Eric Holder Stepping Down As Attorney General. Also Announces Support of Suit in New York Faulting Legal Service for Poor.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

NPR

Eric Holder Jr., the nation's first black U.S. attorney general, will resign his post after a tumultuous tenure marked by civil rights advances, national security threat, [controversy over failing to prosecute more Wall St. corporate CEO's over the 2008 economic meltdown], reforms to the criminal justice system and 5 1/2 years of fights with Republicans in Congress. He currently ranks as the fourth-longest tenured AG in history.

President Obama said on Thursday that Holder, 63, intends to leave the Justice Department as soon as his successor is confirmed, a process that could run through 2014 and even into next year. A former U.S. government official says Holder has been increasingly "adamant" about his desire to leave soon. Holder and President Obama discussed his departure several times and finalized things in a long meeting over Labor Day weekend at the White House.

Holder already is one of the longest-serving members of the Obama Cabinet and the Justice Department is where he previously worked as a young corruption prosecutor and as deputy attorney general — the second in command — during the Clinton administration.

Holder most wants to be remembered for his record on civil rights: refusing to defend a law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman; suing North Carolina and Texas over voting restrictions that disproportionately affect minorities and the elderly; launching 20 investigations of abuses by local police departments; and using his bully pulpit to lobby Congress to reduce prison sentences for nonviolent drug crimes. Many of those sentences disproportionately hurt minority communities.

Speaking of which, Mr. Holder announced his support for a class-action lawsuit against NYS for perpetuating a system that violates the rights of people who cannot afford to hire lawyers. See below:

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Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. spoke Tuesday at New York University School of Law. Last year, Mr. Holder told colleagues that ensuring equal access to lawyers was “our moral calling.” Credit Julio Cortez/Associated Press        

Holder Backs Suit in New York Faulting Legal Service for Poor.

N.Y. TIMES

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who last year declared a crisis in America’s legal-defense system for the poor, is supporting a class-action lawsuit that accuses Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State of New York of perpetuating a system that violates the rights of people who cannot afford to hire lawyers.

The lawsuit claims that public defenders in New York are so overworked and overmatched that poor people essentially receive no legal defense at all. It describes a system in which indigent defendants navigate courts nearly alone, relying on spotty advice from lawyers who do not have the time or money to investigate their cases or advise them properly.

Because of substandard legal aid, children are taken from their parents, defendants in minor cases are jailed for long periods and people are imprisoned for crimes for which they might have been acquitted, the civil rights lawyers who filed the suit said.

 The lawsuit, which was filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has been winding through the courts for seven years and is set for trial on Oct. 7. It names three upstate counties — Onondaga, Schuyler and Washington — and Suffolk County on Long Island as defendants.

Although the United States is not a party to the case, Mr. Holder is using the same core legal arguments as the plaintiffs and the weight of the federal government to resolve what he sees as deep-seated unfairness in local criminal courts. His views will bring national attention to a case that has mainly been of interest in New York. After Mr. Holder weighed in last year in a similar case in Washington State, the judge strongly rebuked the public-defense systems in two cities there and ordered improvements.

If the New York lawsuit succeeds, the state could be forced to take over the public-defense system, which is now run by county governments. Such an outcome would also quite likely encourage similar lawsuits, and, in turn, additional intervention by the Justice Department.

Mr. Holder has made the right to legal representation part of a broad effort to address inequities in the criminal justice system. He has pushed to reduce harsh sentences that were adopted during the country’s crack epidemic, for example, and to eliminate mandatory-minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes.

 

Shooting Accounts Differ as Holder Schedules Visit to Ferguson

F.B.I. agents went door to door looking for witnesses. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times        

N.Y.TIMES

As a county grand jury prepared to hear evidence on Wednesday in the shooting death of a black teenager by a white police officer that touched off 10 days of unrest here, witnesses have given investigators sharply conflicting accounts of the killing.

 

Some of the accounts seem to agree on how the fatal altercation initially unfolded: with a struggle between the officer, Darren Wilson, and the teenager, Michael Brown. Officer Wilson was inside his patrol car at the time, while Mr. Brown, who was unarmed, was leaning in through an open window.

Many witnesses also agreed on what happened next: Officer Wilson’s firearm went off inside the car, Mr. Brown ran away, the officer got out of his car and began firing toward Mr. Brown, and then Mr. Brown stopped, turned around and faced the officer.

