In a much-needed move, a bipartisan group of Senators including Charles Grassley and Lisa Murkowski have proposed legislation to create a watchdog to review allegations of prosecutorial misconduct by the Department of Justice.  Based on the recent alarming report by the Project on Government Oversight, there have been hundreds of prosecutors who have intentionally violated legal and ethical rules, with no accountability or sanctions, and still work at the Department. We can vouch for a number of them. Virtually all have been swept under the rug.

Carrie Johnson with NPR has published an article from which we drew the following quote:

A new report from the Project on Government Oversight documents 650 ethics infractions including recklessness and misconduct by Justice Department lawyers over the past decade or so.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester cited those findings to introduce legislation Thursday that would require an independent watchdog to investigate those breaches. Under current practice, ethics investigations at the Justice Department are conducted by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal unit that reports up through the Attorney General and has been derided for its secrecy.

“Current law invites undue influence from the Attorney General’s office into the process Click here to read more »

A gruesome suicide, a likely murder, a tragic and needless plane crash, wrongful imprisonment, and gripping courtroom scenes draw readers into this compelling story, giving them a frightening perspective on justice corrupted and who should be accountable when evidence is withheld.

Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice is the true story of the strong-arm, illegal, and unethical tactics used by headline-grabbing federal prosecutors in their narcissistic pursuit of power. Its scope reaches from the US Department of Justice to the US Senate, the FBI, and the White House. This true story is a scathing attack on corrupt prosecutors, the judges who turned a blind eye to these injustices, and the president who has promoted them to powerful political positions.

In a compelling Foreword written by Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski in his personal capacity, he notes the importance of this issue, and as did the Washington Post recently, urges a national discussion of the issue.

The book will be out soon.  You may pre-order at www.LicensedToLie.com. Pre-orders will be autographed by the author and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Constitution Project, NACDL, The Texas Equal Access to Justice Campaign, and Pisgah Legal Services.

Former Enron Task Force Director-turned General Counsel to the FBI-quietly left the FBI in October 2013. Remarkably, he has gone to teach at NYU.

We should all be concerned about what Weissmann might “teach” his students.

The NY Bar swept an ethical grievance aside-actually punting it to the Department of Justice to decide-even though the Department was defending Weissmann on those charges.

Prosecutorial misconduct infected every case with which he was involved while on the Enron Task Force.  First, he and DOJ Criminal Division Nominee Leslie Caldwell annihilated Arthur Andersen, destroying 85,000 jobs, only to be reversed by the Supreme Court 9-0 because Andersen’s conduct wasn’t criminal.  Then Weissmann oversaw the Merrill Lynch prosecution where his Task Force cronies including now White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler “plainly suppressed” evidence that was favorable to the defense while four innocent men went to prison.   Weissmann resigned from the Task Force amid serious allegations of prosecutorial misconduct by the Enron Broadband trial prosecutors.

Now he’s teaching law students? ? ? At least we can all be grateful that he is not directing the investigations, evidentiary decisions,email collection, and prosecution plans for the FBI any longer-or helping collect and handle NSA’s massive data on each of us.

The BLT: Blog of LegalTimes reported today that ethics complaints are on the rise against lawyers in D.C.

The Office of Bar Counsel is on track to receive more attorney ethics complaints in 2013 than it did in 2012, especially related to criminal cases.

According to the latest bar counsel statistics, the office received 1,090 complaints as of Nov. 13, up from 1,021 complaints received by the same time in 2012. There were a total of 1,081 complaints received by bar counsel in 2012.

Remarkably, the D.C. Bar doesn’t know the reason for the increase.

We can help them with that.

Deputy Bar Counsel Elizabeth Herman does admit that most of the increase is from criminal cases. Perhaps she and her colleagues should take seriously, actually investigate, and take action on complaints against federal prosecutors for Brady violations and other misconduct-including current White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler from her days on the Enron Task Force. The D.C. Bar seems to have lost the grievance filed against Ruemmler somewhere in its political airspace.

If the Bar disciplined prosecutors for Brady violations, it would help put a stop to many injustices while better serving the Bar, the courts, and the public.

Stay tuned to this blog for more information on this topic.

White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler has announced that she is leaving her post to return to “private practice” at the end of 2013.  Ruemmler barely escaped from the IRS scandal during which she said she failed to inform the President that IRS was targeting political adversaries.

Meanwhile, the DC Bar is still holding and apparently trying to ignore ethics charges filed against her by leading legal ethics expert Bill Hodes and this author after the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that Ruemmler and her Enron Task Force colleagues “plainly suppressed” evidence favorable to the defense. Indeed, they hid the evidence for years, while four Merrill Lynch executives spent up to a year in prison for a “crime” that these creative prosecutors manufactured.

Ruemmler, and her Enron Task Force colleague Matthew Friedrich, former Acting Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice,

even told the district court and the Fifth Circuit that there was “no substantial issue for appeal” and vehemently opposed bail pending appeal for the defendants. At the same time, they hid evidence from key witnesses including favorable, exculpatory, and material statements that they had yellow-highlighted before trial, and still concealed from the defense-despite a court order to provide presumably accurate summaries of that evidence.

They provided carefully crafted misleading “summaries” instead, and they did all of this under the watchful eye and tutelage of our current General Counsel/Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew Weissmann, who was Director of the Enron Task Force at the time of several trials infected with misconduct, including the Enron Broadband debacle in which Lisa Monaco was one of the trial prosecutors.

