Justice Tackles the Corporate Offenders, Or Perhaps Not = documents "immediately incinerated"

[L. Coyote]

The many Bush scandals seem to have some positive utility,
covering up other scandals not yet focused on adequately.

Corporate crime is just such an issue, and ties into the USAs firings scandal.
Here is an archived thread that also raised the issue, providing some background and links:
30 U.S. attorneys investigate BILKING BILLIONS, Medicare, Medicaid, Military’s Healthcare
May-13-07 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x877011

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Justice Tackles the Corporate Offenders, Or Perhaps Not
Scott Horton - April 9, 2008 - http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002822


In one case I have been studying for some time, the Bush Justice Department had ramped up to begin a large-scale prosecution of two financial-services companies involved in what prosecutors concluded was a serious swindle. Suspicious financial deals had produced enormous losses for policyholders and state oversight authorities. In addition to jail time for a group of executives, the complaint, which was prepared and ready to file, sought $400,000,000 in damages for the alleged misconduct. One of the targets, knowing it was in the crosshairs, put a settlement deal worth “a nine-figure sum” (so at least $100,000,000) on the table, together with a monitored compliance program. Career prosecutors rejected it as too little.

Then strange things started happening. Control over the case passed entirely to political appointees in Washington, Criminal Division head Alice Fisher and her seniormost subordinates. The prosecutor was told that his boss “was concerned about his health.” He was dropped from the case. And the team learned from his greenhorn replacement that the whole prosecution was over. It was being dropped.

The move became public and produced arched eyebrows and rude inquiries in the local press which started asking questions Justice didn’t want to answer. The reaction from main Justice? Suddenly an order went out to collect all the documents from the case and have them immediately incinerated.

............ the New York Times’s Eric Lichtblau ... writes:

"In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years .... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/washington/09justice.html "

[spanone]

1. as the times article points out...justice is sleeping with big biz

in this atmosphere enron would never have been prosecuted

it's called facism

[L. Coyote]

2. New DOJ Guidelines Tone Down Corporate Fraud Prosecutions

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=22930 - 12/22/2006

With Richard Cellini, attorney and Integrity Interactive vice president.

Question: What is the Thompson Memo? Why is it problematic?
Cellini: The U.S. Department of Justice is the primary law enforcement arm of the U.S. government... The department frequently indicts corporate executives who have broken the law in their capacity as company officers. When the alleged illegal conduct involves not just a few isolated or "rogue" executives but the entire company, the department will actually indict not just the company's officers, but the corporate entity itself. The indictment of accounting firm Arthur Andersen is a memorable example.
Of course, corporate entities are abstract entities that cannot be jailed. ....

The department is aware that innocent people can be hurt badly when their company is indicted. For this reason, it follows detailed guidelines when weighing the decision to indict. Since January 2003, these guidelines have been written down and set forth in a document known as the "Thompson Memo" (named after then-Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who issued these formal written guidelines to federal prosecutors located around the country).
The Thompson Memo sets forth nine different factors for prosecutors to weigh ....

Question: What is the McNulty Memo, and what does it do?
Cellini: On Dec. 12, 2006, Paul McNulty, the incumbent Deputy Attorney General, issued a revised memorandum to prosecutors outlining the factors they should consider when deciding to charge corporate entities with wrongdoing. This memorandum replaces the Thompson Memo and will inevitably come to be known as the McNulty Memo.
The McNulty Memo chooses sides in the war between the factor that rewards companies for establishing effective internal compliance programs and the factor that punishes companies for failing to voluntarily disclose adverse information turned up by those very same programs. Specifically, the McNulty Memo dramatically limits the circumstances under which it will require corporations to waive the attorney/client privilege. In other words, the Justice Department has made a choice and has come down on the side of encouraging companies to establish compliance programs (even at the expense of giving up its power to force companies to disclose unfavorable information uncovered by those programs)...............