 

But on the crucial moments that followed, the accounts differ sharply, officials say. Some witnesses say that Mr. Brown, 18, moved toward Officer Wilson, possibly in a threatening manner, when the officer shot him dead. But others say that Mr. Brown was not moving and may even have had his hands up when he was killed.

 

The new details on the witness accounts emerged as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was scheduled to visit Ferguson on Wednesday to meet with F.B.I. agents who have been conducting a civil rights investigation into the shooting.

 

Mr. Holder and top Justice Department officials were weighing whether to open a broader civil rights investigation to look at Ferguson’s police practices at large, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal talks. The issue came up after news reports revealed a 2009 case in which a man said that four police officers beat him, then charged him with damaging government property — by getting blood on their uniforms.

Under Mr. Holder, the Justice Department has opened nearly two dozen such investigations into police departments, more than twice as many as were opened in the previous five years, according to department data.

 

Officer Darren Wilson at a meeting. Credit City of Ferguson, via Associated Press        

 

 The fatal confrontation began on Aug. 9 shortly after the police received reports that two men had robbed a convenience store in Ferguson. Officer Wilson, who was not responding to the robbery, had stopped to speak with Mr. Brown and a friend, Dorian Johnson. The Ferguson police chief, Thomas Jackson, said that it was around the time that Officer Wilson started talking to the two that he realized they fit the description of the suspects in the convenience store robbery.

A lawyer for Mr. Johnson said that his client was interviewed by the F.B.I. and the St. Louis County police last week for nearly four hours. In that interview, Mr. Johnson admitted that he and Mr. Brown had stolen cigarillos from the store, said the lawyer, Freeman R. Bosley Jr.

 

Mr. Bosley said that the officer told the two to get off the street, adding that Mr. Johnson told the officer that he lived nearby. They got into a bit of a verbal dispute with the officer about whether walking in the street constituted a crime, Mr. Bosley said.

 

Contrary to what several witnesses have told law enforcement officials, Mr. Bosley said that the officer then reached out of the window with his left hand and grabbed Mr. Brown by the throat.

He said Mr. Brown pushed him off, and the officer then grabbed Mr. Brown’s shirt.

“My client sees the officer pull a gun and hears him say, ‘I’ll shoot you’ — then ‘pow!’ there was a shot,” Mr. Bosley said, referring to the one that apparently went off in the car. “He did not describe a scuffle. It was more of a scuffle for him to get away.”

 

However, law enforcement officials say witnesses and forensic analysis have shown that Officer Wilson did sustain an injury during the struggle in the car.

As Officer Wilson got out of his car, the men were running away. The officer fired his weapon but did not hit anyone, according to law enforcement officials.

 

A man who lives nearby, Michael T. Brady, said in an interview that he saw the initial altercation in the patrol car, although he struggled to see exactly what was happening.

 

“It was something strange,” said Mr. Brady, 32, a janitor. “Something was not right. It was some kind of altercation. I can’t say whether he was punching the officer or whatever. But something was going on in that window, and it didn’t look right.”

 

Mr. Brady said he could see Mr. Johnson at the front passenger side of the car when he and Mr. Brown suddenly started running. Mr. Brady did not hear a gunshot or know what caused them to run. But he said he did see a police officer get out of the patrol car and start walking briskly while firing on Mr. Brown as he fled.

What happened next could be what the case turns on. Several witnesses have told investigators that Mr. Brown stopped and turned around with his arms up.

 

According to his account to the Ferguson police, Officer Wilson said that Mr. Brown had lowered his arms and moved toward him, law enforcement officials said. Fearing that the teenager was going to attack him, the officer decided to use deadly force. Some witnesses have backed up that account. Others, however — including Mr. Johnson — have said that Mr. Brown did not move toward the officer before the final shots were fired.

 

The F.B.I., Mr. Bosley said, pressed Mr. Johnson to say how high Mr. Brown’s hands were. Mr. Johnson said that his hands were not that high, and that one was lower than the other, because he appeared to be “favoring it,” the lawyer said.

James McKnight, who also said he saw the shooting, said that Mr. Brown’s hands were up right after he turned around to face the officer.

