Featured Weekly Commentary
Anniston Star, Editorial Board, May 21, 2012
When prosecutors look at former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman they must see a version of Pig-Pen, the Peanuts comics figure constantly obscured by a cloud of dust. Look at that dirty mess, we can hear prosecutors exclaiming. There must be something illegal going on.
Of course, our legal system depends on more than appearances. Looking guilty is not the same thing as actual guilt. Yet, the prosecution of Siegelman on federal corruption charges amounts to little more than singling out the former governor of Alabama for something commonplace in modern politics. We hope the Supreme Court will take a hard look at the case, and clear up what looks like a case of selective prosecution.
After a three-year investigation, federal prosecutors in Alabama alleged that Siegelman was involved in a bribery scheme while governor. When their first case fell apart in 2004, they came back a year later with another indictment. In June 2006, Siegelman was convicted on seven of 33 counts.
Prosecutors claimed that Siegelman, who was governor from 1999 until 2003, and Richard Scrushy, then-CEO of HealthSouth, conspired together. Scrushy contributed money to the governor’s pro-lottery campaign — $500,000 in total — and in return Siegelman appointed the CEO to a seat on an unpaid-but-important state hospital board. The jury agreed, even though there was no smoking gun tying Siegelman and Scrushy to an explicit “give X to get Y” arrangement. Without it, critics of the verdict say, a lot more politicians who reward contributors with appointments could soon find themselves on trial.
We could start with the president. Several of his ambassador appointments went to men and women who gave heavily to the Obama 2008 campaign. And that’s not new. According to the American Academy of Diplomacy, over the past 50 years 1-in-3 ambassadorships have gone to generous contributors to chief executives. Then there are the governors who appoint contributors to various state boards and the lawmakers who find a way to write bills that just happen to benefit those who give lavishly to their campaigns.
Unseemly? Yes.
Damaging to the public’s trust in government? Absolutely.
Criminal? Not according to the nation’s long history of political contributions.
Read more here.
Editor's Choice: Click below for the Justice Integrity Project's monthly archive of cutting-edge news excerpts for May 2012.
Washington Times, Obama’s secret kill list; President’s procedure for terminating his enemies is illegal, Andrew P. Napolitano Thursday, May 31, 2012. The leader of the government regularly sits down with his senior generals, spies and advisers and reviews a list of the people they want him to authorize their agents to kill. They do this every Tuesday morning when the leader is in town. The leader once condemned any practice even close to this, but now he relishes the killing because he has convinced himself that it is a sane and sterile way to keep his country safe and himself in power. The leader, who is running for re-election, even invited his campaign manager to join the group that decides whom to kill.'
Salt Lake City Tribune, Utah investors caught up in alleged $170M fraud, Tom Harvey, May 31, 2012. A Las Vegas motivational speaker and a Canadian developer are accused of raising $170 million from investors, including a significant number from Utah, to build two Caribbean resorts but instead diverted most of the money to themselves and also used investor funds to make Ponzi payments, court documents say. James B. Catledge, 44, used a multilevel marketing operation to raise the millions with false promises that investments were safe and would pay steady returns of up to 12 percent annually, according to an SEC lawsuit filed in Las Vegas. [SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro is at left.]
ABA Journal, Law Firm to Pay $13.5M Fees Clawback to Convicted Client’s Bankruptcy Estate, Martha Neil, May 31, 2012. A well-known Minnesota law firm has agreed to pay a $13.5 million legal fees claw-back to the bankruptcy estate of a longtime client convicted of operating a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme. Bankruptcy trustee Doug Kelley acknowledged there was no evidence that Fredrikson & Byron knew anything was wrong concerning former client Tom Petters, right, but stated "there were a number of red flags that should have alerted F&B to the possibility that the business allegedly conducted by Petters was fraudulent,' the Star Tribune reports. The firm noted that the settlement will be covered by malpractice insurance, and said it shows that "our representation of Mr. Petters and his companies was, in every respect, honest, ethical and consistent with our professional duties and responsibility."
Rolling Stone, Taibbi on Spitzer: Wall Street Regulators Let the Big Guys Off Easy, Julian Brookes, May 31, 2012. Matt Taibbi dropped by Eliot Spitzer's Current TV show, Viewpoint, last night to discuss the subject of his latest Taibblog post – how the Securities and Exchange Commission, the government's cop on the Wall Street beat, looks the other way while the big banks bend and break the law. He cites Lehman Brothers as a particularly glaring example: "That was a case where there was just ample evidence of all kinds of transgressions. They just overlooked all these companies. It’s not like they don’t have cases to make, they’re just not making them."
NBC 10 (Philadelphia), The End of Chinatown Buses? Gov't cracking down on discount bus operators after they found an "imminent hazard" to public safety, Joan Lowy and Dan Stamm, May 31, 2012. 26 bus companies that offered cheap rides between Philadelphia to places like New York and Washington, D.C were shut down Thursday. The government shut down the "Chinatown Buses" after a year long investigation. NBC10's Deanna Durante spoke to former bus passengers.
Washington Post, Edwards Acquitted of One Charge, Manuel Roig-Franzia, May 31, 2012, Johnny Reid Edwards, a honey-voiced North Carolina lawyer who parlayed his boyish good looks and inspiring personal history as the son of a mill-worker into a meteoric political rise, was acquitted of one count Thursday in a corruption case, as the judge declared a mistrial on five other charges on which the jury was deadlocked. Edwards emerged from the courthouse with his daughter and parents by his side to deliver remarks that sounded more like repentance than triumph. He lamented his “sins” and said he would not have to go far to find who is responsible. “I don’t have to go any further than the mirror,” he said. “It’s me and me alone.”
