Justice is not being seen to be done

If a law firm had a history of misleading courts, should a judge rely on current assertions?

I would say no, and I think most people would agree.

Now lets swap out the words "law firm" with "Department of Justice (DOJ)".

Breitbart reports "the Court cited specific rules governing lawyers’ conduct regarding making misrepresentations, half-truths, omissions, and failing to correct misstatements" and quoted the judge as follows:

“the Court is extremely troubled by the multiple representations made by the Government’s counsel―both in writing and orally"

“Whether by ignorance, omission, purposeful misdirection, or because they were misled by their clients, the attorneys for the Government misrepresented the facts.”

“This assertion is belied by the facts.”

  “the Court is shocked and surprised at the cavalier attitude the Government has taken" 

 “This is clearly no way to run the nation’s law firm.” 

The case being referred to was a politicized case related to DACA.

Now step forward to today and we see a Judge trusting the DOJ's assertions in another politicized case, this time involving President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the issue of Attorney-Client Privilege. 

Last week, the Government seized Michael Cohen's records - both physical and electronic - which Micheal Cohen says included materials subject to Attorney-Client Privilege. Cohen's lawyers wanted the opportunity to sort through the seized materials and remove the parts subject to Attorney-Client Privilege.

DOJ lawyers say prosecutors have not started looking at the materials yet and will not till this matter is resolved. Why would the judge believe that assertion when you look at the DOJ's misrepresentations in the politicized case quoted above? That does not look like "Justice being done".

Instead the Judge ordered the DOJ to give copies of the materials seized to Cohen's lawyers. That means somebody at DOJ has to look at the materials to copy them. Should Cohen's clients have to trust that DOJ employee will not share, hint, nudge nudge wink wink info contained in those materials with other parts of the FBI and DOJ.

Here is the problem. Justice is not being seen to be done is these highly politicized cases.