Top lawmakers in the House and Senate struck a deal to extend expiring provisions of the Patriot Act four years, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to extend until June 1, 2015, the “roving wiretaps” power and “business records” authority, which makes it easier for federal authorities to get tangible evidence — such as library records — as part of an investigation. They also agreed to a four-year extension of the expiring “lone wolf” power, initially authorized under a 2004 law, which allows probes of suspected terrorists not tied to a specific organization or nation.
The three authorities are set expire May 27.
The House and Senate currently have competing bills on the extensions that are waiting for floor votes. The deal between Boehner and Reid appears to be an attempt to find middle ground on the extension proposals in the House and Senate measures.
The House bill would extend the “roving wiretaps” and “business records” authorities until Dec. 31, 2017. The “lone wolf” power would get a permanent extension.
The House Judiciary Committee voted 22–13, mostly along party lines, to report the bill out last week.
The Senate bill would extend the three expiring provisions until Dec. 31, 2013. The legislation also would employ a sunset for national security letters, which are administrative subpoenas that the FBI uses to get evidence without a court order.
The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed the bill in March. But the Senate legislation didn’t garner much support from panel Republicans with only Sen. Mike Lee of Utah voting in favor of reporting the bill out of committee.
The three authorities are currently allowed under a 90-day extension that Congress approved in February.
The House tried to pass legislation in February that would have extended the powers until December. That bill was considered under House procedures that required a two-thirds majority to pass the bill. But House Democrats and conservative Republicans joined together and the bill was not passed.
The Western District of Arkansas U.S. Attorney’s Office this week secured the first conviction at trial of an individual under a 2009 law designed to give the federal government more tools to fight hate crimes, putting a spotlight on the office’s new U.S. Attorney.
William Conner Eldridge, Jr. (gov)
William Conner Eldridge Jr., whom the Senate confirmed in December, heads one of the smallest U.S. Attorneys’ offices in terms of caseload.
A federal jury convicted Frankie Maybee under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act for injuring and threatening five Hispanic men. Co-defendant Sean Popejoy has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the incident.
Popejoy allegedly yelled racial epithets at the men and brandished a tire wrench at them from the window of a truck that Maybee drove to chase after the men who were driving away from a gas station. Maybee rammed his truck into the men’s car several times causing the vehicle to crash into a tree and ignite.
The Hispanic men were injured in the crash. One man had life-threatening injuries.
“We thank the jury for their careful consideration, and for their verdict. It is horrific that acts of violence are committed against complete strangers because of their race,” Eldridge said in a statement. He added: “In the Western District of Arkansas, we will continue to prosecute acts of violence that are motivated by hatred of another’s race.”
Senate Democrats on Thursday failed to move to a final vote on the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a first for a Barack Obama judicial nominee, providing both Democrats and Republicans with ammunition heading toward the 2012 election.
The chamber was unable to invoke cloture on the nomination, which would have limited debate to 30 hours and put him one step away from confirmation.
Approval of the cloture motion required the support of 60 senators. The vote was 52-43.
In the past, Democrats have chosen not to bring Obama judicial nominations to the floor unless they were certain they had the votes.
The battle over the nomination has become particularly high-profile, as Republicans attempted to paint Liu as an activist and out of the mainstream, while Democrats saw him as a brilliant legal scholar. Liu attempted to gain support this week, making the rounds of senators’ offices.
Republicans have held up his nomination over concerns that he would move the San Francisco-based court, widely considered as the most liberal of the federal circuits, further to the left.
They also expressed worries about highly critical comments Liu made about Samuel Alito during Alito’s Supreme Court nomination hearing in 2006. Liu later apologized for the remarks. He said in a hearing this month that his comments were “unduly harsh.”
Among the Republicans voting against cloture were Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Olympia Snowe of Maine, members of the “Gang of 14,” which reached a deal on judicial filibusters in 2005. They agreed in 2005 that only an “extraordinary” reason should prevent a judicial nominee from getting a confirmation vote.
“I have not been this disappointed in a vote on a judicial nomination since Senate Republicans voted in lock step to reject Missouri Justice Ronnie White in 1999,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a statement. “Professor Liu deserved better treatment than the Senate has allowed. All Americans suffer from this filibuster.”
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Senate Judiciary Committee Republican, said Liu is “far from a consensus nominee.”
“It’s now time for the President to send to Capitol Hill a consensus nominee that the members of the Senate can agree on, instead of insisting on moving forward with controversial nominees that are completely out of the mainstream of America,” Grassley said in a statement.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is hoping Republican resistance to Liu can help Democrats as they head into the 2012 election, according to CQ-Roll Call. The inability to get a confirmation vote on Liu could put millions of dollars in Democratic campaign coffers as they decry Republican opposition to him in fundraising letters, the news organization said.
