Free Republic

I write to express my concern about the recent decision to eliminate the public corruption section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. According to press reports, the 17 Assistant United States Attorneys assigned to the public corruption/environmental crimes unit in the Los Angeles office are being reassigned to other sections within the office. Public corruption cases will now apparently be mixed in with other types of cases and handled by a larger pool of prosecutors, rather than by a specialized section. Press articles have also mentioned the low morale and ill will that this decision...

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today asked for a meeting with Justice Department officials and Illinois Congressional Delegation members to discuss including the Chicago metropolitan area in the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative – a program created in 2006 to enhance gang prevention, enforcement, and anti-recidivism efforts. The Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative has so far provided ten metropolitan regions with $2.5 million each for anti-gang efforts.“Chicago is home to some of the largest and most violent gangs in the country, but has been left out of one of the most highly touted...

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Monday threatened to serve subpoenas on former Attorney General John Ashcroft and two others associated with the Bush administration's interrogation policies if they don't agree to testify. If the three — including John C. Yoo, the former assistant deputy attorney general, and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff — do not reply by Friday, "I will have no choice but to consider the use of compulsory process," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote in letters to them. That's Washington-speak for issuing congressional subpoenas, tough talk that Conyers has leveled at...

http://www.usdoj.gov/olp/colmconnollyresume.htm

BROWNSVILLE -- Thirteen federal prosecutors are headed to South Texas to take on a growing number of immigration, drug trafficking and arms smuggling cases. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the new positions Wednesday as part of a plan to hire 64 new prosecutors and 35 support staff across the nation's entire Southwest border. The new staff members are expected to assist the five affected judicial districts in carrying out government initiatives aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration and hindering cross-border crime, said Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip during a trip to Nogales, Ariz. "There is no one-size-fits-all...

Clearly, the Justice department believes there is reasonable cause to think US law has been violated by the Bandar payments. Since the money actually came from a British government account, it could be argued that the UK state - rather than BAE as such - was the actor, and thus should be denied the export permit it is asking for.It appears that the British government's application to export American tech on 72 Eurofighters to the desert princes is the subject of some debate both among Capitol Hill politicos and at the Departments of State and Justice.Now the US State Department...

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is grappling with growing numbers of public corruption cases and a surge in mortgage fraud investigations, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday, wondering aloud whether Americans are "becoming more crooked." In a speech to the American Bar Association, Mueller asked the assembled defense lawyers for help in "creating a culture of integrity" by reporting evidence of wrongdoing by politicians and corporate executives alike. "Anyone who follows the news these days and sees repeated references to corporate fraud and public corruption might think the nation is in the midst of a moral crisis," Mueller told the defense...

The Senate moved yesterday toward asking the Justice Department for a criminal investigation of a $10 million legislative earmark whose provisions were mysteriously altered after Congress gave final approval to a huge 2005 highway funding bill.

On Friday, the government filed this statement of the facts in its memorandum in support of its motion for summary judgment in a civil rights and Privacy Act lawsuit brought by Dr. Steve Hatfill. “The anthrax attacks occurred in October 2001. Public officials, prominent members of the media, and ordinary citizens were targeted by this first bio-terrorist attack on American soil. Twenty-two persons were infected with anthrax; five died. At least 17 public buildings were contaminated. The attacks wreaked havoc on the U.S. postal system and disrupted government and commerce, resulting in economic losses estimated to exceed one billion dollars....

ATF added another weapon to its gang-fighting arsenal Nov. 28 with the formal opening of a new facility in Northern Virginia that will house 80 intelligence analysts, agents, prosecutors and support personnel — all from different agencies — and all working together to investigate and dismantle the most violent gangs in the United States. “Coordination has brought us success in the past, and can yield even more in the future,” said ATF Acting Director Michael Sullivan, speaking during the formal opening of the new facility. The new site brings together two separate gang deterrence units — the National Gang Intelligence...

ASHCROFT, CRITICS FACE OFF Former U.S. attorney general peppered with questions in wide-ranging talk at Skidmore College By MARC PARRY, Staff writer SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Nobody threw eggs. The crowd didn't walk out in protest. But John Ashcroft was treated to a verbal grilling Wednesday as a guest speaker at largely liberal Skidmore College. An overflow assembly of more than 600 people questioned Ashcroft, President Bush's former attorney general, about the war in Iraq, abortion, torture, surveillance, drugs and immigration. A gay student asked him about gay marriage. "You can have a relationship, you just can't have the special status,"...

