Post by Rob Caprio on Sept 11, 2023 20:03:06 GMT -5
All portions ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
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4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yi5C2vPqu_I/U8Z8H3ObZgI/AAAAAAAA14E/Iwwdb0aAauM/s1600/JFK-In-Chicago-Logo-March-23-1963.png
images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/kennedy-expressway-and-chicago-skyline-adam-romanowicz.jpg
In the late 1970s the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) began to look into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). The HSCA would basically set out to prove the conclusion of the Warren Commission (WC) to be correct and NOT to investigate the possibility of a conspiracy. During their time there would be much pushback from the intelligence agencies to make sure they did not dig too deep.
Despite these parameters, there were some cases of real investigation done particularly in the areas of the alleged Mexico City trip by the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) and the anti-Cuban exile community in Florida.
This post will look at an individual who tied into another assassination attempt against JFK in the city of Chicago in early November 1963. Obviously, LHO could not have been involved in an attempt in Chicago when he was in Dallas and could not drive.
The HSCA Says...Homer Echevarria.
*****************************************************************
The United States Secret Service (SS) began to investigate the assassination as soon as it occurred through their various regional offices. Soon this would be stopped by President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) when he gave sole investigative authority to the FBI. Still, things were found by the SS before this happened. One such incident originated from the Chicago field office when it was found that a group of Cuban exiles may have been connected to the assassination of JFK.
A SS informant by the name of Thomas Mosely (informant number 2-1-266) reported a conversation that he had had on November 21, 1963, about his activities to try and sell illegal arms to Cuban exiles. The HSCA wrote about this in their report and here are the relevant portions.
Quote on
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0133b.gif
...The informant, Thomas Mosely, reported that for some time that he had been involved in negotiating the sale of illegal arms with a Cuban exile, an outspoken critic of President Kennedy named Homer S. Echevarria. On November 21, Echevarria had said that his group now had "plenty of money" and that they were prepared to proceed with the purchases "as soon as we [or they] take care of Kennedy.
After receiving the initial report, the Secret Service surveilled subsequent meetings between Mosley and Echevarria, received reports from Moseley about the conversations, and discussed the progress of the investigation with the local FBI office. By December 3, 1963, a fuller picture of Echevarria was obtained and reported to the Protective Research Section. By that date, it appeared that Echevarria was a member of the 30th of November (Cuban exile) Movement, that an associate of his who had also spoken with Mosely about the arms sales was Juan Francisco Blanco-Fernandez, military director for the Cuban Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), and that the arms purchases were being financed through Paulino Sierra Martinez, a Cuban exile who had become a Chicago lawyer. Mosely inferred from his conversation with Echevarria and Blanco that Sierra's financial backers consisted in part of "hoodlum elements" who were "not restricted to Chicago."
The committee's investigation provided substantial corroboration from the Secret Service's concern about the Mosley's allegations. The committee found that the 30th of November Movement was receiving financial backing through the Junta del Gobierno de Cuba en el Exilio (JGCE), a Chicago-based organization led by Sierra. (HSCA Report, p. 236)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0133b.htm
Quote off
It is clear that Moseley's report was correct and that the funding of it originated in Chicago by "hoodlum elements" and fronted by a Chicago lawyer. Does this expose the involvement of members of the Mafia's involvement in the assassination of JFK as researchers have thought for decades? IF they were willing to fund an assassination attempt in Chicago on November 2, why not do the same for the one in Dallas on November 22, 1963?
The DRE mentioned above was based out of Miami, Florida, and they had a representative in New Orleans by the name of Carlos Bringuier. Bringuier would have involvement with LHO in New Orleans during the summer of 1963. He would instigate a scuffle while LHO was passing out Fairplay for Cuba Committee pamphlets, and despite initiating it only LHO would be arrested. Why? Bringuier would also show up at LHO's hearing on August 12, 1963, and again we have to wonder why.
