The Federal Trade Commission has approved a merger in the farm products industry, with some changes that are laid out in a consent order filed today.

The FTC signed off on a deal between Agrium Inc., a Canadian company that sells fertilizers and other agricultural products, and CF Industries Holdings Inc., an Illinois-based outfit that also sells fertilizers.

In order to complete the $5 billion purchase, Agrium will have to sell some assets in the Pacific Northwest and in Illinois.

The FTC’s filing focused on the market for a certain type of nitrogen fertilizer, anhydrous ammonia.

Farmers who use the fertilizer have large up-front costs in special equipment used to apply the product, the complaint said, which makes it unlikely that those farmers could switch to a different product if prices were to go up.

In the Pacific Northwest, the complaint said, the merger would reduce the number of suppliers from two to one, and in regions of Illinois, that number would go from three to two.

It is difficult for other companies to enter the same market, the complaint said, because it would involve extensive regulatory approval.

The consent order will be finalized after a 30-day period for public comments.

President Barack Obama signed into law legislation Tuesday that establishes a new section within the Justice Department’s Criminal Division to handle human rights crimes.

The House cleared the Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009 by a 416-3 vote last week. The bill had passed the Senate last month by unanimous consent.

The legislation lays the foundation for merging the Office of Special Investigations and the Domestic Security Section into the new section. The Office of Special Investigations — which was established to probe ex-Nazi war criminals living in the United States — has jurisdiction over U.S. citizens accused of human rights crimes. The Domestic Security Section focuses on non-U.S. citizens accused of violating human rights laws and who are now in the United States.

The new section will prosecute torture, genocide, child soldiers and war crimes that are committed by any person who is in the United States.

A Rhode Island Assistant U.S. Attorney who was charged with refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test and driving under the influence surrendered his driver’s license on Tuesday as his case proceeds in traffic court, The Associated Press reports.

On Thanksgiving morning, Gerard B. Sullivan was stopped by police in Warwick, R.I.,  after two motorists contacted police about the driver of a BMW — identified as Sullivan — who they said was driving erratically. Sullivan was charged with failing to take a breathalyzer test, but he was not initially charged with driving under the influence. The police report said Sullivan informed the officers of his prosecutorial job numerous times, told the officers he knew the police chief and asked if there was “anything he could do.�

The incident is being investigated by the Justice Department.

Sullivan was ordered by a Traffic Tribunal judge to give up his license as the case proceeds in traffic court, the AP reports.

When the George W. Bush Justice Department filed a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party in January, it invoked a rarely used provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to allege voter intimidation.

Bush-era Civil Rights Division official Brad Schlozman improperly politicized the hiring process for career attorneys, a DOJ investigation found. (Getty Images)

It was the second time the Bush DOJ filed suit under Section 11 (b) of the landmark civil rights legislation – both times targeting black defendants.

The common denominator in these unusual applications of Section 11 (b) is J. Christian Adams, a line attorney at the Justice Department who compiled the Black Panthers case and also worked on a 2005 federal lawsuit against black officials in Mississippi accused of discriminating against whites.

Adams is a career Voting Section lawyer. He is also a foot soldier in the conservative movement, hired into the Justice Department during the Bush administration under a process the department’s Inspector General concluded was improperly politicized.

Adams’s background helps explain how a relatively minor incident in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential election involving two members of an anti-white fringe group blossomed into a political controversy for the Obama administration.

J. Christian Adams, one of the attorneys who brought the Black Panthers case, at a Federalist Society panel last month (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

Adams previously had volunteered for the Republican National Lawyers Association, an off-shoot of the Republican National Committee that trains lawyers to fight on the often racially tinged frontlines of voting rights, and had been a Republican poll watcher in Florida for the 2004 presidential campaign.

As a Virginia lawyer, he once filed an ethics complaint in Florida against the brother of Hillary Clinton, and reviewed a manuscript of a book that questions the contemporary need for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that he is tasked with enforcing.

