The answer is simple – it comes from the Judgment Fund which is the mother of all slush funds. Nothing in the world is comparable to it other than dictators stealing the treasury of a nation. In the U.S., Congress has made such secret payments legal and routine.

The Judgment Fund pays judgments against the United States and settlements agreed to by the Department of Justice. It is a fund that does not disclose the receipt of the payments or settlements even when the actions establish major agency policy or when requested by congressional appropriators. It is a fund without accountability or transparency since the federal agencies making the payments will not provide Congress or taxpayers information about who was paid by the fund.

How does the Judgment Fund work? It is a permanent, indefinite, and unlimited congressional appropriation continuously available to pay money judgments entered against the United States and settlements of cases in or likely to be in litigation with the United States. As an indefinite appropriation, it is so secret that Congress no longer even debates what the amounts are for. The funds are appropriated, no matter what the amount. The Department of the Treasury just pays the claims when the proper paperwork is presented to it.

How did such a fund come about? Prior to 1956, Congress actually appropriated funds to pay for every single judgment against the United States. Under this procedure, Congress was actually aware of what claims were being made against the United States and was able to evaluate the actions of the agencies being sued.

In 1956 Congress passed the Judgment Fund Act to provide for payment of most judgments against the United States without the need for individual appropriations. The congressional justification was to enhance the efficiency of the appropriations process. In 1961 Congress amended the statute to pay for settlements in addition to judgments but with a ceiling on such payments of $100,000. In 1977 Congress eliminated the ceiling and now the fund is available to pay any covered judgment or settlement, regardless of amount.

The Judgment Fund functions as an automatic withdrawal from the nation’s treasury. Moreover, the payments made to satisfy a judgment against the US or to settle the alleged illegal activity of the agency, do not come out of the agency’s budget.  There is no penalty to the agency for misconduct or illegal activity since payments do not have to be reimbursed unless Congress appropriated funds to the agency for such payments. Simply, agencies are not required to pay for their misconduct or unlawful activities.

What payments have been made under the Judgment Fund? While the Department of the Treasury provides a list of payments and the amounts, it does not identify who received the payments. In a 2016 article, Politico described how federal agencies, using the Judgment Fund, hid more than $4.3 billion in payment to settle sexual harassment complaints. In 2020, the Judgment Fund paid out nearly 7,500 payments totaling over $14 billion.

Even after the House and Senate, Committees on Appropriations requested details concerning the names of claimants, the amounts to be paid and a description of the facts, the Treasury continued its refusal to provide the information to Congress. Moreover, the Obama administration settled over sixty lawsuits with environmental groups. It is likely it utilized the Judgment Fund since there was no other money appropriated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to settle lawsuits. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know since the EPA, like all federal agencies, refuses to release the names of the recipients

Are there limits to these secret payments? Unless there is a specific statute authorizing payments in a different manner, there are no limits to payments from the Judgment Fund. According to a September 7, 2016, House Judiciary Committee report, Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, the Obama administration likely used the Judgment Fund to settle the $1.7 billion payment to the Islamic Republic of Iran for claims made on the sale of military equipment before the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This is the incident in which the US flew planeloads of cash, in foreign currencies, to Iran as part of what could be termed a ransom payment for American prisoners.

It is time for Congress to take seriously one of its main legislative responsibilities; its control over the nation’s purse as required by Article I, section 9, clause 7 of our Constitution. It can no longer leave the Executive branch with blank checks to be used when needing money to make secret payments, most times for wrongdoing. It is time for our government to be honest with us about what it spends and the recipients of its spending. After all, it is our money!

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Chuck Ross

Four federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., withdrew from Roger Stone’s case on Tuesday amid turmoil surrounding a prison sentence recommendation for the longtime Trump confidante.

Aaron Zelinsky, who handled several of the most prominent cases in the special counsel’s probe, and Jonathan Kravis, an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., filed notices of their withdrawals with Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who oversaw Stone’s trial. Prosecutors Adam Jed and Michael Marando also withdrew.