Washington Post, Clarence Thomas and Yale begin to repair relationship, Robert Barnes, May 31, 2012. It would hardly seem newsworthy that a Supreme Court justice was going to be the keynote speaker at a gathering of alumni of his elite law school. Except when the justice is Clarence Thomas, and the elite law school is Yale. “Strained” would not begin to describe the relationship between the New Haven, Conn., school and Thomas, Class of 1974. For years, the 63-year-old justice has avoided his alma mater, writing that it was a mistake for him to have attended the school and declining to have his portrait hung in its halls, as is the case with other notable graduates. But Thomas returned to the school in December, teaching a class with a liberal law professor and speaking with members of the Federalist Society and the Black Law Students Association. And in late June, just as the court is expected to release its opinion about the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care law, Thomas has agreed to be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner of the Yale Law School Association of Washington. It is hard to overstate the estrangement between Thomas and Yale. In his 2007 autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son,” the justice was withering in his criticism of some of the professors and students he met in New Haven and said the law school’s affirmative action policies tainted his diploma.
Washington Post, CIA probes its process for screening books on agency, Greg Miller and Julie Tate, May 31, 2012. The CIA has begun an internal investigation into whether a process designed to screen books by former employees and protect national security secrets is being used in part to censor agency critics, U.S. officials said. The investigation coincides with the publication of a flurry of books from CIA veterans, and it is largely aimed at determining whether some redactions have been politically motivated. Among the publications expected to get particular scrutiny is a memoir by the former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who used his book, “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,” to mount a vigorous defense of interrogation methods that were widely condemned but that he asserts provided critical intelligence about al-Qaeda. The target of the probe is the agency’s Publications Review Board. The PRB evaluates hundreds of submissions each year and is supposed to focus exclusively on whether publication of material would threaten national security interests.
Washington Post, Israel to indict reporter over leak of documents, Joel Greenberg, May 31, 2012. Israel’s attorney general has decided to indict an Israeli journalist who in an investigative report revealed that top army officers had approved killings of wanted Palestinian militants in the West Bank, charging him with illegal possession of classified documents. The move against Uri Blau, a reporter with the liberal newspaper Haaretz, was the first prosecution of an Israeli journalist for possession of classified materials and drew sharp criticism from civil rights advocates and prominent defense correspondents, who called it a blow to freedom of the press. The Justice Ministry said in an announcement Wednesday that Blau would be charged with unauthorized possession of secret information, though without intention to harm state security, and that legal action was taken because “this is an extreme case.” Blau based his reporting on a trove of some 1,800 army documents, hundreds of them classified, that were given to him by a former soldier who copied them when she worked in the office of the chief of the army’s Central Command, the regional command that includes the West Bank. The former soldier, Anat Kamm, is serving a 41 / 2-year prison term for stealing the documents, which included summaries of top-level operational meetings cited by Blau in his article, one of several he wrote based on the material, which was passed to him in a USB flash drive.
The Independent reported last week that Judge Fuller and his partners sold Doss Aviation, located in Denver last December. We have now learned that the company which was moved from Enterprise to Colorado, brought $42 million and some change. If that is the correct number Fuller’s 43.75 percent share of the business earned him slightly more than $18 million. The company’s income has come primarily from U. S. Government contracts and once listed its mailing address at the United States Federal Courthouse, shortly after Fuller was appointed a judge by President George W. Bush. Doss Aviation was a major source of Fuller’s income, probably the main source and its primary income came from government contracts or from those who received government contracts. Doss Aviation benefited from a steady stream of Department of Defense and other federal contracts some awarded on a no-bid basis under highly suspicious circumstances.
Huffington Post, Edwards' Jury Couldn't Decide and for Good Reason, Alan Dershowitz, May 31, 2012. The jury in the John Edwards case rendered exactly the right verdict. Of course they couldn't make up their mind on most of the charges. No rational person could. All reasonable people should now hope that the Justice Department sees the light of day and does not seek a retrial. The jury has spoken, though ambiguously, and there is no reason to believe that another fairly picked jury will be able to discern the precise intentions of the actors with any greater certainty or precision. This entire farce of a trial is part of a larger problem that infects not only America but other Western countries as well: the criminalization of policy differences and of personal sin. No one can justify what John Edwards did to his family, to American politics and to himself. He will forever pay a steep price for his selfishness and arrogance. But it is not a price that all Americans should have to pay by the distortion of the criminal justice system into a Rorschach test, in which the jury is asked to interpret vague action and attribute precise intentions to actions done with mixed motives.Huffington Post, Department Of Justice Tells Florida To Stop Purging Voter Rolls, May 31, 2012. The Department of Justice demanded that Florida stop purging its voter rolls, Talking Points Memo reported Thursday. In a letter sent to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, the Justice Department ordered the state to end the practice because it has not been approved under the Voting Rights Act. Additionally, the DOJ said the purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, which requires states to complete changes to their registration rolls 90 days in advance of an election. Since Florida's primary is on August 14, all maintenance should have been completed by May 14. In recent weeks, the state has identified as many as 180,000 potential noncitizens that will be vetted and possibly removed from voter registration rolls. The practice sparked controversy when a Miami Herald analysis revealed that Hispanic, Democratic and Independent voters are more likely to be on the list. In fact, 58 percent of those identified as potential noncitizens are Hispanic, according to the Herald's review.