The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court decision limiting the Navy's use of sonar off the Southern California coast because of potential harm to dolphins and whales. In a petition filed Monday, the Justice Department argues that the decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco jeopardizes the Navy's ability to train sailors and Marines for service in wartime.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday refused to step into a high-stakes legal fight between the Justice Department and indicted Rep. William Jefferson over the unprecedented raid on the lawmaker's Capitol Hill office. The Justice Department said the court's action would not impede the bribery case against the Louisiana Democrat. The justices declined to review an appeals court ruling that said that, while the office search itself was legal, the FBI reviewed legislative documents in violation of the Constitution. Other documents seized in the raid were provided to prosecutors and were used to support a 16-count indictment of Jefferson...

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them. Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images. A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department approved Sirius Satellite Radio's $5 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio on Monday, saying the deal was unlikely to hurt competition or consumers. The deal was approved despite opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry. The buyout received shareholder approval in November. The companies said the merger will save hundreds of millions of dollars in operating costs—savings that will ultimately benefit their customers. The Justice Department, in a lengthy news release explaining its decision, said the two companies compete not just with each other but also...

From Terry Frieden CNN WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been taken aback by the scope and variety of potential terrorism threats facing the United States, he told reporters Friday at an informal meeting in his office. Attorney General Michael Mukasey receives terrorism updates during national security briefings. "I'm surprised by how surprised I am," said Mukasey, who as a federal judge presided over terrorism-related trials in New York. "It's surprising how varied [the threat] is, how many directions it comes from, how geographically spread out it is," he said. Mukasey issued no warnings, made no pronouncements and...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department used some of its most intrusive tactics against Eliot Spitzer, examining his financial records, eavesdropping on his phone calls and tailing him during its criminal investigation of the Emperor’s Club prostitution ring. The scale and intensity of the investigation of Mr. Spitzer, then the governor of New York, seemed on its face to be a departure for the Justice Department, which aggressively investigates allegations of wrongdoing by public officials, but almost never investigates people who pay prostitutes for sex. A review of recent federal cases shows that federal prosecutors go sparingly after owners and operators...

Edgar A. Domenech says he thought Justice Department officials would welcome information about mismanagement at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Instead, the 23-year ATF veteran says, Justice officials ignored his complaints and later retaliated against him by demoting him, denying him a bonus and attempting to give him a poor job review.

Terror Trial Begins in Ohio …Federal prosecutors say the men, who live in Ohio, attended a Muslim convention in Cleveland during the summer of 2004 where they talked about training in explosives, guns and sniper tactics. The men were there with a former U.S. military man who worked undercover and helped foil the plot, said Gregg Sofer, a justice department attorney. At the convention, the men discussed a five-year plan to carry out their mission……(Reuters, 4 Mar 08)   

Washington -- U.S. Representative Barbara Cubin (R-WY) stood up for gun-owners across the Cowboy State last week, sending a letter to President Bush asking him to help uphold our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In the letter, Cubin voiced her concern over a legal opinion recently filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with the U.S. Supreme Court. This brief, filed by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, could set a dangerous precedent for law-abiding gun owners in Wyoming and across the nation by allowing the District of Columbia’s firearm ban to be upheld. "Every gun owner...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge says he will hold a former USA Today reporter in contempt if she continues refusing to identify sources for stories about a former Army scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks. At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said that reporter Toni Locy (LOW-see) must cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill in his lawsuit against the government. Hatfill is suing the Justice Department, saying the agency violated the federal Privacy Act by giving the media information about the FBI's investigation of him. In addition to Locy, the judge is considering whether...

Former Attorney General Janet Reno said the U.S. government must be careful to avoid selectively using facts when prosecuting suspected terrorists. Reno, who served as attorney general under President Bill Clinton, said prosecutors often allow prejudices to skew their use of facts. "But what I've discovered (from being a prosecutor and attorney general) is that we get tunnel vision," Reno said. "We want the facts to be something and we wish them into being." Reno made her comments while speaking to an audience of mostly students and professors at the S.J. Quinney College of Law on Tuesday. Her speech focused...

