Free Republic

Amid brewing controversy over the ATF's botched Fast and Furious gunrunning operation comes new allegations that the Department of Justice also let off an Arizona man suspected of supplying grenades to Mexico's drug cartels. The WSJ reports today that federal authorities are now investigating why the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix — the same office that oversaw Fast and Furious — released Jean Baptiste Kingery after he confessed to providing military-style weapons to the now-defunct La Familia Michoacana drug cartel. Kingery, who was arrested and released in June 2010, confessed to manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) using grenade components from...

Newly released documents show that the Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed for the release of Marxist radical and domestic terrorist Marilyn Buck from federal prison because officials believed she learned her lesson and had “expressed a dramatic change from her previous political philosophy.” These new documents, obtained by investigative journalist Cliff Kincaid’s America’s Survival organization, shed more light on why Holder’s officials decided to release Buck, a convicted radical left-wing domestic terrorist. “Incredibly, Buck’s attorney, Soffiyah Elijah, cited Buck’s ‘Master of Fine Arts in Poetics,’ completed behind bars, as evidence that she deserved parole. It’s a fraud and a racket,”...

U.S. trial unlikely for 9/11 suspect Mohammed: report Sat Nov 13, 2:21 am ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks probably will remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future, The Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing Obama administration officials. The administration has concluded that it cannot put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in federal court in New York City because of opposition from members of Congress and local officials, the Post said. There is also little support within the administration for a military prosecution at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo...

While election results aren't usually affected, voter fraud is common. And electoral integrity is perhaps more important than the outcome. In the fall of 2008, Tarrell Campbell was a student at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. With his three separate masterÂ’s degrees, he had been on a college campus, somewhere, for more than a decade. He was so interested in the outcome of the 2008 presidential election that he cast a ballot in Illinois, then drove across a Mississippi River bridge to his hometown of St. Louis and voted again.Last week, Mr. Campbell entered a guilty plea to federal voter...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Americans woke up to news of a car bomb in New York‘s Times Square and a national debt surpassing $13 trillion in May. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was preparing for a ―Fun Day celebration in Texas,1 a luau in Tennessee,2 and other parties and fun activities across the country. With our nation facing the heightened threats of domestic terrorism and unprecedented debt and financial challenges, taxpayers should be shocked to learn DOJ crime prevention grant programs are paying for parties and rollercoaster rides for children rather than focusing on investigating crimes, locating...

Obama Justice Department outrages never cease. The politically charged gang led by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is more interested in helping felons vote than in helping the military to vote. Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, has put a legislative hold on the already troubled nomination of James M. Cole to be deputy attorney general until the attorney general ensures full protection for voting rights of our military (and associated civilian personnel) stationed abroad. The senator is right to raise a ruckus. Mr. Cornyn co-authored a 2009 law mandating that states mail absentee ballots to military voters at least...

J. Christian Adams was proud to be a Department of Justice attorney. He believed he was serving his country by prosecuting those who wished harm on others. He strongly believed in what he did. To this DoJ official, his profession wasn’t a job but a calling. Until earlier this month when he suddenly resigned. The reason? His superiors told him to drop a case against the New Black Panther Party, even though the “case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career.” Reading Adams’ account of what happened, I can only...

Lieberman panel seeks info on Awlaki's '02 catch-n-release Stonewalled by the Justice Department in its efforts to get to the bottom of intelligence lapses that led to the Fort Hood massacre, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has broadened its probe to look into why Justice a year after 9/11 withdrew an arrest warrant for the radical American-born imam who corresponded with the Fort Hood terrorist. WND has learned that the chief counsel for the Senate panel, led by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., has requested an interview with a federal agent who shortly after 9/11 attacks worked with the Joint Terrorism...

WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials on Tuesday agreed to release some documents subpoenaed by the Senate Homeland Security Committee but still refuse to send witnesses to testify about the soldier accused in last fall’s deadly shooting at Fort Hood. Leslie Phillips, spokeswoman for the committee, in an e-mail called the decision “an affront to Congress’s Constitutional obligation to conduct independent oversight” and said that committee chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is weighing further legal action. But lawmakers may be limited in what they can do to force the Pentagon to comply with the subpoena, according to legal experts. At issue is...