“I saw him stumble toward the officer, but not rush at him,” Mr. McKnight said in a brief interview. “The officer was about six or seven feet away from him.”

THE GUARDIAN

Darren Wilson, the 28-year-old police officer who killed an unarmed Ferguson teenager with a shot to the head, has so far said nothing publicly about the incident.
Wilson and his girlfriend, Barbara Spradling, left their home in Crestwood, a predominantly white neighbourhood some 18 miles from Ferguson, before he was named last week in connection with the shooting of Michael Brown.
But before they left, Spradling gave an account of the shooting to a friend, who says it is markedly different from the narrative espoused by Brown’s family and their supporters.

Spradling told the friend who spoke to the Guardian that Brown initiated the altercation by striking Wilson in the face, leading to a struggle for Wilson’s gun that resulted in one shot being fired in the police vehicle.
St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said at a news conference on Sunday that when Wilson got out of his squad car, Brown pushed him back in, and a struggle ensued. Belmar said at least one shot was fired from the officer’s gun inside the police car. An officer with the St Louis County police, who declined to be named, told the Guardian that Brown sustained an injury to his thumb at this point; the autopsy released on Monday shows that one shot hit Brown’s hand.

Johnson has given several slightly differing accounts of the incident. A week ago he told MSNBC that as a squad car pulled up, Wilson called out at them to “get the fuck on the sidewalk”, before the car reversed back alongside them. Johnson claims the officer opened his door onto Brown, and the door bounced off him.
Johnson, in an account supported by other eyewitnesses, maintains that Wilson grabbed Brown through the window of his squad car. Johnson, in a disputed claim, said that Wilson fired a shot while still grabbing on to Brown.
What is not disputed is that Brown then made off. In his MSNBC interview, Johnson said Brown was shot in the back, at which point he turned around and put his hands up. “I don’t have a gun, stop shooting,” Brown said, according to Johnson. (Johnson’s assertion that Brown was shot in the back was not supported by the findings of the independent autopsy.)
But Spradling told the friend that Brown turned around after the officer called on him to stop. In Wilson’s version, Brown was not shot while surrendering, but while moving toward Wilson in a threatening manner. Brown reportedly continued to move toward Wilson even after being shot, and did not stop moving forward until suffering a mortal wound to the head.
“He just kept coming,” the friend said Wilson claimed.
In Wilson’s account, Brown never raised his hands to plead for his life, or said “don’t shoot”, but rather taunted Wilson before moving forward and being shot.

Autopsy Shows Michael Brown Was Struck at Least 6 Times

Prof. Shawn L. Parcells, a pathologist assistant, explained the Brown family’s independent preliminary autopsy report that showed at least six bullet wounds in the body of the slain teenager.

                       Image CreditRoberto Rodriguez/European Pressphoto Agency

N.Y. TIMES

Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by a police officer, sparking protests around the nation, was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, a preliminary private autopsy performed on Sunday found.

One of the bullets entered the top of Mr. Brown’s skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatal injury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, who flew to Missouri on Sunday at the family’s request to conduct the separate autopsy. It was likely the last of bullets to hit him, he said.

Mr. Brown, 18, was also shot four times in the right arm, he said, adding that all the bullets were fired into his front.

 

The bullets did not appear to have been shot from very close range because no gunpowder was present on his body. However, that determination could change if it turns out that there is gunshot residue on Mr. Brown’s clothing, to which Dr. Baden did not have access.

 

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last month. He was set to brief President Obama, returning in Washington, on Monday. Credit Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        

 

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Sunday that the Justice Department would conduct its own autopsy, in addition to the one performed by local officials and this private one because, a department spokesman said, of “the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case and at the request of the Brown family.”

 

People have been asking: How many times was he shot? This information could have been released on Day 1,” Dr. Baden said in an interview after performing the autopsy. “They don’t do that, even as feelings built up among the citizenry that there was a cover-up. We are hoping to alleviate that.”

 

Dr. Baden provided a diagram of the entry wounds, and noted that the six shots produced numerous wounds. Some of the bullets entered and exited several times, including one that left at least five different wounds.

“This one here looks like his head was bent downward,” he said, indicating the wound at the very top of Mr. Brown’s head. “It can be because he’s giving up, or because he’s charging forward at the officer.”