Zelinsky said in his filing that he “resigned effective immediately” as a special assistant U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. According to CNN, he remains a federal prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore, where he worked before joining the special counsel’s team in 2017.

Kravis said in his filing, which he submitted shortly after Zelinsky, that he “has resigned as an Assistant United States Attorney and therefore no longer represents” the government in the Stone case.

Hours before the dual withdrawals, a senior Justice Department official told reporters that the agency plans to revise federal prosecutors’ recommendation that Stone serve up to nine years in prison on false statements and witness tampering charges.

Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., recommended that Stone serve between 87 and 108 months in prison on the charges.

President Donald Trump blasted the recommendation in a series of tweets early Tuesday morning, and indicated he is considering a pardon for Stone.

He called the recommendation “disgraceful,” and said he “cannot allow this miscarriage of justice.”

A Justice Department official issued a surprising rebuke of the D.C. attorney’s offices’ recommendation, calling it “extreme, excessive and grossly disproportionate.”

The official also said the recommendation was “not what had been briefed to the Department.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment about Zelinsky and Kravis’s withdrawals from the Stone case.

Zelinsky worked on several components of the sprawling special counsel’s probe. He was involved in the prosecution of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. In the Stone probe, Zelinsky interviewed and investigated Randy Credico and Jerome Corsi, two Stone associates who prosecutors suspected might have been a link between Stone and WikiLeaks.

Witnesses and attorneys who dealt with Zelinsky described him to the Daily Caller News Foundation as among the most aggressive prosecutors they dealt with on the special counsel’s team.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated with additional prosecutors who withdrew from Stone’s case. 

This article is republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Jason Hopkins on January 18, 2019

In a strong indication the Trump administration is preparing for the next phase of the immigration battle, the Department of Justice is now hiring lawyers to handle border wall litigation in South Texas.

The two attorney positions — which are advertised to pay between $53,062 and $138,790 — are to be based in the southern Texas towns of Brownsville and McAllen. Preferred candidates are to have “at least four (4) years of civil litigation experience in litigation of land condemnation cases, oil and gas disputes, and real estate matters,” according to the posting on USAJobs, adding that knowledge of the Spanish language “is helpful, but not required.”

The jobs were first posted in December, with the deadline for applications closing on March 5.

The attorneys will likely be tasked with eminent domain and other property seizure legalities — issues that will undoubtedly arise if President Donald Trump is able to move forward with construction of a wall on the southern border.

The federal government is on the 28th day of a partial shutdown — the longest in U.S. history. Trump is demanding Congress send him a budget that includes $5.7 billion in funding for 200-plus miles of new and replacement barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, but liberal lawmakers have stood sharply opposed to the proposal.

The budget standoff between the president and Democratic leaders has reached a fever pitch.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday told reporters she would delay the State of the Union address, an annual speech by the president that is held in the House of Representatives, because of the government shutdown. Trump responded the following day by cancelling Pelosi’s planned trip to Europe and the Middle East. Trump’s letter reportedly came minutes before the speaker and Democratic staffers were to board a bus for the trip.

Trump, however, told Pelosi she was free to fly commercial if she so chooses.

Should the White House ultimately prevail in the border wall fight, the administration would then have to negotiate with property owners who reside on the wall’s path. While the law typically favors the government in eminent domain cases, property owners could possibly drag out court cases for over a decade.

“Eminent domain is something that has to be used, usually you would say for anything that’s long, like a road, like a pipeline or like a wall or a fence,” Trump told reporters earlier in January in the Rose Garden. He made clear that the White House would wield eminent domain authority only if landowners refuse to sell the land needed for the wall, and he pledged that all landholders would receive fair prices.

“I think it’s a fair process. I think it’s a process that’s very necessary, but I think it’s fair,” he explained. “A lot of times we’ll make a deal, and I would say a good percentage of time we’re making deals.”

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Though recently, cryptocurrencies have caught the eyes of DOJ for another reason; market price manipulation.

