Wednesday, January 14, 2009

More Crime Results from Refusal to Prosecute: Exhibit A

By its refusal to prosecute criminal misconduct the U.S. Attorney General's office revealed existing complicity in the crime. This flouting of justice exhibits the results of not prosecuting crimes - if unconstitutional behavior, including torture, aren't prosecuted, the criminals know they are safe.

The story that came out of the 'Department of Justice' yesterday was just one more proof that the occupied White House began and ended with the intention of overthrowing the laws of the land. A detailed investigation by Inspector General Glenn Fine of DoJ, that revealed crimes, was tossed out. The prosecution would have involved bringing charges against this administration by DoJ employees - who are part of this administration.

It isn't surprising, when we've had any number of instances of the operations of the damaged DoJ being directed against political 'enemies' instead of against those who violated the law. This is the latest, but it won't be the last. Our country's laws have been violated in politicizing the hiring process, and in functioning as an arm of the Republican Party by those hired for the political affiliation.

A former top Justice Department official made false statements to Congress and violated federal law in overseeing the agency's civil rights division, investigators say.

The accusations against Bradley Schlozman, the former acting head of the civil rights division, are included in a new report by the department's inspector general, Glenn Fine.

Tuesday's report is the latest of several inquiries that found senior Justice Department officials violated civil service laws under the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales has denied knowledge of the conduct by his deputies, but the series of reports paints a disturbing portrait of the nation's top law enforcement agency being pulled in a sharply political direction during the Bush administration.

The report says Schlozman politicized and mistreated his staff and tried to punish agency employees he believed were too liberal. The report cited an e-mail in which Schlozman noted it had been awhile since he'd had to "scream with a bloodcurdling cry at some commie."

In the same 2003 missive, Schlozman used derogatory language to describe his pleasure in punishing career staffers, writing that "bitchslapping a bunch of (division) attorneys really did get the blood pumping and was even enjoyable once in a while."

At other times, the report said, Schlozman urged the hiring of "real Americans," apparently meaning conservatives, as opposed to liberals, whom he referred to as "libs" and "pinkos."

Schlozman resigned from the Justice Department in 2007 and is now an attorney in private practice in Wichita, Kan.

The report also faults the managers above Schlozman who, it said, received warning signs of inappropriate conduct but did not stop him or rein him in.

Investigators referred the case to federal prosecutors last spring, but they decided last week not to file charges against Schlozman.

Patricia Riley, special counsel to the U.S. Attorney for Washington, said the office conducted "a thorough and exhaustive review of the issue" of whether Schlozman lied to Congress. She declined to say exactly why the office chose not to file charges, but added the inquiry was conducted by six veteran prosecutors.


Prosecution would involve findings of misdoings, i.e., guilt, from all the report shows. There will not be any action that would promote law, when it would violate political commitments. Obviously, their experience in the Nixon administration was the lesson learned by members of the White House cabal. They learned that honorable men and women do not belong among them. The price of surrounding themselves with the law-abiding would be to answer to rules of conduct they couldn't follow while committing the crimes they have.

Once we have functioning, honorable, public servants in office again at DoJ, we can begin to prosecute the criminals that have destroyed this country's well-being.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This flaunting of justice

Flouting.

You want "flouting" - openly and egregiously violating.

Flaunting is something else.

Yes, I'm an annoying pedant.

11:53 PM  
Blogger Ruth said...

You're right, Joel, and I appreciate it.

1:41 AM  

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