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DOJ Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 11, 2017 19 Comments
I was a guest on the Crane Durham Nothing But Truth  radio show on Wednesday night, May 10, 2017, talking about the firing of James Comey the prior Tuesday. My interview is almost 30 minutes, and is embedded at the bottom of this post. In the day since the interview there have been further developments which support many of the points I made. In particular, Donald Trump has been interviewed on NBC and focused heavily on Comey's media presence: "He’s a showboat, he’s a grandstander." That's a point I made in the interview in similar (but not identical) terms.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 24, 2017 17 Comments
The Iranian Nuclear Deal included many pieces, but one of the least reported items of the deal has been the prisoner swap. Iran agreed to release four Americans while we handed over seven prisoners and dropped charges and investigations against 14 others. Professor Jacobson profiled these prisoners after the exchange occurred. But a Politico investigation has revealed the anger and frustration within former President Barack Obama's administration over the release of these men:
“They didn’t just dismiss a bunch of innocent business guys,” said one former federal law enforcement supervisor centrally involved in the hunt for Iranian arms traffickers and nuclear smugglers. “And then they didn’t give a full story of it.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 23, 2017 3 Comments
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a stop in my hometown on Friday. During the visit, he urged cities and other government jurisdictions with sanctuary policies to reconsider and work with federal law enforcement to identify criminals who should be deported.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 13 Comments
The House Intelligence Committee has invited some former President Barack Obama's administration officials to testify in a closed hearing over the panel's investigation into possible Russian interference in our presidential election. The committee included former acting Attorney General Sally Yates who President Donald Trump fired when she instructed Department of Justice "lawyers not to make legal arguments defending" Trump's executive order on immigration back in January.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 14 Comments
Sources have disclosed to the media that federal prosecutors have started to consider pressing changes against Julian Assange and other members of WikiLeaks. The case against the whistleblowing organization spans all the way back to 2010 when it published "diplomatic cables and military documents" to present day when it published the CIA's hacking operations in March. The other day, officials told CBS News that the FBI and CIA have started an investigation into those leaks in March.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2017 6 Comments
Almost one year ago to the day, we told the story of the 2010 stabbing attack on former British (and now Israeli) woman Kay Wilson, who was severely injured, Britain outraged by Palestinian payments to terrorists “who left this British woman for dead”. While Wilson survived, though severely injured, her hiking companion that day, American tourist and Christian missionary Kristine Luken was murdered. Wilson was interviewed two weeks after the attack, and the interview was run in The Jerusalem Post on January 27, 2011, in ‘What a waste, I’m 46 years old and I’m being murdered’:

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 9 Comments
FINALLY. After seven long years, authorities have arrested the man suspected of pulling the trigger and murdering Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. The gun he used belonged to Operation Fast and Furious, the gun running scheme set up under then-Attorney General Eric Holder. Fox News reported:
The suspect, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, was apprehended by a joint U.S.-Mexico law enforcement task force that included the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC).

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 16, 2017 11 Comments
President Donald Trump released his plan for the 2018 federal budget titled "America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again." The plan includes cuts to some departments and slashes programs in order to reallocate funds to a bigger defense budget. "One of the most important ways the Federal Government sets priorities is through the Budget of the United States," wrote Trump. "Accordingly, I submit to the Congress this Budget Blueprint to reprioritize Federal spending so that it advances the safety and security of the American people."

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 15, 2017 4 Comments
Authorities have charged four men, including two Russians, for hacking into the computer systems at Yahoo and stealing personal information. The two Russians, Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, work for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor of the KGB. Latvian Alexsey Belan, who is also on the FBI's most wanted list, also received charges along with Karim Baratov, who was born in Kazakhstan and holds Canadian citizenship. Canadian authorities arrested Baratov on Tuesday.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on March 11, 2017 21 Comments
Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked all remaining Obama-appointed U. S. Attorneys to resign.  This is standard procedure when a new president enters the White House, and despite some hand-wringing from the left, is rather unremarkable.  What is raising some questions is Preet Bharara, U. S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, who met with President Trump and subsequently announced he would remain in place, has been fired in the wake of his refusal to resign as requested. The National Review explains:
In March 1993, Janet Reno began her tenure as President Bill Clinton’s attorney general by summarily firing United States attorneys for 93 of the 94 federal districts (one, Michael Chertoff, was retained in New Jersey, at the request of Democratic Senator Bill Bradley). That is more than twice as many as Trump attorney general Jeff Sessions fired on Friday.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 09, 2017 27 Comments
The House Oversight Committee held a hearing today over the Department of Justice Inspector General's report that showed the ATF missed numerous opportunities to arrest the two men linked to the guns used to murder ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in February 2011. However, Ronald Turk, ATF associate deputy director and chief operating officer, and William Temple, ATF's special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Division, refused to show up and testify. This left Chairman Jason Chaffetz fuming.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 28, 2017 29 Comments
Former President Barack Obama made no effort to stop states that voted to legalize recreational marijuana, but never took to steps legalize the drug at the federal level. Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggested he will undo everything Obama did:
“We have a responsibility to use our best judgment … and my view is we don’t need to be legalizing marijuana,” he said at the winter meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General. “I’m dubious about marijuana. I’m not sure we’re going to be a better, healthier nation if we have marijuana sold at every corner grocery store.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 18, 2017 29 Comments
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, fired for insubordination after she told DOJ not to defend Trump's immigration Executive Order, is being held up as a new hero by the left for doing so. She attended an event on race in Atlanta this week and got a standing ovation. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported:
Sally Yates gets hero’s welcome at Atlanta race panel discussion:

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 08, 2017 28 Comments
The Senate has confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as the next attorney general. The Democrats attempted to persuade their colleagues with a 24 hour debate, but they lost one of their own. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) voted yes for Sessions. Therefore, Sessions won with 52 yes votes and 47 no votes. Sessions voted as present. The Democrats have tried to cast Sessions as a racist and an enemy of the gay community. They also don't believe he would stand up to President Donald Trump. But the Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott (SC), have taken Sessions's side and rebuked all of those claims.

Posted by New Neo on February 01, 2017 47 Comments
In his pre-presidential life, Trump was famous for saying, "You're fired!" to people on his TV reality show. But Trump's firing of acting AG Sally Yates was no reality show. In real life, an AG advises a president on the law, but if that AG refuses to enforce an order that has been "approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel," then a likely consequence would be that the AG could be fired. The NY Times reports Yates' motivation this way:
Ms. Yates, like other senior government officials, was caught by surprise by the executive order and agonized over the weekend about how to respond, two Justice Department officials involved in the weekend deliberations said. Ms. Yates considered resigning but she told colleagues she did not want to leave it to her successor to face the same dilemma.
But I would imagine that Ms. Yates understood that her successor would almost certainly face the same dilemma, whether Yates resigned or was fired. And although I grant that Yates and other government officials may indeed have been surprised by the speed of Trump's executive order, if they were surprised by the content of the order then they hadn't been paying much attention to Trump's campaign.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 30, 2017 54 Comments
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired by President Donald Trump after she instructed the Department of Justice not to defend the recently signed executive order issuing a moratorium on immigration from seven countries presenting significant terror threats.
Taking action in an escalating crisis for his 10-day-old administration, Mr. Trump declared that Sally Q. Yates had “betrayed” the administration, the White House said in a statement. The president appointed Dana J. Boente, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve as acting attorney general until Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is confirmed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 30, 2017 57 Comments
We have seen this picture before. A political position by the Department of Justice which abandons its obligation to defend a law or action of the government, as in the Defense of Marriage Act, in court. The issue is not that personally DOJ attorneys have to agree with the law, or action of the government, but that DOJ is the government's attorney and needs to provide the best representation possible. In the DOMA case, the House of Representatives had to go out and find private counsel. That is happening again with regard to Trump's Executive Order on visas and refugees, according to multiple reports.
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