Now because of ATF Senior Special Agent John Dodson Leahy is forced to work with Darrell Issa. But Leahy is more interested in cutting deals.
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee’s top Republican, Iowa's Charles Grassley. Grassley and his fellow Republicans were given full access to ATF documents, Melson, and other key witnesses; and in return, Grassley agreed to release three Obama administration nominees he had been blocking, according to correspondence obtained by NEWSWEEK and THE DAILY BEAST.
Grassley had been fighting to get full access for months. He finally got it with a letter Leahy wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting access for both his staff and Grassley’s investigators to the evidence and witnesses in the gun-sting investigation. In return, Grassley agreed to let proceed the nominations of Jim Cole to be deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco to be assistant attorney general for national security, and Virginia Seitz to be head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the letter shows.
1. Jim Cole - DOJ Left Wing: "I find it absolutely shocking that President Obama would appoint someone who has diminished the 9/11 terrorist attacks by comparing them to the drug trade and who believes that a civilian courtroom is the appropriate venue for 9/11 trials," King said in a written statement. "I strongly oppose the recess appointment of James Cole to lead the national security team at the Department of Justice."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/30/gop-fuming-recess-appointment-lawyer-compared-drug-trade/#ixzz1Ze0HIQlg
2. Lisa Monaco - DOJ Left Wing: DOJ Still Mum on Islamic Bank Settlement
by IPT News • Sep 22, 2011 at 10:22 am
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3194/doj-still-mum-on-islamic-bank-settlement
A senior Justice Department official on Wednesday offered no new information about a secret agreement reached last month with the Islamic Investment Company of the Gulf (IICG) despite repeated questions from a ranking senator.
As the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported Aug. 25, the settlement is worth more than $30 million and ends an investigation into IICG tax law violations that dates back to 2006. Court papers in a civil lawsuit in Texas claim IICG agreed to pay $37 million in three installments.
The IICG is connected to the Dar al-Maal al-Islami Trust (DMI), an Islamic financial institution founded by Saudi Prince Mohamed al-Faisal and which had at least two influential Muslim Brotherhood figures on its board.
The investigation into the IICG started in Boston with a domestic affiliate. The case was being handled by a prosecutor from the counter-terror section, although the settlement is believed to focus solely on tax evasion. The prosecutor, Corey Smith, wrote in January that "a settlement of the Criminal Case with [IICG] criminal counsel is likely in the very near future."
DOJ officials have refused to release the agreement or discuss it in any way. During a hearing on terror financing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco said she didn't know anything about the deal, which DOJ divisions investigated it or why it cannot be disclosed.
Monaco, who leads the National Security Division, promised to get answers for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, after Grassley asked a series of questions about the deal, called a non prosecution agreement. Grassley expressed frustration, since his questions were spelled out in a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder two weeks ago.
Such outcomes often are publicized, Grassley noted, wondering why that didn't happen here. "Would it be possible because the department got a bad deal and they're trying to hide it?" he asked.
"I'm not sure if it is in fact normal practice to disclose the terms of any particular settlement agreements in that regard," Monaco said.
If there is a national security element, Grassley said, that shouldn't prevent disclosure of its contents to the committee. "We have the capacity to review classified information," he said
Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3194/doj-still-mum-on-islamic-bank-settlement
3. Virginia Seitz -- Known For Affirmative Action Case.
Virginia Seitz described some of the difficulties women have had in establishing Supreme Court practices at law firms, recommending that young women wanting such a career start in the government to get the experience and credentials needed to succeed in private practice. She noted that she began her career in a small labor law firm where, like LDF, attorneys who litigated cases at trial were responsible for appeals as well. However, when cases went to the Supreme Court, more senior men at the firm always did the oral arguments.
ATF has acknowledged it knowingly allowed more than 1,700 weapons—most of them semiautomatic assault weapons like AK-47s—to be sold by cooperating U.S. gun dealers to suspected straw buyers for the Mexican cartels during a 15-month sting in Arizona known as Operation Fast and Furious. Melson is the highest-known official to date to acknowledge approving a strategy to build criminal cases against Mexican drug cartels by allowing assault weapons to flow from U.S. gun stores through straw buyers and across the border. Officials said his testimony is considered a key piece of evidence, and Grassley’s investigators plan to interview him by the middle or end of July.
