"Is he a Bushie?", asked Harry Reid, about USA Alex Acosta, Southern District of Florida (Miami)

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"Is he a Bushie?", asked Harry Reid, about USA Alex Acosta, Southern District of Florida (Miami)

Why, yes he is, Senator. I'm very glad you asked.

March 26, 2007

Federal prosecutors in Miami were caught off guard by criticism from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Washington who suggested they were going soft on convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta was flying to Colombia on Thursday when Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, criticized a proposed sentence reduction for the former Greenberg Traurig lobbyist at the center of one of the biggest corruption scandals in Washington.

�Is he a Bushie?� Reid asked about Acosta.

Tensions have been mounting between Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House over a scandal over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys allegedly for political reasons.

Sources close to the Abramoff case bristled at Reid�s criticism, saying a recent court filing to secure a reduction for Abramoff was routine and that the disgraced former lobbyist was central to bringing down several high profile officials.
Abramoff was solely responsible for the conviction of former U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, according to one source.

In a statement, Acosta said: �Federal prosecutors routinely seek the cooperation of individuals convicted of crimes to pursue higher profile targets. This is an important law enforcement tool. That is the case here. Since his guilty plea, Mr. Abramoff has cooperated with federal authorities in several important criminal matters and continues to do so.�
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida filed a motion last week asking for a reduction in Abramoff�s sentence in exchange for his �substantial� cooperation. According to sources, a nearly identical motion will be filed by prosecutors this week for Adam Kidan, Abramoff�s co-defendant and former partner in the Dania Beach-based SunCruz Casino gambling boat operation.

(read more)

U.S. Suggests Cutting Abramoff Sentence

March 22, 2007

MIAMI -- Federal prosecutors took the first steps toward reducing the prison sentence of former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, currently scheduled for release in 2011 for a Florida fraud conviction.

Documents filed in federal court say Abramoff has provided "substantial assistance" in a separate Washington corruption scandal investigation and continues to work with investigators from his prison cell in Cumberland, Md.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul F. Schwartz did not recommend how much Abramoff's sentence should be cut.

In the court papers filed Wednesday, Schwartz said prosecutors would recommend a reduction in his sentence and would file further documents describing the "nature, extent and value" of his cooperation.

Abramoff, once a powerful Washington lobbyist, and ex-partner Adam Kidan were sentenced in Florida last March to nearly six years in prison for concocting a fake $20 million wire transfer during their 2000 purchase of the Fort Lauderdale-based SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet.

The bogus transfer enabled the pair to get $60 million in financing for the deal.

Abramoff also has pleaded guilty to three federal charges arising from the Washington corruption probe. He has yet to been sentenced in that case.

(read more)

Don't worry Jack, Bush's DOJ appointees installed in Miami are greasing the skids for you.

That's the current news.

Let's take a look at how Alex Acosta came to be the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

As I read this recent piece, a particular paragraph leaped out:

New U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records

March 23, 2007

.....

Last April, while the Justice Department and the White House were planning the firings, Rove gave a speech in Washington to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states that he said could be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those fired.

(read more)

Now, I have not heard Florida being mentioned in this current USA politicization scandal as yet, but remained confident that something would ooze out soon. So, I started poking around a bit on Acosta.

Starting with Acosta's nomination for an Assistant Attorney General slot at DOJ by George W. Bush in June, 2003 and confirmation by the US Senate in August, 2003 to the Civil Rights Division of DOJ:

Oh, and what were we consumed with during this period? We weren't finding any WMD's in Iraq. And top ranking officials in the White House were leaking the name of one our most valuable deep covert operatives specializing in anti-nuclear proliferation.

Debate Begins Over DOJ Civil Rights Pick

July 22, 2003

For many critics of the Bush administration, the leadership shake-up in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is small cause for celebration.
Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd Jr., who received mixed reviews over his two-year tenure, said his farewells Friday. Boyd's likely successor, 34-year-old R. Alexander Acosta, would be the first Hispanic to run the division. Acosta held the unit's No. 2 slot for nearly two years during the current administration and sits on the National Labor Relations Board.

The changing of the guard seems unlikely to dramatically alter a civil rights agenda driven largely by the conservative priorities of President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Many civil rights advocates and minority groups complain that, under Boyd's watch, the federal government weakened enforcement of civil rights laws, stopped pursuing high-stakes employment discrimination cases, and failed to investigate violations of the Voting Rights Act in connection with the 2000 presidential election. And as principal deputy of the division from January 2001 until December 2002, Acosta is closely linked to many of the division's controversial positions.

"Boyd's tenure in the Civil Rights Division has been a major disappointment and has been harmful in a lot of ways," says Elliot Mincberg, general counsel of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way. "The $64,000 question is whether Acosta will try to effect some change."

