Congress did not appropriate money to fund a $1.15 billion discrimination settlement agreement with black farmers before leaving on Friday for a two-week recess.
The agreement was announced last month, contingent on Congress appropriating the money by a March 31 deadline, according to the principals. The settlement is now in jeopardy.
The settlement was intended to bring to an end lengthy litigation by black farmers who suffered discrimination at the hands of the Department of Agriculture in obtaining farm loans.
The money is to compensate farmers who missed filing deadlines and were left out of an original 1999 settlement, in which the government agreed to pay the black farmers for past discrimination in lending and other USDA programs.
“The president made a strong commitment to show leadership to get this done, and basically we haven’t seen him show that leadership,” John Boyd Jr., head of the National Black Farmers Association, told Reuters. “The president didn’t help us finish the job.”
The farmers’ group had urged President Barack Obama to declare the funds emergency spending, thus removing procedural hurdles that made quick congressional approval difficult.
Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.), told Main Justice that the majority leader is still committed to securing funds for the settlement as quickly as possible. A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from Main Justice.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and other members of Congress held a news conference on Wednesday asking the Obama administration to help get the settlement through Congress. Conyers even called Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack from his cell phone during the news conference to set up a meeting later that day with the Obama administration official.
A USDA spokesman told The Hill on Wednesday that the agency was “actively working with Congress” to secure funds for the settlement.
A spokesman for Conyers on Friday didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kenneth L. Wainstein (O'Melveny & Myers LLP)
Hiring Kenneth Wainstein appears to be the best decision made by Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas.
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Robert Morin sentenced Arenas to 30 days in a halfway house and two years of probation, a lighter sentence than the plea agreement negotiated with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia.
Arenas was charged with carrying a pistol without a license stemming from a well-publicized Dec. 21, 2009, incident in which he brought weapons into the locker room of the professional basketball team.
In January, the Wizards star struck a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s office that Wainstein once headed. Wainstein spent 19 years at the Justice Department in a number of key roles, including U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2004 to 2006. Wainstein is now a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
Under the plea agreement, Arenas pleaded guilty to the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The plea deal called for a jail sentence of six to 24 months, with probation, a split sentence or incarceration possible, although the government has agreed to seek a sentence at the low end of that range.
“I’d like to say, I’m really sorry this happened, and I wake up every day wishing it didn’t,” Arenas told the court, according to The Washington City Paper.
UPDATE: Wainstein released the following statement:
“We are very gratified with the outcome of today’s sentencing proceeding. Judge Morin’s decision was fair and measured; it reflected a deep understanding of the relevant facts and equities; and it carefully took into account both the facts relating to Mr. Arenas’ offense and the evidence of Mr. Arenas’ good character. The result was a sentence that serves justice very well.
Mr. Arenas is grateful to the Court, and looks forward to serving the community and once again being a force for good in the District of Columbia.”
News release from Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
“Sessions Responds to Misleading DoJ Terror Stats”
“It is simply disingenuous for the Attorney General to argue that these cases demonstrate that captured enemy combatants, as classified under the 2009 Military Commissions Act, are better tried in civilian rather than military court.”
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following comments regarding documents provided today by the Department of Justice. In a letter sent to Sessions, DoJ officials provided the names of 403 individuals reportedly charged or convicted of terrorism-related offenses. Similar figures have long been used by the administration to justify civilian trials for captured terrorists, including KSM. For the past 10 months, Republicans had been asking for the names of these individuals, arguing that most of the cases likely did not involve prosecutions of high-value foreign terrorists or enemy combatants.
“The information provided today confirms what Republicans have been saying all along—and removes perhaps the last remaining pillar underneath the Attorney General’s collapsing argument for the civilian trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
“It is clear why the Attorney General was so reluctant to provide it.
“The Attorney General assured senators that KSM’s trial in New York City was ‘in the best interests of the American people in terms of safety.’ He justified that assertion by claiming that 300 terrorists were already safely convicted and in prison. In other words, the Attorney General was saying we’ve done this 300 times before and we can do it again.
“But we now know this is simply not true. The great majority of the terrorism cases cited by the Attorney General are in no way comparable to KSM’s case. Most of the convictions in this list are for far lesser offenses, such as document fraud and immigration violations, while only a small handful concern conduct even remotely similar to a mass-casualty terrorist attack. And none are on the level of KSM, who masterminded 9/11.
“Among the cases cited is that of Zaccarias Moussaoui, which was fraught with procedural problems, delays, appeals, risks to classified evidence, and even a lone holdout juror who spared the 20th hijacker the death penalty. Due to gaps in federal law, many of the problems prosecutors encountered in the Moussaoui trial will be experienced in future terrorism trials. In fact, just this week, the Justice Department finally conceded that, contrary to the prior assertions of the Attorney General, military commissions have better safeguards than the criminal justice system to protect classified material.