The revelation of the botched sting has generated outrage in both the United States and Mexico. Nearly half the weapons were later recovered at crime scenes on both sides of the border, including two at the murder of U.S. border agent Brian Terry last December and more than 300 at Mexican crime scenes. In recent days, evidence has emerged in the investigations conducted by Grassley and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that the deputy attorney general’s office inside the Justice Department encouraged a new gun-fighting strategy in October 2009, just days before ATF started the Fast and Furious operation.
Holder, the attorney general, has denied knowing about the controversial ATF sting, which ran from November 2009 to February 2011, and he has ordered an internal investigation. President Obama has said he believes serious mistakes may have been made. Since the controversy erupted this spring, ATF and federal prosecutors have been ordered to stop all guns flowing to straw buyers. Frontline ATF agents have testified they strongly objected to the agency’s decision to “let guns walk,” meaning allowing straw buyers to buy guns with ATF’s knowledge and letting the weapons leave federal monitoring without being interdicted, the normal practice. Cooperating gun dealers also expressed concerns about the tactic.
Leahy as we both know has adjourned this inquiry right now okay with no plans to reconvene it. So your people were successful on that end.
Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—was brokered as part of a deal between Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee’s top Republican, Iowa's Charles Grassley.
Question: Why is Leahy trying to stonewall truth on a committe he is chairman of?
(Leahy as we both know has adjourned this inquiry right now okay with no plans to reconvene it. So your people were successful on that end.) What? Sounds like Leahy should now be investigated!
September 20, 2011 4:12 PM PrintText ATF 'Fast and Furious' secret audio recordings reveal concerns about whistleblower
By Sharyl Attkisson, Chris Scholl
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20108965-10391695.html
(Read text of the audio excerpts below.)
The gun dealer is Andre Howard, the agent is ATF Agent Hope MacAllister. Dealer: He's (Dodson) more toxic than you realize. I can tell you casue I asked him. How much of this f-----g file did you release?
Agent: Mmmhm
Dealer: He said basically the underlying case file. I said okay, who'd you release it to? F-----g Patrick Leahy! Ok? Wasn't just Grassley it was Leahy alright? Leahy as we both know has adjourned this inquiry right now okay with no plans to reconvene it. So your people were successful on that end.
Agent: Right.
Dealer: Obviously that's good. However these other idiots from
Agent: Yeah I saw that. The House?
Dealer: Yeah and that I don't know. What is troublesome with this I expected Darrell Issa's signature to be on this it wasn't. He's your biggest thorn, he hates Holder.
Agent: Yeah. Where's he out of?
Dealer: Darrell Issa?
Agent: Yeah.
Dealer: California.
Agent: California.
Dealer: Lamar Smith you know's out of Texas, I don't know. Holder has to respond to this tomorrow.
Agent: Yeah he's gonna respond.
Dealer: I know he is. And I can assure you the media isn't gonna like his response because basically it's gonna mirror what he's told Grassley.
Agent: Yeah.
Dealer: He can't deviate.
Agent: Well if, I mean I've seen a rough copy at least of what our US Attorney here has sent up. Whether or not he has the b---s to actually use it or not, I doubt it. But I mean it's pretty aggressive. Um. The way I see it our local US Attorney is extremely aggressive. When it gets to DC..
Dealer: Who Emory?
Agent: No...THE US Attorney.
Dealer: Burke, yeah, used to work under Clinton. Guy used to work under Clinton. Talking about Burke?
Agent: MMhmm.
Dealer: yeah well
Agent: But the problem is once it gets to dc it just gets... well you know
(unintell.)
Dealer: Discombobulated that's a good term for it yeah I get that.
Dealer: Let me tell you you got more people out there now talking about this f-----g thing than anything I've ever seen...(unintell.) ... they're not shutting the hell up
Agent: (unintell)
Dealer: and that goes from DHS to f-----g FBI to everybody...
Agent: Yeah.
Dealer: I'm hearing hypothetically on every fringe
Agent: Yeah.
Dealer: Thru third parties and I can assure you they're all like what the hell are they nuts?
EXCERPT 2
Dealer: But you have got to put the word out there to all the departments tell the f------g FBI shut the f--- up. (whispering)
Agent: FBI'S got their own problems, trust me.
Dealer: I know I hear.
Agent: They've got their own problems.
Dealer: Hypothetically.
Agent: If anybody's gonna get sued it's gonna be the FBI in my opinion.
EXCERPT 3
Dealer: What is it with the FBI they just have a h--- on for you guys or what?
Agent: The FBI's got their own problems. Like I said they're focusing on our problems they should probably turn it inward, cause they got their own problems right now.
