A national, nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens’ organization, working, pro bono, to protect the public interest in the integrity of our judicial selection and judicial discipline processes. Its mission is to ensure that only the most qualified trial lawyers become, and remain judges.
E-mail: judgewatch@aol.com Web: http://www.judgewatch.org
Tel: 914-997-8105 ▪ Fax: 914-684-6554
Office of the President - Direct line: (914) 997 1677
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON AND AFTER JANUARY 15, 2009
CJA Calls for US Senate Inquiry -- before her confirmation as Secretary of State -- into Senator Clinton’s violation of innocent constituent’s free speech and due process rights
Statement from CJA President and Co- Founder, Doris L. Sassower
“Senator Hillary Clinton was complicit in behind-the-scenes politically-motivated deal making between Republican and Democratic party leaders, resulting in " rubber-stamped " lifetime federal judges to ensure their confirmation by the Senate. One such pre-arranged deal involved President Bush’s federal judicial nominee Republican Richard C. Wesley. On May 22, 2003, she set in motion a chain of events that led to the filing of a criminal complaint against her own constituent, Elena Ruth Sassower, CJA's Co-Founder, then Coordinator, now Director, a patriotic American citizen and public advocate, seeking to testify, the lone voice in opposition, at a Senate Judiciary Committee Public Confirmation Hearing.
With the collusion of Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, then Acting Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, her constituent was arrested, ultimately convicted and given an unprecedented sentence of 6 months in a DC jail for an alleged “Disruption of Congress.” This travesty of justice occurred because Senator Clinton would not let anyone upset her pre-arranged political deal for bi-partisan confirmation of that judicial nominee. Yet, all her constituent had done was to respectfully request to testify in opposition to that nominee. But, thanks to Senator Clinton, such courageous citizen advocacy in exercise of constitutionally guaranteed free speech and due process rights is now a ‘crime’ in America.
“No bail was fixed by the DC trial judge, himself recently nominated by President Bush, confirmed as a result of a similar bi-partisan political deal, who further denied repeated requests for a stay pending appeal. Her constituent was thus forced to serve out her full sentence, without objection from Senator Clinton, despite calls from all over the country for the Senator’s intercession. An advance copy of the intended negative testimony had been provided to the Committee by her constituent in advance, along with her written request to be heard.
“The Clinton-Chambliss judgeship issue was subsequently not raised in the key 2008 Georgia Martin-Chambliss recount election campaign because of the Clinton connection. In fact, the Martin Campaign deliberately chose to avoid raising the issue against opponent Chambliss because of concerns that Senator Clinton (then courting an Obama Cabinet appointment) would become collateral damage. For that reason, the Martin Campaign likely took direction on this issue from senior staffers on the Obama team.
“CJA will continue to advocate for full exposure of Senator Clinton’s civil rights violations while serving as NY Senator, specifically, her constitutional and ethical derelictions as they impacted on one of her own constituents, issues highly relevant to her appointment as America’s next Secretary of State.”
For more details, see recent story in New York’s Westchester Guardian, 11/27/08:
Help Hold Senators Saxby Chambliss and Hillary Clinton Accountable
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6 comments:
I admire Doris Sassower and her daughter ELENA..God Bless them both..They're my HERO's.
I certainly would NOT want that mother/daughter team to ever fix their sights on me.
Another Brady
Article @ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15thu2.html
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USDOJ OIG & FBI OPR FULL REPORT @
http://www.usdoj.gov/opr/oig-opr-iaph-crd.pdf
New York Times
Undermining Justice
Published: January 14, 2009
Tragically, President Bush’s political corruption of the Justice Department is no longer news. But it was still chilling to read a new report detailing illegal efforts to weaken the department’s enforcement of civil rights laws. Bush administration hacks forced out accomplished career attorneys and packed the department with lawyers selected for their dedication to a right-wing political agenda rather than to enforcing the law.
The 67-page report, issued on Tuesday, was the last in a series of internal inquiries into hiring lapses at the Justice Department under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It was prepared by two veteran Justice Department watchdogs — Glenn Fine, the inspector general, and H. Marshall Jarrett, the chief of the Office of Professional Responsibility.
The report found that a former senior Justice Department official, Bradley Schlozman, set out to hire so-called “Right-Thinking Americans,” including members of the Federalist Society and other Republicans, for what were supposed to be apolitical career positions. He then gave them plum assignments on civil rights cases when he was helping to run the Civil Rights Division, beginning in 2003.
The report also concluded that Mr. Schlozman, who left the Justice Department in 2007 amid the uproar over the dismissal of at least eight United States attorneys, which led to Mr. Gonzales’s resignation, gave false statements to Congress when he repeatedly denied factoring politics and ideology into his hiring decisions.
The report’s case against Mr. Schlozman relies heavily on his words, from e-mail and phone messages to colleagues and underlings. His disdain for the traditional independence and mission of the Civil Rights Division is palpable. He spoke brazenly about reshaping the division by doing away with “pinko” and “crazy lib” lawyers and others he did not consider “real Americans.”
“As long as I’m here, adherents of Mao’s Little Red Book need not apply,” he wrote in one e-mail message. The report found that Mr. Schlozman transferred three lawyers out of the division because they were viewed as liberals who opposed his political agenda. The transfers, the report found, violated federal civil service law and “constituted misconduct.” All three lawyers brought federal discrimination claims and returned to the division after Mr. Schlozman’s departure.
While he was a senior official in the division, political appointees overruled career lawyers to approve a Texas redistricting law that clearly violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as well as a plainly unconstitutional voter identification law in Georgia that amounted to a modernized poll tax.
Last week, without explanation, federal prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against Mr. Schlozman. But the matter should be pursued, starting in Congress. Lying under oath to Congress, notes Patrick Leahy, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, is a serious offense that “undermines the very core of our Constitution principles and blunts the American people’s right to open and transparent government.”
It also violates a lawyer’s duty. Bar officials in Wichita, where Mr. Schlozman now practices law, cannot ignore his flouting of ethical standards.
Mr. Schlozman’s dismal saga contains a timely reminder as the Judiciary Committee opens its hearing Thursday on Eric Holder’s nomination to be the nation’s next attorney general. Beyond any particular legal issue or program, Mr. Holder’s main task, should he be confirmed, will be to restore Americans’ trust in a fair, honest and independent Justice Department, respectful of Congress and the Constitution.
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Eliot Bernstein / Bat Out of Hell / Iviewit / Patentgate
iviewit@iviewit.tv
www.iviewit.tv
gotta problem with the post, call me 561-245-8588 or bme
he link to the Westchester Guardian is at:
http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/cja/latest-news.htm
In reply to Eliot Bernstein's incisive comments, on the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday and inspired by his unforgettable "We Shall Overcome" words and actions in the cause of freedom and equal justice, I offer the following critically important information:
The White House Counsel to President Bush, who supposedly 'vetted' his judicial nominees, was none other than his protege Alberto Gonzalez. On his watch, the President nominated for a lifetime federal judgeship, Republican Richard C. Wesley, subject of the corrupt behind-the-scenes political deal-making referred to in our above 1/15/09 press release, calling for a US Senate Inquiry into Senator Clinton's violation of constitutional rights http://www.judgewatch.org/elections-2008/chambliss/westchester-guardian.pdf, for which she needs to be held accountable -- BEFORE her confirmation –- by the full Senate, now scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday of the coming week.
On the Gonzalez watch President Bush, for purely political reasons unconnected with merit, also nominated Democrat Brian F. Holeman to the DC Superior Court (which tries all criminal misdemeanors committed on DC property) on the very day of Elena's arrest on May 22 2003 (likely part of the same behind the scenes bi-partisan deal).
Judge Holeman, while a practicing lawyer, had never even tried a criminal matter, let alone a "Disruption of Congress" criminal case. Yet he was hand-picked to try that trumped-up criminal charge, wrongfully filed and prosecuted against Elena by the politicized US Attorney's Office.
That criminal case was not thrown out, as constitutional and statutory law required, and ultimately led to the unprecedented maximum six-month jail sentence imposed by Judge Holeman, as cited in our above press release. Due to his imposition of excessive conditions of probation, his refusal to fix bail or to grant a stay pending her appeals, she served that barbaric sentence out in full, from the moment he announced her sentence on June 28, 2004 (the 4th of July weekend, which she served in solitary confinement)until the day before Christmas 2004!
Mr. Gonzalez turned a blind eye and deaf ear to appeals to him as White House Counsel at that time, despite clear and substantial evidence showing egregious violation of free speech and due process rights and that no "crime" had been committed by Elena, the only crime having been that which had beem committed by our government upon her, particularly by this flagrantly unfit Bush judicial nominee, as our investigation irrefutably proved.
For further details and documentation, see CJA website at http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/disruption-of-congress/disruption-of-congress-case.htm
DORIS L. SASSOWER
Co-Founder and President
Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA)
Tel:(914)997-8105 Fax:914-684-6554www.judgewatch.org
CALLING ALL AMERICANS: JUDICIAL VICTIMS, JUDICIAL REFORMERS, CJA FAMILY, FRIENDS, MEMBERS, & SUPPORTERS
JOIN US TO MAKE HISTORY NOW
Yesterday, we honored Dr. Martin Luther King's memory. To build on his victory for equality, fairness, freedom, and fundamental justice, vindicated by today's inauguration of Barack Obama, America's first black president, Doris L. Sassower, President of the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc., asks you to sign onto the letter below and email it to YOUR U.S. HOME SENATORS and every other U.S. Senator you can. Feel free to adapt it for dissemination to TV and radio talk show hosts, editors of your local newspapers, in support of our demand for a Senate Inquiry into critical facts -- BEFORE Senator Clinton's full Senate confirmation as Secretary of State, predicted to occur on Wednesday or Thursday of this week -- with cc to CJA.
Please do not think we have sat on our hands to wait until the 11th hour to distribute this information. Our repeated mass media mailings of our press releases on the subject, starting more than a year ago before the primary elections concerning the tragic role Senator Clinton played in the six-month incarceration of an innocent woman by our government, shockingly produced no news coverage of our vital issues -- only proving what CJA has said all along -- that mainstream media has, by consistently failing and refusing to meet its journalistic responsibilities as the guardian of the People's right to know, has been guilty of press suppression and protectionism, designed to cover up the true facts in this matter for the benefit of political interests in both parties. http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/suing-nyt/lawsuit-nyt.htm, http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/press-suppression/press-gannett.htm.
This may be the last clear chance to prevent confirmation of an unworthy candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton -- whose actions speak louder than all her empty rhetoric about her protection of constitutional rights. By her conduct in office as Senator, she has revealed her willingness to betray the public trust for her ulterior political and private self-interest. If she cannot defend the civil rights and freedoms of one American, indeed, her own constituent, how can she defend the rights and freedoms of all Americans as our Secretary of State?
Please do it today, as time is of the essence! In addition, to compliment our efforts to protect our democracy, would you kindly make a donation by clicking on the Donate button on our website. Your credit card payment or check shows your support for our herculean pro bono efforts. United, we too shall overcome!
A thousand thanks!
Yours in struggle and solidarity for a quality judiciary.
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