President Donald Trump has pardoned four former government contractors convicted by a jury
of killing over a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007. Brigida Santos joins me now to talk
about that story. Brigida, what company did these contracts, who did they work for and
what crimes did a jury look at? I mean, this wasn't a, you know, this was, they had all
the evidence in front of them. The jury looked at the facts and they said, yeah, you're,
they convicted them. So give me, give me the background on this a little bit.
Sure. Well, at the time the contractors were working for Blackwater, which is the private
military security firm founded by Erik Prince, brother of US education secretary Betsy DeVos.
Three of the Blackwater guards were sentenced to 30 years in prison and a fourth received
a life sentence each for their roles in killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and injuring 17
others. Their actions against civilians, murder, involuntary and attempted manslaughter, are
war crimes. The Nisour Square massacre sparked international outrage over the use of private
mercenaries in war, but that didn't stop the US government from paying Blackwater over
$1 billion to protect US interests anyway. Or now from pardoning, these mass killers.
How has the United Nations, I mean, they must be just outraged, but how have they responded
to these pardons? I mean, any, when you look at the facts, we don't have time to go through
all the intricacy of the facts, but it was the defense was gee whiz, it was exigent circumstances.
We had to respond quickly and they, they didn't. They, they, it was clearly murder. But how
is the UN responding to these pardons? Well, a group of United Nations experts with
the office of the high commissioner for human rights have issued the following statement.
They say, "The Geneva conventions obliged States to hold war criminals accountable for
their crimes, even when they act as private security contractors. These pardons violate
US obligations under international law and broadly undermine humanitarian law and human
rights at a global level." The UN experts are now calling on all parties to the Geneva
conventions to condemn president Trump's pardons. Well, you know, the ugliest part about it
is there's so many of these contractors and so many soldiers over there play completely
by the rules. They, they, these folks were put under the same conditions that so many
American troops are put under. And, you know, you don't hear these kinds of stories taking
place every day. It's not like this, this was so exceptional. It was fairly normal.
It's what the typical American soldier is confronted with when they're in a situation
like that, or typical contractors are confronted with. So people that are saying, oh gee whiz,
this is, this was just an exceptional circumstances. Take a look at the facts before you go there.
The US increasingly outsources military operations to the private sector and I'm, I'm wondering
has this affected the trend, when did this trend start?
Well, this has been going on for a really long time. You know, the Nisour Square massacre
took place during the presidency of George W. Bush. and since then, the trend of relying
on private defense contractors in war zones has only continued. Back in 2016, under president
Obama, more private military contractors died in Iraq and Afghanistan, than all US troops
deployed to those countries, which basically means that mercenaries were the silent majority
of the military at that time. And during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 under president
Trump, US central command has reported over 50,000 contractors in the USCENTCOM area of
responsibility. You know, it's no secret that Erik Prince has been behind the scenes working
as an unofficial figure in the Trump administration, where he's been recommending that the US replace
its military troops with paid private contractors in Syria and Afghanistan. So we really can't
be fooled when president Trump says, he's bringing home the troops. US wars are not
over, they're going corporate. And what we're seeing with this perfect example is that by
outsourcing military operations, the US can basically circumvent its obligations to follow
international laws and treaties. That's what we saw here.
Yeah. And these folks are paid 10 times what the typical troop is, trooper over there that
has to, you know, same soldier has to confront the same situation. These folks are paid 10
times as much and you don't hear stories like this every day. This isn't, this is not the
norm. Take a look at the, I mean, if you have any doubts, take a look at the facts behind
this story, and it's, it's very, very troublesome. Thank you for joining me.
A popular catheter used to remove blood clots has been voluntarily recalled by its maker
due to the increased risk of accident, accidental deaths. I don't know that they're accidental
anymore. This company has known plenty about this. I have Becca Timmons with me, who's
handling these cases. Becca, you know, first of all, what grabbed me about this story is
we always see the company and say in trial say, well, we voluntarily pulled it off. That's
not exactly right. The FDA in this point in, in this particular case, discovered the problem.
