The Senate passed legislation Saturday night that would create a new section within the Justice Department Criminal Division to handle human rights crimes.

The Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009, which was approved by unanimous consent, would lay the groundwork to merge the Office of Special Investigations and the Domestic Security Section into the new section. The Office of Special Investigations — which was created to probe Nazi criminals living in the United States — handles U.S. citizens who committed human rights crimes. The Domestic Security Section focuses on non-U.S. citizens who violated human rights laws and who are now in the United States.

The new section would prosecute torture, genocide, child soldiers and war crimes that are committed by any person who is in the United States. Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer said last month that he supports the establishment of a human rights section. Read our previous report here.

The bill is sponsored by Democrat Richard Durbin of Illinois and Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who are the chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the Senate Judiciary panel’s Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee. There is no companion House bill.

This post has been corrected from an earlier version.

Mary L. Smith (Schoeman, Updike & Kaufman)

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) last week reiterated his support for the stalled nomination of Mary L. Smith as the head of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, saying that she was fully qualified for the post. Durbin on Wednesday gave a floor speech about the delay, caused by a “hold” on Senate floor action by anonymous Republicans.

Smith, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee June 11 without the support of the panel’s Republican members. The Republicans complained that Smith, a partner at the Schoeman, Updike & Kaufman law firm in Chicago, had virtually no tax experience.

The senior senator from Smith’s home state described her as “a highly qualified nominee,” even though she “is not a traditional tax lawyer.” Durbin touted her experience working on tax law and tax policy issues, adding that “Judiciary Republicans are grasping at straws with [the] allegation” that she is unqualified to head the Tax Division.

Durbin’s speech on Smith came Nov. 18 during Senate floor debate on the nomination of Judge David Hamilton to the Seventh Circuit Court.

The full text of Durbin’s statement is below:

Madam President, I would also like to discuss another nominee whom the Republicans have been stalling: Mary L. Smith. She is President Obama’s nominee to be the Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division at the Justice Department. Mary is from my home State of Illinois, and Senate Republicans have been holding up her nomination for over 5 months.

Mary Smith is a highly qualified nominee who has had a distinguished 18-year legal career. After graduating from the University of Chicago law school, she clerked for a prestigious Federal judge and then litigated at a large Chicago law firm. She then worked as a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Division and as a lawyer in the Clinton White House.

Mary returned to private practice and joined the international law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where she focused on business litigation. After 4 years at Skadden, she went to work at Tyco International, where she managed what has been called the most complex securities class action litigation in history.

Mary has also been deeply devoted to pro bono work and public service, which really tells the story of a lawyer’s dedication to the profession. She serves on many bar association boards including the Chicago Bar Foundation, which helps provide free legal services to low-income and disadvantaged individuals.

Mary Smith is not only a highly qualified nominee, she is a historic nominee. Mary is a member of the Cherokee Nation and, if confirmed, she would be the first Native American to hold the rank of Assistant Attorney General in the 140-year history of the Justice Department. She would be the highest ranking Native American in DOJ history.

I was sorry to see that when we took up Mary Smith’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Republican members voted against her. They alleged she was unqualified for the job because she doesn’t have as much tax law experience as other recent Tax Division nominees.

The Judiciary Republicans are grasping at straws with this allegation. First of all, it is an inherently subjective determination. There is no record of how much time Mary Smith has spent working on tax issues compared with previous nominees.

It is true Mary is not a traditional tax lawyer, but she has worked on tax law and tax policy issues throughout her career. During the years she worked at Tyco International, she worked closely with that company’s tax department on responding to IRS subpoenas and assessing the complex tax implications of the $3 billion settlement of the Tyco securities litigation.

When she served in the Clinton White House she worked with congressional offices, the Treasury Department, and the National Economic Council to address tax disparities between Indian tribes and State governments.

And more recently, she served on President Obama’s Justice Department transition team, and she helped review and analyze the Tax Division, the very office she has been nominated to lead.

The second reason the Republican allegation about Mary Smith’s qualifications is off base is because Mary has more litigation, management, and Justice Department experience than previous Tax Division nominees. Those are critical qualifications to lead the Tax Division. In this respect, Mary Smith is more qualified than her predecessors.

Mary is a seasoned litigator who has had multiple trials and courtroom experience. The head of the Tax Division needs first and foremost to be a person with litigation experience, and Mary Smith fits the bill. She has been a litigator in the Justice Department, in two large law firms, and in one of the largest corporations in the country. Two of the recent Tax Division leaders–whom the Judiciary Republicans hold up as models of what it takes to lead that office–had no litigation experience and never had a single trial.