Another important note here is how the HSCA steered the topic away from the November 2, 1963, plot that the Chicago SS field office discovered as they keep mentioning only the November 21, 1963, meeting between Mosely and Echevarria. We know that there was some kind of plot since Thomas Arthur Vallee and a few Cubans were arrested and JFK cancelled his trip there for the Army-Navy game.
Furthermore, the SS agent involved in the surveillance, Joseph Noonan, told the HSCA that he and the other agents involved felt that the Cubans "might have some ties to the CIA." They would soon be told to "drop everything relating to Mosley-Echevarria" and send all their memos, files and their notebooks to Washington and not discuss the case with anyone. We can see why they wanted this since the Chicago plot showed clearly a number of the elements involved in the assassination of JFK.
We get some more details about the meeting between Mosley and Echevarria in this document.
Quote on
In early September (1963) Echevarria had indicated to the informant an interest in buying machine guns to be used in a Cuban revolution. The informant stated that he would be in a position to provide arms of this type, and Echevarria presumably relayed this information to higher authorities in the Cuban group of which he is a member. He subsequently told the informant that others in the group were interested in purchasing machine guns, but that they would first have to satisfy themselves that the informant was trustworthy and was not a CIA agent.
On Thursday, November 21, 1963, Echevarria told the informants, "We now have plenty of money -- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or they) take care of Kennedy..." the informant was unable to continue this conversation with the suspect because of the presence of other bus drivers. (HSCA Administrative Folder N6: 124-10370-10019, p. 249)
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10032#relPageId=249
Quote off
We have covered the "hoodlum elements" and the CIA, but Echevarria also said that their new backers were Jews so we are left to wonder who this could have been. What Jewish group would be interested in supporting the Cuban exiles in their work to retake Cuba and possibly assassinate JFK? The Meyer Lansky mob syndicate comes to mind.
Once again, the FBI was trying to shut down any investigation that did NOT focus on LHO as the HSCA Report writes how they tried to dissuade the SS in continuing their look into this matter.
Quote on
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0134a.gif
The Secret Service recognized the need to investigate the alleged plots by Cuban groups more fully, especially that of Echevarria's 30th of November group. But when the progress of the investigation was discussed with the FBI, the FBI responded that the 30th of November group was not likely to have been involved in any illegal acts. The Secret Service was initially reluctant to accept this representation in light of the evidence it had developed that indicated the group was in fact involved in illegal activities, and therefore began preparations to place an undercover agent in Echevarria's groups to investigate his activities more closely. On November 29, 1963, however, President Johnson created the Warren Commission and gave the FBI primary investigative responsibility. (HSCA Report, p. 237)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0134a.htm
Quote off
This shows that some elements of the SS wanted to investigate this matter, and others I'm sure, fully, but were prevented from doing so by LBJ and his order to give primary responsibility to the FBI. This one action by LBJ shows that there was a conspiracy to me as one would think they would want as many organizations as possible running down leads and investigating this crime, but we see the exact opposite of this in LBJ's Executive Order. He wanted ONLY the FBI to "investigate" this crime. Why would you do this unless you did NOT want to find the truth as even the FBI could not run down every lead and investigate every possibility, therefore, it is clear they never intended to do this. This move was about control.
The WC knew about this incident (or least they included it in their twenty-six volumes) as we find a written report about this in Commission Exhibit (CE) 2959. Here is a copy of the report.
CE 2959: historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pages/WH_Vol26_0239a.gif
This document mentions that the Cubans had a "banker" on their side and it has to be considered as a financial backer. I wonder who this banker was? It also says that the Cubans saw JFK as "an intellectual, a rich man's son who did not give a damn about the people." Clearly they were confused or mislead as the man who did NOT give a damn about the people was LBJ and that is who took over when JFK was killed.
If you want to read a detailed overview of the SS's work on this then go to this link. The report is between pages 383 and 389.
