Posted on 04/09/2015 12:26:34 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Hanen then ordered DOJ to produce, by April 21, every draft of the “Advisory,” including all “metadata” that would show when each draft was prepared, and who prepared or edited it. He also ordered DOJ to produce the names of everyone who knew about the “Advisory” or the granting of the 100,000 deferrals. In light of Hillary Clinton’s deletion of all of her e-mails, it is also interesting that Hanen ordered that no e-mails, computer records, hard drives, or servers that have any information about this issue be “destroyed or erased.” Judge Hanen obviously wants to find out who knew about the misrepresentations made to the court. He may very well consider further sanctions against whoever was involved in this deception once he gets that information.
Federal district court judge Andrew Hanen slammed the Obama administration with a solid one-two punch late last night. In one order, he refused to lift the preliminary injunction barring implementation of the president’s immigration amnesty plan. In a second order, Hanen said that the “attorneys for the Government misrepresented the facts” about the implementation to the court.
On February 23, the Justice Department filed a “Motion to Stay” the injunction pending an appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Hanen denied that motion, saying not only that his original ruling was correct, but that subsequent events had “reinforced” the correctness of his original decision.
Hanen cited President Barack Obama’s own words as part of this reinforcement. Speaking at a town hall after the injunction order had been issued, the president said that any government official who did not halt the deportation of anyone who qualifies under his new plan would suffer the “consequences.”
Hanen took that remark as evidence of President Obama’s instructing federal law-enforcement officials that our immigration laws “are not to be enforced when those laws conflict” with the president’s plan and that, if Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials failed to follow the president’s plan, “there will be consequences for this failure — just as there would be consequences if they were in the military and disobeyed an order from the Commander in Chief.” Judge Hanen concluded that Obama’s words “confirm that [the government] has abdicated enforcement.”
Hanen’s second order concerned the “Advisory” that Justice filed on March 3, informing the judge that between November 20, when the president announced his new plan, and February 16, when the injunction was issued, DHS had issued three-year deferrals to more than 100,000 illegal aliens. This irked the judge because the attorneys had assured him — both in court and in written pleadings — that no part of the president’s plan would be implemented until late February. In the Advisory, DOJ did not admit that it had misled the court. Rather, it said it was just trying to clear up any “confusion” that might have occurred. Judge Hanen clearly was not convinced.
An infuriated Hanen said: “This Court expects all parties, including the Government of the United States, to act in a forthright manner and not hide behind deceptive representations and half-truths. That is why, whatever the motive for the Government’s actions in this matter, the Court is extremely troubled by the multiple representations made by the Government’s counsel — both in writing and orally — that no action would be taken#…#until February 18, 2015.”
Hanen was also angry that DOJ lawyers delayed telling him about this problem. They told Judge Hanen they were unaware there was a problem until they read his February 16 injunction order. Hanen said that the Justice Department’s claim that it took “prompt” remedial action to inform the court was “belied by the facts,” since they waited two weeks after that to file the “Advisory.”
In fact, Hanen implied that the government may have deliberately delayed telling him about this issue. When DOJ filed its “Motion to Stay” on February 23, the motion made no mention of this problem. Instead, according to Hanen, “mysteriously, what was included” in DOJ’s motion was a request that Judge Hanen issue a decision on the motion within two days. If Hanen had done what the government requested, then the court “would have ruled without the Court or the States knowing that the Government had granted 108,081 applications#…#despite its multiple representations to the contrary.” Yet the DOJ lawyers “stood silent. Even worse, they urged this Court to rule before disclosing that the Government had already issued 108,081 three-year renewals#…#despite their statement to the contrary.”
Hanen cites the same provision of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct that I discussed in my March 17 article here — the provision that requires complete “Candor toward the Tribunal.” Hanen acknowledges that “fabrications, misstatements, half-truths, artful omissions, and the failure to correct misstatements may be acceptable, albeit lamentable, in other aspects of life,” but says that in a court of law, “when an attorney knows that both the Court and the other side are relying on complete frankness, such conduct is unacceptable.” This is one of the most damning criticisms I have ever read about the behavior of Justice Department lawyers.
Judge Hanen considered striking the government’s pleadings. He ultimately decided not to, because that would have ended the case, giving a victory to the 26 states that brought the suit to stop Mr. Obama’s unilateral amnesty program. Because the issues at stake “have national significance and deserve to be fully considered on the merits,” Hanen concluded, “the ends of justice would not be served by striking pleadings in this case.” He warned DOJ, though, that his decision did not leave him “impotent to fashion an appropriate remedy” for the government’s misconduct.
