MassPrivateIFederal prosecutors, judges, and other officials at the Justice Department committed over 650 acts of professional misconduct in a recent 12-year period, according to a new report published by a DC-based watchdog group, the Project On Government Oversight. POGO investigators came up with the number after reviewing documents put out by the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).
According to one little-noticed OPR document published last year, a DOJ attorney failed to disclose a “close personal relationship” with the defendant in a case he was prosecuting, in which he negotiated a plea agreement to release the defendant on bond. An immigration judge also made “disparaging remarks” about foreign nationals. POGO contends that this number is only the tip of the iceberg and OPR needs to release more information about this misconduct to the public.
In one case from 2012, a Justice Department attorney falsely told a court that the government didn’t have evidence that a key witness suffered from an ongoing mental-health disorder—when the prosecutor did have that evidence, according to OPR. The attorney was suspended for two weeks and the state bar was notified. In another case, an immigration judge presiding over a case where a father and his daughter were fighting removal from the United States was found by OPR to have “engaged in professional misconduct by acting in reckless disregard of his obligation to appear to be fair and impartial” and to have made biased statements against immigrants. The judge was suspended for 30 days.
Types of Misconduct:
◾48 allegations that federal attorneys misled courts, including 20 instances in which OPR determined that the violations were intentional
◾29 allegations that federal prosecutors failed to provide exculpatory information to defendants, including 1 instance OPR concluded was intentional
◾13 allegations that Justice Department personnel violated constitutional or civil rights
◾4 allegations of abuse of investigative or prosecutorial authority or general prosecutorial misconduct, including 3 instances in which OPR determined that the violations were intentional
◾3 allegations that prosecutors abused the grand jury or indictment process
◾1 allegation of “overzealous prosecution”
“The bottom line is we just don’t know how well the Justice Department investigates and disciplines its own attorneys for misconduct when it occurs,” says Nick Schwellenbach, a contributor to POGO. “The amount and types of misconduct DOJ’s own investigators conclude has happened suggests more [information] should be public than is already, including naming names of offending prosecutors that commit serious misconduct.”
OPR is responsible for investigating ethics complaints at the Justice Department, but the office reports directly to the attorney general. POGO argues that this insular system might not be sufficient to provide effective oversight of prosecutor wrongdoing. Last year, for example, two federal judges issued court orders complaining that DOJ attorneys had misled them about the full scale of the NSA’s surveillance activities—but OPR was never aware of the complaints and didn’t investigate them even though a former OPR attorney said that they should have triggered an inquiry, according to USA Today.
In OPR’s latest report, from FY2012, the office received over 1,000 complaints and other correspondence about Justice Department employees (over half of these complaints came from incarcerated individuals) and opened 123 inquiries and investigations.
DOJ upholds a practice of not disclosing the names of lawyers identified by OPR as having committed offenses.
“The result: the Department, its lawyers, and the internal watchdog office itself are insulated from meaningful public scrutiny and accountability,” concluded the Project on Government Oversight.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/03/650-cases-misconduct-justice-department-immigration
http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2014/hundreds-of-justice-attorneys-violated-standards.html
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/03/doj-refuses-to-release-names-of.html
It doesn’t matter. Show me someone in our government who ISN’T a crook and I’ll be pleasantly surprised to know about it, but until that day comes, we really don’t need their names.
Let God sort ’em out.
And since the Attorney General is a known criminal who holds office in defiance of congress, what would you expect of those working beneath him?
Of course they’re crooks. It’s a precious few people who DON’T take advantage of an opportunity to steal with impunity.
If they listed that many khazar names it would be called anti-semitism!
dewey-cheatum& howe