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954#relPageId=387
Echevarria's group, and other Cuban exile groups, were trying to get automatic weapons, ammunition and explosives in their attempt to overthrow the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro. We see this type of activity quite a bit in this case, but this one sheds some light on the components of the working organism. We see "hoodlum elements", a banker and the possibly the CIA working together in their attempts to oust Castro, so, one has to ask, why couldn't this same type of group do the same to JFK?
The work of the Chicago SS office is invaluable as it not only prevented a likely assassination attempt on JFK in early November 1963, but it exposed some of the groups willing to work together to do this kind of work.
Here is some more background on this topic by researcher Joseph Backes. If you want to read all of his writing then just click the link at the bottom of the quote. He wrote this following a release of documents in 1995/1996 by the Assassination Records Review Board.
Quote on
FBI Document #180-10087-10137 is a 7-page memorandum from Acting SAIC Maurice Martineau to Deputy Chief Paterni on subject Homer S. Echevarria dated November 27, 1963.
Martineau references an earlier memorandum to Paterni dated November 26, 1963 which related to information received from 2-1-266. This information concerns a group of Chicago Cubans, allegedly anti-Castro, who may have had a connection with the assassination of President Kennedy.
Martineau phoned SAIC Marlin Johnson of the FBI's Chicago Office and informed him that a confidential informant of this SS office that he had knowledge of a group of Chicago Cubans, who were bitterly opposed to President Kennedy and a member of that group made a remark to the informant, "WE now have plenty of money-- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or `they') take care of Kennedy...".
Martineau told the FBI that this informant had worked with them before on a counterfeiting case and had proved to be reliable.
Martineau told Johnson that the Secret Service's Washington headquarters told him to provide the information to the FBI and as this group would constitute a threat to President Johnson that they should conduct a joint investigation.
Johnson called back later that day and assigned SA's Bob Baker and Walt Rogers to the investigation. Martineau then told Johnson that the informant, together with Edward Z. Tucker and Joseph E. Noonan would meet with his agents at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26, at the intersection of Marine Drive and Lakeside Place, Chicago, Illinois.
Acting under Martineau's instruction's Tucker and Noonan met with the informant early, at 6:00 p.m. to explain that the informant was to keep the SS office advised of any contact he has with any other agency.
Acting under instructions to continue his association with the suspect, Mosley arranged to meet with Echevarria at 12:00 o'clock on Thursday, November 28, 1963, for the purpose of being taken to Echevarria's associates for discussion as to the purchase of machine guns. On November 27, Martineau interviewed Mosley, at which time Mosley assured Martineau that he had not gone to any other agency with this information.
SA's Noonan and Tucker were instructed to make a background investigation of Echevarria.
Martineau was interested in finding out how the FBI knew the identity of their informant.
web.archive.org/web/20110606215635/http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/15th_Issue/arrb_tenth2.html
Quote off
It is apparent that the various Cuban exile groups around the country were being utilized for a number of things and this probably included the assassination of JFK. Many of these groups were sponsored by different parts of the CIA. This statement is not meant to blame the CIA as a whole, but shows how easy it would have been to compromise the agency by having rogue elements of both the CIA and the Cuban exile groups participating in the assassination of JFK. There is no way the CIA could admit that parts of their agency were involved, thus, the perfect culpability was secured. This is the only answer that explains why they cannot release all the documents nearly sixty years after the assassination. The documents may also tell us who the "banker" was and what group he was affiliated with.
The FBI was equally as bad as they continually shut down any investigation into what might have happened as their only focus was that LHO did it all alone. It is clear that these organizations have a lot to hide in regard to the JFK assassination.
It is a shame as both organizations have thousands of hard working and ethical personnel who sacrifice a lot to keep America safe and, in some cases, risk their own lives in doing so.
It stains their organizations as much as it does the country by NOT telling us the truth of what happened on November 22, 1963. We can see from the comments of the Cubans that JFK was being bad-mouthed in their communities and that LBJ was being touted as a "savior" when the truth couldn't have been further from the truth. LBJ took America down a path it has never recovered from.
