EX-US JUDGE UNLOADS TRUTH IN USDC FILING ABOUT BILLY BARR’S ATTEMPT TO SUBVERT JUSTICE BY UNDOING FLYNN PROSECUTION: Corrupt, Dishonest, Unethical, Unprofessional – DOJ’s Request to Dismiss Flynn Prosecution is “Preposterous” – Our Police Departments Aren’t The Only Part of Our Foundering, Rudderless, & Disturbingly Ineffective, Racially & Morally “Tone-Deaf” Justice System That Needs Substantial & Meaningful Reform!        

Pete Williams
Pete Williams
Justice Correspondent
NBC News

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/preposterous-court-appointed-lawyer-michael-flynn-case-slams-doj-attempt-n1229336

 

Pete Williams reports for NBC News:

 

WASHINGTON — The retired judge appointed to act as a friend of the court in the Michael Flynn case strongly urged the court Wednesday not to let the Justice Department abandon the prosecution.

In a scorching 83-page submission, John Gleeson said the government’s move to drop the case was “riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact,” which were contradicted by the positions it has taken in other false statement cases and by its own previous court filings about Flynn’s conduct as well as his decisions to plead guilty twice.

“Even recognizing that the Government is entitled to deference in assessing the strength of its case, these claims are not credible,” the retired judge wrote. “Indeed, they are preposterous. For starters — and most unusually — they are directly and decisively disproven by the Government’s own briefs filed just months ago in this very proceeding.”

Gleeson said judges must ordinarily defer to the wishes of the Justice Department about whether to pursue a prosecution, but not when the motives of the government are suspect. In Flynn’s case, the government’s move to dismiss the case “is based solely on the fact that Flynn is an ally of President Trump.”

Federal District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington appointed Gleeson to submit arguments about why the government should not be allowed to drop the case, so that Sullivan could consider both sides.

The appointment came after the Justice Department last month asked the judge to dismiss the case, having determined that even if Flynn lied to FBI agents in early 2017 about his phone calls with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., his lies were not “material” to any investigation and did not, therefore, violate the false statement law at the heart of his case.

Flynn told the FBI that he did talk to Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Trump transition but denied that they talked about Russia’s response to the latest Obama sanctions or about a forthcoming UN vote. He later admitted that both those statements were untrue.

Those statements, Gleeson said, were clearly important to the FBI’s investigation into potential connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

“It is hard to conceive of a more material false statement than this one,” Gleeson said.

Gleeson said without any firm legal basis for wanting to drop the case, the only other reason must be Flynn’s relationship with Trump. Wednesday’s brief noted that the president tweeted or re-tweeted about Flynn at least 100 times since March 2017.

Clearly the president is personally invested in ensuring that Flynn’s prosecution ends, Gleeson said, adding, “Everything about this irregular.”

. . . .

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Read the rest of Pete’s article at the link.

Add this to the absolute legal, ethical, constitutional, and management disaster going in in the U.S. Immigration Courts under Barr’s “maliciously incompetent” management, and the case for removing him from office is overwhelming. Won’t happen. But, it should!

Actually, filing a “preposterous motion” backed by clearly untrue assertions is a clear violation of an attorney’s role as an “officer of the court” owing “candor to the tribunal.” If Barr were a private practitioner, it would likely earn him a referral to his state bar authorities for possible discipline or license revocation.

But, in Federal Courts these days the “undue deference” and unfairly favorable treatment of DOJ attorneys continues. It has actually been institutionalized, and even unjustly rewarded, by the Supremes. Talk about encouraging worst practices and highlighting “negative role models!”

The whole ethical debacle of the Trump Administration DOJ and the overall feckless performance of our Federal Courts, particularly the Supremes and certain Circuit Courts of Appeals, at halting clear Executive abuses and requiring honesty and professionalism (including rejecting racist or religiously bigoted agendas) from the Federal Government before tribunals cries out for a serious re-examination of: 1) who should be sitting on the Federal Bench; 2) what ethical standards they should be held to; and 3) the undue favoritism and leniency traditionally shown by Federal Courts to Government lawyers engaging in misrepresentations, sloppy work, promoting pretexts for overtly racist agendas, and constantly using dilatory litigation tactics intended to punish individual litigants for asserting their legal rights.

The last three years have shown that better Federal Judges and much more courageous, effective judicial leadership committed to guaranteeing due process and fairness for all is absolutely necessary for our nation to achieve “equal justice under law.” The current sorry state of the Article III Judiciary shows that police departments are not the only part of our broken justice system that needs reform and some “different faces” to achieve equal justice under law. As a nation, we can’t achieve social and racial justice with the gang that promoted, enabled, and in some cases even encouraged injustice in charge. And, that goes for all three failed branches of our Federal Government.

George Floyd’s death should never have happened; nor should families be separated, kids put in cages, legal asylum applicants told to rot in Mexico, and Billy Barr be allowed to operate unconstitutional “Star Chambers” masquerading as “courts” (when they are nothing of the sort). The problems in our justice system go much deeper than the Minneapolis Police Department!

