From: f_gautjw@ccsvax.sfasu.edu
Newsgroups: misc.legal.computing,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: U.S. Justice Department Statement on Inslaw Affair
Date: 16 Oct 92 08:16:03 CST
Organization: Stephen F. Austin State University

In article <1992Oct15.233830.2508@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, ndallen@nyx.cs.du.edu (Nigel Allen) writes:
> 
> [I don't work for the Justice Department; I'm just forwarding its press
> release. - NDA]
>  
> Here is a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
> 
>  Justice Department Releases Statement
>  To: National Desk
>  Contact: U.S. Department of Justice, Public Affairs, 202-514-2007
> 
>    WASHINGTON, Oct. 13  -- The Department of Justice released today 
> the following statement:
> 
>    Attorney General William P. Barr today told the House Committee
> on the Judiciary that he will not seek the appointment of an
> Independent Counsel as requested in a Sept. 10 letter from a
> majority of the committee's Democratic members.  His reasons for
> this decision were set forth in a letter to the Committee.  Under
> the Independent Counsel statute, only the committee can make these
> materials public, and the attorney general has asked that it do so.
>    The Sept. 10 letter requested the appointment of an independent
> counsel to investigate allegations contained in a report adopted by
> the committee's Democratic majority members entitled, "The Inslaw
> Affair" (Report).
>    The independent counsel statute was designed to apply to certain
> exceptional cases.  Accordingly, the statute's specialized
> procedures are triggered in two specifically defined circumstances
> -- one mandatory and one discretionary.
>    The mandatory provision, 28 U.S.C. 591 (a), requires the
> attorney general to apply the procedures of the statute if and when
> he receives specific and credible information sufficient to warrant
> a criminal investigation of a "covered person."  Covered persons'
> are a small group of the most senior officials in the Executive
> Branch who are specifically listed in the statute.
>    The discretionary provision of the statute, 28 U.S.C. 591 (c),
> authorizes, but does not require, the Attorney General to proceed
> under the statute if: (1) he receives specific and credible
> information sufficient to warrant a criminal investigation of
> someone other than a "covered person"; and (2) he determines that
> an investigation or prosecution of that person by the Attorney
> General or other officer of the Department "may result in a
> personal, financial or political conflict of interest."
>    The department has concluded that the report contains no
> specific information that any "covered person" has committed a
> crime.

	Doesn't this seem strange since it is really the ethics of
key officials in the Justice Department along with former attorney
general Edwin Meese that have been seriously called into question in
the multimillion dollar theft of INSLAW'S PROMIS software and that
the Brooks' committee received such damning testimony from so many
witnesses?

>    Regarding "non-covered" persons, long before the committee
> completed its report, Attorney General Barr appointed retired U.S.
> District Judge Nicholas J. Bua as special counsel to investigate
> all matters related to INSLAW.  Judge Bua has had an outstanding
> judicial career which has spanned almost thirty years.  He has
> served on the county, circuit and appellate courts in Illinois, and
> in 1977, President Carter appointed him to the U.S. District Court
> in Chicago.
>    Judge Bua has full authority to conduct a thorough and complete
> investigation of all INSLAW allegations -- including the power to
> issue subpoenas and to convene grand juries.  He is conducting his
> investigation in a fair and impartial manner.  The attorney
> general's instructions included from the outset of this
> investigation for Judge Bua to notify him of any information
> implicating the independent counsel statute.  Judge Bua found no
> evidence to support invoking the mandatory or discretionary
> provisions of the independent counsel statute before the report was
> issued, or since reviewing the report.

	Does anyone have an accurate reading on Judge Bua's judicial
integrity?

[remainder of text deleted]

Joe Gaut