An “Important Middle Ground"?

In what is really a shocking abuse of government power, it is now known that at least 30 former government prosecutors in the Bush administration have secured controversial lucrative positions as “corporate monitors,” which are programs that allow companies that have committed wrongdoing to escape criminal prosecution.

This practice came to light in January when it was discovered that former Attorney General John Ashcroft secured a $52 million dollar contract for his firm to perform “corporate monitoring” work – a contract that was granted noncompetitively. 

The Justice Department, naturally, is defending the practice. This latest development was released as part of a Congressional report on the project. From the New York Times:

In a letter to members of Congress that accompanied the new data, the Justice Department acknowledged that it had been using deferred prosecutions and similar arrangements known as nonprosecution agreements more frequently, but it defended the practice. It said the agreements represented “an important middle ground” between not bringing a criminal prosecution at all and charging a company and hurting all its employees and shareholders, who might have had nothing to do with the misconduct.

So, the official rationale here is that it is best not to hold corporate criminals accountable because it would hurt shareholders? Alrighty. But there’s more –

And last week, the department informed Congress that it was putting in place a restriction to prevent deferred prosecution or other types of plea agreements from requiring the defendant to pay restitution to a charity, school or other institution that was not harmed by the company’s misconduct. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee quickly dubbed the new guidance “the Christie amendment” because it was seen as a response to the disclosure that Bristol-Myers Squibb, as part of an agreement with Mr. Christie’s office in 2006 to avoid prosecution, was required to endow a chair in business ethics at the law school at Seton Hall University, his alma mater.

Christie is the Attorney General for New Jersey who selected Ashcroft for his contract back in the day. So, prior to last week, corporate officials who committed wrongdoing could, under this program, avoid prosecution of their companies by giving money to the school of the monitor?

-- Dylan Blaylock

Comments

[Horace Gaims]

Since helping friends is generally approved, what is wrong with "borrowing" taxpayers' money?

A corporation is an entity such as an individual and, by association, employees and shareholders benefit and lose by the actions of that given corporation. If a corporation, as an entity, is not beholden to prosecution then no individual or other entity should be either, right?

So when one person commits a crime, he or she shouldn't be prosecuted because it may hurt their family who share their same name and may have not had anything to do with the crime either...right?