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Introduction: The title translates: “Money is the sinew of war.” The program further develops the topic of the geopolitical and macroeconomic struggle between the dollar and the euro and relates it to the events of 9/11, the Iraq war and the Asian economies. Particular emphasis is on the airline travel industry, the aircraft manufacturing industry, the SARS epidemic and the contest between Boeing and the European aerospace manufacturer EADS—the manufacturer of the Airbus. EADS has been pressuring Boeing to price its product in euros, mirroring the contest between the dollar and the euro evidenced in Iraq’s pricing of its oil in euros. The 9/11 attacks and SARS have depressed the airline and aircraft manufacturing businesses: Mr. Emory asks whether both events may be an outgrowth of the Underground Reich’s application of the concept of total war developed by Karl Von Clausewitz. Von Clausewitz understood that war is waged in its totally—against all aspects of the enemy’s society—its economy, its morale and its social fabric, as well as against the military forces of the opponent. At the core of the discussion is the concept of both the euro and the US current accounts deficit as weapons of war which will, in time (if the situation is not corrected,) destroy the United States as effectively as terrorists or armies.
Program Highlights Include: the role of Asian central banks in propping up Bush’s Iraq war by investing in dollar-denominated issues; the possible effect of SARS on the global economy and (consequently) the US current accounts deficit; the effect of SARS on the airlines business; the effect of SARS on the aircraft manufacturing business; the coincident effects on the dollar and on Asian economies of SARS; the unsuccessful attempt by veterans of Project Coast to transfer their residual BW weapons to the United States; the role of GOP heavyweight Grover Norquist as the point man for the Republican tax-cutting plan and as the Islamist point man in the GOP; the projected effects of Norquist’s tax cuts and the effects of the 9/11 attacks by his Islamist buddies on the US current accounts deficit; Bush’s use of counter-terror funding to further his socio-economic and political goals.
1. Beginning with review of an article that was featured in FTR 405, the program introduces the economic context in which the events analyzed here must be considered. The assault against the US by the Underground Reich and its Islamofascist allies that Mr. Emory believes to be under way is—in its primary manifestation—economic in nature. It can be argued persuasively that the goal of the gambit of the 9/11 attacks is the destruction and/or subjugation of the United States. In FTR#405, Mr. Emory suggests that the attack, from a conceptual point of view, could be viewed as a combination of the German invasion of France in World War II, the battle of Verdun in World War I, and Operation Bernhard in World War II. (For discussion of the comparison of the German invasion of France in World War II to 9/11, see FTR#’s 366, 372, 395, 401.) The goal of the German high command in the battle of Verdun was to attack a position (the steel-making city of Verdun) that the French would not be willing to lose. In so doing, the Germans hoped to bleed the French army dry—to inflict so many casualties that they would have to sue for peace. Operation Bernhard (see RFA#17—available from Spitfire) was a German gambit intended to destroy the British economy by forging pound notes and destroying the UK’s ability to finance its war effort. The following article discusses the economic aspects of the war with Iraq. Asian central banks’ support of the dollar has—to date—made this an easier enterprise to undertake than it might have been under different circumstances. This situation might change should the economic landscape be altered in a significant fashion. Note the US current accounts deficit. “The 19th century British political economist Walter Bagehot had a pithy quote from Louis XIV on war finance. The last guinea, said the Sun King, will always win. In the case of Iraq it will be the last US dollar. And one of the more remarkable things about the US-led invasion of Iraq is just how easily and cheaply the venture will be financed. On the face of it, war has rarely been waged in such inauspicious financial circumstances. At a time of extreme geopolitical uncertainty the payments balances of the world’s biggest economies are badly out of kilter. US household savings are seriously depleted and the deficit on the current account of the American balance of payments is close to an unprecedented 5 per cent gross domestic product.”
(“The Sinews of War are Asian” by John Plender; Financial Times; 3/21/2003; p. 17.)
2. The relatively strong position of the dollar (in turn resulting from investment in dollar-denominated IOU’s) stems from the relative strength of Asian economies and their central banks’ investments in the dollar.
“The US has, since the bursting of the stock market bubble, become a relatively unattractive destination for foreign private capital. Interest rates are low, the dollar is weak and the US economy will advance this year at less than its underlying trend growth rate. Yet as private capital has fought increasingly shy of the world’s largest economy, the central bankers have come to George W. Bush’s rescue. Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore alone have accumulated official reserves worth more than $1,100bn, of which the great majority is invested in dollar-denominated IOU’s such as US Treasuries. For many central banks these reserves are earning much less in interest than they could earn back at home.”
3. If the US should become enmeshed in a costly post-war, or if the Bush administration’s plans to drastically increase military spending while dramatically slashing taxes on the wealthy should come to fruition, the effect on the dollar and the US current accounts deficit could be disastrous and decisive.
“This is not, of course, a philanthropic gesture. For Japan, with a stagnant economy, it is a matter of resisting an appreciation of the yen that would hit the export sector. The others maintain a dollar peg, largely for reasons of competitiveness . . . Yet it remains the case that global finance has been exceptionally kind to Mr. Bush. And Louis XIV was indeed expressing an age-old verity. The Tacitus version was pecunia nervus belli: money is the sinew of war. We should not forget that unlimited money, however helpful, cannot guarantee the peace.”
4. Against the background of Bush’s fiscally-insane tax cut proposals, the US budgetary situation is not to be ignored. The only reason the US got away with the suicidal fiscal policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations is the fact that the US was able to borrow against the dollars held as reserve currency. A significantly weakened dollar and exacerbated current accounts deficit for the US will drastically weaken the country.
“The US government’s finances are set to head sharply into deficit and stay there ‘for the foreseeable future,’ the White House budget director said yesterday. Mitchell Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said he expected federal deficits equivalent to 2–3 per cent of gross domestic product for this fiscal year and next, and could not say when the budget would return to surplus.”
(“US Finances Set to Head ‘Sharply into Deficit’” by Alan Beattie; Financial Times; January 16, 2003; p. 2.)
5. The program reviews Grover Norquist’s role as primary tax-slasher. In this context, it is important to remember that he is also the point man for the Islamists in the Republican Party. Note that these Islamists’ attacks on the United States precipitated the national security build-up which, when combined with the Bush tax cuts, has led to a return to record budget deficits. Whether Norquist is fully conscious of the effects of his actions is not particularly relevant. In FTR#327, the collapse of the commodities market effected by the Underground Reich is worth noting. When coupled with the assassination of JFK, it led to a huge profit for the Underground Reich perpetrators of these events. Tino De Angelis was (apparently) under mind control and not aware of the implications of his actions. The same may be true of Norquist.
“Reaction from advocates and critics was swift and strong. ‘It’s a tax shelter for the wealthy. This is really an attempt to help the president’s friends,’ said Rep. Robert t. Matsui, D‑Sacramento. ‘It’s unbelievable.’ ‘These are the building blocks of a new tax system,’ said Grover Norquist, president of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform.”
(“Bush Proposes New Tax-Free Savings Plans” by Peter G. Gosselin; The Los Angeles Times; 2/1/2003; p. A20.)
6. One should note the reaction of some Islamists to the Iraq war. Some have called for Muslims to embrace the euro as opposed to the dollar. The issue of the dollar vs. the euro is at the core of the thesis Mr. Emory has been developing about the 9/11 attacks and their macroeconomic effect on the US. The reaction expressed by the Muslim cleric in this article goes to the heart of the discussion from past broadcasts about the Earth Island and the Underground Reich’s attempts at gaining political control of that area’s population and effecting economic advantage as a result.
“In this sandswept Nigerian town on the edge of the Sahara Desert, a Muslim cleric, displaying anger about the U.S. war in Iraq, recently exhorted his followers to take action to inflict pain on the U.S. namely, ditch the dollar and embrace the euro. ‘European Countries,’ preached Sheik Ibrahim Umar Kabo, the head of Nigeria’s Council of Muslim Scholars, ‘have refused to be fooled by America’ and support the war. ‘We should therefore encourage transactions with the euro and stop patronizing the American dollar.’ The sheik’s advice was met with cries of ‘Down with America.’ The enthusiasm spilled out into the streets with the faithful shouting, ‘Euro yes! Dollar no!’”
(“Some Muslims Advocate Dumping the Dollar for the Euro” by Robert Block; The Wall Street Journal; 4/15/2003; p. C1.)
7. An article not included in the original program notes the effect of the euro on the geopolitics surrounding the Franco/German opposition to the war.
“It was the euro—not the Security Council veto—that enabled France to oppose U.S. policy on Iraq so boldly. Indeed, the success of the European currency has turned it into a political anti-missile shield that works, and that has changed the international balance of power. Absent the euro, it would have been relatively easy for the U.S. to quietly bring the French back into line. A stealth U.S. attack on the French franc, and on French financial markets—more likely just the hint of it—would do the job . . . With the Cold War behind us, the key question of international politics, as seen by the French political and administrative elite, is this: Now that there is no military threat to Europe from the Soviet Union, or anyone else, how to contain the US? In this logic, the euro must become an alternative, or co-reserve currency alongside the dollar.”
(“Euro Shield” by Stephen S. Cohen; The Wall Street Journal; 4/29/2003; p. A16.)
8. One of the major points of discussion in this broadcast is SARS. Is it a naturally-occurring disease or is it the product of biological warfare? If the latter is the case, is it possible that SARS may be an application of the Von Clausewitz concept of total war? Much of the program considers the effect of SARS on the airline industry, the aircraft manufacturing business, and on the strength of the dollar.
“It has all the appearance of a perfect storm. A virulent confluence of factors has shaken the global economy in recent weeks and caused companies to put international business on hold. The most disruptive have been the flulike severe acute respiratory syndrome from Asia and the war in Iraq with its associated fear of terrorism . . . Complicating the possible long-term effects of the war is its timing: The war is being fought while the U.S. economy is still struggling. The dollar has fallen by 17 percent against the euro since early 2002, making imports from countries such as Germany and France costly for Americans [Emphasis added.”
(“Economic Tsunami” by David Armstrong; San Francisco Chronicle; 4/6/2003; p. B1.)
9. Considering the possible economic impact of the disease, a WHO official notes the potentially severe implications of SARS.
“The SARS disease poses one of the most serious global health threats since Aids because of its infectiousness and potential to spread through air travel, the World Health Organization warned yesterday. It said other diseases that have emerged in recent decades, such as Ebola, had higher fatality rates but tended to be focused on limited geographic areas and were not as easily passed on. ‘SARS could become the first severe new disease of the 21st century with global epidemic potential,’ said Dr. David Heymann, executive director of WHO’s communicable disease programs.”
(“SARS Could Spread Worldwide, Warns WHO” by Joe Leahy; Financial Times; 4/12/13/2003; p. 1.)
10.
“The disease has affected hotel and airline bookings across Asia and led economists to revise down their forecasts for regional growth. Dr. Heymann said global economic consequences were already estimated at about US$30bn. He said the disease’s incubation period of up to 10 days meant it could be transported in symptomless air travelers all over the world.”
11. Mirroring the fears of the WHO official discussed above, an analyst with Morgan Stanley fears the economic impact of the disease.
“With the Chinese now reluctant to travel—not just overseas but also at home—and with Asian countries restricting the entry of visitors from affected areas, the SARS effect could easily escalate. Morgan Stanley has pared its 2003 estimate of growth in Asia (ex Japan) from 5 per cent to 4.5 per cent. This assumes a 60 per cent fall in tourism over the next three months and then a return to normal. Unfortunately the SARS effect is concentrated on Asia—the region of the world that we had counted on to keep the global economy afloat. With this source of global resilience now being undermined, the global economy has little left to support it. Had economic growth been more vigorous before the outbreak of SARS, this probably would not have made such a difference. Sadly, that is not the case. There is far more to the story of emerging global weakness than a SARS-related downturn in Asia. War, and the related uncertainties are equally important factors. But SARS may be the tipping point.”
(“Asia Sneezes and the World Catches a Cold” by Stephen Roach; Financial Times; 4/14/2003; p. 15.)
12. Economic columnist Paul Krugman also notes the potential impact of SARS on the global and US economies.
“Serious people know that germs pose a far greater threat to mankind than terrorism, and readers of books like William McNeill’s ‘Plagues and Peoples’ and Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ know microbes have been the downfall of many a civilization. SARS—severe acute respiratory syndrome, a new virus from Guangdong Province in China—doesn’t look like a civilization-killer, and probably isn’t nearly as bad as the 1918–19 influenza virus. But experts fear it may be too late to prevent a global SARS pandemic—that is, it may be too late to stop the virus from spreading throughout the world. And the bug is already having major economic consequences; fear of the disease has paralyzed much business in Hong Kong and has led to a drop in air travel worldwide.”
(“Guns, Germs and Stall?” by Paul Krugman; The New York Times; 4/4/2003; p. A19.)
13.
“Even if SARS doesn’t become wide-spread here—and that’s not a safe bet—it can do a lot of damage to our own economy because the world has grown so interdependent. Consider this: the most likely engine of a vigorous U.S. recovery would be a renewed surge in technology spending, and Guangdong is now the workshop of the information technology world, the place where a lot of the equipment that we would expect businesses to buy if there was an investment boom—for example, components for wireless computer networks—is assembled. The virus is already hampering production, not so much because workers have become sick as because Taiwan-based managers and engineers are afraid to visit their plants. The result may be to stall an investment recovery before it starts. The war has monopolized everyone’s attention, including mine. But other things are happening, and you shouldn’t be shocked if the economic news turns awful.”
14. In addition to the above lines of analysis, the potential effect of SARS on the US current accounts deficit is at the core of economist Martin Wolf’s analysis.
“The unbalanced pattern of demand has generated the patently unsustainable current accounts deficits and surpluses noted by [IMF economist Kenneth] Rogoff. The world economy cannot build a strong and durable recovery on the profligacy of the English-speaking countries alone. Sooner or later such a globally unbalanced recovery will blow up, probably with currency collapses. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s].”
(“A World Economy Trapped by Complacency and Panic” by Martin Wolf; Financial Times; 4/16/2003; p. 15.)
15.
“The world is suffused with a mixture of complacency and panic—complacency over the world economy and panic over security and now a new (and so far minor) disease. The end of the war is an opportunity to redress the balance. It must be seized.”
16. The Underground Reich’s contribution of software for the mass production of nuclear weapons was discussed at length. John Loftus discussed intelligence information maintaining that Iraq and North Korea had shared information about nuclear technology. With the international weapons trade cutting across ideological lines, is it possible that North Korea’s nuclear capability may have come from the Underground Reich (perhaps via Iraq?) In that context, consider the possible effect of the North Korean nuclear situation on the Asian economies. Like SARS, the crisis may have a very disturbing outcome for the US. One should bear in mind that the Japanese hold roughly 15% of America’s foreign debt. A dramatic worsening of the situation vis-a-vis North Korea could produce a serious downturn in the Japanese stock market and a resulting liquidity crisis for Japanese banks. Should they sell off American T‑bills, it could collapse the US economy, by generating a rush to dump the T‑bills by other investors. Pecunia nervus belli. (* Note that this article was not in the original broadcast.)
“A difficult negotiation will be all the more perilous because, unlike Iraq, North Korea is adjacent to advanced industrial economies with complex and powerful financial markets. Those economies now account for most of the world’s output growth. North Korea has taken hostage the prosperity of the Asia Pacific region. There is less premonitory bluster and less fervor in Washington, but the North Korea crisis could do far more damage to the global economy than war in Iraq.”
(“A Korean Peace may Hurt More than an Iraqi War” by John Edwards; Financial Times; 4/23/2003; p. 13.)
17.
“It is true that the North Korea crisis is unlikely to develop like the conflict over Iraq. The US will not invade North Korea. North Korea cannot make any claim to regional leadership. It has no strategic resource such as oil, and it is almost completely isolated in global politics. And far from wanting to go it alone, the US is insisting on multilateral rather than bilateral talks. The dispute will probably be peacefully resolved, but not without alarming brinksmanship. For the economies of the Asia Pacific region, this is the real problem. Through the impact of threat and counter-threat on financial markets and capital flows the region could suffer another economic calamity without a shot being fired.”
18. The pivotal conflict between the euro and the dollar—a central behind-the-scenes aspect of the Iraq war—is at the core of the fiscal contest between Boeing and the EU-manufactured Airbus. (For more about Airbus and its connections to the CDU funding scandal and Karl-Heinz Schreiber, see FTR#194.) It is important to note that the 9/11 attacks had a huge, negative impact on the airline industry and (consequently) on Boeing’s aircraft manufacturing business. Bear in mind the German associates of Mohammed Atta.
