Prison Planet.com » Justice Department shields Holder from prosecution after contempt vote

The Justice Department moved Friday to shield Attorney General Eric Holder from prosecution after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.

Terror plot in Gainsville, or entrapment?

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — In the violent underground novel “Absolved,” right-wing militia members upset about gun control make war against the U.S. government. This week, federal prosecutors accused four elderly Georgia men of plotting to use the book as a script for a real-life wave of terror and assassination involving explosives and the highly lethal poison ricin.

 

The four suspected militia members allegedly boasted of a “bucket list” of government officials who needed to be “taken out”; talked about scattering ricin from a plane or a car speeding down a highway past major U.S. cities; and scouted IRS and ATFoffices, with one man saying,

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“We’d have to blow the whole building like Timothy McVeigh.” Federal investigators said they had them under surveillance for at least seven months, infiltrating their meetings at a Waffle House, homes and other places, before finally arresting them Tuesday, just days after discovering evidence they were trying to extract ricin from castor beans.

(See Reader Comments) Alleged Plot to Attack U.S. Officials Was Inspired by Online Anti-Government Novel, Authorities Say

An alleged plot to attack federal and state officials by suspected members of a fringe north Georgia militia group was inspired by an online anti-government novel, authorities said.

Court documents state that 73-year-old Frederick Thomas, a suspected member of the group, told others that he intended to model their actions on the online novel “Absolved,” which involves small groups of citizens attacking U.S. officials.

Was the Justice Department FORCED to make the “Fast and Furious” tapes public? « Coach is Right

By Doug Book, staff writer

Did a threat to “go public” by the man who did the recording–Lone Wolf gun store owner Andre Howard–force the US Justice Department to provide the previously “secret” Fast and Furious tapes to CBS News?

Andre Howard was in a tough spot. For two years he had provided valuable Operation Fast and Furious assistance to the ATF, the FBI and the Phoenix office of the US Attorney, selling nearly 1000 firearms–at the insistence of these agencies–to some pretty unsavory characters.

But Howard knew many of the buyers should not have been approved by the FBI for the purchase of guns.

On December 17th of 2009, Howard met with Assistant US Attorney Emory Hurley, ATF case agent Hope Macallister and ATF Group Supervisor David Voth.

According to an email Hurley sent his boss, US Attorney Dennis Burke a YEAR LATER in January of 2011, Howard “…expressed concern about the cooperation he was providing and whether he was endangering himself or implicating himself in a criminal investigation.”

According to his email, Hurley told Howard to simply comply with the law when selling weapons. That is, “as long as the required forms are properly filled out and [Howard] did not know or have reason to know that the firearms were part of a straw purchase or intended to be used in a crime, that he could complete the transfer.”

Whether this was really what Hurley related to Howard in that 2009 meeting, we can’t know. But…………………

MORE,,,,,

via Was the Justice Department FORCED to make the “Fast and Furious” tapes public? « Coach is Right.

Police Raid Gun and Safe Store

LAS VEGAS — The U.S. Air Force led a rare raid against a Las Vegas gun shop Friday afternoon. Investigators removed pieces of evidence and took several people into custody.

The initial raid lasted less than an hour.

“These guys were in full get-up, automatic weapons,” said Bahama Mamas manager Joe Gold.

Armored SWAT tanks, officers carrying machine guns, K-9s, the FBI, ATF, and the U.S. Air Force made a grand entrance at the business park on Dean Martin Drive near Flamingo Road.

Heavy on action and light on information, investigators remained tight-lipped about the warrants served at the Citadel Gun and Safe store and an unoccupied building behind it.

“I was just trying to get to my car, because I thought it was going to get taken away, because you know it was in the way,” Bahama Mamas worker Rai Reed.

“We were just watching what was going on. Nobody has any idea. I know the gun store, but I’ve never seen anything in there,” Gold said.

While Citadel owner John Call and other people were taken into custody at the store, a warrant was also being issued at Call’s house in northwest Las Vegas.

