The lawyer for a former aide in the Vermont’s U.S. Attorney’s office has asked that charges against her be dropped, saying his client never was read her Miranda Rights before being questioned.
Attorney Steven Barth said in a motion filed in a U.S. District Court Monday that his client, Danielle Hall, was told by federal agents in 2008 “that if she refused” to discuss her case “it would get ugly.”
In April 2008, Hall was fired as an aide in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Burlington. It was believed that she had revealed federal grand jury testimony to her then-boyfriend, who was suspected of dealing drugs. She was charged with obstruction of justice and making a false statement.
Hall confessed to accessing information on Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Perella’s directory from her computer, but insisted that she never gave information to Michael Ryan, her boyfriend at the time and the owner of a Burlington hair salon.
Ryan eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana and money laundering in 2010. He has not been sentenced yet, but his co-defendant was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
The Office of the U.S. Attorney for Vermont has recused itself from prosecuting Hall’s case because of a potential conflict of interest, and because its staff members are likely to be called as prosecution witnesses if the case advances. Instead, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York is representing the government.
The saga of the $16 muffin continues.
Earlier this week, the Justice Department’s Inspector General skewered DOJ officials for paying exorbitant prices for conference food and entertainment.
Including muffins that cost $16 a piece.
Politicians and pundits were outraged. They called for heads to roll. Never mind that six of the 10 conferences that the IG examined occurred during the George W. Bush administration and the heads may no longer be available to be rolled.
Nonetheless, on Wednesday, Jacob Lew, the director of the Office of Management and Budget laid down the law–no more $16 muffins or $32 popcorn.
“The President has directed me to instruct all agencies and departments to conduct a thorough review of the policies and controls associated with conference-related activities and expenses,” he wrote in a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies. “Until such time as the Deputy Secretary (or equivalent) can certify that the appropriate policies and controls are in place to mitigate the risk of inappropriate spending practices with regard to conferences, approval of conference-related activities and expenses shall be cleared through the Deputy Secretary (or equivalent).”
It’s unclear how the ban on fancy food will affect morale or attendance at agency meetings. After all, one DOJ official told the IG that important people expect good food and lodgings for meetings.
The official, from the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys told the IG that, “only a four or five star hotel was capable of providing the level and quality of services expected by senior executives and other political appointees.”
Looks like some folks are going to have to lower their expectations.
The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday unanimously approved the nomination David Barlow, an aide to conservative Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to be Utah’s U.S. Attorney.
The nomination now goes to the full Senate.
Barlow has been a general counsel and chief judiciary counsel to Lee since he took office in January 2009. Lee is an insurgent who won his seat after incumbent Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) was knocked out of the running during a GOP selection process.
He would replace interim U.S. Attorney Carlie Christensen, who has served there since her former boss, Bush administration appointee Brett L. Tolman, stepped down in December 2009.
The White House’s choice disappointed some local Democrats, who expressed frustration that Obama was ignoring many of the state’s talented Democratic attorneys.
In a bid to save money and avoid layoffs and furloughs, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering buyouts to 400 employees at its field offices and headquarters.
The bureau hopes to save between $15 million and $20 million, according to Audrey Stucko, the bureau’s acting assistant director for human resources and professional development.
ATF plans to offer incentives of up to $25,000 to employees who qualify and are willing to accept what is called a Voluntary Early Retirement Authorization. It expects between 250 and 275 employees to agree to the deal, according to Government Executive magazine.
The move comes as the so-called congressional supercommittee negotiates cutting $1.5 trillion from the federal government’s budget.
A key figure in a controversial Justice Department gun probe continues to insist that Operation Fast and Furious used widely accepted law enforcement techniques and contends that federal agents now identified as whistleblowers never complained about the investigation while it was being conducted.
Contrary to arguments presented during widely publicized congressional hearings, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “used a wide variety of well-established law enforcement techniques during the investigation” in an effort to identify straw gun purchasers, their financing methods and to seize guns, William D. Newell, the former Special Agent in charge of the Phoenix ATF office, says in a statement submitted Wednesday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
A copy of the statement, which supplements earlier testimony by Newell, was obtained by Main Justice and can be viewed by clicking on the link in the upper right corner of this article.
Also this week, Republican members of Congress leading a probe of Fast and Furious have blasted the acting Justice Department Inspector General, saying she improperly released audio recordings of conversations between a firearms seller and an ATF agent.
