Timothy P. Murphy (FBI)
A new agent has taken over the FBI’s no. 2 spot, at least on a temporary basis.
Associate Deputy Director Timothy P. Murphy, the no. 3 official at the FBI, has taken over the Deputy Director spot on an acting basis, Paul Bressen, an FBI spokesman, confirmed Monday. He replaces former Deputy FBI Director John Pistole, who was confirmed to head the Transportation Security Administration last week.
Bressen said a permanent replacement had not yet been named. Murphy is the leading candidate to replace Pistole on a permanent basis.
The website Tickle The Wire first reported that Murphy took over the position on an acting basis.
Additional reporting by David Johnston.
Murphy’s FBI bio is reprinted below:
Timothy P. Murphy began his career with the FBI when he entered on duty as a special agent in September 1988.
As a more than 20-year veteran of the FBI, he has worked a number of investigative matters, including counterterrorism and organized crime/drugs. He has served as a pilot in the aviation program and within the special operations, technical operations, undercover operations, and surveillance programs. He has held a number of supervisory and leadership positions at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and in the field, including special agent in charge (SAC) of the Cincinnati Division, and he was a member of the Director’s SAC Advisory Committee.
Mr. Murphy has served as a special assistant to Director Mueller. In this position, Mr. Murphy provided counsel to the Director on a variety of policy, budget, and administrative matters. He also assisted in the preparation for the Director’s events and meetings, domestic and international travel, and ensured the resolution of day to day issues.
Mr. Murphy has also served as the assistant director/chief financial officer at FBI Headquarters. In this position, Mr. Murphy was responsible for formulating and executing the FBI’s then-$6.2 billion budget.
In January 2008, Mr. Murphy was appointed associate deputy director. In this position, Mr. Murphy oversees the management of the FBI’s personnel, budget, administration, and infrastructure.
Prior to entering the FBI, Mr. Murphy worked in the private sector and as a police officer in Michigan. He graduated from Ferris State University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice.
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The Justice Department recently revamped the rules governing out-of-state travel for U.S. Attorneys, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Mary Beth Buchanan (Steve Pope)
The newspaper also found that former U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan spent more than half of her tenure on the road, spending 1,047 days on travel.
In March, the DOJ changed travel regulations for U.S. Attorneys, requiring approval for out-of-district travel from the Director or Deputy Director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. The change followed a DOJ review of travel by all U.S. Attorneys. Previously, U.S. Attorneys were permitted to approve their own travel and obtain post-travel approval from the EOUSA.
“The previous policies and procedures were admittedly inconsistent,” DOJ spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz told the newspaper. “Changes to the process were made to ensure full compliance with departmental travel policies and procedure and to strengthen controls and oversight of U.S. Attorney travel.”
Travel expenses were an issue in last year’s New Jersey governor’s race. Incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) used a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain travel records for his Republican opponent, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, showing he often exceeded his government allowance and stayed in luxury hotels while serving as the state’s chief federal prosecutor. Corzine’s camp also accused Christie allies in the U.S. Attorney’s office of failing to comply in a timely manner with the FOIA request for his travel records. Christie won the election.
In her eight years as the U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania, Buchanan took at least 347 trips that cost taxpayers more than $450,000, the Post-Gazette reported. According to the newspaper DOJ officials would not specifically address Buchanan’s travel or how it compared to travel by other U.S. Attorneys.
Buchanan resigned Nov. 16, 2009, to run for the Republication nomination for the 4th congressional district in Pennsylvania. She lost that race in May to former Department of Homeland Security official Keith Rothfus.
This story has been updated.
Pennsylvania’s mostly recently confirmed U.S. Attorney plans to start his new job this week, The Times-Tribune of Scranton, Pa., reported.
Last week, the Senate confirmed Peter J. Smith as the new U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Smith, who has been retired since April 2, 2009, previously was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The newspaper highlights the priority in the district of prosecuting white collar crime, which Smith has experience in. Read more about Smith’s background here.
Smith replaces Martin C. Carlson who resigned Aug. 10, 2009. The district’s current interim U.S. Attorney is Dennis C. Pfannenschmidt.
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Knoxville U.S. Attorney James R. Dedrick will step down this week after serving as the top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Tennessee since 2007, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. Dedrick has been with the U.S. Attorney’s office for 38 years.
President Barack Obama on May 20 nominated Jasper, Tenn., lawyer Bill Killian to take replace Dedrick.
Since joining that U.S. Attorney’s office, Dedrick has served as First Assistant U.S. Attorney and interim and acting U.S. Attorney. He also served as interim U.S. Attorney in North Carolina.
Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez also asked Dedrick to head the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, which Dedrick turned down. Gonzalez “was a bit miffed,” according to Dedrick, but “we laughed about it later,” he said.
