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CREW Files Bar Complaints Against Former DOJ Officials
After the news that a class action suit had been filed against former Justice Department officials Esther Slater McDonald and Michael Elston, we've been waiting for the other shoe shoe to drop: bar complaints.
Sure enough, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed complaints in the wake of the Inspector Generals report that found both McDonald and Elston in violation of federal law for taking "political and ideological" affiliations into account when hiring for the U.S. Attorney's Honors Program:
The Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit attorneys from engaging in conduct involving dishonesty and conduct that "seriously interferes with the administration of justice." By illegally taking political and ideological affiliations into account in screening applicants for career DOJ position, Mr. Elston and Ms. McDonald may have violated bar rules could be subject to discipline.
CREW's executive director Melanie Sloane told TPMmuckraker that due to the findings of the independent OIG report, the complaint should be taken fairly seriously. "The only question left for the bar is whether their violations of the law rise to level of professional responsibility," Sloane said. "And I bet that they do."
The complaint was filed, with the OIG report attached, against McDonald in the District of Columbia and Elston in Virginia. Copies of the complaint were sent to all other jurisdictions where they were bar members.
Josh
Zachary
Yay! Get in line, Bushies. Your turns are coming.
July 7, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
What?!? Can't they charge them with conspiracy to obstruct justice? That seems to have been their intent. This wasn't just about rewarding friends and political allies. It was about hiring people who would act as accessories after the fact to Republican criminals.
July 7, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think they can, and you think they can. And they probably should. But they haven't and probably won't.
So let's be happy with this, at least. CREW is pushing the bar associations to take action against their own.
If these people are disbarred, it could be more effective as a mechanism of shame than anything else would be. Being found guilty of obstruction might turn them into some warped kinds of martyrs.
But to be kicked out of their professions would have a lifelong impact.
July 7, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
"They" would have to be the DOJ. If you think the Bush DOJ is gonna bring criminal charges of conspiracy against its own appointees and flunkees, you're thinking much too optimistically.
July 7, 2008 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe Gonzo will hire them to be deputy assistants on his important patent case in Texas.
They can fetch sandwiches. Wait, that's his job.
July 7, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
BBpdx,
maybe they'll hire Gonzo to represent them.
heh, heh, heh.
July 8, 2008 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
But the President has inherent authority to issue licenses to practice law and be The Decider on when it's ethical to torture children and when it's mobetta ethical to just engage in political prosecution and massive FISA felonies.
Since neither the Judicial nor the Legislative branches appear to take themselves seriously, and since the bar associations have been a joke for their silence on lawyers soliciting torture, it's hard to take the complaint as seriously as it would be taken in an alternative world, where the Democratic Presidential nominee-apparent wasn't bending over backwards to make sure that The Deciders and their lines of succession get to pick and choose their way through the Constitution and laws of the nation.
July 7, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bar associations don't typically act sua sponte. Show me where John Yoo has had a bar complaint filed against him. To my knowledge, there hasn't been one. And he doesn't need to be barred, by the way, to teach law (which is what he is doing).
July 7, 2008 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bar complaints. Yeah, right.
Lawyers who regulate and actually punish other lawyers? That's almost as rare as doctors who regulate the behavior of other doctors.
At worst this action will result in a letter being placed in their files, then being withheld from the public because it is a "personnel matter."
In these cases any lawyer on the Bar who actually tries to apply appropriate punishment will find themselves personally blackballed by every other attorney in their state and find they are no longer accepted at Federalist Society dinners.
July 7, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a crock of shit. The Bar routinely acts against lawyers for far less than this. Check the back pages of the Bar News from any state and get your facts straight. And Bar lawyers don't get blacklisted from Federalist Society dinners because nobody goes to those. Unless they have a bag over their head and someone dared them.
July 7, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
These people appear to have violated the Hatch Act of 1939.
The Hatch Act of 1939 is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit federal employees (civil servants) from engaging in partisan political activity. Named after Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico, the law was officially known as An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities.
The act also precluded federal employees from membership in "any political organization which advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government."
Could the neocons be considered a political organization intent on overthrowing the Constitution? What about an evangelical takeover of our government?
The act precluded federal employees from membership in "any political organization which advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government."
July 7, 2008 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let the de-Bushification begin! What goes around comes around.
July 8, 2008 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
More USDOJ obstruction can be reviewed here feel free to download the supporting documents from DaProcess.com
July 8, 2008 6:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
The bar associations for some states have a self-reporting requirement for ethical violations. The idea being that you turn yourself in and the bar will work with you to rehabilitate yourself, rather than disbar you permanently. Judging from Ester's odd behavior this spring, there seems to be a juggling in her own mind about how far she may have crossed the line, and even whether she needs to move now to save what started as a brilliant legal career. Her nightmare is that others then go to the trouble of correctly pointing out her violations of professional responsibility and killing her career.
July 8, 2008 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I found Esther's e-mail address at the law firm. Be nice, but be firm. Her kind of "public" service is not to be tolerated.
emcdonald@seyfarth.com
July 8, 2008 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
An aspect of this that hasn't been brought out in the comments thus far: I believe the DOJ IG report found that Elston had not been forthright in his comments to the investigators. (McDonald refused to speak to the investigators, so this finding does not apply to her.) That finding is probably especially relevant to his fitness to practice law.
July 8, 2008 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
You go Melanie! Good on you and yours!
July 8, 2008 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
BAR COMPLAINTS are and always have been TOTALLY POLITICAL PUNK POSING JERKOFF SESSIONS.
I CAN SHOW YOU SIX SOUTH DAKOTA STATE BAR COMPLAINTS ALL ROUND FILED because they memorialized POLICE STATE MISCONDUCT INCLUDING BRADY VIOLATIONS, OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, MALICIOUS PROSECUTIONS, EX PARTEING JUDGES...AND COLLUSION WITH NO DEFENSE COUNSEL who "work with prosecutors" to gut out due process?
SOUTH DAKOTA IS PROBABELY THE MOST CORRUPT POLICE STATE I'VE EVER PRACTISED LAW IN.
IT RATES FIFTH IN COURT CORRUPTION...edging out the deep south?
July 8, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink