Federal judge all but nukes the DOJ

Good day all. With the announcement that Eric Holder is resigning as Attorney General of the United States, there have been many people blasting how he has so politicized the Justice Department, that no one trusts them any longer.

To that list of people you can add one federal court judge. He found out about some very corrupt practices by the DOJ lawyers that he has ordered the recusal of every federal judge in the Eastern District of California. Here are the details from the New York Observer:

In perhaps the most stunning documentation yet of abuses by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, two former Assistant United States Attorneys spoke to defense attorneys and revealed appalling deceit and corruption of justice. This latest litigation time bomb has exploded from multi-million dollar litigation originally brought by the Department of Justice against Sierra Pacific based on allegations that the lumber company and related defendants were responsible for a wildfire that destroyed 65,000 acres in California.

In what was dubbed the “Moonlight Fire” case, the tables are now turned. The defendants have discovered new evidence and filed a stunning motion. The new evidence and disclosures are being taken seriously by the Chief Judge of the Eastern District of California—as they should be. In a shocking action, Judge Morrison C. England Jr. ordered the recusal of every federal judge in the Eastern District of California.

Now I am not a lawyer, but when a judge tells every lower level judge to step aside, then there is something major going on here.

In an extraordinary development, Judge England, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, ordered the recusal of all the Eastern District judges from the case because of serious allegations that the Court itself was defrauded by the government in the original prosecution.

Defrauding the court? Lawyers from the United States Department of Justice? A group of people who should be above reproach?

To avoid any appearance of partiality, he has referred the case to Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski to appoint a judge from outside the Eastern District to handle the case going forward.

I looked up Judge England on Wikipedia. There isn’t a lot there, other then he was appointed to the federal bench by George W. Bush. Oh yes. It appears that he’s of recent African decent too. I’m sure that the Progressive Liberals will start foaming at the mouth and accuse him of being a racist…Um Huh?

Judge Kozinski has excoriated prosecutors for failing to meet their legal and ethical obligations.

Gee, like this is the first time that Federal prosecutors have tried to rig a case. Not! Now the case in question, referred to as the Moonlight wildfire, revolves around who was responsible for a forest fire that burned some 65,000 acres of forest. According to the Sacramento Bee:

The allegations are contained in hundreds of pages of documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento seeking to wipe out a 2012 settlement calling for timber giant Sierra Pacific Industries to pay the federal government $47 million and deed it 22,500 acres of its land to compensate for the devastation of more than 40,000 acres in two national forests in Plumas and Lassen counties, as well as the U.S. Forest Service’s firefighting costs.

So, it looks like we have another federal land grab here. They saw a company with money, not to mention some choice property, and decided to go after them. They didn’t even wait for the fire to be put out.

Even as the fire was in its early stages, federal and state investigators decided that Sierra Pacific was responsible for the blaze. They concluded it was started on Labor Day 2007 by sparks from the blade of a bulldozer hitting a rock. An employee of the logging company working in the area for Sierra Pacific was operating the bulldozer.

Now that sounds rather odd. Yes, sparks could have come from the bulldozer, but the driver would have noticed the problem right away. I suspect he would have called for help and tried to put the fire out. At the very least he would have called it in. This is why the company fought the case so hard.

Sierra Pacific, the state’s largest private landowner, has heatedly denied responsibility for the fire and fought the government’s 2009 civil lawsuit for three years before agreeing to a settlement after U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller made a critical ruling against the Shasta County-based company.

I looked up Judge Mueller. She was appointed to the bench by our old friend, Barack Obama. That right there will make people wonder, although I can’t see here risking her position by rigging a case. And according to Judge England, she didn’t have to. The Department of Justice did all the work and gift wrapped the whole thing for her, and hopefully, without her knowledge.

It appears that the case detonated against the DOJ when the original Lead Attorney, E. Robert Wright, was bounced from the case because he had some serious ethical questions on it.

One of the documents Sierra Pacific filed is a declaration from a veteran former assistant U.S. attorney, who says he was forced to give up his position as the government’s lead lawyer in the Moonlight case, apparently because he rebuffed pressure from a superior to “engage in unethical conduct as a lawyer.”

The declaration from E. Robert Wright says he was bounced out of the case by his boss, David Shelledy, chief of the civil division in the U.S. attorney’s office, and replaced by a prosecutor with no previous experience in wildland fire recovery cases.

Read the full story on the Sacramento Bee. The documents found by Sierra Pacific on what the DOJ was doing are damning to say the least. And Mr. Wright wasn’t the only lawyer to have an issue with this case. According to the New York Observer:

The Sacramento Bee reported on the Defendant’s filing. Indeed, the Defendants’ motion informs us that a former Assistant United States Attorney came forward and disclosed that he believes that he was removed from the original prosecution by “his boss, David Shelledy, chief of the civil division in the United States Attorney’s office,” because he “rebuffed” pressure to “engage in unethical conduct as a lawyer.” Of course, like other former prosecutors who were unethical, Mr. Shelledy is to receive Attorney General Holder’s highest award for excellence—this week.

The defendants also reveal that another former federal prosecutor, Eric Overby, left the Moonlight Fire prosecution team also, stating: “It’s called the Department of Justice. It’s not called the Department of Revenue.” According to the motion, Mr. Overby told defense counsel that in his entire career, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Never.”

This is just standard operating procedure for the Holder Department of Justice. The corruption is the worst it’s been since the Nixon administration. In fact, the level of corruption might actually surpass Nixon’s DOJ. With Holder leaving, Obama has a chance to appoint someone who can come in and clean house. That will mean not only firing a number of lawyers, but also seeking disbarment and in a few cases, criminal prosecution. Of course, since this IS Obama, we know he will appoint another corrupt minion who will just keep on abusing the rights of American citizens and businesses.

With the new information that has come out in the Sierra Pacific case, Judge England made the right decision. I suspect that a new hearing will be ordered, the original judgment/agreement vacated and when the hearing is done, Sierra Pacific and the other landowners cleared completely. Then I expect the next case will be Sierra Pacific and the others suing the pants off the federal government. I expect they will win too.

Hats off to Judge England for making a tough decision. Now we can all hope that more documents will be found indicating that Eric Holder knew all about the problems with this case and pushed it forward with no regard to the law, Constitution or justice.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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