“The figures released today also contradict the Attorney General’s claims on the Christmas Day Bomber: two of the terrorists on this list were placed in military custody precisely because the criminal justice system severely limits our ability to gather intelligence.
“Moreover, the overwhelming bulk of these cases are for acts committed by U.S. citizens—which KSM and the Christmas Bomber are not—and occurred before military commissions became fully operational in 2008.
“It is simply disingenuous for the Attorney General to argue that these cases demonstrate that captured enemy combatants, as classified under the 2009 Military Commissions Act, are better tried in civilian rather than military court.
“Military commissions are consistent with our laws, history, security, and values, yet there were zero military commission proceedings in 2009. There is no remaining excuse for the administration to continue rejecting them.”
[Note: please find below a list of previous requests by Judiciary Republicans on this matter over the past 10 months. Today’s letter marks the first substantive response from the Department of Justice.]
May 29, 2009: Senator Kyl wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder to request the basis of President Obama’s claim in a May 21, 2009 speech that, “our federal ‘supermax’ prisons… hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.” Specifically, Senator Kyl requested details about the names, offenses, and locations of the “terrorists” to whom the President referred. Senator Kyl’s letter explained that “a comparison of terrorists in federal prisons to terrorists detained at Guantanamo is instructive only if the severity of their actions and their backgrounds and allegiances are equivalent.”
June 17, 2009: At the Senate Judiciary Committee’s June 17, 2009 oversight hearing, Senator Kyl cited his letter to the Attorney General, noted that he had not received a response, and stated that he would be resubmitting his question in writing following the hearing:
“I had asked in a letter, that I sent back in May, for some information following up on the president’s speech, when he talked about the fact that our supermax facilities holds hundreds of convicted terrorists. I had written asking if you could break that down for us. I don’t have a response.
“So, let me just do this. I’m going to submit, for the record, a question, because I know you can’t answer just sitting there here—but to find out who—who they are, what kind of categories of folks that—that they are, if there are any that are really comparable to the high-value detainees that are at Guantanamo today, that would be very helpful to us.”
June 24, 2009: Senator Kyl renewed the request from his letter through a written question to Attorney General Holder following the Judiciary Committee’s June 17, 2009 oversight hearing. On October 29, 2009, the Department of Justice replied to Senator Kyl’s question with a non-responsive answer. Specifically, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich stated that the Department could not provide a list of inmates due to federal regulations. He went on to say, “A number of individuals with a history of, or nexus to, international or domestic terrorism are currently being held in federal prisons, each of whom was tried and convicted in an Article III court. The Attorney General considers all crimes of terrorism to be serious.”
November 18, 2009: At the Committee’s November 2009 oversight hearing, Senator Sessions asked Attorney General Holder if he would commit to answering Senator Kyl’s requests and noted Attorney General Holder’s claim that some 300 inmates in federal custody had been convicted of terrorism charges. Attorney General Holder responded, “I will supply you with those 300 names and what they were convicted of. I’ll be glad to do that.”
November 25, 2009: Senator Sessions submitted the following written question to Attorney General Holder to obtain a response to the then-6 month old questions about the administration claims on terrorists in BOP custody:
“In your opening testimony, you stated that ‘there are more than 300 convicted international and domestic terrorists currently in Bureau of Prisons custody.’ In response to my question, you stated without reservation that you would provide the details regarding these convictions. Please provide the details regarding each of these convictions, including: (a) the names and dates of the individuals convicted; (b) the offense(s) with which they were charged; (c) the offense(s) for which they were convicted; (d) the sentences imposed; and (e) the year the criminal case was instituted via indictment.”
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Four men — including conservative documentary filmmaker James O’Keefe and Robert Flanagan, the son of Western District of Louisiana acting U.S. Attorney William Flanagan — who were arrested in New Orleans on Jan. 25 will be charged with a misdemeanor for entering federal property under false pretenses.
That charge is a downgrade from a previous charge of entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony.
A magistrate judge in federal district court in New Orleans agreed in late February to extend the time for prosecutors to decide how to proceed in the case, which involved alleged phone tampering in the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
The news release about the new charges is below. The bill of information from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is also embedded below.
News Release:
FOUR MEN CHARGED WITH MISDEMEANOR OFFENSE OF ENTERING FEDERAL PROPERTY UNDER FALSE PRETENSES
NEW ORLEANS – Joseph Basel, age 24, Stan Dai, age 24, Robert Flanagan, age 24, and James O’Keefe, age 25, were charged in a one-count bill of information with entering real property of the United States under false pretenses, a misdemeanor, announced the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
According to the Bill of Information, between January 20, 2010, and January 25, 2010, Flanagan, Basel, O’Keefe, and Dai met on several occasions. During their meetings, they discussed, among other things, possible scenarios in which they would talk with members of the staff of Senator Mary Landrieu inside of her New Orleans, Louisiana office, in the Hale Boggs Federal Building, and record the interaction using audio and visual equipment. As a result of this planning, on January 25, 2010, Basel and Flanagan entered the Senator’s office dressed as telephone repairmen, said they were following up on reports of problems with the telephone system, engaged in conversation with the staff members, and pretended to test the phone system. O’Keefe, who had also entered the office, recorded the interaction between Basel, Flanagan, and the staff members.
