Biden plan to restore the corrupt DOJ slush fund should stop now The Biden administration is putting a knife into sound public policy by reinstating the Obama Justice Department's biased and subjective "settlements slush fund."
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© Provided by Washington Examiner In 2015, I served as counsel to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and helped end it. So I was disappointed to see President Biden move on day one to reinstate one of the greatest grifts of the Obama years: forcing corporate defendants to donate billions of dollars to politically biased left-wing causes. However, I was not surprised. Democrats are experts at harnessing the bureaucracy to subsidize and advance their agenda. The original mastermind of this slush fund was Tony West, a top Obama Justice Department official and the brother-in-law of the current vice president. Internal DOJ documents tell the story.
In late 2013, West’s deputy emailed colleagues asking, “Can you explain to Tony the best way to allocate some money to an organization of our choosing?” Shortly thereafter, a consortium of activist groups met with DOJ to discuss “making donations mandatory in all future settlements.” Major bank settlements followed. Buried deep in the appendices were provisions requiring nearly $1 billion in mandatory donations. In addition, donations were given double credit against required targets to incentivize these payments over direct relief to victims. The racket extended beyond banks. In late 2016, DOJ required Volkswagen to pay $2 billion to fund an electric car initiative that Congress had specifically rejected.
West did not just shake down corporations. He bilked taxpayers too. In 2012, he engineered a $1.3 billion settlement over the “vehement objections” of career attorneys. The government’s statistical expert from Berkeley said, “If they had gone to trial, the government would have prevailed. ... It was just a joke. ... I was so disgusted. It was simply buying the support” of interest groups.
This dirty deal also inflated the number of claimants, creating a $60 million windfall for plaintiff’s lawyer Joseph Sellers, a member of former President Barack Obama’s transition team. The exaggerated settlement size also resulted in $380 million in leftover money. Rather than return it to the taxpayer-funded account where it came from, DOJ directed that Sellers hand it to nonprofit organizations.
All of this delighted liberal groups. An email circulated saying they ought to build a statue of West and “bow down to this statue each day after we receive our $200,000+.”
House Republicans investigated, but the racket benefited the Left. So Democrats had no incentive to stop it. It was ironic to see House Judiciary Democrats who ignored the West scandal become apoplectic later because President Donald Trump's properties might have benefited from his presidency. They were concerned with arms-length transactions in the millions, but not direct political interference in the billions.
Instead, back in 2016, House Democrats parroted the Obama DOJ's line that there was no evidence it was steering money to liberal allies. This was flatly contradicted by a smoking gun email we found. It showed West’s team had specifically reworded a draft settlement provision to ensure that a conservative-leaning public interest group would be ineligible to receive donations.
Democrats also offered another excuse. Mandatory donations can help address generalized harm to “communities." But this misses a fundamental separation of powers point. DOJ has the authority to obtain redress for victims, meaning those directly and proximately harmed. Once those victims have been compensated, deciding what to do with additional funds extracted from defendants is an issue designated for Congress by Article I of the Constitution.
In 2016, Goodlatte persuaded the House to pass legislation, which would end these abuses by prohibiting settlement payments to nonparties. It died in the Senate, but the Trump Justice Department adopted it as policy in early 2017.
Now, liberal activists are eager to reverse the policy and reopen the spigot. Republicans can fight back using the nomination of Merrick Garland. For four years, Democrats systematically filibustered qualified executive branch nominees solely to delay and prevent Trump from building a functional government. Data show 236 such filibusters in Trump's first three years, versus just 17 during Obama’s entire tenure.
Some Republicans are loathe to use the filibuster as a lever. But here, the nation’s interest in justice is a stake. If Senate Judiciary Committee members unite behind a single reasonable demand of the attorney general nominee, Democrats can avoid a filibuster by acceding to it. Retaining the Justice Department's ban on mandatory donations in place is just such a request.
Further, Judge Garland’s character and background suggest that he would agree that the opportunities for abuse are simply too high. What fair-minded person wouldn't?
Dan Huff is former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.
Typical Obama/fiden/DPST/ccp party corruption, graft, and greed. and teh current fiden crime cabal will have no problem with graft and corruption dedicated to their on pockets.
Absolutely they will cover-up while stuffing their pockets with dollars - millions and billions in teh greed of teh current DPST/ccp crime cabal - and that includes the DPST/ccp corrupt house and Senate.
now to hear the denials, whataboutism, and whines of teh DPST/ccp minions.
As if teh burial of teh Russia hoax - paid for by H... and DPST/ccp minions - is not enough graft, corruption, and criminal conduct by the Flagrantly corrupt DPST/ccp party!
say - DPST/xccp - fiden is setting up teh NSA to monitor the domestic nation for compliance with DPST/ccp marxist agenda.
Those not in compliance - AOC gets them in her re-education camps
Are you making out a list to turn in to the NSA Yet - if not, why NOT????
