Category: Justice

Release of Federal Reserve Sh&%pile for Cash Purchases Stayed

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Federal Judge Loretta Preska has stayed her order for the Federal Reserve to release information on the emergency loans that it made:

The U.S. Federal Reserve won a delay of a federal judge’s order that it reveal the names of the banks that have participated in its emergency lending programs and the sums they received.

Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan stayed her August 24 order in favor of Bloomberg News, which had sought the information under the federal Freedom of Information Act, so that the central bank could appeal.

The Fed asked for the stay claiming that releasing the information would cause grave damage to the financial system, but that was also their argument for not complying with Bloomberg News’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the 1st place, so what is really going on here is a pretty standard stay pending appeal.

I fully expect this to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and if this information gets released, I fully expect it to reveal that the Federal Reserve has been lying, as their standard behavior has been to assume that you can’t handle the truth, so the truth must be suppressed.

As I have said before, this is why central banks powers need to be limited: While the interest rate/inflation fighting function must be thoroughly insulated from politics, because the act of taking away the proverbial punch bowl is inherently politically suicidal, any other function that does not require that level of political isolation must be vested in a more accountable institution.

Background here.

Aleynikov Wants Deferred Prosecution

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Sergey Aleynikov is the programmer alleged to have taken Goldman Sachs’ high speed trading computer code, and his lawyers are asking prosecutors for a delayed prosecution, which basically means that if he keeps his nose clean, he gets a dismissal in a few years.

It sounds to me like he is going to get it, based on the refusal of Goldman Sachs to turn over his personnel file.

I’m wondering if this was a case where GS was worried about his competing with them in this market in his new job, and decided that filing a dodgy complaint with the FBI would shut him down, and then realized that if they turned over personnel records, that they would out themselves for some sort of crime.

Background here (or it will be when “the Google” fixes the blogger search function).

The Most Morally Reprehensible Thing that I Have Heard This Month

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As Spencer Ackerman notes in his review of the 2004 CIA inspector general report on torture, amidst all the redacted paragraphs, was this:

The number of detainees in CIA custody is relatively small by comparison with those in U.S. military custody. Nevertheless, the Agency, like the military, has an interest in the disposition of detainees and particular interest in those who, if not kept in isolation, would likely divulge information about the circumstances of their detention.

The translation from the Orwellian, or perhaps translation to the Orwellian, it’s kind of hard to determine here in this specific instance of extreme Newspeak, but it comes to this:

We can’t release torture victims, nor can we try them, because we tortured them, and they will confirm that they have been tortrued.

Seriously, I think that Eric Arthur Blair is spinning in has grave at the speed of a Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 hard drive.

Judge Orders Federal Reserve to Release Documents under FOIA.

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District Judge Loretta Preska has ordered the Federal Reserve to turn over loan and collateral data for their emergency loans under the Freedom of Information Act.

This is very important news for a number of reasons:

  • It means that the public will get to review what was actually in this part of the Fed’s “sh$%pile for cash” program.
  • It will spawn other FOIA suits.

And most importantly:

  • Is an unequivocal ruling by the courts that the Federal Reserve is a federal agency and has to abide by federal rules how they do business.

I’m fairly certain that the Fed will take this all the way to the Supreme Court if it can, because those folks really believe that seeing the man behind the curtain would destroy the United States of America.

They are wrong, of course, but it is clear that this is what they believe.

Here’s Hoping for Some Real Gail Time

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I’ve been following the tussle between the Swiss Bank UBS and the IRS over account for information for some time, and the fact that there is now a settlement which involves handing over account information for about 4500 people, and that prosecutors are working on over 150 criminal tax evasion cases is a very good thing.

Even better is the fact that there is an amnesty deadline in September, and neither UBS nor the Feds are revealing which accounts have turned over, which is having the rich pig tax evaders running around like chickens with their heads cut off, wondering whether or not they are among those accounts turned over.

One of the effects of the tax amnesty program is that about a dozen more banks have now been fingered as having aided clients in evading taxes.

Let’s be clear, for this to have a meaningful effect, there need to be dozens of prosecutions, and a significant number of people both imprisoned and made paupers by this process.

