Fieger Makes Allegations about Arkansas
I admit–I’m getting sucked into the Geoffrey Fieger case. I will have more to say, but the short version is this:
The government alleges that Fieger and his partner got employees from their law firm to donate to John Edwards in his 2004 election. And then, the government further alleges, they reimbursed those people. From the government’s perspective, Fieger laundered a lot of money to give big dollars to Edwards. From the perspective of this Administration’s seeming pattern of politicized prosecutions, they went after Fieger (and other trial attorneys) to disincent trial lawyers from making political donations.
The big scandal (besides the possibility that BushCo is prosecuting Fieger as part of a political prosecution) is that it appears the government may be using tools designed for national security prosecutions in support of a campaign finance investigation–basically, Fieger alleges the government is abusing the tools Congress gave them to investigate terrorism in order to punish Democratic political activities. And he’s trying to get the evidence to prove that case.
At present (Fieger’s trial is due to start at the beginning of December), Fieger is dealing with four issues related to selective prosecutions.
- BushCo got a bunch of subpoenas for financial information–apparentlyunder grand jury subpoena–without having to reveal those subpoenas;Fieger’s team thinks they used National Security Letters or some otherimproper subpoena to get that information
- Bush’s DOJ sent a small army of people to search Fieger’s firm (and his employees’ homes), serious overkill for a white collar crime investigation
- The top three people in the USA office in Eastern Michigan recused themselves from the case; Fieger’s team thinks there’s some hanky-panky behind the recusal
- The only investigation into campaign finance violations for the 2004 Edwards campaign that ended in a civil–as opposed to criminal–penalty was a lawyer in Arkansas–but the agreement was signed at the same time that Bud Cummins was fired, a coinkydink that Fieger alleges was the reason Cummins was fired
Here’s the court’s opinion summarizing the last three of these issues (look on page 1 for Judge Borman’s description of three of four of these issues, he reviews these issues in camera before making the ruling on these three issues; he refuses to show Fieger the subpoenas in another order). On the issue of the army of FBI agents to investigate the firm, Borman allows Fieger to see dates of such overkill investigations, but not the names or details. On the issue of recusal, he orders the government into further discussion of the reasons behind the recusals. And on the issue of the one trial lawyer campaign finance investigation that did not end in criminal sanctions, Judge Borman refuses to provide the name to protect the innocent accused.
EW
I read your blog at the same time as I watch â€The Monarchy†on TV Ontario. This deals with the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots.
I conclude that, based on your post, and your next post regarding Scottie, that the Bush Administration would have fitted right into those medieval times.
i’m glad you are following this, e.w.
i have no idea who’s on first with respect to this particular case.
but scott horton has laid out the DOJ’s modus operandi in pursuing this type of persecution-thru-prosecution in its â€trial†run attacking a mississippi trial lawyer who contributed to democrats.
i understand that journalists want to protect their reputations and credibility,
but i think in this case,
given the record of this particular u.s department of justice,
feiger deserves ALL the benefit of the doubt;
all the more so, because he was jack kevorkian’s lawyer.
horton has done the spade work to allow journalists who care about justice and injustice to pursue cases like the feigher case without timidity.
the end legal â€result†will almost certainly be, as it has been in several other such persecutions-thru-prosecutions, that feiger has committed some sort of â€crimeâ€.
but horton’s central point,
for which he quotes u.s. supreme court justice jackson,
is that
there are so many laws,
a prosecutor, looking to make a case, can find one or more with which to level charges to level against any citizen, any time.
it is from this reality that i would guess that the concept idea of â€prosecutorial discretionâ€,
which p. fitzgerald talked about at length in phis press conference, was born.
in cases like feiger’s, where there is a connection with the democratic party,
the first question to ask is â€is this a political prosecutionâ€?
my guess is that it is,
and that feiger was chosen because he had the additional vulnerability of the kevorkian representation,
thus making it harder for the â€average†teevee watcher to discern what was really going on, i.e., â€he’s was kevorkian’s lawyerâ€.