More recently, Adams asked a question at a meeting of the conservative Federalist Society in Washington that appeared skeptical of affirmative action, wrote a piece for the American Spectator that likened President Barack Obama’s world view to that of Nazi appeasers and argued on a conservative blogging network that health care reform is a threat to liberty.

Hired in 2005 by Bradley Schlozman, a Bush-era political appointee who drove out veteran Civil Rights Division attorneys perceived to be liberal, Adams appears to be one of the “right-thinking Americans� with conservative affiliations that Schlozman improperly seeded throughout the bureaucracy.

Civil service protections make his removal difficult, and Adams now is emblematic of the challenges facing Attorney General Eric Holder and Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez, who have vowed to “restore� the division to its historic mission of enforcing anti-discrimination laws protecting minorities, while adapting to new challenges.

Republican members of the House asked for an investigation into whether politics played a role in the dismissal of the case and asked GOP senators over the summer to delay Perez’s confirmation over the matter.

Grace Chung Becker (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

When asked about Adams’s role in the Black Panther case, Perez said in a briefing with reporters last week: ”I don’t want to get in the business of speculating as to why somebody brought something at what point.”

The complaint Adams drafted was also signed by Christopher Coates, chief of the Voting Section, and then-acting Assistant Attorney General Grace Chung Becker, a Bush political appointee who failed to win Senate confirmation over Democrats’ concerns she wasn’t committed to enforcing anti-discrimination laws to protect minorities.

“We clearly communicate our expectations [to Civil Rights Division attorneys]. If you meet those expectations that are transparent, then we want you to continue as long as you want to be there,â€� Perez added, in another session with reporters after a speech at the National Press Club last Friday. “And if you don’t, we hold you accountable.â€�

Adams compiled the lawsuit against the Black Panthers, two of whom stood outside a majority-black Philadelphia polling place in November 2008 in military-style fatigues, one of them carrying a nightstick. After the Obama DOJ dismissed of the most of the complaint in May, outraged conservatives called for investigations into whether politics played an improper role in the decision.

“That looks more like some sort of street fight than it does a polling place,� David Norcross, chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association, said of a widely viewed video showing the incident.

Adams referred questions about his casework to the DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs. A spokesman said the public affairs office doesn’t normally provide a log of cases on which a particular attorney has worked.

A review of documents on the Civil Rights Division Web site indicates that more recently, Adams worked on complaint filed in March under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, under the Obama administration, alleging the town of Lake Park, Florida, denied black voters an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. In October, the Southern District of Florida federal court entered a consent decree and judgment changing the way the town elected its commissioners.

Turning the Voting Rights Act on its head

The Section 11 (b) civil authority under which the Black Panthers lawsuit was filed is rarely used, since criminal acts of voter intimidation are usually referred for prosecution.

The first known 11 (b) case since the early days of the Voting Rights Act came in 1992, when the government filed suit against North Carolina Republicans and the campaign of then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) for sending threatening postcards to 100,000 mostly black voters with misleading information about election laws.*

There were no more 11 (b) cases until 2005. Then, the Bush administration filed a voter intimidation lawsuit against black officials in Noxubee County, Miss., alleging systematic discrimination against white voters. It marked the first time the DOJ had used authority of the Voting Rights Act to allege voting discrimination by blacks against whites.

While the government won the Noxubee case and even Bush administration critics agree it had merit, they argue that pursing the case was a misuse of limited department resources. Critics also say the manner in which the Bush DOJ used section 11 (b) turned the spirit of the Voting Rights Act on its head. The 1965 act was passed amid incidents of beatings and harassment in the South by white mobs and Ku Klux Klan members against people demonstrating for black voting rights.

“Sadly, the only two [section 11 (b)] cases that have been brought by the [Bush] department have been on behalf of whites,” J. Gerald Hebert, a former acting chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, told Main Justice.

The Government Accountability Office, meantime, recently highlighted a Section 11 (b) voter intimidation case that the Bush DOJ chose not to pursue. The case involved allegations that officials in an unidentified state had intimidated black voters.

The GAO didn’t give further details, but Perez said in recent congressional testimony the division had opened an investigation into the incident cited in the report. He declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing probe.

