against all of their clients was spurious at best. "The case cannot proceed [because] the process has been so corrupted by the government's misconduct that there can never be any confidence in the validity of the charge," said Mark Reichel, one of the defense attorneys involved in the case. "[W]hile the [prosecution] tries to portray the 'conspiracy' as a dangerous and sophisticated military plan, it cannot refute the extensive evidence demonstrating otherwise – from the agent's informing the so-called conspirators that they would need an operational plan; to his providing a map of the region when they couldn't procure a useful one; to his explanation of what GPS was (including that it requires batteries); to the so-called conspirators' inability to finance the operation." Mr. Philip Smith (Phillip Smith or Phil Smith), General Vang Pao's long-time political, foreign policy and public relations adviser, as well as family friend, urged the U.S. government to drop the charges against Vang Pao and the defendants, especially given Vang Pao's and the Hmong's role in support of U.S. national security interests during the Vietnam War as well as the Lao communist government's egregious human rights violations. According to human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United League for Democracy in Laos and the Lao Human Rights Council, Laos engaged in military attacks and campaign of starvation against the Hmong people during the period of the alleged coup plot under the current Pathet Lao and Marxist government. Smith and The Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA), in cooperation with a bipartisan coalition of Members of the United States Congress organized and co-hosted events in Washington, D.C., Library of Congress and Capitol Hill regarding serious human rights violations in Laos, including special sessions of the U.S. Congressional Forum on Laos where Members of the U.S. Congress and other human rights organizations, human rights advocates, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and policy experts testified, including Amnesty International, Kerry and Kay Danes, the Lao Veterans of America, Inc. and others. Smith, the CPPA, Amnesty International, public policy experts and independent journalists provided important research and information to Members of Congress and U.S. and international policymakers in Washington, D.C., regarding the Lao military's persecution and killing of Hmong and Laotian civilians, political asylum seekers and refugees and political and religious dissident groups, including Hmong resistance groups hiding in the jungles and mountains of Laos. Religious freedom issues were also