By Joel Gehrke (@Joelmentum)
Washington Examiner
05/19/16 – 5:22 PM
A federal judge has ordered annual ethics classes for Justice Department attorneys as a punishment for being “intentionally deceptive” during litigation over President Obama’s executive immigration orders.
“Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word ‘Justice,'” U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in a withering order released Thursday.
Justice Department attorneys misled the court about when the Department of Homeland Security would begin implementing President Obama’s executive order granting “deferred action” to illegal immigrants whose children are citizens. In doing so, they tricked the 26 states who filed a lawsuit into “foregoing a request for a temporary restraining order,” according to the judge.
The facts of the deception are not in doubt, Hanen emphasized. “[DOJ] has now admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts,” he said in the May 19 opinion, first noted by the National Law Journal. “It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements … This court would be remiss if it left such unseemly and unprofessional conduct unaddressed.”
As punishment, Justice Department attorneys who wish to appear in any state or federal court within the 26 states that brought the lawsuit have to undergo annual ethics training. “At a minimum, this course (or courses) shall total at least three hours of ethics training per year,” he wrote.
In another case, such “egregious conduct” would lead him to strike the government’s pleadings, but Hanen decided not to take that step because the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in April.
“The national importance of the outcome of this litigation outweighs the benefits to be gained by implementing the ultimate sanction,” Hanen wrote. “Striking the government’s pleadings would not only be unfair to the litigants, but also unfair, and perhaps even disrespectful, to the Supreme Court as it would deprive that Court of the ability to thrash out the legal issues in this case.”
To read expanded article, click here.
The punishment for “egregious” actions that would be “unfair” and “disrespectful” to the Supreme Court is “three hours of ethics training per year?”
HUH?
That seems to me to encourage this conduct, since the consequence is totally insignificant.
No wonder Melissa Mandell misled the Grand Jury; there was apparently no reason not to.
I think that the judge recognizes that he is presiding in a case that will ultimately have a US Supreme Court decision. The Justice Department will be up against the Supreme Court. The judge is sending a message to the Supreme Court that the Justice Deparment is so corrupt that in normal circumstances the judge would throw out the Justice Department’s case. In defference to the Supreme Court, the judge is allowing the case to pursue with a clear sign to the Supreme Court that the case stinks.
Yes, Observer of Facts and I both decry that a judicial decision would not follow the crisp clear logic of law. Truth is, the higher you go up in the judicial heirarchy, the more politics is a factor.
At this point, we do not even know which President will appoint the tie-breaker Supreme Court justice or how much of a fight the Senate will put up to the nominee.