Tuesday, January 13, 2015

What About U.S. Attorney General Designate Loretta Lynch — "Cooperators" — Possible “Selective NON- or UNDER-Prosecution” in certain cases — And something called the “Secret Docket”


What if Michael Grimm’s “defense” of “Selective Prosecution” by his persecutrix Loretta Lynch had been turned on its head; and instead Grimm said that, because Ms. Lynch was selectively not prosecuting so many crimes for nefarious purposes, not doing the same for him was just some sort of evil discrimination ?

That probably wouldn’t have worked for Grimm either, but it could have made things somewhat more interesting; plus, it probably it would have been closer to the truth and it might have been more embarrassing to U.S.A.G. Designate Lynch


On other cases, lawyers for victims, victims rights groups and press organizations are pressing Loretta Lynch for information about “cooperation deals” and the U.S. Attorney’s practice of maintaining a “Secret Docket” of cases involving so-called "Cooperators"


At the Lynch Hearings, prior to her confirmation vote in the U.S. Senate, Senators need to look into something called the “Secret Docket” and ask Lynch everything that she might know about it  —  Somebody needs to ask her straight-out, “What’s happening to the victims’ money in those cases ?”  AND  “Can something like this be used a vehicle for a shakedown or scam by Federal Prosecutors, like yourself ?”



Former Congressman Michael Grimm bleated a little bit about “Selective Prosecution” in connection with the charges that Loretta Lynch had brought against him, but because he knew he was guilty, and that she had him dead to rights, he probably never intended to follow through on that or any other line of defense. Since he pleaded “guilty” to one charge and admitted to the facts alleged in several others in his Federal indictment, many probably think that it’s all now a moot point. —  Not so fast !  Grimm’s story might have been part of something bigger  —  bigger even than a cautionary tale for all elected officials with restaurant businesses on the side.

BIG CASE AGAINST LYNCH BEING PUT BEFORE THE U.S. SUPREME COURT


According to former Justice Department lawyer and legal commentator, Sidney Powell, writing in the New York Observer,  “ The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, and perhaps other districts of the Department of Justice as well, have been running a secret docket for years....”  ( See “Loretta Lynch and Other Prosecutors Stand Accused of Allowing Criminals To Operate” By Sidney Powell, 1/9/15, NY Observer [http://observer.com/2015/01/loretta-lynch-and-other-prosecutors-stand-accused-of-allowing-criminals-to-operate/] [@newyorkobserver on Twitter; |newyorkobserver on Facebook]).  Her report goes on the state that even as President Obama submitted the nomination of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch to step up to be the next Attorney General of the United States; which, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate,  would make her the country’s chief law enforcement officer; lawyers, perhaps at their own professional peril, were asking the Supreme Court to review a case that might embarrass Ms. Lynch.  Their case would reveal how Loretta Lynch, her predecessors, and her assistant prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, put cases on a secret docket that has allowed admitted criminals to walk free or almost free, deprived their victims of millions of dollars of restitution required under the law, and even enabling those "criminals" to commit more crimes against an unsuspecting public.

The case is Palmer v. John Doe, #14-676, and the Supreme Court was scheduled to confer on the petition last Friday, January 9th.  Up to the time of Ms. Powell’s NY Observer article, The Department of Justice had filed no response to the Palmer v. Doe petition. According to Sidney Powell, “... This isn’t the first time the Department has tried to kill something by silence....”

EXPOSING MORE LARGE-SCALE GOVERNMENT LAWLESSNESS


Also according to the Powell piece in the Observer, what is at stake is far more than the issue of “hundreds of millions of stolen dollars.”  It involves a fundamental failure of the Department of Justice to protect many, many  “innocent citizens from known criminals in a massive secret star-chamber” system of leniency for certain alleged perpetrators, for which there is neither any review nor means of accountability.  This is yet another example of large-scale government lawlessness and making its own rules as it goes along “unsupervised....” in a  “cooperator game” that has “immeasurable cost to justice, faith and trust in the fairness of our system....”

EARLIER WASHINGTON TIMES ARTICLE


Much of the same ground was covered in a long and detailed piece that appeared over a week ago in the Washington Times (See “Loretta Lynch questioned over secret deal depriving fraud victims of $40M” by Jim McElhatton 1/4/15, Washington Times [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/4/loretta-lynchs-office-cheated-stock-fraud-victims-/?page=all]). The article notes that much of the possible wrong doing in the specific case covered in the article occurred before Loretta Lynch’s current stint as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, but that Lynch has actively tried to keep a lid on things since she took over the Eastern District’s top attorney position. In the article, its author Jim McElhatton notes, “Ms. Lynch wasn’t U.S. attorney during the sentencing hearing, but her office has since fought efforts to unseal records in the case. ***   [One of the attorney’s] also said many of the key developments in the case “occurred outside of Ms. Lynch’s stints as U.S. attorney,” first in 1999 and again in 2010. Still, court records show numerous examples of Ms. Lynch’s office pushing to keep details about the case from becoming public....”  For example, “In 2012, two years into Ms. Lynch’s tenure at U.S. attorney, [an attorney for the group] filed a separate brief on behalf of the National Organization for Victim Assistance. They argued that Ms. Lynch’s office appeared intent on preventing the public from learning anything about how prosecutors treated crime victims in the case. ***  The victims’ rights group said it had asked Ms. Lynch’s office whether it followed through on restitution for crime victims as the law requires in the case. The group received no explanation other than a brief email to [the attorney] saying the office ‘complied in all aspects of the law.’ ***   ‘At this point,’ the attorneys argued, “the government is using the alleged sealing orders it may (or may not) have obtained in this case not as a legitimate law enforcement tool but rather as an excuse for obscuring what happened.’...”


