Tag: Trump Justice Department

DOJ proposes crackdown on tech industry’s legal shield

The proposal unveiled Wednesday would pare back some of the protections that digital companies have enjoyed under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

The Justice Department proposed a major update Wednesday to the law that shields internet companies from liability for content on their sites — a move that is even broader than President Donald Trump’s attempts to hold platforms like Twitter and Facebook to account for decisions found to be politically biased.

DOJ’s proposal, which would need Congress’ blessing, would address a wide range of criticisms of the protections that digital companies have enjoyed under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that has been critical to the online industry’s wealth and power.

Among the changes: Sites or platforms that facilitate third-party content that violates federal law would no longer be able to claim immunity from lawsuits. Users could sue companies in cases that involve child sexual abuse, terrorism and cyberstalking. It also would be easier for users to sue over platforms’ decisions to take down their content, a change intended to push companies to be more fair in removing content they find objectionable. Continue reading.

Prosecutor in Roger Stone Case Will Testify About Barr’s Intervention

New York Times logoThe prosecutor is one of two Justice Department officials coming forward whom Democrats are calling whistle-blowers.

WASHINGTON — A career Justice Department prosecutor who quit the case against President Trump’s friend Roger J. Stone Jr.after political appointees intervened to seek a more lenient sentence has agreed to testify under subpoena next week before the House Judiciary Committee.

House Democrats issued subpoenas on Tuesday to the prosecutor, Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, along with a second Justice Department official, John W. Elias, who has also agreed to testify in public on June 24 about politicization under Attorney General William P. Barr — setting up a potential fight with the department about what they will be permitted to say.

Mr. Elias is a career official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, which opened an inquiry into a fuel efficiency deal between major automakers and the State of California; congressional Democrats have called the scrutiny politically motivated. Continue reading.

Trump administration sues to block publication of John Bolton’s book

Axios logoThe big picture: The memoir by Bolton, a prolific note taker, is expected to shed light on alleged misconduct by President Trump related to his dealings with foreign countries. Trump claimed on Monday that Bolton would have a “very strong criminal problem” if he proceeded with publishing the book, stating: “I will consider every conversation with me as president to be highly classified.”

The other side: Bolton’s lawyer Charles Cooper said in a statement in response to the lawsuit, “We are reviewing the Government’s complaint, and will respond in due course.”

  • Cooper claimed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week that his client has already undergone four months of “perhaps the most extensive and intensive prepublication review in NSC history,” before the White House official who Bolton was coordinating with suddenly stopped responding.
  • The attorney claims that the White House has purposely stalled the process as a “transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr. Bolton.”
  • Bolton pointed on Twitter to the following statement from the ACLU: “50 years ago, SCOTUS rejected the Nixon administration’s attempt to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers, establishing that government censorship is unconstitutional. Any Trump administration efforts to stop John Bolton’s book from being published are doomed to fail.” Continue reading.

Federal Government Set to Begin Executing Inmates in July

WASHINGTON, DC — The Justice Department has set new dates to begin executing federal death-row inmates following a months-long legal battle over the plan to resume the executions for the first time since 2003.

Attorney General William Barr directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions, beginning in mid-July, of four inmates convicted of killing children. Three of the men had been scheduled to be put to death when Barr announced the federal government would resume executions last year, ending an informal moratorium on federal capital punishment as the issue receded from the public domain.

The Justice Department had scheduled five executions set to begin in December, but some of the inmates challenged the new procedures in court, arguing that the government was circumventing proper methods in order to wrongly execute inmates quickly. Continue reading.

House Democrats subpoena two whistleblowers over allegations of DOJ politicization

Axios logoHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced on Tuesday he has issued subpoenas for two Department of Justice whistleblowers as part of the committee’s probe into alleged politicization of the agency under President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr.

Why it matters: One of the officials, Aaron Zelinsky, resigned from the team that was prosecuting Trump associate Roger Stone after Barr intervened to soften Stone’s sentencing recommendation.

  • The other, John Elias, was reportedly looking into a fuel efficiency deal between large automakers and the state of California. Democrats have called the probe politically motivated.
  • The two will testify before the committee, along with former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, on June 24. Continue reading.

‘Gross abuse of prosecutorial power’: Court-appointed lawyer rebukes Barr’s handling of Flynn case

AlterNet logoA retired federal judge appointed to argue against the Department of Justice’s move to drop criminal charges against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn has recommended that the court proceed with sentencing.

He called the department’s request to drop the case “a gross abuse of prosecutorial power” in an attempt to “provide special treatment” to a “political ally of the president of the United States.”

“The Department of Justice has a solemn responsibility to prosecute this case — like every other case — without fear or favor, and to quote the department’s motto, solely ‘on behalf of justice,’” former federal judge John Gleeson wrote in a brief filed Wednesday. Continue reading.

So this is why Bill Barr is such a bully

Washington Post logoPolice in Buffalo shove a 75-year-old man to the ground and blood pours from his ear. Police in Brooklyn knock down a young woman and call her a “bitch” because she asked why she had to leave the street. Federal authorities in Washington fire tear gas at peaceful demonstrators, then lie about it.

Get the feeling law enforcement in this country is being run by a middle-school bully?

If so, you are not wrong. Continue reading.

Attorney General William Barr Is Willing to Destroy the Rule of Law for the Trump Administration

Center for American Progress logoFrom the outset, the independence and integrity of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been in rapid decay under the Trump administration. Early in his presidency, Trump berated then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, accusing him of political “disloyalty,” for Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. Later, after pushing Sessions out, he installed an acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, who was widely seen as a partisan actor willing to be an “attack dog” for Trump. This appointment was done without confirmation from the Senate, invoking serious constitutional concerns.

Since taking the helm of the department, Attorney General William Barr has become an active accomplice in the Trump administration’s efforts to politicize the DOJ. When armed protestors stormed the Michigan state legislature to protest public health orders, for example, Barr was largely quiet—a stark contrast to his willingness to quickly denounce the Black Lives Matter protests occurring throughout the country as “hijacked” by far-left extremists without providing evidence to back up his claim. In fact, despite the vulnerable state of the country amidst the coronavirus epidemic, Barr appears to be ramping up the partisan nature of the DOJ.

These actions provide a dangerous illustration of the lengths that Barr may be willing to go. Continue reading.

Bill Barr sued in a personal capacity as protesters who were gassed seek damages for injuries

AlterNet logoProtesters are suing President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr and a number of federal officials after they were tear-gassed to clear the way for an administration photo-op.

“This case is about the president and attorney general of the United States ordering the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators who were speaking out against discriminatory police brutality targeted at Black people,” the complaint reads.

The suit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter DC, along with a handful of individual protesters, by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia (ACLU), in conjunction with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Arnold & Porter LLP. Continue reading.

Barr Says There Is No Systemic Racism in Policing

New York Times logoThe attorney general’s remarks, which mirrored those of other administration officials, came as the president was scheduled to meet with law enforcement officials at the White House

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr said on Sunday that he did not believe racism was a systemic problem in policing, echoing other top administration officials’ defense of an important part of President Trump’s base as protests against police killings of unarmed black people continued across the nation.

“I don’t think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist,” Mr. Barr said in an interview with the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “I think we have to recognize that for most of our history, our institutions were explicitly racist.”

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, made similar remarks on Sunday in an interview with “This Week” on ABC, saying that “systemic racism” was not an issue for law enforcement.