A conversation with Beth Shelburne on ‘Blood Money'
Journalist Beth Shelburne spent over a year investigating the Alabama Department of Corrections, pulling court documents, financial records and internal documents to track settlements over excessive force and what happened to those involved. In 'Blood Money,' a four-part series that ran on the Alabama Reflector last month, Shelburne revealed the state had spent tens of millions of dollars to settle litigation alleging assaults on inmates that led to hospitalizations, brain damage or death. Most of that money went to attorneys for corrections officers. Some officers at the center of multiple allegations excessive force received promotions afterward.
Shelburne discussed the series with Louisiana Illuminator Editor Greg LaRose on the Illuminator's podcast, 'The Light Switch.'
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Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Miami Herald
Bondi made changes to DOJ policy. Her former client Pfizer might have benefited
For the past several years, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for potential foreign corruption violations related to its activities in China and Mexico, according to the company's financial filings. But that appears to have changed after the Trump administration tapped Pam Bondi — previously an outside legal counsel for Pfizer — to lead the Justice department as attorney general. In the company's most recent annual report, filed three weeks after Bondi took office in early February, there was no longer any reference to the Justice Department investigations into the company's potential violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. A quarterly report in May also contains no reference to these investigations. On her first day in office, Bondi rolled back the enforcement of foreign corruption cases that didn't involve drug cartels and international criminal organizations, among a host of sweeping changes she made to the department's priorities. That move was followed five days later, on Feb. 10, by a related executive order issued by President Donald Trump that paused new foreign corruption investigations and enforcement actions. The Justice Department also reportedly reduced the number of attorneys working on such cases and closed nearly half of existing foreign corruption cases. Bondi's stated goal in making the changes was 'Removing Bureaucratic Impediments to Aggressive Prosecutions,' but the actions she and President Trump took were widely seen as a signal that the Justice Department would be less interested in pursuing allegations that major corporations like Pfizer paid bribes to win business abroad. Pfizer is among several companies that filed financial documents this year suggesting that the Justice Department had dropped their federal corruption investigations. The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen raised concerns about Bondi's relationship with Pfizer in a letter sent last month to the Senate Judiciary Committee and questions how she may have played a role in the department's apparent decision to drop the case. 'We would always hope that our elected officials are above reproach ethically and a big part of that is ensuring that they don't have any conflicts of interest,' said Lisa Gilbert, the group's co-president. 'All of this comes back to the appropriateness of Pam Bondi's conduct and whether she should be touching anything that approaches Pfizer.' The Justice Department told The Miami Herald that Bondi's work for Pfizer had nothing to do with foreign corruption. 'Attorney General Bondi's brief work with this company occurred when she was a private citizen, concerned a Florida-specific legal matter, and bears no nexus whatsoever to the Department of Justice's FCPA guidance. Any suggestion to the contrary is incorrect,' said Justice Department spokesman Gates McGavick. Pfizer declined to comment beyond the disclosures in the company's financial filings. Work for Fort Lauderdale firm Bondi – who previously served as Florida's attorney general for two terms and also was one of Trump's attorneys during his 2019 impeachment trial – represented Pfizer while in private practice with the Fort Lauderdale law firm Panza Maurer, which she had been affiliated with since 2021, according to her financial disclosure form. It isn't clear exactly what Bondi did for Pfizer but the drug company is the only client she listed in connection with work for the law firm, which paid her more than $200,000 last year. Bondi also reported working as a lobbyist for the influential company Ballard Partners before entering office. The founder of that firm, Brian Ballard, also is listed as being of counsel with Panza Maurer, the same title Bondi held. Thomas Panza, a founding partner of the law firm, declined to say whether the firm is still representing Pfizer and on what matters it has represented the pharmaceutical company. He said Bondi did work for other clients besides Pfizer in the past, but declined to provide names. He also said that, to his knowledge, no one from the firm has been in contact with Bondi since she took the helm at the Justice Department. Under her federal ethics agreement before taking office, Bondi promised that she would not participate 'personally and substantially' in any matter involving former clients at Panza Maurer for one year after she last provided service to the client. Pfizer isn't the only former client that has raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest for Bondi. The Herald earlier reported that Bondi, before becoming attorney general, had lobbied on behalf of a China-backed refrigerant company called iGas USA which currently has an active lawsuit against the federal government, which is being defended by Justice Department lawyers. Reading the tea leaves While the Justice Department doesn't typically make public when it has decided to drop a foreign corruption investigation without seeking a penalty, legal experts say what a company says – or doesn't say – in its financial filings can provide clues. 'If they had language about it and then suddenly there's no language about it, you can probably infer that either the investigation is closed, or they no longer believe that it's material for investors to know,' said William Garrett, who manages a database of foreign corruption cases maintained by Stanford University's law school. Pfizer isn't the only company that appears to have benefited from the new policies. Three other companies listed in the Stanford foreign corruption case database – Johnson & Johnson, Toyota and medical device company Stryker – indicated in financial filings this year that the Justice Department had dropped investigations into potential foreign corruption violations by their companies. In early April, Alina Habba, the acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, also dropped charges against executives for Cognizant Technologies, an information technology consulting and outsourcing company, citing Trump's executive order. President's Trump's pause on new foreign corruption cases was lifted last month, and the department said it would resume bringing new cases but that it would prioritize focusing on the conduct of individuals rather than attributing 'nonspecific' wrongdoing to 'corporate structures.' The recent foreign corruption investigations involving Pfizer weren't the first time the company's foreign activities came under such scrutiny. In 2012, Pfizer subsidiaries agreed to pay the federal government more than $60 million in penalties and surrendered profits and interest in response to allegations of corruption in a number of different countries. 'Pfizer took short cuts to boost its business in several Eurasian countries, bribing government officials in Bulgaria, Croatia, Kazakhstan and Russia to the tune of millions of dollars,' Mythili Raman, then the principal deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said of one of the investigations. More recently, Pfizer disclosed that the foreign corruption units from the Justice Department and the SEC had requested documents connected to the company's activities in Russia in 2019, but the company ceased making any mention of that investigation last year.