St. Paul Pioneer-Press, Businesses agree to return millions to Petters' Ponzi scheme victims, Julie Forster, May 31, 2012. The trustee for the bankrupt estate of convicted Ponzi mastermind Tom Petters has secured nearly $34 million more for the former businessman's victims. The agreements bring to $300 million the amount of money amassed from so-called clawbacks and the sale of assets on behalf of the estate. The Minneapolis law firm of Fredrikson & Byron has agreed to pay $13.5 million to the Petters bankruptcy estate. The money will go to the victims of the fraud. And General Electric Capital Corp., based in Norwalk, Conn., agreed to pay $19 million in principal and interest it received from the scheme -- the largest amount received as part of hundreds of clawback lawsuits aimed at recovering money that was part of the $3.65 billion scam that Petters and his associates orchestrated over years. The Fredrikson & Byron and GE Capital actions were among a number of settlement documents related to the Petters case filed in bankruptcy court in St. Paul on Wednesday, May 30.
ABA Journal, Law Firm to Pay $13.5M Fees Clawback to Convicted Client’s Bankruptcy Estate, Martha Neil, May 31, 2012. A well-known Minnesota law firm has agreed to pay a $13.5 million legal fees clawback to the bankruptcy estate of a longtime client convicted of operating a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme. Bankruptcy trustee Doug Kelley acknowledged there was no evidence that Fredrikson & Byron knew anything was wrong concerning former client Tom Petters but stated "there were a number of red flags that should have alerted F&B to the possibility that the business allegedly conducted by Petters was fraudulent,' the Star Tribune reports. The firm noted that the settlement will be covered by malpractice insurance, and said it shows that "our representation of Mr. Petters and his companies was, in every respect, honest, ethical and consistent with our professional duties and responsibility."
Who? What? Why? Obama Withholds JFK, Other Documents? Russ Baker, May 30, 2012. Next year will be a half-century since the death of JFK. And the Obama Administration thinks we need to keep secret the records on the matter….a little longer yet. Believe it or not, more than 50,000 pages of JFK assassination-related documents are being withheld in full. And an untold number of documents have been partially withheld, or released with everything interesting blacked out. But why? Since the government and the big media keep telling us there was no conspiracy, and that it was all Lee Harvey Oswald acting on his own, why continue to keep the wraps on? We don’t have an answer, but in understanding this and any number of other mysteries, we can begin looking for patterns in the way the administration handles information policy.
Salt Lake City Tribune, Utah investors caught up in alleged $170M fraud, Tom Harvey, May 31, 2012. SEC says 2 men committed fraud as they raised $170M to build Caribbean resorts, and that 250 of the 1,700 alleged victims are from Utah. A Las Vegas motivational speaker and a Canadian developer are accused of raising $170 million from investors, including a significant number from Utah, to build two Caribbean resorts but instead diverted most of the money to themselves and also used investor funds to make Ponzi payments, court documents say. James B. Catledge, 44, used a multilevel marketing operation to raise the millions with false promises that investments were safe and would pay steady returns of up to 12 percent annually, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed in Las Vegas.Meanwhile, Brendan Sullivan, Stevens' lawyer, said the suspensions represented "a laughable and pathetic response" to the misconduct findings which centered on the prosecution's failure to disclose inconsistent and false statements by its chief government witness.
Judicial Watch, JW Obtains Obama Administration Records Detailing Meetings with bin Laden Movie Filmmakers, Tom Fitton, May 25, 2012. On Tuesday, Judicial Watch caused a firestorm when we released records from the Obama Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) regarding meetings and communications between government agencies and Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker, and her screenwriter Mark Boal. How much of a media firestorm? Google counts more than 700 media hits including Bloomberg, The Los Angeles Times, CBS News, MSNBC, and even entertainment trades like Entertainment Weekly. Why so much attention? According to the records, the Obama Defense Department granted the Hollywood filmmakers unprecedented access to a "planner, Operator and Commander of SEAL Team Six," who was responsible for the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, to assist Bigelow prepare her upcoming feature film. The records, obtained pursuant to court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed on January 21, 2012, include 153 pages of records from the DOD and 113 pages of records from the CIA. To limit the damage, the Obama administration released them to Judicial Watch late on Friday, May 18. (Obviously this strategy did not work.) Here are a few of the highlights:'
OpEd News, Rupert Watch: Leveson Testimony Spells Doom for Cameron and Hunt, Michael Collins, left, May 24, 2012. Queens Counsel Robert Jay unearthed a devastating piece of evidence that will surely create calls for the resignation of both culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and Prime Minister David Cameron. In afternoon testimony at the Leveson Inquiry today (5/24), Jay confronted News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel with an email rendition of a Hunt to Cameron memo of November 19, 2010 (see testimony/full memo at end of article). Hunt is clearly cheerleading for the News Corp acquisition of immensely profitable pay TV network BSkyB. News Corp owned 39% of the network and wanted to purchase the remaining 61%. This acquisition was absolutely critical to News Corp profitability and as a sign that Rupert and James Murdoch actually knew what they were doing. One month after he got the biased memo, Cameron appointed Hunt as the government minister in charge of approving the bid. Hunt portrayed his role as "quasi-judicial" and claimed he was an objective judge. The bid was opposed by an alliance of news organizations. Now we know, without any doubt and from Hunt's own words that he was biased in favor of approving the News Corp bid before he even got the authority to judge.As is now well documented, the Obama administration has waged an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, prosecuting more of them under espionage statutes than all prior administrations combined: twice as many as all prior administrations combined, in fact. They are attempting, or have attempted, to imprison whistleblowers who exposed corrupt and illegal NSA eavesdropping, dangerously inept efforts to impede Iran’s nuclear program (which likely strengthened it), the destructive uses of torture, and a litany of previously unknown U.S.