If you think the District of Columbia's ban on all functional firearms in all homes is a reasonable regulation under the Second Amendment, you'll love the friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Bush administration in D.C. v. Heller, now before the Supreme Court. The Department of Justice's (DOJ) previously stated position is that the Second Amendment secures a right of individuals not restricted to militia service. But astonishingly, the Justice Department now recommends an elastic standard for determining whether a handgun ban is reasonable. According to the DOJ, the courts should consider the nature and functional adequacy of available alternatives. That...

Leave it to the Bush Administration to put forward the argument that the Constitution permits "reasonable" infringement of the right to keep and bear arms. The Solicitor General, Paul Clement, of the United States is the lawyer for the Justice Department. On January 11, Clement dropped a bomb designed to destroy the Second Amendment. The bomb was a friend of the court brief that is a marvelous work of Newspeak as described by George Orwell in his novel of a horrifying future where words mean the opposite of their original definitions. On the one hand, the brief argues that the...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2008 – A Defense Department employee was among three people arrested today for espionage after allegedly passing classified U.S. government documents and information to the People’s Republic of China, Justice Department officials announced. Gregg William Bergersen, 51, a weapons system policy analyst at the Arlington, Va. -based Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is accused of being the source of the classified information. Much of the information related to U.S. military sales to Taiwan, Justice Department officials said. Bergersen allegedly passed the information between January 2006 and this month to Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a naturalized U.S. citizen and...

Just a sample here: Conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion, extortion, demanding or receiving illegal payments on behalf of a labor union, and demanding or accepting illegal unloading fees from a motor vehicle driver, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 1951, 29 U.S.C. §§186(b)(1) and (2) Bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343 and 371 Conspiracy to commit securities fraud, sale of unregistered securities, and the use of manipulative devices in connection with the sale of securities, Theft of government property, Filing a false tax return Extortion under color of official right

Federal criminal prosecutors are stepping up their interest in Wall Street's mortgage-securities activities. The Justice Department's U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, based near Wall Street, has notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that it wants to see information the agency is gathering in its investigation of Merrill Lynch & Co., according to people familiar with the matter. The SEC is examining, among other things, whether the securities firm booked inflated prices of mortgage bonds it held despite knowledge that the valuations had dropped, the people say.

President Bush is asking Congress to repeal a portion of an open records law he signed five weeks ago, a move that open government advocates say stymies efforts to make government more transparent. An eight-line provision buried in the 1,314-page appendix to the president's spending plan would move a new office for resolving disputes over government records to the very agency that defends other federal agencies wishing to keep government documents shrouded: the Department of Justice. Critics contend that would create a conflict of interest because officials aiming to resolve disputes and those defending the government in such battles would...

WASHINGTON -- Five years after a gay advocacy group was told that it could no longer use the e-mail, bulletin boards and meeting rooms at the Justice Department, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has reversed that decision and issued a revised equal-employment-opportunity policy barring discrimination against any group. Mukasey informed leaders of DOJ Pride last week that the department would give it the same rights as all other DOJ employee organiza- tions, said the group's president, Chris Hook. In a statement, Mukasey said the department will "foster an environment in which diversity is valued, understood and sought" and maintain "an environment...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee accused Attorney General Michael Mukasey of ducking questions Wednesday on whether waterboarding is torture despite his promise last year to study whether it is illegal. The issue briefly stalled Mukasey's confirmation last fall until he assured Senate Democrats he would review the legality of the harsh interrogation tactic and report back. Waterboarding involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. Ultimately, however, Mukasey said Wednesday he would not rule on whether waterboarding is a form of illegal torture because it...

Excerpt - WASHINGTON -- The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales. Scott J. Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly "impeded" his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch's letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The Justice Department wants...

'Administration should reflect right to keep and bear arms'A Republican congressman from Virginia is asking President Bush to order the Justice Department to submit a brief in a U.S. Supreme Court case that supports the rights afforded U.S. citizens under the Second Amendment. The request from Rep. Virgil Goode concerns a filing submitted by the Justice Department in a Supreme Court case over the legality of a handgun ban imposed by the District of Columbia. A similar request already has been submitted by officials for the Gun Owners of America, whose executive director, Larry Pratt, warned: "If the Supreme Court...

