Salon.com > Department of Justice

No one went to jail, so why is Wall Street so mad?

Mon, 07 May 2012 19:23:00 +0000

In Newsweek, Peter Boyer and Peter Schweizer explore the question of President Obama's Justice Department's failure to press any major criminal charges against Wall Street. We learn, distressingly, that "finance-fraud prosecutions by the Department of Justice are at 20-year lows." Ex-Countrywide whistle-blower Eileen Foster, to name one prominent critic of the Justice Department's inaction, is still urging the Justice Department to do something about her former colleagues, but to no avail. What's holding them back?

Hiding 9/11′s last secrets

Thu, 03 May 2012 18:45:00 +0000

After a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden at his Pakistan hideout a year ago this week, it flew his body to the Arabian Sea, weighted it down, and slid it silently off an aircraft carrier into the watery depths.

For many Americans, the secret raid provided a measure of revenge and catharsis for the strikes of Sept. 11, 2001. But it didn’t provide the kind of justice and official reckoning that the country needs to gain real closure. Now the government has a chance to achieve that through a full, fair and open trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants, so the world can finally see the evidence against him as the true architect of the attacks on New York and Washington. The trial kickoff -- an arraignment for the men — is scheduled for this Saturday at the U.S.-run detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

This should be our Nuremburg, the defining trial of the 9/11 era and a fitting coda to it.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government appears to be on the verge of squandering this opportunity, and with it, the best, and perhaps only, chance for the public to understand not only how the attacks came to be, but why Mohammed waged a relentless war against America and how we might stop the next would-be terrorist mastermind.

Sheriff Joe takes another hit

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:32:00 +0000

The clock struck at 1,095 days and 11 hours today for Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz. -- or, at least according to the ticking icon on the Phoenix New Times home page that had asked readers for years: "How long has Sheriff Joe been under investigation by the feds?"

That investigation culminated Thursday when the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice released its long-awaited report, which found a "chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations" in Arpaio's office. Drawing from tens of thousands of documents and over 400 interviews with sheriff's department personnel, inmates and experts, the report documented "a widespread pattern or practice of law enforcement and jail activities that discriminate against Latinos," resulting in gross violations of constitutional rights.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez threw down the gauntlet for Arpaio at Thursday's press conference, giving him until Jan. 4, 2012, to accept DOJ's measures to take "clear steps toward reaching an agreement with the Division to correct these violations in the next 60 days," or face a lawsuit. Perez expressed DOJ's willingness "to roll up our sleeves and build a comprehensive blueprint for reform of MCSO," adding, "if the will exists" on Arpaio's end.

FBI entraps old white guys in terror sting, just like it does to young Muslim men

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:04:00 +0000

Every now and then, right-wingers like to argue for the inherently violent nature of Islam by pretending the very of idea of a "Christian terrorist" is unimaginably ludicrous. These right-wingers also tend to ignore abortion clinic bombers and other Christian and right-wing murderers who follow the terrorist script, so don't expect them to devote much time to the story of the Waffle House gang recently indicted by the FBI.

Four aged right-wingers apparently plotted to carry out a mass murder based on the plot of a thriller written by frequent Fox guest Mike Vanderboegh. They planned to "save this country" by attacking Washington, D.C., and Atlanta with ricin and botulinium toxin. And they were targeting the government:

Richard Cohen suddenly worried about scope of presidential anti-terror powers

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:41:00 +0000

Richard Cohen, the universe's worst opinion columnist, has rather belatedly and unexpectedly grown alarmed at the size and scope of the expensive, unaccountable death machine that is our counter-terror state. Don't get alarmed -- he's still no bleeding-heart anti-American hippie crying about the "rights" of terrorists who hate us and want to destroy us for our freedom -- but the idea that an American citizen's death warrant can be secretly signed by a couple of Justice Department lawyers seems to have shaken Cohen out of his 40-year fog of elite Beltway complacency. Sort of.

This is a big leap for Richard Cohen, a writer who hates democracy and defended Dick Cheney's torture regime as recently as 2009. (2009!)

So he begins by pointing out that he cheered the death of Anwar al-Awlaki:

Jose Padilla and how American justice functions

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:21:00 +0000

(updated below - Update II)

The story of Jose Padilla, continuing through the events of yesterday, expresses so much of the true nature of the War on Terror and especially America's justice system. In 2002, the American citizen was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, publicly labeled by John Ashcroft as The Dirty Bomber, and then imprisoned for the next three years on U.S. soil as an "enemy combatant" without charges of any kind, and denied all contact with the outside world, including even a lawyer. During his lawless incarceration, he was kept not just in extreme solitary confinement but extreme sensory deprivation as well, and was abused and tortured to the point of severe and probably permanent mental incapacity (Bush lawyers told a court that they were unable to produce videos of Padilla's interrogations because those videos were mysteriously and tragically "lost").