What do you make of this incident and its importance to the case?
i.pinimg.com/736x/81/3f/6b/813f6b210880f0c9d24e790851f98741--secret-service-kennedy-assassination.jpg
4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yi5C2vPqu_I/U8Z8H3ObZgI/AAAAAAAA14E/Iwwdb0aAauM/s1600/JFK-In-Chicago-Logo-March-23-1963.png
images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/kennedy-expressway-and-chicago-skyline-adam-romanowicz.jpg
In the late 1970s the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) began to look into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). The HSCA would basically set out to prove the conclusion of the Warren Commission (WC) to be correct and NOT to investigate the possibility of a conspiracy. During their time there would be much pushback from the intelligence agencies to make sure they did not dig too deep.
Despite these parameters, there were some cases of real investigation done particularly in the areas of the alleged Mexico City trip by the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) and the anti-Cuban exile community in Florida.
This post will look at an individual who tied into another assassination attempt against JFK in the city of Chicago in early November 1963. Obviously, LHO could not have been involved in an attempt in Chicago when he was in Dallas and could not drive.
The HSCA Says...Homer Echevarria.
*****************************************************************
The United States Secret Service (SS) began to investigate the assassination as soon as it occurred through their various regional offices. Soon this would be stopped by President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) when he gave sole investigative authority to the FBI. Still, things were found by the SS before this happened. One such incident originated from the Chicago field office when it was found that a group of Cuban exiles may have been connected to the assassination of JFK.
A SS informant by the name of Thomas Mosely (informant number 2-1-266) reported a conversation that he had had on November 21, 1963, about his activities to try and sell illegal arms to Cuban exiles. The HSCA wrote about this in their report and here are the relevant portions.
Quote on
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0133b.gif
...The informant, Thomas Mosely, reported that for some time that he had been involved in negotiating the sale of illegal arms with a Cuban exile, an outspoken critic of President Kennedy named Homer S. Echevarria. On November 21, Echevarria had said that his group now had "plenty of money" and that they were prepared to proceed with the purchases "as soon as we [or they] take care of Kennedy.
After receiving the initial report, the Secret Service surveilled subsequent meetings between Mosley and Echevarria, received reports from Moseley about the conversations, and discussed the progress of the investigation with the local FBI office. By December 3, 1963, a fuller picture of Echevarria was obtained and reported to the Protective Research Section. By that date, it appeared that Echevarria was a member of the 30th of November (Cuban exile) Movement, that an associate of his who had also spoken with Mosely about the arms sales was Juan Francisco Blanco-Fernandez, military director for the Cuban Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), and that the arms purchases were being financed through Paulino Sierra Martinez, a Cuban exile who had become a Chicago lawyer. Mosely inferred from his conversation with Echevarria and Blanco that Sierra's financial backers consisted in part of "hoodlum elements" who were "not restricted to Chicago."
The committee's investigation provided substantial corroboration from the Secret Service's concern about the Mosley's allegations. The committee found that the 30th of November Movement was receiving financial backing through the Junta del Gobierno de Cuba en el Exilio (JGCE), a Chicago-based organization led by Sierra. (HSCA Report, p. 236)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0133b.htm
Quote off
It is clear that Moseley's report was correct and that the funding of it originated in Chicago by "hoodlum elements" and fronted by a Chicago lawyer. Does this expose the involvement of members of the Mafia's involvement in the assassination of JFK as researchers have thought for decades? IF they were willing to fund an assassination attempt in Chicago on November 2, why not do the same for the one in Dallas on November 22, 1963?
The DRE mentioned above was based out of Miami, Florida, and they had a representative in New Orleans by the name of Carlos Bringuier. Bringuier would have involvement with LHO in New Orleans during the summer of 1963. He would instigate a scuffle while LHO was passing out Fairplay for Cuba Committee pamphlets, and despite initiating it only LHO would be arrested. Why? Bringuier would also show up at LHO's hearing on August 12, 1963, and again we have to wonder why.
