This is very familar to me. In the mid 1980′s, the FBI then the DEA began to turn junkies into Class I violators through professional informants. An informant would go to a junkie and ask him-can you get me 500 kilos of cocaine for 45,000 per kilo? (always a price well above the going wholesale rate) to which the junkie would always say sure. The next step would be to tape record the conversation and then get a wiretap (no sample even reqired). A wiretap on the junkie would go up and listen to him and his buddies talk about dope with no hope of anyone ever giving them 1 kilo much less 500. Then when they cannot produce it, they get busted for conspiracy to distribute 500 kilos of cocaine. (My favorite story was when the FBI had to give their informant money to give to the target as the kingpin’s phone had been shutoff for nonpayment.) At a conference in 2004, the DOJ head of Narcotics gave a speech and stated that she did not understand why over 75% of narcotics wiretaps were dryholes and of the remaining cases over 75% of the charges were talking about dope on the phone and not real dope counts. The FBI is now doing the samae thing in terrorism.

Do you know the difference between the Boy Scouts and the FBI? The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. There is nothing quite so frightening as watching ignorance in action (and their reputation with the public keeps going up)-Goethe

Yes, you are corrrect about the Ensign investigation, but I would not consider it to be a complex case-it is a simple criminal case committed by a ‘famous’ man (like Barry Bonds) rather I was speaking about the complaint regarding GoldmanSachs. Oh by the way, I was considering the fraud theory, that is Goldman committed fraud when it shorted an investment it was selling investors, frankly I don’t think it will fly.

I’m speaking from personal experience, for a moderately complex white collar criminal investigation, it takes two years just to get the records-if you are lucky and you do not need foreign records. IF you need foreign records, add another two-four years. Some records, like Lichenstein bank records are unobtainable. After you get the records, then you can start to interview the witnesses and go through the usual rigamarole in that all corporate witnesses are essentially represented by law firms who have mutual defense agreements regarding cooperation. In short, as you interview any witness, the defense knows everything which you do. In the meantime you have lawyers hired by the targets who repeatedly file OPR and state bar referrals alleging the prosecutors and investigators are having sex with the corporate records while wearing Nazi insignia. This is why bank fraud statute of limitations were amended to 10 years. There is a big difference between writing a report and drafting an indictment with facts and witnesses to prove each element of the offense. In short, this is a lot like professional basketball, it looks a whole hell of lot easier than it really is to do it. Try it sometime, if you are looking for a nervous breakdown.

The major problem I have with this post is that you state Obama’s lawyers advocated lying to judges. No advocating, they flat assed did it. I’m sorry, but I think that the attorneys who did this and those lawyers who counseled this approach need to be disbarred and put in prison. The first rule of a litigator is that the truth (as he understands it) is stated to a judge-no half truths; quarter truths or any other garbage. If you cannot speak the truth, then keep your mouth shut. Once you lie, you are a criminal and there is no other way to express it.

I have been told that a sitting nuke leaves a distinct radioactive signature which instuments can pick up? Is this true?

Speaking professionally, I find it amazing that DOJ/DOD believed that they needed jail house informants to make cases against the others. Any prosecutor who relies, and particularly needs to rely, on jail house informants simply does not have a prosecutable case. I know, I know, prosecutors do this all the time, but that does not make it right.

Count 5 was the shit on the wall count. A prosecutor takes everything he has and gooballs into one unmanageable, unfathomable count and hope he strikes a nerve with a juror who wants to convict the defendant of something-It’s kind of a RICO count on perjury. At the time of my retirement, most courts considered perjury to fit Section 1503.

Immunity consists of two types: transactional and use. Transactional immunity is a formal agareement given by a prosecutor that a person will not be prosecuted for a specific crime based upon a set of facts. Transactional immunity is rare and can only be approved by the DAG. Use immunity is of two types: judicial and pocket. Judicial immunity is given by a court based upon the application of a prosecutor (and only a prosecutor) who promises that anything which the person says will not be used against him or any evidence derived directly or indirectly from their statement will not be used in any further criminal proceeding except a proscution for perjury or otherwise making a false statement. Pocket immunity is a signed letter from the proseuctor saying the same thing and is usually given to ‘friendly’ witnesses.

Oh, by the way, if I would have brought this charge based upon the transcript which I read of Bond’s grand jury testimony, most judges who I tried cases in front of would have handed me the transcript back and suggested that I brush up on my cross-examination skills.

Prosecutors call the type of Bonds prosecution ‘starfucking’-that is, the major reason the case was filed is due to the ‘star’ and there is no substantive felony violation. In short, without the ‘star’ noone in their right mind would file a charge (let me assure you thousands of persons lie before the grand jury every year) The one thing the prosecutors all have in common is a prosecutor who is trying to do his best impression of Thomas Dewey-the most dangerous type of prosecutor is one who seeks power- Usually, as y’all know, this type of conduct is utilized to prove criminal intent on the substantive count and the only reason it would be charged is a fear that a particular judge would not let it into eveidence without the charges. Star fucking usually blows up in the face in the face of the prosecutor ala John DeLoran.

Based on personal knowledge, the FBI as a matter of course keeps open files on millions of persons so in the even that another agency develops a good criminal case, the FBI can claim that it had a preexisting investigation to steal the case. The same is true of ‘informants’-the FBI claim a lot of people as informants when they are not. The only way to demonstrate that someone is an informant is to obtain their informant file and determine whether there is a signed informant agreement in the file.