As reported this morning in various newspapers and sites, the World Bank case (Chang) ended its evidentiary hearings before Special Master John M. Facciola, United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, yesterday with the testimony of District of Columbia Attorney General Irvin Nathan. Like his predecessor, ex-AG Peter Nickles, Nathan was called by the court to answer questions on the latest controversy over false statements in filings by his office and the failure to inform the court for 70 days that someone had attempted to delete evidence in the case. As co-lead counsel, I am limited in what I feel comfortable in saying about the case, but, given the inquiries on yesterday’s hearing I wanted to give the status in the case.
As noted in coverage, Nathan denied that his staff did anything wrong. He also denied knowledge of the range of allegations against his staff, including involvement in lost evidence or false representations to the Court. Nathan insisted that he saw no need to order an investigation of his staff in light of these allegations. We were surprised by Nathan’s statements inside and outside of the courtroom but much has surprised us in this case. We will let the record speak for itself.
We now have a schedule for the filing of recommended findings to the Special Master for July 2, 2013. Responses are due July 31st. The Special Master will then render his recommendations in the case. The matter will then go back to Judge Sullivan who appointed Judge Facciola to conduct his investigation into the various lines of missing or allegedly altered evidence in the case. The case is currently not set for trial. This is all the information that we have at this time on the schedule and status. My secretary has no further information that can be shared at this time.
http://www.vice.com/read/big-moneys-obama
Last week, in an utterly unsurprising story, the president of the United States appointed a crew of rich friends with Wall Street ties to key government posts, some of them major fundraisers and donors to his campaigns. They hardly made major headline news—the payback game is an old, old DC tradition—but these nominations underscore again just how empty all of Barack Obama’s lofty promises to change the political culture were.
Obama’s populist shtick was more pronounced in the 2012 election than it was back in his first presidential campaign (even if he left the most gut-wrenching indictments of Mitt Romney’s business record to his nominally independent Super PAC, Priorities USA), so the speed with which he has reverted in the early months of the second term to shamelessly currying favor with entrenched financial interests is jarring. After opportunistically latching on to the rhetoric of anticapitalist movements worldwide, Obama’s 99 percent-loving campaign has given way to an administration that revolves around an all-too-familiar brand of capitalism—and capital-obsessed neoliberalism. Once upon a time, Obama was apparently devoted to reining in the influence of money in politics, but after a couple of elections and some time inside the machine, he doesn’t seem to care about it at all. Instead of fighting against casual corruption, he’s been complicit in it.
See link for complete story
Maybe the FBI can use the same forensic they use to catch child preps…
And you don’t want to get on the wrong side of Magistrate Judge Facciola. I have some experience there.
in a windows based machine; from the command line:
CIPHER /W:C:\
Overwrites 0’s then 1’s then random to the unallocated space on a volume.
or if you really want to do the job:
FORMAT C: /P:6
CIPHER /W:C:\
(remove hard drive and take to the range)
DISKDESTROY /DEVICE:M16 /RATE:FULLAUTO
That should take care of your data privacy concerns
Nal,
To a great many people, a computer is a magic box and they have no idea how they work in a basic sense much less the concept of flagging a file for overwrite (delete/Trash) versus secure deletion (overwriting the file with zeros or random strings).
But he said that the lawyer handling the matter wasn’t positive she understood exactly what the technician meant and that because the information wasn’t actually deleted …
What is there about “attempt to delete” that is unclear? Any lawyer worth his/hers salt knows that when you “delete” a file you only remove its label. The data is still there until it’s written over.
Gene and Mespo,
This guy smells dirty.
Hear, hear.
From WaPo:
The latest witness was Nathan, who engaged in a sometimes testy back-and-forth with Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and lawyer for the plaintiffs, over Turley’s repeated assertions that the attorney general’s office has a pattern of submitting false statements and failing to provide evidence or key information.
Nathan, the top lawyer for the D.C. government, said he was not aware of anyone on his staff who had “knowingly violated any ethical rule, who had knowingly submitted any inaccurate information.”
When Turley asked Nathan why the suit has taken so long to resolve, Nathan replied, “You,” and said he hoped that the judge’s inquiry would soon be over so that the merits of the case could be decided.
“I hope it will be brought to an end,” Nathan said. “I hope I will be the last witness.”
He acknowledged that his office had waited two months in 2011 before telling the judge that a contractor had discovered an apparent attempt to delete information from a computer server. But he said that the lawyer handling the matter wasn’t positive she understood exactly what the technician meant and that because the information wasn’t actually deleted, “I viewed it as no harm, no foul.”
He compared it to “being delayed in delivering a false alarm.”
Lanier testified in March that she had specifically wanted any attempted evidence tampering to be investigated by a federal agency such as the FBI. However, Nathan said he was under the impression that the police department would handle the investigation, while farming out the computer forensics aspect of it to the FBI or a private contractor.
“That said to me that (she) was in control of the remainder of the investigation,” he said.
Facciola directed the parties to submit additional written arguments in July. After the hearing had concluded and Nathan had left the courtroom, Turley asked that Facciola consider referring the case to the Office of Bar Counsel, which handles disciplinary matters involving lawyers.
You go, JT.
http://hti.osu.edu/sites/default/files/who_stole_the_peoples_money.jpg
Someone should look into the fact that Romney’s Stage Stores entity sold its FDIC Chartered (for Stage Store Credit Cards) – to the World Bank for $150 million.
When Stage Stores shareholder owning only $4500 worth of stock asked questions about the scheme (Dov Avni) – the court responded by a Fine of $300,000 and sending the U.S. Marshalls after him and his sister etc – to collect.
Deny, Deny, Deny. Good luck professor.
Nathan was called by the court to answer questions on the latest controversy over false statements in filings by his office and the failure to inform the court for 70 days that someone had attempted to delete evidence in the case. As co-lead counsel, I am limited in what I feel comfortable in saying about the case, but, given the inquiries on yesterday’s hearing I wanted to give the status in the case.
_______________________________________________________
I think, perhaps he’s lying. It’s completely possible he’s a complete total piece of shi+.
Nothing surprises me with the corruption that exists within the judiciary and the banking fiefdom…..
“These are not the droids you’re looking for.”
However, methinks Nathans skills as a Jedi are somewhat less effective than Obi Wan’s.
“Nathan denied that his staff did anything wrong.”
Nothing banksters can do will harm our exceptional economy.
Inhofe said the same thing about Big Pollution … God will not allow the exceptional Earth to be harmed by global warming.
Truth of God has made it to the Senate Floor where a doctrinal dispute about God and the allowance of harm rages:
http://on.aol.com/video/senator–god-will-not-save-us-from-catastrophy-517773889