He stressed that his information does not assign blame or justify the shooting.

 

“We need more information; for example, the police should be examining the automobile to see if there is gunshot residue in the police car,” he said.

Dr. Baden, 80, is a well-known New York-based medical examiner, who is one of only about 400 board-certified forensic pathologists in the nation. He reviewed the autopsies of both President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and has performed more than 20,000 autopsies himself.

He is best known for having hosted the HBO show “Autopsy.”Dr. Baden said that because of the tremendous attention to the case, he waived his $10,000 fee.

 

One of the bullets shattered Mr. Brown’s right eye, traveled through his face, exited his jaw and re-entered his collarbone. The last two shots in the head would have stopped him in his tracks and were likely the last fired.

Mr. Brown, he said, would not have survived the shooting even if he had been taken to a hospital right away. The autopsy indicated that he was otherwise healthy.

Dr. Baden said it was unusual for the federal government to conduct a third autopsy, but dueling examinations often occur when there is so much distrust of the authorities. The county of St. Louis has conducted an autopsy, and the results have not yet been released.

 

18-year-old Michael Brown

 

According to what has emerged so far, on Saturday, Aug. 9, Mr. Brown, along with a companion, Dorian Johnson, was walking in the middle of Canfield Drive, a fistful of cigarillos in Mr. Brown’s hand, police say, which a videotape shows he stole from a liquor store on West Florissant Ave.

At 12:01 p.m., they were stopped by Darren Wilson, a police officer, who ordered them off the road and onto the sidewalk, Mr. Johnson, who is 22, later said.

 

The police have said that what happened next was a physical struggle between Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson that left the officer with a swollen face. Mr. Johnson and others have said that it was a case of racial profiling and police aggression from a white officer toward a black man. Within minutes, Mr. Brown, who was unarmed, was dead of gunshot wounds.

The sequence of events provided by law enforcement officials places Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson at Ferguson Market and Liquors, a store several blocks away on West Florissant Ave., at about 11:50 a.m. After leaving the store with the cigarillos, the two walked north on West Florissant, a busy commercial thoroughfare, toward Canfield Drive, a clerk reported to the police.

 

Mr. Brown was a big man at 6-foot-4 and 292 pounds, though his family and friends described him as quiet and shy, a homebody who lived with his grandmother.

It is about a 10-minute walk from Ferguson Market to the spot where Officer Wilson, 28, with six years’ experience, approached Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson.

The police tell of an officer who was enforcing the minor violation of jaywalking, as Mr. Brown and Mr. Johnson ignored the sidewalk and strolled down the middle of the road instead.

 

The morning after the shooting, Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis County police said that Officer Wilson was leaving his police car when Mr. Brown “allegedly pushed the police officer back into the car,” where he “physically assaulted the police officer.”

“Within the police car there was a struggle over the officer’s weapon,” Chief Belmar said. “There was at least one shot fired in the car.” At that point, the police said, Officer Wilson left his vehicle and fatally shot Mr. Brown.

 

Mr. Johnson, who declined to be interviewed, has described the events differently in television interviews. While he and Mr. Brown walked, he said, Officer Wilson stopped his vehicle and told them to get on the sidewalk. When they refused, Officer Wilson slammed on his brakes and drove in reverse to get closer.

When the officer opened his door, it hit Mr. Brown. With his left hand, Officer Wilson reached out and grabbed Mr. Brown by the neck, Mr. Johnson said.

“It’s like tug-of-war,” Mr. Johnson said. “He’s trying to pull him in. He’s pulling away, that’s when I heard, ‘I’m gonna shoot you.’ ”

 

 

A witness, Tiffany Mitchell, said in an interview with MSNBC that she heard tires squeal, then saw Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson “wrestling” through the open car window. A shot went off from within the car, Mr. Johnson said, and the two began to run away from the officer.

According to Ms. Mitchell, “The officer gets out of his vehicle,” she said, pursuing Mr. Brown, then continued to shoot.

Mr. Johnson said that he hid behind a parked car and that Mr. Brown was struck by a bullet in his back as he ran away, an account that Dr. Baden’s autopsy appears to contradict.

 

“Michael’s body jerks as if he was hit,” Ms. Mitchell said, “and then he put his hands up.” Mr. Brown turned, Mr. Johnson said, raised his hands, and said, “I don’t have a gun, stop shooting!”