Lawyers who have worked with Acosta say that he is a "team player" and a "facilitator."

"Alex is a lot more of an inside-the-Beltway guy than Ralph Boyd," says Vincent Eng, legal director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. "He definitely knows how to work the system in order to accomplish things."
Indeed, Acosta seems the quintessential young Republican Washington lawyer -- well-connected in conservative circles and a regular on the Federalist Society circuit.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the campus chapter of the Federalist Society, Acosta clerked for Judge Samuel Alito Jr. of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered a possible Bush pick for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Acosta went on to join the D.C. office of Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis as an associate in the firm's prominent appellate group. Among Acosta's conservative colleagues at Kirkland were Kenneth Starr, who later served as Whitewater prosecutor; Paul Clement, now deputy solicitor general; and Jay Lefkowitz, now a senior White House policy adviser.

In 1997, Acosta left private practice and worked as a legal fellow for the Center for Ethics and Public Policy, a conservative think tank, where he wrote and spoke against judicial activism. Acosta's advisers on the project included notable conservatives William Bennett, the secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan; William Kristol, editor and publisher of The Weekly Standard; Edwin Meese, attorney general under Reagan; and Dick Thornburgh, attorney general during the first Bush administration.

So, here is evidence of who his trusted advisers, friends and mentors were in 2003, when he was installed by the US Senate into a top position in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.

One of the interesting things that emerged when Acosta served in the number 2 slot of the Civil Rights
Division under Boyd, is that:

According to supporters, Acosta also applied pressure to the Commerce Department for the release of census data in time to have an impact on language assistance in the 2002 elections.

Wonder if Alex Acosta's "pressure" on Commerce in 2002 to release census data was a big help to Tom DeLay, in his 2002 quest to redraw districts in Texas?

Drawing the Line

March 6, 2006

For three days in October of 2003, Tom DeLay left his duties as majority leader of the House of Representatives and worked out of the Texas state capitol, in Austin. During the previous year, DeLay had led his Republican colleagues there in an effort to redraw the boundaries of the state�s congressional districts. For more than a century, congressional redistricting had taken place once every decade, after the national census, but the Texas Republicans were trying to redraw lines that had been approved just two years earlier. Several times during the long days of negotiating sessions, DeLay personally shuttled proposed maps among House and Senate offices in Austin. Once, when reporters glimpsed DeLay striding through the corridors of the state capitol, they asked him about his role in the negotiations. �I�m a Texan trying to get things done,� he said.

Before the end of the month, the Republicans had pushed their plan through both houses, and it paid off in November of 2004. The Texas delegation in the House of Representatives went from seventeen to fifteen in favor of the Democrats, to twenty-one to eleven in favor of the Republicans.

(read more)

This might give some insight into that question:

Poll Position

September 20. 2004

Federal law gives the Justice Department the flexibility to focus on either voter access or voting integrity under the broad heading of voting rights, but such shifts of emphasis may have a profound impact on how votes are cast and counted. In the abstract, no one questions the goal of eliminating voting fraud, but the idea of involving federal prosecutors in election supervision troubles many civil-rights advocates, because few assistant United States attorneys have much familiarity with the laws protecting voter access. That has traditionally been the province of the lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, whose role is defined by the Voting Rights Act. In a subtle way, the Ashcroft initiative nudged some of these career civil-rights lawyers toward the sidelines.

.....

As recently as last year�s gubernatorial election in Kentucky, Republicans placed �challengers,� who may query a voter�s eligibility, in polling places in Louisville�s predominantly black neighborhoods, an act that many Democrats regarded as an attempt at racial intimidation. An emphasis on voting integrity, whatever the motivations behind it, often helps Republicans at the polls.

The person in over-all charge of the Administration�s voting-rights portfolio is R. Alexander Acosta, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. On May 4th, Acosta invited representatives of many leading traditional civil-rights organizations, such as the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, to the seventh-floor conference room in the Justice Department Building to talk about his plans for the upcoming election. Acosta, who is a thirty-five-year-old Cuban-American from Miami, served first as a top political appointee in the Civil Rights Division, where he was known for his close attention to the rights of Spanish-speaking minorities. After the 2000 census, Acosta asked the Census Bureau to make data available before the 2002 elections, hoping to locate Spanish-speaking communities and provide bilingual ballots. �Alex was very helpful in making sure that the bureau got the data on a timely basis, so jurisdictions could make all aspects of voting accessible,� says Marisa Demeo, who was then a lawyer with the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which gave Acosta its 2003 Excellence in Government Service Award.