The lack of regulation on most free market e-currencies has caused the DOJ to investigate potential illegal trading tactics in Bitcoin and Etheruem markets.  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates derivatives related to Bitcoin, is looking into possible trade collusion, spoofing and wash trading. Explanations of these terms follow.

“Spoofing” is putting in a buy order to create false optimism or artificial demand. The idea behind spoofing is to draw in investors to inflate the price to then sell later on; leaving the late investors with an overpriced security, stock, or in this case, cryptocurrency.

Similarly, “wash trading” is the same investor making many trades; both buying and selling, to create artificial activity. The idea is to increase trading volume which seemingly gives more demand to the underlying asset.

Regulators have tried to root out these trading techniques on traditional markets like wall street. Though Bitcoin’s anonymity has made it trickier for regulators to spot illegal activity. Early investors know market manipulation is not a new trend in cryptocurrency markets. Cryptocurrencies have often been victim to artificial inflation. Commonly referred to as a “pump and dump”, many investors will wait for this artificial inflation to peak, then sell. This leaves late adopters with nothing but false promises of getting rich. Though many investors fear impending regulation on cryptocurrencies, some are looking at this crackdown as a step in the right direction.

With the recent Bitconnect scandal (or rather scandals), this increase in regulation might actually help deter fraud in cryptocurrency marketplace. The Winklevoss twins, owners of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Trust Co., were a step ahead of regulators by hiring  Nasdaq Inc. last month to monitor potential illegal trading tactics on their exchange. Also, the Winklevoss twins urged other exchanges to follow in their footsteps to self-regulate their own industry. The last few months in the cryptocurrency marketplace have been a bumpy or “pumpy and dumpy” road. Though, these are potholes the government seems to actually care about and are trying to fill as cryptocurrencies continue to grow in technological importance and fiscal power.

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By Anders Hagstrom

Federal gun prosecutions are up 23 percent compared to the summer of 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday.

The DOJ credited the spike to a March order issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to crack down on gun crime across the U.S. So far in 2017, 2,637 defendants have been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, compared to 2,149 in 2016, the DOJ statement reported.

“That sends a clear message to criminals all over this country that if you carry a gun illegally, you will be held accountable,” Sessions said. “I am grateful to the many federal prosecutors and agents who are working hard every day to make America safe again.”

The DOJ also saw a 10 percent increase in the number of defendants charged with having a gun while trafficking drugs or committing a violent crime.

Sessions announced a new program in June focused on reducing violent crime in major cities. The program, the National Public Safety Partnership (PSP), provides increased federal assistance to local, state and tribal law enforcement officers, specifically to target violent gun and gang crime. While the program launched with only 12 cities participating, the DOJ expects more to join within the year.

President Donald Trump also provided Chicago with a gun crime task force of 20 agents from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in June.

Trump’s figure is actually slightly lower than the Chicago Sun-Times’ count, which put the 2017 total at 1,737 at the end of June, including 306 people who have died.

Following the crackdowns from Trump and Sessions, the DOJ is on track to prosecute 12,626 defendants for gun crimes in 2017, the highest number since 2005.

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By Nick Givas

White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci may have violated protocol by speaking to the Department of Justice (DOJ) as a representative of the Trump administration, according to LawNewz.

Scaramucci called in to CNN’s “New Day” Thursday morning to say that he has spoken to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his “buddies at the FBI” about recent White House leaks, prompting MSNBC Justice and Security Analyst Matthew Miller to tweet a response.

LawNewz cited a memo by former Attorney General Eric Holder stating that White House-DOJ communications regarding investigations can only take place between “the Counsel to the President, the Principal Deputy Counsel to the President, the President or the Vice President and the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General.”

White House communications teams may only contact their communications counterparts within DOJ. It would be highly irregular for Scaramucci to have directly contacted Sessions or the FBI about a specific investigation.

If Scaramucci didn’t directly inquire about a specific investigation, however, then there would be no violation and no immediate legal consequences.