Hanen then ordered DOJ to produce, by April 21, every draft of the “Advisory,” including all “metadata” that would show when each draft was prepared, and who prepared or edited it. He also ordered DOJ to produce the names of everyone who knew about the “Advisory” or the granting of the 100,000 deferrals. In light of Hillary Clinton’s deletion of all of her e-mails, it is also interesting that Hanen ordered that no e-mails, computer records, hard drives, or servers that have any information about this issue be “destroyed or erased.” Judge Hanen obviously wants to find out who knew about the misrepresentations made to the court. He may very well consider further sanctions against whoever was involved in this deception once he gets that information.
The main battle over the president’s immigration plan and the injunction will now be in the Fifth Circuit. But Hanen’s findings against the government, particularly the misconduct of DOJ lawyers, will not help the administration’s case.
— Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Along with John Fund, he is the co-author of Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk and Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department.
RELATED: Liberal Law Profs Take Their Best Shot at Defending Obama’s Amnesty, Fail
RELATED: Obama’s Other Executive Action on Immigration
RELATED: The Amnesty Numbers Game: A Case Study in Politicized Statistics
Good for Hanen. He’s not letting them get away with anything. Will be very interesting to see the draft history of the advisory mentioned in the article. He is set to expose them by demanding it.
Judge Hanen is a bright light in this fight.
My concern is with the eventual SCOTUS decision...
I would expect the judiciary to figure out some way to allow amnesty to go forward. The judiciary is just as much of a political animal as the other two branches of government. They just have better costumes and choreography.
Could this be the akin to discovering Nixon lying about the two-bit robbery?
90% of the current JustUs employees need to be in the Slammer.
“’Fabrications, misstatements, half-truths, artful omissions, and the failure to correct misstatements may be acceptable, albeit lamentable, in other aspects of life,’ but says that in a court of law, ‘when an attorney knows that both the Court and the other side are relying on complete frankness, such conduct is unacceptable.’”
This statement exemplifies how the courts can still serve justice.
I’m impressed at how Judge Hanen, in one fell swoop, manages to describe the entire progressive movement with the phrase “fabrications, misstatements, half-truths, artful omissions, and the failure to correct misstatements.” Clearly, the courts are the perfect antidote to the toxic deceptiveness of progressivism.
Wow... Standing up to the ivory tower ruling class takes serious courage. We need to start some kind of weekly nomination for these rays of hope, to recognize them. Thanks for posting. I love the search for the truth, I will follow this case daily. I don’t care what letter or letters come after their name, I admire those with the courage to tell the truth or to seek it. Most especially when it means evil is breathing down their necks. La Raza and Obama won’t like this one, neithe will Kerry’s new Iranian family.
True dat......
Or in other words, the judge wants to find out who gave the order for the DOJ lawyers to stall him for time.
Except when liberal judges sit on the bench, and they currently outnumber our guys, courtesy of Bubba Clinton.
“Misbehavior”, my butt. Obama and his administration offer nothing but LIES to everyone in this country and outside of this country.
I hope he is a careful, healthy man with personal security.
.....Judge Hanen, in one fell swoop, manages to describe the toxic deceptiveness of progressivism. ....and the entire progressive movement's “fabrications, misstatements, half-truths, artful omissions, and the failure to correct misstatements”.......
I wish Hanen was adjuicating Hillary's email mess.
The State Dept may be facing charges of misleading a court WRT the court's request for documents.......and for tampering w/ evidence.
THE NYT REPORTED 3/27/15: Clinton’s review (and erasing?) of her emails did not occur when she was secretary of state ......or even shortly after she left office.
Last October, nearly two years after she left office, the State Department sent her a letter requesting all government records, like emails, she may have possessed. In response, she provided the State Department in December with about 30,000 printed emails that she said were government records. She has said that an additional 30,000 emails were personal.
It appears Clinton still has copies of the emails she deemed public records. Attached to Mr. Kendall’s letter was one sent to him by the State Department this week.
A letter from the under secretary of state for management, Patrick F. Kennedy, said that the department understood that she wanted to keep copies of those documents.
Mr. Kennedy said that the agency had consulted with the National Archives, and that allowing her “access to the documents is in the public interest as it will promote informed discussion” as she responds to congressional.......and other inquiries.
The Obama regime is able to change metadata, to literally “alter history”.
Hmmm.... The playbook is exposed and now will be scrutinzed in excruciating detail.
“other aspects of life” might might be in danger by extension and extrapolation.
For instance, the judge in Texas might make hay that sets precedent that will get Lois Lerner the needle and the VA crooks in jail
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