-caused civilian deaths and other American war crimes. But there’s one type of leak of classified information that the White House not only approves of but itself routinely exploits: the type that glorifies the President for propagandistic ends.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Another Georgia judge retires facing investigation, Bill Rankin, May 24, 2012. Yet another Georgia judge -- the fifth since the beginning of March -- has stepped down from the bench while facing an investigation for alleged misconduct. On Saturday, long-serving Superior Court Judge John Lee Parrott of the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit notified Gov. Nathan Deal he was retiring immediately. In a court filing Monday, the state Judicial Qualifications Commission said it had been investigating allegations that Parrott "allowed the prestige of his office to advance his private interests." Over the past few years, some of the most prominent members of the state's judiciary, including seven chief Superior Court judges, have stepped down while facing allegations of misconduct, bringing disorder to the courts. Because of the number of high-profile resignations, more people are filing complaints with the Judicial Qualifications Commission, according to agency records. The Judicial Qualifications Commission is bringing more transparency to the judiciary, which is good for litigants and the public, Atlanta lawyer Bruce Harvey said. The court filing did not provide any further details, and the agency's director, Jeff Davis, declined to comment.
Huffington Post, North Carolina Pastor Charles L. Worley Suggests Gays And Lesbians Should Be Put In Electrified Pen, Slowly Killed Off, Video, May 21, 2012. The barrage of anti-gay sermons delivered by North Carolina-based pastors to hit the blogosphere continues with yet another disturbing rant caught on tape. The pastor, identified on YouTube as Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, N.C., condemns President Obama's much-publicized endorsement of same-sex marriage while calling for gays and lesbians to be put in an electrified pen and ultimately killed off. "Build a great, big, large fence -- 150 or 100 mile long -- put all the lesbians in there," Worley suggests in the clip, reportedly filmed on May 13. He continues: "Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out...and you know what, in a few years, they'll die out...do you know why? They can't reproduce!"
Associated Press / Huffington Post, Criminal Exonerations: 2,000 Convicted Then Exonerated In U.S. Over Last 23 Years, Says Study, Pete Yost, May 21, 2012. More than 2,000 people who were falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated in the United States in the past 23 years, according to a new archive compiled at two universities. There is no official record-keeping system for exonerations of convicted criminals in the country, so academics set one up. The new national registry, or database, painstakingly assembled by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, is the most complete list of exonerations ever compiled. The database compiled and analyzed by the researchers contains information on 873 exonerations for which they have the most detailed evidence. The researchers are aware of nearly 1,200 other exonerations, for which they have less data.
Legal Schnauzer, Drug Addiction Might Be The Central Issue In Divorce Case Against Siegelman Judge, Roger Shuler, May 21, 2012. The divorce complaint filed against U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller raises a number of troubling issues. But possible drug addiction might be No. 1 on the list. Lisa Boyd Fuller's complaint includes no shortage of titillating issues, including extramarital affairs and domestic abuse. But those go primarily to Mark Fuller's character outside the courtroom. Drug addiction, however, goes to Fuller's fitness to serve on the federal bench. It also raises these troubling questions: Has Fuller's mind been clouded by illicit drug use while serving as a judge? Have civil cases been unlawfully decided because the judge was more or less high? Have some citizens, including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, been wrongfully sent to federal prison in part because Mark Fuller was on uppers, downers, painkillers, mind numbers--or some combination of them all. [Mark Fuller Divorce -- Subpoena List Re: Drugs.]
Washington Post, An end to abuse in prison? The Justice Department finally issues rules to address prison rape, Editorial Board, May 20, 2012. Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in 2003 with support so bipartisan that ideological opposites such as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) co-sponsored it. In accordance with the law, a commission spent six years investigating and formulating recommendations for new rules. Then the Justice Department slow-walked the rule-writing, repeating much of the commission’s labor. When the department finally proposed draft rules, they were too weak.
Bill Maher / Huffington Post, Dan Rather: Corporate Media 'Is In Bed With' Washington, (VIDEO) Staff report, May 20, 2012. Dan Rather slammed corporate media on Friday night, alleging that news coverage is guided by political interests and profits. The former CBS News anchor has recently returned to the spotlight, speaking out about his former employer and defending the controversial Bush National Guard story that ended his storied career at the network. On Friday, Rather appeared on Bill Maher's show to discuss his new book "Rather Outspoken." He spoke out about the controversy again, and stood by his story (his comments start at the 1:50 mark in the video above). He said that he was fired because CBS News caved into the Bush administration's demands. "The powers that be and the corporate structure were very uncomfortable with the story," Rather said. "They got pressured by the Bush administration and others in Washington, and it cost a lot of people their jobs, including myself."