“The owners of Airbus, the pan-European aircraft maker, are seeking to persuade their main US aerospace rival Boeing to adopt the euro as the benchmark currency for the traditionally dollar-based commercial aircraft market. The call from Philippe Camus, co-chief executive of the Franco-German European Aeronautic Defense and Space company (EADS), reflects the cost disadvantage that Airbus currently suffers following the sustained depreciation of the dollar against the euro. ‘Currencies are a factor of competition and we want to force Boeing to adopt our currency structure,’ said Mr. Camus in his first interview since the death earlier this month of Jean-Luc Lagardere, the EADS co-chairman.”
(“Europeans Try to Pull Boeing into Euro” by Paul Betts and Martin Arnold; Financial Times; 3/25/2003; p. 20.)
19.
“However, Mr. Camus’ call also has a symbolic edge, reflecting the recent change in the balance of power in the civil aircraft market. Airbus—of which EADS owns 80 percent—last year claimed 54 per cent of new orders for large aircraft by units and dollar value, with Boeing taking the rest. . . . A similar shift in base currencies was proposed a year and a half ago by some oil producing countries including Iran, Libya and Russia, which suggested that oil prices should be expressed in euros. Before the outbreak of war, Iraq was already pricing its oil in euros. . . . A US oil industry analyst yesterday suggested that there would only be a case for the euro to become the reference currency for oil if it unseated the US dollar to become the strongest currency on a lasting basis.”
20. Again, the pressures of 9/11 have had a serious and negative effect on Boeing’s fortunes. In some of Mr. Emory’s conversations with Professor Wilhelm Stauffer in the early 1990s, Professor Stauffer detailed Lufthansa’s attempts at gaining control of the airline industry. Subsidized by the German government, Lufthansa may be in a position to gain from 9/11 and SARS. Airbus may be in a similar position. There is substantive information connecting 9/11 with the Underground Reich. Is it possible that SARS may be an application of Von Clausewitz’s concept of Total War to biological warfare and economics? Pecunia nervus belli.
“Boeing faces a critical choice between spending boldly to develop a new jet and hunkering down to play defense during the airline industry’s worst downturn ever. Two of the most powerful members of the company’s 11-person board are said to be raising cost concerns about the 7E7, as they press Boeing to improve its earnings and stock price—even if that means sacrificing cutting-edge engineering . . .”
(“Boeing, Losing Ground to Airbus, Faces Key Choice” by J. Lynn Lunsford; The Wall Street Journal; 4/21/2003; p. A1.)
21.
“ . . . The case for Boeing hedging its bets has appeal during a historic commercial-aviation slump. But it implies a willingness to cede market share to the industry’s only other titan, Europe’s Airbus. And the strategy strongly resembles the one McDonnell Douglas employed as it sank to also-ran status in the 1990’s.”
22. As one observes the maneuvering on the international and economic stages, bear in mind the complex CDU funding scandal that linked the French Elf oil company with a complex series of transactions involving the Thyssen firm, Saudi Arabia, the Leuna refinery in East Germany. Airbus and the mysterious Karl-Heinz Schreiber are at the core of this scandal. The German domination of corporate France is another factor to consider in the context of the maneuvering around the Iraq war.
“This could yet throw light on kickbacks paid by Elf over a deal between Mr. Mitterand and German ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl to invest in the Leuna refinery in East Germany—an affair which helped bring Mr. Kohl down.”
(“French Trial Paints a Picture of Graft on a Grandiose Scale” by Robert Graham; Financial Times; 4/22/2003; p. 14.)
23. Next, the program discusses the impact of SARS on the air travel business. Will this portend well for Airbus and poorly for Boeing?
“Two of Asia’s biggest air carriers, Cathay Pacific Airways and Singapore Airlines, announced deep cutbacks on Friday because passengers have been scared off by a virulent respiratory disease in the region. Cathay Pacific said that it would operate 37 percent fewer flights than it had previously planned. Singapore Airlines said it would cut 19.7 percent of its flights. Both airlines said their reductions in service would last through the end of May. The figures include the more modest reductions in service announced in the past two weeks.”
(“Two Asian Airlines Cut Back Because of SARS Impact” by Keith Bradsher [New York Times]; San Jose Mercury News; 4/12/2003; p. 2C.)
24. SARS appears to be caused by an entirely new corona virus. Is it possible that this disease was deliberately produced?
“ . . . Canadian researchers said the genome appears to be that of a ‘completely new’ coronavirus unrelated to any known human or animal virus.”
(“Team Decodes SARS Virus” by Donald G. McNeil Jr. [New York Times]; 4/14/2003; p. A3.)
25. In the context of the advent of SARS, it is interesting (and possibly significant) that veterans of Project Coast were recently turned down in their attempts at transferring their inventory to the US. (For more about Project Coast and its connections to American personnel, see FTR#’s 225, 317, 324, 386.) Could the Project Coast alumni have had anything to do with SARS?
“Daan Goosen’s calling card to the FBI was a vial of bacteria he had freeze-dried and hidden inside a toothpaste tube for secret passage to the United States. From among hundreds of flasks in his Pretoria lab, the South African scientist picked a man-made strain that was sure to impress: a microbial Frankenstein that fused the genes of a common intestinal bug with DNA from the pathogen that causes the deadly illness gas gangrene. ‘This will show the Americans what we are capable of,’ Goosen said at the time.”
(“Vile Vials Live on in South Africa” by Joby Warrick and John Mintz [Washington Post]; San Francisco Chronicle; 4/20/2003; p. A16.)
26.
“On May 6, 2002, Goosen slipped the parcel to a retired CIA officer who couriered the microbes 8,000 miles for a drop-off with the FBI. If U.S. officials liked what they saw, Goosen said he was prepared to offer much more: an entire collection of pathogens developed by a secret South African bio-weapons research program Goosen once headed. Goosen’s extraordinary offer to the FBI, outlined in obtained documents and interviews with key participants, promised scores of additional vials containing the bacteria that cause anthrax, plague, salmonella and botulism, as well as antidotes for many of the diseases. Several strains had been genetically altered, a technique used by weapons scientists to make diseases harder to detect and defeat. All were to be delivered to the U.S. government for safekeeping and to help strengthen U.S. defenses against future terrorism attacks . . . ”
27.
“ . . . Participants in the failed deal differ on what happened and why. But they agree that the bacterial strains remain in private hands in South Africa, where they have continued to attract attention from individuals interested in acquiring them . . .”
28. In describing the efforts at moving the South African BW samples, Goosen makes reference to Project Coast veterans who had been using the inventory for private industrial projects. Dr. Larry Ford’s “Inner Confidence” suppository was one such project.
“ . . . South African officials claimed to have destroyed all of Project Coast’s biological materials in 1993. But Goosen says many scientists kept copies of organisms and documents to continue work on ‘dual-use’ projects with commercial as well as military applications. Goosen’s vaccine production lab ended up with hundreds of strains, at least half of which were from Project Coast . . .”
(Ibid.; p. A17.)
29. Note that a German and an apparent Arab were among those who sought access to Project Coast’s inventory.
“ . . . In the past nine months, the scientist has been offered money by a German treasure-hunter and a man claiming to be an Arab Sheikh. Goosen says he turned the offers down, but worries about future bioterrorism. ‘A small container of pathogens could kill a million people,’ he said.”
(Ibid.; p. A17.)
30. The broadcast concludes with discussion of the disturbing use of counter-terrorism to provide a disproportionately large amount of funding to the people of states that voted for George Bush. Mr. Emory notes that the “blue states” are basically the areas that are destroyed in the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk. This subject will be taken up at greater length in FTR#409.
“ . . . What Mr. Chait doesn’t point out is the extent to which already inadequate antiterrorism spending has been focused on the parts of the country that need it least. I’ve written before about the myth of the heartland—roughly speaking, the ‘red states,’ which voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, as opposed to the ‘blue states,’ which voted for Al Gore. The nation’s interior is supposedly a place of rugged individualists, unlike the spongers and whiners along the coasts. In reality, of course, rural states are heavily subsidized by urban states. New Jersey pays about $1.50 in federal taxes for every dollar it gets in return; Montana receives about $1.75 in federal spending for every dollar it pays in taxes.”
(“A Red-Blue Terror Alert” by Paul Krugman; The New York Times; 4/1/2003; p. 1;.)
31.
“Any sensible program of spending on homeland security would at least partly redress this balance. The most natural targets for terrorism lie in or near great metropolitan areas; surely protecting those areas is the highest priority, right? Apparently not. Even in the first months after Sept. 11, Republican lawmakers made it clear that they would not support any major effort to rebuild or even secure New York. And now that anti-urban prejudice has taken statistical form; under the formula the Department of Homeland Security has adopted for handing out money, it spends 7 times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it does protecting each resident of New York.”
(Ibid.; pp. 1–2.)
Uncle Sam and Il Duce
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident
The Vela Incident (sometimes referred to as the South Atlantic Flash) was an unidentified “double flash” of light that was detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on September 22, 1979.
Some specialists who examined the data speculated that the double flash, characteristic of a nuclear explosion, may have been the result of a nuclear weapons test: “The conclusions of the Presidential panel (the Ad Hoc Panel) were reassuring, as they suggested that the most likely explanation of the Vela detection was a meteoroid hitting the satellite — in part because of the discrepancy in bhangmeter readings. Others who examined the data, including Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the national laboratories, and defense contractors reached a very different conclusion — that the data supported the conclusion that on 22 September 1979, Vela 6911 had detected a nuclear detonation.”[1][2]
[ ... ]
The “double flash” was detected on September 22, 1979, at 00:53 GMT, by the American Vela Hotel satellite 6911, which carried various sensors that had been designed specifically to detect nuclear explosions. In addition to being able to detect gamma rays, x‑rays, and neutrons, the satellite also contained two silicon solid-state bhangmeter sensors that would be able to detect the dual light flashes associated with a nuclear explosion—to be specific the initial brief, intense flash, followed by the second longer flash.[2]
The satellite reported the characteristic double flash of an atmospheric nuclear explosion of two to three kilotons, in the Indian Ocean between The Crozet Islands (a very small, sparsely inhabited French possession) and the Prince Edward Islands which belong to South Africa at 47°S 40°ECoordinates: 47°S 40°E.
[ ... ]
In February 1994, Commodore Dieter Gerhardt, a convicted Soviet spy and the commander of South Africa’s Simon’s Town naval base at the time, talked about the incident upon his release from prison. He said:
Although I was not directly involved in planning or carrying out the operation, I learned unofficially that the flash was produced by an Israeli-South African test, code-named Operation Phoenix. The explosion was clean and was not supposed to be detected. But they were not as smart as they thought, and the weather changed – so the Americans were able to pick it up.[29]
April 20, 1997, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz quoted the South African Deputy Foreign Minister, Aziz Pahad, as supposedly confirming that the “double flash” from over the Indian Ocean was indeed from a South African nuclear test. Haaretz also cited past reports that Israel had purchased 550 tons of uranium from South Africa for its own nuclear plant in Dimona. In exchange, Israel allegedly supplied South Africa with nuclear weapons design information and nuclear materials to increase the power of nuclear warheads.[30] This statement was confirmed by the United States Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa,[16][31] but Pahad’s press secretary stated that Pahad had said only that “there was a strong rumor that a test had taken place, and that it should be investigated”. In other words – he was merely repeating rumors that had been circulating for years.[32][33]
In October 1999, a white paper that was published by the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee in opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty stated:
There remains uncertainty about whether the South Atlantic flash in September 1979 recorded by optical sensors on the U.S. Vela satellite was a nuclear detonation and, if so, to whom it belonged.[34]
In his 2006 book On the Brink, the retired C.I.A. clandestine service officer, Tyler Drumheller, wrote of his 1983–88 tour-of-duty in South Africa:
We had operational successes, most importantly regarding Pretoria’s nuclear capability. My sources collectively provided incontrovertible evidence that the apartheid government had in fact tested a nuclear bomb in the South Atlantic in 1979, and that they had developed a delivery system with assistance from the Israelis.
@R. Wilson: I’ve heard of this as well. Why was this so heavily concealed, and if South Africa managed to build more nukes, where have they gone since the end of 1994? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
It’s a bird! It’s a plane!
It’s SupermanOh crap, it’s a Boeing plane! Watch out for falling parts. Or falling planes. It’s hard to think of a company that has suffered reputationally more than Boeing in recent years. Chronic saftey incidents and multiple crashes tend to do that.But Boeing isn’t just suffering from a plague of safety incidents and outright crashes. There are whistleblowers. The kind of whistleblowers who can’t easily be ignored, like John Barnett, a longtime Boeing employee who held the role of quality manager over the 787 Dreamliners until he become a whistleblower in 2017. As Barnett informed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), it wasn’t just one unaddressed safety issue but a corporate culture starting from the top that prioritized pushing out planes as fast as possible. And pushing out planes fast meant not just skipping safety checks but openly ignoring issues after Barnett and others flagged them. Boeing was literally selling defective planes and its executives not only knew it but forced it to happen.
It’s the kind of scandal that should have brought the wrath of regulators. But it didn’t. This is a major defense contractor we’re talking about after all. Instead, while the FAA investigated and confirmed Barnett’s claims, nothing was done. It also turns out that the FAA has been delegate some of its inspection to Boeing. Yep. Following the Alaska Airlines incident back in January, where a panel missing bolts blew off a 737 Max 9 mid-flight and depressurized the cabin, the head of the FAA announced the agency is re-evaluating that decision. Regulatory capture is a big part of this story.
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A number of passengers actually had to get up and change seats in that depressurized Alaskan Airlines flight because some of the oxygen masks didn’t deploy. That issue turns out to be the same issue Barnett raised with the FAA after Barnett found as many as 25 percent of oxygen masks failed to deploy during tests on the Dreamliner and management refused to address it. The FAA investigated and confirmed the issue, but did nothing. That’s part of why Barnett has been warning that the safety issues facing Boeing aren’t limited the 737 Max series. All of Boeing’s production lines are suffering from a management culture that actively deprioritized safety and quality control the pursuit of profits and from a regulator that appears to follow Boeing’s orders.
That said, it’s important to keep in mind that the 737 Max planes did also suffer from a major design flaw that directly caused the two crashes that ended up grounding the planes globally for two years. That would be the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) system that malfunctioned in both crashes. Worse, Boeing never informed pilots about the existence of this MCAS system, as it was supposed to operate passively. So on top of quality control in general there were these massive design flaws on the 737 Max series. The problems run deep at this company.
While Boeing didn’t appear to suffer any consequences from Barnett’s whistleblowing, Barnett suffered so much retaliation that he ended up filing a whistleblower retaliation suit against the company. That suit is current in the discovery phase and slated for formal hearings in June. Or, at least, that was the case until Barnett just showed up dead in an alleged suicide. As a result of Barnett’s untimely death, it’s unclear if the case against Boeing is going to proceed at all.
But, as we should expect, it’s so much worse than just Barnett’s suicide. Because based on the available evidence, this sure has the look of something more like an arranged ‘suicide’ than a genuine suicide. For starters, the suicide took place while Barnett was complete the process of cross-examination as part of the discovery process of the upcoming trial in his whistleblower retaliation suit. First, Barnett was cross-examined by the defense team. Then it was his legal team’s turn for cross-examination. And while Barnett was cross-examined by his team on Friday, it wasn’t completed and they agreed to complete it the next day. But when his lawyers contacted him the next day they couldn’t get an answer. So they sent the police for a welfare check where they found Barnett’s body in his pickup truck in the back of the Holiday Inn parking lot where he was staying for the trial. Barnett died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the right temple, with a silver pistol still in his right hand and his trigger finger still on the trigger. We’re also told there was a white piece of paper “resembling a note” on the passenger seat of that car. We don’t know anything about the contents of the note.
We also know that a hotel employee reported hearing a “pop” sound near the car a less than an hour before police arrived, where police found Barnett with a gunshot wound to the right temple and a handgun in his right hand with the finger still on the trigger. This is where the case gets very weird. Because we are told the police were sent to the Holiday Inn shortly before 10:20 AM after getting the request for a welfare check from his lawyers when they couldn’t contact him. So if an Holiday Inn employee heard a “pop” less than a half hour before they arrived, that suggest Barnett was shot literally that morning after getting into his truck, perhaps on his way to see his attorneys. So he got up, got dressed and ready to go, got in the truck, and then was shot in the head. That’s the picture that emerges.