Hebert said in order to pursue a voter intimidation case, there should be depositions from voters who felt intimidated and the actions should be shown to be part of a larger campaign.

The Black Panther complaint provided little evidence to support the government’s allegation that the group conducted a coordinated campaign to intimidate voters, Obama Department of Justice officials have told Republican lawmakers.

“Frankly, the Philadelphia case [against the New Black Panthers] was on shaky ground from the beginning and was largely, I think, filed by the previous administration for the new administration to have to clean up, putting them in a difficult position,â€� said Hebert, a critic of the Bush administration’s management of the Justice Department who has written extensively about Section 11(b) for his current employer, the Campaign Legal Center.

Spakovsky: ‘political hacks� at DOJ

So far, no voters registered in the majority-black precinct in Philadelphia where the incident occurred have come forward publicly to say they were intimidated. The complaints have come instead from white Republican poll watchers.

The conservative-dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating the DOJ’s handling of the Black Panther case, and Adams has fought to obtain permission to assist its investigation, over objections from his superiors at the Justice Department.

Yet conservatives have raised no questions about the background or possible motivations of Adams, who compiled the case. Instead they have attacked the career DOJ lawyers who recommended dismissing it.

Hans A. von Spakovsky at a Republican forum on ACORN (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

“Those two lawyers, Steve Rosenbaum and Loretta King, are two of the worst political hacks to be found in the career ranks of the Civil Rights Division,” wrote former Bush Civil Rights Division official Hans A. von Spakovsky in an opinion piece for National Review Online.

House Judiciary Committee members Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Frank Wolf (R-Va.) have written letters to the DOJ asking whether it “improperly considered partisan politics� in dismissing the Black Panther case.

Spakovsky worked closely with Schlozman. He helped oversee the Noxubee case in Mississippi and assisted in the controversial purge of veteran lawyers in the division perceived to be liberal. The Democratic-controlled Senate in 2007 refused to confirm Spakovsky as a Federal Election Commission member.

Spakovsky has also worked at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for commissioner Todd Gaziano, an official at the conservative Heritage Foundation who’s been the driving force behind the push to investigate the Black Panthers matter.

Von Spakovsky told Main Justice said he hadn’t spoken with Adams about the case. “I know Christian just like I know all the lawyers, but I have not talked to him about the case,� he said.

The Obama DOJ, he added, has “not offered any reason to justify its dismissal, which leads you to the obvious conclusion that there were political and other reasons for doing it.�

In fact, Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ron Weich has outlined the reasons for the dismissal in letters to Republican members of Congress. Read his response here (scroll down).

I’m Just a Media Guy

On election day in November 2008, a call came into the Philadelphia office of the John McCain for President campaign. Two black men in military-style fatigues and berets were standing outside a polling station. One of them was carrying a nightstick.

Stephen Robert Morse, a young freelance journalist who’d been hired by the local Republican Party to document potential irregularities at the polls, jumped in a car and sped to the apartment building at 1221 Fairmount Street, in a majority black neighborhood of Philadelphia.

“Dude, you got my back?� Morse said to a companion. He walked toward the two members of the New Black Panthers and began speaking for his video.

“Hi, I’m here at 1221 Fairmount in Philadelphia and there’s a guy with a billy club right here,� Morse said. “So, do we have any problems here? What’s going on? Everything okay?�

“Everything’s fine,� said Minister King Samir Shabazz, the Black Panther holding the night stick.

“Okay, I’m just, I’m just making sure,� Morse said.

Shabazz asked Morse to identify himself.

“I’m just a media guy,� Morse said. “I’m with the University of Pennsylvania. Who are you with? Sorry?�

“Ah … security,� Shabazz said. “Just wondering why everybody’s taking pictures, that’s all.�

“I think it may be a little intimidating that you have a stick in your hand, that’s all. I mean, that’s a weapon. I mean, I’m a concerned citizen,� Morse said.

“So are we. That’s why we’re here.�

“Okay, but you have a nightstick.�

“So what? You have a camera phone.�

“I have a camera phone, which is not a weapon,� Morse said.