Legal Schnauzer, Sex, Drugs, and Violence Are At The Heart Of Divorce Case Against Siegelman Judge Mark Fuller, Roger Shuler, May 18, 2012. A request for admissions can be one of the most entertaining documents in a lawsuit. The requesting party, in so many words, is saying, "We all know the following statements are true, so why don't you admit to them so we can haggle about something else?" It can be a rare moment of clarity in a legal action, where one party is trying to cut through the many layers of BS and establish facts. That doesn't mean the receiving party is going to admit to everything--or anything--in the request. But the effort to get at what one party considers to be the clear truth can be most enlightening.
Huffington Post, 'Reporter's Privilege' Under Fire From Obama Administration Amid Broader War On Leaks, Dan Froomkin and Michael Calderone, May 18, 2012. The Obama administration Friday morning continued its headlong attack on the right of reporters to protect their confidential sources in leak investigations. Before a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a Department of Justice lawyer argued that New York Times reporter James Risen should be forced to testify in the trial of former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is charged with leaking classified information to Risen about a botched plot against the Iranian government. Rather than arguing the specifics of the case, DOJ appellate lawyer Robert A. Parker asserted that there is no reporter's privilege when a journalist receives an illegal leak of national security secrets. When Judge Robert Gregory asked Parker to explain why the public's interest in a free press was outweighed by the specific circumstances in this case, Parker declined. "I don’t think there would be a balancing test because there's no privilege in the first place," Parker said. "The salient point is that Risen is the only eyewitness to this crime." Gregory told Parker that the Supreme Court's Branzburg v. Hayes decision -- which Parker cited as precedent for forcing journalists to testify when they had witnessed a crime -- involved the witnessing of a different crime, "not the disclosure itself." Parker said what Risen did was "analogous" to a journalist receiving drugs from a confidential source, and then refusing to testify about it. "You think so?" Gregory asked, clearly unconvinced.
Salon, Federal court enjoins NDAA, Glenn Greenwald, May 16, 2012. An Obama-appointed judge rules its indefinite detention provisions likely violate the 1st and 5th Amendments. A federal district judge today, the newly-appointed Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York, issued an amazing ruling: one which preliminarily enjoins enforcement of the highly controversial indefinite provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last December. This afternoon’s ruling came as part of a lawsuit brought by seven dissident plaintiffs — including Chris Hedges, Dan Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and Birgitta Jonsdottir — alleging that the NDAA violates ”both their free speech and associational rights guaranteed by the First Amendment as well as due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
OpEd News, Rebekah Brooks, Witness for the Prosecution, Michael Collins, May 16, 2012. Criminal charges against Rupert Murdoch insider and favorite Rebekah Brooks may be a prelude to looming charges arising out of Brooks' testimony before the Leveson Inquiry last week. Crown Prosecution Services charged Brooks, her husband, and four others with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice on Tuesday May 15. The alleged conspiracy took place between July 6 and July 19, 2011. Brooks' current legal troubles should not obscure the significance of her testimony before the Leveson Inquiry last week. During her several hours on the witness stand, she was confronted with an explosive email that, if true, implicates Conservative Party Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in a conspiracy to pervert the British regulatory process in favor of News Corporation's bid to acquire the ten-million-subscriber pay TV company BSkyB. News Corp owns 39% of the company. It sought the remaining 61%.
Montgomery Independent, Federal judge's lengthy affair with court worker is exposed, Bob Martin, May 16, 2012. On April 10, Lisa Boyd Fuller filed for divorce in Montgomery County against United States District Judge Mark Everett Fuller.
May 9
Legal Schnauzer, Justice Department Lawyer Has Conflict of Interest In SCOTUS Review of Siegelman Convictions, Roger Shuler, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. John-Alex Romano is the government lawyer who wrote a brief filed this month that opposes U.S. Supreme Court review of the Don Siegelman prosecution in Alabama. That, in itself, is not newsworthy. But when you consider that Romano is married to Caroline Gary Romano, chief of staff in the U.S. Department of Interior . . . well, the plot begins to thicken. It gets real thick when you learn that Caroline Romano, until May 2011, had been deputy commissioner for the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She was appointed to that position in December 2008, just before George W. Bush left the White House. She joined the Department of Interior in May 2004, at the height of the Bush administration. This information should set off red flags for every citizen who cares about justice. That's because it tells us that Justice Department lawyer John-Alex Romano has a major conflict of interest in the Siegelman case. And it's been going on for quite some time.
Harper's No Comment, Yoo, Latif, and the Rise of Secret Justice, Scott Horton, May 9, 2012. One of the lasting challenges to America’s federal judiciary will be addressing American complicity in the tortures and disappearances of the past ten years. Two recent appeals-court decisions show us how judicial panels are tackling these issues: by shielding federal officials and their contractors from liability, and even by glorifying the fruits of their dark arts. In the process, legal prohibitions on torture are being destroyed through secrecy and legal sleight of hand, and our justice system is being distorted and undermined. Last week, the Ninth Circuit reversed a district-court decision allowing a suit against torture-memo author John Yoo to go forward. The suit had been brought on behalf of José Padilla by his mother, who argued that Padilla was tortured while in U.S. custody as a result of Yoo’s advice—a claim that seems pretty much unassailable, and that had to be accepted as true for purposes of the preliminary rulings. Hovering in the background of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion is a troubling fact: John Yoo had a co-author when he crafted his torture memoranda, Jay Bybee. And Bybee is now a judge on the Ninth Circuit. Had the court handed down any other ruling, it would have been exposing one of its own. The court’s twisted reasoning and distortions of legal precedent otherwise make very little sense. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit judges seemed to be uncomfortable with torture, issuing an opinion that was comparable to a surgical excision: do what is essential to shelter Yoo and Bybee, and not an iota more.