Gitmo Lawyer "Completely Shocked" His Terrorist Client Returned to Terrorism BY John McCormack March 26, 2010 11:34 AM Newsweek follows up on Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio's story on the Gitmo detainee who's returned to the battlefield after being released by the Obama administration: A Guantánamo detainee released last December has now returned to the battlefield to fight with Taliban insurgents, according to three U.S. counterterrorism officials who have reviewed intelligence reports on the matter. If the reports are accurate, the detainee, known as Abdul Hafiz, would be the first Guantánamo inmate released by the Obama administration to have returned...

Two weeks after a conservative group disparaged Justice Department lawyers who previously represented terror suspects, Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday weighed in for the first time, calling such lawyers "patriots." “Those who reaffirm our nation’s most essential and enduring values do not deserve to have their own values questioned,” Holder told a group of lawyers who offer "pro bono," or voluntary, legal services. "Let me be clear about this: Lawyers who provide counsel for the unpopular are, and should be treated as what they are: patriots." The crowd, gathered to honor Holder with an award from the Washington-based Pro...

Attorney General Eric Holder failed to tell the Senate about seven legal briefs he signed when lawmakers considered his nomination to his current job, according to a letter released on Friday.Two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, who sought release from a military prison in South Carolina where he was being held after then-President George W. Bush designated him an "enemy combatant." Padilla was held in a military brig for three years before his case was moved to a criminal court in Miami, where he was convicted on charges of offering his services to...

During his confirmation last year, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. failed to notify the Senate that he had signed several briefs urging courts to reject President George W. Bush’s claim that he had the power to imprison an American citizen as an “enemy combatant,” the Justice Department acknowledged Thursday. The briefs should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” said Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed. In any event, the attorney general has publicly discussed his positions on detention policy on many occasions, including...

During his confirmation more than a year ago, Attorney General Eric Holder failed to notify lawmakers he had contributed to a legal brief dealing with the use of federal courts in fighting terrorism, the Justice Department acknowledged on Wednesday. “The brief should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed.” Still, the “amicus brief,” filed with the Supreme Court in 2004, resonates years later as Holder finds himself defending the handling of some recent terrorism cases, particularly...

The Obama administration bluntly urged the Congress Thursday to steer clear of directing where terrorism suspects should be prosecuted, pushing back against efforts to require military rather than civilian trials. A bipartisan group of senators has offered legislation aimed at forcing the administration to prosecute terrorism suspects, like the self-professed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in special military commission trials instead of traditional criminal courts. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators to be tried in a criminal court in Manhattan. But concerns by some lawmakers about security costs and granting full...

War On Terror: The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on? From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser. We may now have a clue as...

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 EDITORIAL: Does Justice lack ethics? THE WASHINGTON TIMES The rot at the Department of Justice grows more evident every day. Already being hit for botched decisions about terrorist trials and for dropping a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, the department is taking another huge blow. On Friday, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis excoriated the department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) for an attempted railroad job against two George W. Bush administration appointees who crafted rules for interrogating captured terrorists. The 69-page memorandum by Mr. Margolis makes the ethics of OPR look worse...

A number of lawyers who work on terrorist issues at the Justice Department represented terrorist detainees before joining the Obama administration. At a hearing three months ago, Sen. Charles Grassley raised the possibility of a conflict with Attorney General Eric Holder. Grassley, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, posed three simple questions: Who are they, who did they represent, and what are their duties at the Justice Department today? At the time, Grassley knew from press reports that two high-ranking department officials now working on detainee issues had previously worked for detainees: Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal...

How do you fast track your chances to work for the Department of Justice? Defend terrorists. After months of stalling, Attorney General Eric Holder has finally (sort of) admitted that at least nine of President Obama's appointees have either represented or advocated for Guantanamo detainees But Mr. Holder is still refusing to name any of the now DOJ lawyers who worked on behalf of terrorists except for two who were already known.

Holder's decision to Mirandize the Christmas bomber was bad enough. Telling the world he was talking again waseven worse Security: The administration says the Christmas bomber is now cooperating with authorities. We thought they got all the information he had in a 50-minute chat. So just why are we letting our enemies know he's talking? In any war, it's vitally important that you know what your enemy is planning and doing, just as it's important that your actions and plans remain secret. And when you know about your enemy's plans it's important they don't know that you know. We were...