Filename: Harry3.Art Type : Article Author : Harry Martin Date : 03/22/91 Desc : Federal Corruption Series Part III ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BANKRUPTCY, JUSTICE SCANDAL COULD EQUAL WATERGATE By Harry V. Martin Third in a NEW SERIES (c) Copyright Napa Sentinel March 22, 1991 Reprinted with permission of the Napa Sentinel As if things weren't getting hot enough for the federal bankruptcy court system, but now the INSLAW case is becoming another Watergate. INSLAW was a Washington, D.C.-based computer firm that sold a highly technical tracking software program to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal judges have upheld INSLAW's contention that the Justice Department, under Attorney General Edwin Meese, stole INSLAW's computer program. A bankruptcy judge that made the ruling was not re-appointed to a 14- year term. Several Justice Department officials have since been fired or quit over the case. Now a U.S. House Subcommittee is investigating the case and putting a lot of heat on the Justice Department. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh has been placed in an awkward position because of the case. Though he was not Attorney General at the time the INSLAW scandal broke, he was the man who investigated it and cleared the Justice Department of wrong doing. Testimony has come forward that the Justice Department, under Meese, pressured the bankruptcy courts to declare INSLAW insolvent, forcing the company to release its assets--including the critical software. INSLAW was once threatened if it didn't sell its company to a close Meese associate. After the threat, INSLAW's life was made miserable by the Justice Department. When INSLAW sued the Justice Department it was awarded $6.8 million. The judge who made the award was fired and replaced with a newly appointed judge--the man who prosecuted the case for the Justice Department. A second judge upheld the first judge's ruling. The House subcommittee is accusing Thornburgh of stonewalling the Committee's request for hundreds of documents involved in the INSLAW case. Two years ago, the same stalling tactics by the Attorney General's office played havoc with a Senate investigation of the same problem. But Texas Congressman Jack Brooks is putting the heat on the Justice Department to turn over its records on INSLAW-- Brook's committee controls the purse strings of the Justice Department and has more clout than did the Senate Committee. The protected software has been pirated to the Canadian government. Those who were found responsible for the pirating were close associates of Meese. "No sooner had the piracy been confirmed in Canada than an Israeli intelligence officer alleged that PROMIS (INSLAW's software program) was being used illegally by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies," states James J. Kilpatrick in the March 15 edition of "The Miami Herald." After the re-appointment of the federal bankruptcy judge was halted because of his ruling on the INSLAW case, almost every bankruptcy judge that is handed the case declines to have anything to do with it. "Nobody wants to touch the case," states Chief District Judge Aubrey Robinson. According to Brooks, the Justice Department is now ready to turn over the documents, states the "Legal Times" of Washington, D.C. The scandal touches many high officials in the Justice Department or formerly associated with the Department. They include: * Edwin Meese, former Attorney General. * Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. * U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens. * Justice Department Watchdog Michael Sheheen, Jr. * Gerald McDowell, chief of the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section. * Lawrence McWhorter, head of the Executive Office of the U.S. Attorney's Criminal Division. * Bankruptcy Judge Cornelius Blackshear. * North District of California Federal District Judge D. Lowell Jensen, who was a former Deputy Attorney General and once chief competitor to INSLAW in California. The Brooks Committee has also learned that the Justice Department's computer system is "all botched up" and has also learned that there is a lot of sensitive data within the Department of Justice computer files that is not secure. The INSLAW program was to organize everything and track cases all over the country. The Justice Department is the prime law enforcement agency in the United States. A scandal there could rock the nation in a similar fashion as Watergate did during the Nixon Administration. The Justice Department oversees the Federal Bankruptcy Court and the Trustee system. The Justice Department is investigating the Federal Bankruptcy Court and the Trustee System. The Justice Department has been caught using the Bankruptcy System for their own interest. In other words, the Justice Department is investigating the Justice Department's Bankruptcy System for potential wrongdoings by the Justice Department. But is there really justice in this land?