The D.C. Council members have called for an investigation into the allegations of discovery destruction in the World Bank/IMF case. Given the inquiries into the case, I am posting the recent sanctions material to cut down on calls to my office. I am also posting the transcript from the last hearing. Given my role in the case, I am limited in what I can say about the case.
I am lead counsel in the Chang case with Dan Schwartz of Bryan Cave Ltd.
Other members of the City Council have called for changing the position of Attorney General in light of Nickles’ record, including the possibility of making it an elected position. For an earlier entry, click here.
Here are the documents: 1st Notice; 2nd Notice; Sanctions Motion; Sanctions Reply; 072909-SULLIVAN
For the latest article, click here.
Related but slightly off topic:
Frank Rich accurately reads America’s pulse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Corporatists and lobbyists need to go. It’s time for either regulation or social discord. And if you don’t think that regulation is REQUIRED to avoid social discord, just wait. We’ll find out the true cost of unfettered greed eventually. It’s not going to be all sunshine and roses either, Washington. Criminals in your ranks and innocents alike? None will be spared. All will be harmed in the discord fascism invites. The real decline is here. And it’s Washington’s doing.
If Washington doesn’t think corruption has effects? That no one cares? Corruption brought down empires no army could touch but your lot is too arrogant and ignorant to learn the lessons of Rome, aren’t you? Pssst . . . the “barbarians” didn’t “do it on their own” – they had Roman help in the form of the ever increasing corruption and ineffectiveness after the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Time will disabuse those in Washington and corporate America of the notion that they are immune from making such mistakes.
The sturdiest wall becomes a pile of stones if built on a foundation of mud.
Politicians are dirt. Corporate lobbyist graft is the liquid (I won’t besmirch the good name of water by calling them water). Every child knows that resultant chemistry.
Welcome to where the collapse starts to accelerate.
Change you can believe in.
Yeah. Right.
Change for the worse is what was delivered.
And as an aside, thanks for proving once and for all that the DNC is in Big Pharma’s pocket by promising them no negotiations on pricing. Genius move, you graft swilling hacks. I hope everyone remembers that when grandma can’t afford her medicine because insurance won’t cover it and it costs more than her living expense to cover it.
AY,
From Wiki:
“The Nation is a weekly[2] United States periodical devoted to politics and culture, self-described as “the flagship of the left.”[3] Founded on July 6, 1865 at the start of Reconstruction as a supporter of the victorious North in the American Civil War, it is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the US. It is published by the Nation Company, L.P. at 33 Irving Place, New York City.
The Nation has bureaus in London and Southern Africa, with departments covering Architecture, Art, Corporations, Defense, Environment, Films, Legal Affairs, Music, Peace and Disarmament, Poetry, and the United Nations. The circulation of The Nation was rising and measured 184,296 in 2004 more than double that of The New Republic and higher than conservative papers The Weekly Standard and National Review.[citation needed] The Nation has lost money in all but three or four years of operation and is sustained in part by a group of more than 30,000 donors called The Nation Associates who donate funds to the periodical above and beyond their annual subscription fees.[citation needed]
The publisher and editor is Katrina vanden Heuvel. Former editors include Victor Navasky, Norman Thomas (associate editor), Carey McWilliams, and Freda Kirchwey. Notable contributors have included Albert Einstein, Franz Boas, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bertrand Russell, Barbara Garson, H. L. Mencken, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Christopher Hitchens, Hunter S. Thompson, Langston Hughes, Ralph Nader, James Baldwin, Clement Greenberg, Tom Hayden, Daniel Singer, I.F. Stone, Leon Trotsky, George Orwell, Henry Miller, Franklin D. Roosevelt, James K. Galbraith, John Steinbeck, Barbara Tuchman, T. S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Frost, Frank Lloyd Wright, Hannah Arendt, Ezra Pound, Henry James, Charles Sanders Peirce[4], Jean-Paul Sartre and John Beecher.”
The magazine does not take advertisers.
Although not a subscriber, I’ve read The Nation on and off over the years, but I’ve always found their reporting fairly solid. I came across that article because I have a Blackwater filter on my news aggregator.