So was there any evidence indicating why Barnett may have decided to take his life? Well, his brother, Rodney, points to the PTSD Barnett suffered from the retaliation he experienced at Boeing. And yet, when we read the statements from his legal team, they appear to be a state of disbelief, in part because Barnett seemed to be in such good spirits when they last saw him. As they put it, “He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.”
And that’s the horrid state of this investigation. An unbelievable ‘suicide’ narrative is emerging and threatening to squash the whistleblower retaliation suit that as going to proceed this summer. A suit that could have unearthed who knows what else. Don’t forget that Barnett isn’t the only Boeing whistleblower. There are others as we’re going to see who have made very similar allegation. This suit was a very real threat to Boeing in terms of revealing even more safety horrors and now the it’s no longer clear it will proceed at all. It’s amazing what a difference a single extremely untimely death can make sometimes:
““Today is a tragic day,” Knowles wrote. “John had been back and forth for quite some time getting prepared. The defense examined him for their allowed seven hours under the rules on Thursday. I cross examined him all day yesterday (Friday) and did not finish. We agreed to continue this morning at 10 a.m. (co-counsel) Rob (Turkewitz) kept calling this morning and his (Barnett’s) phone would go to voicemail. We then asked the hotel to check on him. They found him in his truck dead from an ‘alleged’ self-inflicted gunshot. We drove to the hotel and spoke with the police and the coroner.””
John Barrett wasn’t randomly found dead. He was in the middle of the process of being cross-examined by his own legal team in a whistleblower lawsuit he filed against Boeing and there was still more cross-examining by his team yet to be completed the next day! It was the culmination of years of whistleblowing activism on his part. The investigation he called for years ago was actually happening and there was one more round of friendly cross-examination by his legal team to go. That’s when John Barrett allegedly killed himself. The guy has been bravely and publicly blowing the whistle for years, but right when it seemed like the justice system was finally, belated, swinging into action, he shows up dead.
Beyond that, his entire case against Boeing was basically confirmed to the world two months ago with the January 5 mid-flight blow out of door that decompressed the plane. Reality was proving John Barnett’s case. And now he’s dead:
Now, what do we know about the investigation so far? Well, we know that Barnett’s body was found in his pickup truck parked in the back of a Holiday Inn parking lot. We also know that a hotel employee reported hearing a pop sound near the car a less than an hour before police arrived, where police found Barnett with a gunshot wound to the right temple and a handgun in his right hand with the finger still on the trigger. In addition, they found a white piece of paper “resembling a note” on the passenger seat of that car.
Keep in mind that we are told the police were sent to the Holiday Inn shortly before 10:20 AM after getting the request for a welfare check from his lawyers. So if an Holiday Inn employee heard a “pop” less than a half hour before they arrived, that suggest Barnett was shot literally that morning, perhaps on his way to see his attorneys. So he got up, got dressed and ready to go, got in the truck, and then shot himself in the head, before completing his cross-examination. It’s not exactly a compelling story.
So was there any evidence indicating why Barnett may have decided to take his life? Well, his brother, Rodney, points to the PTSD Barnett suffered from the retaliation he experienced at Boeing. And yet, when we read the statements from his legal team, they appear to be a state of disbelief, in part because Barnett seemed to be in such good spirits when they last saw him. As they put it, “He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.”
And as the article also notes, Barnett’s death happened near the end of what was the discovery phase of trial over the whistleblower retaliation suit that has formal hearings scheduled for June. The status of that suit is now in question thanks to Barnett’s death:
““He was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subjected to the hostile work environment at Boeing, which we believe led to his death,” the brother said.”
Was this a case of PTSD suddenly driving Barnett to suicide? If so, his lawyers sure didn’t get a whiff of it. As we can see, not only did they report seeing Barnett in good spirits and excited to put this whole case behind him, the language in their statements — like calls for no detail to be left unturned — suggests they don’t really believe this was a suicide:
And then we get to the forensic details police made available: Barnett was found in his pickup truck in the Holiday Inn’s back parking lot, with a gunshot wound to his right temple and his right hand trigger finger still on the trigger. But that wasn’t all they found. There was also a white piece of paper “resembling a note”. We have no idea what the note said:
And then we get to the remarkably convenient turn of events for Boeing’s executives and shareholders: Thanks to Barnett’s death, the discovery phase of his whistleblower lawsuit which was set to be completed by the end of this month has obviously been thrown into disarray and now it’s unclear if the planned June hearings will happen at all:
But as the following report from back in January describes, it’s not like this is just a story about John Barnett’s whistleblower retaliation suit. Barnett is far from the only one blowing the whistle. Nor is this just a 737 Max story. Pervasive quality control issues go back years on a variety of Boeing planes. Including issues with the deployment of oxygen masks during an emergency. It turns out that not only did some passengers on the Alaskan Air flight have to change seats in order to access deployed masks due to deployment malfunctions, but that was the same issue Barnett originally flagged in his initial 2017 whistleblower complaint to the FAA. Except the planes Barnett found that issue on was the 787 Dreamliner, not the 737 Max. As Barnett was warning reporters back in January, the Alaskan Air mid-flight door loss incident, this is about all of the planes being built by Boeing at this point. And he’s not the only one issuing these warnings:
“While the 737 MAX line has been the focus of scrutiny after two deadly crashes five years ago and the recent incident involving Alaska Airlines, Mr Barnett says the problem runs deeper than the troubled MAX due to what he alleged were lax quality and safety standards and shoddy work in the production line.”
This isn’t just a MAX safetey issue. This is a much deeper Boeing safety issue. That’s what Barnett was warning the world just a little over a month before his death. “This is a Boeing issue, this is not a 737 issue”:
But it’s even worse than a panel flying off the Alaskan Airlines plane. Passengers actually had to change seats in the depressurized plane to access functioning oxygen masks because a number of them didn’t deploy. As Barnett discovered years earlier, non-deploying oxygen masks was a known issue. A known issue that was apparently never fixed and “swept under the rug” despite Barnett raising the alarm:
In fact, it was the oxygen maks deployment issue, and the lack of any response by his superiors, that resulted in Barnett filing a whistleblower complaint with the FAA in 2017. That whistleblower complaint, in turn, triggered retaliation against Barnett by Boeing, resulting in the whistleblower retaliation suit that is now at risk of unraveling as a result of his death. And yet, despite the FAA discovering that there was indeed a problem from oxygen masks, the agency never took any actions to force Boeing to fix it. This isn’t just a Boeing problem. The FAA is a captured regulator:
And it’s note just Barnett. Whistleblower Ed Pierson witnessed the same systematic lack of quality control. As Pierson put it, “The rationale, as I’ve been told, is that if you have less quality control inspections, you can move the product down the line faster and produce more aeroplanes. But those quality control inspections were there for a reason”:
And as Pierson and others confirm, the FAA repeatedly failed to hold Boeing accountable and act as if the agency is beholden to the company. Barnett had a lot of people backing him up:
Finally, note the grimly comical response from the head of the FAA to the Alaskan Airlines incident:the FAA would be re-evaluating its practice in recent years of delegating parts of the quality review process to Boeing. That’s the state of affairs. The FAA is going to ‘re-evaluate’ letting Boeing do its own quality reviews on behalf of the FAA:
Is this truly the end of Boeing’s free ride with the FAA? Time will tell, but it’s hard to imagine any of the people truly responsible for this state of affairs is actually going to face any sort of punishment. Punishment for elites isn’t really the US’s forte.
But at least it’s not just the FAA involved at this point. The justice system is part of the story too thanks to John Barnett and his whistleblowing suits. Or, at least, the justice system was involved, thanks to a suit that may no longer be proceeding.
That didn’t take long: The mystery of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett’s incredibly untimely death is continuing to get more mysterious, with discordant facts of the case already starting to pile up.
First, recall how Barnett was staying at a Holiday Inn in Charleston, SC, to provide depositions as part of the discovery phase of the whistleblower retaliation lawsuit he filed against Boeing, with the formal hearings scheduled for June. He was deposed first by Boeing’s lawyers and then, on Friday March 8th, it was Barnett’s legal team’s turn to cross-examine him, but they didn’t finish as expected. So they decided to extend the deposition to the next day. But instead of showing up for the 10 am meeting, Barnett never arrived and couldn’t be contacted. His legal team made a welfare check request at the hotel, where his body was found in an pickup truck parked in the back of the Holiday Inn parking lot. Barnett had a gun shot wound to the right temple, with a silver pistol found in his hand with his finger still on the trigger. A hotel employee also reported hearing a “pop” sound in the area near where his truck was located roughly a half hour before the police were called. His lawyers expressed shock after recounting how he seemed to be in good spirits the next day.
That’s what we initially learned. And as the following BBC report from Monday describes, the coroner’s office is reporting that Barnett died on March 9, consistent with the employee hearing a “pop” shortly before the welfare check was requested. And also consistent with the idea that Barnett stayed in the hotel one one more night.
Here’s were the reported facts get weird: For starters, the Daily Mail reported that the BBC was told the coroner’s office stated the death happened on Friday, March 8th, not the next day. Now, that’s presumably a typo or some kind of misreporting because the BBC report clearly states the coroner told them the death was March 9, and even archived initial versions of the report give a March 9th date so it’s not like the BBC report changed that date.
But then we get to some details that don’t appear to be misreported and yet don’t really add up. According to police reports that are shown in the Daily Mail piece, Barnett was initially scheduled to check out of the hotel on March 6, but Barnett ended up extending his stay to the 8th. ABC News also reports that police reports state Barnett was scheduled to check out on the 8th.
Now, that Barnett would have been scheduled to check out on the 8th isn’t really surprising. He was expected to complete his deposition that day. But, of course, that didn’t happen and they agreed to complete it on the 9th and all indications are that Barnett stayed one more night at the hotel. That’s why his lawyers called the hotel to check on him and that’s, presumably, why those employees agreed to knock on the door of his hotel room on Saturday morning to make sure he’s ok after getting a request for a welfare check.
And yet there doesn’t appear to be any updates in the police report about Barnett staying an additional night. Instead, we are told in the Daily Mail article that there is surveillance video available showing Barnett exiting the hotel on the morning of the 8th, but no reference to any surveillance video showing Barnett returning for another night or leaving for his truck the next day. Keep in mind Barnett’s truck is described as a “Clemson orange” Dodge Ram, which sounds like the kind of paint job that would stick out on video even in the evening.
So that’s the weird set of reported facts that have emerged already in this investigation. Putting aside the Daily Mail’s misreporting on the coroner’s time of death, the lack of any mention of the extra nights stay at the hotel along with no mention of surveillance footage of Barnett on that extra night/morning is just odd. It’s like we’re seeing a cognitive gap in the investigation. Perhaps there’s an explanation that will come out and it will all make sense. But let’s not forget we’re looking a death that sure has plenty of hallmarks of a ‘suicide’ coverup. The piling up of discordant fact is not a good sign at this point in the investigation, but that’s what happening.
Ok, first, here’s Monday’s BBC report on the initial story that contains the March 9th date of death determined by a the coroner:
“It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.”
That what the BBC first first reported on the time of death. Keep in mind that, if Barnett did end up getting shot at the time of “pop” , it would have been shortly before the police and coroner got there, making the timing of shot obvious, forensically speaking. Blood congeals.
Now, here’s the Daily Mail report from the next day, giving a March 8 day of death, presumably in error. But then the report goes on to include photos of the police report that describes the expected checkout time on the morning of the 8th and mentions in the article how surveillance footage shows Barnett exiting the hotel on the morning of the 8th. But no mention of the check out getting extended to the 9th or anything about later surveillance video showing Barnett returning for an extra night:
“A police report obtained by DailyMail.com reveals that Barnett extended his stay at the Holiday Inn two days prior to his suspected suicide and had been set to check out the day before the alarm was raised.”
John Barnett extended his stay at the hotel two days prior to his suspected suicide and was set to check out the day before he was found dead. That’s what we find in this Daily Mail report. But there’s an important necessary correction to these reported facts. The article claims the BBC reported that the Charleston County coroner confirmed to the BBC that Barnett actually die on Friday, March 8, not Saturday March 9. So that appears to just be a reporting error on the part of the Daily Mail because as we saw above, the BBC reported a March 9 death conclusion by the coroner’s office:
But what about that March 8 scheduled checkout? Well, the article does include an image to a police report that states that Barnett was due to check out on the morning of the 8th. Now, we do know that the plan was for Barnett to have completed his deposition on Friday, March 8, so it makes sense that he would have been scheduled to check out on the 8th. But then, obviously, those plans changed after the deposition couldn’t be completed on Friday. And all indications are that, not only did Barnett’s lawyers expect him to continue staying one more night at the Holiday Inn, but so did the employees since they first knocked on his hotel door on the morning of the 9th as part of their welfare check. It would have been odd for them to check on someone who checked out the prior day. On top of that is the fact that there was the employee who heard the “pop” sound in the area of Barnett’s truck at around 9:30 am on the 9th which would suggest that Barnett died shortly before his scheduled 10am deposition. So we have a convergence of facts that strong suggest Barnett stayed one more night at the Holiday Inn, only to die in his truck on the morning of the 9th.
And yet we’re also told about surveillance footage showing Barnett exiting the hotel on the morning of the 8th but nothing about any followup surveillance footage. Shouldn’t there be footage of Barnett returning to the hotel later in the day on the 8th for one more night’s stay? And maybe even more footage of Barnett heading to his truck on the morning of the 9th? Keep in mind he had an orange pickup truck that probably stick on on cameras, even at night. Did Barnett check out of the hotel on the morning of the 9th or did he plan on checking out after his deposition? We have no idea, but it’s an odd constellation of details that aren’t lining up:
So is this Daily Mail article just unfortunately filled with various mistakes? Well, while that March 8 date of death appears to be a mistake, but the Daily Mail did publish the police report which clearly refers to an expected March 8 check out date. And it’s not like the Daily Mail is the only outlet reporting that Barnett was due to check out of the hotel on March 8. The following ABC News article makes the same reference to a March 8 scheduled check out based on a police report:
“Police said they were responding to a hotel worker’s call after the worker heard a “pop” from Barnett’s vehicle about 30 minutes prior to officers arriving, per the police report. Barnett had checked into the hotel on March 2 and was due to check out on March 8.”
This March 8 check out date isn’t just a typo. It’s the information multiple outlets are attributing to the police report. A report the Daily Mail published. Again, maybe there’s going to be a clarification after additional investigative facts are revealed. But for now, there’s bizarre time and surveillance gaps in this investigation. Gaps that just happens to encompass when and where Barnett appears to have died.
It started with a trickle. It’s become a torrent. There’s simply no way to accept Boeing whistleblower John Barnett’s death as a suicide any longer. It’s a murder/cover up. The big question now is whether or not the legal system will help with the cover up, much as it’s done for Boeing for years.
For starters, we have one of the most definitive pieces of evidence against a suicide that we could reasonably get: a close family friend told reporters that Barnett recently disclosed to her that he predicted he could end up dead as a result of his whistleblowing. And when she asked Barnett if he was scared, he replied, “No, I ain’t scared, but if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.” This close family friend, Jennifer, last saw Barnett at the end up February, when he attended her father’s funeral.
But as definitive and compelling as Jennifer’s statements are in clarifying Barnett’s state of mind, she’s not the only family friend making similar statements to the press. Another family friend, Bob Emery, is also telling reporters that he was contacted by Barnett a couple of weeks ago and Barnett didn’t seem depressed at all.
And that’s just what we’ve learned from family friends about Barnett’s state of mind. Then there’s the forensic details about the circumstances surrounding his death. For example, we learned more about the note found on the passengers seat of Barnett’s truck. According to reporting, a family member read the note and told Barnett’s attorney’s that “it didn’t sound like John.”
We’re also learning more about Barnett’s whereabouts on the evening before his death. We are told he last spoke to his attorney’s at 6 PM that Friday, and he then picked up some food from Taco bell and returned to the hotel. An employee saw him scrolling on his phone, eating a quesadilla, and not looking depressed that evening. It’s not clear where in the hotel Barnett was sitting but he was visibly there.
The morning when his body was discovered, it sounds like the hotel manager who was first asked to conduct a welfare check on his hotel room, room 511, actually found condensation still on a cup of melted ice in his room, indicating he recently left for his truck. And in what could be an important detail, it also sounds like the weather was horrendous that morning with torrential rain in the Charleston area. Six inches of rain was already on the ground around the truck when his body was discovered.