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McNULTY: Federal prosecutors required to seek approval from senior DoJ officials

Edited on Mon May-14-07 05:55 PM by L. Coyote
DOJ Revises Corporate Fraud Procedures
Jason McLure - Legal Times - December 13, 2006
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1165917921963


Bending to pressure from Congress, a federal judge and a lobbying campaign by business and legal groups, the Justice Department announced a number of immediate changes to its corporate-fraud charging policies Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors will be required to seek approval from senior Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C., before requesting that a company turn over the results of an internal investigation or the strategic advice of the company's lawyers.

In addition, with rare exception, prosecutors will no longer be allowed to pressure companies to cut off legal fees to executives or employees under scrutiny in fraud investigations. Previously, companies could earn "cooperation credit" with the government in certain cases by cutting off those fees. Such credit was an important factor for companies seeking to avoid a potentially crippling criminal indictment.

The changes, announced in a Tuesday speech by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty at a legal conference in New York, are a step back from the government's aggressive anti-fraud prosecution tactics outlined in the so-called Thompson memo, named for former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, in 2003.

In the speech, McNulty said the new guidelines were designed to address the "perception, well founded -- or not," that the Justice Department's policies were "chilling attorney-client communications" and hurting the effectiveness of corporate lawyers ...................

[spanone]

5. it's breathtaking...yet there for the entire world to read.

[donkeyotay]

3. Thanks for another update on the crime tsunami sweeping the country.

Deferred prosecution agreements, or D.P.A.’s, have become controversial because of a medical supply company’s agreement to pay up to $52 million to the consulting firm of John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, as an outside monitor to avoid criminal prosecution. That agreement has prompted Congressional inquiries and calls for stricter guidelines.

And, if these corps aren't admitting guilt, then I bet their payouts are tax deductible.


:argh:

[Supersedeas]

4. when is Muk Muk Mukasey next scheduled to speak before Congress UNDER oath

[spanone]

6. now that's really funny...

[L. Coyote]

8. Wasn't it Mukasey's court that handled everything SEC?

The gravy legal settlements of corporate fraud cases involving the SEC land in SoNY USA office (where Bush just raided lawyers for the WH) and Mukasey's old court.

[donkeyotay]

7. The Fed wants a backroom bottomless bailout for banksters, and Justice

will want to slap them on the wrist and demand a tribute. Our government is operating like organized crime. Real people lose their jobs, their homes and their freedom for so much less.

snip>
Michael McDonald, a former Internal Revenue Service investigator in Miami who is a private consultant and has given seminars on deferred prosecutions, said such deals “should not be on the board” in the subprime mortgage investigations.

“In light of what this did to our economy, people shouldn’t just be able to write a check and walk away,” Mr. McDonald said. “People should be prosecuted for it and go to jail.”
end>

They shouldn't be on board, but when after our attention is elsewhere...

[Trillo]

9. Why does the Executive Branch even have a "Justice Department"?

Perhaps one of the rationales I've read in the past is that politicians, such as those in the Legislative branch, wouldn't prosecute laws fairly, favoring their party or some above others.

So what good is a Justice Department that does the same thing? And if it does the same thing, then why is it good to empower the Executive Branch with such a department 'under the President' in charge of prosecutions, that also seems to do double and triple duty such as writing legislation (which congress may later pass) and talking to reporters to shill the Executive Branch's opinions?

It seems to me that the Executive Branch needs congressional emasculation, and what better way than to take away the Executive's Justice Department, moving it to and under another, fairer branch?

[L. Coyote]

10. You raise a good question, "How best to depoliticize DoJ?"

There are some good reasons to have DoJ in the Exec.
Imagine the Civil Rights movement without the Kennedys in charge of DoJ!

[superkia]

11. If we aren't killed, we will be their slaves soon enough! What is...

taking place throughout our government as a whole in front of our eyes, is just stunning. They know that we are defenseless and have moved forward full force and I cant see a good end to what they are doing to us and our country. Its only a matter of time!