RoxieCorleone ретвитнул
As a tease for what is coming later -- but also because I get tired of Weissmann being rolled out as a legal authority on anything -- my article will begin thusly:
"Andrew Weissmann “left” DOJ in the weeks following the Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision reversing his crowning achievement as head of the Enron Task Force, the conviction of Big Five accounting firm Arthur Anderson.
Here are the facts surrounding his departure:
Weissmann was part of the Enron Task Force when it was created in 2002, and became Director in 2004. But the Enron investigation began prior to the Task Force being formed, and was handled by Weissmann in the Fraud Section of DOJ’s Criminal Division. It was then moved to the Enron Task Force when Weissmann moved.
The indictment was handed down in March 2002, and the trial was in May-June 2002 — the facts were largely undisputed and the issues at trial mostly involved “intent” and a legal interpretation of the “obstruction” statute Weissmann relied upon.
The conviction led to Arthur Anderson’s collapse as a company, with 85,000 jobs lost world-wide, and 30,000 jobs lost in the U.S.
The Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Arthur Anderson on May 31, 2005. The vote was 9-0 that the theory used by Weismann was constitutionally unsound — with Antonin Scalia agreeing with Ruth Bader Ginsburge that Weissmann didn’t know what he was doing.
DOJ announced Weissmann’s departure from the Enron Task Force on July 18, 2005 — 6 weeks after the verdict.
When Weissmann joined the New York law firm of Jenner & Block in January 2006, the firm’s announcement said he was “Special Counsel” to FBI Director Mueller from July to December 2005 — strongly suggesting Mueller saved him from being politely "asked" to leave DOJ in the aftermath of the Arthur Anderson FIASCO.
From the Supreme Court’s opinion in Arthur Anderson, commenting on the legal theory pressed by Weissmann in the trial through the jury instructions he urged the trial judge to use:
"The instructions also were infirm for another reason. They led the jury to believe that it did not have to find any nexus between the “persua[sion]” to destroy documents and any particular proceeding…. [T]he Government relies heavily on §1512(e)(1), which states that an official proceeding “need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense.” It is, however, one thing to say that a proceeding “need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense,” and quite another to say a proceeding need not even be foreseen. A “knowingly … corrup[t] persaude[r]” cannot be someone who persuades others to shred documents under a document retention policy when he does not have in contemplation any particular official proceeding in which those documents might be material."
Basically, Weissmann pressed the theory that a criminal conviction for document destruction could stand even when the entity engaging in the destruction had no reason to believe the documents would ever be used in a criminal investigation.
He was wrong — 9-0 — but 85,000 people still lost their jobs and a Big Five accounting firm ceased to exist because of his incompetence. Did Weissmann have to go? Well, he went.
His LEGAL CAREER should have ended after that — not just his DOJ career. But, as I noted, Mueller saved him. Don’t ask me why.
Shipwreckedcrew@shipwreckedcrew
What an absolute GIFT. I get to spend all day on Sunday explaining why Andrew Weissman is a duplicitous moron, why he was reversed 9-0 by the Supreme Court, and why his criticisms of the SPLC indictment make my case for me. The more people rely on him for ANYTHING the more disconnected from reality they appear.
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