140 TRIAL BY MEDIA TRIAL BY MEDIA M hearings. Item (3) was as ridiculous because the USDA had thirteen of their own paid, federal employees working in the facility who could and would shut down the facility at any time, it did not meet their standards. I've seen the inspectors stop production when the steaming hot water sterilization containers for the boners' knives were a few degrees from conformance. Your local meat butcher does not even have this type of container in his meat market. I have also witnessed the stc ;ng of production when the condensation of a very few drops of water from the ireshly slaughtered beef gathered on the ceiling. To put the accusation in proper perspective, note the response by the same debarring officer, Eddie F. Kimbrell, at an interview three months later on January 5,1984. Reporter Dan Green asked Eddie Kimbrell if Cattle King's suspension was justified. Kimbrell responded: "Information presented for the record on sanitary conditions, as well as alleged violations of labor laws, if considered exclusively, would not in my judgement warrant continued suspension." Kimbrell goes on to point out that the suspension was continued because of Cattle King's supposed inclusion of dead or dying cattle in the slaughtering operation. Based on the evidence, my indictment and Cattle King's closure should never have proceeded past November 1983; but due to continued pressure from the controlled media and the USDA's reports, all relying on false testimony, the onslaught continued. Brunner, Houston and Harkin had another hearing in the making. This time it was called a congressional hearing which would also be held in another court room, the Supreme Court Room, in Denver, Colorado, on December 14,1983. Since my plants were receiving all of this free advertising, several of the area residents attended the hearing. They found out about the legitimacy of our government politicians (Harkin), watchdogs (BGA) and agencies (USDA). WITCH HUNT! was how local Scottsbluff Star-Herald writer Janice Grauberger described the hearing. In her editorial the following morning, she wrote: When I climbed aboard the commercial jet to head to Denver very early Wednesday morning I had absolutely no feelings one way or another about the allegations against Cattle King or the impact the hearing could have on my life in the Twin Cities. When I got off the plane at Scottbluff late Wednesday night I was afraid. I was afraid of the power our system has and how easy it is to abuse that system. I am afraid that once these kinds of wheels are put into motion, there is little that can be done to change their direction or stop them altogether.8 Others who attended the congressional hearing in Denver on December 14, 1983, were later to call this a travesty during which medieval tactics were used to arrive at the truth. Anyone who has ever studied American history is familiar with the Salem witch trials of 1692.* I believe the federal hearings, which were my witch hunt, were a repeattof the Salem trials of almost 300 years ago. Terrence Brunner was a combination of Samuel Pafrish and Tituba. Like Minister Parrish, he had initiated and continued charges from long before the original First Camera show of September 18,1983. Who was he protecting? Why, the American people, his beloved children for whom he had an edict from whatever god you might choose: consumerism, special interests, self-righteousness. It's hard to question the motives of a man who stands for apple pie, motherhood and the flag. Aside from being a witness at my hearing, he collaborated with Harkin, the only congressman at this so-called congressional hearing serving on the panel. In an editorial four days after the hearings, Al Knight, assistant managing editor of the Rocky Mountain News, said of the hearing process: "If it had been an orchestra, he [Brunner] would have been the conductor." The witnesses for the prosecution were such unreliable sources as Leon Simmons and Sam Henderson, exemployees and union leaders; Concepcion Giove, the Maggot Lady; Ann Hollinger, a wife and mother who supposedly contracted salmonella after purchasing Cattle King meat from King Soopers; various union-oriented meat inspectors and BGA personnel. The tribunal was headed by Representative Thomas Harkin of Iowa, a man who opened the hearings by saying he was in Denver not only because he was chairman for the federal subcommittee for livestock and poultry, but because he had a second grade son who ate in public schools, so his concern was motivated by not only public duty but also fatherly responsibility. Nice, emotional words for what was supposed to be a federal hearing of the facts. *During these trials, which were initiated by the village's fanatic minister, Samuel Parrish, testimony was provided by his nine-year-old daughter Betty, and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams, who had supposedly fallen into "odd postures" and "foolish ridiculous speeches". The concerned father had consulted a local doctor who, diagnosing no physical illness, raised the possibility of—witchcraft! This made the issue one of good versus evil. With such a noble cause, Tituba, a slave woman who had come from the West Indies and introduced the two young girls to the practices of voodoo, came forward at the pretrial examination and willingly, in a declamatory fashion, gave further testimony about what people wanted to hear. For three days, she told them stories of her activities with witches Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne and the Devil. She described rides through the air with the Devil and how he looked: "A tiling all over hairy, all the face hairy, and a long nose." As she continued, she mentioned other people's names, written in the Devil's book, even though she could not read. Before the hearing was over, and it lasted nearly a year, some twenty people were hanged and crushed to death because of false testimony. Later it was discovered that the true cause of the disaster was economic rivalry. This heinous crime was not really promoted by zealousness for right and good over wrong and evil, but by profit.