Neighbors and businesses speculated at what prompted this unusual raid.

“I don’t know. I have no idea,” Gold said.

“All we can do is assume. It’s a gun shop, and this place over here – it could be drugs. It could be anything,” Reed said.

Sources close to the investigation told 8 News NOW that FBI officials and SWAT teams seized guns, body armor and MREs, or ready-to-eat meals during the raid.

Call and the other people arrested in the raid were released on Saturday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada is working with the Air Force on this investigation.

via Police Raid Gun and Safe Store.

New warning bells in Operation Fast and Furious probe

Kenneth Melson, former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has a new job as a “senior adviser” in the Justice Department.

A bruised and battered veteran of the U.S. Civil Service explained how the government silences whistleblowers and other uncooperative employees: “They give you a big promotion, a fancy title and a new office, but no staff and nothing to do. Then they tell you to watch the flagpole in front of headquarters and, if that flag moves, you come tell us immediately. After that, you’re never heard from again.” Whistleblowers in the Washington bureaucracy come in all ideological stripes, but the one thing they almost invariably have in common is being subjected to this treatment. Some stick to their guns and alert the public to a problem in government, but most are bored into submission.

Kenneth Melson, the now former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at the center of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, appears to be getting the treatment now. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday that Melson has a new job as a “senior adviser” in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy. According to Holder, “Ken brings decades of experience at the department and extensive knowledge in forensic science to his new role, and I know he will be a valuable contributor on these issues. As he moves into this new role, I want to thank Ken for his dedication to the department over the last three decades.” Sounds just hunky-dory, doesn’t it? Don’t be surprised if in a few weeks a lonely Melson is gazing out of an obscure Justice Department office, staring at a flagpole, waiting for something to do.

Or maybe not. There is an alternative explanation for Melson’s promotion. His testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was crucial in shining light on a misguided ATF program that allowed thousands of firearms to be sold to suppliers for Mexican drug cartels. The idea was the weapons would show up in Mexican crime scenes and thereby link high-ranking cartel figures to the ghastly murders that have become such a familiar part of the story south of the border.

Instead, some of the weapons — most cannot be accounted for by ATF — have shown up at crime scenes here in the U.S., including a desolate spot in the Arizona desert where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was gunned down in December. Officials from the top to the bottom of the Justice Department ran for the exits at that point, but Issa still managed to expose the basic facts about Operation Fast and Furious. Much of what Issa learned, however, came from sources other than Melson. And while Melson insisted that senior Justice Department officials knew and approved of the operation, nobody above him has been fired or otherwise disciplined as a result. Perhaps the new job — which pays well and is out of the spotlight — is intended simply to give Melson something else to talk about.

via New warning bells in Operation Fast and Furious probe.

Congress and Obama: We Need More Innocent People in Prison by William L. Anderson

This past year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of the “Honest Services Fraud” law that federal prosecutors were using as the catch-all for targeting whomever they wanted to have thrown into prison. As I wrote two years ago, this law was the ultimate prosecutorial weapon for people who already have an arsenal of injustice.

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We Need More Innocent People in Government Cages
According to Obama and Congress. Article by Bill Anderson.

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Well, just when you thought it was safe to go back into the courtroom, the Obama administration and the U.S. Senate want to tag team in order to give federal prosecutors the power to send anyone they choose to prison, no matter if the accused has committed a crime or not. For readers who think I am exaggerating, think again. As I wrote in 2009:

You might not have robbed a bank or stolen anything, or engaged in any of the 10,000 “crimes” that federal prosecutors have in their buffet line, but I can guarantee that you are “guilty” of “honest services fraud.” Have you ever taken a longer lunch break than what you are supposed to do? Have you ever made a personal phone call at work or done personal business on your employer’s computer? Have you ever had a contract dispute with an employer or a client? All of those things can be criminalized by an enterprising federal prosecutor.

