Category: Yahoo News

 

https://news.yahoo.com/federal-judge-finds-bill-barr-143111826.html

Lloyd Green reports for Yahoo News:

What remains of Bill Barr’s sullied reputation was blown up when federal district Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the government must turn over the memorandum, which the public has yet to fully see and that the Justice Department relied upon in declining to prosecute the 45th president.

Not only was Barr being personally “disingenuous” by announcing his decision before the Mueller report was released and pretending he used the report to reach a conclusion instead of simply announcing the one he’d come to beforethe special counsel’s work had even finished his work, she wrote, “but DOJ has been disingenuous to this Court.”

“The fact that (Trump) would not be prosecuted was a given,” the judge wrote. In reality, it was a given from the moment Barr was appointed by Trump, as the past inevitably became prelude given his first stint as attorney general under George H.W. Bush. Back then, DOJ resisted efforts to get to the bottom of U.S. government-backed financing of Iraq in the run-up to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

. . . .

Think of Barr as an updated version of Roy Cohn, an earlier Trump lawyer. Both men attended Horace Mann, the swank private school in the Riverdale section of New York City, and Columbia University. As with Cohn, things are not ending well for Barr.

. . . .

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This is actually just the “tip of the ethics iceberg” at the DOJ. Unethical behavior was a staple of the DOJ’s various defenses of the Trump/Miller/Sessions/Barr White Nationalist agenda. 

How about things like:

• There is no child separation policy;
• The “Muslim ban” isn’t a Muslim ban even though Trump said that was exactly what it was;
• DHS is taking proper COVID-19 precautions in detention centers; 
• We can’t find children separated from their families under our child separation policy that we previously said didn’t exist;
• The proposed census changes were necessary to protect the civil rights of minorities; 
• The need to prevent refugees from legally seeking asylum at our borders is a “national emergency” requiring Supreme intervention.

That just a small sampling of the “disingenuous” arguments that were a regular part of defending basically indefensible (and often clearly illegal) positions and policies in immigration cases presented by OIL and the SG’s Office during the Trump regime.

While Billy the Bigot is (thankfully) gone, I’m betting that most of the “career” lawyers who conducted his disingenuous defenses are still on the DOJ payroll. Despite well-founded allegations of rampant misconduct and corruption at the DOJ (see, e.g., https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/news/2019/12/06/478254/lack-oversight-trumps-justice-department/), few if any “heads have rolled” after Garland assumed office. 

As a number of us have observed, the DOJ needed an immediate and thorough “housecleaning” which there is no sign of Garland being willing to undertake. Most DOJ attorneys are in the “excepted service” or “management officials” meaning that they largely are exempted from civil service protections and basically serve at the AG’s pleasure.

Just this week, we discovered that Garland had “honored” all of the Barr/Miller “holdover” appointments of Immigration Judges. There was absolutely no requirement that he do so, and every single reason why he should have withdrawn and cancelled these inappropriate, if not outright illegal, “holdover appointments” of judges who clearly and beyond any doubt were not the “best and brightest” selections for these important, life-determining Federal judgeships!

Who needs Mitch McConnell to gum up the works when you have Judge Garland to shoot himself and his Administration in the foot 17 times over while their (perhaps soon to be former) supporters look on in outrage and horror at yet another “unforced error” by the Biden Administration on immigration?

Honestly, doesn’t any Dem know how to play “hardball?” Maybe they need to take a seminar from the GOP!

As all of us who served in the Federal Government know, you don’t have a Federal job until you take the oath of office and enter on duty. Until then, appointments can, and have in the past been, withdrawn and/or cancelled.

Given the nearly universal condemnation of the Trump Administration’s Immigration Judge and BIA selection criteria — from conservative commentators like Nolan Rappaport (The Hill), as well as liberals and progressives — a moratorium on further judicial appointments generated by the Trump Administration as many recommended should have been a “no brainer” for Garland.

At a minimum, these jobs should have been re-competed under new merit-based criteria that required immigration expertise and fairly credited experience gained through actually representing individuals in Immigration Court or teaching or supervising others doing so. Another requirement should be legitimate recruitment efforts within communities of minority attorneys and the immigration, human rights, and constitutional due process litigation bars.

Additionally, to state the blatantly obvious, the overt racism, misogyny, and improper and unethical enforcement weaponization of the Immigration Judiciary during the Trump regime discouraged many well-qualified progressive candidates from applying! Indeed, a number who were already in Immigration Judge positions, like some esteemed members of our Round Table, felt compelled to resign their judicial positions because of unethical or illegal interference by the Trump DOJ and their EOIR toadies with their quasi-judicial independence and their sworn obligation to uphold the Constitution. 

Therefore, the 17 holdover Barr/Miller IJ appointments are necessarily tainted! Far beyond not making further appointments from Barr/Miller lists, a competent Dem AG would institute a review of all Barr IJ appointments still within the two-year probation period and apply merit-based retention criteria — with avenues for comment from the private immigration bar — to decisions as to whether these “probationary judges” should remain on the bench. Based on the anecdotal comments I have received at Courtside from across the country, a number of the Barr-appointed judges should not be on the bench under any circumstances.

This is not about the imaginary “job rights” of Barr/Miller selectees and appointees. No, it’s about the due process rights of migrants in Immigration Court — rights to a fair hearing before a qualified, impartial judge that are being violated on a wide-scale, daily basis in EOIR “courts” (a/k/a “Garland’s Star Chambers”) throughout the nation! It’s also about the right of those representing individuals in Immigration Court, many pro bono or “low-bono,” to respectful, professional treatment by well-qualified Immigration Judges.

Right now, attorneys are sometimes forced to appear before “judges” who know far less about asylum and immigration laws than they do. Many believe that they actually have to “train” these new judges in the law, only to have them go on and deny their meritorious cases on specious grounds.

How would Judge Garland and his “ivory tower lieutenants” like to “practice law” under these conditions! To be honest, “retail level experience” representing humans (not government agencies) in Immigration Count should be a minimum requirement for all Federal Judges up to the Supremes, not just for Immigration Judges! The caviler attitudes and fundamental misunderstandings that Federal Judges at all levels of our broken justice system too often exhibit toward the lives and rights of asylum seekers and migrants are both appalling and unacceptable in a functioning democracy.

This system is broken, and despite having the blueprints for reform in his hands, and hundreds of NDPA experts he could tap to help, Garland hasn’t done squat to fix it!

All and all, Judge Garland is off to a disappointing, actually horrible, start at Justice. And, the idea that he can fix racial justice, equal justice, voting rights, and civil rights while running “Star Chambers” at EOIR is total non-starter. Not going to happen! 

Those of us who actually recognize what justice is, and who know there will be neither equal justice nor racial justice unless and until there is justice for asylum seekers and immigrants in the Immigration Courts, have an obligation to keep up the criticism until these problems are solved. It’s not rocket science. 🚀 But, it does require a far different approach, much different personnel choices, and bolder, more courageous actions than we have seen to date from the Biden Administration!

🗽🇺🇸⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-07-21