Only 34 whites live in Precinct 4 in Philadelphia out of a total population of 970, according to census data. But there was a sea of white faces there that day, mainly Republican lawyers who’d come to monitor the polling station in what, since the disputed 2000 presidential election, has become an election-day ritual for both parties.

Jerry Jackson, accused in a lawsuit by the Bush DOJ of intimidating voters, was also a certified Democratic poll watcher. (National Geographic)

One of the white Republican poll watchers called police, and the nightstick-wielding Shabazz was shooed away without apparent incident. The other Black Panther, Jerry Jackson, who’d been issued a poll watching certificate by the Philadelphia County Board of Elections, remained.

Although both Shabazz and Jackson had been recorded in an earlier National Geographic documentary calling whites “cracker� and other derogatory terms, no racial epithets were recorded on Morse’s video in Philadelphia.

Then Fox News arrived.

Fox reporter Rick Leventhal interviewed an unidentified Republican poll watcher who told of a more racially charged scene.

The Black Panthers “told us not to come outside, because a black man is going to win this election no matter what,� the unidentified Republican poll watcher said on the Fox camera. “So, as I came back outside to see, the nightstick turns around and says, you know, ‘We’re tired of white supremacy,’ and starts tapping the nightstick in his hand.�

Fox reporter Rick Leventhal said: “The Black Panthers were there to intimidate white voters from coming to this polling location?�

“Or anyone who’s in their way. You know, I don’t know. A guy standing in front of a polling place with a night stick is a factor for all voters. Maybe little old ladies don’t want to walk through that,� the Republican poll watcher said.

The video that Morse made was uploaded to YouTube through a Web site called electionjournal.org, run by a Republican operative named Mike Roman.

Later that evening, Barack Obama won the election, becoming the nation’s first African-American president.

On YouTube, viewers started clicking Morse’s video. It eventually logged more than a 1.2 million views.

Republican poll watchers complain

In January, 13 days before Obama’s inauguration, the Civil Rights Division filed a civil complaint alleging that Shabazz and Jackson hurled “racial insults” and threats at both black and white individuals in Philadelphia, and “made menacing and intimidating gestures” directed at “individuals who were present to aid voters.”

Those “individuals who were present to aid voters� appear to be a reference to the white Republican poll watchers who reported the incident and gave interviews to Fox News. So far, no voters of any race who were registered in that precinct have come forward publicly to say they were intimidated.

King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson (National Geographic).

The New Black Panther Party made an easy target for Republicans. Characterized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Shabazz and Jackson had been videotaped by National Geographic for a documentary calling whites “cracker� and other denigrating terms.

The black separatist group takes its inspiration from, but is not related to, the 1960s Black Panthers, the original “black power� movement.

Republicans have suggested the Justice Department dismissed the case because the New Black Panther Party helped get Obama elected. “It just smacks of some kind of a deal or a thank-you payback,� said Norcross of the Republican National Lawyers Association.

But a review of Shabazz’s comments before the election indicate he wasn’t an Obama fan.

“[Obama] is a puppet on a string. I don’t support no black man running for white politics. I will not vote for who will be the next slavemaster,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News days before the election, according to Politico.

The New Black Panther Party could not be reached for comment.

Washington Times “Exclusive�

After the Black Panthers failed to contest the lawsuit earlier this year, a default judgment was entered. The case then went to then-acting Civil Rights Division chief Loretta King for review.

A career DOJ lawyer, King decided one incident didn’t constitute an orchestrated campaign or pattern to deny voting rights, the usual criteria for deploying federal resources in litigation.

Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

She also had concerns about seeking legal action in part based on how the men were dressed, and noted that one of them – Jackson – held an official poll watching certificate, giving him a reason to be on the premises. She recommended dismissal, a decision approved by her supervisor, Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, an Obama political appointee.

The DOJ sought and won an injunction against Shabazz prohibiting him from carrying a weapon at polling stations through Nov. 15, 2012.

On May 29, the Washington Times published an “exclusive� that said Justice Department “political appointees overruled career lawyers� in dismissing the case.

“Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago,� the Times added.

