It has not been a good month for Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the US. First it was his ludicrous speech about the President's authority to order extrajudicial killings without due process - about which I and others have commented here, here, here and here. Then there was the story about the attempt to hide the identity of a prosecutor who engaged in misconduct and the scathing response by the court criticizing the Dept of Justice (see here), and now it is his testimony regarding the report on prosecutorial misconduct during the Ted Stevens case.
The Blog of the Legal Times is reporting (here) that Holder testified "on Capitol Hill that the Ted Stevens report on prosecutorial misconduct contains "disturbing" findings against Justice Department lawyers." Duh! Given that the court-appointed investigator found back in November that the high-profile prosecution of the late Senator Ted Stevens was “permeated” by the prosecutors’ “serious, widespread and at times intentional” illegal concealment of evidence, Mr Holder's statement is quite an understatement. Tell us something we did not know already. For more on the background story involving the Ted Stevens case go here, here, here, here and here.
The real question is how widespread prosecutorial misconduct is and whether it is true, as some have claimed, that Holder's administration is knowingly turning a blind eye to it. On this question, take a look at the comments under the report in the BLT.
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