Miller tweeted a second time to reiterate the communication should be scrutinized, citing a current DOJ review of Scaramucci’s hedge fund and it’s sale to a Chinese financial firm.

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By Kevin Daley

The Department of Justice argued Wednesday that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not protect LGBT individuals from employment discrimination.

The brief, more or less, is a continuation of the Obama Justice Department’s policy. Though the previous administration signaled sympathy for gay workers bringing discrimination claims under the Civil Rights Act, it never took the position that the law encompasses LGBT individuals.

DOJ filed an amicus (or “friend-of-the-court”) brief in a case currently before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concerning the dismissal of a gay employee named Donald Zarda. It is somewhat unusual that the Department would weigh in on the case, as it concerns two private parties. Justice Department lawyers do not usually file briefs in private employment disputes.

BuzzFeed News’ Dominic Holden first reported DOJ’s decision.

The case concerns Zarda and his former employer, Altitude Express, a Long Island-based sky diving service. Zarda was dismissed from the company in 2010 after he revealed his sexual identity to a female patron. He claims his dismissal violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sex.

The theory, deployed to good effect in other federal appeals courts, argues that LGBT workers are protected by the civil rights law, even though they are not named anywhere in its text. Advocates point out that the law prohibits all sex-based discrimination, and workplace animus towards homosexuals is generally the product of sex-based stereotypes or gender norms — in other words, discrimination on the basis of sex.

They further say that the Supreme Court previously endorsed this approach in a 1989 case, when it found that the test for determining the validity of gender-based classifications must be applied “free of fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of males and females.”

But the Justice Department argues Congress never intended to include LGBT persons within the scope of the law, noting Congress has never expanded the legislation to include homosexual workers despite changing social attitudes. They further say a court decision expanding the reach of the law would be an improper usurpation of the legislative role.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an independent federal agency, is backing Zarda in the case.

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By Steve Birr

Republicans joined with Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday to deny Attorney General Jeff Sessions the power to interfere with state marijuana laws.

The bipartisan rebuke comes after numerous attempts by Sessions to petition Congress to give the Department of Justice power to crack down on state legalization laws. The committee overwhelmingly approved the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment Thursday, which originally passed in 2014 and prevents the DOJ from using federal funds to prosecute individuals in states with medical legalization.

“This vote is not only a blow against an outdated Reefer Madness mindset, it is a personal rebuke to Jeff Sessions,” Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “The attorney general, in contravention of President Trump’s campaign pledges and of public opinion, specifically asked Congress to give him the power to arrest and prosecute medical marijuana patients and providers who are following state laws. A bipartisan group of his former Senate colleagues just said no.”

Congress voted to reauthorize the amendment in May, but it was only attached to a short-term spending bill. In a letter sent to Congress later that month Sessions asked they dismantle the amendment, arguing the state protections undermine the DOJ’s ability to combat the illegal drug trade.

Sessions cites the current drug epidemic involving opioids, which killed a record 33,000 Americans in 2015, as reason to remove the restrictions placed on the Justice Department. Recent research, however, suggests that legal marijuana is helping reduce abuse rates of prescription drugs.

“A majority of states now allow medical cannabis, and we will not allow drug warriors in the Justice Department to roll back the clock,” Angell told TheDCNF. “The war on marijuana is ending, even if Jeff Sessions doesn’t realize it yet.”

Medical marijuana is legal in 29 states and Washington, D.C., where it is also legal for recreational use. Nearly 20 percent of Americans now have access to legal pot.

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By Grace Carr

Inmates increasingly use drones to smuggle anything from cell phones to weapons into jails across the country, according to Department of Justice (DOJ) documents released in mid-June.

The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, reveal more than a dozen attempts to transport mobile phones, drugs, and porn into federal prisons over the past five years, according to USA Today.

Experts say current anti-drone technologies fail to protect jails against drones transporting dangerous items, including firearms. Smuggling contraband into prison through any method is illegal, but no law currently bars drones from flying near correctional facilities.