Mary is also more qualified than some of her predecessors when it comes to management experience. The Tax Division is an office with over 350 attorneys. When she worked on the Tyco litigation, Mary managed over 100 lawyers and a $50 million budget. She managed large litigation teams while working at the Skadden Arps law firm. And during her service in the White House, she helped manage and coordinate the work of multiple Federal agencies. None of the other recent Tax Division nominees had as much management experience as Mary Smith, a fact that has little value to the Judiciary Republicans who voted against her.

Mary also has more Justice Department experience than her recent predecessors. She worked in the DOJ Civil Division as a trial attorney, and she was a key member of President Obama’s DOJ review team last winter. She understands the Justice Department as an institution, and the perspective of the DOJ career staff.

In short, Mary has an excellent background to lead the Tax Division. She has litigation experience, management experience, DOJ experience, and tax experience. None of the previous heads of that office had all of these qualifications combined.

One of those prior Tax Division leaders, Nathan Hochman, has come forward in support of Mary Smith’s nomination. Mr. Hochman was the head of the Tax Division under President George W. Bush, so he’s not exactly a partisan Democrat. Mr. Hochman wrote a letter to the Senate and said the following:

I am confident Mary will provide strong leadership for the [Tax] Division and is a good choice. ….. Mary’s private practice experience in complex financial litigation gives her a working background for the type of cases litigated by the [Tax] Division.

I would suggest that President Bush’s Tax Division leader has a better understanding of what it takes to lead the Tax Division than a handful of Senators.

Ted Olson is another prominent Republican who supports Mary Smith for this position. Mr. Olson is one of the most respected lawyers in America and he served as the Solicitor General at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. He worked closely with the Tax Division and represented that office in cases before the Supreme Court.

Ted Olson wrote a letter to the Senate and called Mary Smith “a first-rate litigator” and “a fine choice to be this nation’s Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division.”

The Senate has received dozens of other letters of support for Mary Smith, including many from our Nation’s leading Native American leaders. They are eager for the Senate to confirm Mary so she can become the highest ranking Native American in the history of the Justice Department.

The month of November is National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. We would honor our Native American community by confirming Mary Smith this month.

I urge my Republican colleagues to stop blocking this important nomination and agree to a vote on my Illinois constituent, Mary Smith.

The son of a criminal defendant allegedly threatened to kill, and then punched, a Maryland Assistant U.S. Attorney last week during a sentencing hearing for the defendant’s mother at the Greenbelt, Md., federal courthouse, according to court documents.

Raymond V. Jones allegedly called AUSA James Crowell a “coward” and “mother f_cker” and then threatened to kill the prosecutor, before he jumped over the barrier dividing the gallery and the courtroom well and hit Crowell in the head on Nov. 16, according to court documents. Crowell’s head was swollen after the alleged attack, the court records said.

Jones was charged with assaulting a federal officer. He could spend as much as a year in prison and face a fine of up to $100,000. He was released to his grandmother’s custody, according to a court order.

Read the criminal complaint here and a court motion, which describes the alleged attack in greater detail, here.

Jennifer McCall, Jones’ mother, was sentenced to 12 1/2 years and ordered to pay almost $17 million for her role in a mortgage fraud scheme, according to court documents. Before her son allegedly made his threats, McCall yelled out that the court proceedings against her were “disgusting” and “nasty,” and then accused Crowell of lying, the court records said.

A spokesperson for the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

The Washington Examiner first reported on the story here.

This post has been updated from an earlier version.

Paul Martin, a veteran of the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, was confirmed as NASA’s top watchdog on Friday.

Martin, who was approved by voice vote, joined the Justice Department in 1998, as Special Counsel to the Inspector General. In 2001, Martin became Counselor to the IG. He’s served as Deputy in the office since 2003.

Prior to his work at OIG, he spent 13 years at the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an agency he helped establish. He served in various roles, including Deputy Staff Director.

Martin (Penn State, Georgetown Law), began his career as an investigative reporter at The Greenville News in Greenville, S.C.

NASA has been without a Senate-confirmed inspector general for more than six months.

John Ashcroft (USDOJ)

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Friday that trials for the Sept. 11, 2001, plotters could endanger the public and give anti-U.S. elements a public stage to voice their rhetoric, according to the Associated Press.

“If your top priority is the liberty and life of American citizens and the security of their lives and liberty, then this decision is less than optimal,” he told reporters at a Kansas fundraiser for Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s campaign for U.S. Senate. ”I believe we are still in a very significant war on terror. The administration doesn’t appear to believe that we are in a war on terror.”

Last Wednesday, Ashcroft said that Holder technically  lacks the legal standing to move alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other detainees to federal courts in New York City to stand trial.