Former Special Agent William Newell testifies in Congress as his attorney, Paul Pelletier, looks on. (Photo copyright Main Justice)
Newell has been at the center of the storm surrounding Fast and Furious.
“The investigation, which initially focused on a few suspected ’straw’ purchasers, quickly ballooned to an expansive and expanding firearms trafficking network,” Newell said in the statement. He added, “We did not stand idly by and watch more than 2000 guns be transported to Mexico.”
Operation Fast and Furious allegedly resulted in at least 2,000 firearms being sold to straw buyers, who resold them to drug cartel members in Arizona. The ATF then allegedly allowed the guns to be taken Mexico, where the bureau lost track of them. Two guns from the operation were recovered in December at the scene of a shootout between Border Patrol agents and Mexican bandits near Rio Rico, Ariz., that ended in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry. Other firearms sold during the operation have been linked to scenes of violent crime in Mexico.
The GOP-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, have been conducting a probe of the operation.
During hearings held by Issa’s panel, Newell was widely criticized for the operation.
But Newell said he didn’t hear much criticism during Fast and Furious. “I am unaware of any concerns of ‘gun walking’ raised by the whistleblowers during the operational phase of the investigation until they were reported publicly in or about February 2011,” he said, adding that the testimony of whistleblowers who spoke to the committee was untrue.
In the new statement, Newell said he should have presented clearer testimony to the panel. “It was not my intention to give answers that lacked the clarity everyone on the panel deserved from a law enforcement aqgent in my position,” he said, blaming the intense pressure he had been under as a result of the investigation.
Agents “attempted to be innovative” during the probe, he said, adding that ATF officials coordinated their efforts with the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s office and contrary to assertions made during the congressional investigations, officials in the ATF Country Office in Mexico were kept apprised of the probe. Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke recently resigned as a result of fallout from the investigation and the assistant U.S. attorney who superised the probe was reassigned.
Newell continues to defend the decision not to immediately arrest straw purchasers, saying that such a decision would have resulted in the probe being exposed and would have allowed a large-scale gun network to continue unabated.
Newell had planned to take over as the ATF’s attaché to Mexico, but the agency announced this summer that he would instead become special assistant to the assistant director of the ATF’s Office of Management in Washington. Newell is represented by former Justice Department prosecutor Paul Pelletier, who spent nine years at the Justice Department as the Criminal Fraud Section’s chief deputy and acting chief before leaving in April.
Meanwhile, Issa and Grassley this week sent a letter to the acting DOJ IG, Cynthia Schnedar, criticizing her for releasing an audio tape between an ATF agent and a gun seller, contending that the release will hamper their investigation. “Your decision to immediately disclose the recordings to those you are investigating creates, at least the appearance, if not more, that your inquiry is not sufficiently objective and independent,” they wrote. Schnedar has said she released the tapes as part of the discovery process in a criminal case.
Boyd Johnson, the Deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, will join the New York office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, the law firm announced today.
Johnson perhaps is best known as the man who was in charge of investigating former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.
He has been second in command to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara since August 2009 and has been working for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office since 1999.
Johnson is expected to be replaced by Richard B. Zabel, according to The New York Times. Zabel has been leading the criminal division of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office since October 2009.
In 2008, Johnson was head of the public corruption unit when it investigated Spitzer for his ties to a prostitution ring. The investigation led to Spitzer’s resignation later that year.
As Deputy U.S. Attorney, Johnson also oversaw civil forfeiture proceedings related to the Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, which resulted in $20 billion in losses to investors. Zabel had recused himself from the Madoff investigation because his father, New York estate lawyer William Zabel, had represented investor Jeffry Picower, who received $7 billion from the Madoff fraud and was at one point under investigation by the SDNY.
Picower died in 2009, leaving the question of how he came to be the biggest beneficiary of the Madoff scheme unresolved. The elder Zabel negotiated a settlement for his widow that returned $7.2 billion to investors in the largest single forfeiture in U.S. history.
Zabel worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office for eight years in the 1990s, prosecuting cases involving securities fraud, obstruction of justice, racketeering, firearms and drug. He was later a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
Steven Biskupic, the George W. Bush-era U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, is a busy man these days thanks to two of Wisconsin’s more prominent political scandals – controversies that couldn’t be more different.
One involves a divisive governor; the other, a drunken mayor.
