"Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly not pleased about the recent leaks involving the grand jury testimony of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. According to CBS News, the attorney general has been 'exasperated' over what he calls 'selective leaks' in the case."
Leaking about leaking. Freaky. Meta-leaky.
October 24, 2014
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He's only upset because the leaks support the police officer's version of events, and not the thug's.
I bet Holder's bent out of shape. The administration's trying to get the blacks out to vote, and it getting out that Obama/Holder's DoJ has got nuthin' to haul the cop up on Civil Rights charges is going to have more than one black person thinking "these guys are as useless as tits on a boar hog --- I've got other shit to do on voting day than help these clowns out".
And the only new thing in these leaks is that two shots were fired inside the police vehicle and that one of them hit Michael Brown in the hand.
The other stuff has all been posted by "Sundance" on Lucianne.com, and so probably all over the internet, and it was the Brown family's lawyers who first released the coroner's sketch, etc., so it is difficult to see what Mr. Holder has to be upset about.
Except of course, that all this has been exculpatory for Darren Wilson, which may not be what Mr. Holder's Justice Dept. wants to see.
Pot calling the kettle black.
The leaks that don't come upon his direction, those are bad leaks.
My Total Bullshit Detector just exploded.
Can I buy a replacement through the Althouse Amazon Total Bullshit Detector Portal?
Hagar:
"Difficult to see what Mr. Holder has to be upset about"?
Not at all. He's upset because he's no longer the only leaker in this case, and the other leaker has better material.
Poor Eric, the police and prosecutors down there aren't standing around being a whipping boy for Crump's bombastic lies like good little peons should.
The age where the hucksters can sit back and say whatever they want to the TV cameras and have it go unchallenged is over. Expect more leaks like this in controversial cases. Police and prosecutors are tired of being trashed over and over again with the expectation being that they won't respond because that would be unprofessional or some such crap. The lack of respect for alleged (and obviously not) superiors and betters who throw them under the bus for political expediency or out of ideological conviction is creeping through the ranks of the government as well and has always been strong in law enforcement anyway.
People like Holder and this demagogue Crump don't have free reign to say whatever they want to the media and have their narrative get all the press and be swallowed more or less whole anymore. Good.
Who said the first leaks were not approved? A couple of things come to mind. A Justice Department trying to set expectations while maintaining a face of solidarity.
Another possibility is that, since the Grand Jury was not going to announce until after an election, if you leak it now, you might give fuel to stir people up. The added leaked exasperation can work into that, not against it.
I see it differently. I've already seen on twitter that quite a few people are saying that what has been leaked are lies. That white staffers are making it up to cover for a white police officer. I don't believe that there are any "leaks" that aren't first approved. I think that this administration believes that exoneration of the police officer will get those who are sympathetic to the "hands up don't shoot" narrative to the polls.
Gahrie said...
He's only upset because the leaks support the police officer's version of events, and not the thug's.
Which thug are you talking about, Holder or Brown?
Police investigating assault and theft following argument between Brown family relatives
So they appear to have a family tradition of assault and robbery.
Need to send a giant case of Depends to Washington.
Holder isn't "exasperated", and the leaker is almost certainly a gov't agent (FBI, state cop or prosecutor).
In cases involving a shooting by an officer, the prosecutors often use the grand jury differently than in an ordinary case. You can see that happening here, both substantively and with respect to the leaks. The substantive difference is that the prosecution is presenting the whole case to the grand jury. That's not the norm, since the grand jury's only function is to decide whether there is probable cause to charge the defendant. Because grand jury minutes are usually discoverable by the defense prior to trial, the prosecutor normally only presents enough of the case to pass the probable cause hurdle. And since the defendant is not represented in the grand jury -- only the prosecutor gets to address them -- the grand jury typically votes for the indictment requested by the prosecution.
In cases involving officers or other public officials, the grand jury has a different function -- protecting the prosecutor from charges of favoritism. That comes into play especially when the prosecutor anticipates that the grand jury will return a no-true-bill. SO the prosecutor presents essentially the whole case, from which it expects the grand jury to conclude not to indict. From the leaks, you get the sense that this is what is happening in the Ferguson case.
The strategic leaks of information relating to the grand jury's deliberations play into that same objective, and serve the same purpose of protecting the prosecutor from later criticism. It won't help with the die-hard protestors, of course, but that is not the only audience.
Eric Holder.
By the way, Holder's DOJ finally coughed up the Vaughan Index to Judicial Watch yesterday.
I am exasperated he is not in jail.
Wilson is the innocent one,and Brown is very guilty, but a retaliation upon the police must somehow be enacted for 100 years of other white police mistreating innocent black men.
Maybe Missouri can find terminally ill former white police officer who will volunteer to be a paid surrogate Blood sacrifice.
Ad astra per exaspera.
Why is the Attorney General of the United States so personally and emotionally involved in this one case to begin with?
Al said...
Why is the Attorney General of the United States so personally and emotionally involved in this one case to begin with?