“The attorney general doesn’t have the authority to mandate that the secretary of Defense turn somebody over to him and yield jurisdiction so that something that would have been done in a military setting is done in a civilian setting,” Ashcroft told the Chris Stigall show on KCMO radio, according to the Hill.

Notwithstanding Ashcroft’s views, the trials will be held in New York City; Holder made his decision in consultation with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, according to the Justice Department

Ashcroft, who was Attorney General from 2001-2005, joins former Attorneys General Ed Meese and Michael B. Mukasey in criticizing Holder’s decision to give the Sept. 11 plotters civilian trials.

The Senate confirmed three Justice Department officials by unanimous consent Saturday night.

They are:

Kenyen Brown (Main Justice file photo)

-Kenyen Brown (Southern District of Alabama): The House Ethics Committee staffer and former Southern District of Alabama Assistant U.S. Attorney was nominated Aug. 6. Brown would succeed Deborah Rhodes, who resigned April 17. Read more about the nominee here.

Stephanie Rose

-Stephanie Rose (Northern District of Iowa): The Northern District of Iowa Assistant U.S. Attorney was nominated Sept. 25. She would succeed Matt Dummermuth, a Bush U.S. Attorney who never won Senate confirmation. Immigration lawyers and immigrant rights advocates have questioned Rose’s role in a controversial round-up of 300 undocumented immigrants working at a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, last year. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said in May that Rose didn’t take part in the decision to prosecute the immigrant workers. Read more about Rose here.

Nick Klinefeldt (Ahlers & Cooney)

-Nick Klinefeldt (Southern District of Iowa): The Des Moines lawyer was nominated Sept. 25. He would replace Matthew G. Whitaker, who has served as U.S. Attorney since 2004. We previously reported that the lawyer has been able to rise above the past of his father, Michael Arthur Klinefeldt, who is serving a 10-year sentence on a methamphetamine conviction. Read more about Klinefeldt here.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden were slated to attend the investiture of Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride on Friday. But unavoidable circumstances kept one official home and made another late.

Chris MacBride (right) holds the bible for her husband, U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride, at his swearing in ceremony. (DOJ)

Ogden, who was supposed to give remarks at the ceremony, was unable to attend due to illness, Eastern District First Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Boente told about 100 Justice Department officials, judges, family members and friends gathered at the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse in Alexandria, Va.

Holder made it, but he arrived late because he was coming from a funeral.

“I know most of you came to hear the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, but it is 2:13 and I’m up,” said MacBride, after some reshuffling in the program brought him up to the podium to deliver his remarks.

Then, as if on cue, the Attorney General came into the courtroom as MacBride discussed what he’s learned from Holder, who once worked with MacBride in the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s office.

Holder, a former D.C. U.S. Attorney, said MacBride is a friend, who has “intelligence, diligence and integrity.”

“Wherever he has served, he has served well and with distinction,” said Holder, who has named MacBride to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys. “I know this because I hired Neil.”

Eastern District Court Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr. recalled being a reference for MacBride, a former Eastern District Court clerk. Morgan said he was reluctant to give up MacBride to Holder.

“I started to wonder if the whole, unvarnished truth would be the best option,” Morgan said at the ceremony. He added: “I soon discovered truth was the only option because I was being examined by the head of the office, Eric Holder.”

MacBride, who is the first clerk from the Eastern District to become U.S. Attorney, recalled one of his more embarrassing days in Morgan’s courtroom 17 years ago.

As a clerk, he had to start court proceedings by saying, “All rise. Oyez, oyez, oyez, all manner of persons having any matter to present before … judges in the United States District Court in and for the Eastern District of Virginia may at present appear and they shall be heard. God save the United States and this honorable court. Court is now in session, please be seated.”

But the last time he was in the Alexandria courthouse, MacBride forgot his notes and was only able to get out “All rise. Oyez, oyez, oyez.” before his mind went blank, he recalled. To keep things moving, he then said, “Sit down and be quiet.”

“The pressure is really off for me,” MacBride said during his remarks today. “I can’t go downhill from there.”

MacBride, who was confirmed in September, said he will focus on fighting terrorism and protecting national security as U.S. Attorney.

Although the EDVA lost out to the Southern District of New York in internal DOJ jockeying for the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial, MacBride said he was honored to have prosecutors from the Eastern District assist their counterparts in Manhattan in the prosecution of the alleged 9/11 attacks mastermind and four other suspected terrorists in New York.

“I will work hard everyday to continue the tremendous legacy of the Eastern District of Virginia in every way I can,” MacBride said.

