SUBJECT: FEDERAL CORRUPTION                                  FILE: UFO2770




PART 3



   Filename: Harry3.Art
   Type    : Article
   Author  : Harry Martin
   Date    : 03/22/91
   Desc    : Federal Corruption Series Part III

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              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?




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