10/24/14, 12:36 PM
In order to put direct and indirect pressure on them to come to the "correct" and "proper" conclusions, why else?
Oh and Al, for asking you will now likely be audited as will I for responding...
The selective leaks point to the fact that the cop may have been in the right. The leaked autopsy suggest his palms weren't out (which would be the case if his hands were up) AND That he wasn't shot while running. And suggest that he might have been li punting forward.
So I can see why Holder might be annoyed. You'd think that he would simply accept facts wherever they lay (so if cop did do it then that's what happened, but if Brown charged cop then THAT'S what happened) and not seem to be pushing an agenda. He's seeing a crisis that may in fact be going to waste.
DOJ is acting contrary to its usual practice. Typically they let the state case play out and then, if they don't like the result, start a fed civil rights investigation. By deciding to conduct a federal investigation concurrently with the state investigation they risk jeopardizing the integrity of both, and of course the state prosecutor won't like it that the feds don't trust that he will do it right.
Also, there is not I believe a federal grand jury, and it is not clear to me why Holder has access to the secret state grand jury proceedings.
Dammit, I can't suppress evidence if some white bastard down in the copying room keeps leaking it!
jr565 Holder is worried folks are working out that he IS the crisis.
I found Richard Dolan's point about the difference between normal grand jury proceedings, and those concerning police use of force to be interesting. In cases like this, the prosecutor is using the grand jury to sanitize a decision not to indict. They probably knew up front that it was a justified shooting, but needed this for coverage. In the case of a civilian, they probably wouldn't have even taken it to the grand jury. This is esp. true here, where the case has become so political.
I think that the other thing that he may be alluding to is that the prosecutors need to maintain a good relationship with the police. If they go ahead and prosecute what are fairly clearly (to the police) completely justified uses of force (and, esp. deadly force), they are going to lose the respect of police, and instead of cooperating, the police will passively aggressively work to undermine those prosecutors (e.g. not making court appearances because of work, etc.)
Too f-ing bad Eric. Now you know how many Americans felt you rubber stamped the Marc Rich pardon on the last day of Clinton's presidency.
"Leaking" truth the People is bad; If, and only if, you support Black racism and young thugs.
This idea that the grand jury is being used to sanitize a decision not to prosecute Wilson based on the evidence is becoming ever more obvious as more and more evidence (that the prosecutors have had all along) comes out.
What we know for sure now, that we probably didn't earlier is that the first shots were made in Wilson's Tahoe with Brown's hand/arm in the vehicle. We know this because of the shell casings, bullet holes, Brown's blood in the interior of the vehicle and on Wilson, GSR (etc.) on the hand wound, etc. This of course probably corroborates Wilson's story about Brown attacking him in the vehicle through the open window.
We also now know that there were absolutely no shots to Brown's back, nor to the backs of his arms, ruling out the assertion that Brown had been trying to surrender. And, it appears that Brown was moving towards Wilson at the time he was shot.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the formal autopsy indicates Brown was as high as a kite, possibly at the hallucination level, from pot, at the time that he was shot. He had extremely high levels of THC, etc. in his blood at the time.
O'Reilly had a couple of Black reverends from St. Louis on last night and asked them point-blank, if they would accept it, if the forensic evidence conclusively proved it a justified shooting.
Neither would answer directly, but basically the answer was no. Facts are not going to sway them.
If Holder is upset about the leaks, that confirms the leaked stories are true and not disinformation put out by the Ferguson police department.
I am a white guy watching this whole event in amazement. The death of an 18-year-old is a great loss. He had time to make something of his life. I hope the legal system makes the right judgement on the police officer's decision to shoot.
The part I am amazed at is the actions of everyone after the day of the death. There are probably dozens of people who have been arrested for their actions in the protests. A criminal record usually is seen as a bad thing. The looting destroyed the savings of the business owners and the family incomes of the employees. Who benefits from this? Foregiveness and self-control are virtues in my eyes.
"I wonder who leaked that Eric Holder is exasperated about leaks?"
Depends.
Has there ever been any black politician or celebrity who spoke out in favor of justice over grievance. Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, and Ray Lewis had their day in court. Can anyone recall a black notable who spoke out on behalf of their victims? Can anyone name a Hollywood celebrity, white or black, who's willing to speak out in favor of Zimmerman or Wilson's innocence.......Wilson, like Zimmerman, will probably be allowed to walk free, but he will live out his days in some half shadow of not quite not guilty. Brown and Martin were the big losers, but neither can you say that Wilson and Zimmerman were the winners......There are a lot of psychos in America and you don't need a background check to buy an axe.
Where's Crack?
He needs to 'splain that all Caucasians are evil, wanna-be slaveholders and that's why the police will get away with murdering the gentle giant by shooting him in the back while he was surrendering with his hands up.
Where's Crack?
He needs to 'splain that all Caucasians are evil, wanna-be slaveholders and that's why the police will get away with murdering the gentle giant by shooting him in the back while he was surrendering with his hands up.
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