Department Of Justice Quotes
The Rockefeller Trust was Standard Oil and its many subsidiaries and other related companies. Note the firmness with which the President announced the prosecution of this huge trust. In modern times, Presidents have rarely been so definitive about their intention to prosecute a corporation.
The FBI had obtained a court order requiring apple to write software that could hack into a person's iPhone. Apple, with most other hi-tech companies in support, filed a motion with the court opposing the order. The FBI shortly thereafter withdrew its request for the order saying that they had found other solutions, when they had originally told the court that there were no other solutions.
Barry Bonds was a star professional baseball player whose accomplishments were aided by taking illegal drugs. He lied about his use of drugs, and the Department made a very large effort over years to finally prosecute him. However during that time there were almost no prosecutions of the thousands of bankers and financiers who had lied, cheated, forged legal documents and in the process almost permanently ruined the American economy—the Great Recession of 2008. The Justice Department claimed that white collar cases are very complex and take longer to prepare prosecutions. Critics claimed that there are so many law breakers, that the government does not want to prosecute all the felons, but just go after a few, and this is easier if time has gone by and public anger has receded or been forgotten.
The Inspector General of the Justice Department and a Congressional committee found his actions illegal. Schlozman, a Republican Assistant Attorney General, had violated the Civil Service Reform Act by hiring attorneys on the basis of their political affiliation and later made false statements in his sworn testimony to Congress about his hiring decisions. He wanted people who he could count on to follow his lead and not prevent Southern States from changing their election laws and thus be able to discriminate against Blacks in voting, as was required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This quotation is often cited by Civil Service supporters to show what can happen when a political appointee can fire government employees and replace them with people who will agree with him on matters of political ideology.
Goldsmith headed the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel—the office that makes legal opinions to guide the Federal Government’s conduct. Goldstein had been asked to render an opinion as to whether terrorists captured in the Iraq War were protected by the Geneva Conventions. The Justice Department staff had concluded that all Iraq civilians were covered including terrorists and insurgents. He was called to meeting at the White House with the President’s and Vice President’s counsels. When Goldsmith revealed the Justice Department conclusion, Addington grew agitated and made this response. The quotation provides insight into the operations of the George W. Bush White House and its relationship with the rest of the government.
U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the President but are supposed to be non political in the way they execute their offices. Some officials of some administrations try to involve the U. S. Attorneys in partisan conduct of their office and Ashcroft, who was a very conservative Republican was also one of the more ethical members of an administration that tended to put partisan advantage over ethics. He himself not only refused to politicize the Justice Department bud advised his subordinates to do the same. Ironically, Inglesias, also very ethical, took Ashcroft’s advice and after Ashcroft left office was fired by the administration for not using his office in the interests of the party.
at the Department of Justice He was commenting on the fact that when he was an official of the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Justice Department, the Southern members of Congress would not allow any appropriated money to be spend for Civil Rights reform activities. So they would do the Civil Rights work and call it something else so the Southerners who dominated the key Congressional Committees just never knew what was happening in the Department. Ideally, government officials would not try and deceive members of Congress, but the racism of a minority of Congress had been corrupting American life and law since the Constitution was originally ratified. Somoral corruption just brought on another type of moral corruption.
In a replay of McCarthyism paranoia Bachman and 5 of her more paranoid fellows in Congress accused a number of fine American officials who were Muslims of being agents of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical terrorist group in some countries and an extreme Islamic political party in others. The accusers, following the classic pattern, provide no credible proof and immediately publicly publish their accusations. Since members of Congress cannot be held to account for anything that they claim, no matter how false or malicious, the accused have no real forum to defend themselves.
The Torah consists of the first 5 books of the Old Testament. For Orthodox Jews, the Torah is central and fundamental to their belief structure. In most democracies, a statement such as this might be made by a religions fundamentalist, but is unexpected when uttered by a high government official. However, in Israel there are several small religious political parties which oftem become very powerful when the major policies are of approximate equal strength. To entice them to join their coalition, the major parties give the religious parties cabinet positions. In this particular instance, Neeman’s party in the governing coalition could cause the government to fall, So a Justice Minister of a Modern Democracy can actually repudiate the laws and supreme court whenever they are not in harmony with “the word of God” and not lose his post or even be repudiated. There is probably no other country in the world where the Minister of Justice has repudiated the law of the land and the nation’s highest court.
He was explaining his reasons for resigning in 2005 from the number two position in the Justice Department. The George W. Bush administration had implemented a program of secret wiretapping and surveillance of American citizens in America which required the authorization of the Justice Department which had determined that the program as it was being implemented violated the law. The Attorney General was ill in the hospital but had told Comey that he would not sign the authorization. The White House then pressured Comey to sign and he refused, and in a similar replay of the Watergate “Saturday Night Massacre”, the number three man at Justice would have been ordered to sign. His resignation convinced President Bush to alter the program to take account of the Justice Department objections.
