A partner from Jones Day’s Washington office will soon join the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, just as the division experiences a turnover of leadership, the Blog of Legal Times reported.
Leslie Overton will return to the DOJ as a special adviser to the Assistant Attorney General. She previously served as counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the antitrust division from 2002 to 2004, before heading to Jones Day.
While at Jones Day, Overton worked on several high-profile cases, including representing XM Satellite Radio in a 2008 merger with Sirius Satellite Radio and Procter & Gamble Co. in its 2005 purchase of The Gillette Company.
And Overton’s return to the office comes as two senior officials make their way out. Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney will leave the office on Aug. 5 to join Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and her deputy, Katherine Forrest has been nominated for a federal district judgeship in the Southern District of New York.
Attorney General Eric Holder has not said who will lead the office after Varney’s departure.
A whistleblower who worked briefly for the FBI and has had a thorny relationship with the agency is suing the bureau and Attorney General Eric Holder, contending that she is being blocked from publishing a book, even though it contains no classified information.
Sibel D. Edmonds was a contract monitor and linguist for the bureau from Sept. 13, 2001, to March 22, 2002, according to her complaint, which was reported by Courthouse News Service. Edmonds, who founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, contends that she was fired after she reported “a number of whistleblower allegations” to FBI officials.
The Courthouse News Service cited a report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General that said in part: “The majority of the allegations raised by Edmonds related to the actions of a co-worker. The allegations raised serious concerns that, if true, could potentially have extremely damaging consequences for the FBI. These allegations warranted a thorough and careful review by the FBI. Our investigation concluded that the FBI did not, and still has not, adequately investigated these allegations.
Edmonds contends that she submitted her manuscript to the FBI on April 26 for prepublication review, and “that nothing in the manuscript is classified and that nothing in her manuscript should be barred from publication.” Edmonds, represented by David Colapinto with the National Whistleblowers Legal Defense & Education Fund, seeks an injunction granting her permission to publish.
The Department of Justice has decided not to investigate the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, concluding that the statutes of limitations on any federal laws involved in the crime have long since expired.
“Although the Justice Department recognizes that the murder of Malcolm X was a tragedy, both for his family and for the community he served, we have determined that at this time, the matter does not implicate federal interests sufficient to necessitate the use of scarce federal investigative resources into a matter for which there can be no federal criminal prosecution,” the department said.
The DOJ’s decision was reported by Allan Lengel on his Tickle the Wire blog, which credited a report on Saturday in The New York Times.
“Alvin Sykes, an advocate for justice in civil rights-era cold cases, has suggested that the department has the discretion to investigate even if no prosecution is possible, an authority that has been used in the past to examine the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” The Times reported. But the department concluded that the Malcolm X case did not merit similar treatment.
The black activist, who was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, was shot to death at close range in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City on Feb. 21, 1965, a few months before his 40th birthday. Three men, members of the Nation of Islam, were convicted of murder, but some who have followed the case believe that the investigation was bungled.
The biography “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” by Manning Marable, has prompted some to push for a reopening of the case. (Marable died earlier this year, as his book was being released.)
A top prosecutor in the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney’s office agreed to a 100-day suspension starting Sept. 6 for improper political activity, according to a settlement reached last week with the Office of Special Counsel.
The OSC, which enforces limits on federal employees’ political activities, reached an agreement with former interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania Laurie Magid to drop allegations that she solicited political donations from subordinates for two Pennsylvania Republicans, including her former boss, former Philadelphia U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan, who is now a Republican member of Congress from Pennsylvania.
In exchange, Magid admitted that she violated other parts of the Hatch Act, which prohibits civil servants in the executive branch from engaging in partisan political activity.
According to settlement papers, Magid admitted to three violations of federal law.
The first two involve accepting political contributions in 2008 and 2009 at her office as part of political fundraisers for then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter and Meehan, who was a candidate for governor at the time. The events were organized by her husband, Jeffrey A. Miller.
One prosecutor who could not attend the Specter fundraiser gave her a $200 check at the office, and another prosecutor dropped a $250 check for Meehan off at her desk while she was away, according to the settlement.
The third violation involved an “alum list” of former employees of the U.S. Attorney’s office that Magid requested from the office and which her husband used to send out invitations.
Andrew Weissman, Magid’s attorney, said he believes the facts simply don’t justify the attention the case received from OSC investigators, who normally deal with much larger cases involving solicitation. In fact, the OSC determined that all Magid’s participation in the fundraiser itself was entirely proper, he said, barring the two incidents where she delivered checks to her husband that were given to her by mistake.
The OSC acknowledged that Magid sought and received approval from the ethics officers at OSC to help her husband organize and plan the first fundraiser for Specter in 2008. But the agency said it did not give her permission to personally collect money. Her request to participate in the fundraiser didn’t say that she held a supervisor position in the U.S. Attorney’s office and planned to invite her subordinates, the OSC said in court documents.
