Evidence hidden in Sen. Stevens' corruption case

[BDKJMU]

WASHINGTON — When the Justice Department began outlining its criminal case against then-Alaska senator Ted Stevens nearly four years ago, prosecutors argued that the evidence supported classic public corruption.

But a court-appointed investigator's blistering review of the government's work released Thursday found that the prosecution itself was corrupt to its core.

The 525-page report, the fullest review yet of the government's actions, described a rogue team of prosecutors and federal agents who allegedly concealed critical information from the senator's lawyers and allowed its star witness to give false testimony before a jury, which later found Stevens guilty of seven counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure statements.

Within days of the jury's decision, Stevens, a Republican member of the Senate for four decades, narrowly lost his re-election bid. He died in a plane crash in 2010, about a year after Attorney General Eric Holder, citing misconduct by the prosecutors, asked that the case be dismissed.

Yet the breadth of the misconduct identified by special investigator Henry Schuelke was far more serious than what even Stevens' lawyers expected. And Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Thursday that he will call for a hearing on the matter.

"Once in a generation a case comes along which impacts more than the parties involved and their families," said Brendan Sullivan, Stevens' attorney. "This is that case."

Schuelke's report, ordered by federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, who threw out the charges in 2009, found that the prosecution was "permeated by the systematic concealment" of evidence favorable to the defense. The evidence prosecutors failed to disclose, the report concluded, "seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witness."

Stevens was accused of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts and services he used to renovate his Girdwood, Alaska, home. One of the key witnesses against him was former oilfield executive Bill Allen.

The report found that federal prosecutors made "astonishing misstatements" to Stevens' attorneys in an attempt to conceal information suggesting that Allen had pressured a former child prostitute to sign a false declaration that he never had sex with her when she was underage.

Prosecutors worried this information might undermine his credibility in the case against Stevens and never disclosed it to Stevens' attorneys, the report says.

In addition, the investigation found that at least one prosecutor allowed Allen to testify falsely in court. Allen's company paid for renovations to Stevens' home, and Stevens twice sent him letters asking to be billed for the work. Allen told jurors at trial that the senator was "just covering his ass."

Allen testified during Stevens' trial that when he revealed to prosecutors a key conversation about those bills, it wasn't "just recently." In fact, he later told Schuelke he had only remembered the conversations on his flight to Washington, D.C., for Stevens' trial, a fact the report suggests could have been used to undermine his testimony.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Bottini "knew the testimony was false and knew that he had an obligation … to correct that testimony there and then, but he did not," the report found.

Bottini's lawyer, Kenneth Wainstein, maintained in a letter released Thursday that "Bottini's conduct … was ethical, proper and in keeping with his reputation for unimpeachable integrity and fairness."

Allen's lawyer, George Terwilliger, said his client told the truth at trial and in interviews with prosecutors and federal agents. The former senator's wife, Catherine Ann Stevens, said the family is "shocked by the depth and breadth of the government's misconduct."

Schuelke's report said the prosecutors could not be charged with criminal contempt of court for their conduct because Sullivan had never given them a "clear and unequivocal" order that they "follow the law."

Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said the department "cooperated fully" with the inquiry and is completing its own review.

An investigation last year by USA TODAY found that the Justice Department typically took years to review instances of misconduct and that lawyers found by courts to have committed serious violations faced little risk of losing their jobs.
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[BDKJMU]

"......Most damaging to Justice's credibility is that, three years after Judge Sullivan set aside the guilty verdicts against Stevens, the department still hasn't disciplined the men and women involved. Nor has it instituted harsher penalties for future abuses. Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee last week that a separate internal inquiry at Justice is almost done, but he would not promise to make all the results public.

Speaking of public scrutiny, you've probably never heard of Matthew Friedrich, Rita Glavin, Brenda Morris, Joseph Bottini, James Goeke or Edward Sullivan. But maybe more people should know them, and learn the various roles they played in a prosecution that not only trampled on the rights of the accused, but denied the people of Alaska a fair election and literally shifted the balance of power in the U.S. government.

The Justice lawyers were not all equally culpable—some withheld evidence; others failed to ensure that their subordinates honored the defendant's basic rights. And while prosecutors acknowledge the violation of Stevens's rights, they generally blame them on communication problems and other process errors rather than any intent to mislead the judge and jury.

Guilty verdicts against the Republican Stevens arrived less than two weeks before Election Day in 2008, causing the previously popular Senator to lose a close race to Democrat Mark Begich. Mr. Begich would go on to provide the 60th Senate vote to pass ObamaCare in 2009......................."
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Bunch of fooking crooks at the justice department...

[AZGrizFan]

Chalk up another one in the Eric Holder column.

[Rob Iola]

And thanks to this we now have Obamacare...

[AZGrizFan]

And thanks to this we now have Obamacare...

Yep. Not a politically motivated witch hunt at all...

[citdog]