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Column: A Trump judge just overturned the government’s most effective anti-fraud tool, which has stood for 150 years
Los Angeles Times ^ | Oct. 25, 2024 3 AM PT | Michael Hiltzik

Posted on 10/26/2024 11:16:05 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Since 1986, whistleblowers have been in the forefront of the government’s war on fraud, accounting for $53 billion, or more than 70%, of the $75 billion recovered from swindlers on defense contracts, from Medicare and from other federal programs.

There’s no debate over what’s driving this record: It’s a 1986 federal law that awards whistleblowers up to 30% of the recovery. For the federal government, this is a bargain. Without the law, the government might never even know about most of the $75 billion in fraud that was unearthed.

That makes the law “one of the government’s top fraud-fighting tools,” says James King, a spokesman for the Anti-Fraud Coalition, a Washington watchdog group.

Without the qui tam, the federal government often would never find out about the fraud at all.

— Leonardo Cuello, Georgetown University

So perhaps it’s unsurprising that a Trump-appointed judge in Florida has just declared a key provision of the law unconstitutional. The provision concerns so-called qui tam actions, in which private litigants bring lawsuits on behalf of the government as well as themselves. (The Latin term came to us via old English law.)

The ruling came from federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, whom Trump named to the bench in 2020 despite her having been labeled “not qualified” by the American Bar Assn. due to her “lack of meaningful trial experience.” She did, however, boast a sterling right-wing legal pedigree, including service as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Humor
KEYWORDS: 49to41; california; kathrynkmizelle; kathrynmizelle; losangelesslimes; losangelestimes; mdflorida; michaelhiltzik; perjury; smear; subornedperjury; trumpjudge; trumpwasright
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I’d be curious what qui tam laws Washington signed... Somehow I don’t think they’re as egregious as this.


21 posted on 10/26/2024 12:58:42 PM PDT by Skywise
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

These laws have been on the books since the Civil War. They are also called Lincoln”s laws.


22 posted on 10/26/2024 1:35:44 PM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: No name given

“That’s right. The LA Slimes and the rest of the lamestream fake news 📰 🗞 media are truly ignorant.”

I don’t think “ignorant” is the right term.

More like purposefully deceitful.

They’re propaganda organs.


23 posted on 10/26/2024 1:57:06 PM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they. control you. )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The specific law is from 1986.


24 posted on 10/26/2024 2:21:08 PM PDT by yuleeyahoo (“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” - the deep-state)
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To: Rockingham

Bkmk


25 posted on 10/26/2024 2:36:15 PM PDT by ptsal (Vote R.E.D. >>>Remove Every Democrat ***)
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To: PIF; metmom; dragnet2; Rockingham; dljordan; oldplayer; faithhopecharity; TribalPrincess2U; Liz; ...
Another of DJT’s mistakes heard from

Judge [Kathryn Kimball Mizelle] rules federal law banning gun possession in post offices unconstitutional
Just the News ^ | 1/13/24 | John Solomon

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4210095/posts

I didn't have any complaints on this ruling by Mizelle.

But I imagine that Michael Hiltzik and his ABA buds had conniption fits over the ruling...

26 posted on 10/26/2024 4:06:24 PM PDT by kiryandil (Kraft durch Freude! - The Kamunist and The Walzrus )
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To: PIF
What mistake are you referring to?
27 posted on 10/26/2024 4:07:02 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

What could possibly go wrong with the idea that private citizens could use the power of the government to go after people they do not like when even the government was not sure if there was actually fraud?


28 posted on 10/26/2024 4:10:30 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)
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To: kiryandil

You also ruled against the CDC's mask mandate on airplanes.

29 posted on 10/26/2024 4:23:18 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; PIF; metmom; dragnet2; Rockingham; dljordan; oldplayer; faithhopecharity; ...
Yeah, here's Hiltzik whizzing on Mizelle in 2022 because he didn't like her smacking down Pedo Joe's and Kammy's authoritarian covid impulses:

Column: Trump’s judges will keep moving the country to the far right for decades
By Michael Hiltzik | Business Columnist June 10, 2022

https://archive.ph/yFv0j

little Mikey Hiltzik: Perhaps inevitably, Trump’s younger nominees came to the bench without significant judicial experience or even lawyerly seasoning.

One example is Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a federal judge in Orlando, who issued a widely ridiculed ruling striking down the federal mask mandate for airlines and other public transportation on April 18. The Biden administration is appealing the ruling.

30 posted on 10/26/2024 4:40:04 PM PDT by kiryandil (Kraft durch Freude! - The Kamunist and The Walzrus )
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To: Robert DeLong

see:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4273627/posts?page=30#30


31 posted on 10/26/2024 4:40:29 PM PDT by kiryandil (Kraft durch Freude! - The Kamunist and The Walzrus )
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
see my post #26
32 posted on 10/26/2024 4:42:09 PM PDT by kiryandil (Kraft durch Freude! - The Kamunist and The Walzrus )
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To: PIF
Was it, or was it perhaps a way leftists in the government were raking in big money. I would have to read her opinion before rushing to judgement.

Seeing as this report is coming from the L.A. Times should give everyone a cause for pause & learn the facts.

33 posted on 10/26/2024 5:46:43 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: kiryandil
The ABA judicial nominee rating system is (mostly) a way to keep judicial appointments under the de facto control or influence of large law firms that represent banks, insurance companies, and corporate interests.

In essence, these firms have enough billings to pay for certain of their attorneys to participate in local, state, and national bar association activities and on judicial nominating commissions. In this manner, these firms get enough clout among the judges to have the benefit of the doubt or outright political sway to rig a case when they need to.

More broadly, the effect is to screen against untrusted outsiders and keep them off the bench. Yet such outsiders often have greater honesty and dedication to deciding cases on the merits than insiders compromised by their affiliations.

In addition, the process also tends to empower Leftists who might otherwise generate political heat against the coziness of the system. In return for supporting the judicial influence game, the Leftists work to keep conservatives from getting on the bench.

34 posted on 10/26/2024 9:48:35 PM PDT by Rockingham
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To: Rockingham

Thank you for your very good explanation of how these things work.


35 posted on 10/26/2024 11:43:43 PM PDT by kiryandil (Kraft durch Freude! - The Kamunist and The Walzrus )
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