A new title from WND Books that strongly suggests terrorism was behind the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is striking a chord among the nation’s book buyers as it soared to as high as No. 21 on Amazon’s list of best sellers.
“First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America” was catapulted by the recent vindication of co-author James Sanders, a police officer-turned-investigative reporter who was arrested and jailed because his investigation into the mysterious crash exposed flaws in the government’s official probe.
Sanders, who battled the government in court for five years, wrote the book with Jack Cashill.
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In December 1997, Sanders and his wife, Elizabeth, a TWA flight attendant and trainer who knew Flight 800’s pilots and had trained many of its flight attendants, were arrested for conspiracy to steal government property after receiving material from a whistleblower within the Flight 800 investigation.
Although Sanders and Cashill have always maintained the charges were trumped up by the government so as to chill and discredit Sanders’ investigation into what really happened to Flight 800, it has taken years for official vindication to come.
The authors maintain the Clinton Justice Department “used its considerable powers to thwart Sanders” by denying his standing as a journalist. But the Bush administration Justice Department now admits its predecessors “conspired to print factually false information in a Justice Department letter to deprive [James Sanders] of his civil rights. …” The current Justice Department also now concedes it “fabricated a defense where none existed” in earlier opposing the Sanderses’ civil action, writes Cashill. “It also concedes there is no defense for the 32-counts of federal lawlessness committed in pursuit of destroying a journalist and his wife.”
Cashill, who has created documentaries for regional PBS and national cable channels, and who hosted daily talk radio shows for five years, sums up the importance of the Sanders case: “In so conceding” its previous railroading of Sanders, “the Justice Department tacitly acknowledges that yes, the TWA Flight 800 investigation has been corrupted, and no, we are not prepared to contest this fact.”
Sanders tells WND the government’s time to respond actually ran out in early February – after two warnings.
“The big thing that forced the government to stop responding,” Sanders told WND, “was that they got caught fabricating a defense. Once that happened, there are rules in civil court that say if they don’t cease and desist, they are in big trouble. They knew it was coming again, and they had nothing to say.”
Cashill calls the case “among the most egregious violations of a reporter’s constitutional rights in the history of American journalism.”
What comes next in the case? Sanders tells what should happen next in his view: “The judge should make a summary judgment ruling in my favor.”
In their groundbreaking expose “First Strike,” Sanders and Cashill uncover substantial new information – including a terrorist connection – about the fate of TWA Flight 800.
Sept. 11, 2001, they claim, did not represent the first aerial assault against the American mainland. The first came July 17, 1996, with the downing of TWA Flight 800. Their book looks in detail at what people saw and heard on that fateful night.
The book also shows the relationship between events in July 1996 and Sept. 2001, and proclaims how and why the American government attempted to cover up the truth.
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WND Staff