In comments to
the New York County Lawyers’ Association yesterday, U.S. Attorney
Preet Bharara complained about sequestration’s impact on his
office, which handles federal prosecutions in the Southern District
of New York:
A prolonged hiring freeze and continuing budget cuts could
ultimately work irrevocable harm to the fundamental mission of my
office…Unless something changes, our office will simply get smaller and
smaller every year….If the blanket cuts continue, we will be forced, in the not too
distant future, to make supremely difficult choices…Something has to give.
Sounds like good news to me, since Bharara’s understanding of
his mission includes pernicious uses of taxpayer money such as
prosecuting people for helping
New Yorkers play poker online, for connecting
drug suppliers with consumers, and even for passing
out pamphlets about jury nullification. If anything, Bharara’s
office would benefit from the prioritization that budget cuts
require. Even in the speech where he whines about not having enough
money to protect the public, he brags about “shut[ting] down a
major on-line currency service used by criminals [Liberty
Reserve, presumaby] and the world’s largest underground website
for drugs and contraband [i.e.,
Silk Road].” A look at Bharara’s recent
press releases reinforces the impression that
sequestration so far has left him plenty of resources to prosecute
people for things that should not be crimes:
Equity Research Analyst Pleads GuiltyIn Manhattan Federal Court To
Insider Trading Charges
SAC Capital Management Companies Plead Guilty To Insider Trading
Charges In Manhattan Federal Court
Co-Founder Of Liberty Reserve Pleads Guilty To Money Laundering In
Manhattan Federal Court
And that’s just November. Bharara says his “fundamental mission”
is “to keep our homeland secure, our streets safe, our markets
fair, and our government honest.” With the possible exception of
“fair” markets, which presumably is how Bharara understands the
goal of criminalizing buying and selling securities based on
forbidden knowledge, one is hard pressed to see evidence of this
mission in these cases.
“What choices am I supposed to make about which categories of
big cases we can and cannot do?” Bharara asks. How about focusing
on actions that violate people’s rights?
To be fair, Bharara does prosecute real crimes from time to
time. But imagine how much he could accomplish if he had fewer
resources.
[Thanks to Nick Sibilla for the tip.]
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/03/think-how-much-preet-bharara-could-accom
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