Dedrick plans to spend his retirement traveling with his wife and focusing on charity and community service work.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Sullivan will run the office until the Senate confirms a U.S. Attorney.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan tomorrow, and lawmakers used parts of the Sunday talk shows to preview the drama of the week ahead.
The committee’s ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, said on CBS’s Face the Nation that Kagan had “serious deficiencies” as a Supreme Court nominee and faced the possibility of a filibuster.
“It’s conceivable a filibuster might occur,” Sessions said, according to CNN. ”I think the first thing we need to decide is, is she committed to the rule of law even if she doesn’t like the law?”
Democrats, of course, dismissed such criticism. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said on CNN’s State of the Union that if Republicans “had 10 angels coming from above swearing that this person was the most qualified … for the Supreme Court, was a centrist and would follow the rule of law and obey precedent, they would say ‘too extreme.’ ”
The New York Times reports Kagan may not even be the real star of her confirmation hearings, with both President Barack Obama and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. casting shadows over the proceedings.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will want to portray the Roberts court as in the pocket of corporate America, according to the Times, while Republicans on the panel will use the hearings to question Obama’s agenda and the impartiality his own Solicitor General could show on the high court.
Democrats, including the committee’s chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), have criticized a string of recent Supreme Court decisions, including last week’s ruling that limited prosecutors’ use of a white-collar fraud law.
The Washington Post reports on concerns about Kagan by some civil rights groups. One black lawyers group, the National Bar Association, “had some qualms” about Kagan’s statements on crack-cocaine sentencing and said she didn’t do enough to expand racial and ethnic diversity at Harvard Law school when she was dean there, according to the Post.
And in light of the hearings, the Daily Beast explores why Kagan’s looks matter. (Conservative commentator Michael Savage previously said Kagan “looks like she belongs in a kosher deli.”)
Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Michael Bromwich (Getty)
Former Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich wants to draw from DOJ ranks to staff a unit charged with strengthening regulation and enforcement in the newly reorganized Bureau of Ocean Energy that he took over earlier this week.
As one of his first acts as head of the agency, Bromwich created a new investigations and review unit in the front office of BOE that will investigate allegations against agency personnel and the companies that it regulates.
“We are going to be hiring some of the top people available, but in the meantime I’m hoping to get on detail people from the Department of Justice with whom I’ve worked in the past and perhaps other people in government so that we will be able to get up and running immediately to address some of the very significant issues that are on my plate right now,” Bromwich said in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday.
President Barack Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar named Bromwich to take over the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service, which had been accused of lax oversight and conflicts of interest in the fallout of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Bromwich had been a litigation partner resident at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP since 1999. He served as Inspector General for the Department of Justice from 1994 until 1999.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on whether Bromwich had discussed a detail with the DOJ, citing a policy not against discussing personnel issues.
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The North Carolina State Bar has suspended the license of a former Assistant U.S. Attorney this month for practicing law without an active license, according to an order from the bar’s disciplinary commission.
The North Carolina law license of David P. Folmar Jr., who represented the Justice Department from November 2003 to March 2009 without a valid license, is suspended for five years. But he can apply to have the suspension lifted after a year and a half, according to the order dated June 11, 2010.
Folmar’s license was initially suspended in November 2003 for failing to obey mandatory continuing legal education obligations. He also was licensed to practice law in Florida, but his Florida Bar license was retired before November 2003. An Assistant U.S. Attorney must have an active license from at least one state bar to practice law.
The ex-prosecutor did not notify his supervisors in the Middle District of North Carolina U.S. Attorney’s office about his suspension. Middle District U.S. Attorney Anna Mills Wagoner fired Folmar in March 2009. She then informed lawyers and judges who worked with Folmar on hundreds of cases. The DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility also disciplined him, according to the order.
The former Assistant U.S. Attorney was “having personal and family problems” and “suffering from depression and turned to alcohol” when he practiced law without a license, according the order.
Folmar was convicted in 2008 of driving while impaired. Police reports said he had almost three times the legal blood-alcohol content of 0.08.
He sought counseling and has shown “extreme remorse,” the order said. Folmar had an “unblemished” record and has a “professional reputation of being an honest lawyer,” according to the order.
Wade M. Smith, Folmar’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Main Justice.
UPDATE
Smith told Main Justice that it was a “serious, serious mistake” for Folmar to practice law without a valid license. But the lawyer said he thinks there is still a place for Folmar in the legal community.
“I see so much good in him and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for him,” Smith said.
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A conference committee reconciling differences between the House and Senate versions of a sweeping financial regulatory bill included a provision in the legislation that would extend the statute of limitations on some securities fraud offenses and seek to improve whistleblower protections.
Under the amendment, a person could face charges for certain securities fraud violations up to six years after the offense occurred. Under current law, the statute of limitations is five years.