The agency also alleged that Magid didn’t contact the OSC before the second fundraiser for Meehan, for whom she worked as First Assistant U.S. Attorney from 2005 to 2008 when he headed the Philadelphia office.
But attorneys for Magid maintained in a statement that the OSC had given her permission to help with the fundraisers and suggested that the two subordinates were friends who thought it easier to simply give her the money personally.
“I was told by OSC when I checked with that office prior to the fundraisers – that the spouse of a federal employee is permitted, by law, to host a political fundraiser and that I could assist him,” Magid said in a statement. “I have spent my life devoted to public service, and I am looking forward to continuing my work as a prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s office.”
Magid was replaced by interim U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy in May 2009 amid controversy over the fundraisers, but she stayed with the office as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the office’s appeals division. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General also opened an investigation.
Then in February 2011, the OSC filed a complaint against Magid seeking disciplinary action “up to removal from her employment.”
It cited objections from several prosecutors who said they felt pressured by Magid to attend and contribute to her husband’s events. It also alleged that Magid aspired to a judicial appointment and believed that meeting with Specter at the fundraiser “could be helpful to her career.”
Weissman said that he believes neither party is happy about the terms of the settlement, but that more importantly, it will give Magid a chance to get on with her life.
The OSC did not return calls for comment Monday.
UPDATED: To add statements from Magid’s attorney.
Attorney General Eric Holder has asked a federal judge in Boston not to release some evidence against a Massachusetts man accused of conspiring to kill American troops in Iraq, arguing that releasing the material would disclose top secret data that could harm national security.
Holder maintains in court documents in the case of Tarek Mehanna that evidence gathered through electronic surveillance and physical searches under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act should be reviewed by a judge privately and not turned over to the defense. Holder says the materials contain “sensitive and classified information concerning United States intelligence sources and methods,” the Associated Press reported.
Mehanna, 28, was arrested at his parents’ home in Sudbury, Mass., in October 2009 and charged with conspiring to aid terrorist organizations, plotting to kill American politicians and planning to attack a shopping mall. He has been held without bail since his arrest. His lawyers have said the government’s case is flimsy and built on anti-American statements supposedly made by Mehanna.
Federal prosecutors filed charges on Thursday against three Credit Suisse private bankers – including a senior executive – in an ongoing Justice Department crackdown of foreign banks that allegedly helped U.S. citizens evade millions in taxes, Reuters reported.
Authorities filed charges in Alexandria, Va., against Markus Walder, a former senior Credit Suisse executive; Susanne D. Rüegg Meier, a former manager; and Andreas Bachmann, a former banker at a Credit Suisse subsidiary. Josef Dorig, the founder of a Swiss trust company that worked with the bank, was also charged.
All four bankers are accused of conspiring to defraud the United States, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service. Walder also faces charges of lying to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2005 and 2007 and the IRS about the bank’s activities in the U.S and the role of a New York representative office.
Court documents did not name the bank connected with the charges, but a anonymous government official told Reuters it is Credit Suisse.
Credit Suisse, which has been under scrutiny since 2008, announced last week that it is the target of a criminal investigation into alleged banking activities that allowed U.S. citizens to evade taxes.
That announcement bolstered concerns that the bank could face a similar situation as UBS in 2009, when that bank agreed to pay $780 million in fines and hand over data on thousands of clients in a settlement with the Justice Department.
The latest charges came in a superseding indictment that added to existing charges filed in Feburary against four other Credit Suisse bankers: Marco Parenti Adami, Emanuel Agustoni, Michele Bergantino and Roger Schaerer. They bring the number of charged individuals from the bank up to seven.
A trove of internal emails obtained by the Los Angeles Times paints a picture of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials trying to temper early congressional inquiries into the botched gun-smuggling operation Fast and Furious.
The emails show that, in the weeks that followed the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry in a gun shootout with Mexican bandits in Dec. 2010, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives evaded inquiries from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) about two guns sold in the operation and recovered at the scene of the shootout.
Grassley asked whether operation guns were “used” in Terry’s killing, which the department denied, saying that “these allegations are not true.” In fact, the response did not acknowledge that the guns were found there, according to the Times.
But internal emails between two ATF supervisors in the bureau’s Phoenix office identified the weapons as coming from the failed operation only two days after the Dec. 14 shootout. George T. Gillett Jr., then-acting special agent in charge, sent his boss William D. Newell, the agent in charge, a report saying that the two AK-47 semiautomatics were purchased during the operation by Jamie Avila, a straw buyer who later gave them to an unidentified Hispanic male.
Anonymous ATF officials told the Times that the FBI had determined that neither of the two firearms were the ones that shot Terry, and in their response, they had distinguished between the guns being found at the scene and “used” in the killing.
But the response illustrates a larger pattern in which the ATF and Justice Department closed ranks and downplayed the operation in a series of emails to congressional investigators.
