Judge blasts DOJ lawyers

Good day all. I saw this story last week. A federal judge has let fly at several Department of Justice lawyers, all but accusing them of multiple criminal acts.

The judge, Francis Allegra, is a Clinton appointee and was handling a case brought by a former federal agent. Here are the details from Fox News:

A federal judge angrily accused Justice Department attorneys in newly unsealed documents of “fraud upon the court” by intimidating a witness in a case involving a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent who alleges the agency trashed his reputation.

I’m not a lawyer, (Thankfully), but from what I’ve heard, a judge accusing a lawyer of committing a fraud on the court is a pretty big thing. Now for the background on the case, that set off Judge Allegra.

Judge Francis Allegra, who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in 1998 by President Bill Clinton, is presiding over a suit brought by former ATF agent Jay Dobyns against the government agency, which he claims retaliated against him and damaged his reputation. Dobyns infiltrated Hell’s Angels and worked on cases involving the Aryan Brotherhood and MS-13 during his law enforcement career.

First, this agent has some real guts if he went undercover against the Hells Angels, MS-13 and the Aryan Brotherhood. These are not nice people, and at the very least, if the Aryan Brotherhood or MS-13 had discovered that Mr. Dobyns was a federal agent, the best he could hope for was a quick death. I’m vaguely aware of the case by Mr. Dobyns against the ATF, but haven’t looked at it in a very long time. To continue:

In a newly unsealed, Dec. 1, 2014, court ruling that legal experts said was highly unusual, Allegra accused seven Justice Department lawyers of “fraud upon the court, banned them from making any further filings in the case and took the unusual step of directly notifying Attorney General Eric Holder.

Well, notifying Eric Holder would be a complete waste of time, since he’s currently in Contempt of Congress. Still, the Judge has to go by the book when dropping this bomb on the DOJ. And what was in this document from Judge Allegra?

“In 40 years of legal practice, government and private, I’ve never seen that done,” said David Hardy, a constitutional law expert who formerly worked in the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office. Allegra said the government attorneys may have intimidated a witness and charged that seven of them may have kept illegal behavior secret from the court.

Now THAT is a real Bozo No No. It’s sad that this is generally how government lawyers usually operate these days. Especially at the federal level. The case brought by Dobyns concerns what happened after his undercover work was done. Obviously, he is at continued risk from these animals he infiltrated, so he was expecting to be protected by the ATF. Apparently, that’s not what happened.

The controversy began after someone burned down the home of Dobyns. Dobyns claimed the ATF failed to protect his family, but the agency claimed Dobyns burned down his own home, a charge he denied. Dobyns then sued the ATF in U.S. Federal Claims Court for damaging his reputation and retaliation.

Gee whiz batman, how would believe that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would do such a thing? Pretty much everyone of course. The reputation of the BATFE is poor at the best of times.

That’s when Justice Department lawyers got involved. In the ruling from last month, Allegra found a key witness in the trial said he was threatened by another ATF agent – and that ATF lawyers told the threatened agent not to tell the judge about it.

Uh oh! Trouble! That is something a lawyer is absolutely not supposed to do.

“[ATF lawyers] ordered the agent in question not to communicate the threat to the court and stated that there would be repercussions if the agent did not follow counsel’s instructions,” Judge Allegra said in his ruling.

The judge also noted that a tape recording indicates that multiple DOJ lawyers knew about misconduct and did not inform the judge.

A recording? Someone made a recording of the incident? I do believe this is what is referred to as “Evidence” and pretty damning evidence apparently.

“It’s a huge issue. Look, a lawyer’s stock and trade is his or her integrity, and to have a situation where a federal judge is basically questioning your candor with your court — it’s exceedingly serious,” Thomas Dupree, a partner at the prestigious law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and a former DOJ official from 2007 to 2009, told FoxNews.com.

Gee, ya think? Of course this is a serious issue, but not at all surprising coming from the Holder Justice Department. So what else did these idiots do?

When Tom Atteberry, new ATF Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, tried to reopen Dobyns’ arson case, Justice Department attorney Valerie Baker told him not to because it would damage her defense against Dobyns.

And the fraud goes on. Judge Allegra sent the evidence of wrong doing by the DOJ lawyers to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility. It’s their job to look into unethical and criminal behavior by DOJ lawyers. They opened an investigation, but, as you might expect, it didn’t get very far.

Legal filings show that the agency soon suspended its investigation, saying it would wait to hear what Judge Allegra finds.

That doesn’t sound right. The two investigations are entirely separate. In fact, the OPR would seem to be the one to lead the investigations, since they have more resources available to them than Judge Allegra. Hmm.

Dobyns’ lawyer said that seemed odd given that Judge Allegra had specifically asked DOJ to investigate. “He asked OPR to investigate these matters,” James Reed, Dobyns’ attorney, told FoxNews.com. “In nearly a quarter-century practicing law I’ve never come close to seeing anything like this,” he said.

I don’t know why this should surprise you Mr. Reed. The DOJ has been doing things like this for a very long time. Eric Holder is actually the tip of a very large iceberg in this regard. Back in 2008, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was indicted, tried and convicted, destroying his reelection bid and handing his seat to the Democrats for 6 years. His verdict was set aside when it came out that the DOJ lawyers had hidden exculpatory evidence from Ted Stevens defense lawyers. In a story by ABC News back in 2012:

A court-appointed special prosecutor has determined that serious misconduct by Justice Department prosecutors tainted the federal investigation and trial of former Sen. Ted Stevens, according to a report released Thursday.

“The investigation and prosecution of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’s defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness,” the report noted.

As I recall, the verdict was set aside by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan who presided over this case at the request of the new Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. (Must have caught Holder on a bad day or something) That case was brought by DOJ lawyers for the sole purpose of keeping Senator Stevens from being reelected to the United States Senate. As you might expect, the lawyers in question weren’t disbarred or criminally charged.

The problems with the Department of Justice are long term and systemic. There are a large number of DOJ lawyers who are ethical and law abiding, the problem is that there are far to many who want to use the Justice system for their own political purposes. This has crossed party lines, but usually would be stopped either by honest lawyers in the DOJ, the Attorney general or by congressional oversight.

Today, we have a crook for an AG, power mad Jack McCoy wannabes and a congress made up of squishes, weasels and slimeballs. The Department of Justice has reached the point where I don’t believe it can be repaired, reformed or cleaned up. It needs to be gutted entirely and rebuilt from the ground up. This means that a number of decent, hard working lawyers will be thrown out with the rotten apples, but the need to restore trust in the DOJ precludes keeping anyone associated with that agency in the government, no matter how honest they are.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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