We try not to report here on matters that everyone else in the world is already talking about. That’s why we’ve said nowt on Bernie Madoff and other headline-grabbing stories. For the same reason, we decided yesterday not to mention the DOJ’s request to dismiss the charges in its prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens — everyone else was already reporting it. And we’ve already discussed the DOJ’s misconduct at length here and here.
But we wanted to point out a big point that the media seem to be missing. Most reports see this as a vindication of former Sen. Stevens, and a sign that prosecutorial misconduct will not be tolerated by the DOJ. In fact, however, the DOJ’s action means anything but that.
Stevens was convicted last October after a jury trial in D.C., during which the government withheld important Brady material — the judge said the prosecutors did so intentionally, and an FBI agent later confirmed that it was intentional. In addition, the prosecutors had a witness who, when they found out his testimony could clear Stevens of any guilt, they sent home to Alaska to conceal him from the defense. There were also inappropriate dealings between FBI agents and the government’s star witness, including an apparent sexual relationship.
The prosecutors continued to screw up, failing to turn over documents to the defense as ordered by the judge after all this came out. Understandably, the prosecutors were held in contempt, and taken off the case.
The case had gone from a trumpeted victory for the DOJ, to a squalid embarrassment.
So now, yesterday, the DOJ filed a motion to have all the charges against Sen. Stevens dismissed. They’re holding it out as a heroic act, that they’re doing the just and proper thing, that AG Holder is sending a message to prosecutors at the DOJ that further misconduct will not be tolerated.
We call shenanigans.
This dismissal of the charges is nothing more than an attempt to sweep the whole nefarious affair under the rug. The case goes away, so the problem goes away. There will be no further need for the scrupulous investigation of what went wrong at Justice. There will be no need to hold costly and embarrassing internal reviews. There will be no need for further media scrutiny.
The DOJ should not be permitted to escape whipping, by its own unilateral decision to drop a case. That’s not good enough.
This prosecution of this case was bizarre from the get-go. It was rushed to indictment hastily, mere days before the primaries in an important election (in violation of DOJ rules prohibiting indictments that could affect the outcome of an election, by the way). The prosecutors intentionally withheld evidence that seems to show the Senator didn’t commit the crime he was accused of. They violated court orders. They tried to hide a key witness from the defense. And ironically, these were prosecutors in the Public Integrity unit, of all things.
Now they want to make it all go away. Here’s hoping that Congress, the courts and the media see through this little ploy, and keep on investigating just what the heck is going on in the DOJ these days.
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