Axios
4 days ago
- Axios
What to know about the DOJ revoking citizenship of naturalized Americans
The U.S. Department of Justice has begun to prioritize stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship when charged with crimes, according to a recent memo. Why it matters: It ramps up the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, which it has expanded to target, deport and detain legal permanent residents and citizens. Driving the news: The DOJ directed attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases where naturalized citizens commit crimes, per the memo. The DOJ calls for "civil denaturalization" in the case of "war crimes," "extrajudicial killings," "human rights abuses," and for those "convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States," as well as "terrorists." "The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence," the memo said. Representatives for the White House, DOJ and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment on Monday evening. What is a naturalized citizen? Naturalization "is the process by which U.S. citizenship is granted to a lawful permanent resident after meeting the requirements established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)," per U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). How many immigrants are naturalized citizens? Of the 46.2 million immigrants living in the U.S. in 2022, 24.5 million – 53% – were naturalized citizens, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of government data. What people are eligible to become naturalized citizens? By the numbers: In the past decade, the U.S. naturalized more than 7.9 million citizens, per the USCIS. Naturalized citizens must undergo an involved application process, but eligibility criteria generally includes being a lawful permanent resident for at least five years, with exceptions for spouses of citizens and members of the U.S. military. The median years spent as a permanent resident for all citizens naturalized in 2024 was 7.5 years. The INA requires that naturalization applicants can read, write and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language and have a knowledge and understanding of U.S. history and government. How many citizens have been denaturalized? From 1990-2017, the DOJ filed 305 denaturalization cases, about 11 per year. The number has surged since President Trump's first term. What they're saying: "Denaturalization is no longer so rare," noted Cassandra Burke Robertson, a professor at Case Western Reserve University's law school, in 2019, saying that the rise began under the Obama administration, "which used improved digital tools to identify potential cases of naturalization fraud from years before." "But the Trump administration, with its overall immigration crackdown, is taking denaturalization to new levels." Robertson also noted that denaturalization was a common political tool of the McCarthy era. Since January 2017, the USCIS has selected some 2,500 cases for possible denaturalization and referred at least 110 denaturalization cases to the Justice Department for prosecution by the end of August 2018. The DOJ filed at least 30 denaturalization cases in 2017 — twice the number it filed in 2016, per The Miami Herald. How does the DOJ guidance change things for naturalized citizenship? In the memo, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote that pursuing denaturalization will be among the agency's top five enforcement priorities for the civil division. "The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence," he said. Are the DOJ's denaturalization efforts constitutional? Robertson told NPR that the DOJ's pursuit of denaturalization cases is particularly concerning. "Robertson says that stripping Americans of citizenship through civil litigation violates due process and infringes on the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment," NPR notes. The denaturalization push gives the Trump administration another tool to police immigrants' free speech rights. The Trump administration has targeted students, universities and immigrants for alleged antisemitism. Frequently, those targeted have been critical of Israel's war in Gaza. The DOJ's memo cites "ending antisemitism" as one premise to prioritize denaturalization. The Trump administration already detained for months — and sought to deport — pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is a green card holder. The government argued in a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that allowing Khalil to remain in the country would "undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States." That echoes the language of the new memo, pushing for the denaturalization of those "convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the United States." Has the Justice Department denaturalized anyone yet?
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
U.S. Department of Justice sues L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, city council over sanctuary policy
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass and City Council members Monday, calling sanctuary city laws 'illegal' and asking that they be blocked from being enforced. The lawsuit, filed in California's Central District federal court, said the country is 'facing a crisis of illegal immigration,' but that its efforts to address it 'are hindered by Sanctuary Cities such as the City of Los Angeles, which refuse to cooperate or share information, even when requested, with federal immigration authorities.' Over the past month, immigration agents have descended on Southern California, arresting more than 1,600 immigrants and prompting protests. According to the lawsuit, L.A.'s refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities since June 6 has resulted in 'lawlessness, rioting, looting, and vandalism.' 'The situation became so dire that the Federal Government deployed the California National Guard and United States Marines to quell the chaos,' the lawsuit states. 'A direct confrontation with federal immigration authorities was the inevitable outcome of the Sanctuary City law.' In a statement to Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi called the sanctuary policies 'the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles.' 'Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump,' Bondi said. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The federal lawsuit comes as the city's elected officials have been weighing their own lawsuit against the Trump administration, one aimed at barring immigration agents from violating the Constitutional rights of their constituents. The City Council is scheduled to meet Tuesday to ask City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to prioritize 'immediate legal action' to protect L.A. residents from from being racially profiled or unlawfully searched or detained. Bass has been outspoken about the harm she says the immigration raids have been inflicting on her city, saying they have ripped families apart and created a climate of fear at parks, churches, shopping areas and other locations. She said the city was peaceful until federal agents began showing up at Home Depots, parking lots and other locations. 'I want to tell him to stop the raids. I want to tell him that this is a city of immigrants. I want to tell him that if you want to devastate the economy of the city of Los Angeles, then attack the immigrant population,' Bass said earlier this month.