This story has been updated.
Americans who do not buy health insurance pass on billions of dollars in costs to taxpayers, in effect raising their taxes, the Department of Justice has asserted in a brief appealing an unfavorable ruling against the health care reform law.
The brief was filed on Wednesday by the DOJ in response to a suit filed by attorneys general and governors of 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business and two individuals. The plaintiffs maintain that the individual mandate to buy insurance exceeds Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, according to a report on California Healthline.
The plaintiffs prevailed in a ruling on Jan. 31 by U.S. Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida, who agreed with the plaintiffs. Because he found the mandate “inextricably bound” to other provisions in the law, he invalidated it entirely.
“Amid conflicting interpretations of his ruling, Vinson issued a stay, permitting implementation of the overhaul to continue in the 26 plaintiff states while the Obama administration pursued an appeal,” California Healthline noted. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is to hear the government’s appeal June 8 in Atlanta.
The DOJ brief asserts that the unpaid health care expenses incurred by uninsured individuals are passed on to other Americans, amounting to “a burden on interstate commerce that plainly qualifies as substantial,” California Healthline reported.
Numerous suits have been filed against the health care reform law, by government entities and private interests. Since several of the federal circuits are involved, it seems likely that the constitutionality of the law will have to be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended a U.S. Attorney from the George H.W. Bush administration from practicing law.
Wev Shea (Gov)
Wev Shea, who served as Alaska U.S. Attorney from 1990 to 1993, will start his 25-month suspension on June 17. He faced conflict of interest accusations, stemming from his decision to switch clients in a suit between two siblings.
In its order, the court said there is “clear and convincing evidence” that Shea was in violation of rules of conduct for lawyers. The body also said the former U.S. Attorney must show he is “mentally fit to return to the practice of law” if he reapplies for his license.
The Alaska Bar Association Disciplinary Board in September recommended the suspension and mental evaluation.
Shea has defended his actions, claiming he did not have to uphold attorney-client privileges with his first client because he felt the man broke the law. The former U.S. Attorney said his initial client planned a fraud scheme with his lawyers.
“I know that you are wondering probably why Wev Shea would do this,” Shea told KTUU, an Alaskan television station, last year. “I did it because the conduct is criminal.”
Shea was an adviser to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R). He assisted in the development of ethics reform proposals for the former governor’s administration.
In the white-collar world, is a bigger firm the better one?
That’s a question Abbe Lowell and Christopher Man said they answered the hard way.
In 2007, they left their long time home at Chadbourne & Parke for a firm that had more than twice the lawyers, McDermott Will & Emery.
Abbe Lowell
“I thought size was the large determinate,” Lowell said in an interview. “More people, more clients, I thought it was a numbers game.”
This month, they reconsidered.
Lowell, a go-to lawyer in the biggest Washington scandals, returned to Chadbourne in early May. On Wednesday, the firm announced that Man and partner Pamela Marple, who represented the John Edwards staffer who tried to take the fall in the love-child scandal, followed.
“It turned out bigger was not better,” Lowell said.
McDermott’s size — 970 lawyers by the latest American Lawyer count — made it difficult to interact with the firm’s partners and clients, he said.
The firm’s partnership structure — tiered with different levels of income and capital partners — also incentivized lawyers to compete with each other for the work, Man said in an interview.
And a bigger firm meant more business conflicts, Lowell said, and having to turn down work because of them.
“Life is always tradeoffs, but am I giving up more work than I’m getting?” Lowell, who helped defend former President Bill Clinton against impeachment charges and represented the likes of Jack Abramoff and Rep. Gary Condit, said.
In a statement, Bobby Burchfield, co-partner-in-charge of McDermott’s Washington, D.C., office said: ”As a matter of policy, McDermott does not discuss its compensation structure with outside parties. Every day, McDermott partners work together across offices and across geographies to provide excellent client service.”
But Lowell and Man said Chadbourne’s size — 398 lawyers according to the American Lawyer — and flatter partnership structure drew them back.
Pamela Marple
Chadbourne also has few lawyers who specialize in white collar criminal defense, and the return of the group doubles the practice at the firm, Lowell said.
Changes in enforcement priorities — especially the Justice Department’s stepped up enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — also made Chadbourne a more attractive platform.
The firm does mostly corporate work, and has a network of small offices in unusual locations that rank low on corruption indices, including Kyiv, Almaty, Warsaw, and Moscow.
Chadbourne does a lot of project finance work in those places, and handles investments that can often run into FCPA concerns.
The firm’s clients previously had to go elsewhere when things went south on those projects, Man said.
Lowell said he has already fielded calls from partners abroad about matters the group might handle.
Their current clients also moved over to the new firm with the group, Man said.
