Looking for corruption in all the wrong places — that’s the Boston U.S. Attorney Ortiz’s prosecutors who should look into the mirror if they really want to see corruption in Boston. I’ve been writing about this since close to the inception of this blog in 2012 and to my amazement not only has it not deterred Ortiz’s lawbreakers it has emboldened and empowered them to continue their nefarious ways.
It started way back when the people under AUSA Fred Wyshak brought Bill Bulger into the grand jury that was supposed to be for his secret testimony and just before he was to appear before a Congressional committee they leaked a transcript of his testimony in violation of the law to Shelley Murphy of the Boston Globe. She dutifully printed these grand jury minutes. Nothing happened to anyone involved in the leak.
Over the years from the time the Boston Globe named the Boston U. S. Attorney Ortiz as its Bostonian of the Year it appears she has cooperated with that newspaper in feeding it secret information about her investigations and in return it seems the Globe has provided her cover in her dealings. Not only that, it appears she follows the Globe’s direction in her prosecutions as if she were a cub reporter under a hardened editor.
Most recently I wrote about this in the Senator Brian Joyce case. There the matters before the grand jury appear to be handed off to the Globe enabling it to write article after article about the progress of the investigation. As usual, the Globe targeted Joyce and sicced Ortiz’s office after him. She apparently keeps the Globe informed of her progress which it then writes about.
Shockingly we see it again happening with Mayor Martin Walsh.
Sunday’s Globe had an article that stated Mayor Walsh “became drawn into . . . [A sweeping federal investigation into allegations of strong-arm tactics by unions] through wiretaps on which he was recorded in 2012, saying he had told a development company it would face permitting problems on a planned Boston high-rise unless it used union labor at another project in Somerville.”
The wiretap was apparently done by federal agents who are working with Boston federal prosecutors. It is a crime to disclose the contents of a wiretap to people who are not authorized to receive them. Here, Shelley Murphy and others at the Globe, are not authorized have received them. They say they got the information from two people. Like with Bill Bulger the Boston U.S. attorney’s office appears to have released this information, unlike with Bulger where the remedy is contempt, here a crime has been committed for the purpose of embarrassing Walsh. The source of the criminal act is the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston. Should there not be an investigation to see who is committing this crime and feeding unauthorized people with the information.
I suggest you read the article. You will see how much of it is being fed directly to the Globe by federal prosecutors. Even Mayor Walsh had to exclaim: “The only information I have on this is what the Globe is asking me.” Had the mayor paid more attention to this blog he would have known the Globe and the Boston federal prosecutors work closely together each one helping out the other.
I mentioned that Senator Joyce was a Globe target. That whoever told him to cooperate with the prosecutors made a huge mistake. His cooperation gained him nothing and the Globe knew all about the federal investigation.
The Sunday article notes: “To help deal with Globe questions about the investigation in recent days, Walsh brought in Boston public relations giant Rasky Baerlein.” First of all Rasky represents the Red Sox which is owned by the owner of the Globe. That was a blunder because no one can serve two masters. The conflict of interest seems to be flashing bright red. I hope it was not Rasky that advised Walsh to talk to the Globe.
The Globe ‘s questions may very well have been prepared in conjunction with the prosecutors. When you are being investigated your best friend is silence. It was so simple for Walsh to have avoided this. He did not have to walk into the trap where the Globe painted an unfair picture of him. He should have said,“I cannot comment because this is being investigated.”
The Globe did a hatchet job on him making it looked like he was hiding things – – (1) “declined to address many specifics” — (2) “clearly concerned that a probe into events before his City Hall years could taint his image and legacy as mayor.” – – (3) “Walsh declined to answer a question about whether he had been before a grand jury” – – (4) “The Walsh administration has refused to release text messages and phone records Kelly cited in his report” – – (5) “The Walsh administration also denied a Globe records request for any public documents provided to federal investigators.” Etc. etc.
Mayor Walsh must realize the Globe and the Boston U.S attorney are out for his scalp. He is stumbling around. He mistakenly hired a PR firm. He needed to hire a good criminal defense lawyer and not one who was a former federal prosecutor.
The battle is on. He should understand that and prepare accordingly. For all the lessons in life Walsh has learned the one he seems not to have learned which can lead to fatal results is failing to know his enemies.
Patty Multiple And Confusing Gender Identity ” PATTY ” … I have only and ever identified myself by my birth name … John King McDonald. … on this blog.
We know that despite your enigmatic tag whereby you introduce your own curious fancies … ” PATTY ” … that you are a man. So please conduct yourself as such.
Not surprisingly you cannot simply give a citation that you presumably directly relied upon and quoted. Instead you … obfuscate ( look it up if you are feeling overwhelmed 🙂 ) by introducing the even more absurd proposition that an active federal prosecutor would have made such an indiscreet declaration and that Carr would quote him. There is a Carr column in which there is an amalgam of elements you deliberately reconstructed to suit your peeve that is in memory’s recesses, but your fanciful PATTY take on it comes up quite short.
You know a few things about South Boston and the way Jimmy took out the garbage. You have gleaned certain facts, but know little truth . It is time for your garbage on this blog to be … metaphorically … taken out. Next time you wheel out such BS from the trashbin of memory please remember there are those who know better.
