Justice Department Looks to Avoid Another Stevens Fiasco

Washington Post ^ | October 15, 2009 | Carrie Johnson

[La Lydia]

Justice Department leaders are pressing ahead with reforms to prevent lapses by prosecutors in sharing evidence in criminal cases, a series of changes spurred by failures that led the federal government to take a highly unusual step earlier this year and abandon the conviction of former senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). The reforms come as new allegations emerge that cast doubt on the credibility of the key witness in the Alaska political corruption scandals, including the botched prosecution of Stevens.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer outlined...the fresh safeguards, such as new training programs for federal prosecutors on their evidence-sharing obligations and the hiring of an official at headquarters to review the process...Other changes include the appointment of a senior lawyer to handle evidence-sharing issues at each U.S. attorney's office across the country and a pilot project to determine how to best corral information from multiple sources.

The announcements closely follow a hard-edged court filing by attorneys for Pete Kott (R), a former Alaska state representative who is asking a judge to reverse his corruption conviction because prosecutors, including some from the same team that faced off against Stevens, did not turn over incendiary information about a critical witness, onetime oil-services company chief Bill Allen....

Brenda Morris, the lead prosecutor in the Stevens trial, recently left her post as deputy chief of the public integrity unit to voluntarily move to Atlanta. William Welch, who leads the section, remains in place as the office pursues a full plate of investigations, including a grand jury probe of former interior secretary Gale Norton...

[La Lydia]

Not that it will do Stevens any good at this point. I think Brenda Morris achieved her original goal and is "moving on," but I would still like to know who put her up to it.

[gussiefinknottle]

all they cared about was reaching 60. they lost interest once their
plan worked and stevens lost. i’m sure rahm emmanuel or other
obama minions are somehow connected but getting the proof
may be impossible. the dems make poor old richard nixon
look like a saint.

[La Lydia]

No. This all happened under Bush. There was a rogue element in DOJ that carried out the elimination of Stevens. Part of it is still in place.

[jimfree]

Send those rat fu##ers to jail.

[Elle Bee]

that's because Bush didn't clean out the US Attorneys the way Clinton had

Mary Jo White stayed much too long in the SDNY as many other Clinton loyalists had throughout the country

another failure of the 'set a new tone' in DC policy

The left only understands brutal power ... it's what they're all about

[Achilles Heel]

I was wondering what happened to this dragged out investigation. I hope some heads go on the chopping block for this travesty. The DOJ now is a joke anyway.

[La Lydia]

That is right. And the Bush Justice Department didn’t even need to “clean out” these people, they could have just transferred then to a job where they couldn’t do any damage, had anyone been paying attention, or had any clue about how to run Justice.

[gussiefinknottle]

It did happen under Bush but the dems were in place at
justice. He never cleared them out the way Clinton did.
The entrenched bureaucracy are all Dems working
against any Republican in office. That is how Valerie Plame
and Joe Wilson were able to carry out their vicious plot
at CIA.

[La Lydia]

That is not how the civil service works. The President appoints (and removes) the US Attorneys. He does not appoint the entire civil service, nor does he appoint all of the assistant US attorneys. People like Brenda Morris and William Welch are civil servants, not appointees. Bush couldn’t just fire them. But a skillful Attorney General can manage the department in a way so as to put people like that in positions where they can do little or no harm. That is what Holder has done with the ones that aren’t singing the Obama tune. Plame and Wilson are civil servants, as well. Not easily removed, but very easily moved and sidelined. Bush is not a vicious, Chicago-style politician and so left many people in place where they could damage him.

[gussiefinknottle]

Oh, I know that, we had a friend at Justice, and the Dems in the
office made life miserable, hard, spied on him. They have
ways of clearing people out, and over fifty years of
hiring like-minded people. And I was trying to make same point
about what Dems do and Repubs do. Next time, Repubs need
to make better effort to sideline the Dems.

[ASOC]

SO funny in such a tragic way.

Charlie Rangle has had more proven law-breaking (tax cheat, taking in dough ad nauseate) than Ted was ever accused of.

Add in the ‘star’ witness had multiple other charges (drug dealing, teen sex, etc, etc) that the Feds were shielding him from and you wind up with ....

Injustice. The new Justice unless you have the dough of political power to be left alone.

[darth]

This is why the next Republican President needs to do an 80-100% RIF (Reduction In Force) of civil servants across ALL Federal agencies.

This is ABSOLUTEY REQUIRED to put the Federal budget back in the black as well as to root out the leftists and corrupt officials put in place by democrat administrations.

To give you an example that I have personal knowledge of: At one federal agency where I was a contractor, ALL of the procurement personnel (civil servants and Senior Executive Service) and local Small Business Administration personnnel (civil servants and SES) were DEMOCRATS. Only democrat contractors got contracts at that federal agency. The fed employees and SBA made millionaires out of the contractors who dutifully kicked back millions in donations and “volunteer” employees to the democrat party and politicians.

Bush did not put a stop to this. The same democrat civil servants kept handing out lucrative contracts to the same millionaire contractors.

This is the kind of DEEPLY ENTRENCHED CORRUPTION that President Palin needs to root out and prosecute.

Any critical function of the federal government can be procured more cheaply from the private sector. Each agency needs a small core of UNBIASED, UNCORRUPTIBLE procurement officials to handle contracting.

For my next job, I want to be the Inspector General for a large agency.

[La Lydia]

Good luck with that.

[SaraJohnson]

Some political fascists at Justice need to see some jail time.