CYA. That stands for more than "Career Young Attorneys," I think.
If MERRICK GARLAND's Department of Justice is so different from Bill Barr's justice department, then why is MERRICK GARLAND's DOJ still fighting Bill Barr's battles? And in the process causing a federal judge to find that lawyers in MERRICK GARLAND's DOJ submit affidavits that are "not worthy of credence," all the while the DOJ is "disingenuous to [the] Court"?
The case of the disingenuous memo and incredible affidavits is a good example.
A group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued to disclose a memorandum that Bill Barr's justice department wrote about the Mueller Report.
JULIE STRAUSS HARRIS, Esquire is the DOJ's Senior Trial Counsel. Both under Barr and now under MERRICK GARLAND, HARRIS has led the defense against CREW's attempt to make the justice department disclose the memo. She has signed and submitted the government's pleadings in this case from the beginning in 2019, according to PACER, the electronic docket.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson is the presiding judge in CREW's lawsuit. HARRIS told Judge Jackson many reasons that the memo should be kept quiet. Among other things, JULIE STRAUSS HARRIS told Judge Jackson that the memo should be kept secret because Edward O'Callaghan, one of the memo writers, made invaluable "prosecutorial recommendations" to Attorney General Barr. Download Judge Amy Berman Jackson REDACTED FOR THE PUBLIC Opinion of May 3 2021 in CREW v. Department of Justice. Judge Jackson quotes JULIE HARRIS STRAUSS at p. 24, n. 13.
The problem is that Mr. O'Callaghan could not actually make any prosecutorial recommendations. In Judge Jackson's words, "there was no prosecutorial decision on the table." Id.
Not only was AG Barr "being disingenuous ... but DOJ has been disingenuous to this Court with respect to the existence of a decision-making process that should be shielded by the deliberative process privilege." Court Order of May 3, 2021, at 26.
Judge Jackson went on to find that the affidavits submitted on behalf of the DOJ in this case "are so inconsistent with evidence in the record, they are not worthy of credence." Every affidavit submitted for the DOJ in this case was submitted by JULIE HARRIS STRAUSS.
Judge Jackson ruled that the memo should be fully disclosed. Nonetheless, she herself quoted only part of it to the public, apparently pending further action by the DOJ.
DOJ appealed. JULIE STRAUSS HARRIS signed the notice of appeal. Download CREW v. DOJ Doc. No. 31 Notice of Appeal filed 05.24.21 (D.D.C. No. 19-1552 (ABJ)). HARRIS appealed the Court Order in which, to use Judge Amy Berman Jackson's words in her Order, the Court found the DOJ to be "disingenuous" and the affidavits submitted by HARRIS "not worthy of credence," i.e., incredible.
To sum it all up, CYA in this case describes trying to save a lawyer's reputation after she has been called out by a federal judge. If the judge's Order does not stand, the thinking goes, then maybe the lawyer's reputation can be restored.
If you or I had submitted false evidence to the judge, or if the judge called us disingenuous, the holes we would crawl into might not be deep enough to restore our reputations.
All this poor lawyering or lapsed judgment or earned humiliation, whatever else all this may be, is all being paid for by you and me, the federal taxpayers. All at our expense.
And all the while, Mr. Barr is still in charge of the justice department.
Bill Barr photo by Alexander Drago / Reuters.
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