Last week, the Bush administration put troubling distance between itself and principled Second Amendment defenders. We refer to the amicus brief that Solicitor General Paul Clement filed Friday in support of the plaintiffs in District of Columbia v. Heller — the D.C. gun-ban challenge, widely expected to be the court's most significant gun-rights case in 60 years when a decision is reached. The brief sides with the D.C. plaintiffs seeking to exercise their Second Amendment rights, but it then expends much effort worrying that an end to gun bans like the District's would mean an end to most types of...

If the justices accept that advice when they hear the case in the spring, it could mean additional years of litigation over the controversial Second Amendment and could undo a ruling that was a seminal victory for gun rights enthusiasts. Some were livid. One conservative Web site said the administration had "blundered in catastrophic fashion," and another turned Clement, usually a pinup for conservative legal scholars, into a digital dartboard. Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the Republicans' chief deputy whip, called the brief "just outrageous," and Republican presidential candidate and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) accused the Justice Department of...

~snip~An early test of all these traits will come in the next few weeks, when the new attorney general is expected to review the Justice Department's flawed, embarrassing prosecution of two former lobbyists for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The lobbyists, Steven J. Rosen, and a junior associate, Keith Weissman, are charged under the 1917 Espionage Act with receiving classified information from Lawrence Franklin, then a top Defense Department official. The lobbyists allegedly passed on the information they had received to a reporter for the Washington Post and an Israeli embassy employee. Much of the information was about...

Et tu, Brute? In the waning days of the Bush Administration, Justice Department lawyers have filed a curious amicus brief in the DC gun ban case before the US Supreme Court. The attorneys took a middle-of-the-road approach to Second Amendment freedoms. They argued that gun ownership is not a “fundamental” right. Instead, they say, it is a right deserving only an “intermediate” level of protection. The brief is a disappointing about face for a Justice Department once lauded for its ardent defense of Second Amendment rights. Attorney General Michael Mukasey owes gun owners an explanation for this late betrayal. In...

Former Michigan congressman Siljander indicted by Gazette Staff and News Service Reports Wednesday January 16, 2008, 4:41 PM Gazette fileFormer U.S. Rep. Mark Deli Siljander A former Kalamazoo-area congressman was indicted Wednesday for his part in an alleged terrorist fundraising ring that is accused of sending more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan. Mark Siljander, a former Three Rivers resident who represented southwestern Michigan from 1981-87, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He allegedly lied about lobbying senators...

In 1939, the Federal government perpetrated a fraud upon the Supreme Court, and it led to bad law that undermined the Second Amendment. Last week, they did it again. In 1939 in US v. Miller, the Supreme Court ruled that because there was no evidence that a short-barreled shotgun had any relation to militia use, it was not protected under the Second Amendment. A Department of Justice brief claimed that short-barreled shotguns weren’t used by the military, when in fact they were. But because defendant Miller had disappeared and was unrepresented by counsel, this fraud went unchallenged, and became the...

The videotapes containing interrogations of al-Qaeda terrorists, including depictions of waterboarding, got destroyed because the man who ordered the action believed he had "implicit support" to do so from the CIA, according to his lawyer. Jose Rodriguez acted on requests from the CIA station chief in Bangkok to resolve the status of the tapes before the chief's retirement. After consultations with CIA lawyers and other officials in the agency, Rodriguez believed he could act to destroy the tapes and all of the evidence they contained: In late 2005, the retiring CIA station chief in Bangkok sent a classified cable to...

Since "unrestricted' private ownership of guns clearly threatens the public safety, the 2nd Amendment can be interpreted to allow a variety of gun restrictions, according to the Bush administration. The argument was delivered by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in the ongoing arguments over the legality of a District of Columbia ban on handguns in homes, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. Clement suggested that gun rights are limited and subject to "reasonable regulation" and said all federal limits on guns should be upheld.

