("Quid coniuratio est?")
INTERVIEW WITH SHERMAN SKOLNICK -- MARCH 6, 1995
On March 6, 1995, I interviewed Mr. Sherman Skolnick of the Citizens' Committee to Clean-up the Courts [CCCC] by telephone. The following is my transcription of that interview. Note that in this interview I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or some of the statements of Mr. Skolnick.
-- Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-chief, Conspiracy Nation
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[...continued...]
SHERMAN SKOLNICK [continues]:
And, they accused Lincoln of treason 'cuz he wanted to "bind up
the wounds"...
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...and go easy on the South, which would've caused cotton
production and such to resume -- these guys were short in the
cotton market.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
That's my take on it too: that he was gonna let the South back in
the union, and they wanted to go down and plunder the South, is
what a powerful motive for it would be.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, if you were a legal researcher you would know that, a whole
raft of cases from the time of the Appomatox surrender [and]
thereafter, in the U.S. Supreme Court, that shows the great
opposition to accepting the Constitutional rights of rebels.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Their rights were forfeit, even after the war!
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
There's a whole raft of cases that I could tell you about if you
were interested in that.
So I mean, the other angle we've been investigating for 20 years is the fact that the Continental Bank, which was formed right before the Civil War, together with the Board of Trade -- 1857 -- um... How could I put it to you? They handled the assassination money. Let's put it to you that way.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. I've read the book, The Lincoln Conspiracy. There's also,
let's see...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Oh you gotta read it 10 times...
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah [laughs].
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
You gotta be, you gotta be a historic buff...
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...to understand this. If you don't understand it the first 10
times, that's O.K.
You gotta know finance. You gotta know commodities. You gotta be able to check with experts. You gotta... before you can understand it! [laughs] I wish Eisenschiml was still around. He was a... He used to get on the television 30 years ago.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
There's another book, called Mask for Treason...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah, I got that too. Very good.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
It mentions that the, in that book there, it mentions that the
military officer who cut the military telegraph cables on the
bridge where John Wilkes Booth escaped -- there were several
bridges goin' out of DC. And on the bridge that the conspirators
selected for him to go on, they cut the telegraph cables so he
could escape? That person became the founding president of
Western Union telegraph company.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. The way I understand it is, the telegraph went out but it
was at a central location -- which is actually more ominous, you
know? It wasn't so much a thing of...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. And the guy named Lafayette C. Baker...
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah!
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...who headed up what we now call the U.S. Secret Service, was
part of the plot. And likewise, the head of the U.S. Secret
Service in 1963, Rowley, was believed to be part of the plot
against JFK, 98 years later.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right, that's... I guess I'll just kind of let you go now,
O.K.? 'Cuz I...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah, you're swamped with this. [laughs]
Uh, I'm planning a sizeable article for Media Bypass about the Whitewater thing, and I'll send you... I'll keep you informed about that.
Um, the thing that bugs 'em is this message we're running now. They're, they go straight up the wall because we've got inside information about the buying and selling of TV jobs that absolutely... It's one of the great internal scandals of the media. I mean, even you: You want to be a talking head on the media?
CONSPIRACY NATION:
[laughs]
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I could tell ya... It doesn't matter. It will make your hair
blonde if it's not blonde now. And as long as you can read
what's on the teleprompter, you put up the price, and you become
a talking head.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
You know, I... One thing I wanted to...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Oh you think I'm lying! I used to teach at a radio broadcast
school. I know a lot.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Fine. I mean, this is all, you know, stuff that I'm... I'll tell
ya: I think what you say has merit, O.K.? I mean, I'm not...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I have no reason to lie; why would I lie?
CONSPIRACY NATION:
No! I don't...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...this past 37 years. If I lie, I got a lot to lose. Not
financially, but the name I have built up over 37 years. I, I
don't do any of this or say any of this because some uh, ratings
are gonna go up or a sponsor's gonna like me better. The main
thing I have is a good name.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah I, you know, like I say -- I'm not the type of person that's
a "true believer", O.K.? That is just gonna just turn off my mind
and just accept anything somebody says...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
No! I want you to ask questions. I don't want you to accept what
I say or what anybody says, just on the face of it.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! That's, you know, like I say, I think what you say has got
a lot of merit, and I'm open-minded to lookin' into it further.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well just think of my background: our work has caused the largest
judicial bribery scandal in the history of the United States. So
that should be on the top of the list that I have no reason to
fake-up anything, you know?
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"