Keep in mind that one of the oddities in the early reporting was how we are told hotel security cameras captured Barnett leaving on that Friday morning and that he was scheduled to check out also that morning, but we never heard about subsequent footage showing him returning for another evening’s stay after it was decided to extend the deposition for day. So now we’re learning that he was indeed spotted at the hotel later that evening by an employee and that there was horrible weather the next morning. Did that weather effectively obscure security cameras? And what kind of impact might torrential rain have on physical evidence left at the scene if we’re looking at a potential murder here? These are some of the kinds of questions that now loom large in this investigation.
But as we’re also going to see, part of what makes this case so disturbing is the fact that Boeing has already received kid glove treatment by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for years. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) isn’t the only captured agency here. In fact, it turns out that some of the same lawyers who worked out Jeffrey Epstein’s sweetheart deal were involved with a “deferred prosecution agreement” against Boeing that was, perhaps fittingly, signed on January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol insurrection. Can we really expect a serious investigation into this? Would the US government allow a major defense contractor to get caught up in murder/coverup scandal of this proportions? It’s hard to imagine. And that’s part of the disturbing context of this whole story. Because Barnett isn’t the only Boeing whistleblower here. But he is the biggest. And it’s hard to imagine Boeing getting away with a blatant murder isn’t going to have a chilling effect on the rest of the whistleblowers out there. That’s why the whole narrative we’re seeing already emerging dismissing the idea that Boeing would risk all the peril of murdering a whistleblower ignores the reality that we aren’t just dealing with a corrupted FAA. Boeing doesn’t have to worry about a serious criminal investigation and never did.
And that’s all why we have to ask if reports like the following, describing how Jennifer was warned by Barnett that he might be killed and it won’t be a suicide, is exactly the kind of report Boeing is hoping every last whistleblower reads and takes very seriously. Because, intended or not, that the message this story is sending to the whistleblower community and it’s going to become a much more compelling message after time, and a lack of convictions against Boeing, proves that Boeing got away with it:
““He wasn’t concerned about safety because I asked him,” Jennifer said. “I said, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ And he said, ‘No, I ain’t scared, but if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.’ ””
Barnett told his close family friend, Jennifer, that if anything happens it’s not suicide. It’s hard to get a more definitive pre-rebuttal for a suicide conclusion than that. Jennifer is adamant. They talked about this exact scenario:
Then we get to another major reason Barnett would have had for not taking his life: he recently moved back to Louisiana to look after his mom. In other words, he has a significant family obligation to live for. And Jennifer last spoke to him back him February, for her father’s funeral. She has a very recent sense of his state of mind:
Also note this potentially important detail that will be something to keep an eye on: Barnett’s lawyers are still planning on moving forward with the whistleblowing complaint lawsuit. Will they stick plan that as we getting closer to the June trial date?
So that was the massive recent update on this case. But it’s not the only update. A number of details have been trickling in via various stories. For example, Barnett’s lawyers last spoke to him at 6 PM on the Friday before he was found dead. No signs of distress were observed by his lawyers. And then, the next morning, at the time of “pop” that was heard by a hotel staff member, huge storms inundated the area. So Barnett’s death took place in the middle of a massive storm:
“Huge storms inundate the Charleston area. At 9:24 a.m., a hotel staff member said they heard a “pop” near where Barnett’s car was parked but thought nothing of it.”
Huge storms were inundating the Charleston area. It might be a minor detail. But since we’re talking about a potential murder that took place in a hotel parking lot, the fact that major storms were taking place at the time could be an important detail.
Another potentially important detail: Barnett’s lawyer last spoke to him around 6 PM on that Friday evening. And when they last spoke, there was no indication of some sort of tremendous stress of any imminent psychological break:
Now, as we’re going to see in the following New York Post article, Barnett was actually spotted by a hotel employee on that Friday evening eating a quesadilla and scrolling on his phone. The employee said Barnett looked fine.
We also got details from another family friend, Bob Emery, who spoke with Barnett around two weeks ago, which sounds like around the same time Jennifer last spoke with him. According to Emery, “he seemed too focused on what he was doing,” with the lawsuit and “didn’t seem depressed.” The constellation of facts keeps point in one direction:
“An employee who works at the Holiday Inn where Barnett was found dead in the parking lot told The Post Barnett ate a quesadilla, drank a Coke, scrolled on his phone and seemed fine on the evening of Feb. 8.”
A hotel employee saw Barnett scrolling on his phone, eating a quesadilla, and looking perfectly fine that Friday evening. So we can confirm Barnett was visibly present at the hotel on that evening:
Beyond that, we have another family friend, Bob Emery, who also spoke with Barnett recently and who didn’t get the impression Barnett was depressed at all. On the contrary, it was Barnett who was helping Emery cope with the recent loss of his wife. These do no seem like the actions of someone contemplating taking their own life:
Finally, we have the following piece in the American Prospect with some additional important details. First, it sounds like there was six inches of rain on the ground already by the time Barnett’s body was found. So, again, what kind of impact did that torrential rain have on the ability of security cameras to see what was going on in the area around Barnett’s truck? Another potential relevant detail is that condensation was found on a cup of melted ice by the hotel manager who as initially asked to check on Barnett’s room by his attorneys, which is further confirmation that he had just recently left his room for the truck. We’re also told that a family member has seen the note that was found on the passenger seat and told Barnett’s attorneys that “it didn’t sound like John.”
But beyond those evidentiary details on Barnett’s death, the piece also contains an important detail on what made Barnett’s whistleblower claims so potentially devastating for Boeing: Barnett kept the receipts. His case isn’t just based on his testimony. He has the documents to back his claims up. Which is also part of what it’s going to be very interesting to see if his lawyers do end up continuing with the case. Because they presumably still have all those documents, and at this point a much more compelling case:
“He grabbed some Taco Bell on the way back to the Holiday Inn; there was still condensation on the cup of melted ice the hotel manager found when Turkewitz asked if the receptionist could check his room the next morning, worried that his phone was sending him straight to voicemail. Turkewitz asked if she could see the orange Ram in the parking lot; it was indeed there, sitting in about six inches of rain. All the lawyers, Boeing’s included, quickly drove over to what they assumed was the scene of a cardiac arrest.”
The was six inches of rain already when Barnett’s body was discovered, presumably less than an hour after he was shot based on the available evidence. What kind of visibility was there around Barnett’s truck at the time of the ‘pop’ sound? Was it raining so hard it was impossible for, for example, security cameras to accurately see what was going on around the truck? Did torrential rains create an opportunity for a hit on Barnett that couldn’t be caught on camera?
Also observe how, while we don’t yet know the contents of the white note on Barnett’s passenger, a family member did see the note and told Barnett’s lawyer that “it didn’t sound like John”:
Also note this potentially important characterization of the deposition that Barnett was able to accomplish in those two days before his death: he killed it because no one knew the case better. But beyond that, there’s the fact that Barnett kept the documents detailing extensive wrongdoing by Boeing. This wasn’t a case that relied entirely on his testimony. He had the receipts:
And then there’s the fact that this isn’t just a story about the corruption of the FAA. The DOJ has been operate as Boeing’s ‘legal guardian’ too. In fact, some of the same lawyers who worked out Jeffrey Epstein’s sweetheart deal were involved with a “deferred prosecution agreement” against Boeing that was, perhaps fittingly, signed on January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol insurrection:
Finally, we get to the conclusion of the author of this piece that Barnett probably wouldn’t have been killed by Boeing because doing so would seemingly be pointless since there are so many other whistleblowers. And while it’s possible that Barnett’s death will somehow reinvigorate all of these other whistleblowers and make them even more determined to deliver justice to the company, it’s also important to keep in mind that bumping off the leading whistleblower and getting away with it would be be one of the most effective means of chilling all of the rest of those whistleblowers that Boeing could possibly come up with. In other words, this is going to be a disaster for Boeing if it’s thoroughly investigated and a murder plot is revealed. But if that doesn’t happen, this could be one of the most diabolically potent corporate power plays we could imagine: pulling off a pretty blatant murder sure will send a powerful message to all those other whistleblowers:
As the article describes, Boeing has already been operating with basic impunity. Would it feel the need to murder Barnett given that impunity? It poses a grim kind of paradox: would having a history of operating with impunity make a corporation more, or less, likely to bump off a whistleblower? What if this whistleblower is only one of many whistleblowers, with more potentially on the way? These are the kinds of questions we have to ask. Along with the general question of whether or not one want to risk flying at all at this point without assurances that it won’t be on a Boeing.
And in related news, a 25 year old Boeing was just discovered to be missing an external panel after landing from a domestic US flight. Which is the kind of story that suggest Boeing’s quality issues aren’t just impacting the newer planes. And which is also the kind story that suggests there could be even more potential whistleblowers waiting to come forward. Or at least waiting to see how the death of John Barnett gets investigated before deciding whether or not to come forward.
John Barnett packed up all his stuff from his hotel room on the morning of March 9, and then decided to leave his stuff, still packed, sitting there in the room, along with his drivers license. Barnett then went down to his truck in the back of the hotel parking lot in the middle of a torrential rain storm to end his life. This is after telling a close family friend in recent weeks that if he ends up dead it’s not a suicide. That’s the ‘suicide’ scenario we would have to accept based on the facts that have emerged so far in the investigation of Barnett’s extremely untimely death. Or extremely timely death, depending on your perspective.
The updates keep coming in, and the more they do the more this is looking like someone forced Barnett into his truck where he met his end. First, there’s the fact that video footage of Barnett exists from the morning of Friday March 8, but no reports of footage from that evening or the morning of the 9th. Was something suddenly wrong with the hotel cameras? We don’t have an answer on that. But we can reasonably conclude that Barnett left his hotel room and returned at least once on that morning because a cup of melted ice with condensation on it was found in his room by the hotel staff.
Then there’s the fact that the weather in Charleston was so awful there was reportedly six inches of rain already around his truck when his body was found. Even if we assume Barnett was genuinely gripped by a spontaneous suicidal impulse, why trudge your way out to your pickup truck in torrential rain to do it? On the other hand, if you’re a hitman, it’s not hard to imagine why having a go off in a truck would be far more preferable than in a hotel room, especially of something is going wrong with the cameras or the horrendous rain is obscuring visibility. After all, the only person to hear anything was a hotel employee who happened to be outside at the time and just hear a “pop” he ignored. A lot more people would have presumably heard something had Barnett shot himself in his room.
And now we’re learning two more details that give us some insights into Barnett’s activity on the morning of his death: Not only was Barnett’s drivers license was also found still in his hotel room but when the hotel employees conducted their welfare check they told his lawyers that ‘His stuff’s packed up, but he’s not there.’ Under the suicide scenario, Barnett packed up all his stuff and then decided to leave it there to kill himself.
We’re also learning that Barnett’s lawyers first reach out to him at 9am on that morning to see if Barnett wanted a ride to the deposition. But Barnett didn’t answer. Keep in mind that a hotel employee told police they heard a “pop” near Barnett’s truck at 9:24 am. So if the lack of an answer to that 9am phone call is a sign that Barnett was already in some sort of distress, there was still close to a half hour before his death. Plenty of time to, who knows, force Barnett to write that suicide note. A suicide note that a family member told Barnett’s attorneys “didn’t sound like John.”
We also got a very interesting piece of insight from forensic consultant Steve Chancellor, who notes how the fact that the gun was still in Barnett’s hand, with the trigger finger still on the trigger, jumped out at him because finding a gun still in the hand of a suicide victim only happens around 25% of the time. As Chancellor put it, “The mere fact that the gun was in the hand, I would pay attention to that...Because many times when someone is trying to make it look like a suicide, they make that mistake and they put the gun in the hand.” What are the odds that the gun not only remained in Barnett’s hand but with the trigger finger still on the trigger?
And then there’s the disturbing update we got about what kind of impact Barnett’s death is already having on the Boeing workforce. Because as the following New York Post piece describes, while the public at large might be more than happy to accept the ‘suicide’ narrative, Boeing’s employees are having no problem accepting the possibility that he was killed. But they would rather not talk about it:
“The police report also noted Barnett’s driver’s license was still in his room when he was found with a gunshot wound to the head and a pistol in his hand the following morning.”
Barnett’s drivers license was still in his room. It’s in intriguing piece of evidence. On the one hand, if Barnett was planning on just killing himself in the truck one can understand why he may not bother taking his drivers license with him. But why else might Barnett have left his license in the room? Well, there’s one obvious potential reason: he may have been forced out of the room by an intruder. Keep in mind one of the other facts we’ve already learn: Barnett had a cup of ice from the ice machine that still had condensation on it when the hotel staff conducted their welfare check, an observation that informs us that Barnett left his room to get the ice before returning. Was Barnett possibly approached by someone while getting that ice? Someone who perhaps turned with Barnett to his room before heading to the truck to complete the final act?
Keep in mind that, putting aside the bizarre timing of his death in relation to the culmination of a seven year legal battle, just in terms of the location for his demise, if you assume Barnett really did kill himself you have to wonder why he would have chosen the truck that was out in the middle of torrential storm in the back of the parking lot? Why not just do it in the relative comfort of the room? Why drench yourself in torrential rain only to head out to your truck to kill yourself?
On the other hand, if you’re a hitman sent to take Barnett out, and the opportunity arises to either kill him in the hotel room or in the truck, the truck is obviously the preferred method from a sound stand point. Guests are going to hear a gunshot in a room. But as we saw, the only person who heard anything was a hotel staffer who happened to be outside at the time of the presumed gunshot and reported hearing a “pop”.
Of course, there’s a major complication for a hitman planning on forcing Barnett from his hotel room to the truck for the murder, which is the possibility of being seeing and even getting caught on camera. But that just brings us back to the puzzling fact that the hotel cameras seemed to only capture Barnett on the morning of Friday, March 8, but not that evening or the morning of March 9, possibly due to the torrential rain in the area. And that’s on top of the puzzling discrepancy in the police report, where the fact that Barnett extended his stay to the 8th is mentioned without an acknowledgment that he made the last-minute decision to extend it another night. We know Barnett stayed there one more evening. But we still don’t know why the official reporting of the facts seems to leave out the last evening and doesn’t explain the lack of any video for Barnett’s final evening/morning at the hotel:
And then there’s the remarkable detail of how the pistol was not only found in Barnett’s hand but with his finger still on the trigger. As forensic consultant Steve Chancellor notes, that’s not a common finding for suicides, with the gun remaining in the hand only 25% of the time. What are the odds that the gun not only remained in Barnett’s hand but with the trigger finger still on the trigger? Presumably a lot lower than 25% It was like a telltale sign of a set up, as Chancellor seemed to view:
And then we get to the qui bono part of this story. Because we do have to aks why Barnett wasn’t killed sooner if Boeing had the intention of silencing him. But when we hear the responses from these unnamed Boeing employees and how readily they arrived at the suspicion that Barnett was murdered, it’s not hard to see how Boeing’s management would benefit from Barnett’s death. A message was sent. The message that Boeing could kill you an get away with it. Whether or not that was the intended message, that’s the message these employees appear to be hearing from this story:
As we can see, while it remains to be seen if the public at large is going to accept the ‘suicide’ narrative, the Boeing employees don’t seem to have any trouble believing the company killed him.
And as we’re going to see in the following Fortune piece, the more we learn about what Barnett was trying to blow the whistle on, the more potential motives emerge. Like the fact that OSHA had previously let Boeing off the hook in the face of Barnett’s accusations because OSHA doesn’t have the sufficient authority to subpoena documents. As we saw, Barnett kept the receipts. He had the incriminating documents.
But there’s also a potentially very interesting forensic detail about what was discovered in Barnett’s hotel: the hotel staff told his lawyers that, ‘His stuff’s packed up, but he’s not there.’ So if we are to believe the suicide scenario, Barnett actively packed his stuff up, and then left it all in the room, with his drivers license too, and went out to his truck in horrendous weather to kill himself there. It’s a scenario that strains credulity.
On the other hand, if we assume someone effectively forced Barnett to go out to his car truck where the ‘suicide’ scene was to be arranged, leaving everything in the hotel would explain what the staff found. Don’t forget the observation of condensation on a cup of melted ice, which strongly suggests Barnett left his hotel room at some point that morning to go to the ice machine. Plus the puzzling lack of security footage from that morning. We can’t really say at this point if someone accosted Barnett that morning and forced him out to his truck, but that scenario sure would explain the available evidence. Because otherwise we are being asked to believe that Barnett packed up all his stuff that morning, and then spontaneously decided to kill himself by leaving all his stuff in the hotel and instead walking out to his truck in the middle of a torrential stuff to do the final deed:
“Turkewitz was especially buzzed about this session because Barnett was slated to continue the account of the production gaffes he’d allegedly witnessed up-close on the Boeing factory floor, a dramatic narrative that he’d started the previous day. Barnett, 62, had worked from 2011 to 2017 as a quality manager at the North Charleston plant that assembles the 787 Dreamliner. In that role, he’d alerted senior managers to what he called violations of legally required processes and procedures, and maintained that his warnings were being ignored. In the years following his departure, Barnett emerged as arguably the most renowned Boeing whistleblower, recounting the quality abuses he’d claimed to have witnessed to multiple media outlets.”