The affidavit came from Bartle Bull, who worked for Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign in New York 40 years ago but has since been better known as a novelist. Bull supported John McCain for president – a fact not noted by the Washington Times.

After the Washington Times piece, Bull popped up in an interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. “The senior lawyer working on this case, Christian Adams, said to me, ‘if this is not a case of intimidation, nothing is,’� Bull told O’Reilly.

Bull also said he’d heard the Black Panthers in Philadelphia say: “Now you’ll see what it is like to be ruled by a black man, cracker.�

And Rep. Wolf gave a speech on the House floor in July excoriating Holder.

“Martin Luther King did not die to have people in jack boots block polling places,� Wolf said. “I question Eric Holder’s commitment to voting rights.�

Standoff over subpoenas

Now the matter lies in a standoff between the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which has subpoenaed the DOJ for internal communications about the New Black Panther Party case.

Todd Gaziano is leading the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights inquiry into the New Black Panther Party case (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

The DOJ has resisted complying with the subpoenas, citing a Supreme Court precedent that protects the department’s internal work products from disclosure. But Adams has argued he is obligated to comply with the commission’s inquiry.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ general counsel, David Blackwood – who like Adams and other staff members on the commission is a Republican National Lawyers Association member – wrote the DOJ on Dec. 18 to say the commission had agreed for now to postpone depositions of DOJ officials.

The commission will set new deposition dates for the department employees in the next few weeks, and may consider subpoenaing other department personnel during the same time.

According to a plan circulated among members of the commission by Todd Gaziano, possible deponents in January and February 2010 include Thomas Perrelli, Loretta King, and civil appellate section chief Diana Flynn. The plan also calls for a hearing in Washington in early 2010.

The commission’s final report is scheduled to be released next summer, in advance of the midterm elections.

Mary Jacoby contributed to this report.

*Experts consulted by Main Justice indicated that the 1992 case was the first Section 11 (b) case they knew about. A reader has pointed out there was a case in 1966, and the language has been updated. While a previous version of this story called the Campaign Legal Center “liberal-leaning,” it is a non-partisan organization whose president served as general counsel for John McCain’s campaign in 2000 and 2008. Adams read the manuscript of, but did not edit, the book on the Voting Rights Act.

J. Christian Adams at a Federalist Society meeting in Washington last month. (Photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

J. Christian Adams, the career Justice Department attorney who compiled the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party that has become a distraction for the Obama administration, doesn’t hide his conservative leanings.

Adams attended at a panel discussion on civil rights at the conservative Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington in November, where he asked a question that appeared critical of affirmative action.

“We’ve seen essentially at least five presidential elections go by where not a word is spoken in the debates about affirmative action, whether we should keep it, whether we should expand it,” Adams said. ”There’s been similar silence in congressional elections.”

He added: “Would you welcome a change where there’s a full and robust debate in this county about whether race-based preferences should continue, and if so, how long should they continue and under what circumstances? Or do you prefer that we maintain the status quo during election season about this issue?â€�

Adams addressed his question to a panel that included Peter Kirsanow, a George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which subpoenaed Adams a few weeks later to give a deposition about the DOJ’s decision to dismiss the Black Panther case. A lawyer representing Adams has been arguing to the Justice Department that his client has an obligation to comply with the subpoena.

Main Justice was in attendance at the November panel, where the photo of Adams displayed above was taken. The Federalist Society later posted a recording of the discussion, part of which is embedded below. Adams’ question is just after the four minute mark.

Bill Nettles (Sanders & Nettles)

President Barack Obama has nominated defense lawyer William Nettles for U.S. Attorney in South Carolina, the White House said Tuesday.

Nettles, of Sanders & Nettles in Columbia, S.C., was recommended for the post in August by Democratic Reps. John Spratt and Jim Clyburn. He is Obama’s 35th U.S. Attorney nominee; 24 have been confirmed.

Nettles (The Citadel, Widener University Law) has been name partner at the firm since 2005, handling a broad criminal practice. He represented Olympic gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps in criminal probe earlier this year after photos showing him holding a bong at a Columbia party surfaced.

