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Return of the Justice Department |
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The scandals that are still unwinding at the ‘Justice’ Department have made quite an impression on those who will be needing to govern the country. At the Holy Land Foundation trial, I have watched in horror as this government was represented by attorneys telling jurors to rely on their memories rather than evidence. The politicization of the department has obviously resulted in a personnel problem.
The incoming administration is wasting no time turning around the ruination that has been inflicted by lawbreakers on our justice system.
Political considerations affected every crevice of the department during the Bush years, from the summer intern hiring program to the dispensing of legal advice about detainee interrogations, according to reports by the inspector general and testimony from bipartisan former DOJ officials at congressional hearings.
Although retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey, who took charge of the department in the winter, has drawn praise for limiting contacts between White House officials and prosecutors, and for firmly rejecting the role of politics in law enforcement, restoring public confidence in the department’s law enforcement actions will be central, lawmakers and former government officials say.
ad_icon“The infusion of politics into the Justice Department and an abdication of responsibility by its leaders have dealt a severe blow,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the panel’s ranking Republican, wrote in an opinion piece last month. “Great damage has been done to the credibility and effectiveness of the Justice Department.”
(snip)
Another critical, early judgment must be made about how to allocate scarce resources without shortchanging national security. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, more than 7 percent of the department’s budget shifted to terrorism, away from drug trafficking, organized crime and white-collar misdeeds, according to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office.
The terrorism trials which have all ended in defeat for the DoJ will soon come to a conclusion in Dallas, with a jury that has received easily the most mind-boggling prosecutorial admonition I have ever seen. Hopefully they are not the halfwits the government addressed itself toward. It would be a very good thing if the administration returns the Department to the work of ending crime instead of witchhunting.
The country will be better served by simple competence in staffing the DoJ. We hope that a fine mind like President Obama’s will serve the country well, and give us actual excellence in the positions in which public service is needed once again.
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Another piece of the article raises that specter of nonpartisan executive decision making the right wing is wishing for.
“It would not be beneficial to spend a lot of time calling people up to Congress or in front of grand juries,” Litt said. “It would really spend a lot of the bipartisan capital Obama managed to build up.”
Obama did not win with bipartisan votes, and should not give over to the wishes of those who fought, very dirty, to keep eight years of disasters going in this country.
I agree with Avedon Carol, what the Republicans believe in is indefensible. It has ruined our justice system, and needs to be stopped right now.
(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )
What an audacious blockquote you have there:
“Michael B. Mukasey[...] has drawn praise for [...] firmly rejecting the role of politics in law enforcement[...]“
Seriously? From whom?! Isn’t this the chap who told us the DOJ would not investigate the legality of waterboarding; would not investigate the Bush-administrations warrantless surveillance program; would not investigate FISA violations by the telecoms; and would not enforce any associated contempt citations rendered by the federal Congress…
Isn’t this the dude whose publicly recorded wish-list included giving the President the right to detain, indefinitely “those who have engaged in hostilities, or purposefully supported [terrorism.];” That Congress should bar Federal judges from ordering the release of detainees found innocent into the United States; That Judges should not have the authority to require that the government actually present the, possibly abused, tortured, and mistreated, detainees at their trials; That soldiers who may have witnessed or been involved in an illegal detention should not be required to attend the trial during time of war, nor create arrest reports on the battlefield; That Habeas proceedings should not delay military tribunals seeking to convict the detainee of war crimes. that congress should restrict discovery of evidence, giving deference to “national security secrets;” And that all of these cases should be under the sole jurisdiction of the District of Columbia’s U.S. District Court judges?
But somehow, by someones account, he’s drawing praise for keeping politics out of the office of the DOJ? Well, okay: If the blockquote says so, I guess.