It was expected to be another blockbuster day of depositions. A completion of the dramatic narrative that started the day before. That’s how Barnett’s lawyer describes his sense of anticipation. Barnett may have spent the past seven years whistleblowing, but this was the opportunity to get the story of the retaliation he face down on the legal record. And it was explosive testimony. Barnett was the best witness his lawyer had ever seen. And his lawyers insist they are continuing with the case.
But it’s also important to note that Barnett wasn’t the only witness in this case. There was a March 30 deadline to complete the depositions over a list of 20 witnesses from both sides, including eight other witnesses who backed up Barnett’s version of events. Which raises the important question: did those eight witnesses testify yet? If not, are they still going to testify? And if they do end up testifying after Barnett’s death, are they going to stick to their original story?
And then we get to this key detail that underscores why Barnett’s testimony is so powerful: OSHA doesn’t have the authority to subpoena documents. And as we saw, Barnett kept the reciepts. The systemic protections Boeing long enjoyed didn’t apply when it came to Barnett’s complaints. Which also raises the question: were any of Barnett’s documents missing from his hotel room? Any missing laptops or thumbdrives? Let’s hope Barnett’s lawyers already had possession of all the relevant documents:
And then we get to the details from his lawyer about the morning of his death. Like everyone well, we get a recounting of how the weather was horrendous. We also get more clarity on the timeline of Barnett’s unresponsiveness because his lawyer informs us that he first called Barnett at 9am to see if he wanted a ride but Barnett wasn’t answering. Keep in mind that it was 9:24 AM when a hotel employee reportedly heard the “pop” near Barnett’s car. There was close to a half hour between when Barnett didn’t answer his lawyer’s phone call and the presumed gun shot:
Finally, we have this detail: The hotel staff who checked Barnett’s room told the attorney ‘His stuff’s packed up, but he’s not there.’ So it’s not just drivers license that was left in the hotel room. His packed up stuff was also left in the room. If we’re to believe it was a suicide, Barnett apparently packed up, and then decided to leave all his stuff in hotel and instead go out out to his truck in the middle a horrendous storm to shoot himself. Because who doesn’t want to die in soaking wet socks:
Suicide isn’t necessarily a rational act. But the more we’re learning about the circumstances of Barnett’s death, the more irrational the suicide scenario sounds. And the more plausible the hitman scenario gets.
Who knows, maybe the security camera footage is going to be revealed and can at least clarify whether or not Barnett really was alone in this truck at the time of his death. But until that happens, it’s hard to ignore the hitman scenario. Especially since, at this point in the investigation, with the oddly missing hotel security camera footage, it would be a hitman/coverup scenario.
Why would Boeing’s management risk creating a mega-scandal by bumping off the most prominent whistleblower in the company’s history? What could prompt a major defense contractor to take a giant gamble like, if caught, could imperil the company’s management in a murder investigation? It’s one of biggest questions that has been looming over the investigation of John Barnett’s alleged suicide several weeks ago.
But as we’ve also seen, the possible answers to that major question have also been visible from the beginning of the investigation. For starters, Barnett’s whistleblowing hinted as a corporate culture that was systematically creating far more safety issues on Boeing’s planes than had been already recognized. Boeing was operating a corporate culture that was so corrupt and reckless it was bound to create new safety incidents but also new whistleblowers. But also keep in mind that Barnett was already far from the only whistleblower making these same allegations. He was just the most prominent. In other words, if Boeing’s management felt like Barnett’s ‘suicide’ might silence the rest of the whistleblowers, and prevent new potential whistleblowers from going down that path, that might explain why someone in Boeing’s management (or major investors) might have determined that bumping Barnett off is actually less risky than allowing his whistleblower lawsuit to play out. After all, it’s not like we should assume Barnett was the only employee systematically abused for blowing the whistle. We already know of other Boeing whistleblowers like Ed Pierson. How many other potential whistleblowers are there? And how many other quality control employees are there with stories of systemic management abuses? There’s not reason to assume Barnett was the only one to have is career destroyed.
And that brings us to the following piece in the American Prospect that gives us more insight into the kind of deep corruption that pervaded Boeing’s management. Corruption that didn’t just target Barnett for sidelining and termination. Anyone who cared about the integrity of Boeing’s planes was targeted by Boeing’s management. And that basically meant almost the entire quality control team. In fact, when Boeing issued the directive to its quality control managers for them to outsource 90 percent of their duties to the mechanics they were supposed to be supervising, this was done with the idea that Boeing could then lay off the bulk of its quality control staff. It’s a big part of the story here: Boeing already fired thousands of inspectors who are no longer left to blow the whistle. Instead, the mechanics working the lines are the remaining potential whistleblowers because they’re the ones left to do their own quality inspections. So Boeing not only has all of these former, now laid off, quality inspectors to worry about as potential whistleblowers but also all the mechanics who have been tasked with inspecting their own work. It’s a whistleblowing nightmare for the company. At least potentially...unless Boeing can somehow keep all these voices silent.
So how are Boeing’s employees — all those potential whistleblowers — responding to Barnett’s alleged suicide? Well, as we’ve seen, some anonymous employees are already expressing their skepticism about Barnett’s suicide while also expressing paranoia talking about it with fellow employees over concerns about the company’s management spying on them. And we have more anonymous employees expressing similar sentiments in the article below, with one telling the reporter, “If I show up dead anytime soon, even if it’s a car accident or something, I’m a safe driver, please be on the lookout for foul play.” A message eerily similar to what Barnett reportedly conveyed to a family friend not long before his death.
But it’s the comments from a longtime former Boeing executive that really stand out. According to this former executive, “I don’t think one can be cynical enough when it comes to these guys.” When asked if he thought Boeing assassinated Barnett, his response was “It’s a top-secret military contractor, remember; there are spies everywhere,” he replied.
That’s all part of the context of assessing the untimely — or extremely timely — demise of John Barnett. His death could trigger a mega-scandal for this major defense contractor. Or, perhaps, it could end up silencing a mega-scandal that was already unfolding by ensuring the army of potential whistleblowers remain quiet. In other words, killing Barnett would have been a gamble, but a gamble with a huge potential payoff for a company that was looking at a much much bigger scandal should Barnett’s lawsuit succeed. And the kind of gamble a major defense contractor like Boeing has the means of pulling off:
“But Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing. Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement.”
A corporate philosophy that defined “knowledge” as a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, while eschewing “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. In other words, wisdom isn’t profitable or necessary. That was the neoliberal philosophy that ‘seduced’ Boeing’s management and investors. The kind of philosophy that implicitly asks the ‘stupid or evil?’ meta-question that looms over so much of the contemporary institutional landscape.
And as the article makes clear, John “Swampy” Barnett was far from the only knowledgeable worker who cared by the integrity of Boeing’s planes targeted for termination. Nor was Barnett the only employee raising concerns about the safety of these planes. He’s just the most prominent of the hundreds of others who have blown the whistle. That’s as key part of the context of Barnett’s alleged ‘suicide’. Anyone who cared about the integrity of the planes was deemed a “phenomenally talented asshole” by the company’s one-time CEO Jim McNerney. But it wasn’t just employees who openly cared about the integrity of the planes who were targeted. Thousands of quality control inspectors were to be let go in favor of having the mechanics do their own inspections. It was a wholesale gutting of Boeing’s quality control operations all done in the interest of cutting costs and boosting stock prices:
And that brings us to the stream of anonymous comments from Boeing employees that we’re seeing show up in these reports. Comments seemingly uniformly describing a deep sense of skepticism of Barnett’s suicide. So note the commentary here from an anonymous longtime former Boeing executive when asked if he thought Barnett was assassinated: “I don’t think one can be cynical enough when it comes to these guys...It’s a top-secret military contractor, remember; there are spies everywhere”:
It’s hard to interpret that as anything other than an admission that “yes, I think it’s possible he was assassinated” from an anonymous longtime former Boeing executive. It’s not hard to see why he chose to remain anonymous.
Time will tell if Boeing managed to put the whistlebower genie back in the bottle. We’ll see. Perhaps in the form of a wave of new whistleblower allegations. Or perhaps a disturbing period of whistleblower silence punctuated with the occasional plane part, or entire plane, falling out of the sky. It’s like a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ mega-scandal. And based on the available evidence, it appears Boeing may have chosen the kind of corporate intimidation adventure that a defense contractor with spies everywhere might be tempted to make in this kind of situation. And few things are more intimidating than an official ‘suicide’ that no one believes.
There a new disturbing round of Boeing-related safety updates. No, it’s not an update on John Barnett’s alleged ‘suicide’. Instead, it’s an arguably far more disturbing update about the general state of affairs at Boeing and the company’s growing safety issues.
There’s a new Boeing whistleblower making highly alarming claims about the Dreamliner, the same class of plane Barnett specialized in for his his quality control work. According to Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour, the fuselages of the Dreamliners contain potentially catastrophic flaws due to improper fusing of the pieces during the assembly process. The risk doesn’t just arise from possible issues with how the fuselage pieces were fitted but also the fact that Dreamliner fuselages are made from a light composite material of carbon and glass fibers. And it’s simply not known how these composite materials will hold up to the stresses of flight over the years. What is known, however, is that these materials do not show signs of fatigue until they suddenly snap one day.
Oh, and Salehpour also reports being retaliated against by the company after his whistleblowing and getting transferred to the 777 production line, where he reported identifying new issues. Recall how Barnett had a similar experience, getting transferred to overseeing a defective parts bin after his whistleblowing, where he discovered that defective parts were being taken from the bin to be used on planes. Also recall the reports citing anonymous Boeing employees expressing their belief that Barnett was killed by the company and that employees were being spied on by management. Or the anonymous former Boeing executive who shared, “I don’t think one can be cynical enough when it comes to these guys...It’s a top-secret military contractor, remember; there are spies everywhere.”
But here’s perhaps the most disturbing part of this story: Boeing’s denials that there’s a problem contain admissions that, yes, there’s probably a problem. According to Boeing, the company has done extensive testing on the Dreamliner and “determined that this is not an immediate safety of flight issue,” adding that
this “would not become an issue for the in-service fleet for many years to come, if ever, and we are not rushing the team so that we can ensure that analysis is comprehensive.” So Salehpour warns the world that there’s a looming issue with a catastrophic failure of fuselages that could arise years from now without warning and Boeing assures us that there’s no immediate problems and if any arise it won’t be for many years to come. It’s not exactly reassuring.
Beyond that, Jeff Guzzetti, a former Federal Aviation Administration safety investigator, told NBC that even “if these cracks would form, which there’s no evidence of, the airplane is so resistant, and so structurally robust, according to Boeing, that they’re not going to break apart.” So it would appear that Boeing told this former FAA investigator that it’s fine if cracks form in this composite material.
Oh, and when asked directly if he would allow his family to fly in a Dreamliner, Salehpour told reporters “Right now, I would not.” So while this might be primarily a long-term issue, we don’t actually know how far off that ‘long-term’ really is at this point. It’s a gamble.
That’s the terrifying update on Boeing’s safety issues. The kind of update that hopefully won’t be followed up with another ‘suicide’ or some other unfortunate turn of events:
” Mr. Salehpour, who has worked at Boeing for more than a decade, said the problems stemmed from changes in how the enormous sections were fitted and fastened together in the assembly line. The plane’s fuselage comes in several pieces, all from different manufacturers, and they are not exactly the same shape where they fit together, he said.”
Sam Salehpour isn’t raising alarm over issues like doors blowing out or panels falling off. No, it’s much worse. He’s warning about defects in how the Dreamliner hulls are fused in place. Defects that could be far worse on a Dreamliner than on traditional planes thanks to the use of carbon and glass fiber composite materials which have relatively unknown long-term responses to stresses. But what is know about these composites is that they don’t show signs of stress until they suddenly snap. And one thing that could contribute to the development of this kind of dangerous fatigue in these composite materials is the improper fusing of the pieces. In other words, the Dreamliners are ticking timebombs:
And note how Boeing basically conceded these concerns in their attempts to brush them off, insisting that this isn’t an “immediate safety of flight issue” and “not become an issue for the in-service fleet for many years to come, if ever.” It’s not exactly reassuring:
And when we see Salehpour not only cite retaliation from Boeing — in the form of transferring him to work on a different aircraft — but point out that he found new problems with the 777 fuselage production, keep in mind how John Barnett reported a similar experience. In Barnett’s case, he was transferred to overseeing a defective parts bin, where he discovered that defective parts were being taken from the bin to be used on planes! Which is another reminder that Salehpour’s whistleblowing isn’t specific to Dreamliners. This is a Boeing-wide problem. Also keep in mind that when we are talking about retaliation by Boeing, it’s hard to ignore the reality that John Barnett’s ‘suicide’ sure looks a lot like a corporate hit. Just as it’s hard to ignore the reports citing anonymous Boeing employees expressing their belief that Barnett was killed by the company and that employees were being spied on by management. Or the anonymous former Boeing executive who shared, “I don’t think one can be cynical enough when it comes to these guys...It’s a top-secret military contractor, remember; there are spies everywhere.” Given that context, it would be shocking of Salehpour wasn’t facing retaliation:
Finally, when we hear statements from the FAA about how it’s not going to be back to ‘business as usual’, keep in mind that ‘business as usual’ for captured regulators typically involves lots of tough talk followed up by kid glove treatment and no prosecution of the leadership no matter how egregious the behavior. So, we’ll see...:
And in case this seems like Sam Salehpour is just warning about catastrophic problems that might only emerge years from now, note the warning he made in the following NBC interview: When asked if he would put his own family on a 787 right now, Salehpour answer was an ominous, “Right now, I would not”:
“When asked if he would put his own family on a 787 right now, Salehpour didn’t hesitate. “Right now, I would not,” he said.”
Fly at your own risk. Or at your family’s risk. That was Sam Salehpour warning to the world.
And note the incredible assurance we got from a former FAA safety investigator, who seemed to insist that even if cracks were to develop in this composite material, the plane is so structurally sound it still wouldn’t break apart. Or at least that’s what Boeing told him. Yep:
Cracks in the fuselage? It’s fine, according to Boeing. At least that’s what this former FAA investigator relayed to us. Words to keep in mind as we’re forced to digest Boeing’s assurances that everything will be ok. All these worries were just a bad dream. That’s Boeing’s story. Or at least that’s the story until planes start catastrophically breaking up mid-flight, at which point the executives responsible for this state of affairs will presumably be long-retired, living the golden-parachute dream.
It happened again. Second time in less than two months: Boeing whistleblower Josh Dean died suddenly and unexpectedly.
It wasn’t a ‘suicide’ like John Barnett. Instead, it was a deadly bacterial MRSA infection that killed Deah, a 45 year old who had been in good health and known for a healthy lifestyle. Dean was admitted to the hospital and died two weeks later after being intubated and developing pneumonia.
While it’s not clear how he acquired this bacterial infection, it’s important to keep in mind that MRSA infections are known for rapidly killing the otherwise young and healthy. It happens. But at the same time, it’s not like we’re talking about a genetic disorder here that can’t be transmitted. This is a bacterial infection. So while we don’t have any evidence that Dean was intentionally infected with a strain of bacteria known for rapidly killing the young and healthy, it’s kind of hard to rule it out at this point.
And as we’re going to see, while the nature of Josh Dean’s whistleblower was more or less in line with the shocking claims of flagrant quality violations involved with the production of commercial airliners that Barnett and others have highlight, Dean’s claims potentially go further in terms of the kind of economic damage they could have inflicted on the company. That’s because Dean wasn’t directly whistleblowing about quality and safety issues at Boeing. Instead, he was blowing the whistle on Spirit AeroSystems, a major Boeing supplier of fuselages. Spirit was in fact part of Boeing until it was spun off in 2005 to a private-equity firm.
And as Dean’s warnings make clear, Spirit was afflicted with the same kind of profits-over-all philosophy that infected Boeing over the past several decades. When Dean raised issues — mechanics were improperly drilling holes in the aft pressure bulkhead of the MAX — they were ignored and Dean soon found himself fired for questionable reasons. And yet the same issue Dean raised internally did eventually blow up into a in a production delay, proving Dean was correct, at which point he filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Department of Labor. Like Barnett, Dean’s whistleblower retaliation suit was still ongoing at the time of his death. In fact, he even retained the same South Carolina law firm that was representing Barnett.