Transcript pages 10-11:
THE COURT: That’s a sad commentary, [Mr. Defense] Counsel. What
19 you’re saying is, the only way that anyone would ever have any
20 comfort is for this court to allow Plaintiffs’ counsel to roam
21 through the files of the D.C. government, that’s what you just
22 told me. That’s a sad commentary.
23 So what about an attorney’s word that we’ve done all
24 the searches, we’ve been diligent, we’ve searched everything,
25 and as an officer of the Court, I assure you, Judge, we’ve
11
1 turned over everything, we left no stone unturned. You can’t
2 tell me that.
3 MR. KOGER: Your Honor, it is that effort that
4 results in this last minute production.
5 THE COURT: Last minute production on the eve of a
6 hearing to determine sanctions.
7 MR. KOGER: Yes, Your Honor, and —
8 THE COURT: And we’re talking about startling
9 revelations that go to the heart of some of Plaintiffs’
10 theories.
11 MR. KOGER: Your Honor, I would not debate the
12 pertinence or relevance of this.
You can’t tell the Court that indeed. And for my favorite exchange at pp. 6-7:
THE COURT: The civil counterpart of the Ted Stevens
12 case.
13 MR. KOGER: Your Honor —
14 THE COURT: It raises serious questions about when,
15 if ever, can anyone ever trust their government. These are
16 serious, serious problems, and I was very disturbed to see
17 these e-mails come across the computer screen.
18 MR. KOGER: Your Honor —
19 THE COURT: Serious revelations that go to heart of
20 some of Plaintiffs’ theories.
21 MR. KOGER: Your Honor, first, let me assure you
22 that I am abashed and contrite in having failed the Court and
23 the parties in this matter.
24 THE COURT: I’m not so sure it’s just you who has to
25 fall on the sword here. You know, you’re doing a good job of
1 falling on the sword, but I think there is probably some other
2 forces that are at work.
Smart man, the judge.
Buddha,
The article was great. Do you subscribe to the Nation? Who owns it? Are they fairly representational in reporting or are they an arm of someone else’s agenda?
Buddha,
You do realize that is Betsy DeVos’s Brother who happens to be Dick’s wife? They are Dutch Reformed. Whatever that means. Thanks for the Off Topic.
OFF TOPIC
File under “Holy Crap!”, “Niccolo Knows Best” and “What did you expect, geniuses?”
Zee/Blackwater founder Eric Prince implicated in murder.
And it gets better than that. On top of a motive I’m sure no one will find shocking, he supposedly thinks he’s Jesus’ personal warrior tasked with eliminating Islam.
Read all about the founder of the mercenaries our government got into bed with under the Bush Criminal Enterprise at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill
I posted so much evidence against the Judge anonymously of course on the newspaper website and letters to the editor that the paper banned me from posting.
Ok, so what is new in the world of litigation. I have seen Prosecutors deliberately withhold crucial evidence and send a man to prison for life for a murder that the Convicted Defendant did not commit.
Cops destroy evidence at a crime scene because of they are well do to. A Judge dismiss Murder charges against a Doctor because the evidence was too old. They belonged to the same country club and played golf together.
What is the big deal here?
In looking up Nickles’ record I run into the same problem that existed with Bartle Bull on another thread. His official bio lists him as a champion of the downtrodden:
http://occ.dc.gov/occ/cwp/view,a,3,q,638711.asp
and the City Council saying he should be removed:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/DC_Council_panel_rejects_Peter_Nickles_as_attorney_general11-18
.html
Also the negative articles JT cited in the story. How is one to know where the truth lies? As an attorney you can be on different sides at different times, so how is one to judge where you actually stand and what your ethics really mean? To me in the end it comes down to an attorney’s body of work and the causes she/he has backed. It is not enough to say that attorney’s are trained to take either side of an issue and that their practice takes them in differing directions at different times.
JT will be judged in the end on his willingness to stand against power and those who wield it. My wife has a cousin through marriage who is a distinguished legal aid attorney, by choice and not default, these two represent the attorney’s that I feel are heroic in their careers. My idol of course since my teen years has been Clarence Darrow, who while he had some wealthy clients, Leopold & Loeb for instance, produced a body of work noted for its’ courage and effort to do justice.