Officer Wilson continued to fire and Mr. Brown crumpled to the ground, Mr. Johnson said.

 

Mr. Brown’s body remained in the street for several hours, a delay that Chief Jackson said last week made him “uncomfortable.” Antonio French, a St. Louis alderman who has been active in this case, said on ABC on Sunday that the body had remained in the street for nearly five hours.

At one point, a woman can be heard shouting, “Where is the ambulance? Where is the ambulance?”

EXECUTIVES TOO BIG TO FAIL?

Bank of America Corp was found liable for fraud on Wednesday on claims related to defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit, a major win for the U.S. government in one of the few big trials stemming from the financial crisis.
Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Manhattan found the Charlotte, North Carolina bank liable on one civil fraud charge. Countrywide originated shoddy home loans in a process called "Hustle" and sold them to government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government said.
The four men and six women on the jury also found former Countrywide executive, Rebecca Mairone, liable on the one fraud charge facing her.
A decision on how much to penalize the bank would be left to U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. The U.S. Department of Justice has said it would ask Rakoff to award up to $848.2 million, the gross loss it said Fannie and Freddie suffered on the loans.

The civil case, which has been tried in a Federal District Court in Manhattan, follows close on the heels of JPMorgan’s tentative agreement to pay $13 billion in fines and payments to settle with various state and federal authorities for its own exposure to the mortgage mess. Experts believe $13 billion is more than half of the bank's yearly profit. All told, the bank reportedly has a $23 billion chest to cover its mounting legal costs.



While the suggested fine pales in comparison to the check that JPMorgan is expected to write, lawyers point out that that the eventual cost could far exceed what the government has asked for because the jury’s decision is likely to spur a torrent of class-action suits that could cost Bank of America many billions of dollars in settlement payments.

Bank of America bought Countrywide in July 2008. Two months later, the government took over Fannie and Freddie.
"The jury's decision concerned a single Countrywide program that lasted several months and ended before Bank of America's acquisition of the company," Bank of America spokesman Lawrence Grayson said. "We will evaluate our options for appeal."
Wednesday's verdict marked a major victory for the Justice Department, which has come under criticism for failing to hold banks and executives accountable for their roles in the events leading up to the financial crisis.

Countrywide, the mortgage originator that Bank of America bought in 2008, has been a morass of problems ever since the deal went through. While the bank bought Countrywide for $4 billion in 2008, analysts believe that to date it has already paid close to $50 billion in fines and settlements. In light of Wednesday’s decision, that figure is likely to continue to rise.



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But some public interest groups continue to question why no top Wall Street executives have been charged criminally for the risky acts that triggered the crisis. The government also prefers to settle with big companies rather indict them, fearing that criminal charges could unnerve the broader economy.
















Former DOJ Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer (left) and Attorney General Eric Holder. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

FORBES

“You can’t scare me if you can’t jail me.”
If you were a senior bank executive, you might be tempted to at least entertain that thought. You would certainly be very aware that in the past four years, not one banker has gone to jail for anything that led to the great financial meltdown of 2008-2009.

There was little opposition in Congress back in 2009 to strengthening criminal enforcement of federal fraud laws regarding financial institutions, particularly in mortgage and security matters.... The Obama administration then established the Interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. Attorney General Eric Holder said, “We will be relentless in our investigation of corporate and financial wrongdoing, and will not hesitate to bring charges, where appropriate, for criminal misconduct on the part of businesses and business executives.”

[What happened afterwards was impressive:]

a) The six largest banks would pay $62.2 billion in fines to settle lawsuits in the past three years, led by Bank of America BAC -2.13%, Wells Fargo WFC -0.42% and JPMorgan Chase JPM -1.62%. (SNL Financial estimate)

b) It will take $24.7 billion to settle pending suits, most of them involving the mortgage junk sold to investors. (Compass Point estimate)

c) [BUT] Despite the fact that a+b=$86.9 billion, not one bank has ever had to admit to any wrongdoing.

d) Not one dollar of the $86.9 billion has been paid by any bank executive. Shareholders took all the hits.