That is the only way that repeat fraud will be deterred.

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi Returns to Libya

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But was he guilty in the first place?

Normally, I’d put this sort of question firmly into the tinfoil hat category, but a number of people believe Libya was not the perpetrator of the bombing, with Iran and the PFLP-GC being the most frequently cited alternative, and it appears this release was a quid pro quo for his dropping his appeal of his conviction. (See also here)

My guess is that the reality is somewhere in between, that al-Megrahi is the one who done it, but that the prosecution was handled by a bunch of PR glory boys, who screwed up various parts of the trial, and there was a very real worry that he would embarrass the British courts on appeal, so they cut a deal.

That’s my guess anyway.

Man Tortured and Renderd by Obama DoJ for….Defense Congract Fraud

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Unfortunately, this is not senior staff at Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, or SAIC, but rather a relatively low level employee of a construction firm:

According to court papers, on April 7, 2009, Azar and a Lebanese-American colleague, Dinorah Cobos, were seized by “at least eight” heavily armed FBI agents in Kabul, Afghanistan, where they had traveled for a meeting to discuss the status of one of his company’s U.S. government contracts. The trip ended with Azar alighting in manacles from a Gulfstream V executive jet in Manassas, Virginia, where he was formally arrested and charged in a federal antitrust probe.

This rendition involved no black sites and was clearly driven by a desire to get the target quickly before a court. Also unlike renditions of the Bush-era, the target wasn’t even a terror suspect; rather, he was suspected of fraud. But in a troubling intimation of the last administration, accusations of torture hover menacingly over the case. According to papers filed by his lawyers, Azar was threatened, subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and induced to sign a confession. Azar claims he was hooded, stripped naked (while being photographed) and subjected to a “body cavity search.”

This is why we need to prosecute Bush and His Evil Minions™, torture always comes home.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The Chinese Have It Right

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Mark Ames is on it.

China, it seems, has put a number of millionaire investment types to death, while in the US, AIG gets another $242 million in bonuses:

China has executed two people for defrauding hundreds of investors out of millions of yuan in beauty parlour, cosmetics and property scams, crimes which the government described as a serious blow to social stability.

The two executed fraudsters, Du Yimin and Si Chaxian, “seriously damaged the country’s financial regulatory order and social stability”, the supreme people’s court ruled.

I don’t support the death penalty, but throwing these guys in a very dark hole for the rest of their lives, and ensuring that every dollar they have is forfeit, would be a very good thing.

U.S. Attorney Update

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Letter to Karl Rovecomplaining that US Attorney David Iglesias was “missing in action” during the 2002 and 2004 elections (see pic below), and Harriet Miers fingers Karl Rove calling for his dismissal for explicitly political reasons:

The House panel focused most of its attention on Iglesias, a rising star in New Mexico who came to displease his political patrons. Miers told investigators that Rove called her in September 2006, “agitated” about the slow pace of public corruption cases against Democrats and weak efforts to pursue voter-fraud cases in the state. In the call, Miers said, Rove described Iglesias as a “serious problem” and said he wanted “something done” about it. Miers testified that she called then-Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty to pass along the concerns.

But when you see clear evidence of corruption and a deliberate attempt to undermine the role of the Department of Justice as a non-political enforcer of laws, what do we get from Obama and Holder? Crickets.

We need a special prosecutor. Because until people are prosecuted for crap like this, it will continue.

The Casablanca Moment on the US Attorney Firings

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I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!

The House Judiciary Committee has released documents relating to the US Attorney firings, and they indicate that Bush and His Evil Minions™ were hip deep in the process, and that it they were pushing this for electoral advantage. (also here)

They specifically went after prosecutors who they felt did not pursue bogus politically motivated charges.

So, when is Barack Obama going to look into the matter of Don Siegelman?

L’Affaire Madoff About to Get Interesting

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Bernie Madoff’s former CFO, Frank DiPascali, has pled guilty to 10 counts regarding the Ponzi scheme. (see also here)

What makes this interesting is that he is “cooperating with authorities.”

