How much is that perjurer in the window? That’s what the American public should be asking as the Justice Department takes it on the chin again in spurious prosecutions of the scum and famous. Roger Clemens walked today in the second stunning Justice Department defeat in 8 weeks, the first being the mistrial of John Edwards. If the Justice Department has this many prosecutors to pursue cases like this…then it has too many prosecutors. And we are left paying the bill over and over and over again.
Beginning in the Bush administration, the Justice Department started pursuing “gotcha” prosecutions. The most famous of these was the Martha Stewart perjury trial. She was never charged with insider trading. She was charged with lying to investigators about insider trading…and she actually did jail time for basically doing nothing. What happened to the actual charge of insider trading?
Then there was Barry Bonds who was charged with perjury and obstructing justice relating to the sale of controlled substances (re: steroids) to athletes. He was convicted of one count of obstructing justice while the jury deadlocked on the other three charges. His sentence was 30 days house arrest and 250 hours of community service.
My favorite was the Scooter Libby trial…also charged with perjury. The Special Prosecutor was appointed to investigate who “leaked” that Valerie Plame was a former CIA operative…out of it for 5 years and everybody in Washington knew it. Here’s the problem. The Special Prosecutor knew who leaked the information from the very beginning, but went off on a tangent in a political prosecution to get Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. It didn’t work…but Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury and obstructing justice. And what happened to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who did the actual leaking? Nothing! Justice served.
John Edwards is one of my favorites. The former United State Senator and almost presidential nominee cheated on his dying wife with a floosy, and got the floosy pregnant. For a period of time Edwards put her up in a style to which she was not accustomed to living, lying to his wife and the American public. Federal Prosecutors went after him when it was “discovered” he used campaign funds to pay for his indiscretion. He was acquitted on one count and the jury deadlocked on the rest…leaning towards acquittal. Turns out the money he used to pay for his "roll in the hay" was given to him by one of the senior Mellon women…who gave it as a gift. She even filed a gift tax return showing that it was a gift, not a campaign contribution. Hello!!!! The American public can sleep good tonight.
Now Roger Clemens! He testified in front of a show hearing in Congress that he had never used steroids. The Justice Department decided that Clemens lied to Congress, and dug up some rummy that claimed he injected Clemens and Clemens’ wife with steroids. The guy was an admitted liar. The judge declared a mistrial the first trial because the Federal Prosecutors entered bogus evidence the judge had previously ruled inadmissible. This time around, the Feds blew it 100%. Clemens was found not guilty on all counts.
The American public should be outraged. Each of these collective actions costs the taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars. In and of themselves, they would barely make a dent on the budget deficit. Collectively, however, the cost could reach in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And we the taxpayer pay the bills.
Maybe it’s time the Congress should look at the Justice Department budget. If it has money for these kinds of prosecutions, it has too much money.
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