There are quite a few good books that detail the abuses that led to the financial meltdown. Suffice it here to briefly quote Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) [above], Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations, who said when the subcommittee released its final report on what happened, “The report tells the inside story of an economic assault that cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes, while wiping out investors, good businesses, and markets. High risk lending, regulatory failures, inflated credit ratings, and Wall Street engaging in massive conflicts of interest, contaminated the U.S. financial system with toxic mortgages and undermined public trust in U.S. markets.” To make matters bipartisan, ranking Republican Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) said “Blame for this mess lies everywhere from federal regulators who cast a blind eye, Wall Street bankers who let greed run wild, and Members of Congress who failed to provide oversight.”

The committee referred its report to the Justice Department and Securities Exchange Committee for investigation. No prosecutions resulted.
Why? Why has no one been held responsible? There are many reasons, including the complexity of the cases and the lack of criminal referrals from the regulatory agencies. But perhaps the key reason is that those most responsible for indicting and prosecuting Wall Street executives seem to believe that, just as there are banks that are too big to fail, there are people who are too big to jail.

In a speech he gave last fall, the retiring head of the Criminal Division in the Department of Justice, Lanny Breuer, explained that position: “To be clear, the decision of whether to indict a corporation, defer prosecution, or decline altogether is not one that I, or anyone in the Criminal Division, take lightly. We are frequently on the receiving end of presentations from defense counsel, CEOs and economists who argue that the collateral consequences of an indictment would be devastating for their client. In my conference room, over the years, I have heard sober predictions that a company or bank might fail if we indict, that innocent employees could lose their jobs, that entire industries may be affected, and even that global markets will feel the effects.
“Sometimes–though, let me stress, not always–these presentations are compelling. In reaching every charging decision, we must take into account the effect of an indictment on innocent employees and shareholders, just as we must take into account the nature of the crimes committed and the pervasiveness of the misconduct. I personally feel that it’s my duty to consider whether individual employees with no responsibility for, or knowledge of, misconduct committed by others in the same company are going to lose their livelihood if we indict the corporation. In large multi-national companies, the jobs of tens of thousands of employees can be at stake. And, in some cases, the health of an industry or the markets is a real factor. Those are the kinds of considerations in white collar crime cases that literally keep me up at night, and which must play a role in responsible enforcement.”


from left: Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, James Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase, Robert Kelly of Bank of New York Mellon, Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America, Ronald Logue of State Street, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and John Stumpf of Wells Fargo. Reuters                  


....the argument seems to be that, if the president of a major bank were to be indicted for criminal behavior, his prosecution would endanger the bank itself and the jobs of all of its employees.
Really? I just don’t buy it. Scores of executives went to jail because the government prosecuted them after the Enron and Savings and Loan scandals. Those prosecutions certainly did no lasting damage to our economy.
“Justice for all” has always been a basic tenet of this country. Have we really gotten to the point where we are afraid to prosecute a Wall Street executive for stealing millions while we send some teenager who steals $20 from the corner store to prison?
The fact is, the behavior of some on Wall Street led directly to millions of Americans losing their jobs or their houses. We must do all we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Criminal prosecutions are not just about punishing the guilty. They also send a message that we as a society will not allow similar misconduct in the future. That is why I totally agree with something Mr. Breuer said early in the speech I quote above: “The strongest deterrent against corporate crime is the prospect of prison time for individual employees.”
Nothing I have seen in the past four years leads me to believe that Wall Street as a whole learned much from the events of 2008-2009. ...The multimillion-dollar bonuses are back with a vengeance, and with them incentives to cut corners and, for some, to circumvent the law.
I only wish that Justice Department action matched Attorney General Holder’s words when he said, introducing his task force, “The mission is not just to hold accountable those who helped bring about the last financial meltdown, but to prevent another meltdown from happening.”

OBAMA ATTEMPTING TO BE THE NEW NIXON?

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama commented on Benghazi and the I.R.S. at a news conference with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain

Excuse us, we have to go check our phone records right now. The Associated Press on Monday slammed the government for the “massive and unprecedented intrusion” of seizing the news agency’s phone records, while the White House insisted it had “no knowledge” of the Justice Department’s operation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington confirmed Monday that it had issued subpoenas of the AP’s phone records in an effort to track down a source who had disclosed an alleged Yemeni terrorist plot. The White House tried to distance itself from the latest public-relations disaster, with Press Secretary Jay Carney insisting that it is not involved. The Justice Department, for its part, said it values press freedoms, but that the public interest outweighed them. Well, that’s not really comforting. Attorney General Eric Holder [below] told reporters that the leak “put the American people at risk and was among the most serious—“if not the most serious”—leak he has ever seen. He said he had recused himself from the leak investigation last year.