In an email dated Feb. 4, department officials told ATF supervisors that “you are in no way obligated to respond to congressional contacts or requests for information … You are not authorized to disclose non-public information about law enforcement matters outside of ATF or the Department of Justice to anyone, including congressional staff.”
ATF agents also sent a series of emails to ATF’s acting deputy director William J. Hoover about requests for information from Grassley and detailed concerns they held over interactions between a mid-level supervisor and an agent who had spoken which the senator’s staff. The supervisor reportedly ordered the agent to “write a memorandum disclosing everything” he had said to investigators. Several other agents worried that the supervisor had violated federal laws designed to protect whistleblowers.
Another email to Hoover suggested providing a “watered-down” account of what was found at the December shootout and added that Grassley was “at best imposing an unobtainable standard on ATF.”
In its ultimate response to Grassley, the department sent a letter signed by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich that defended Fast and Furious and refused to comment on Terry’s killing, citing “pending criminal investigations.”
According to other internal emails quoted by the Times, ATF acting Director Kenneth E. Melson and Hoover signed off on this response, with one official telling Hoover: “Whether or not they buy in, you are the man for supporting us like that.”
With the Senate’s passage of a bill to extend FBI Director Robert Mueller’s term Thursday, focus has now shifted to the House.
Laena Fallon, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the House Majority Leader’s Office, said the House plans to consider the extension early next week. The bill will not go through the House Judiciary Committee, according to a spokeswoman from the committee’s office.
President Barack Obama has pushed to extend Mueller’s term for two more years in order to give continuity to his national security team.
But the measure was held up several times by Senate Republicans – first over concerns that a simple extension of the bill would not pass constitutional muster, and then by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who submitted a letter to Mueller requesting a meeting and asking for answers on FBI policies and operations.
Paul reportedly met with Mueller Thursday and lifted his hold on the bill. In a statement, Paul explained that he would support Mueller’s renomination but not the bill to extend his term.
“I am opposed to changing the term limits on this important position, which serve as a safeguard and check against the significant power of the position,” he said. “I am not opposed to Director Mueller and will not oppose his renomination, but I do oppose the idea that term limits should be changed when it is convenient. I thank him and the bureau for their cooperation and answers to my questions over the last few weeks.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) praised the bill and the bipartisan manner in which it passed in a statement Thursday. But he rejected concerns that the version originally passed by his committee – which would have simply extended Mueller’s term instead of nominating him to a special two-year term as the current version does – rubbed against the Constitution.
“While no senator opposed an extension of Director Mueller’s term, some quibbled over the text of a bill to accomplish this goal, causing unnecessary delay,” Leahy said. “I believe the bill reported by the committee was constitutional, and that the revisions to the bill are unnecessary.
“Nonetheless, I am pleased that a bill passed the Senate today that will maintain continuity of leadership at the FBI as we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, and face continuing threats in the wake of the president’s successful operation against Osama bin Laden,” he said.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee’s ranking Republican, also supported the bill’s passage but raised concerns in a statement.
“This is an extraordinary step that the Senate has taken,” Grassley said. “Thirty-five years ago Congress limited the FBI director’s term to one, 10-year appointment as an important safeguard against improper political influence and abuses of the past.”
Defense attorneys for accused Nazi death-camp worker John Demjanjuk say Justice Department prosecutors withheld evidence and committed fraud in the case against him, the Cleveland Jewish News reported.
In a motion filed Thursday, Demjanjuk’s attorneys told U.S. District Court Judge Dan Aaron Polster that prosecutors failed to turn over a 1985 FBI memo that challenged the validity of a Nazi identity card allegedly issued to Demjanjuk. They also asked the court to rescind an order stripping him of his citizenship and deporting him.
Since 1977, Demjanjuk has waged a legal battle against claims he worked at Nazi concentration camps and a gas chamber as the guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.” He has faced legal proceedings in the U.S., Israel and Germany.
In 1993, the Israel Supreme Court ordered him released because evidence indicated another man, Ivan Marchenko, was “Ivan the Terrible,” but when Demjanjuk returned to the U.S. six years later, the U.S. charged him with being a guard at other concentration camps. In 2009, he lost his citizenship and was deported to Germany, where he was convicted of war crimes.
The identity card, allegedly issued to Demjanjuk at an SS guard-training camp called Trawniki, indicates that he worked at various concentration camps and has been used in all those proceedings.
But at least one Cleveland FBI agent questioned the card’s authenticity, writing a memo in 1985 that said it was “quite likely fabricated” by the Soviet Union’s KGB.
Defense attorneys seized on that memo in their latest motion, calling the failure to turn it over “a major miscarriage of justice, especially when there are strong indications Mr. Demjanjuk is innocent of the charges against him.”
But others don’t believe the memo will change much.
“I don’t think this goes anywhere,” immigration attorney David Leopold told the Cleveland Jewish News. “[Demjanjuk] is throwing everything against the all to see what sticks.”