Madoff simply pled guilty, and asked for nothing, and has refused to talk to prosecutors, which implies that he’s protecting someone, most likely his family, but DiPascali appears to be ready to dish dirt, which likely means that his wife Ruth, or his children who worked with him in the business, are going to have some interesting days ahead.

A Little Bit of Local Corruption

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Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon is going on trial November 9 for theft and perjury.

I will have to say that this case, which is about the disposition of Best Buy gift cards, and failure to disclose gifts, is really kind of embarrassing.

In New Jersey, you have wide spread corruption involving envelopes of cash and the sale of human organs, and the best that Baltimore can manage is …… purloined gift cards????

I mean really, this is kind of lame…..I understand that corruption is evil, and needs to be weeded out, but this is just lame.

Also, I understand the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing, but she has been repeatedly reprimanded by the ethics commission repeatedly, over a period of years for doing things like employing relatives, so I am disinclined to believe defense counsel.

Senate Votes to Confirm Sotomayor

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The vote was 68-31 in the Senate.

About the only real surprise here is that Republicans have structured this entire thing in a way seemingly designed to piss off the Hispanic Americans, all for a Justice who really won’t matter:

  • She will not be a big change from Souter.
  • She won’t serve that long, she is 55, and has a condition, Diabetes, that statistically means that her lifespan will be on the order of 10 years less than that of a similar person.
  • The Dems had the 60 votes to close off debate pretty much from the start.

Not clear why they decided to be assholes about this…..Maybe Rush really does own the ‘Phants.

DoJ Probing Derivatives Trading

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It looks like a serious investigation of credit default swaps and other derivatives has been initiated by the Department of Justice, and the investigation is specifically looking at the clearing of those instruments. (See also here)

What “clearing” means here is the process of actually settling the contracts for the derivatives, and much of it is done by one entity, Markit Group Ltd., which is owned by the Wall Street Banks.

This appears to be an anti-trust investigation, and my guess is that what they are looking at is that the buy and the sell prices, which always have a slight gap, this difference goes to the clearing agency and or brokerage, might have been manipulated through collusion to magnify this amount, and the profits thereof.

Here’s hoping that some bankers are frog-marched off of Wall Street.

Democrats Push Back on Needle Exchange

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Well, it looks like Barack Obama is going to be getting some well deserved push-back on his proposal to keep the ban on needle exchange programs.

Obama put it in his budget, and the House Appropriations Committee pulled it from their budget, and it’s what comes out of the Congress at the end of the day that makes law here.

Here is the background on Barack Obama going out of his way to reverse a campaign promise, and I still think that this is a deliberate attempt to enrage the gay community in order to score points with right wingers.

That being said, Obama also opposing sane harm reduction policies with regard to drugs in the context of international diplomacy, so maybe he actually buys into this whole “War on Drugs” charade, so maybe he is just worried of being demagogued on the issue.

I’m not sure which state of mind is worse.

Eric Holder and False Accountability

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Glenn Greenwald has the scoop, and it’s even lamer than what was clearly a set of deliberate leaks by Eric Holder and His Evil* Minions™ that were covered in the Newsweek article.

According to the Washington Post, which notes that, “The actions of higher-level Bush policymakers are not under consideration for possible investigation,” and the New York Times, which observes that, “The Justice Department official who confirmed the likelihood of an inquiry said it was not likely to focus on those legal opinions, the lawyers who wrote them or anyone who acted within the boundaries they set, even though the ground rules for interrogations have shifted,” it’s clear that real accountability for real crimes is not on the table.

For the small fry, “Just following [illegal] orders,” will be considered an absolute defense, and and the people who actually gave those illegal orders, and who did so without regard to the law or legal precedents, will not be subject to scrutiny.

I understand the possible political complications, though I think that they are stupid, because the Republicans will oppose Obama tooth and nail every step of the way regardless of his peace overtures, but even if non-prosecution were to produce a more bipartisan atmosphere, it would be wrong, because covering up a crime against humanity, and make no bones about it, torture is a crime against humanity, is a crime in and of itself.

*Evil is the only way to describe this concerted effort to ensure that the people who authorized, and enabled torture never face justice. By deliberately ignoring the law in this matter, Eric Holder, and Barack Obama have become co-conspirators for torture after the fact.