May 8
Salon, US attack kills 5 Afghan kids, Glenn Greenwald, May 8, 2012. On the very same day that CNN and the other cable news networks devoted so much coverage to a failed, un-serious attempt to bring violence to the U.S. — one that never moved beyond the early planning stages and “never posed a threat to public safety” — it was revealed that the U.S. just killed multiple civilians, including a family of 5 children, in Afghanistan. But that got no mention. That event simply does not exist in the world of CNN and its viewers (I’d be shocked if it has been mentioned on MSNBC or Fox either). Nascent, failed non-threats directed at the U.S. merit all-hands-on-deck, five-alarm media coverage, but the actual extinguishing of the lives of children by the U.S. is steadfastly ignored (even though the latter is so causally related to the former).
Mother Jones, BP's Corexit Oil Tar Sponged Up by Human Skin, Julia Whitty, April 17, 2012. The Surfrider Foundation has released its preliminary "State of the Beach" study for the Gulf of Mexico from BP's ongoing Deepwater Horizon disaster. Sadly, things aren't getting cleaner faster, according to their results. The Corexit that BP used to "disperse" the oil now appears to be making it tougher for microbes to digest the oil. I wrote about this problem in depth in "The BP Cover-Up." The persistence of Corexit mixed with crude oil has now weathered to tar, yet is traceable to BP's Deepwater Horizon brew through its chemical fingerprint. The mix creates a fluorescent signature visible under UV light.
May 6
Salon, Surveillance State democracy, Glenn Greenwald, May 6, 2012. As the FBI seeks full access to all forms of Interent communication, it is not voters who need to be convinced. CNET‘s excellent technology reporter, Declan McCullagh, reports on ongoing efforts by the Obama administration to force the Internet industry to provide the U.S. Government with “backdoor” access to all forms of Internet communication: "The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. . . . That included a scheduled trip this month to the West Coast — which was subsequently postponed — to meet with Internet companies’ CEOs and top lawyers. . . ."
Austin American-Statesman, Justices remove themselves from Tom DeLay's appeal, Laylan Copelin, May 5, 2012. Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's appeal has taken an unexpected turn as three Republican justices removed themselves from his money laundering case in just a matter of days. That leaves the fate of DeLay, a high-profile Republican who argued that he couldn't get a fair trial in the Democratic Travis County, in the hands of a 2-1 Democratic majority on the 3rd Court of Appeals. On Friday, DeLay's appellate lawyer, Brian Wice, filed a motion to remove Justice Diane Henson, a Democrat, because of "anti-Republican" remarks she made at the state Democratic Convention in 2006. "To suggest that the procedural posture of this case is unique in the annals of this Court, indeed, any appellate court in Texas, is a monumental understatement," Wice wrote in his motion. "In the space of a week and change, there have been as many changes in the composition of the panel assigned to hear this matter as is humanly or mathematically possible." In 2010, a Travis County jury convicted DeLay on charges of laundering $190,000 of corporate money into illegal campaign donations during the 2002 election. A judge sentenced DeLay to three years in prison, but he remains free, pending his appeal.
NBC / Huffington Post, Tom Brokaw: 'It Is Time To Rethink' White House Correspondents Dinner (VIDEO), May 6, 2012. Tom Brokaw lamented the media's coverage of politics on Sunday's "Meet the Press," calling out the White House Correspondents Dinner in particular. Brokaw proceeded to criticize political coverage for focusing on too much on the extreme ends of the political spectrum. (His remarks start at the 14:40 mark in the clip above.) "As I've gone around the country, a lot of people say to me, 'What's happened with the press? What's happened with political coverage in America. We don't feel connected to it,'" Brokaw reflected. He had expressed similar sentiments earlier in the show, saying that the public is "tuning out of Washington." He said that the White House Correspondents Dinner exemplified the disconnect. "If there's ever an event that separates the press from the people that they're supposed to serve, symbolically, it is that one," he said. "It is time to rethink it."
Washington Post, CNN, Dan Rather's Last Crusade, Erik Wemple, May 7, 2012. Mark Feldstein, Fred Francis, Howard Kurtz Dan Rather has been making the rounds to promote his book, “Rather Outspoken.” He’s been on “Good Morning America” and “The Diane Rehm Show,” among other stops on the circuit. On his CNN show “Reliable Sources” yesterday, host Howard Kurtz said Rather had been invited to appear on the show. Rather didn’t politely decline;instead, says Kurtz via e-mail, “Rather simply didn’t respond to my email.” Perhaps that’s because Kurtz, as he made plain in the segment, doesn’t think too highly of the former CBS star’s stubborn loyalty to his reporting on the George W. Bush-National Guard story. “Why is Dan Rather still pushing and defending this story, this discredited story?” Kurtz asked his panel. Another question: “Is he, by still continuing to push this, ensuring that this will play a more prominent role when people write the legacy of his career, when his eventual obituary is written?”