Nettles’ civil practice includes personal injury, medical malpractice and pharmaceutical litigation. Click here for his firm bio.

A former public defender in Richland County, Nettles was a partner at Banks & Nettles from 1995 to 1997 and a solo practitioner from 1997 to 2005.

“William Nettles’ legal career has been distinguished and impressive,â€� Obama said in a statement announcing the nomination. “I am confident that, as a US Attorney, he will be relentless in his pursuit of justice and serve the people of South Carolina with distinction.”

Nettles was an early supporter of presidential candidate Barack Obama and provided legal advice to Obama’s campaign operatives in the state. Obama’s convincing victory in the South Carolina primary marked a turning point in his battle for the nomination with Hillary Clinton.

Nettles’ law partner and father-in-law, Alex Sanders, is a former chief judge of the S.C. Court of Appeals and former president of Charleston College. Sanders ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2002, as the Democratic nominee, losing to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Nettles’ wife, Zoe Sanders Nettles, is a past president of the National Association of Women Lawyers. She is a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough.

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division came out swinging in an administrative filing yesterday, objecting to a proposed alliance — known as Oneworld – between American Airlines, Inc. and British Airways PLC, and suggesting that the Transportation Department should take a tougher stance than it has on recent similar alliances.

Justice stopped short of rejecting the airlines’ application, which asks for permission to jointly schedule and price flights without running afoul of any antitrust laws. Instead DOJ suggested conditions the Transportation Department (DOT) should impose before approving the deal, including forcing the airlines to give up some slots and take certain routes out of any grant of immunity.

DOT has ultimate authority over approving such applications, and the Justice Department’s role is only advisory.

The two departments argued over a similar application earlier this year by Continental Airlines, which sought to join the Star Alliance. Then the Transportation Department brushed aside most of DOJ’s concerns and approved the deal.

Observers say the Justice Department’s new filing takes a stronger stand. Justice “vigorously waded into this dispute by not only taking on the Oneworld Alliance but taking a swipe at the Star Alliance,” said Kenneth Quinn, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. who co-heads the firm’s aviation group.

“The Justice Department is taking a strong pro-consumer stand that will not be lightly ignored by DOT.”

In addition, Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) had previously sent letters to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urging his agency to consider and give “substantial deference” to Justice Department views before signing off on any proposed airline deals.

Lawmakers also have threatened to move authority over airline alliances from the Transportation Department to DOJ.

The Justice filing in the Continental-Star Alliance agreement came after DOT had already given its preliminary approval, but in the Oneworld case, DOJ weighed in first; the Transportation Department has yet to issue a decision. In an order today, the Transportation Department said it would accept comments on the filing until Jan. 11.

Highlights of DOJ Filing. The Justice Department filing focused on competition on nonstop routes between American’s hubs in Chicago, Miami and Dallas and British Airways’ hub in London. Fares on those flights could increase by 15 percent if the agreement was implemented without changes, the filing said.

“Fares paid by nonstop passengers in markets with only one nonstop competitor are 15 percent higher than fares paid by nonstop passengers in markets with two nonstop competitors,” the filing said.

The filing also singled out concentration at Heathrow Airport in London, the popular British Airways hub where slots are notoriously difficult to get, and asked that the two airlines give up some slots in order to mitigate anti-competitive effects of the agreement.

The alliance between British Airways and American Airlines does have the benefit of following an open skies agreement negotiated between the United States and the U.K., said Jim Weiss, a partner at K&L Gates who previously worked in the Antitrust Division, which makes antitrust regulators more amenable to approving the deal. The carrot of antitrust immunity has been used to foster liberalization in international aviation. 

An American Airlines spokesman said the airline “disagrees” with the Justice Department’s conclusions, and “expects that the U.S. Department of Transportation will approve our alliance in a timely manner.”

Previous Request. The airlines applied for antitrust immunity twice before, in 1997 and 2001, in order to enter into a similar alliance.

DOJ argued against those applications and said any deal would reduce competition on routes where the two airlines overlapped. The first application was rejected because of separate policy developments.