But the improperly drilled holes Dean identified aren’t the only example of a quality issue at Spirit’s facilities. it also turns out that the mid-flight door blowout incident back in January can be partially traced back to a Spirit repair crew leaving off the four bolts after a repair job. Not that Boeing can blame it all on Spirit. Boeing employees signed off on the repair job. But the fact that Spirit was directly involved with that high-profile and extremely embarrassing incident underscores the extreme sensitivities that would have inevitably surrounded Dean’s ongoing lawsuit.
But a desire to silence Dean about issues with the fuselages going into Boeing’s commercial planes is just one of the potential reasons someone may have wanted to see Dean suddenly dead. On March 1, a week and a half before Barnett’s ‘suicide’, it was announced that Boeing was in the process of reacquiring Spirit AeroSystems. And as we’re going to see, while gaining greater control over Spirit’s quality issues is cited as part of the motive for the merger, there’s a potentially much bigger motivation: Spirit AeroSystems has a rapidly growing presence in the defense contracting space, with revenues in that sector expected to reach $1 billion by 2025. And Spirit’s potential role as a subcontractor in all sorts of defense projects is seen as a means of getting Boeing involved with an array of major defense contracts that it has thus far lost out on.
Beyond that, Spirit’s experiences with composite materials like the kind that are used to build the Dreamliner’s fuselage is seen as a key skill for the future of defense aeronautics. Of course, as we’ve also learned from Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour, not only were there issues with fusing the segments of the composite fuselage in the Dreamliner, but those flaws could potentially result in the catastrophic failure of the planes. All of a sudden one day the material just snaps. Let’s hope Salehpour has a robust life insurance policy.
Oh, and it turns out Spirit’s CEO, Patrich Shanahan, is not only a former Boeing executive but he’s also the former acting Defense Secretary under the Trump administration. Shanahan is seen as a potential successor to outgoing Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun should the merger go through.
So that’s the disturbing context of this second very disturbing Boeing whistleblower sudden unexpected death: Boeing appears to be planning on pivoting towards more defense contracts and Spirit AeroSystems is seen as critical for that pivot. It’s the kind of context that made Josh Dean an especially expensive fly in this profits-over-everything ointment:
“Dean was represented by a law firm in South Carolina that also represented Boeing whistleblower John “Mitch” Barnett.”
A second Boeing whistleblower dead, less than three months after John Barnett’s ‘suicide’. And it turns out Josh Dean was represented by the same law firm. It’s a potentially important detail in this story. Because one of the big implicit questions surrounding Barnett’s untimely death is what kind of threat was Barnett’s never-complete deposition to Boeing’s bottom line? As we’ve seen, Barnett was far from the only whistleblower and anonymous Boeing employees — and even a former senior executive — appear to be willing to entertain with reporters the idea that Boeing is spying on its employees and bumping off whistleblowers. So if Barnett’s ongoing lawsuit posed a big enough threat to Boeing that it was determined that it was bigger risk to keep him alive, what kind of risk might Dean’s lawsuit pose when waged by the same law firm?
And that brings us to the reality that Spirit Aerospace’s excuse for firing Dean in April of 2023 was that, after he raised a manufacturing defect in October of 2022, he had apparently missed a different manufacturing defect that ultimately forced a production delay. Then, in August of 2023, Spirit announced the discovery of the same issue Dean raised but was ignored. That’s when Dean filed his safety complaint with the FAA, alleging the company lied to the FAA about this ‘newly discovered’ defect:
Then, in November of last year, the FAA basically acknowledge that Dean’s allegations were accurate. That same month, Dean files his whistleblower complaint with the Department of Labor with a case that is ongoing. Or was ongoing, as the case may be:
And then there’s the fact that one of Dean’s Spirit colleagues confirmed his allegations following the door blowout incident back in January. So we have an ongoing lawsuit that was getting buttressed by additional witnesses. In other words, his case was only getting stronger:
And that strengthening case brings us to Dean’s remarkable sudden death. Somehow, this healthy 45 year old contracts MRSA and goes from healthy to dead in a couple of weeks:
Now, it is true that MRSA infections can suddenly kill young and healthy individuals. It’s known to happen. But it’s also the case that we’re talking about a form of death that could be targeted. We’re talking about a bacterial infection, after all. Someone could have literally just rubbed up against him while passing in the street or perhaps contaminated a meal. We don’t have any details on where the infection started. But we know it made it into his lungs and rapidly killed him.
So while we’re forced to ask the question of what kind of threat did Josh Dean’s whistleblowing pose to Boeing, here’s an article from back in March that provides some very important details. For starters, Boeing is currently in the process of acquiring Spirit AeroSystems. In fact, the company is so committed to the acquisition that Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun felt the need to emphasize back in late March that Boeing was going to remain committed even after Calhoun steps down as CEO later this year.
As the article also mentions, this is actually a reacquisition of Spirit. Boeing spun off the company back in 2005 to a private-equity firm. Keep in mind that 2005 was seven years into the era of ‘modern Boeing’ following the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas. A merger widely seen as the turning point for the company and its embrace of profits-over-quality. So when we’re talking about this potential acquisition — a $425 million deal that both companies agreed to a couple of weeks ago — it’s important to keep in mind that Spirit’s corporate philosophy is going to be rooted in this ‘modern Boeing’ mentality. A corporate philosophy that presumably contributed to the fact that Spirit has reportedly failed 7 of 13 audits from the FAA.
And that brings us to one of the other very interesting details to keep in mind with this merger: it turns out it the four missing bolts that led to the mid-flight door blowout incident back in January were a result of a Spirit repair crew. Not that Boeing can pin all of the blame of Spirit. It was Boeing’s employees who approved the repair job. But the fact that Spirit was at least partially responsible for that high-profile incident underscores how potentially damaging Dean’s ongoing lawsuit was to Boeing:
“Spirit used to be a part of Boeing. The former parent company sold off its fuselage operations in 2005 to Canadian private equity firm Onex Corp. Spirit went public the next year. According to the latest Spirit annual report, Boeing still accounts for 70% of its business, though about a quarter of its revenues also come from Boeing rival Airbus.”
Boeing’s acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems is still on. Or reacquisition since Spirit AeroSystems was spun off by Boeing back in 2005 to a private-equity firm. The deal is going to happen whether or not Calhoun is CEO. That was message from Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun back in March. A statement seemingly made to address the reality that Calhoun is stepping down from his CEO position some time later this year in response to all the turmoil.
But then we get to this remarkable detail: it turns out the missing bolts behind January’s door-blowing incident went missing after a Spirit crew went in to fix some damaged rivets. But it wasn’t just a Spirit error. Boeing’s workers signed off on the repair. Which raises the obvious question: what kind of complications to the planned acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems would Josh Dean’s ongoing whistleblower retaliation suit create for Boeing given that Spirit AeroSystems was apparently partially responsible for the door blow-out incident? It seems like a major potential complication, if only from a public relations standpoint if nothing else:
But while getting a handle on the quality issues at Spirit’s Wichita, Kansas, plant might be one of the big incentives for making this acquisition happen, we sadly can’t assume a desire to mitigate safety issues is the primary motive here. There’s a potentially much bigger, and more lucrative, reason: Spirit AeroSystems has a rapidly growing share of the defense contractor space, with sales expected to exceed $1 billion by 2025. Beyond that, Spirit’s experiences with composite materials like the kind used in the Dreamliner (and which might be vulnerable to sudden catastrophic failure as Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour has been warning) could be ideal for the future of high-tech defense aeronautics. It’s important context to keep in mind with Josh Dean’s extremely untimely death: it was incredibly timely for all of the people who wanted to see the Spirit AeroSystems acquisition happen so they could snag all those defense contracts:
“Spirit AeroSystems is now a manufacturer and supplier for structural components that go into military aircraft such as the Boeing-made E‑7 Wedgetail and P‑8 Poseidon, the B‑21 Raider stealth bomber built by Northrop Grumman, Bell’s V‑280 Valor, as well as struts and nacelles for the B‑52H Stratofortress. Its role in the defense industry is growing, with defense revenues reaching nearly $650 million in 2022 and a goal of hitting $1 billion by 2025.”
A potential booming defense contracting business that is growing so fast it could bring in $1 billion by 2025. It wasn’t just gaining greater control of this critical supplier of for Boeing’s commercial planes. Boeing has all sorts of reasons to desire a reacquisition of Spirit AeroSystems. The kinds of high stakes reasons that might have investors keenly interested in silencing someone who can throw a wrench in the merger process sooner rather than later:
Also underscoring the defense contracting boost that could come with this acquisition is the fact that Spirit’s CEO, Pat Shanahan, is not just a former Boeing executive but he’s also seen as a potential successor to current CEO Dave Calhoun. And he also happens to have been the acting Secretary of Defense during the Trump administration. If Shanahan ends up Boeing’s next CEO, we probably shouldn’t be surprise if there’s a big pivot to more defense contracts:
And if we can expect more defense contracts for Boeing as a result of this acquisition, this also, of course, raises questions about whether or not we can expect these manufacturing issues to start manifesting in fighter jets and other aircraft that are routinely put under much more stressful conditions than a commercial airliner. So note one of the areas where Spirit is seen as having experience that could come in handy in the high-tech military aeronautics sector: composite materials. Recall the alarming warnings we’ve received from Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour about the use of composite materials in the Dreamliner. Not only were there issues with fusing the segments of the composite fuselage but those flaws could potentially result in the catastrophic failure of the sudden composite materials. So, yes, Spirit AeroSystems has experience with these composites. Troubling experience that could result in catastrophic structural failures in years to come:
Finally, when we hear Boeing tout how this acquisition might allow the company to exert more control over the rates of aircraft production, keep in mind that the mega-scandal John Barnett has been highlighting all these years was how Boeing was glossing over quality issues precisely to maintain the rates of production. So when we hear Boeing hint at greater control over the rates of production, we have to wonder how exactly they are planning on that. Sure, if they address and fix the manufacturing issues at the Spirit AeroSystems plant that resulted in past delays, great. But it’s hard to be assured that fixing the issue is going to be Boeing’s preferred method for maintaining high production rates:
It’s also worth keeping in mind that the fall of Boeing’s internal corporate culture is, by all accounts, traced directly back to the company’s merger with major defense contractor McDonnell Douglas, with the profit-focused defense contractor philosophy effectively supplanting the engineering-centric company culture and management. And here we are learning about what appears to be Boeing’s plans for a much bigger presence in the defense contracting business. It’s not a great sign. Although not nearly as bad a sign as these sudden unexpected whistleblower deaths.
The final report has arrived. It’s more or less what we should have expected. All of the major questions that have loomed over the events surrounding John Barnett’s death continue to loom. The only difference now is the case is officially closed. Along with a few new questions added to the mix.
The Charleston police department released the report on Friday. The report was presented as if it painted a conclusive picture all pointing towards suicide. And yet, as we’re going to see, the same giant gaps in the timeline that emerged from the very beginning of this investigations remain in this final report. Gaps like the fact that the last video evidence of Barnett appears to be from the Friday evening before his death despite the fact that he apparent shot himself in his truck at around 9:24 am the next morning.
Now, as we’ve also seen, there is a potential explanation for the lack of video footage on the morning of Barnett’s death: the torrential rains at the time, with six inches already on the ground when his body was discovered. We can also be confident Barnett was shot at around 9:24 am that Saturday morning since a hotel employee who happened to be outside reported hearing a “pop” coming from the direction of Barnett’s truck at that time.
And yet, there’s no mention at all of rain or anything else disrupting the hotel’s surveillance footage. Instead, according to the police report, we’re simply told that video footage shows Barnett leaving the hotel at 8:37 pm that Friday evening, returning at 8:45 pm, and that camera showed no one interacted with the vehicle overnight. That’s it. That 12+ hour gap between when his truck returned at 8:45 pm and the 9:24 am “pop” is left simply unacknowledged. Still.
We did get a lot more information on the suicide note found next to Barnett. In fact, images of the note were published in some reports. And it certainly does appear to be a note written by someone in a state of mental distress, with statements of anger towards Boeing. There’s also a lone “Trump 2024” statement on there. This is a good time to recall how a family member told reporters that the suicide note “didn’t sound like John”. So was Barnett an ardent Trump supporter? It’s certainly very possible. But given the family member’s claims that the note didn’t sound like Barnett, it would be interesting to learn a little more about what exactly was it that didn’t sound like him. Keep in mind that if he was somehow getting blackmailed into killing himself, he couldn’t make it obvious he was being blackmailed, but he could have potentially left clues.
We also learned a little bit more about some of the forensic evidence investigators were able to obtain. Fingerprints found on the notebook where the suicide note was found match Barnett’s prints, although three prints were inconclusive.
No prints were recovered from the pistol, however. Now, on the one hand, that’s not necessarily surprising since guns are notorious for not leaving fingerprints. But keep in mind one of the other anomalies in this case: not only was the pistol still in his hand but the finger was still on the trigger. That sounds like a tightly gripped pistol. Also recall how forensic consultant Steve Chancellor observed the gun remains in the hand of a suicide victim maybe only 25% of the time. Finding the gun still in the hand seems like a optimal conditions for recovering fingerprints. But who knows, maybe Barnett’s hands were wet from all the intense rain, making fingerprints even less likely.
And fingerprints or not, it’s the lack of video surveillance on the morning of Barnett’s death that continues to stick out as the giant evidentiary gap in the case. A gap that doesn’t even appear to be acknowledged in the final report. So at this point we still don’t know what transpired on the morning of Barnett’s death. What we do know now is that we’re never going to get an explanation for why the surveillance cameras that were able to track Barnett’s movements in and out of the hotel and watch his truck overnight were suddenly not available that morning.
Ok, first, here’s a CNN report on the release of the final police report. There isn’t much information in the article, which is kind of the point. That’s how the closing of this case is being treated by the mainstream media: with little information and little interest apparently:
“The investigation found that Barnett was shot in the head at close range and the weapon was found in his right hand. There was also a notebook found in the front seat of the car that showed signs that “he was going through a period of serious personal distress,” according to a media release about the police investigation.”
And that’s the CNN summary. Just a quick ‘it was a suicide’ report and not much else other than some details like the fact the fact that the gun was still found in his right hand and there was what appeared to be a suicide note. Again, don’t forget how forensic consultant Steve Chancellor observed the gun remains in the hand of a suicide victim maybe only 25% of the time. Finding the gun still in the hand with the finger still on the trigger is presumably a lot less than 25%. And as we’ll see in the following local new report, while Barnett’s fingerprints were found on the suicide note, no fingerprints were recovered from the gun. Now, the fact that no fingerprint were recovered from the gun isn’t necessarily that surprising. Guns are reportedly notorious for not leaving fingerprints. And let’s not forget the torrential rains that morning. It’s possible Barnett’s hands were wet. Still, with the gun found in the hand and the finger on the trigger, and presumably no disturbances after a single shot was fired, it seems like the conditions for leaving prints on that that gun were more optimal than in many cases. We’re also told three of the fingerprints recovered from the notebook where the suicide note was found were inconclusive.
But while the fingerprint evidence, or lack of evidence, remain interesting details in this case, those aren’t the glaring holes in the story we’re getting. The glaring holes are instead the video evidence. And lack of video evidence. Because as we’ve seen, it’s not like Barnett’s vehicle was parked in an area where hotel cameras didn’t have coverage. And yet, there’s only reports of video evidence of the vehicle from the evening before he was found dead. There continues to be no references to any footage from that morning, or even an explanation for why no footage exists. Now, we can reasonably infer the explanation for that lack of footage on the morning he was found dead as being due to the torrential rains in the area at that time. But it’s still pretty remarkable that this complete lack of any video footage from that morning appears to be entirely lacking from the final report on Barnett’s death or any of the media coverage of this report. It’s a giant investigative hole in this case that cannot be mentioned:
“Officers located Barnett with a silver Smith and Wesson handgun in his right hand. Ballistics confirmed the bullet recovered at the scene and the casing had been fired from the gun found in Barnett’s hand. Barnett legally purchased the gun. A police report states Barnett’s finger was still on the trigger when officers attempted to remove the gun from his hand. A police report states no fingerprints were recovered from the gun.”
No fingerprints on the gun. It’s not impossible or even improbable for fingerprints to be unrecoverable from firearms. Still, the fact that the gun was found in his hand with the finger on the trigger makes the lack of fingerprints a little more difficult to explain.