“Civilian drones are becoming more inexpensive, easy to operate and powerful. A growing number of criminals seem to be recognizing their potential value as tools for bad deeds,” Troy Rule, a drone legislation advocate and Arizona State University law professor, told USA Today.

According to the Justice Department report, an inmate at the high-security federal prison in Victorville, Calif., smuggled two cell phones in March 2015 via drone, and jail officials didn’t discover the drone drop for five months.

In 2014, a drone crashed while attempting to deliver marijuana to a prison in South Carolina, and a drone-delivered drug package sparked a fight in an Ohio facility in 2015, according to The Verge. An inmate and two accomplices were convicted of smuggling drugs and porn into Maryland’s Western Correctional Institution via drone in 2016. There is a pattern of the cases over years, and 2017 is seeing increasing drone drops.

Jail management consultant Donald Leach says smugglers could be discouraged by introducing anti-drone jammers. The jammers disable the signals on drones and block their entry by hacking into the operating system. Leach, who worked as a jail administrator for 25 years, said drones pose a greater threat than any other methods of smuggling illegal goods.

“Traditionally some inmates would bribe the staff or visitors to bring drugs and other small items into jail illegally by hiding them in body cavities … but drones have opened up the possibility of transporting much bigger and much more lethal items like guns into the facilities,” Leach said.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has requested technology that could be used to stop drones near facilities. A pending Senate bill called the Drone Federalism Act would also encourage local legislation if passed.

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By Steve Birr

The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania is “disturbed” by Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ attempt to roll back protections for state medical marijuana laws and threatened legal action in a letter Thursday.

Gov. Tom Wolf is reacting to a request from Sessions to Congress to eliminate a rule barring the Department of Justice from spending federal funds to interfere with state medical legalization laws. Sessions claims the restrictions are hampering the Justice Department’s ability to battle the national drug scourge. Wolf is unsettled by Sessions’ request, saying he fears it could undermine Pennsylvania’s sovereignty, reports Lancaster Online.

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania partially legalized medical marijuana for certain conditions in 2016 and plan to expand and implement the program by 2018. State officials plan to grant 27 dispensary permits and 12 grower-processor permits by the end of June.

“I am disturbed to know that you are actively pursuing a change in federal law to go after medical marijuana suppliers,” Wolf said in the letter sent Thursday. “We do not need the federal government getting in the way of Pennsylvania’s right to deliver them relief through our new medical marijuana program. If you seek to further disrupt our ability to establish a legal way to deliver relief of medical marijuana to our citizens, I will ask the Attorney General of Pennsylvania to take legal action to protect our residents and state sovereignty.”

A letter from Sessions to Congress leaked Tuesday showing he petitioned lawmakers to scale back legal protections for medical marijuana.

In the letter sent to Congress in May, Sessions asks they dismantle the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which passed in 2014 and prevents the DOJ from using federal funds to prosecute individuals in states with medical legalization.

Sessions argues these protections undermine the DOJ’s ability to combat the illegal drug trade.

Sessions cites the current drug epidemic involving opioids as reason to remove the restrictions placed on the Justice Department. Federal officials estimate that drug overdoses killed more than 60,000 Americans in 2016. Recent research, however, suggests that legal marijuana is helping reduce abuse rates of prescription drugs.

A study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence in March found hospitalization rates for opioid abuse and dependence in states with medical marijuana are roughly 23 percent lower than states without legal access.

A group of bipartisan Senators introduced a comprehensive marijuana package Thursday in an effort to protect state medical legalization laws from a potential federal crackdown. The bill gives the Department of Veteran Affairs the freedom to recommend medical marijuana to patients and removes cannabidiol (CBD), used to treat chronic pain and severe epilepsy, from the Controlled Substances Act.

The legislation will also ease restrictions on the research community attempting to study the medical applications of marijuana.

Medical marijuana is legal in 29 states and Washington, D.C., where it is also legal for recreational use. Nearly 20 percent of Americans now have access to legal pot.

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