The amendment would apply to the following securities violations:
18 U.S.C. 1348 — Securities and Commodities Fraud
15 U.S.C. 78ff(a) — False Statements/Failure to File Information Pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
15 U.S.C. 77x — Willful violations of Securities Act of 1933
15 U.S.C. 80b–17– Willful violations of the Investment Advisors Act of 1940
15 U.S.C. 80a–48 — Willful violations of the Investment Company Act of 1940
15 U.S.C. 77yyy — Willful violations of the Trust Indenture Act of 1939
The amendment also would ask the U.S. Sentencing Commission to revise and increase the sentencing guidelines for securities and bank fraud offenses. According to the Senate Judiciary Committee, sentences for securities and bank fraud are often shorter than those for other white collar crimes. The amendment does not offer specific ranges for sentences but instead would ask the Sentencing Commission to make changes so the sentences are more in line with those for other forms of white collar crime.
According to the committee, the amendment also would seek to ensure that proper incentives are in place to reward whistleblowers who step forward to report fraud and abuse.
“Often the best way to deter the kind of reckless and outrageous conduct that can bring down financial institutions and harm so many Americans is to ensure that those who commit these crimes actually go to jail,” Leahy said in a statement. “The provisions included in the Wall Street reform legislation will lead to increased sentences for those who commit securities fraud and bank fraud, and strengthen protections for whistleblowers, who often serve as an early warning system to stop fraud before it damages financial institutions and the economy.”
The Leahy amendment was added during a 20-hour marathon meeting to hash out differences between the House and Senate bills. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) was a lead supporter of the amendment during the Senate-House conference, according to the committee.
Congress is expected to finish up work on the bill before the July 4 recess.
The text of the amendment is embedded below.
The Justice and Agriculture Departments have launched a new task force to consider how to promote competition in the agriculture industry, Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney said at a conference on competition in the dairy business in Madison, Wis. on Friday.
The task force will review enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act, according to Varney’s prepared remarks. That law regulates the livestock and dairy industries and prohibits them from engaging in unfair practices. The law is administered by the Department of Agriculture.
Today’s workshop is the latest installment in a series of town-hall meetings on competition issues in agriculture. The DOJ heard from poultry farmers in Alabama last month and discussed the seed industry in March in Iowa.
The Wisconsin workshop focused on the state’s $26 billion dairy industry, where farmers are unhappy about the low prices they are paid for raw milk.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), who urged Varney to include the state in her agriculture itinerary and was on hand at the conference, said retail prices for dairy products have not kept pace with the sharp declines in farm milk prices. That discrepancy, he said, according to prepared remarks, has lead him to question whether consolidation in the industry had given some firms too much power in the market.
“We have to ask if our farmers are getting a fair shake,” said Kohl, who chairs the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.
Varney said the Justice Department was tracking the development. “[W]e are keeping a watchful eye on this industry,” Varney said. “We know that dairy farmers are concerned about a lack of choices for buyers, about the way that their milk is priced, and about a year of dispiriting returns for their labors.”
The Agriculture Department has predicted that farmers will receive around $1.35 for a gallon of milk this year, down 30 cents from 2007, according to the Burlington Free Press, and it’s a problem for which farmers largely blame large dairy processors and co-ops.
The Antitrust Division sued Dean Foods in January alleging that the dairy processor’s acquisition of two Foremost Farms processing plants in Wisconsin last year removed competition in the milk industry.
Varney said at the panel she has heard from large co-ops and they are working to be more transparent and accessible to member needs, according to Dairy Farmers of America spokeswoman Monica Massey’s tweets from the event.
According to the magazine Progressive Dairyman, Varney also said: “We have a pro-farmer agenda and will take that where ever it leads us.”
Around 500 people attended the workshop, according to the Associated Press.
Richard Daddario, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department Attaché in Moscow, has been tapped by the New York Police Department to head their counterterrorism efforts, The New York Times reported.
He will replace Richard Falkenrath, who retired in May to join the private security firm Chertoff Group, headed by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Daddario served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1996 to 2009 before he was sent to Moscow as the Justice Department Attaché. In that position, he provided legal advice to the U.S. Embassy and worked with Russian law enforcement on several issues including terrorism and transnational crime.
When he assumes the office in August, Daddario will be the first prosecutor to serve in the position, which was created shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The deputy commissioner of counterterrorism is responsible for the more than 120 detectives assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force and will supervise the Lower Manhattan Security Initiatives’ planned network expansion of security cameras.
Daddario also will work closely with the more than 1,000 officers assigned to counterterrorism duties, including the NYPD’s Intelligence Division, led by former CIA official David Cohen.
“Richard Daddario brings vast experience and an impeccable reputation in law enforcement to this most important post,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement. “As recent events have shown, New York remains a target for terrorists, and we need talented leadership to help us protect against this continuing threat.”
The New York Police Department made the announcement less than two months after suspected terrorist Faisal Shahzad attempted to set off a car bomb in Times Square. Shahzad pled guilty this week to the attempted attack.