Yes, they can be solved! But, not without some new faces, new approaches, and some progressive thinking and input from all of society, particularly our younger generations! You have to believe in equal justice to achieve equal justice! We can’t get there with the current gang of “non-believers” in charge and promoting their failed, and all too often overtly or covertly racially biased, agendas.

Due Process Forever!

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

PWS

06-11-20

 

 

DACA SURVIVES (AGAIN) TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-unlikely-hear-trump-daca-appeal-n960321

Pete Williams reports for NBC News:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court took no action on Friday on the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It now appears likely that the court will not take up the issue during its current term, which would require the government to keep the program going for at least ten more months.

The Trump administration urged the justices to hear appeals of lower court rulings that prevent the government from shutting DACA down, but Friday was the last day for adding cases to the current term’s docket, barring unusual circumstances. Any cases accepted in subsequent weeks won’t be heard until the next term, which begins October 1, and it would take a few months more for the court to issue a decision.

DACA allows children of illegal immigrants to remain here if they were under 16 when their parents brought them to the US, provided they arrived by 2007. The Obama-era initiative has allowed 700,000 young people, commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” to avoid deportation. The nickname comes from the DREAM Act, which would have offered many of the same protections as DACA but was never approved by Congress.

The Trump administration moved to end the program in late 2017, but federal courts in San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C., blocked that attempt. Following a brief hiatus, the government began accepting renewal applications from DACA participants, which must be filed every two years.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that, far from being illegal, deferred action has been a feature of the immigration system for decades. “In a world where the government can remove only a small percentage of the undocumented non-citizens present in this country in any year, deferred action programs like DACA enable DHS to devote much-needed resources to enforcement priorities such as threats to national security, rather than blameless and economically productive young people with clean criminal records.”

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to overturn up those lower court judgments. The Department of Homeland Security and the attorney general concluded that it is unlawful, said Solicitor General Noel Francisco, finding that it “sanctions the ongoing violation of federal law by more than half a million people.”

He said that by agreeing to hear the appeals, the court could “provide much-needed clarity to the government and DACA recipients alike.” Francisco also said that as long as the question is pending in the courts, Congress has less incentive to come up with a permanent solution.

But supporters of the DACA program said nothing in the lower court rulings would prevent the government from undertaking deportation proceedings against any individual DACA recipient if the need arose. They also noted that President Trump himself has taken conflicting positions on the program, saying at one point, “I love the ‘Dreamers.'”

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Apparently, the Supremes had the good sense not to fall for the DOJ’s frivolous argument that this is an “emergency.” How a member of the Solicitor General’s Office made that argument with a straight face is beyond me.  Clearly the “SG” is sacrificing its integrity and its reputation by representing the arrogantly and ignorantly scofflaw positions of Trump and his incompetent toadies. And, Trump’s arrogant assumption that the Supremes will bail him out of his totally incompetent handling of the “Dreamers” might be on the ropes.

Doesn’t necessarily mean the Supremes won’t eventually hear the case. But, they shouldn’t.

PWS

01-19-19

NBC’S PETE WILLIAMS REPORTS: “Trump to Replace Travel Ban With Revised Requirements”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-replace-travel-ban-revised-requirements-n803836

NBC’S veteran Legal Reporter Pete Williams (one of my all-time favorites) reports:

“WASHINGTON — The White House could issue new requirements this weekend for travelers entering the United States, replacing President Donald Trump’s controversial ban on visitors from six Muslim countries, administration officials tell NBC News.

The announcement, expected by Sunday, will supersede the 90-day travel ban on issuing visas to visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, which expires Sunday.

The new restrictions will be based on a Homeland Security and State Department review of the kinds of information that must be provided about visitors and immigrants hoping to enter the U.S. The new guidelines are aimed at preventing terrorists and other security threats from entering the country, officials said.

Following the review, the State Department asked U.S. diplomats around the world to gather the information from foreign governments, warning that visitors will be eligible to enter the country only after the requests are fulfilled.

Once those responses came back, Homeland Security and State Departments reported to the White House on which countries agreed to provide the required information and conform to US requirements, and which did not.

Based on that report, the White House is expected to announce the new restrictions, probably in the form of a presidential proclamation, administration officials said. For many countries on the list, visas will be restricted, meaning that only specified categories of travelers can get them.

Any country that flunks the test can get itself off the list by agreeing to conform to the US requirements, which include issuing electronic passports with a photo, regularly reporting passport thefts, and notifying the US of suspected terrorists. Plus countries must also “take measures to ensure that they are not and do not have the potential to become a terrorist safe haven.”

The original White House order, imposed in January, caused chaos in some of the nation’s airports as customs officials were left to interpret the meaning of the surprise order. After it was struck down in court, a revised order was issued in March.

The executive orders have faced a litany of legal challenges. The Supreme Court ruled in June that parts of the current travel ban could be enforced until the court hears argument, on October 10, about whether the president had authority to impose it in the first place.

Lawyers tell NBC News they are unsure what this latest move could mean for the case.”

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I think this action by the Administration is likely to “moot out” the case currently pending before the Supreme Court.  That seems to be the result the Court was “hinting at” when it issued its partial stay earlier this summer.

PWS

09-22-17