Posted on 08/09/2016 9:58:35 AM PDT by Elderberry
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- The Department of Justice has ordered about 1,000 of its attorneys to undergo additional ethics training following a Texas judge's ruling that he was misled.
The additional one hour of training in a one-time program, on top of existing requirements, was ordered last month for attorneys in the Justice Department's Civil Division, according to court documents made public Monday.
In May, Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas said Justice Department lawyers intentionally misled him while the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration lawsuit against the administration of President Barack Obama was before him in its early stages -- accusing the Justice Department of a "calculated plan of unethical conduct."
Hanen said both he and opposing counsel were assured that the government would not start implementing an expansion of the immigration program until Feb. 18, 2015, but the government implemented a part of the program before February and the Department of Homeland Security had already granted relief preventing deportation under the immigration programs to more than 100,000 illegal immigrants while the programs were being challenged in court.
Hanen accused Justice Department lawyers of deliberately hiding the facts from him. The new training appears to be a concession to Hanen, as he put on hold an order for three hours of additional ethics training for every Justice Department lawyer based in Washington, D.C., who would appear in state or federal courts involved in the lawsuit against the Obama's immigration plan pending a submission from the federal government.
The Justice Department said "failures" and "mistakes" were the reason Hanen was misled, not deliberate deception.
"We do not dispute that we made mistakes that led to the unfortunate circumstances here: at critical times we provided incomplete information to the court because of our failure to appreciate the scope of the questions asked of us; and we used imprecise terminology in our oral and written submissions to the court," the Justice Department writes. "As a result, our submissions left the court with an incorrect understanding of the facts ... We acknowledge and apologize for these mistakes, and for the valuable time the court has expended on this matter as a result. But we did not intend to mislead the court or to conceal any fact concerning implementation of the guidance."
If it was any of us, we would have been jailed for contempt or perjury.
Ethics class - teach ‘em to cheat better, and free coffee.
That should help move along those speedy, fair trials.
Some in the Do JustUs need to be disbarred.
ONLY if it benefits the radical leftist agenda of the Obama regime.
Imagine that. An unethical lawyer, Next they will be telling of a crooked politician.
How about sanctions and disbarment instead.
I'm shocked.
It won’t help.
They’ll still lie and cheat.
And Trump is the “dangerous” one.
Exactly...you ‘deceive’ a judge, see what they do to you.
Nice idea, except that there is no “ethics class” that can turn liars into honest men and women.
It is not as though they do not know the difference between true and false, right and wrong.
They simply choose to be evil when it suits their other purposes. No ethics class is going to change that.
They should lose their jobs and their pensions,
and their licenses.
#RemovePerjurersLicenses
ONE THOUSAND JUSTICE DEPT. ATTORNEYS!!! There’s the problem. No wonder this country is feeling more and more like a Soviet gulag. No nation can survive with that many lawyers to harass its citizens. See Communist Czechlosloviekia for proof of what finally happens.
Government employees spending time on the job taking classes they’ll just ignore from instructors who are being paid from the public coffers is just public resources being spent for nothing - it should be the other way around: those who engaged in unethical behavior should be paying fines to refill (if only minimally) the public treasury.
A 1 hour class won’t install or really teach ethics. Learning and embedding a seance of ethics in life takes a lifetime of teaching beginning with your Mom, reinforced by your Dad, a regular committed Church learning/attendance.
Hope there’s not a test - they’ll all fail.
You aren't even in the right ball park. Those are just the lawyers that had to waste an hour to provide cover for the bosses at Main Justice.
DOJ has over 100,000 employees. Of course, that includes non-lawyer HR and IT folks, paralegals and support staff, armed enforcers, etc.
‘The additional one hour of training in a one-time program,...’
Really? Theyve come this far in life and the judge (or whoever is in charge) thinks an hour of class will change them. This is laughable, completely silly...where are the adults any more? Theyre lawyers, some of the most unscrupulous in our society. An hour of class will wasted. They would understand jail time, heavy fines and disbarment. As it is the hour will be just a time off for them....
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