Read it at The Guardian

May 14, 2013 6:49 AM




Facing a barrage of questions from reporters, Holder said he had ordered an investigation into the IRS's targeting of conservative groups, and that the FBI and Justice Department were coordinating on the matter...An inspector general’s report described a failure to stop the singling out of conservative groups as Congressional aides sought to determine if knowledge of the effort went beyond the Internal Revenue Service. .

Read it at Talking Points Memo

May 14, 2013 1:56 PM

Drew Angerer for The New York Times

Gregory Hicks, center, a State Department official, presented on Wednesday the first public testimony from an American official who was in Libya during the siege of the diplomatic compound in Benghazi last Sept. 11.

N.Y. TIMES

A veteran diplomat gave a riveting minute-by-minute account on Wednesday of the lethal terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 and described its contentious aftermath at a charged Congressional hearing ...

During a chaotic night at the American Embassy in Tripoli, hundreds of miles away, the diplomat, Gregory Hicks, got what he called “the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life” informing him that Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was dead and that he was now the highest-ranking American in Libya. For his leadership that night when four Americans were killed, Mr. Hicks said in nearly six hours of testimony, he subsequently received calls from both Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama.

But within days, Mr. Hicks said, after raising questions about the account of what had happened in Benghazi offered in television interviews by Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, he felt a distinct chill from State Department superiors. “The sense I got was that I needed to stop the line of questioning,” said Mr. Hicks, who has been a Foreign Service officer for 22 years.

He was soon given a scathing review of his management style, he said, and was later “effectively demoted” to desk officer at headquarters, in what he believes was retaliation for speaking up....

 

The accounts from Mr. Hicks and two other officials, Mark I. Thompson, the former deputy coordinator for operations in the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, and Eric Nordstrom, an official in the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security who had testified previously, added some detail to accounts of the night of Sept. 11 in Benghazi. Armed Islamic militants penetrated the diplomatic compound, starting the fire that killed Mr. Stevens and an aide, and later killed two security officers in a mortar attack; in Tripoli, where frantic diplomats fearing a similar invasion used an ax to destroy classified hard drives; and in Washington, where officials struggled to keep up with events. ...

 

 The three witnesses challenged both the Obama administration’s initial version of events — long ago withdrawn — and its claim to have exhaustively investigated the attacks.

When Ms. Rice suggested on Sunday talk shows days after the attack that it had begun with protests against a crude anti-Muslim video that had been posted on YouTube, Mr. Hicks said: “I was stunned. My jaw dropped and I was embarrassed.”

Her remarks angered the president of Libya’s National Assembly, Mohamed Magariaf, who had said on one of the Sunday shows that the attack was the “preplanned” act of militants, including some from Al Qaeda, Mr. Hicks said. He asserted that Mr. Magariaf’s fury at being undercut caused Libyan officials to drag their feet on cooperating with F.B.I. investigators. A State Department official said the delays were caused by security concerns in Benghazi.

The witnesses also said they felt that the administration’s official investigation, led by a retired diplomat, Thomas R. Pickering, and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm.Mike Mullen, was inadequate.

“They stopped short of interviewing people who I personally know were involved in key decisions,” Mr. Nordstrom said....

 

Mr. Nordstrom said that when he pressed for additional security personnel, he was told, “Basically, stop complaining.”

 

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AP? IRS? Benghazi? How does it feel to be compared with Nixon? White House spokesman Jay Carney fielded questions from a rowdy group of reporters today on the bevy of controversies facing the administration. For the most part, he tried to bat them down. He refused to answer questions on the Department of Justice’s seizure of Associated Press phone records, saying he couldn’t comment on an investigation. “The president is a strong defender of the First Amendment,” he told reporters. (He used the word “unfettered” an awkward number of times.) Carney also called Benghazi a “political sideshow and a political effort to exploit a tragedy.” Anyone comparing Obama with Nixon “needs to check their history,” he announced.

Read it at Talking Points Memo

May 14, 2013 2:00 PM