The May 4th meeting addressed issues that related more to the traditional voting-rights concerns of African-Americans than to those of Latinos. Acosta opened the session with an unusual request: that no one take notes on what he had to say. The meeting was a courtesy, he said, but he didn�t want to have his exact words thrown back at him later. (Acosta has declined repeated requests to be interviewed.) According to several people present at the meeting, Acosta described how Voting Section lawyers will monitor ballot access at the polls while federal prosecutors will be on call to respond to allegations of fraud. He informed the group that ninety-three federal prosecutors would travel to Washington in July for a two-day training session, and that they would all be on duty on Election Day. Acosta said that the changes were being made in good faith and asked those assembled to keep an open mind.

The idea of placing prosecutors on call on Election Day created misgivings both inside and outside the Voting Section.

.....

Since Ashcroft took office, traditional enforcement of the Voting Rights Act has declined. The Voting Section has all but stopped filing lawsuits against communities alleged to have engaged in discrimination against minority voters. �D.O.J. is a very bureaucratic institution,� Jon Greenbaum, the former Voting Section lawyer, said, �and it�s hard to get cases filed under any Administration, but we were filing cases in the Clinton years.� As even civil-rights advocates acknowledge, there are fewer vote-discrimination cases to bring than there have been in the past. The Justice Department�s Web site says that �several lawsuits of this nature are filed every year,� but since Bush was sworn in the Voting Section has filed just one contested racial vote-discrimination case, in rural Colorado, which it lost. Justice Department sources say the Voting Section is also considering whether to sue a Mississippi locality that has an African-American majority. Such a lawsuit would be the first use of a key section of the Voting Rights Act to protect the rights of white voters.

The main business of the Voting Section is still passing judgment on legislative redistricting in areas that have a history of discrimination. Under Ashcroft, its actions have consistently favored Republicans�for instance, in Georgia, where the department challenged the Democrats� gerrymander, and in Mississippi, where the Voting Section stalled the redistricting process for so long that a pro-Republican redistricting plan went into effect by default. The Voting Section�s role in the controversial redistricting of Texas was more direct and, ultimately, more significant. After the 2000 census, Texas, like most states, put through a new redistricting plan. Then, after the midterm elections, Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader, who is from Houston, engineered passage of a revised congressional redistricting plan through the state legislature, which may mean a shift of as many as seven seats from the Democrats to the Republicans. It was unprecedented for a state to make a second redistricting plan after a post-census plan had been adopted. When the DeLay plan was submitted to the Justice Department for approval, career officials in the Voting Section produced an internal legal opinion of seventy-three pages, with seventeen hundred and fifty pages of supporting documents, arguing that the plan should be rejected as a retrogression of minority rights. However, according to people familiar with the deliberations, the political staff of the Voting Section exercised its right to overrule that decision and approved the DeLay plan, which is now in effect for the 2004 elections.

(read more)

So, when suddenly, a vacancy appeared for the US Attorney position for the Southern District of Florida, based in Miami, Alex Acosta was the dark horse surging into the position.

Who left? Marcos D. Jimenez.

According to the Daily Record, on Monday, July 29, 2002, Marcos D. Jimenez, of Florida, was confirmed as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida for a term of four years. Readers may remember Marcos Jimenez -- who was, along with Ted Olson, one of the lead attorneys who argued George W. Bush's case in the contested 2000 presidential election.1 In 2003 he was appointed to the "inner circle" -- the Attorney General's Advisory Committee (AGAC).

Yet, on April 21, 2005, less than 3 years after his appointment, Jimenez resigned. His resignation didn't make much of a ripple with the tsunami of the Abramoff scandal swamping the national media despite the fact that Jimenez's South Florida District is where the Abramoff scandal was born ...

But, why, after less than 3 years after his appointment, did Jimenez resign? More here....

But, the US Attorney's Office in Miami wanted to know, "Who is Alex Acosta?"

August 01, 2005
By Julie Kay

Who is Alex Acosta?

That�s the question South Florida attorneys are asking about the new acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
�No one knows anything about him,� said Brian Tannebaum, president of the Miami chapter of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. �I haven�t met him yet.�

Kathleen Williams, the top federal public defender in South Florida, said, �I have never met the U.S. attorney. He has not practiced in the area, so none of us knows him.�
Even heavyweight Republican lawyers in town aren�t familiar with Acosta.
�I met him once, but I don�t really know him,� said Thomas Spencer, a top GOP lawyer in Miami and chairman of the Miami-Dade County Judicial Nominating Commission.

But what South Florida attorneys do know is causing them some concern � namely that Acosta has never tried a case and has little experience in criminal law.
�The word on the street is that he has no criminal law experience,� Tannebaum said. �I would like a U.S. attorney who has experience in criminal justice � who has some working knowledge of criminal justice.�

Acosta, who came to Miami after heading the Justice Department�s civil rights division, notes there are 235 prosecutors in his office.
He said his job requires management more than courtroom skills, the ability to interact well with law enforcement and community groups, and high-level contacts to help the region.