Another important note here is how the HSCA steered the topic away from the November 2, 1963, plot that the Chicago SS field office discovered as they keep mentioning only the November 21, 1963, meeting between Mosely and Echevarria. We know that there was some kind of plot since Thomas Arthur Vallee and a few Cubans were arrested and JFK cancelled his trip there for the Army-Navy game.
Furthermore, the SS agent involved in the surveillance, Joseph Noonan, told the HSCA that he and the other agents involved felt that the Cubans "might have some ties to the CIA." They would soon be told to "drop everything relating to Mosley-Echevarria" and send all their memos, files and their notebooks to Washington and not discuss the case with anyone. We can see why they wanted this since the Chicago plot showed clearly a number of the elements involved in the assassination of JFK.
We get some more details about the meeting between Mosley and Echevarria in this document.
Quote on
In early September (1963) Echevarria had indicated to the informant an interest in buying machine guns to be used in a Cuban revolution. The informant stated that he would be in a position to provide arms of this type, and Echevarria presumably relayed this information to higher authorities in the Cuban group of which he is a member. He subsequently told the informant that others in the group were interested in purchasing machine guns, but that they would first have to satisfy themselves that the informant was trustworthy and was not a CIA agent.
On Thursday, November 21, 1963, Echevarria told the informants, "We now have plenty of money -- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or they) take care of Kennedy..." the informant was unable to continue this conversation with the suspect because of the presence of other bus drivers. (HSCA Administrative Folder N6: 124-10370-10019, p. 249)
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10032#relPageId=249
Quote off
We have covered the "hoodlum elements" and the CIA, but Echevarria also said that their new backers were Jews so we are left to wonder who this could have been. What Jewish group would be interested in supporting the Cuban exiles in their work to retake Cuba and possibly assassinate JFK? The Meyer Lansky mob syndicate comes to mind.
Once again, the FBI was trying to shut down any investigation that did NOT focus on LHO as the HSCA Report writes how they tried to dissuade the SS in continuing their look into this matter.
Quote on
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0134a.gif
The Secret Service recognized the need to investigate the alleged plots by Cuban groups more fully, especially that of Echevarria's 30th of November group. But when the progress of the investigation was discussed with the FBI, the FBI responded that the 30th of November group was not likely to have been involved in any illegal acts. The Secret Service was initially reluctant to accept this representation in light of the evidence it had developed that indicated the group was in fact involved in illegal activities, and therefore began preparations to place an undercover agent in Echevarria's groups to investigate his activities more closely. On November 29, 1963, however, President Johnson created the Warren Commission and gave the FBI primary investigative responsibility. (HSCA Report, p. 237)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0134a.htm
Quote off
This shows that some elements of the SS wanted to investigate this matter, and others I'm sure, fully, but were prevented from doing so by LBJ and his order to give primary responsibility to the FBI. This one action by LBJ shows that there was a conspiracy to me as one would think they would want as many organizations as possible running down leads and investigating this crime, but we see the exact opposite of this in LBJ's Executive Order. He wanted ONLY the FBI to "investigate" this crime. Why would you do this unless you did NOT want to find the truth as even the FBI could not run down every lead and investigate every possibility, therefore, it is clear they never intended to do this. This move was about control.
The WC knew about this incident (or least they included it in their twenty-six volumes) as we find a written report about this in Commission Exhibit (CE) 2959. Here is a copy of the report.
CE 2959: historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pages/WH_Vol26_0239a.gif
This document mentions that the Cubans had a "banker" on their side and it has to be considered as a financial backer. I wonder who this banker was? It also says that the Cubans saw JFK as "an intellectual, a rich man's son who did not give a damn about the people." Clearly they were confused or mislead as the man who did NOT give a damn about the people was LBJ and that is who took over when JFK was killed.
If you want to read a detailed overview of the SS's work on this then go to this link. The report is between pages 383 and 389.