As to ” Attempts At Fancy Writing ” by me I can only conjecture that my writing style, or even better in my eyes 🙂 , lack of any particular ” Style ,” really bugs ya’. It rankles you. You join as minor soprano however a chorus of those concerned out of all reasonable proportion with my … modes … of expression. Why is this? ?? … I suggest that is a question for those who know their place, like you … Pat … to answer. Just be yourself . You presented an argument. I refuted it in a moderate tone and without rancor. You had only to answer in kind with the citation. You did not. Fancy that 🙂
John Multiple-Last-Name MacDonald,
Your attempt at fancy writing is confusing. If you’re doubting the assertion or looking for a citation, then you look it up. While you’re at it, you’ll see that Brian Kelly was cashing in, or had already cashed in, at that time. Carr could have been quoting Kelly, but you’ll find Kelly was past picking future prosecution targets.
Above the Law
https://epic.org/epic/board/burnham/book.html
Above the Law
Secret Deals, Political Fixes and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice
“This book tells us that far too often the Justice Department represents not the people, but the politicians, corporations and other entrenched private interests. In Above the Law, David Burnham once again shows us why his investigative reporting is a national asset.”
— Seymour M. Hersh, Pulitzer Price winning investigative journalist
Myth: The Justice Department is a rational and evenhanded law enforcement mechanism.
Fact: The Justice Department is always political, steadily more powerful, sometimes corrupt and surprisingly ineffective.
The United States Justice Department — which includes the FBI, the DEA, the INS and more than 100,000 employees — functions as law enforcer, investigator and jailer of American citizens. The department’s legal reach is vast, extending to social controversies of race, religion and economics as well as to thousands of criminal and civil laws, including espionage; mail fraud; corruption; racketeering; vote-fixing; pollution; computer crimes; adulterated food and drugs; price-fixing; tax fraud; gambling; forgery; and the sale, manufacture or possession of illicit drugs. The department then, and the attorney general, make decisions daily that affect every American citizen. But who monitors the Justice Department and its pervasive dealings?
In Above the Law, David Burnham reveals the chilling truth about this powerful arm of the government. Examining its records on such issues as drug enforcement, civil rights and national security, Burnham discovered that the agency runs virtually unpoliced, even after the BCCI scandal, the forcible abduction of Manuel Noriega and the disastrous mission at Waco. For the first time, David Burnham conducts a thorough investigation of the investigator, exposing the Justice Department as never before.
Read Above the Law and learn:
* How the FBI and the DEA have relentlessly expanded their electronic surveillance networks to encompass more and more average Americans — rather than suspected criminals.
* How the war on drugs currently consumes more than half of the Justice Department’s budget but remains a well-documented dud when it comes to reducing the use of illegal drugs.
* How and why FBI director Freeh, following a trail blazed by J. Edgar Hoover, directs a misleading national advertising blitz about the nation’s crime problem.
* How the Justice Department has routinely failed to investigate the political allies of all presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy and George Bush.
* How — more than three hundred times a year — teams of agents from the FBI’s top secret Surreptitious entry Program go about the task of breaking into houses, offices and warehouses of selected targets, usually to plant hidden cameras and microphones.
* How the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department have been used to harass black politicians and aid white ones.
” While having lunch with my favorite federal prosecutor he said ‘ Mayor Marty Walsh, I like the ring of that name in an indictment ‘ ” …. That Carr, for all his brash stylings , should quote such an unguarded utterance, thus ” outing ” his ” favorite federal prosecutor, undoubtedly Brian Kelly, is unlikely. That Marty Walsh would later hire as defense counsel the alleged author of such a wild statement, Brian Kelly, is even more unlikely.
Cite the chapter and verse as it is otherwise deemed apocryphal and a shabby effort to buttress a point of view. If the quote is actual and accurately rendered then Carr and Kelly, as well as Marty, have certainly … ” Evolved ” 🙂 since then.
Within two weeks after Mr. Walsh’s mayoral election and well before he was even sworn in, we were told of this day. Howie Carr wrote in his column, ‘While having lunch with my favorite federal prosecutor, he said “Mayor Marty Walsh, I like the ring of that name in an indictment.”
Knowing the nature of Carr and his “favorite federal prosecutor”, it’s only surprising that it took this long for Wyshak to start up his conviction machine.
As for leaks from the US Attorney’s Office, the history of the ‘leak strategy’ tells a story. In 2000, when Wyshak was prosecuting Cashman and the Teamsters, the grand jury leaks were so constant that DOL investigators filed an internal complaint against Wyshak. He responded by seating a grand jury in Worcester to investigate the DOL investigators who had accused him of leaking to Shelley Murphy. It all went away.
Every major case that Wyshak has brought in the last 25 years has been marked by chronic leaks to the Globe and Murphy. The pattern is so obvious that it shows either stupidity or the knowledge that he is safely above the law.
H.L. Carr went to bat, quite vigorously, for a beleaguered Irish American mayor on his radio show this afternoon. He has taken up the cudgels for Marty, whom he likes. You two have a common cause. Fancy that !!! 🙂
See the Paul Newman movie “Absence of Malice” where the US ATTYS is in bed with the press!!!