Friedrich enjoyed a meteoric rise within the Department of Justice, and as acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, rushed the indictment of former United States Senator Ted Stevens. Then Friedrich micromanaged that prosecution until it blew up amid allegations and evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and hiding evidence that supported the Senator’s defense. There is more than enough evidence against Friedrich-in the report on the Stevens prosecution by Special Prosecutor Hank Scheulke-that Friedrich should have been investigated, at the very least, by a state bar or federal court.

Now, at the same time we learn that Ruemmler is leaving the White House, before more of her misdeeds are exposed, Mr. Obama announces that he is nominating former Enron Task Force Director Leslie Caldwell Click here to read more »

Today’s BLOG of the Legal Times reports yet another failure by a Bar Association to hold a federal prosecutor properly accountable for falling far below the ethical standards applicable to those who wield the extraordinary power to indict, convict, and imprison others.   Despite a judge’s findings that Assistant United States Attorney Steven Snyder had a “history of repeated, blatant Brady violations” in a related case, Snyder received only

an informal admonition from the D.C. Office of Bar Counsel. He was accused of making false statements to a judge in the early stages of a group of murder and obstruction of justice prosecutions. It’s an outcome one defense lawyer involved in the cases called “ludicrous,” given a judge’s earlier findings that Snyder committed other serious ethics violations.

Bar counsel found Snyder violated the rules of professional responsibility by telling a judge he didn’t know of any psychiatric conditions related to a key government witness. In fact, bar counsel said, Snyder hadn’t searched the witness’ juvenile records, which he knew existed, and was aware of other information about the witness’ mental health. An informal admonition is the lightest form of discipline available.

Those earlier findings of serious ethical violations in the related case were not even mentioned by Bar Counsel, Gene Shipp. Click here to read more »

Ironic that we are just now getting a call from a prominent Democratic crisis manager for White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler to resign.  He bases it on reports of her prior knowledge of the IRS’s discriminatory and politicized harassment of conservative groups at the same time he touts her “impeccable legal credentials.”

Lanny Davis obviously knows nothing of-or like many others, simply chose to ignore-the unethical and corrupt practices Ruemmler employed while on the Enron Task Force along with former Acting Attorney General Matthew Friedrich (who later micromanaged the corrupt prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens), and with now Deputy Director/head legal Counsel for the FBI Andrew Weissmann.

In fact, every case the Enron Task Force prosecutors actually took to trial was reversed in whole or in part for some form of their overreaching, illegal or unethical tactics.

Our question is:  “Why is she in the White House in the first place?’  . . . . Unless, . . . obviously, this is the kind of  “talent” this President wants, and, apparently it was . . .  and, worse, it still is.

In a statement published in the Huffington Post in 2011 when she was appointed, Obama praised Ruemmler as “an outstanding lawyer with impeccable judgment. . . .”

In the same 2011 article, former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick said Ruemmler; “brings several strengths to the post, namely that she already knows the ‘traditions and values’ of the administration as well as the people there. In addition, Gorelick said, Ruemmler is someone who  ‘can be forceful when she needs to.'”

Really, where is the surprise that Ruemmler would condone or cover-up the IRS’s malevolent tactics?   No one has even acknowledged that Ruemmler has long had a serious grievance pending against her in front of the DC Disciplinary Authority-one that the DC Bar has had for 10 months, is still under active consideration, and could result in her suspension or disbarment Click here to read more »

Serious ethical charges against FBI Deputy Director Andrew Weissmann are pending before the First Judicial Department Disciplinary Committee in New York.  The charges arise from his role in hiding evidence favorable to the defense when he was a federal prosecutor leading the Enron Task Force. The Department of Justice is handling his defense.

According to the DOJ, there was no violation of the rules of ethics, even if Weissmann “plainly suppressed” evidence favorable to the defense—as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Enron Task Force did. Mr. Weissmann, who also serves as General Counsel to the FBI, has pitched his entire ethics defense on the claim that the Rules of Professional Conduct require prosecutors to disclose to the defense team only information that is both favorable and “material.”   Click here to read more »

It has been well publicized that just as Michael Morton has finally achieved exoneration after 25 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit, the prosecutor in his case, Ken Anderson, is faces the possibility of jail time of his own for tampering with evidence and refusing to obey court orders to turn over evidence favorable to the defense.

One would think that the State Bar of Texas would now take seriously well-documented charges filed by well-respected attorneys that prosecutors suppressed evidence.

BUT NO!  The Texas State Bar has summarily dismissed, without any investigation, serious ethical charges lodged against former Enron Task Force (ETF) prosecutor Matthew Friedrich for similar prosecutorial misconduct.

In a part of the Enron prosecutions known as “The Nigerian Barge Transaction,” Matthew Friedrich and his colleagues on the ETF prosecuted four Merrill Lynch executives in Houston federal court in 2004, alleging that they had assisted Enron in putting together a “parking” or loan transaction that was faked to look like a sale. The prosecutors actually yellow-highlighted the transcript of testimony they knew was favorable to the defense, but when the court ordered the ETF to turn over summaries of the favorable evidence to the defense team, Friedrich and the other prosecutors instead turned over bogus summaries Click here to read more »