If convicted, Flanagan, Basel, O’Keefe, and Dai each face a maximum term of six (6) months in prison and a fine of $5,000.
The United States Attorney’s Office reiterated that the Bill of Information is merely a charge and that the guilt of each defendant must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The investigation of this matter was conducted by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Deputy Marshals with the United States Marshal’s Service. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg.
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division chief Christine Varney on Friday reiterated her agency’s tough line on enforcement and said it will take a close look at mergers even if only a small portion of a deal presents a problem.
At a brown bag lunch in Washington, D.C., Varney listed some recent examples of what she was talking about. She said settlements with Bemis Company Inc. — which makes plastic packaging for meats and cheeses — and the concert promoter and ticketing giant that is now Live Nation Entertainment Inc. – illustrate that even if the overlap between two merging companies is small, the Justice Department will still consider a range of remedies to address its concerns.
Bemis agreed last month to sell some assets in order to complete its $1.2 billion purchase of a unit owned by Rio Tinto – Alcan Packaging Food Americas. Ticketmaster agreed in January to license its software, divest some ticketing assets, and submit to a strict behavioral regime to win regulatory approval of its blockbuster $2.5 billion deal with Live Nation.
“We see a lot of this, where a very small percentage of the deal — 12 to 15 percent — presents the problem,” Varney said.
Merger activity is down from a 1990s peak of around 5,000 deals seeking regulatory clearance each year. Last year, Varney said, federal regulatory agencies looked into about 700 mergers and were on track to review around the same number this year.
Varney hinted that the downturn in merger work has allowed the Antitrust Division to shift some resources to examining possible anti-competitive conduct by individual firms. In response to a question about non-merger cases the government is looking at, Varney declined to comment other than to say: “the division is quite busy, and mergers are down.”
Friday’s informal session, hosted by the American Bar Association, is the first in a series of meetings suggested by Varney to promote transparency in the DOJ’s antitrust enforcement efforts. Another lunch session will be scheduled with policy and appellate deputy Philip Weiser and economist Carl Shapiro, and a third with criminal deputy Scott Hammond.
In Friday’s session, Varney, along with civil deputy Molly Boast and litigator William Cavanaugh, touched on the transactions and policy matters the Justice Department has examined in the past year.
The trio also addressed questions on:
– The agency’s relationship with the Transportation Department in approving airline alliances (DOJ believes it is listened to, but DOT has a broader public interest mandate).
– When bundling is anti-competitive (DOJ reviewed the literature but didn’t cite any in its Ticketmaster settlement).
– Whether the DOJ might revisit the last administration’s report on monopolies (no plans to do so.)
Boast also answered a question on Attorney General Eric Holder’s relationship with the Antitrust Division (he met with staff last month, and was “warm and charming.”)
Varney promised to save some news for the ABA’s spring meeting next month, including an update on any revisions to the guidelines that the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission use to evaluate whether a merger might violate antitrust laws.
Four Democratic governors on Friday sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder in which they expressed their support for the health care law signed by President Barack Obama earlier this week and condemned the state attorneys general who have filed suit against the new law, according to a news release.
Minutes after Obama signed the health care legislation into law on Tuesday, the attorneys general of 13 states filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new law. The suit, spearheaded by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (R), was filed in the Northern District of Florida. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli also filed a separate suit challenging the law in the Eastern District of Virginia. Read the filings here.
The Justice Department has vowed to “vigorously defend” the health care law.
Here’s the full letter:
March 26, 2010
The Honorable Eric Holder, Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001RE: State of Florida, et al v. United States
Dear Attorney General Holder:
On behalf of citizens of our states, we write to let you know that that we oppose the actions of the state Attorneys General who have filed a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We believe their legal efforts will fail in court, unnecessarily delay the urgent need to get our citizens access to health care and waste our state tax dollars. As you prepare and deliver your defense of this landmark legislation, you have our commitment to work with you, at your request, to assist in this effort.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is, in our view, the single most important reform of our health care system in decades. The bill gives American families and small business owners more control over their own health care. It shifts health care decision making authority away from insurance companies to the citizens whose health is at risk. It ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions and allows young people to remain covered by their parents’ insurance until age twenty-six. As our states struggle to balance budgets and maintain services, the savings introduced through this legislation are critical to our future.