Professional “voter fraud” troll now preemptively predicting fake voter fraud

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 22:40:00 +0000

Hans A. von Spakovsky wants you to know that if Democrat David Weprin pulls it out and wins the special election tomorrow for the congressional seat vacated by Anthony Weiner, Weprin will have won this longtime Democratic district through voter fraud. So, you know, just be prepared!

Polls show Republican Bob Turner slightly leading, so obviously any result other than a Turner victory means ACORN paid homeless people to vote 100 times under false names. "Will [close polls] tempt some locals to resort to the kind of voter fraud that Kings County and Brooklyn are infamous for?" asks former Fulton County, Georgia Republican Party head Hans A. von Spakovsky, who is apparently unaware that "Kings County and Brooklyn" is redundant.

Spakovsky suspects imminent voter fraud because some people listed on the registration rolls have moved or died:

A source within the Turner camp tells me the campaign sent a letter and campaign literature to all the voters on the permanent list maintained by the Board of Elections who are automatically mailed absentee ballots. They have received hundreds of pieces of returned mail marked “address unknown” or “return to sender” and at least five marked “deceased.”

The DOJ’s escalating criminalization of speech

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:05:00 +0000

(updated below)

Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening. The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, charged with "providing material support" to a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)).

Government sues to block AT&T, T-Mobile merger

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:55:00 +0000

The Justice Department filed suit Wednesday to block AT&T's $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA on grounds that it would raise prices for consumers.

The government contends that the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition.

At a news conference, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the combination would result in "tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for mobile wireless services."

The lawsuit seeks to ensure that everyone can continue to receive the benefits of competition, said Cole.

AT&T said it would fight and ask for an expedited court hearing "so the enormous benefits of this merger can be fully reviewed." The company said the government "has the burden of proving alleged anti-competitive effects, and we intend to vigorously contest this matter in court."

Four nationwide providers -- Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint -- account for more than 90 percent of mobile wireless connections.

T-Mobile has been an important source of competition, including through innovation and quality enhancements such as the roll-out of the first nationwide high-speed data network, according to Sharis Pozen, acting chief of Justice's antitrust division.

Obama’s whistleblower war suffers two defeats

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 12:31:00 +0000

(updated below: w/reaction from Jim Risen)

The Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers suffered two serious and well-deserved defeats. The first occurred in the prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who was accused of multiple acts of espionage, only for the DOJ to drop virtually all of the charges right before the trial was to begin and enter into a plea agreement for one minor misdemeanor. Today, The Washington Post -- under the headline "Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker" -- reports that the federal judge presiding over the case "harshly criticized U.S. prosecutors’ treatment of a former spy agency official accused of leaking classified material."

The new Jim Crow?

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:30:00 +0000

This week over 100 House Democrats wrote to the Department of Justice urging an investigation into whether new voter identification laws -- passed in seven states already this year and under consideration in many more -- violate the Voting Rights Act. 16 Democratic senators made the same request of Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month.

The laws, which marginally differ from state to state, require that voters will have to bring photo ID -- for the most part government issued -- to the polls next year.

Stricter voter ID requirements at the polls have been passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures claiming to promote honest elections. Democrats, alongside groups including the NAACP, have called foul on the new laws, arguing they disenfranchise minorities, students, the poor and disabled (for the most part, groups with Democratic voting tendencies).

As the letter to the DOJ states:

Did Wells Fargo prey on black borrowers?

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:28:00 +0000

Staggering findings have emerged about the vast extent to which minority households were worse hit by the housing market crash than white households, as we reported Tuesday. Now The Huffington Post is reporting that the Department of Justice is preparing a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, the nation's largest home mortgage lender, for "allegedly preying upon African American borrowers during the housing bubble and steering them into high-cost sub-prime loans."

The DOJ action -- currently in pre-lawsuit negotiations as the bank hopes to settle and avoid a public lawsuit -- is not the first instance of discrimination allegations brought against Wells Fargo. In an ongoing case, the city of Baltimore is also charging that predominantly black neighborhoods were targeted, even though the bank knew that borrowers in these areas were likely to default ultimately. (Defaults in these instances didn't matter to the mortgage lending giant, since the loans had been sold on to investors). Wells Fargo denies the accusations.

DOJ casts serious doubt on its own claims about the anthrax attack

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:20:00 +0000

Ever since the FBI claimed (for a second time) that it had discovered in 2008 the identity of the anthrax attacker -- the recently-deceased-by-suicide Army researcher Bruce Ivins -- it was glaringly obvious, as I documented many times, that the case against him was exceedingly weak, unpersuasive and full of gaping logical, scientific, and evidentiary holes. So dubious are the FBI's claims that serious doubt has been raised and independent investigations demanded not by marginalized websites devoted to questioning all government claims, but rather, by the nation's most mainstream, establishment venues, ones that instinctively believe and defend such claims -- including the editorial pages of the nation's largest newspapers, leading scientific journals, the nation's preeminent science officials, and key politicians from both parties (led by those whose districts, or offices, were most affected by the attacks). To get a sense for the breadth and depth of the establishment skepticism about Ivins' guilt, just click on some of those links.