There are not that many ways that subpoenas duces tecum for financial information against a defendant in what is effectively a financial fraud case against him are made â€secretâ€. National Security Letters (NSLs) are certainly one method, but that is not necessarily consistent with them being â€grand jury subpoenasâ€. The court under which the grand jury is impanelled may enter an order, upon an ex-parte showing of cause by the government, sealing the subpoenas; but normally you would expect the trial judge to either rule that gives way to Fieger’;s right to defend himself, or, at a minimum, give a better explanation of why they are secret. Don’t see either of those here. Need to read the links completely to see if there is better indication of the grounds for this.
I don’t see how the info on the â€civil settlement†is reasonably withheld from Fieger. Unless the court records are sealed in the original case (hard to see any basis for this), how the hell can you deprive Fieger of this information? This is especially the case if the subject of â€the one case†is indeed Tab Turner, a name and situation Fieger, and the public, already knows about. Thsi is flat goofy.
As to the recusal information, same thing; i.e. hard to see how Fieger is not entitled to it. The only reason Fieger would not be entitled to the recusal info would be if the basis for the recusals didn’t concern Fieger, but some other sensitive case; but if that were the case, the Court should just simply say it reviewed the info in camera and is convinced the basis is unrelated to Fieger and not germane to his defense.
If Fieger has an even remotely cognizable claim for defense under the theory of selective and/or malicious prosecution (and he does), Feiger is flat out entitled to all this stuff.
EW, I have to re-iterate what Orion said about MS, Scott Horton and I think BradBlog have followed that case closely. It was a trial lawyer who gave heavily to John Edwards and also a Dem judge who usually ruled for plaintiffs. And it’s gotten pretty darned ugly and partisan and the judge had to step down from the bench for a few years. I wouldn’t be suprised if the MI, MS and Seligman cases in Ala were all of a piece. There’s something incredibly rank and vile at the DoJ, and a new head won’t fix the problem til this disease is excised completely.
There’s an overarching leit-motif in all of this, and I think you’re just the woman to pull the threads. Another book in the offing, perhaps?
That last paragraph was my heartfelt response to the ugly poster in the McLellan thread.
bmaz
You’d probably need to read more than the links here. As to the subpoenas for financial info, I think that is what has happened, at least in this court–the judge has reviewed an ex parte explanation and decided Fieger doesn’t get him; though that’s when he threw in the grand jury subpoena excuse, which is just weird.
As to the civil stuff: yeah, unless the govt is arguing that at least one Edwards person got off entirely. And, in fact, in teh Tab Turner case, there were several lawyers associated with him whose charges were dismissed entirely. It may be they’re arguing innocent accused in that case for the secondary lawyers, who may have helped finalize the case against Turner himself. But then, if Tab Turner is the case, in general, they ought to at laest tell Fieger that. Turner came up earlier, in a govt filing, so it may well be the case.
Oh, one more thing.
Yes, it appears that the judge does believe Fieger has reason to know why they recused, which the govt has refused Fieger in direct appeals to DOJ. But he (the judge) seems to grant the govt’s argument, at least partially, for keeping it secret. I look forward to his ruling on that issue–it could get interesting.
In other filings, btw, Fieger has pointed to a number of questionable prosecutions of Dems here in MI.
Why is the Judge even having ex-parte discussions? How’d the DOJ manage that? That’s highly suspicious.
Because the govt asked nicely?
Fieger’s been arguing that one for weeks.
ew, how does the fieger charges compare with the mitchell wade case charges here: http://www.fec.gov/press/press…..1mzm.shtml
it sure looks similar to me, and it looks like he got a 1 mil fine with no jail time for this…. what is your opinion on this? is it fish and fowl or the same?
this looks and smells funnier every day, but geoffrey is no poster child for the meek, so he gets little media sympathy.
and how ironic this looks to me more and more part of the fired us attorney scandal.
too bad about your wolverines, ew, they sure eat their young and their coach with no compunction. I guess the nytimes story on tenured prof’s going by the wayside applies to safe coaches, even when they won a title….