We are ready to offer you any help you many need and we will stand by your efforts to protect this most historic improvement of health care for every citizen of this nation.
Sincerely,
(signed)
Governor Christine O. Gregoire, Washington
Governor Bill Ritter Jr., Colorado
Governor Jennifer M. Granholm, Michigan
Governor Edward G. Rendell, Pennsylvania
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) on Thursday introduced legislation that would make permanent a committee that facilitates information-sharing between federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies.
Richard Durbin (Gov)
The Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative’s advisory committee, also called the Global Advisory Committee, was created by the Justice Department in 1998 to create effective information-sharing policies by bringing the law enforcement officials together. But the panel must cease its operations and re-establish itself every two years.
“The Global Advisory Committee has already achieved great success in bringing together local, state, tribal and federal agencies to develop consensus information-sharing solutions,” Durbin said on the Senate floor Thursday. “With congressional authorization and a consistent funding stream, the committee can build upon that success in a way that will benefit justice and public safety agencies across the nation.”
Durbin noted that the committee has created the “National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan” and “Fusion Center Guidelines,” which have helped communities improve their information-sharing. He also said the committee is slated to help the DOJ in the creation of new information-sharing tactics for improving correctional information, sharing criminal information and fighting gang crime.
The bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Patty Murray of Washington.
In a letter to lawmakers Friday, the Department of Justice said just over 400 alleged terrorists have been tried in civilian courts since Sept. 11, 2001.
The letter, by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich and addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama, is a response to Republicans who previously questioned the accuracy of statistics provided by the DOJ on the number of civilian terrorist trials.
The 400 cases took place between Sept. 11, 2001 and March 18 of this year, Weich said, and the department included only convictions in the tally, not cases that are still ongoing. The number also doesn’t include domestic terrorism cases, said Weich, who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs.
The department also provided lawmakers with a chart detailing each case, according to The Washington Post’s blog The Plum Line.
In defending his decision last November to prosecute alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York federal court, Attorney General Eric Holder said that 300 alleged terrorists had been successfully prosecuted in civilian courts. Republicans quickly questioned that claim, and Sessions called the 300 number “unsubstantiated.”
UPDATED: In a sharply worded rebuttal issued Friday afternoon, Sessions again challenged the DOJ’s accounting of alleged terrorists tried in civilian courts. According to Sessions, the terrorists on the list were not high-value terrorists and their offenses were much less severe than the charges against KSM.
“It is simply disingenuous for the Attorney General to argue that these cases demonstrate that captured enemy combatants, as classified under the 2009 Military Commissions Act, are better tried in civilian rather than military court,” Sessions said in a statement.
Read the full text of the DOJ letter below. Read the response from Sessions here.
Weich Letter to Leahy/Sessions on Terrorism Prosecutions in Civilian Courts
The Northern District of Alabama will have federal public defenders in the next year and a half, The Birmingham News reported Friday.
The district’s judges announced the creation of a federal public defender’s office this week after they voted unanimously last November to make federal attorneys available for indigent defendants. Currently, indigent defendants receive representation from a 62-lawyer panel chosen by the district’s judges.
The court plans to appoint a public defender, six assistants and other support staff. The proposal must still be approved by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and needs funding from Congress.
“I think the judges in this district have made a very courageous decision in instituting a public defender office,” U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance told the newspaper. “Quite frankly, things were working out well for us. We have a great [Criminal Justice Act] panel and there was not great momentum for change … The court is saying it is committed to the rights of defendants and I think that is a bold thing to do and something everyone should be proud of.”
The Northern District of Alabama, Southern District of Georgia, Eastern District of Kentucky and the Northern Mariana Islands are the only jurisdictions without federal public defenders. There are 94 districts across the country.
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky will step down Friday, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.
James Zerhusen (DOJ)
Jim Zerhusen has led the Lexington, Ky.-based U.S. Attorney’s office since January 2008 as an acting U.S. Attorney and as a court-appointed U.S. Attorney. He has worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office since 1980.
The U.S. Attorney was noted for his successful prosecution of a money courier for Colombian drug dealers in 1985. The case was the inspiration behind the first federal money laundering law.
He told the newspaper that he plans to do some traveling and will attend the NCAA Final Four, thanks to a gift from his colleagues.
“I’m hoping Kentucky will be playing Monday night,” Zerhusen, a University of Kentucky sports fan, told the Herald-Leader.
The U.S. Attorney said he also intends to spend more time with his wife and three adult children.
“I haven’t been bitten by golf,” he told the newspaper. “I don’t know if I can play tennis anymore.”
President Barack Obama nominated Kerry Harvey on Jan. 20 to be the next Eastern District of Kentucky U.S. Attorney. Read more about Harvey here.
Acting First Assistant U.S. Attorney E.J. Walbourn will lead the office until the next U.S. Attorney is confirmed by the Senate.