So, this virtually unknown individual comes to fill a crucial position, much to the bewilderment of those in the US Attorney's Office.

And guess who swore in Mr. Acosta for his new position as US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida?

Justice Samual Alito.

Justice Alito Swears In Former Clerk as Miami U.S. Attorney

Posted by Peter Lattman
October 30, 2006

Justice Alito presides over the marriages of his law clerks. He also swears them in when they�re appointed U.S. Attorney.

The Miami Herald reports (Hat Tip: Bashman) that Justice Alito swore Alex Acosta in last week as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Alito praised his former clerk but had one criticism of his abilities when he served as a law clerk in 1994 for the then-Third Circuit judge: ��Alex�s knowledge of sports was a little bit lacking,'� he said, adding that Acosta probably didn�t know the difference between the Florida Marlins and the Miami Dolphins.

At 37, Acosta, the son of Cuban exiles, is one of the nation�s youngest U.S. Attorneys. The Harvard Law grad served on the National Labor Relations Board and then became the first Hispanic to lead the Justice Department�s civil rights office.

HLS grad becomes U.S. attorney in Florida

Post Date: October 30, 2006
Acosta

R. Alexander Acosta

On Wednesday, October 25, Harvard Law graduate R. Alexander Acosta �94, was formally sworn in as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jr.

Confirmed on June 9, Acosta is one of the youngest U.S. attorneys on record. With a career that began as a clerk for Justice Alito, Acosta moved on to the Washington office of Kirkland & Ellis, where he specialized in employment and labor issues. A member of the National Labor Relations Board and a principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, Acosta was the first Hispanic to head the Justice Department�s civil rights office.

"Our job is, and must be, to bring high-impact cases," said Acosta during his swearing in ceremony. Having recently implemented a task force targeting violators of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, he has already tackled several significant cases.

A Miami native, Acosta said he was deeply honored by the opportunity to serve the citizens of South Florida.

(bold type added)

R. Alexander Acosta

Official DOJ Announcement

Well, now that Mr. Alex Acosta is in the catbird seat in the US Attorney's position in Miami, a hot spot of action just waiting to be investigated and prosecuted, how's his record?

U.S. Attorney's Porn Fight Gets Bad Reviews

Obscenity Prosecution Task Force will focus on Internet crimes and peer-to-peer distribution of pornography

Julie Kay
Daily Business Review
August 30, 2005

When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult porn has angered federal and local law enforcement officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office. They say there are far more important issues in a high-crime area like South Florida, which is an international hub at risk for terrorism, money laundering and other dangerous activities.

His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving children. According to high-level sources who did not want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors porn cases over their objections.

Acosta, who told the Daily Business Review last month that prosecuting obscenity was a priority for Gonzales, did not return calls for comment.

"Compared to terrorism, public corruption and narcotics, is no worse than dropping gum on the sidewalk," said Stephen Bronis, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Miami and chair of the white-collar crime division of the American Bar Association. "With so many other problems in this area, this is absolutely ridiculous."

.....

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Christian conservative who stepped down last December, also disappointed social conservatives by not prosecuting porn during his tenure. In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Ashcroft placed his focus on anti-terrorism efforts.

But the social conservatives have gained traction with new Attorney General Gonzales, a close associate of President Bush who is considered a strong contender for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination. In May, Gonzales established an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force under the office's criminal division.

(read more)

Looks like Mr. Acosta is a good little GOP operative.

Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

International Association of Chiefs of Police

Miami, FL
September 26, 2005 - 10:00 am

.....

First, in many cases, computer crimes cross jurisdictional boundaries.

Second, cyber crimes have changed the nature of collecting evidence.

Third, computer capacity and technological advancements are challenging our forensic analysis.

Fourth, the interconnected environment of high-tech crimes force law enforcement to confront this disturbing behavior not only at the source, but also through the vast web of distribution.

Lastly, the Internet has made traditional crimes easier to commit and more devastating in their effects when successful.

.....

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So, Gonzales' main points in this speech don't mention pornography.

Pornography is a very convenient pretext to clamp down on the Internet.

And it's because true Americans are using the Internet, and methodically exposing the vast criminality, and not the least of which, the dangerous politicization of the US Department of Justice by the Bush Administration.

So, with US Attorney Alex Acosta, sitting in the driver's seat in the Southern District of Florida, he is in a position to affect all kinds of outcomes for carrying out the miscarriage of justice that is mandated by the Bush Administration.

Jose Padilla

Appeals court reinstates most serious Padilla charge, January 30, 2007

Jack Abramoff

U.S. Suggests Cutting Abramoff Sentence, March 22, 2007

Washington Post, April 1, 2007:

Prosecutor Posts Go To Bush Insiders

It is up to us now.