If you are an attorney and have signed forms even though you have not read every word in them (for example, the standard closing documents for real estate), then you have committed “honest services fraud.” The list goes on and on, but most likely by now you have the picture: you are guilty even if you never are placed in the dock in federal criminal court.

One would think that with the USA housing a fourth of the world’s prisoners and the building of prisons being a boom industry, that someone in Washington might be ashamed of this state of affairs. But, as the Wall Street Journal has noted, Obama and members of Congress apparently believe that the prison jobs/slavery process must go on:

Since the Supreme Court limited the definition of “honest services” fraud in last year’s landmark Skilling v. U.S., the Obama Administration has been looking for a way to restore essentially unlimited prosecutorial discretion to bring white-collar cases. Last fall Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer told a Senate committee that Congress should act to “remedy” the Court’s decision. Three bills moving through the House and Senate would try to do so, expanding the reach of prosecutors to go after unpopular politicians or businesses whom they can’t pin with a real crime……………………….

MORE…

via Congress and Obama: We Need More Innocent People in Prison by William L. Anderson.

Do You Qualify As A Domestic Terrorist?

Do You Qualify As A Domestic Terrorist?

SHTF Plan ^ | 4-6-2011 | Mac Slavo

Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 8:13:56 PM by blam

Do You Qualify As A Domestic Terrorist?

Author: Mac Slavo

April 6th, 2011

A few weeks ago Bernard von NotHaus, purveyor of the gold/silver backed “Liberty Dollar”, was convicted on numerous charges including making, possessing, and selling his own coins, as well as conspiracy against the United States. Western District of North Carolina US attorney Anne Tompkins issued a Department of Justice press release that should raise blaring, high decibel sirens across the entire Union:

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”

The definitions for what is or is not a “terrorist” are ambiguous as defined by the Patriot Act, and have been progressively, hastily and secretively expanded over the course of the last decade. A “terrorist,” it seems, is now anyone who actively engages in an activity – whether it’s violent, peaceful, public or private – perceived to threaten the legitimacy and/or stability of our government.

via Do You Qualify As A Domestic Terrorist?.

Holder ill serves his ‘people’

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. played the race card in congressional testimony on Tuesday, referring to blacks as his “people” while neglecting the rest of Americans.

That race-based lens pervades his Justice Department, causing consistently skewed enforcement of the law…. Mr. Holder has a history of stoking racial resentments. … In 1996, he told The Washington Post that for 25 years he carried in his wallet a quote from a black preacher [to the effect] that….

I am not the tall U.S. attorney, I am not the thin U.S. attorney. I am the black U.S. attorney.

And [the preacher] was saying that no matter how successful you are, there’s a common cause that bonds the black U.S. attorney with the black criminal or the black doctor with the black homeless person.” In short, race comes first.

It makes allies, not adversaries, of black criminals and prosecutors.

Read more at washingtontimes.com …

Executive Order–Change of Order of Succession

Executive Order–Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, 5 U.S.C. 3345 et seq., it is hereby ordered that:

Section 1. Order of Succession. Subject to the provisions of section 2 of this order, the following officers, in the order listed, shall act as and perform the functions and duties of the office of Attorney General, during any period in which the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, and any officers designated by the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 508 to act as Attorney General have died, resigned, or otherwise become unable to perform the functions and duties of the office of Attorney General, until such time as at least one of the officers mentioned above is able to perform the functions and duties of that office:a United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia;b United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota; andc United States Attorney for the District of Arizona.Sec. 2. Exceptions. a No individual who is serving in an office listed in section 1 of this order in an acting capacity, by virtue of so serving, shall act as Attorney General pursuant to this order.b

No individual listed in section 1 shall act as Attorney General unless that individual is otherwise eligible to so serve under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998.c Notwithstanding the provisions of this order, the President retains discretion, to the extent permitted by law, to depart from this order in designating an acting Attorney General.Sec. 3. Executive Order 13481 of December 9, 2008, is revoked.Sec. 4. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity, by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

BARACK OBAMA