May 4
Politico, Waiting 4 years on a FOIA at TSA, Josh Gerstein, May 4, 2012. Here's the latest evidence of how the federal government's Freedom of Information system remains broken despite President Barack Obama's pledge to run the most transparent administration in history: ProPublica just received a Transportation Security Administration complaint database the non-profit investigative journalism outlet requested nearly four years ago. ProPublica's Michael Grabell lays out the story here. He asked for the database of airport checkpoint complaints back in June 2008. His request clearly languished for a long time. Then it became caught up in a back and forth about its scope. The records finally arrived this week. The final release was far from massive: just 87 pages. Grabell hoped to use the records to inform his reporting. There's little chance of that now, since the data spans about 10 months from 2008 and probably doesn't relate much to the problems people have with TSA these days.
Salon, More federal judge abdication, The branch designed to be insulated from political pressures has been the most craven of all in the post-9/11 era, Glenn Greenwald, Friday, May 4, 2012. The abdication of U.S. federal judges in the post-9/11 era, and their craven subservience to Executive Branch security claims, has been a topic I’ve written about several times over the past couples of weeks. Yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the argument of the Obama DOJ that John Yoo is — needless to say — fully immune from any and all liability for having authorized the torture of Jose Padilla, on the ground that the illegality of Yoo’s conduct was not “beyond debate” at the time he engaged in it. Everything I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the identical shielding of Donald Rumsfeld by federal courts and the Obama DOJ from similar claims applies to yesterday’s ruling, and The New York Times has a good editorial today condemning this ruling as “misguided and dangerous.” In sum, this yet again underscores that of all the American institutions that have so profoundly failed in the wake of 9/11 to protect the most basic liberties — Congress, both political parties, the establishment media, the Executive Branch, the DOJ specifically — none has been quite as disgraceful as the federal judiciary, whose life tenure is supposed to insulate them from base political pressures that produce cowardly and corrupted choices.
Guardian (United Kingdom), Conrad Black released from Miami prison, May 4, 2012. Conrad Black travelled to his estate in Toronto shortly after his release. Former media mogul Conrad Black has been released from prison in Miami after serving just over three years for defrauding investors. His wife greeted him at their home in Toronto, Canada, and he was seen on the estate grounds by 14:00 (16:00 GMT). Black, 67, who controlled an empire including the Daily Telegraph in the UK, and US papers including the Chicago Sun-Times, left prison early on Friday. Earlier, Canada said he would be allowed to live there upon his release. Black was born in Canada but renounced his citizenship in 2001 to accept a peerage in Britain's House of Lords. He is a British citizen. The move to grant Black a one-year temporary residence permit stirred debate in Canada's House of Commons.
World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2012
Statement by the President on World Press Freedom Day. May 3, 2011. On this May 3 as we observe World Press Freedom Day, we take time to honor those who promote and protect the freedom of expression, and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives while giving voice to those who may not have the opportunity to express themselves freely -- including the journalists recently killed while bravely covering the crisis in Libya.
YouTube, video clips from the documentary Investigating Power film posted in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day:
, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Barry Sussman and Ben Bradlee reflect on The Washington Post reporting that uncovered the Watergate scandal and brought down a president.
. On November 12, 1969 reporter Seymour Hersh broke a shocking story about a massacre of hundreds of unarmed men, woman and children in the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. Hersh explains that the story started with an anonymous tip and led him to Fort Benning, Georgia where the Army was holding Lt. William Calley, an officer undergoing court martial proceedings for the killings.
. Murrey Marder remembers his reporting for The Washington Post that helped to unmask Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Guardian (United Kingdom), Murdoch facing new challenge as US senator contacts Leveson over hacking, Ed Pilkington and Lisa O'Carroll, May 3, 2012. Jay Rockefeller writes to British judge in bid to find out whether News Corporation has broken American laws. Rupert Murdoch's global media empire is facing a challenge on a new front in the billowing phone-hacking scandal after a powerful US Senate committee opened direct contact with British investigators in an attempt to find out whether News Corporation has broken American laws.
Salon, NBC News’ top hagiographer, Glenn Greenwald, May 3, 2012. The role of Brian Williams is to glorify political and military leaders, but he really outdid himself last night. Whatever one’s position is on the killing of Osama bin Laden — and I’ve always argued that there is a range of reasonable views — there are many journalistically important questions and significant disparities that still need serious examination (with all due respect (i.e., none) to John Kerry’s dictate that we all “shut up and move on”). None of those questions was even acknowledged, let alone meaningfully addressed, by last night’s one-hour melodramatic extravaganza hosted by NBC News anchor Brian Williams. This bin Laden show — “Inside the Situation Room” — was hagiography in its purest, most propagandistic, and most subservient form. This is typically the role Williams plays — he cleanses and glorifies American government actions, especially military actions, with his reverent, soothing, self-important baritone — but he really outdid himself here. In essence, the entire show was devoted to uncritical veneration of our national political and military leaders. It was as vapid as it was propagandistic; as Josh Gerstein wrote: “Much of the program was devoted to the thoughts and feelings of the senior officials involved and to such details as Biden clutching his Rosary ring as the raid unfolded and the sourcing of the food consumed by officials on that fateful day.” We got to hear about how the President’s daughters reacted upon hearing of bin Laden’s death, and how very difficult it was for him to attend the White House Correspondents’ dinner that evening. The coolness of American military gadgetry was constantly on display (the SitRoom has multiple digital clocks for different time zones, one of which always shows the time where the President is located, as well as some really big and flat TV screens!).