Steven Biskupic (photo by Main Justice)
In the former, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) saw a former top aide’s home raided by FBI agents this week in an investigation that is believed to be related to Walker’s 2010 election campaign. The story is getting national attention after Walker led a bitter fight to strip Wisconsin public employees of collective bargaining rights that catapulted him to prominence.
Walker has not been directly implicated in the election probe, but if he needs representation, the governor has already paid $60,000 for the services of Biskupic’s firm, the Milwaukee-based Michael Best & Friedrich. Biskupic has been kept on retainer by Walker since his November gubernatorial campaign, when Walker – then executive of Milwaukee County – was subpoenaed for campaign emails prior to the election.
The other political scandal in which Biskupic has offered his services has even attracted coverage from overseas: the behavior of Sheboygan mayor Bob Ryan during what he himself described as a “three day drinking session.” In late July, Ryan was photographed slumped unconscious over a barroom table, was seen involved in physical altercations, and only admitted to the revelry after photographic evidence of his exploits surfaced.
In response, the Sheboygan city council called upon the mayor to resign. But having seen Ryan refuse to heed its call to step down, the city council initiated proceedings against the mayor, who claimed he would seek outpatient treatment for alcoholism.
Enter Biskupic. This week, the council announced that it officially retained him as special prosecutor, after having hired him as an adviser weeks ago.
It is unclear at the moment what, if any, legal issues Biskupic might have to research on behalf of Walker, given the confidential nature of the investigation. In the case of Ryan, Biskupic may need to brush up on the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Sheboygan mayor’s counsel, it is expected, will proffer the argument that alcoholism is a protected disability under the ADA, and that he should be given a chance at rehabilitation.
A Sept. 11 editorial in the Sheboygan Press reported that Biskupic offered to represent the council pro bono.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) grilled a top Justice Department national security official at a hearing today about a secret non-prosecution agreement the department reached recently with an Islamic bank connected to terrorist financing.
“I think it was an unusual move when the department issued no press release about this agreement,” Grassley told Lisa Monaco, head of the department’s National Security Division, during a subcommittee hearing on countering terrorist financing. Main Justice detailed the agreement in an article last month.
National Security Division chief Lisa Monaco answered questions before s Senate Judiciary panel
The Islamic Investment Co. of the Gulf (Bahamas) Ltd., which reportedly has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, agreed to pay some $37 million to resolve an investigation into whether the firm structured its real estate investments to unlawfully avoid U.S. taxes on them, people familiar with the matter told Main Justice last month.
The department began a probe of the bank in the mid 2000s. A grand jury was convened in Boston. A prosecutor from the Criminal Division’s counter-terrorism division originally handled it, but the probe morphed into a tax case and was transferred at some point to the department’s Tax Division.
The case was linked to the royal family in Saudi Arabia, a powerful U.S. ally. The bank’s corporate parent is Dar Al-Maal Al-Islami Trust, known as DMI Trust, which was founded by Saudi prince Mohammed Al-Faisal Al-Saud
The Justice Department has declined to comment about the settlement, both to the media and to Congress. Grassley wrote the department on Sept. 7 asking for information about the settlement, and in the House, Judiciary Committee member Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has also made inquiries. The department has not responded to either member of Congress.
Grassley also got no answers from Monaco, who said she lacked knowledge to answer the senator. She said she was unable to give the names of the department officials who approved the settlement. The Tax Division handled the matter.
“I want to make sure the department’s not trying to hide something,” Grassley said. “The silence on this issue of not issuing a press release I think kind of runs afoul with the claim that this administration is going to be very transparent.”
Later, he said: “Well, would [the silence] be possibly because the department got a bad deal, and they are trying to hide it?”
When asked by Grassley if she would give him a copy of the non-prosecution agreement, Monaco hedged. “I will absolutely go back and ensure we get a response to your letter and provide whatever information is appropriate to provide to you and the committee,” she said.
The DMI Trust was linked to several Muslim Brotherhood leaders. One was Switzerland-based businessman Yassin Qadi, who came under investigation in the U.S. for financing al-Qaeda, an allegation he has denied. Former Sudanese leader Hassan al-Turabi, an Islamist who gave al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden a base in Khartoum in the 1990s, spent a decade on DMI’s board. A spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Al-Jazeera television show host who has expressed support for suicide bombings, also served as an early DMI adviser.
