by D. Cupples | The U.S. Justice Department is facing more than raised eyebrows over its apparent politicization, which Congress spent much of 2007 investigating. Apparently, some segments of the Department have ethical problems (e.g., prosecutors' lack of truthfulness in court), which severely clash with our nation's notion of Justice. Last week, the Boston Globe reported:
"Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf, in an extraordinary letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, skewered the Justice Department's mild and secret discipline of Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Auerhahn in 2006 for misconduct that Wolf said required him to order the 'release from prison of a capo and associate of the Patriarca family of La Cosa Nostra.'
"After a closed disciplinary hearing, US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan gave Auerhahn a letter of reprimand for withholding evidence while handling a racketeering case in the 1990s against members of the New England Mafia.
"'The [Justice] Department's performance in the Auerhahn matter raises serious questions about whether judges should continue to rely upon the department to investigate and sanction misconduct by federal prosecutors,' wrote Wolf, who last July, after expressing frustration with his punishment, took the unusual step of asking the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers to launch disciplinary proceedings against Auerhahn.
"Wolf also wrote that 'the department's failure to be candid and consistent with the court has become disturbingly common in the District of Massachusetts....'
"Wolf criticized the department's handling of Auerhahn's misconduct during a conversation with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in Boston in 2006....
"Wolf's latest letter, dated Wednesday and filed with the court yesterday, indicated he was dissatisfied with the Justice Department's response and hoped that Mukasey, a former federal judge and prosecutor, would take action that Gonzales had not." (Boston Globe)
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This is not the first time that Justice Department staff used tainted evidence to convict defendants. In 1968, four men were wrongly convicted of a mafia-related murder based on testimony that the FBI knew was false (Boston Globe-2). When transferring the case to state prosecutors, the FBI shared the witness (Joe Barboza) but didn't share evidence that he was lying.
Two of the men died in prison, and two were released after spending 30 years in prison. (Washington Post) In 2007, a federal judge awarded $102 million to the families of the wrongly convicted men. (BN-Politics)
These cases are examples of why it's important for Justice Department officials (especially the Attorney General) to be highly ethical, honest, and committed to defending justice -- even if it means putting aside personal or political agendas.
This is why Congress's investigation the Justice Department's operations is necessary.
Related BN-Politics Posts:
* FBI Let 4 Innocents go to Prison; DoJ Argued it was OK
* Torture Tapes: Criminal Case Opened, Prosecutor Not Independent
* Under the Rug: What Came of the Gonzales Misconduct Probes?
"Siegelman Is In Prison So Bob Riley Can Be Groomed As A GOP Vice Presidential Candidate"
Bush's DOJ appointees are using the prison system to keep Siegelman from talking to the media about Gov. Riley's past and Alabama's dirty history of campaign corruption.
(a) When Siegelman was Secretary of State and Attorney General, he referred several irregularities of cash flow to state and federal law enforcement which included sham organizations, Contra drug trafficking, tax evasion and money laundering. The results of the investigations found that much were linked to high ranking politicians in Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and sometimes Georgia, and Mississippi. Siegelman is a very smart attorney. He holds two law degrees. He knows more about Alabama's politics than anyone, being the only person in history to have served the top four government offices in Alabama and he has first hand experience of how a White house backed conspiracy works. This is a partial list of the skeletons that they don't want big media to know about:
(a) Voting fraud- Voting machine expert Dan Gans of Riley's staff is very knowledgeable of "Diebold Optical Scan Voting Machines" and of the "ES&S Central Voting Tabular" used in Alabama elections. He is believed to have altered the election totals on election night in the 2002 gubernatorial election.
(b) Millions of dollars of dirty campaign money was used to defeat Siegelman's Education Lottery and to defeat his gubernatorial campaigns. The money came from big business clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Toby Roth, Rob Riley and William Canary. Several different National GOP associations along with some sham organizations ran by Robin Vanderwall, Preston Gates, Ralph Reed, Glover Norquist and William Canary laundered the money so that it wouldn't be obvious who the donors were.
(c ) The newspaper presses of big media giant Newhouse/Advance Publications has an arrangement with the GOP in Alabama to print articles hand fed to them by the GOP from top law enforcement and federal attorneys to create a corrupt public image of Siegelman, and other top Democratic politicians.
Posted by: CBrooks | January 10, 2008 at 10:33 PM
Wow! Thanks for sharing details.
Posted by: D. Cupples | January 11, 2008 at 04:06 PM
Wow! Thanks for sharing details.
Posted by: D. Cupples | January 11, 2008 at 04:06 PM