After the 2001 application, DOJ asked the airlines to divest certain slots on overlapping flights to encourage new competition, but the airlines withdrew their application before DOT ruled on the alliance.

President Barack Obama will nominate Bea Hanson, an official at a non-profit organization to be the director of the Justice Department’s Office of Victims of Crime, the White House announced today.

Bea Hanson (Safe Horizon)

Hanson is currently the chief program officer for Safe Horizon, a non-profit crime victim assistance organization in New York. She would replace acting Director Joye Frost, who has led the office since George W. Bush appointee John W. Gillis resigned last winter. Read Hanson’s full bio here.

The Office of Victims of Crime is a branch of the Office of Justice Programs. The crime victims office helps fund state programs that assist crime victims.

The FBI has released 333 pages of files on Michael Jackson, detailing threats against the pop star as well as investigations into possible child molestation offenses.

Released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press and other news organizations, the pages are divided into seven files. They “detail the FBI’s investigation of a man who threatened to kill Jackson, as well as various forms of assistance to California authorities in two cases involving allegations that Jackson had abused children,” according to the FBI.

Jackson died in June after suffering from cardiac arrest. He reportedly had been administered drugs such as propofol and lorazepam. His death was ruled a homicide by the Los Angeles County coroner.

The FBI press office provided summaries of the files and links to the documents:

Between 1993 and 1994 and separately between 2004 and 2005, Mr. Jackson was investigated by California law enforcement agencies for possible child molestation. He was acquitted of all such charges. The FBI provided technical and investigative assistance to these agencies during the cases. The Bureau also investigated threats made against Mr. Jackson and others by an individual who was later imprisoned for these crimes.

This release consists of seven separate files, as described below:

— This file details a Los Angeles field office investigation into extortion threats against Michael Jackson and others in 1992. The subject of this investigation pled guilty and was sentenced to prison in 1993.

A total of 111 pages were withheld to prevent duplication of material already released or to protect personal privacy, the identity of sources that provided information to the FBI in confidence, and internal rules and practices. Some information was referred to the U.S. Secret Service. 9A-LA-142276: 1992 to 1993, 196 pages

— This file involves a Los Angeles field office investigation opened to assist local authorities with a child molestation case in 1993. The case never went to trial.

Ninety-five pages were withheld to prevent duplication of material already released or to protect personal privacy, the identity of sources that provided information to the FBI in confidence, and internal rules and practices. 62D-LA-162715: September 16, 1993 to August 8, 1994, 56 pages

— This file was opened by the FBI’s legal attaché office in London when it assisted local authorities with a child molestation investigation in 1993.

Thirteen pages were withheld to protect personal privacy and the identity of sources that provided information to the FBI in confidence. 62D-L0-11779: September 2, 1993 to October 22, 1993, 9 pages

– This file details a request made to the FBI to analyze a VHS videotape provided by the U.S. Customs Service as part of a child pornography investigation.

Some information was redacted to protect personal privacy. Four pages were referred to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement for a release determination. 95A-HQ-1148159: October 30, 1995 to January 24, 1997, 8 pages

– Our Los Angeles field office opened this file when it was asked by local authorities to provide forensic computer analysis assistance in a child molestation investigation in 2004. The examination of evidence in this case was conducted by the FBI’s Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART). Mr. Jackson was ultimately acquitted of these charges in a California court.

One hundred and twenty-three pages were withheld to protect personal privacy, the identity of sources that provided information to the FBI in confidence, and internal rules and practices or to prevent the disclosure of techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions. 62D-LA-236081: January 15, 2004 to April 27, 2004, 41 pages

– This Los Angeles field office file was opened in 2004 to investigate child molestation allegations. Due to lack of witness cooperation, the case was closed. 305B-LA-239205: September 14, 2004 to December 9, 2004, 5 pages

– This file involves a request made of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group to provide advice and assistance to local authorities concerning a child molestation investigation in 2004.

Some information was redacted to protect personal privacy and internal rules and practices. 252B-IR-6808: March 1, 2004 to June 29, 2005, 18 pages