WEAPONS OF CHOICE Public 'threatened' by private-firearms ownership Government argues gun restrictions 'permitted by the 2nd Amendment' Posted: January 14, 2008 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily.com Paul Clement Since "unrestricted" private ownership of guns clearly threatens the public safety, the 2nd Amendment can be interpreted to allow a variety of gun restrictions, according to the Bush administration. The argument was delivered by U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in the ongoing arguments over the legality of a District of Columbia ban on handguns in homes, according to a report from...

The Bush Administration has filed an amicus brief in the D.C. gun case, which you can read here. The Administration agrees that gun ownership is an individual right, but says it is subject to reasonable restrictions. Here is a representative paragraph: Although the court of appeals correctly held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, it did not apply the correct standard for evaluating respondent’s Second Amendment claim. Like other provisions of the Constitution that secure individual rights, the Second Amendment’s protection of individual rights does not render all laws limiting gun ownership automatically invalid. To the contrary, the...

A D.C. ban on home handguns may not be constitutional, the solicitor general tells the Supreme Court, but rights are limited and federal firearm restrictions should be upheld. WASHINGTON — In their legal battle over gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment, gun- control advocates never expected to get a boost from the Bush administration. But that's just what happened when U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement urged the Supreme Court in a brief Friday to say that gun rights are limited and subject to "reasonable regulation" by the government and that all federal restrictions on firearms should be upheld. Reasonable...

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE Amici curiae are former officials of the United States Department of Justice. In their official capacities, amici curiae were responsible for enforcing the laws of the United States, including federal laws that regulate the possession, use, ownership, and sale of firearms. They submit this brief to express their view that federal, state, and local gun control legislation is a vitally important law enforcement tool used to combat violent crime and protect public safety. Amici disagree with the current position of the United States Department of Justice that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to...

Not only has Bush never been a movement conservative but his DOJ’s understandably worried about the shock to the system if every gun law in the country simultaneously becomes unenforceable next summer. So they’re arguing for flexibility: Yes, it’s an individual right, yes, the burden on the government to interfere with that right should be high — but it shouldn’t be so high as to prevent the government from interfering altogether. Behold, the dreaded ad hoc balan

the legal position of the US is that DC CIrcuit was wrong, a complete ban on handguns is NOT per se unconstitutional, it all depends on how good a reason DC can prove for it

2008-01-12) On Friday the Bush administration filed an amicus asking the Supreme Court to remand the Parker case (“DC gun law case”) back to the District of Columbia to come up with a ‘softer standard of review’ on what constitutes reasonable gun regulations. In doing so, Bush strikes a major blow against all Americans in the on-going struggle over the scope of individual rights. Filed through the Department of Justice (DOJ), the administration’s stated purpose is to protect a host of federal laws that restrict private ownership of firearms. DOJ argues in its brief that the same reasoning which allowed...

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican drug traffickers are the main suppliers of methamphetamine to the U.S. and produce enormous quantities of the drug despite government crackdowns, according to a recent U.S. Justice Department report. Mexico's efforts to restrict imports of precursor chemicals needed to make the drug, and a number of high-profile drug busts, have not led to lower meth production, the report said. "Despite heightened chemical import restrictions in Mexico, methamphetamine production in that country has increased since 2004, and Mexico is now the primary source of methamphetamine to U.S. drug markets,'' the National Drug Intelligence Center's 2008 report...

Michael Mukasey has decided to open a criminal investigation into the destruction of videotaped interrogations conducted by the CIA that included waterboarding. John Durham, the federal prosecutor for Connecticut, will head the probe. It raises the stakes for everyone involved in the destruction of the tapes, which the CIA denied ever having and kept from the 9/11 Commission: The Justice Department opened a full criminal investigation Wednesday into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, putting the politically charged probe in the hands of a mob-busting public corruption prosecutor with a reputation as being independent. Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that...

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department said today that it has opened a full investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing associated with the CIA's destruction of videotaped interrogations of terror suspects. The disclosure last month that the CIA had destroyed two such tapes in 2005 -- which included footage of harsh interrogation methods -- touched off a political and legal firestorm. The Justice Department and the CIA Office of the Inspector General had been conducting a preliminary inquiry in the wake of those disclosures to see whether there was evidence of potential crimes, and whether a formal investigation should be pursued. "The...