And then we get to the suicide note found next to Barnett in the truck. In report, we got to see an image of the note, which does indeed look like it was written in a state of mental distress. But it’s also rather interesting to note includes a “Trump 2024” declaration randomly placed there. Now, it’s certainly very possible that Barnett was a Trump supporter. Keep in mind that he initiated his whistleblowing complaint in January of 2017, the month Trump first took office. Perhaps he had high hopes for a the Trump administration. Who knows. But given the possible that Barnett was somehow forced to write this note, it begs the question: was Barnett a known Trump supporter? Because if not, was he leaving some sort of clue for the rest of us about the nature of this note? Recall how a family member told reporters that the suicide note “didn’t sound like John”. Was the “Trump 2024” declaration part of what didn’t sound characteristic? What else didn’t sound like him? These are the kinds of questions that a thorough investigation would have explored. Instead, we’re left with these lingering questions:
And let’s not forget about what made Barnett’s ongoing whistleblower lawsuit potentially so damaging to Boeing: they were in the middle of a discovery phase of the lawsuit that could have forced Boeing to make internal documents available:
And then we get to the glaring hole in this investigation: according to police, Barnett was seen on camera leaving the hotel alone at around 8:30 pm, before his truck was seen backing into a parking space at 8:45 PM where it remained until the morning when his body was discovered. Keep in mind that we are told a hotel employee saw Barnett eating Taco Bell and scrolling on his phone (and not looking notably depressed or distressed) at some point Friday evening. So given that he apparently left the hotel for about 10 minutes before returning, it seems reasonable to suspect he was going out to pick up some food. So was Barnett seen by that employee after 8:45 pm? Maybe, although as we’re also going to see in the following article, he reportedly returned to the hotel at 7:25 pm and entered his hotel room at 7:36 pm, so maybe he was seen eating during that 11 minute period. Either way, it appears the hotel has the ability to visually record when Barnett entered and left his hotel room, along with anyone else who may have entered and left. And we can be confident he did return to his room after returning that evening given that we were also told hotel employees found a cup of melted ice with condensation still on it during their welfare check of his room. Condensation wouldn’t be left on a cup of ice that was left out all night. Barnett clearly returned to his room and then returned to his truck the following morning. Or at least the key card data presumably would record that. So where’s the video footage of him exiting his hotel room and returning to the truck? It’s a massive hole in the story just sitting there left completely unaddressed and yet no one seems curious about it:
Alright, now let’s take a look at another local new report with a few more details of interest. According to the report, security footage shows Barnett entering the hotel alone at 7:25 pm on the Friday before his death, going to his room at 7:36 pm. Was that 11 minutes the period when he was seen eating Taco Bell and scrolling on his phone? Maybe. But it establishes that security cameras were able to capture when he left and returned to his hotel room. And yet we are also told that he was last caught on camera exiting the building at 8:37pm, with his truck returning at 8:45 PM. So he took a short trip somewhere. And yet we don’t hear about him returning to his hotel room again that evening, nor do we hear anything about him leaving his room again in the morning. Instead, we are simply told that there was no video evidence of anyone interacting with the vehicle throughout the night, as if that’s somehow a meaningful explanation of the events:
” Security footage from the round Holiday Inn on Savannah Highway that was reviewed by law enforcement shows Barnett’s movement on the night of March 8, before his death. He entered the hotel alone at 7:26 p.m., went to his room at 7:36 p.m., and was last seen exiting the building by himself at 8:37 p.m.”
Barnett enters the hotel at 7:25 pm, but doesn’t go to his room until 7:36 pm. Was that 11 minute gap the period of time when an employee saw Barnett eating Taco Bell? Maybe. But the one point we can take away from that detail is the fact that security cameras were able to capture Barnett entering and exiting the building. And the last footage of him capture at all that we are told about is video of his truck reversing into a parking space at 8:45 pm:
Then we get a detail about the fingerprints found on the notebook where the suicide note was found. Three of the prints were deemed “inconclusive” while the rest of the prints were Barnett’s. Don’t forget the comments we got from a family member about how the note “didn’t sound like John”. So while it’s pretty clear that Barnett wrote the note, assuming it’s in his handwriting, we shouldn’t necessarily assume the note wasn’t written under duress. Which, again, raises all sorts of questions about who Barnett may have been interacting with when he wrote that note. It would be easy to rule out such interactions if we had video footage confirming no one other than Barnett entered his hotel room that morning. A question all the more relevant since we can be confident he left for the ice machine at least once that morning. But with no mention at all of the security footage that morning, we’re left to wonder:
Finally, we we read about how Barnett’s whistleblowing led to the FAA discovering more than 50 “non-conforming” parts were unable to be traced and were lost in the company’s system, don’t forget about how the retaliation Barnett experienced included being transferred to a seemingly pointless position of overseeing a cage where defective parts were kept. And yet Barnett witnessed safety lapses even in that role, where he had to fight to prevent mechanics from breaking into the cage and taking parts out to be used in the manufacture of new planes. Managers stole parts from the cage so frequently that he had the locks changed but higher-ups directed him to create 200 extra sets of keys so the theft could continue. Where those missing “non-conforming” parts stored in one of those cages at some point? And is there any evidence of that use of non-conforming parts hiding away in Boeing’s records that the FAA missed? It’s the kind of story that serves as a reminder of how devastating the discovery process could be to Boeing if it’s allowed to continue:
Will there ever been any meaningful investigations into Barnett’s numerous whistleblowing claims? Or will the coverups continue and deepen? Barnett isn’t the only Boeing whistleblower out there. But neither is he the only Boeing whistleblower to experience an untimely death in recent months. It remains to be seen whether or not Boeing is going to manage to withstand the ongoing barrage of allegations. But at least when it comes to the devastating allegations made by John Barnett, it’s hard to argue that Boeing hasn’t effectively won. Thanks, in large part, to an official investigation that appeared intent on arriving at a preordained conclusion and a media that is more than happy to uncritically accept it without asking even the most basic questions of the case. It’s a proud American tradition at this point.
The story of John Barnett’s incredibly untimely death isn’t over yet. Following the release of the final police report last week, the Daily Mail has a new exclusive report with some new details. In particular, details that would purport to explain the glaring 12+ hour gap in the official timeline that seemed to remain in the final report. Recall how that report put the last sighting of Barnett at 8:47 pm on the night before his death, when his truck was seen on camera pulling into the back lot of the hotel. It wasn’t explained at all why hotel security footage showed Barnett leaving for his truck but never returning.
Well, here’s our explanation: we are told Barnett sat in his truck the entire night with the engine running. By the time police found him the next morning, the truck was out of gas. And when he was found, he was wearing the same clothes he was seen wearing on the hotel cameras while last exiting the hotel. So John Barnett apparently had no need to use a restroom for the roughly 12 hours before his death. He spent the entire even in that truck. Was Barnett known for having a bladder of steel? That’s now a relevant question in this case.
We are also told that security cameras didn’t detect anyone approaching the truck at all before a hotel employee approached the truck during the welfare check. There was one anomaly observed with the truck caught on camera, however: the breaklights on the truck started flashing at 7:20 am. The police reportedly think that might be the time Barnett shot himself, although the time of death remains undetermined. Keep in mind that we’ve already been told by a hotel employee that he heard a “pop” in the direction of Barnett’s truck at 9:24 am. Also keep in mind that if cameras could pick up the flashing of break lights, they might also have picked up a muzzle flash. Were there any possible muzzle flashes detected at around 7:20 am? Or 9:24 am?
Next, we are told that the body was still warm and rigor mortis had yet to start, giving us a relative upper limit on when the death may have happened. Keep in mind that rigor mortis can begin to set in after about three hours after death. So if Barnett’s life did end at 7:20 am as police speculate, that would put about three hours between this time of death and when he was discovered at around 10:20 am. Of course, if he died at 9:24 am, when the “pop” was heard, there would be no expectation of rigor mortis.
Also keep in mind that we have other forensic clues about the timing of Barnett’s whereabouts in this case. In particular, there was the observation from a hotel staff member after the welfare check in his room that there was a cup or melted ice that still had condensation on it. A cup of ice that, according to this timeline, couldn’t have been placed there after around 8:30 pm, putting a minimum of a 14 hour period between when that ice cup was fresh and when it was discovered. Is it reasonable for a cup of melted ice to still have condensation on it after sitting at room temperature for 14 hours? Was this a very well insulating cup or something? Because otherwise that suggests someone was in that room after Barnett left or Barnett returned later at some point.
Regarding the possibility that someone entered Barnett’s room during the period when we are told he was sitting in the truck, we’re also told Barnett’s hotel key card and phone didn’t show any unusual activity. This raises another quirk in this case: did John Barnett have a cellphone? Because when it comes to reconstructing the location of someone, it’s hard to imagine a more useful data set than the cellphone location data. And yet, other than being told that Barnett’s phone showed no unusual activity, we haven’t really heard any mention of a cellphone. And it’s not actually clear that the “phone” was are told had no unusual activity was a cellphone or hotel phone. But we do know that his attorneys said they called his hotel room phone at 9 am that morning, offering to pick up up for the final round of depositions. It was only after they still couldn’t reach him at 10 am that they called the hotel desk about a welfare check.
So we have to ask: did Barnett have a cellphone at all? Because if not, that could be another clue regarding both his state of mind and the threats he may have felt he was experiencing. Cellphones are potential personalized spying devices, after all. If Barnett really was concerned about his safety, or basic privacy, being at risk from corporate malefactors, maybe he determined having a cellphone wasn’t worth the risk? We are forced to speculate, but it’s another wrinkle in this strange story.
It’s also worth recalling another interesting detail that might be somewhat explained by the new timeline: we also heard that when a hotel employee conducted a welfare check at Barnett’s room, they remarked how “His stuff’s packed up, but he’s not there.” Given that Barnett was expected to check out of the hotel and return home Friday, and only had his trip extended another day at the last minute, it’s reasonable to assume he packed up Friday morning, only to return that packed luggage to his hotel room that Friday evening. In other words, all his stuff was still packed because it was never unpacked that Friday evening. He was only at the hotel for maybe an hour that evening based on our available timeline. Barnett last spoke to his attorneys at 6pm that Friday, then picked up some Taco Bell and returned to the hotel where an employee saw him scrolling on his phone, eating a quesadilla, and seeming fine. Barnett then entered his hotel room alone at 7:36pm and stayed for about an hour before leaving for that final short trip around 8:36pm and returning at 8:47 pm.
Taken together, the new timeline that has Barnett sitting in his truck overnight would at least explain why there’s no apparent footage of Barnett returning to his hotel room that evening and leaving the next morning. And yet, there’s still massive unanswered questions. Like the fact that he told a family friend weeks earlier that if he dies, it’s not suicide. Or just the utterly bizarre timing of it all. Why kill himself then? Right as his years-long battle against Boeing is coming to fruition. For someone who hated Boeing as passionately as he did, it’s puzzling to understand why he would risk derailing his own lawsuit like this so suddenly and without warning.
It looks like this might be the final update we get on the investigative details of this story. Not that there isn’t room for more updates. Plenty of questions remain looming over this case. Let’s not forget the torrential rains that morning that reportedly left six inches of rain on the ground by the time his body was discovered. What kind of visibility was there around Barnett’s truck during those intense rains? And did the intense rain overlap with the assumed time of death? Maybe we’ll see that video released at some point and get clarity on what exactly investigators saw.
But with this Daily Mail update, we might be getting the final official details for this investigation. Maybe something more will come up, but this is looking like a ‘case closed’ conclusion. The kind of conclusion that leaves an abundance of major questions in this case disturbingly unanswered:
“When police arrived they said rigor mortis had not set in – it normally starts around two hours after death and lasts for approximately 24 hours – and the body was still warm, meaning it was possible he died when the brake lights flickered, which would show he had been inside the vehicle for 11 hours before finally ending his life.”
It’s quite an explanation for the giant gap in in the timeline: the reason for the complete lack of any security video coverage of Barnett’s whereabouts at the hotel following the return of his truck to the hotel’s back parking lot at 8:46 pm the prior evening is that he never left the truck. That’s what we’re told, which also clearly implies this truck was visible on the hotel security cameras the entire evening. So Barnett leaves at 8:37pm to a location that we still don’t know and returns less than 10 minutes later, and then never leaves his truck. That’s the story we are getting. The kind of story that assumes Barnett had a pretty strong bladder. And probably a pretty full one when he died.
And then there’s the fact that the cab of the vehicle was still warm but out of fuel when his body was discovered and the break lights flashing on and off at 7:20 am. Did the flashing of the break lights coincide with Barnett shooting himself? If so, what about the reports from the hotel employee about hearing a “pop” around 9:24 am from Barnett’s truck? That detail remains entirely unexplained:
Also note that when we are told the hotel discovered Barnett’s body at 9am the next day, that’s not accurate. According to reports, Barnett’s attorney’s called him at 9 am to offer to pick him up for the final day of depositions, but never got an answer. It wasn’t until shortly after 10 am when they contacted the hotel desk to request of a welfare check. It was at that at point that the hotel staff checked his room, telling his lawyers that “‘His stuff’s packed up, but he’s not there”, followed by checking his car where they found him. Also keep in mind that it was the Daily Mail that initially misreported that the coroner confirmed that Barnett died on Friday March 8. So if someone is on video approaching the vehicle at 9am that would be a significant anomaly in the whole story, but odds are this is just the Daily Mail screwing up the facts:
Also, when we see the article state that Barnett’s fingerprints, and only his fingerprints, were found on the notebook with the suicide note, keep in mind we were actually told that there were three fingerprints on the notebook that were inconclusively identified due to a lack of details. It’s another minor correction needed for this article:
And when we see mentions of how Barnett’s phone and hotel key card showed no suspicious activity, it’s worth asking whether or not Barnett had a cellphone. Keep in mind that we are told that when his lawyers called him at 9am, they called his room at the Holiday Inn. Did Barnett not have a cellphone he could be reached at? If not, it does point towards a potentially paranoid mindset. Cellphones are like personal tracking devices, after all. Could we be looking at a possible explanation for why Barnett decided to spend his final night in the truck? Was he fearful about staying in that hotel room one more night?
Finally, when we see mentions of how Barnett’s mother confirmed that some of the remarks found on the suicide note were things Barnett often said, keep in mind something else we are told Barnett said to a family friend in the weeks leading up to his death: that if he shows up dead, it’s not a suicide. Somehow that part tends to get left out of almost all the reports on this case:
What could have suddenly caused such a dramatic act right when Barnett was on the cusp of a major legal victory? It’s not like the stresses Barnett was under were new stresses. He had been successfully withstanding them for years. Why kill himself now, just weeks after warning a friend that if he dies it’s not a suicide? And why suddenly spend an entire evening sitting in his truck? Something prompted that erratic behavior and at this point we are getting zero possible clues as to what that could be. Case closed, apparently.
The case is still official close on the death of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett. It was officially a suicide. Case closed. But that doesn’t mean the story is entirely over. Why Barnett decided to take his life right when he was about to complete his psychologically torturous seven year long whistleblower lawsuit? No answer was given in the official ‘it was just suicide’ conclusion.
Sure, Barnett’s suicide note, if authentic, strongly indicated he was in a state of extreme psychological distress. But what was it that suddenly triggered that extreme distress that seemingly pushed him over the edge at such an incredibly opportune time for Boeing? Don’t forget, despite all the assertions routinely made dismissing the relevance of Barnett’s suicide by arguing that Barnett already exposed everything he was going to expose about Boeing and therefore posed no additional threat to the company, the reality is that the deposition he was giving was part of the discovery phase of the lawsuit with the promise of forcing Boeing to turn over more documents. On Nov. 14, 2023, Barnett filed a motion to compel discovery, a move to ask the court to enforce a request for information relevant to a case. And a judge ruled on Dec. 21, 2023, that Boeing must produce the documents sought by Barnett. The discovery phase was set to be completed by March 30 with a formal hearing set to take place during the week of June 24 of this year. This was an incredibly conveniently timed death for Boeing assuming that death effectively ended the discovery.
And then there’s the still unresolved issue of the strange physics seemingly in play in Barnett’s hotel room. As we’ve seen, there was the observation from a hotel staff member after the welfare check in his room at around 10:20 am that there was a cup of melted ice that still had condensation on it. And yet we are also told in the final report that Barnett left the hotel at 8:37 pm, returned to the hotel parking lot at 8:45 pm, and never left his truck until his body was discovered the next morning at 10 am. Which would put the age of any cups of ice at 14 hours or so, at least. Ice melts and condensation evaporates. Is it physically plausible for condensation to still be found on a Taco Bell cup of ice 14 hours later given the conditions of the room? If not, there’s a physical hole in this timeline.