May 2
Cutline, Dan Rather on George W. Bush report: ‘We reported a true story—that’s why I’m no longer with CBS News,’ Dylan Stableford, May 2, 2012. In an interview with Piers Morgan on Tuesday, Rather recalled the last conversation he had with George W. Bush after his controversial 2004 CBS News report on the former president's Air National Guard service record. "I was at the White House for a briefing for reporters, and I asked him a couple of questions and he answered the questions," Rather said. "And then afterward he said to me, 'I hope you'll be happy retired in Austin.' That's my home. I had no intention of retiring in Austin. I have a passion for my work and I plunged myself back into doing work. But that's the only conversation I've had with him since." Rather also defended the report that led to the end of his network news career. "We reported a true story," he said. "That's why I'm no longer with CBS News."
OpEd News, Rupert Watch -- the Kiss of Death, Michael Collins, May 2, 2012. When things don't work out, doing business with Murdoch can be the kiss of death. No matter how hard you try, how loyal you are, if something goes wrong, you can be sure it will be your fault. Reporting has failed to lay the proper foundation for understanding Rupert Murdoch's remarkable testimony before the Leveson Inquiry in London and his behavior of late. Rupert Murdoch is a nihilist. Murdoch's television outlets in the United States stoked the fires for the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on outrageous misrepresentations like the idea that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks....
AlterNet, Bush Torture Memo Author John Yoo Granted Legal Immunity, Steven Rosenfeld, May 2012. A federal appeals court has granted legal immunity to former Bush Administration Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo for writing Justice Department memos between 2001 and 2003 that gave the White House legal cover to torture alleged enemy combatants, including citizens taken in the war on terrorism. The ruling by a three-judge panel on the California-based Ninth Circuit found that there were no specific constitutional prohibitions against using the torture techniques at the time that Yoo drafted the memos while working at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
May 1
Harper’s via OpEd News, Bread, Circuses, and the Edwards Prosecution, Scott Horton. May 1, 2012. 
Last week, in a courtroom in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Justice Department launched its latest political charade in the guise of a public-integrity prosecution. Former Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, a man with whom President Obama once broached the possibility of an appointment as attorney general, faces charges that he spent nearly $1 million in campaign donations to cover up an embarrassing sexual liaison. This, prosecutors insist, was a federal crime, for which Edwards could spend as many as 30 years in prison and face a $1.5 million fine. The Edwards prosecutors may well win their case, but not because any crime was involved. Rather, they're likely to win because John Edwards is one of the most reviled politicians in the United States, and so a choice target. No doubt his affair, undertaken while his heroic wife was dying of cancer, makes him the definition of a cad, but while he may be morally unsuited for high office, that is not the question in this trial. If Edwards can be imprisoned for using campaign funds to try to cover up his flaws, then few politicians could fairly escape prison. The Justice Department appears instead to be engaged in statutory vandalism, and it is awarding itself exceptional power to intrude into the electoral process -- a power that is ripe for abuse, as the Edwards case demonstrates.
Huffington Post, Rupert Murdoch 'Not A Fit Person' To Run Major Company, Phone Hacking Report Says, Jack Mirkinson, May 1, 2012. A parliamentary committee has judged that Rupert Murdoch is "not a fit person" to run a major international company such as News Corp. due to his handling of the phone hacking scandal. The verdict, from the Culture, Media and Sport committee in the House of Commons, is an unexpectedly damning one. Committee members made clear on Tuesday that it was not a unanimous one, setting up a political fight when the entire House votes on some of its findings. The committee wrote that Murdoch "turned a blind eye and exhibited willful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications," and concluded that he "is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company."
FireDogLake, Sibel Edmonds Finally Wins, David Swanson, April 30, 2012. Sibel Edmonds’ new book, Classified Woman, is like an FBI file on the FBI, only without the incompetence. The experiences she recounts resemble K.’s trip to the castle, as told by Franz Kafka, only without the pleasantness and humanity. I’ve read a million reviews of nonfiction books about our government that referred to them as “page-turners” and “gripping dramas,” but I had never read a book that actually fit that description until now. The F.B.I., the Justice Department, the White House, the Congress, the courts, the media, and the nonprofit industrial complex put Sibel Edmonds (at right) through hell. This book is her triumph over it all, and part of her contribution toward fixing the problems she uncovered and lived through.
Harper's / No Comment, Jose Rodriguez, Poster Boy, Scott Horton, May 1, 2012. Why did Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, destroy ninety-two tapes of interrogation sessions in which terrorism suspects were subjected to waterboarding and other torture techniques? On Sunday, Lesley Stahl put the question to him on 60 Minutes, and he provided an answer:
Rodriguez: To protect the people who worked for me and who were at those black sites and whose faces were shown on the tape.
Stahl: Protect them from what?
Rodriguez: Protect them from Al Qaeda ever getting their hands on these tapes and using them to go after them and their families.
Rodriguez’s claims don’t stand up. Tapes are released with some regularity by the government, and when they are, the identities of any Americans shown in them are almost always obscured—in fact, U.S. law would generally require that this be so. So his first concern hardly makes sense. His second, that the interrogators would become Al Qaeda targets, is similarly a stretch, not only because their identities would not be disclosed, but because of the clear success of the U.S. campaign against Al Qaeda. The terrorist organization has been decimated; it is now struggling from the margins against extinction. And even if it were in a position to strike, low- or mid-level CIA interrogators would hardly be high on its list of targets.
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