I can barely say the words detroit lions of late. they do look more and more familiar every game. but hope springs eternal and maybe we can put the big hurt on the pack… (sure….lol)
So now we know what to ask the former U.S. Attorney Jeffrey G. Collins, who preceded Murphy and stepped down in the middle of his term to return to private practice…
Did he ever oversee an investigation into Feiger? Did he not have enough evidence to prosecute him?
Wait a minute here. What have I missed?
Someone is making illegal political contributions, and is prosecuted for it, and the prosecution is called political????
â€Are you all gone daft?â€
National Security Letters (NSLs) are certainly one method, but that is not necessarily consistent with them being â€grand jury subpoenasâ€.
What I thought Fieger was getting at was that NSLs were used to go on fishing expeditions to find anything they could – not on national security matters but to dig dirt on financial opponents. Then they backtracked and requested GJs and GJ subpoenas to legitimize obtaining the info they had already illegitimately obtained.
I would suspect that, in a large firm with varied, non-botique, clientel, there is going to be someone or some aspect of the firm’s practice that Gov can use to try to make the claim that the NSLs were being used legitimately for national security reasons bc of suspicions against a client of the firm or the firm itself with respect to payments from certain clients, etc. So the bootstrapping would be that, say the firm represents a client (like an islamic charity) and NSLs were originally issued in respect of an ultra-secret national security investigation on that front, then if they turned up evidence of crime – albeit bc they were overbroad and there was probably never any real undlerlying investigations the NSLs were associated with – then a) that would form the basis of the GJ subpoena request and b) that â€source†for subpoenas to issue would have to be kept secret for â€national security†reasons bc the sky will fall if someone has to describe what they were looking at originally that led them to delve into all of a law firm’s finances with NSLs.
Something along those lines would be my spec.
The recusals are a mystery though. Unless, perhaps (and I don’t have any grounds to believe this, just trying to think of something that would fit the bill) the recused lawyers are under some kind of internal investigation for their actions in the intial steps of the investigation and whether there was any true national security investigation to support the original use of the NSLs.
If that would be the case, then if they are being internally investigated for wrongdoing on the case, they should recuse. If that premise were true and the investigation into their possible wrongdoing will involve internal examination of the facts and circumstances of a real or purported national security investigation from which all of the rest of this has supposedly spun off, then I guess I could see a judge sealing it, at least for a period of time and some parts possibly redacted for much longer.
Rayne and Mary
Actually, Fieger states pretty convincingly that, after Cox couldn’t indict on his fishing expedition, he handed over the investigation to the Feds to see what they could make of it. So it would be 1) political from the start, and 2) campaign finance from the start (note–I’m talking about the Cox fishing expedition into the judicial campaign in 00, not the extortion related to Cox’s sexual escapades in the jury box of the court house).
In which case (Fieger argues), the NSLs would always be inappropriate. I’m not aware of any case that could be construed, even in the worst BUshCo logic, to be national security. Unless Kervorkian is a threat to national security…
Mary, that was basically what I meant with my fairly inarticulate â€not consistent†phrasing, i.e. NSLs are not any part of GJ discovery themselves, and it would be inappropriate to be using them as a basis for what would otherwise appear to be regular GJ process. As EW seems to feel, I cannot envision any way in which, if NSLs were involved in the Feiger investigation, it was appropriate to do so. What wigs me out is that the court, Judge Borman, seems to grasp all the parameters on these issues, but is treading an inexplicable middle ground that doesn’t seem to really comport with proper protection of Fieger’s due process rights as the defendant. It just doesn’t sit right….
What do we have on Borman? is he another Mark Fuller?