Judge orders investigation of Stevens prosecutors

AP - Yahoo News ^ | April 7, 2009 | AP

[VRWCTexan]

WASHINGTON – A judge has dismissed charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens because of prosecutorial misconduct and has ordered a criminal contempt investigation of the prosecutors.

"In nearly 25 years on the bench, I've never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case," U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said in the opening moments of a hearing.

[VRWCTexan]

dems did a great job of cheating to take over the US Senate

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Who was it who asked “Where do I go to get my reputation back ?”

[DTogo]

Also needed: a criminal contempt investigation of the prosecutors of Ramos & Compean.

[FreepShop1]

Who was it who asked “Where do I go to get my reputation back ?”

Duke lacrosse victim?

[RC2]

But will the courts look into which Democrats were behind the whole thing?

[Maine Mariner]

Donovan, Secretary of Labor under Reagan I believe

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Are you referring to the November Coup?

[VRWCTexan]

Where Do I Go To Get My Reputation Back?”

That was the question asked by Ray Donovan, Reagan’s Labor Secretary, after he was found not guilty of corruption charges...

[antonico]

Evidently the judge is so miffed that he’s signaling this won’t be swept under the Holder-run DOJ rug into oblivion. Sounds like he’s bent on exposing them for the frauds they are. Let’s hope so. Because THIS is the kind of thing the can do great damage to the Demon-crats.

[ex91B10]

Drop the Border Patrol defense: They lied, falsified federal documents...

Tired of hearing people clap and defend corrupt officials.

[GeorgiaDawg32]

nah, it’s a dem resume enhancer..

“I played dirty, got Stevens convicted and the seat went to a dem..where do I go to get my reward?”..

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Ray Donovan it was.

[bill1952]

From the whispers that I hear floating around from some connected clients, there are going to be criminal charges bought up and people are going to be prosecuted.

The words “egregious,” and “unconscionable” are frequently mentioned

[ClearCase_guy]

This judge gets it. The judicial branch has a role in preventing tyranny. I’m not sure if the rest of the judicial branch knows that.

[rbg81]

Except that this prosecution occured under the Bush administration.

[Ann Archy]

They will be Republican prosecutors!!

[VRWCTexan]

“The judge called on judges nationwide to issue formal orders in all criminal cases requiring that prosecutors turn over evidence to defendants.

It was a stinging rebuke of the Justice Department and Sullivan called on Holder to order training for all prosecutors.”

[VRWCTexan]

They are apparently very corrupt, or too stupid to continue?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Administrations come and go but it would take dynamite to remove government bow-wows from their anointed jobs.

[Doc91678]

The quest for power by the Progressive Democratic Party knows no bounds.
Their coups etat has shown that quite well. I'm not saying that the Republicans had nothing to do with it. What I'm saying is that the Democrats took advantage of the situation and used their propaganda and smear techniques quite well.
What we should be doing is use the same techniques against them. This time though, going after those who are really the corrupt within the Democratic Party.
People like Murtha, Obama, Emanuel, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, the names are many and would fill the page. These people must be investigated and exposed for their criminal and corrupt ways that they have brought to American politics and for their Socialist-Fascistic ideology. They have usurped the meaning of Freedom and our Constitution and for that we should have no mercy on them.

[101voodoo]

They were Clinton appointees. You will recall that when Clinton was elected in 1992 he FIRED ALL THE prosecutors and had his own choices to replace them. When Bush was elected he left them all in place and only when he dismissed the 8 late in his second term was there a stink raised by the left.

[Perchant]

Tired of hearing people clap and defend corrupt officials.

...he says while clapping and defending corrupt officials like Johnny Sutton.

[joe fonebone]

here here.....they got what they deserved, and got out early....

[Big_Monkey]

"From the whispers that I hear floating around from some connected clients, there are going to be criminal charges bought up and people are going to be prosecuted.

That's interesting. I wonder how that will effect the contempt hearing that this judge will hold. I'm assuming that the prosecutors still have their 5th Amendment right in a contempt hearing. But, how would a 5th Amendment pleading impact their Judges ruling for a contempt hearing?

[Cyclone59]

It was reported on 97.1 in St. Louis that one of the ring leaders was on the obama election team - a woman whose name I can’t recall.

[freespirited]

Realistically, what do you suppose is the most that will happen to these rogue prosecutors? Do you think they will be disbarred?

I have my doubts that a D.C. jury would convict them of jaywalking, let alone anything related to the unfair treatment of a Republican.

[Big_Monkey]

"They were Clinton appointees.

That not necessarily true. Clinton (like most Presidents) fired the prosecutors that ran the district offices as they are political appointees and they serve at the pleasure of the president. The career prosecutors are civil servants and do not serve at the pleasure of the president. Clinton couldn't fire them just like he couldn't arbitrarily fire a National Park Ranger.

These attorney's weren't appointed. They were hired. That's the difference.