Holder has now attended four U.S. Attorney investitures including ceremonies for Joyce Vance in the Northern District of Alabama, Preet Bharara in the SDNY, and B. Todd Jones in Minnesota.

The Justice Department paid out around $200,000 in grants that benefited the controversial anti-poverty group ACORN, according to a report issued today by the Department’s Inspector General. The report also found evidence of mismanagement.

ACORN has long been the subject of criticism from conservatives, who have questioned its finances and management. The community activist organization for years has run a voter-registration program that primarily benefited Democrats.

But questions about ACORN became a major political issue earlier this year, after two conservative activists posing as brothel owners shot undercover video showing ACORN employees providing advice on laundering money and evading taxes. Congress cut off the group’s funding, and Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), asked for the Justice Department study.

“It’s ironic that the Justice Department provided ACORN affiliates with funding to help prevent crime when many of ACORN’s own employees have come under criticism for possible criminal conduct,” Smith said in a statement Friday. “ The Justice Department IG’s report may prove to be just the tip of an iceberg-sized fraud.”

The organization received funds through affiliates and subcontracts rather than direct payments from DOJ, the report found. A crime prevention program in New York, for example, has withheld a $20,000 payment to ACORN citing unauthorized requests for “fringe benefits.”

Another DOJ-funded program to help Phoenix residents with their taxes has not paid ACORN around $8,500 due to the organization’s “poor reporting” on another un-related project. And in another crime-prevention program in Chicago, the report said, it was unclear what ACORN did with a$20,000 award it received through a subcontract, the report said.

ACORN also applied for — but didn’t receive — several direct grants from the Justice Department, the report found.

Read The Hill story on the report here.

Jay Bybee (doj)

A legal fund has been launched on behalf of appeals court Judge Jay S. Bybee, the former head of the Justice Department’s  Office of Legal Counsel who co-authored the so-called torture memos.

The fund, according to supporters who established it, would pay “for costs and expenses he is incurring or may incur” related to his service with the Justice Department or on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where Bybee has sat since 2003. The legal fund was first reported by Newsweek.

Bybee is one of the subjects of long-awaited ethics report by the Office of Professional Responsibility regarding the conduct of former DOJ lawyers who authorized the use of harsh interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists . The report is expected to be released this month, Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Because Bybee is now a judge, he could be subject to impeachment proceeding based on the memos, according to Talking Points Memo. Earlier this year, a special prosecutor was appointed to determine whether government officials or Central Intelligence Agency personnel violated the law by developing, authorizing and implementing the torture program early in the administration of President George W. Bush.

The Opinion of Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United Statesestimates that Bybee’s legal expenses will be “in excess of $500,000 — a figure beyond [Bybee's] resources.”

According to the Bybee fund’s Declaration of Trust, its trustees are:

• James M. Spears, a lobbyist at Ropes & Gray, former general counsel at the Federal Trade Commission and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General from 1983 to 1988.
• Carolyn Colton, a vice president and assistant general counsel for  Marriott International, Inc.
• Bruce Nielson, a partner at K&L Gates LLP.

Stephanie Villafuerte (gov)

The nominee to be the U.S. Attorney for Colorado has rejected allegations that she played a role in the use of a restricted government database to aid Gov. Bill Ritter (D) in his 2006 gubernatorial campaign, The Denver Post reported today.

Stephanie Villafuerte, who is Ritter’s deputy chief of staff, wrote in a letter to Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) obtained by The Post that her answer to the allegation is “emphatically no.”

Colorado Republicans have also raised questions about whether Villafuerte had discussions with staffers in the Denver District Attorney’s Office about an illegal immigrant who was featured in an ad against Ritter produced by Republican Bob Beauprez’s gubernatorial campaign.

Use of the federal criminal records database for political purposes could be a crime. She told the FBI in 2007 that she had “no conversations� with the DA employees about Carlos Estrada-Medina, who is also an alleged heroin dealer. Estrada-Medina had once obtained a plea deal under the alias of Walter Ramo when Ritter was Denver’s district attorney, according to The Post.

“Was I honest when I told the FBI that I did not have conversations with anyone at the Denver District Attorney’s Office . . . regarding the Ramo/Estrada Medina case?” Villafuerte wrote. “The answer is absolutely yes.”

Republicans charge that Villafuerte is being treated differently in the matter than U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Cory Voorhis, who lost his job after accessing the same database on behalf of the Beauprez campaign. Colorado state Sen. Ted Harvey and other state Republicans sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, asking the panel to investigate whether Villafuerte used the database.

The committee has yet to schedule a vote on her nomination. President Barack Obama tapped Villafuerte for the post on Sept. 30.