According to the following article, the cup was a Taco Bell cup from the dinner he picked up on the way home from the deposition and was dripping with condensation on the table, which suggests the condensation wasn’t just observed on the cup but also puddling around the cup on the table during the welfare check shortly after 10 am that morning. Again, puddled condensation is going to evaporate eventually so what are the odds its still going to be there after 14 hours? How humid was the air in that hotel? Sure, there was that torrential rain storm that morning but wasn’t the air in the hotel room air conditioned? The more we learn about that condensation the stranger a detail it becomes from a forensic standpoint.
But then there’s another hole that hasn’t really been addressed at all in any of the coverage of this story: where did Barnett go at 8:37 pm for that short trip? He returned in eight minutes so he couldn’t have driven far. Maybe 2–3 minutes to get there, another 2–3 minutes to buy something, and then another 2–3 minutes to return. There could have only been so many gas stations or convenient stores within that short of a driving distance of the hotel. So where did he go? Wouldn’t cell phone location tracking readily answer the question? Or maybe a credit card transaction? And was anything purchased in that short trip found in the truck the next day? Did Barnett buy snacks or something found in the truck the next day? We haven’t heard anything about that.
then there’s the far more relevant question about that short trip: did Barnett speak with anyone? Perhaps someone delivering an intimidating message of some sort. After all, if there really was some sort of attempt to intimidate him, it would have had to have been done in a manner that doesn’t leave evidence. Having someone deliver the message in passing while at a convenient store or gas station would be one way of going about that. So is there any footage of where Barnett went and who he interacted with in that short trip? Because that’s literally the period of time immediately preceding his very strange behavior of returning to the hotel parking lot but never exiting his vehicle. If Barnett did experience some sort of psychological trigger, that short trip is the likeliest time for it to have happened. And yet, the details of that trip are just glossed over entirely.
And those still unanswered questions about key details in this case brings us to the following pretty remarkable report in New York Magazine that would seem to be an attempt to effectively wrap up the story of what killed John Barnett. The author of the piece, journalist Sean Flynn, arrives at a somewhat contradictory psychological explanation for why Barnett would have decided to take his life at that point. First, Flynn points to the likely psychological turmoil of having to recount for lawyers seven years of Boeing’s intimidation and retaliation over the course of a few days. Barnett had already spent two full days and was set for one more. The stress of reliving all of that retaliation just broke him to the point where he couldn’t take any more. That’s reason number one.
But then we get to Flynn’s reason number two: Barnett couldn’t stand living without this fight. It was prospect of actually completing the whole whistleblowing journey that pushed him over the edge. To make this case, Flynn points to the research of C. Fred Alford, a University of Maryland professor emeritus and the author of Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power. As Alford observes, “There are so many laws protecting whistleblowers, and they just don’t work...It’s relatively easy to make someone’s life so miserable that they leave on their own.” But as Alford also notes, “The really tough part about being a whistleblower is when there’s no one left to fight...It’s the fight that keeps whistleblowers going, that keeps them alive. It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose — it’s still over. You’ve lost what’s given your life meaning for years.” That appears to be the basis for Flynn’s conclusion that Barnett killed himself due to a combination of PTSD triggered by recounting all of Boeing’s years of retaliation plus fears that the end of the whole fight would leave him nothing left to live for. Yep.
Keep in mind that, again, his retaliation lawsuit was still very much ongoing. It was in the discovery phase with potentially damning documents that could have been released. It wasn’t actually over. And, of course, there was a whole additional day of deposition statements that he never made. As the following article notes, he only got through around half of the 40 instances of retaliation. There was still a lot of retaliation to recount. Which won’t be recounted now thanks to his death.
That somewhat contradictory conclusion all part of what makes this a pretty remarkable article. It’s also noteworthy for being extremely long and detailed. It has the feel of a kind of ‘final word’ on the matter. But perhaps the most remarkable part about it is the fact that the author’s journalistic work has been focused heavily on hotel restaurant reviews for Food & Wine Magazine, where he is currently the Senior Editorial Director. In fact, this report appears to be the first of his reports ever for New York Magazine. How did the Senior Editorial Director of Food & Wine Magazine end up with this pretty massive ‘case closed’ type of article about Barnett in New York Mazine? Flynn is clearly a very capable journalist. It’s a well written article. And there’s not reason journalists can’t have multiple domains of expertise. But it’s still a surprising twist to this ‘case closed’ story.
But maybe Flynn and Alford are correct and Barnett’s psychological state was so fragile he just couldn’t handle one more day. But, again, if true, that makes that 8 minute trip immediately preceding his apparent mental breakdown all the more important to understand. And so far, we have no understanding of that eight minute trip at all. Where he went or what he did. And yet, case closed:
“And yet, almost two months later, on that rainy morning in early May, his death had not officially been ruled a suicide. It was still an apparent suicide, which the news stories that Vicky and her boys were getting pinged about were careful to note. Simply placing two facts in proximity to each other — a Boeing whistleblower killed by a mysterious infection weeks after the death of one of the company’s most prominent critics — cast a conspiratorial shadow over both. For a few days in the spring, it was not crazy to wonder if one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers was assassinating its perceived enemies.”
Yeah, it was certainly hard to rule out whistleblower assassinations when second Boeing whistleblower showed up death two months after John Barnett’s very untimely death. Still is hard to rule out given the array of odd details that remain entirely unexplained. For starters, there’s the detail of the mysterious seemingly physics-defying condensation found on a cup by a hotel employee during the 10 am welfare check the morning he was found dead. 14 hours after he apparently left it there. Sure, condensation naturally forms on a cup filled with ice. But ice melts and warms to room temperature and condensation evaporates. Was there something remarkable about this Taco Bell cup that resulted in condensation still being there 14 hours later? Because otherwise, that seems to defy physics. There’s a reason criminal investigations rely on forensics. Forensics is applied physics. And that detail, forensically speaking, is just odd. And unexplained. And according to this report, it was indeed the Taco Bell cup from the meal Barnett picked up on the way back home from the deposition. And the condensation had observably dripped onto the table. Which suggest there was puddling around the cup. 14 hours later.
But the condensation isn’t the only unexplained part of this story. Why has there been no information, or even apparent interest, in where Barnett briefly went between his 8:37 PM departure and the 8:45 PM return to the hotel. That’s not a long trip. Seven to eight minutes. Maybe 2 minutes to get there, a few minutes to shop or whatever, and then another couple minutes back. That’s it. There’s only so many plausible locations he could have traveled to. A local convenience store? A gas station perhaps? It shouldn’t have been all that difficult for investigators to determine that. Especially in the age of cell phones and location tracking. A call to his cellphone company could have probably given investigators a precise answer. Or credit card transactions if he made a purchase. And yet, in all of the reporting about this story, there’s never been an explanation for where Barnett traveled during that brief trip. Because, assuming Barnett did take his life as we are told after spending the entire evening sitting in his truck, something triggered that. Did someone say something to him during that brief trip? Some kind of last minute intimidation tactic? Perhaps a threat with orders for him to wait in his truck at the hotel parking lot for further instructions? It’s a glaring gap in the investigation. He disappears for a few minutes before his extremely odd decision to return to the parking lot but not leave his truck. Shouldn’t there be more interest in where he was and who he may have interacted with immediately before that?
And those still unresolved questions about where Barnett was during that brief 8:37 pm‑8:45 pm trip and who he may have interacted with brings us to the pretty remarkable ‘conclusion’ arrived at near the end of this long article: The conclusion that Barnett killed himself, in part, over the extreme stress of having to recount for the deposition all of the abuses he had experienced over the prior seven year. But there’s another apparently motive. Barnett may have killed himself precisely because the whistleblowing saga was coming to an end. That’s the conclusion author Sean Flynn arrives at, based in part of the psychological profiling of whistleblowers done by professor C. Fred Alford, who observes that there are “There are so many laws protecting whistleblowers, and they just don’t work...It’s relatively easy to make someone’s life so miserable that they leave on their own.” As Alford describes, “The really tough part about being a whistleblower is when there’s no one left to fight...It’s the fight that keeps whistleblowers going, that keeps them alive. It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose — it’s still over. You’ve lost what’s given your life meaning for years.” So it appears the ‘answer’ we are being offered for John Barnett’s apparently suicide is that he was experiencing a kind of mental breakdown over having to relive all of the abuses he experienced but also that he was terrified of no longer having to fight this fight anymore. And yet, we’re also told about how much Barnett had to live for still, whether or it was projects with his family to a whole little of kittens he recently took in. Beyond that, we’re told he only made it roughly half way through the roughly 40 instances of retaliation he experienced. Barnett had a lot of information still to provide. In other words, we’re told he killed himself because the whistleblowing saga was over, and yet it wasn’t over. He killed himself before it was over, which just one more morning of depositions to go. It’s seems like a rather tenuous explanation:
And, again, note one of oddest parts of all in this long New York Magazine profile of Barnett that purports to provide a definitive psychological explanation for Barnett’s death: the author is Sean Flynn, an author who appears to almost exclusively report on reviews of hotel restaurants for Food & Wine Magazine where he serves as the Senior Editorial Director. In fact, this piece on Barnett is the only piece authored by Flynn in New York Magazine to date. How did a Food & Wine Senior Editorial Director end up with this pretty massive and detailed profile of the John Barnett story? One more odd detail in an increasingly odd and tragic story. Perhaps the last odd detail to add since the story is apparently over now.
Uh oh. It sounds like Boeing got a new sweetheart deal. Look out world.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has released details on what the lawyers for the families of Boeing 737 Max crash victims are accurately characterizing as a ‘sweetheart deal’ following a DOJ conclusion back in May that Boeing was in violation of its 2021 plea deal. The new plea deal is being reached at the same time Boeing has reached a deal to by troubled supplier Spirit AeroSystems. Recall how the mid-air door blowout incident back in January was attribute to shoddy maintenance by Spirit. Also recall how the second whistleblower to die this year under mysterious circumstances — Josh Dean — was a Spirit employee.
As part of the initial 2021 plea agreement, Boeing said it would pay a $2.5 billion settlement and prosecutors agreed drop criminal charges after three years if the company abided by the terms of the deal. Terms that Boeing violated when it failed to “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations”, according to the DOJ’s findings in May. In other words, Boeing actually first got a sweetheart deal in 2021, then violated it, and now has a new sweetheart deal.
So what is the sweetheart deal? Well, it’s three more years of probation. This time with independent safety audits. Yep, there were no independent audits in the 2021 deal. A deal first announced on January 7, 2021, the day after the January 6 Capitol insurrection. A great day for quietly disclosing bad news.
The new plea deal also includes $243.6 million in fines. An amount that was formally laid out in the original 2021 plea deal should Boeing be found to be in violation of the deal. Yes, Boeing knew what its fines would be when it violated this agreement. Making these fines the cost of doing business.
It’s also worth noting that the $243.6 million is half of the original $487.2 million fine the DOJ leveled against Boeing in that 2021 deal. The 2021 stipulated that Boeing would be half, with the other half being dangled as a penalty should it be found in violation of the deal. So the ‘extra fine’ Boeing is ow paying is really just the other half of the original fine 2021 that got deferred in lieu of Boeing sticking to the deal.
And as we’re also going to see, it’s pretty clear in the reports on this deal that, while the DOJ could have leveled criminal charges against Boeing, such as scenario was seen as highly unlikely given the size of Boeing as a major employer. Which is another way of saying Boeing is ‘Too Big to Fail’. That TBTF status is an import detail to keep in mind in this story. Especially since, after this Spirit AeroSystems acquisition, Boeing is only getting bigger.
Ok, first, here’s a report from last week about a lawyer for the 737 Max crash victims warning that a sweetheart deal from on its way from the DOJ. Or rather, a new sweetheart deal after the old sweetheart deal was violated:
“But in May, the DoJ said Boeing was in breach of the deal, stating that it had failed to “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations”.”
Yep, just two months ago, the DOJ determined that Boeing was in violation of its 2021 plea agreement. An agreement to simply “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations.” Stuff the company should have been doing anyway. But no, Boeing even violated that agreement. An agreement that was intended to defer prosecution.
So what kind of punishment is Boeing receiving as a result of its breach of the deal? Are prosecutions finally coming? Nope. A small fine, three more years of probation, and independent safety audits. Keep in mind that the independent audits implies Boeing got away with NOT having any independent safety audits over the past three years. Which is a reminder that this is a sweetheart deal following an even sweeter 2021 deal.
That was the contours of the new plea deal that the families of the victims of those 737 Max crashes got to learn about last week. A ‘cost of doing business’ penalty that looks about as toothless as the last plea deal. More so now that Boeing has confirmed it can violate the agreement without incurring much more than a new sweetheart deal:
And when we see how the acquisition of trouble Boeing supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, is also still going through despite this breach of Boeing’s plea agreement, keep in mind the second Boeing whistleblower to die under mysterious circumstances this year — Josh Dean, who died of a sudden deadly bacterial infection — was a Spirit AeroSystems employee. And as we also saw, that acquisition of Spirit was expected to help Boeing secure even more defense-related US government contracts. So at the same time the US government was giving Boeing its new slap on the wrist over its violation of the 2021 plea agreement, the US government’s reliance on Boeing was poised to keep growing:
So that was warning we got last week about a looming sweetheart deal for the company. And sure enough, that’s what Boeing received. And as we’re going to see, it turns out the fines Boeing have to pay, $243.6 million, was literally the amount stipulated in the 2021 agreement should Boeing violate that agreement. Yep, Boeing was facing a $487.2 million fine in total as part of that 2021 deal but half of the fine, $243.6 million, was apparently lifted as part of the deal and held back as a penalty should Boeing violate the agreement. So Boeing literally knew what it was going to be fined for violating this plea deal and apparently concluded that the penalty was worth paying. Paying the fine so Boeing could violate the deal really was just the cost of doing business it seems:
“The deal reached on Sunday stems from violations of an agreement that Boeing had reached with the Justice Department in 2021 that it would make significant safety changes after the two deadly crashes. The department, during the Biden administration, has made it a priority to ensure that companies like Boeing follow through on such agreements.”
Significant safety changes were to be made. That was the agreement. But Boeing apparently decided just paying a fine was better for business.
And note how the $243.6 million in fines Boeing now has to pay was literally stipulated in the 2021 plea agreement. The DOJ threatened Boeing with $487.2 million in total fines but only half ($243.6 million) was paid and the other half was dangled as a possible fine if Boeing violated the deal. In other words, Boeing knew what it would likely have to pay for violating that agreement and apparently determined that was worth paying:
But the corporate coddling doesn’t end with the predictable (and very affordable) fines. Boeing is also expected to get assurances that should any felony convictions ultimately be issued it won’t impact the company’s US government contracts. Contracts that, again, will likely only increase as a result of the Spirit AeroSystems acquisition that is still approved:
It’s also worth taking a look back in the initial reporting on this 2021 plea deal. A deal arrived at in the final weeks of the Trump administration. Literally on January 7, 2021, the day after the January 6 Capitol insurrection. And as the New York Times report also notes, there was never really any real threat of a criminal conviction because such a move could put Boeing, a major employer, in jeopardy. In other words, ‘Too Big To Fail’ isn’t just for mega-banks:
“With less than two weeks left in the Trump administration, the agreement takes the question of how a Biden Justice Department would view a settlement off the table. President Trump had repeatedly discussed the importance of Boeing to the economy, even going so far last year to say he favored a bailout for the company.”
Well, at least Boeing didn’t get that bailout Donald Trump was floating. It could have been sweeter. But as the article notes, there was never really a real threat of a criminal conviction. Boeing is too big for that:
Also note that the US government did eventually criminal charge one Boeing pilot, Mark Forkner, over inadvertently misleading the FAA but Forkner was acquitted by a jury in 2022. So no executives were ever charged. Just a single pilot:
Finally, note the somewhat laughable explanation for why no independent audits were set up in that initial 2021 plea agreement: “the misconduct was neither pervasive across the organization, nor undertaken by a large number of employees.” Keep in mind that the pervasiveness of safety issues, starting from the management and percolating on down, was more or less the entire thrust of the wave of Boeing whistleblowing in recent years:
What kind of sweetheart deals can we expect for Boeing in the future? Time will tell. All sorts of new issues could pop up now that independent auditors are finally involved.
But again, Boeing really is Too Big Too Fail. Demonstrably so. It’s hard to see how independent auditors are going to really make much of a difference given the DOJ’s palpable hesitancy in dealing with massive corporations. Long live the whistleblowers.