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=954#relPageId=387
Echevarria's group, and other Cuban exile groups, were trying to get automatic weapons, ammunition and explosives in their attempt to overthrow the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro. We see this type of activity quite a bit in this case, but this one sheds some light on the components of the working organism. We see "hoodlum elements", a banker and the possibly the CIA working together in their attempts to oust Castro, so, one has to ask, why couldn't this same type of group do the same to JFK?
The work of the Chicago SS office is invaluable as it not only prevented a likely assassination attempt on JFK in early November 1963, but it exposed some of the groups willing to work together to do this kind of work.
Here is some more background on this topic by researcher Joseph Backes. If you want to read all of his writing then just click the link at the bottom of the quote. He wrote this following a release of documents in 1995/1996 by the Assassination Records Review Board.
Quote on
FBI Document #180-10087-10137 is a 7-page memorandum from Acting SAIC Maurice Martineau to Deputy Chief Paterni on subject Homer S. Echevarria dated November 27, 1963.
Martineau references an earlier memorandum to Paterni dated November 26, 1963 which related to information received from 2-1-266. This information concerns a group of Chicago Cubans, allegedly anti-Castro, who may have had a connection with the assassination of President Kennedy.
Martineau phoned SAIC Marlin Johnson of the FBI's Chicago Office and informed him that a confidential informant of this SS office that he had knowledge of a group of Chicago Cubans, who were bitterly opposed to President Kennedy and a member of that group made a remark to the informant, "WE now have plenty of money-- our new backers are Jews -- as soon as `we' (or `they') take care of Kennedy...".
Martineau told the FBI that this informant had worked with them before on a counterfeiting case and had proved to be reliable.
Martineau told Johnson that the Secret Service's Washington headquarters told him to provide the information to the FBI and as this group would constitute a threat to President Johnson that they should conduct a joint investigation.
Johnson called back later that day and assigned SA's Bob Baker and Walt Rogers to the investigation. Martineau then told Johnson that the informant, together with Edward Z. Tucker and Joseph E. Noonan would meet with his agents at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26, at the intersection of Marine Drive and Lakeside Place, Chicago, Illinois.
Acting under Martineau's instruction's Tucker and Noonan met with the informant early, at 6:00 p.m. to explain that the informant was to keep the SS office advised of any contact he has with any other agency.
Acting under instructions to continue his association with the suspect, Mosley arranged to meet with Echevarria at 12:00 o'clock on Thursday, November 28, 1963, for the purpose of being taken to Echevarria's associates for discussion as to the purchase of machine guns. On November 27, Martineau interviewed Mosley, at which time Mosley assured Martineau that he had not gone to any other agency with this information.
SA's Noonan and Tucker were instructed to make a background investigation of Echevarria.
Martineau was interested in finding out how the FBI knew the identity of their informant.
web.archive.org/web/20110606215635/http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/15th_Issue/arrb_tenth2.html
Quote off
It is apparent that the various Cuban exile groups around the country were being utilized for a number of things and this probably included the assassination of JFK. Many of these groups were sponsored by different parts of the CIA. This statement is not meant to blame the CIA as a whole, but shows how easy it would have been to compromise the agency by having rogue elements of both the CIA and the Cuban exile groups participating in the assassination of JFK. There is no way the CIA could admit that parts of their agency were involved, thus, the perfect culpability was secured. This is the only answer that explains why they cannot release all the documents nearly sixty years after the assassination. The documents may also tell us who the "banker" was and what group he was affiliated with.
The FBI was equally as bad as they continually shut down any investigation into what might have happened as their only focus was that LHO did it all alone. It is clear that these organizations have a lot to hide in regard to the JFK assassination.
It is a shame as both organizations have thousands of hard working and ethical personnel who sacrifice a lot to keep America safe and, in some cases, risk their own lives in doing so.
It stains their organizations as much as it does the country by NOT telling us the truth of what happened on November 22, 1963. We can see from the comments of the Cubans that JFK was being bad-mouthed in their communities and that LBJ was being touted as a "savior" when the truth couldn't have been further from the truth. LBJ took America down a path it has never recovered from.
What do you make of this incident and its importance to the case?