Christopher Man
On the FCPA front, they represent Ousama Naaman, who pleaded guilty last year to corruption charges related to the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq.
Man also previously represented Titan Corp. in foreign bribery concerns that scuttled the company’s deal with Lockheed Martin Corp., and worked on a corruption investigation for energy firm ConocoPhillips.
The other partner, Marple, who worked as a federal prosecutor and on the Hill, as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has a general litigation practice with a focus on congressional investigations.
The group seems to be doing well at the new firm. Lowell already snagged a major new client — former Sen. John Ensign hired Lowell to defend him in a potential investigation into whether he broke federal laws in the aftermath of an affair with an aide.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would redirect a portion of money recovered through fraud cases back into Justice Department anti-fraud activities.
The panel voted 16-2 to report out of committee the Fighting Fraud to Protect Taxpayers Act of 2011 introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top panel Republican. Republicans Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Mike Lee of Utah voted against the bill.
The DOJ currently is allowed to hold on to 3 percent of the funds it takes in through its civil debt collection litigation activities to use for agency-wide expenditures. The bill would increase that amount to 3.5 percent, drawing from fines and penalties obtained in fraud cases, dictating that the additional 0.5 percent is used only on fraud enforcement.
But the DOJ would be barred from spending any of the money on enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a foreign bribery law.
Enforcement of the FCPA, which prohibits bribes to foreign officials to win or keep business, brought in more than $1 billion in penalties in fiscal year 2010, about a third of the money collected by the Criminal Division. The FCPA was kept out at Grassley’s request, but Leahy didn’t oppose it, a Senate Judiciary Committee aide told Main Justice. The Republican wanted the FCPA excluded from the legislation because he didn’t want the debate around it to cloud the bill’s prospects, a Grassley staffer told Main Justice.
President Barack Obama plans to nominate Daniel Gallagher, a Republican, and Luis Aguilar, a Democrat, as commissioners at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Aguliar has served as an SEC commissioner since 2008 and has continued to serve even though his term expired in 2010.
Gallagher is a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, but worked at the SEC from 2006 through 2010.
Prior to going to the firm, Gallagher served as a deputy director of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets and as Co-Acting Director of the Division from April 2009 to January 2010. That division is in charge of writing many for the rules for the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul law. Gallagher earned a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the Catholic University of America.
Prior to being appointed as an SEC commissioner, Aguilar was a partner at McKenna Long & Aldridge, LLP, specializing in securities law. He previously served as general counsel, executive vice president, and corporate secretary of INVESCO. His career also includes tenure as a partner at several national law firms and as an attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He received a J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law, and also received a master of laws degree in taxation from Emory University
Saying it has little authority over the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the NCAA is handing off Justice Department questions about the antitrust implications of the system used to select teams for college football bowl games.
“Inasmuch as the BCS system does not fall under the purview of the NCAA, it is not appropriate for me to provide views on the system,” NCAA President Mark Emmert wrote in a letter today to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney.
DOJ asked the NCAA to justify the BSC, saying that questions continue to be raised suggesting that the current system of selecting teams for bowl games may not comply with federal antitrust laws.
“Serious questions continue to arise suggesting that the current Bowl Championship Series system may not be conducted consistent with the competition principles expressed in the federal antitrust laws,” Varney wrote in a letter to Emmert earlier this month.
Opponents of the current bowl selection process argue that the BCS is an illegal monopoly because universities in conferences without an automatic bowl bid are deprived equal access. It is more difficult for those schools to get a bowl invitation.
Emmert wrote in his letter that other than licensing the postseason football games, the NCAA does not play a role in the BCS process and he suggested that DOJ officials ask the same questions of BCS officials. The BCS website describes the BCS as “an event managed by the 11 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision conferences.”
The Senate refused to end debate Wednesday on legislation that would have allowed more offshore drilling, and required civil litigation involving drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to be considered in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which critics say amounted to “forum shopping” because it allowed judges with heavy financial interests in the energy field to consider the cases.
The measure, the Republican response to soaring gasoline prices, needed 60 votes for the cloture motion to be approved and it garnered only 42, with 57 in opposition. The bill would require the Interior Department to conduct previously scheduled offshore lease sales. And among other provisions, it would require certain cases to the tried in the 5th Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Supporters said that plan would have protected “regional authority.”
However, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said the plan was unfair. “The majority of active judges serving on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals have a financial interest in energy corporations that would likely require their recusal in a lawsuit filed under this proposed legislation,” he said in a statement. “I will not support this ill-conceived attempt to stack the deck against victims of environmental disasters, while also undercutting our current regulations, ignoring safety and environmental protections, and setting arbitrary timelines for drilling permits.”
The Alliance for Justice has released a report detailing the energy investments and connections of 5th Circuit Court judges.