IN SPITE  OF COURT REFERRAL AND QUESTIONS TO COMMITTEE  —  SO FAR,  NO “INQUIRY” BY HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE


According to Jim McElhatton’s article, “More than a year before President Obama nominated federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to be attorney general, a former federal judge quietly called on Congress to investigate her U.S. attorney’s office for trampling on victims’ rights. ***   Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, said Ms. Lynch’s office, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, never told victims in a major stock fraud case that a culprit had been sentenced — denying them a chance to seek restitution of some $40 million in losses.  ***   Mr. Cassell, in written remarks to a House Judiciary Committee panel in 2013, said if prosecutors were using secretive sentencing procedures to reward criminals for cooperating with them, it could violate the Crime Victims Restitution Act....”   However, late in the Washington Times article, McElhatton discloses that “Mr. Cassell a year later asked the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution to inquire into the matter. But that didn’t happen. ***  In a statement, the Judiciary Committee said it incorporated Mr. Cassell’s concerns into legislation improving services for crime victims at all federal prosecutors’ offices. But the House panel never contacted Ms. Lynch’s office directly. ***   ‘The committee takes such requests seriously, and the precedent is often to use alternate strategies other than a formal congressional inquiry,' the committee said in an email statement — though the committee said it is 'also open to examining this issue further and has not ruled out sending an inquiry to the U.S. attorney’s office regarding its handling of victims’ rights.’...”

2 comments:

Galewyn Massey said...

UPDATE: THE “HELEN FORREST - HARRY JAMES” EDITION

“IT SEEMS I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE”

NEWSMAX AND NATIONAL REVIEW CALL OUT LORETTA LYNCH FOR LETTING CRIMINALS WALK IN SECRET “COOPERATION” DEALS

GEE ! I WISH I’D HAVE SAID THAT — OH, THAT’S RIGHT I ALREADY DID

National Review Online is reporting that President Obama’s Attorney General nominee, Loretta Lynch, has allegedly let criminals walk free in exchange for their cooperation, did nothing when they committed further crimes, and kept the victims of those crimes in the dark — all while she was head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York....” (See “National Review Online: Attorney General Lynch Let Criminals Go Free” by Cathy Burke, 1/19/15, Newsmax [with link to National Review article] [http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/loretta-lynch-criminals-walk-National-Review-Online/2015/01/19/id/619466/]; see also “Loretta Lynch’s Secret Docket - There are allegations her U.S. Attorney’s Office is keeping cases quiet” by Ryan Lovelace, 1/19/15, National Review Online [http://www.nationalreview.com/article/396640/loretta-lynchs-secret-docket-ryan-lovelace]).

Galewyn Massey said...

UPDATE & BACKFILL: THE “IT SURE LOOKS LIKE LORETTA LYNCH IS CLEANING UP OLD MESSES” EDITION

ALMOST HALF A MILLION DOLLARS IN SEIZED ASSETS RETURNED BY LYNCH’S U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN A LONGTIME CASE WITHOUT ANY ADMISSION OF GOVERNMENT WRONGDOING

Back around Thanksgiving, I wrote that “... [r]ecent articles in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine highlight how as U.S. Attorney, Loretta Lynch seized assets of citizens subject to investigation, but not guilty of any crimes....” ( See my 11/30/14 post “Excessive "Asset Forfeitures" might be Loretta Lynch's Achille's Heel” on this blog below). Part of that post “....specifically mentioned the plight of Jeffrey, Richard and Mitch Hirsch, three brothers in Long Island....”

Now according to the New York Times, Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and President Obama’s Attorney General Designate, signed off yesterday on a settlement, which would when implemented, return $447,000 seized from a family-run business on Long Island pursuant to a controversial program allowed under federal law known as civil asset forfeiture (See “$447,000 Seized by Government Will Be Returned to Business” by Sheila Dewan, 1/20/15, NY Times/ National Briefing/ Courts [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/447000-seized-by-government-will-be-returned-to-business.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0]). The Times article went on to describe some of the circumstances of the seizure of funds from the family-run Long Island business, Bi-County Distributors, whose owners, the Hirsch family, obtained the return of their seized assets, but without an admission of wrongdoing by the local U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The Hirsch brothers’ case dragged on for many years, however as soon as some of the media, including this blog, began demanding close Congressional inquiry to look into the “Asset Forfeiture” issue, this particular case was quickly settled. I take no credit for any of this, because this blog is probably not followed by enough of the higher-ups that influence Loretta Lynch. A more likely reason is that A.G. Designate Loretta Lynch wanted to clear her decks for action, eliminating problematic matters, in advance of Senate staff questioning before Senate Hearings on her nomination to be the U.S. Attorney General.