[navysealdad]

***Evidence was withheld from the defense team in the former Alaska senator’s corruption trial.*** And the really sad part is that more Republicans were prosecuted during the Bush years than Democrats. And it was George W Bush’s own Department of Justice who violated their own rules to interfere in primaries and general elections to prevent Republicans from winning office. Democrats would not have been so brazen but Bush....hey, he was trying to be bi-partisan by letting career democrats in the DOJ pick off GOP members. Curt Weldon lost his election to a Dem newcomer/rubber stamp because of a trumped up allegation of wrongdoing and a leaked FBI investigation. No charges were ever filed.
In 2005 a grand jury indicted TomDeLay on criminal charges that he had conspired to violate campaign finance laws during that period. DeLay denied the charges and pled not guilty, saying they were politically motivated. Despite the charges, and DeLay's Constitutional right to a speedy trial, the prosecutor has still not brought the case before a jury
And William Jefferson (D-LA) is still not in jail yet. STILL. Three elections later the guy is still walking the streets while Ted Stevens was getting framed by a US Attorney, Scooter Libby was being railroaded and Ramos & Compean were being throw in prison to keep La Raza and MALDEF from marching in the streets.

[DTogo]

Their punishment did not fit the “crime” while the illegal alien drug smuggler got off scot-free.

[bill1952]

Disbarment is not conditional on prosecution - Ask Clinton.

I do believe that it could be hard to find a jury willing to cut any prosecutor any slack - they know firsthand the results of that.

[Petronski]

Raymond Donovan

[misterrob]

Started under Bush's watch though.

Yet another case of incompetence by GWB. In addition to his failure to clean out the State Dept., he had a CIA and a DOJ that were allowed to fester.

Oh, and Gonzales?

HA HA HA HA HA

[a fool in paradise]

It wasn't just about taking over the Senate. it was about taking over the whole country.

2006’s Culture of Corruption was a media-DNC conspiratorial lie too.

[tarheelswamprat]

Drop the Border Patrol defense: They lied, falsified federal documents...

here here.....they got what they deserved, and got out early....

As you can see, DTogo, Free Republic has more than its share of either pathetically ignorant or aggressively dishonest types (although I will concede that the two are not mutually exclusive).

[Tribune7]

Same as the ones that went after Curt Weldon. It kind of makes you wonder about Dubya.

[mkcc30]

There is only one way to fight back against this kind of subterfuge and we all know what that is but most are afraid to express it. Our courts are generally corrupt, the media, well we all know the answer to that.

I would rather die a patriot than live as a “comrade”!

[buck61]

Sounds like he’s bent on exposing them for the frauds they are

Can Stevens sue the Gov. for miss conduct? If so? could be why the judge is going to sweep this under the rug?

[KansasGirl]

We are seeing this more and more. The Rats are using malicious prosecution and misconduct to take out opponents. This needs to be stopped.

[Ann Archy]

Sames people or were those Republicans? Didn’t get your answer.

[Voter#537]

"where do I go to get my reward?”.."

WELL . . . . . .
A guy named Lucifer has it. . . . . . . . . Me don't think you gona like it too much. . . . Kinday like them 30 Virgins the the Tally-Ban gives out. . . . . .

[reader25]

I do not have a lot of confidence in the investigation. Democrats investigating Democrats; kinda of like putting a bank robber in charge of the vault.

[1035rep]

Are you referring to the November Coup?

I think so.

[jamese777]

The Democrats and the liberal mainstream media are spinning this that Senator Stevens was indicted under Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and he was tried under Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Both lead prosecutors were promoted to their positions in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity section during the Bush administration.
The Democrats are quick to point out that Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder is the one who recommended to the judge the dropping of the charges against Senator Stevens.
Holder dropped the charges to make the previous administration’s Justice Department look corrupt.

[TomGuy]

The Judge has opened a criminal investigation in to the prosecution (prosecutors) of the Stevens case, per WLS radio news.

[pas]

Maybe it is just me. But from reading the article, Stevens was not without sin. A 7 year loan of a massage chair was not a gift. A 29k statue was on his porch just because that is where it was delivered.

[SSS Two]

At trial, he argued that he didn't disclose the items he received because they were not gifts. A $2,700 massage chair, for instance, remained in his house for seven years but Stevens said it was a loan. He said he assumed a $3,200 stained-glass window was paid for, since his wife takes care of such things. A $29,000 fish statue was a donation to his foundation, he said, and only remained on his front porch because that's where the donors shipped it.

C'mon, FR, Stevens was dirty.

Yes, the prosecutors were dirty, too. But that doesn't exonerate Stevens. Is our standard to call a politician dirty whether or not he has been convicted or whether he accepted gifts from people that he didn't report?

The behavior of the GOP here is appalling. Stevens shouldn't get his reputation back because he did what he was accused of. He's not going to jail because the prosecutors engaged in misconduct.

STEVENS IS DIRTY!

[Chet 99]

It isn’t party - it is power mad people who viewed getting a feather in their cap more important than due process and justice. This sort of corruption crosses party lines.

[mc5cents]

At trial, he argued that he didn't disclose the items he received because they were not gifts. A $2,700 massage chair, for instance, remained in his house for seven years but Stevens said it was a loan.

Hmmmm. 7 year loan of a massage chair? If it was a loan, what was the interest on the loan? That whole thing seems ludicrous to me. My common sense detector went off on that one alone.

[NormsRevenge]

It was a GoP administration that investigated and tried a sitting GoP Senator.

It was a Dem administration that revealed that little cover-up thingy.

The DEms are jealous of the viciousness of the GoP stomping on its “own”. They oughta be.