear Adm. Crandall asserted that witness testimony, in combination with the Rumsfeld tapes, proved conclusively that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld were the architects of 9/11.
Although he had more “proof” to offer into evidence, the panel said it had heard enough to not only find Bush guilty but also recommend he hang for crimes against America. The 3-officers found him guilty of treason and held him to account for every life lost on 9/11.
Rear Adm. Crandall affirmed the verdict, and he set George W. Bush’s date of execution for Tuesday, January 4.
(Note: Gavin Newsom’s tribunal was delayed and is now slated to begin December 27)