April 10, 2009

From the Desk of Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton:

Obama Administration Unveils Amnesty Plan

The Obama administration is finally taking up the illegal immigration but you’re not going to like what they’ve got planned. According to the San Jose Mercury News:

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Barack Obama plans to begin addressing America’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as "policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system," said the official, Cecilia Munoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Now, should we be surprised that Cecilia Munoz is taking up the cause for illegal alien amnesty? Not at all.

As some of you may recall, before accepting a position in the Obama administration, Munoz served as Senior Vice President for the National Council of La Raza, the public relations front for the Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest and return it to Mexico. The organization aggressively lobbies for open borders and, you guessed it, amnesty for the 12 million illegals currently residing in the United States. And now they’ve got a friend in the White House.

Already, Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security shut down workplace enforcement (no more raids on employers of illegals), and has given amnesty to some illegals caught violating the law in prior raids. We warned you about Napolitano!

As to the impact such an amnesty program would have on the nation’s southern border, this is not a theoretical question. We’ve been down this road before. Back in 2005, Judicial Watch uncovered a Border Patrol survey conducted by the Bush administration in 2004 to determine what impact amnesty would have on illegal immigration.

Want to take a guess at the outcome? Even the rumor of Bush’s amnesty program led to a sharp spike in illegal immigration. Here are some of the particulars:

• 45% crossed illegally based on rumors of a Bush administration amnesty.
• 63% received Mexican government or media information supporting the notion of a Bush administration amnesty.
• 64% previously entered the United States illegally.
• 80% desired to apply for amnesty.
• 66% desired to petition for family members to join them in the U.S.

No wonder the Bush administration aborted the survey before its completion and ordered government officials not to talk about it: "Do not talk about amnesty, increase in apprehensions, or give comparisons of past immigration reform proposals," a White House memo stated.

If even the rumor of an amnesty plan induces illegals to flood across the border, what is going to happen if Obama and Munoz deliver the real thing? I hope we do not find out.

By the way, you can read the Judicial Watch Border Patrol Survey report we produced based on the survey results by clicking here.

Holder Lets Corrupt Sen. Stevens Walk

If this week’s activities are any indication, don’t expect the Holder Justice Department to take a hard line against political corruption.

In response to rather serious allegations of misconduct by Justice Department prosecutors in the prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens, Attorney General Holder decided to dismiss the case in its entirety against him. Stevens had already been convicted by a jury, but was seeking a new trial based on evidence that prosecutors may have knowingly placed a lying witness on the stand.

According to U.S. News & World Report:

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, at the request of Attorney General Eric Holder…dismissed the conviction of former Sen. Ted Stevens and appointed a special prosecutor to probe the conduct of six federal prosecutors involved in the case.

Judge Sullivan initiated a criminal investigation into the allegations of misconduct by the Justice lawyers – centering, ironically, in the Department’s Public Integrity Section.

Holder is apparently using Sullivan’s ruling as a springboard to make it more difficult to prosecute corrupt public officials. Check this out from Congressional Quarterly:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. signaled Thursday that he is taking additional steps to revamp the Justice Department’s procedures for handling public corruption cases, in the wake of the aborted case against Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens. Holder said that he has told Justice Department lawyers that "their job is not to win cases; their job ultimately is to do justice."

So was justice served by overturning these convictions? Not even close.

As you may recall, on October 27th, Stevens was convicted on seven felony counts of illegally accepting $250,000 in gifts and favors and falsifying his Senate financial disclosure forms. He allegedly accepted a "bonanza" of home renovations and house trimmings from an oil executive and then lied about it.

Even assuming the worst about the conduct of the prosecutors, there was plenty of evidence Stevens was corrupt. It might have been fair to grant him a new trial, but to let him go is an injustice. Holder suggested that Stevens’ age was one of the reasons he declined to seek a new trial. But Stevens would have happily served in the Senate at 85!

Stevens lost his battle for reelection, but with a little help from a fellow political hack at the Justice Department, he won his battle in court.

So we have an ineffective congressional ethics process and a Justice Department lacing up the kid gloves for politicians who violate the public trust and the rule of law. Blagojevich (and his friends in the Obama White House), Bill Jefferson, and a bunch of other corrupt politicians under Justice’s scrutiny must be cheering Holder’s recent actions. For more, you may be interested in this Fox News piece that offers our contrarian view on Eric Holder.

Ethics Committee Investigates Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. in Blago Scandal

A few weeks ago, I told you about several high-profile Obama White House advisers/supporters caught up in the federal criminal investigation of impeached former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, including Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, David Wilhelm and J.B. Prizker. (These individuals were all listed on federal subpoenas obtained by Judicial Watch.) Now you can add one high profile Democratic congressman to the list.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times:

A congressional ethics board has launched a preliminary inquiry into U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), related to President Obama’s vacant Senate seat and the corruption investigation of ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, formed just last year, voted in late March to conduct a "preliminary review" of actions surrounding Jackson’s bid to be appointed to the Senate seat, according to documents released to parties involved in the probe…

…The panel has asked parties in the Blagojevich case — including his former gubernatorial staff and campaign staff — to turn over any documents, e-mails, or other correspondence involving Jackson Jr. and his campaign staff; Jackson’s brother, Jonathan, and political fund-raisers Raghuveer Nayak and Rajinder Bedi, lawyers close to the probe told the Sun-Times.

Nayak, Bedi, and Jackson’s brother, Jonathan, reportedly attended a December 6th Blagojevich fundraiser, and allegedly discussed Jesse Jackson Jr.’s senate candidacy. Emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named "Senate Candidate A" in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama’s seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich.

I don’t believe the House ethics process will result in anything terrible for Jesse, Jr., but at least it is a reminder to our corrupt Establishment (including the liberal media) that there’s more than a few Washington politicians who still have something to answer for related to the Blagojevich scandal.

(For more on our efforts to hold Jonathan Jackson (and his father, Jesse) accountable for misconduct, click here.)

Jesse Jackson, Jr. is the second member of the Illinois delegation undergoing an ethics review related to the Blagojevich scandal. The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee is investigating U.S. Sen. Roland Burris as well.

Burris apparently lied about his contacts with disgraced and impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. By The Washington Post’s count, Burris has changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.

Burris was apparently raising money for Blagojevich at the same time the former Illinois governor put the Obama Senate seat up for sale.

The more we learn about this scandal, the deeper it goes. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful Easter.

Until next week…

Tom Fitton
President

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