They talked about the problem. They saw many, many events, but why did this have to be pulled
off the market? So at bottom, this is a device that is used
to remove blood clots from the brain. It's a tiny vacuum that's inserted into the vessels
in the brain and using suction removes the clot. Almost right away, it was approved in
July, 2019, almost immediately, adverse event reports were pouring into the FDA.
People dying. People dying on the table. Essentially the,
when the catheter is inside the vessel in the brain, it would expand rapidly and violently
causing the blood vessel to rupture resulting in massive hemorrhage and death.
Well, actually the tip of the, tip of the device would actually break off and it would,
it would actually cause the vessel to erupt also. That was there, there are several problems
with this. And the point is the most bothersome thing about this is this is that they've got
other things they can use for ischemic stroke. I mean, you, you, you, ischemic stroke. You've
got many things that can be done besides this device. This device was a jazzy new thing
to sell wasn't it? Right. The treatment options were either TPA,
which is a clot busting drug that's injected into the vessel by your individual interventional
radiologist. And then the, the mechanical thrombectomy using a stent retrieval system
was sort of the standard. And then in 2007, this company Penumbra developed this aspiration
thrombectomy technique. And there was a consensus emerging that this was the superior method
and the company decided to capitalize further on the success. And this was the eighth generation
device and obviously it has some very horrendous defects.
Well, but it's particularly for the ischemic stroke. Is that right? Is it, that's typically
where they're going to use it? Right. This is indicated in cases of ischemic
stroke. Yeah. Okay. So this is the same company though
that, my memory is they had problems with another device that they were also involved
with at some point where that, that device was also causing death. That was a few years
ago. And so they're back into the market. They're trying to make it sound like, well,
we pulled it out voluntarily. Here's what they knew. They knew they had 18 deaths and
if they reported 18 deaths, more than likely, there's many, many more. Under-reporting in
this type of thing is very common. And they had 50, 50 injuries that they reported and
we know that. That's probably under-reported too. So, so pick up with the idea with somebody
presents with ischemic stroke. They've got, it's not like you to have this to live is
it? I mean, it's, this is not a necessary medical device, is it?
Right. There are, there are other treatment options available. This was kind of the cutting
edge Vanguard protocol that was just recently emerging in the last 15 or so years, but there
are several other treatment options available. Well, did the FDA, what did the FDA do when
these, when people started dying, when the injuries started showing up, did they take
immediate action or did they lag behind, like they usually do sometimes for years before
they go, oh, well God, maybe we ought to say something or do something?
So the device was approved in July, 2019 and then as I said before, right away, issues
started coming up, injuries, deaths. So in July, 2020 FDA came out and said, all right,
we need to modify a warning because every time an interventional, not every time, but
frequently when an interventional radiologist injects dye into the device, there's a failure.
So they put a warning on there, warning physicians, hey, don't put contrast through this device.
It will rupture. So that was in July, 2020. But.
Well, shouldn't they have pulled it then rather than just, I mean, that's a meaningless warning.
I mean, it's a meaningless warning unless the doctor knows what the failure or cause
of the failure is. Right? Right. So, you know, as, as, as we saw after
that warning came out, these events were continued to happen. And it wasn't until nearly six
months later that FDA said, all right, enough is enough. They pulled the device.
Okay. This is Penumbra, right? Right.
The company's Penumbra. What should people do if they feel like they've been affected
by it? So, our firm is investigating these claims.
We're investigating the company as well, the manufacturer and the device itself. So, if,
if someone believes that they or a loved one were injured during aspiration thrombectomy
using this device, they should reach out to an attorney. We're evaluating these cases
and to see if there's a viable option to, to litigate, potentially recover for these
people. Yeah. You're looking at the cover-up too,
aren't you? You're looking at Penumbra's cover-up, I think is going to be a vital part of the
case. I think, I think fact discovery is going to
be very interesting in this case. Yeah. Becca, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Absolutely. Thank you.