DOJ Launches Crackdown on Leaks After New Orleans Police Debacle

The Justice Department is reeling from last week’s 129 page federal court opinion vacating convictions against New Orleans police officers in a case brought by the infamous DOJ Civil Rights Division. (See PJ Media’s,  “Justice Dept. Lawyer Karla Dobinski’s Misconduct Sends Cops to Prison.”)  The opinion documents the Inspector Clouseau-like investigation by the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility into DOJ lawyer misconduct, involvement of the #2 DOJ official James Cole’s office in whitewashing another internal report, and a “carnival like atmosphere” among the DOJ prosecution team that trampled on the police officer’s due process rights.  A full appreciation of the misconduct cannot be had unless one takes the time to read the full 129-page opinion.  It is simply the most thorough documentation of misconduct yet produced about Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

Today we are learning a bit about the DOJ’s response.  Is it to fire the attorneys involved in the misconduct such as Karla Dobinski?  Seemingly not, as I left a message on her fully-active voicemail asking if she is still employed for a piece I am doing for a newspaper.  Plus, she is an activist so she is unlikely to get fired.  Is the DOJ response to disclose fully information Judge Kurt Englehardt sought to pry out of the DOJ over months?

Of course not.

Karla Dobinski

This won’t happen because right now, the DOJ staff inside the Criminal Section at the Civil Rights Division don’t think Dobinski should be fired.  They sympathize with her.

Dobinski earns a base salary of $155,500, paid for by you.  She has engaged in misconduct so egregious that convictions for five defendants were tossed.  In any law office or state government agency, those two facts would be irreconcilable.  But not in Eric Holder’s DOJ.

Instead, the response of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys is to crack down on leaks and the release of information.  PJ Media has obtained emails sent by top Justice Department officials.  A portion reads as follows:

[DOJ] employees have access to a variety of information that is not available to the public, like the existence of a criminal investigation, the identity of targets, or personally identifying information of fellow employees.  “Non-public information” is defined as information the employee gains by reason of Federal employment and knows (or should reasonably know) has not been made available to the general public. Please remember you must safeguard the information you learn in the course of your duties at the USAO — it should not be shared with friends, family, or members of the public. Employees who disclose non-public information may be subject to discipline, up to and including removal from their position.

Seems obvious, no?

Yet in this Justice Department, the corruption and misconduct is so pervasive, that the obvious must be made explicit.  I documented pervasive dishonesty, sanctions, misconduct and lawlessness inside the Civil Rights Division at DOJ in my book Injustice.  PJ Media has covered the same so extensively it is impossible to catalog all of the links. (One,  two, three, just for starters.)   And now a federal court has scalded Holder’s operation with details so disturbing, so petty and so abusive, that whatever trace of moral authority Holder and his gang possessed, has vanished entirely.