Dealer: That ain't no lie.
Agent: So.. so hahaha.
EXCERPT 4
Dealer: What's Holders' office got to say about this?
Agent: Well like I said they're supposed to come out with little more um b----y statement than they have in the past, so...
Dealer: God they're (intell)
Agent: I mean at some point they're gonna say have to say Grassley you're just gonna have to sit your a-- down. I mean that or they're gonna have to (unintell). I mean like I said my understanding is he can't call a hearing. Somebody from the majority party has got to call a congressional hearing and as of right now...
Dealer: Patrick Leahy's an a----e, you know that. He gets ahold of something he's like a dog with a bone.
Agent: As of right now we don't have any info that's occurred. So...
Dealer: No, not now, but
Agent: I know there was a presentation given to Judiciary committee and everybody aside from Grassley is is satisfied. At least at this point.
Dealer: So they say you know I don't trust em...
Agent: No but I Mean that's all I've got...it's all (unintell.)
Political Uniformity and Legal Radicalism at Obama’s DOJ
Lachlan Markay
August 17, 2011 at 2:01 pm
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/17/political-uniformity-and-legal-radicalism-at-obamas-doj/
The resumes of the Obama administration’s hires at the Justice Department Civil Right Division’s Special Litigation Section read like a manual on professional advancement in the world of left wing legal practice. Every one of the 23 career civil service attorneys hired since Obama took office has stellar liberal credentials.
That ideological uniformity, writes the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, suggests that liberal politics are a “prerequisite for employment in the Division – there is no other explanation for this.”
The Special Litigation Section enforces civil rights laws on the state and municipal level, where there has been a “pattern or practice” of institutionalized discrimination. Very often that means prosecuting or otherwise acting against local and state police departments perceived as acting in a discriminatory fashion.
It is notable, then, that while numerous Obama hires at the Special Litigation Section have worked on behalf of criminal defendants or terrorist detainees, “not a single lawyer was hired with experience as a prosecutor or in law enforcement in a Section which has as one of its main jobs investigating the practices of local police.”
The Obama administration’s skewed approach in that regard suggests an extreme bias against the police departments investigated for alleged discriminatory practices.
Let’s review some of the highlights from the 23 attorneys’ backgrounds.
Some of the legal positions taken by various hires demonstrate their radically liberal approach to the law. They have argued at various times that:
•The law is “a social tool that can be used to advocate on behalf of minorities in our criminal justice system”;
•Convicted felons should enjoy voting rights;
•A municipal decision to open homeless shelters only during the winter violates the constitutional rights of the homeless;
•Racial discrimination affects prosecutors’ decisions to seek the death penalty;
•“[T]he enforcement of the drug laws tend to encourage racial profiling”;
•Detention of illegal immigrants is not lawful since they have not actually committed a crime.
Lawyers at the Special Litigation Section have cut their teeth at a host of left-wing legal organizations both prominent and obscure, including:
•The American Civil Liberties Union;
•The Southern Poverty Law Center;
•The Public Justice Center, whose mission is “to enforce and expand the rights of people who suffer injustice because of their poverty or discrimination”;
•The District of Columbia’s Prisoners’ Legal Services Project;
•The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, which supported the nomination of left-wing radical Goodwin Liu to the Supreme Court;
•Casa de Maryland, which, as von Spakovsky has documented, “has encouraged illegal aliens not to speak with police officers or immigration agents; it has fought restrictions on illegal aliens’ receiving driver’s licenses; it has urged the Montgomery County (Md.) Police Department not to enforce federal fugitive warrants; it has advocated giving illegal aliens in-state tuition; and it has actively promulgated “day labor” sites, where illegal aliens and disreputable employers openly skirt federal prohibitions on hiring undocumented individuals”;
•The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights, which bills itself as working “to spread understanding of liberal ideas and advance progressive values”;
•Junta for Progressive Action, which works to “forbid police from asking about the legal status of immigrants who are crime victims or turning over any such information to federal immigration authorities.”
In short, they are, on the whole, outright hostile to much of the work done by local and state police. Obama hires at the Section represent a radical and uniformly left-wing approach to civil rights law promoted by the Obama Justice Department.
This is a trend at a number of offices in the Justice Department. Information on the Special Litigation section was released as part of Pajamas Media’s ongoing investigation into politicization at DOJ, and only after a drawn out Freedom of Information Act legal battle with Justice.
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