Murdoch now faces Parliamentary summons, FBI investigation

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Rupert Murdoch's month is not really getting much better. Murdoch had intended to ignore a request to appear before the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport regarding the News of the World phone-hacking, but the Guardian now says he and his son James have changed their minds after being served with a summons. So the Murdochs, along with Rebekah Brooks, head of News International and former editor of the Sun and News of the World, will answer questions at a hearing on July 19.

Maybe Murdoch just agreed to attend the hearing because he needs to get out of the States for a while: The FBI is now apparently investigating News Corp.. This is according to the Wall Street Journal, which is of course also owned by News Corp. The bureau is investigating at the urging of Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who got mad because 9/11:

When liberal groups promote corporate mergers

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 21:05:00 +0000

Politico reported Friday morning that a number of liberal advocacy groups lending support to AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile have "no obvious interest in telecom deals -- except that they’ve received big piles of AT&T’s cash."

"In recent weeks, the NAACP, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation [GLAAD] and the National Education Association have each issued public statements in support of the deal," Politico's Eliza Krigman wrote, noting that all these groups had received considerable sums from AT&T (the NAACP, for example received $1 million from the telecom giant in 2009).

A few questions certainly need addressing here: First, why would the opinions of advocacy groups matter in a large corporate merger? And second, do these advocacy groups have any credibility when the merger involves a company that has provided them with financial support?

In terms of the first question, Politico suggests that AT&T wants the groups involved because the merger approval process is inherently political:

Is American law enforcement colluding with Cisco?

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:01:00 +0000

As if we needed any more evidence that the United States is fast becoming a Corporate Police State (i.e., systematically deploying police power to protect narrow corporate interests), make sure to check out this jaw-dropping story that broke in Canada late Friday. It details how the British Columbia Supreme Court uncovered what it says is a massive collusion between computer giant Cisco and U.S. law enforcement -- a collusion that seems designed to use criminal prosecution to stop a whistle-blower's antitrust case against a powerful politically connected corporation.

The machinations in this case are complicated, but the basics go like this: Ex-Cisco exec Peter Alfred-Adekeye filed a whistle-blower suit against his former employer Cisco in civil court -- a suit that could compel the company to pay millions in damages for allegedly "forcing customers to buy maintenance contracts," according to the Vancouver Sun.

There is no rule of law in America

Tue, 31 May 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Is the Libyan war legal? Was Bin Laden's killing legal? Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination? Were those "enhanced interrogation techniques" legal? These are all questions raised in recent weeks. Each seems to call out for debate, for answers. Or does it?

Now, you couldn't call me a legal scholar. I've never set foot inside a law school, and in 66 years only made it onto a single jury (dismissed before trial when the civil suit was settled out of court). Still, I feel at least as capable as any constitutional law professor of answering such questions.

Obama cracks down on abuses by big-city police departments

Mon, 30 May 2011 20:01:00 +0000

In a marked shift from the Bush administration, President Obama's Justice Department is aggressively investigating several big urban police departments for systematic civil rights abuses such as harassment of racial minorities, false arrests, and excessive use of force.

In interviews, activists and attorneys on the ground in several cities where the DOJ has dispatched civil rights investigators welcomed the shift. To progressives disappointed by Eric Holder's Justice Department on key issues like the failure to investigate Bush-era torture and the prosecution of whistle-blowers, recent actions by the DOJ's Civil Rights Division are a bright spot.

In just the past few months, the Civil Rights Division has announced "pattern and practice" investigations in Newark, New Jersey and Seattle. It's also conducting a preliminary investigation of the Denver Police Department, and all this is on top of a high-profile push to reform the notorious New Orleans Police Department -- as well as criminal prosecutions of several New Orleans officers.

Federal indictment looms for John Edwards

Wed, 25 May 2011 13:40:00 +0000

ABC News is reporting that the Justice Department "has green-lighted the prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards for alleged violations of campaign laws while he tried to cover up an extra-marital affair." According to ABC:

A source close to the case said Edwards is aware that the government intends to seek an indictment and that the former senator from North Carolina is now considering his limited options. He could accept a plea bargain with prosecutors or face a potentially costly trial.

Two months ago, when some potentially incriminating voicemails emerged, Salon's Justin Elliott spoke to North Carolina journalist Steve Daniels, who explained some of the finer points of an indictment that was then hypothetical -- but now appears inevitable. Daniels told Salon:

Firm defending DOMA withdraws

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:45:00 +0000

Earlier this year, Barack Obama's Justice Department announced that it would not defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, because they had decided that Section 3 of the law is unconstitutional. With two separate challenges to the law pending in federal court and the government no longer defending it, the law's provision barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages could be struck down. In order to protect the sanctity of opposite-marriage, House Speaker John Boehner announced that the House of Representatives would defend the law in court. So it hired a fancy -- and pricey -- law firm. But today, the firm dropped the case.

King and Spalding released a statement announcing its decision: