(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . What Has Attorney General Merrick Garland And The U.S. Department Of Justice Done For Us Lately? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-16 Seems I can’t mention the man’s name without being told how ineffectual he is, so I thought I’d take a quick look at what the department he oversees has been up to... The Hill The Justice and Commerce departments launched a strike force on Thursday to oppose the threats posed by technology from adversaries like Russia and China. The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a release that the Disruptive Technology Strike Force will gather experts from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations from the Department of Homeland Security, and 14 U.S. attorneys’ offices from 12 metropolitan areas to go after illegal actors, strengthen supply chains and prevent U.S. technological assets from being acquired by adversaries. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, from the DOJ’s National Security Division, and Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew Axelrod, from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, will lead the strike force. The Daily Beast Former President Donald Trump’s Save America PAC raised tens of millions of dollars on false claims of election fraud, and now the feds want to know how it was spent. On Sunday, The New York Times reported that special counsel Jack Smith’s team has subpoenaed a “vast array” of Trump vendors, “posing questions related to how money was paid to other vendors, indicating that they are interested in whether some entities were used to mask who was being paid or if the payments were for genuine services rendered.” While the details of Smith’s inquiry are unknown, we do have something of a road map. The report from the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, along with publicly available Federal Election Commission and IRS filings, can shine a light on some of those vendors, offering some insight into what may have caught the DOJ’s eye. ABC News Alaska’s largest school district repeatedly and inappropriately secluded and restrained students with disabilities, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday following an investigation into alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to an agreement reached between the Justice Department and Anchorage schools, the district will eliminate the use of seclusion at all schools and ensure that students are only restrained when there is imminent danger of “serious physical harm to the student to another person.” Anchorage School District Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt planned to address the agreement with the public later Thursday. CNBC The Department of Justice has accelerated its antitrust investigation into Apple, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The company’s policies for third-party apps on its devices and whether it unfairly favors its own products on its mobile operating system are two areas of focus, according to the Journal. Apple shares were slightly positive as of Wednesday afternoon. The investigation, which began in 2019, has gained more litigators assigned to it and new document requests and consultations with companies related to the matter in recent months, according to the report. Politico reported in August that the DOJ was in the “early stages” of drafting a potential complaint against the company. Vanity Fair In the latest sign of Donald Trump’s legal vulnerability, special counsel Jack Smith is invoking the so-called “crime-fraud exception” to compel a lawyer for the former president to testify in the Justice Department’s classified documents investigation. According to the New York Times, which first reported the escalation in the DOJ probe, prosecutors are arguing in a motion that Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran is not protected by attorney-client privilege because their discussions may have been conducted to commit or further a crime, and should have to answer grand jury questions he had previously tried to sidestep. A Trump spokesperson told outlets that the former president and 2024 candidate was the victim of a “targeted, politically motivated witch hunt.” But the move suggests that prosecutors have evidence of wrongdoing by Trump or his associates, and that the special counsel is continuing to take an aggressive approach to his inquiries into the former president. “If they can overcome that privilege and get that testimony before the grand jury, that’s very damaging for the former president,” as national security attorney Bradley Moss told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tuesday evening. NBC 5 Dallas Fort Worth The Department of Justice announced Wednesday the arrest of a third person described as the "main source of supply" in nearly a dozen fentanyl overdoses among juveniles in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch area. United States Attorney Leigha Simonton said 22-year-old Jason Xavier Villanueva was arrested Tuesday by Carrollton Police and the DEA and said he has been federally charged with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. Villanueva, the DOJ said, allegedly worked through a juvenile dealer to supply fentanyl-laced pills to 21-year-old Luis Eduardo Navarrete and 29-year-old Magaly Mejia Cano, the pair arrested last week and accused of dealing fentanyl to kids in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, and was a "main source of supply" of fentanyl in the overdose cases. Vox The Associated Press The Justice Department is sending out more than $200 million to help states and the District of Columbia administer “red-flag laws” and other crisis-intervention programs as part of the landmark bipartisan gun legislation passed by Congress over the summer, officials said Tuesday. Red-flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, are intended to temporarily remove guns from people with potentially violent behavior and prevent them from hurting themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have red-flag laws. “This funding will reduce gun violence and save lives,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. Some of the $231 million in funding announced Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, will also go to crisis-intervention court proceedings and other gun-violence reduction programs. Bloomberg Law A re-booted Justice Department office that aims to expand legal services for people who can’t afford lawyers is working to ensure its survival after being defunded under President Donald Trump. (snip) President Barack Obama’s administration established the office in 2010 as part of an access-to-justice push. Under its first leader, Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe, the office worked to increase funding for state access-to-court programs and filed legal briefs on asset seizure and right-to-counsel cases. Trump after his election effectively shuttered the office. Republicans criticized the operation as duplicating the work of legal aid groups and directing dollars to favored advocacy organizations. Department of Justice Today, the Justice Department, along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia, filed a civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolizing multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the complaint alleges that Google monopolizes key digital advertising technologies, collectively referred to as the “ad tech stack,” that website publishers depend on to sell ads and that advertisers rely on to buy ads and reach potential customers. Website publishers use ad tech tools to generate advertising revenue that supports the creation and maintenance of a vibrant open web, providing the public with unprecedented access to ideas, artistic expression, information, goods, and services. Through this monopolization lawsuit, the Justice Department and state Attorneys General seek to restore competition in these important markets and obtain equitable and monetary relief on behalf of the American public. As alleged in the complaint, over the past 15 years, Google has engaged in a course of anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct that consisted of neutralizing or eliminating ad tech competitors through acquisitions; wielding its dominance across digital advertising markets to force more publishers and advertisers to use its products; and thwarting the ability to use competing products. In doing so, Google cemented its dominance in tools relied on by website publishers and online advertisers, as well as the digital advertising exchange that runs ad auctions. Department of Justice Settlements and judgments under the False Claims Act exceeded $2.2 billion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, announced today. The government and whistleblowers were party to 351 settlements and judgments, the second-highest number of settlements and judgments in a single year. Recoveries since 1986, when Congress substantially strengthened the civil False Claims Act, now total more than $72 billion. “Protecting taxpayer dollars by preventing fraud and abuse is a critical priority for the Department of Justice,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Boynton. “The large number of settlements and judgments this past year demonstrates that the False Claims Act remains one of the most important tools for ensuring that public funds are spent properly and advance the public interest.” The False Claims Act imposes treble damages and penalties on those who knowingly and falsely claim money from the United States or knowingly fail to pay money owed to the United States. The False Claims Act thus serves to safeguard government programs and operations that provide access to medical care, support our military and first responders, protect American businesses and workers, help build and repair infrastructure, offer disaster and other emergency relief, and provide many other critical services and benefits. Department of Justice The Justice Department announced today that it has concluded there is reasonable cause to believe that the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LDOC) routinely confines people in its custody past the dates when they are legally entitled to be released from custody, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the department concluded that: 1) LDOC denies individuals’ due process rights to timely release from incarceration; 2) LDOC’s failure to implement adequate policies and procedures causes systemic overdetentions; and 3) LDOC is deliberately indifferent to the systemic overdetention of people in its custody. For more than 10 years, LDOC has been on notice of its overdetention problem and has failed to take adequate measures to ensure timely releases of incarcerated individuals from its custody. Between January and April 2022 alone, 26.8% of the people released from LDOC’s custody were held past their release dates. Of those overdetained people, 24% were held over for at least 90 days, and the median number of days overdetained was 29. In just this four-month period, LDOC had to pay parish jails an estimated $850,000, at a minimum, in fees for the days those individuals were incarcerated beyond their lawful sentences. At that rate, this unconstitutional practice costs Louisiana over $2.5 million a year. As required by the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), the department provided LDOC with written notice of the supporting facts for these findings and the minimum remedial measures necessary to address them. Department of Justice The Justice Department announced today its months-long disruption campaign against the Hive ransomware group that has targeted more than 1,500 victims in over 80 countries around the world, including hospitals, school districts, financial firms, and critical infrastructure. Since late July 2022, the FBI has penetrated Hive’s computer networks, captured its decryption keys, and offered them to victims worldwide, preventing victims from having to pay $130 million in ransom demanded. Since infiltrating Hive’s network in July 2022, the FBI has provided over 300 decryption keys to Hive victims who were under attack. In addition, the FBI distributed over 1,000 additional decryption keys to previous Hive victims. Finally, the department announced today that, in coordination with German law enforcement (the German Federal Criminal Police and Reutlingen Police Headquarters-CID Esslingen) and the Netherlands National High Tech Crime Unit, it has seized control of the servers and websites that Hive uses to communicate with its members, disrupting Hive's ability to attack and extort victims. “Last night, the Justice Department dismantled an international ransomware network responsible for extorting and attempting to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Cybercrime is a constantly evolving threat. But as I have said before, the Justice Department will spare no resource to identify and bring to justice, anyone, anywhere, who targets the United States with a ransomware attack. We will continue to work both to prevent these attacks and to provide support to victims who have been targeted. And together with our international partners, we will continue to disrupt the criminal networks that deploy these attacks.” “The Department of Justice’s disruption of the Hive ransomware group should speak as clearly to victims of cybercrime as it does to perpetrators,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “In a 21st century cyber stakeout, our investigative team turned the tables on Hive, swiping their decryption keys, passing them to victims, and ultimately averting more than $130 million dollars in ransomware payments. We will continue to strike back against cybercrime using any means possible and place victims at the center of our efforts to mitigate the cyber threat.” There you have it... A baker’s dozen of news articles and press releases reporting on what the DOJ’s been up to… From a quick google search and dated in just the past few weeks… Since January 6th, 2021 the Justice Department has charged 1003 individuals, secured 572 convictions, and sentenced 399 seditionists for their part in storming the U.S. Capitol. 55% of those sentenced have received time in prison. 414 indictments have been handed down by grand juries, government prosecutors have secured 517 guilty pleas, and new defendants are arrested every week... All of that on top of the subpoenas recently issued… Laura Clawson Special counsel Jack Smith and his team of federal prosecutors are very busy as they investigate Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 elections and his hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Mike Pence is preparing to fight their subpoena on the claim that he was acting as the president of the Senate on January 6 and is therefore protected by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. They’ve subpoenaed former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, setting up a likely fight over executive privilege. And aside from those things, CNN reports they are engaged in at least eight secret court cases. If you’re worried time is running out to indict #FPOSTUS, don’t... The statute of limitations for felonies committed in Washington, D.C. is SIX YEARS . Koehler Law The limitations period in D.C. begins at the time every element of the offense has been committed or, in the case of a continuing course of conduct, at the time that course of conduct – or the defendant’s complicity therein – terminates. The limitations period ends at the time prosecution commences. A prosecution is considered to have commenced at the time: (1) an indictment is entered, (2) an information is filed, or (3) a complaint is filed before a judicial officer empowered to issue an arrest warrant assuming that the warrant is issued without unreasonable delay. D.C. Code § 23-113. Every act of obstruction extends the statute of limitations... Further reading: Time is on the side of justice... [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/16/2153327/-What-Has-Attorney-General-Merrick-Garland-And-The-U-S-Department-Of-Justice-Done-For-Us-Lately Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/