Alan Grayson, Whistleblower attorney, is running for the U.S. Congress in 2008. He is running for office in Florida’s 8th Congressional District.
http://www.graysonforcongress.com/
Here is another link: Grayson's fight against fraud and corruption
Bush Administration, DOJ Blocking Iraq Fraud Suits
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 26 September 2007
Peter Keisler, the acting US attorney general, covered up evidence of alleged widespread contracting fraud in Iraq by preventing whistleblowers' complaints from being investigated, according to a prominent fraud attorney.
Alan Grayson, an attorney who has represented scores of whistleblowers in suits against companies that were awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts related to Iraq reconstruction, blamed the Bush administration for the lack of government action on Iraq fraud.
In an interview with Truthout, Grayson said Keisler has purposely delayed investigations into Iraq contractor fraud because of Keisler's political allegiance to the Bush administration. Keisler has refused to prosecute whistleblower lawsuits because Bush "does not want more bad news coming out of Iraq," Grayson said, adding "to have an entire class of cases treated this way is truly unprecedented. I've been doing this for 20 years and I've never seen it before."
Keisler was appointed by President Bush to serve as the acting attorney general after Alberto Gonzales resigned in September. In July 2003, Keisler, became the assistant attorney general in charge of the civil division, roughly three months after the invasion of Iraq. Among its responsibilities, the civil division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) is tasked with enforcing contract fraud laws and investigating whistleblower complaints. A former law clerk for Judge Robert Bork and former Regan administration lawyer, Keisler is a co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society.
During his time at DOJ, Keisler led the Bush administration's successful legal fight to deny habeas corpus rights for prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Keisler recently resigned his post as assistant attorney general, saying he planned to spend time with his family. Keisler was nominated by the Bush administration to serve as a Federal Judge on the Washington DC Court of Appeals in 2006, but the Senate has not yet taken up his confirmation. He has failed to be confirmed by the Senate in two previous appointment attempts by Bush.
At a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing September 21 on Iraq war contractors, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N. Dakota) said there "has been a staggering amount of contract abuse, the worst in our history."
In a hearing last week, Congressman Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Iraq contractor fraud remains a serious issue. "As has been reported in the press, the Inspector General and the Army have uncovered a cluster of fraud and corruption problems arising out of a series of support contracts, many of which were let from an office in Kuwait. As of August 28, the Army reported that it had 76 cases of fraud and corruption under investigation, had obtained 20 indictments, and had uncovered over $15 million in bribes. The people involved ranged from civilians and enlisted military personnel to relatively senior officers," Skelton said.
Yet, under Keisler's leadership, the DOJ civil division has refused to join any whistleblower suits against Iraq war contractors. DOJ work on behalf of whistleblower lawsuits against companies in other sectors has continued unabated.
The DOJ did not return calls for comment.
Keisler apparently took responsibility for the lack of Iraq fraud prosecutions in a keynote speech to the Taxpayers Against Fraud watchdog organization. The speech, however, was "off the record" and a transcript has not been made publicly available.
During his appearance before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, Grayson said "Under the False Claims Act, the Attorney General is supposed to join with whistleblowers to prosecute and punish war profiteers. The sad truth is that the Bush Administration has not even tried to do this. On the contrary, it has done all it could to prevent this." The DOJ has not joined a single Iraq contracting fraud case brought by a whistleblower to date.
Under the False Claims Act, established by President Lincoln as a result of fraud and war profiteering during the civil war, any citizen has the ability to sue a company for fraud on behalf of the US government. In what is know as a qui tam action, a whistleblower can recoup legal fees and a percentage of the money the lawsuit recovers for the government. When a qui tam action is brought by a whistleblower, it is placed under seal to allow the government to review the case and to investigate the accused company in secret.
The DOJ has refused to join 12 such cases and an estimated 50-70 cases remain under seal. By delaying their decision on whether or not to join these cases, the DOJ has kept whistleblowers and their lawyers from going public with their fraud accusations and has kept the accused companies out of court.
Despite a rejection from the government, Grayson has decided to move forward with five of his pending cases against Iraq war contractors, three against the Halliburton Company and two against Custer Battles LLC.
Beth Daley, the director of the Project on Government Oversight, described the DOJ's lack of action on Iraq fraud cases as "breathtaking," and as "a travesty of justice." According to Daley, "When you see what has happened with the Iraq fraud cases, you have to wonder if the DOJ has succumbed to political partisan interests rather than fighting corruption, which is their mission. This has huge implications for our democracy; to lose the most important corruption fighting agency to political agendas would be quite sad. It means that corruption has been allowed to fester."
According to Patrick Burns, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against Fraud, the DOJ has suffered from a lack of staff and resources. Burns says the DOJ has a huge waiting list for fraud cases filed by whistleblowers. Burns added, "the DOJ civil division is a-political. Keisler is as straight a stick as you will get. He is a good lawyer and I have never felt the slightest subterfuge from him."
Previously, Burns told the Boston Globe, "Basically, they [the US government] have done nothing, and it is hard to explain what is going on there, other than direct orders from the very top of government," Burns continued, "It can no longer be explained by incompetence alone."
Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing
“An Oversight Hearing on Accountability for Contracting Abuses in Iraq”
Alan Grayson
Grayson & Kubli, P.C.
September 18, 2006
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today, and
to speak before this honorable committee.
My name is Alan Grayson. I am an attorney, and I represent dozens of
whistleblowers in cases brought against contractors who have defrauded the Government.
The Civil False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to bring cases in the name of the
Government, to help the taxpayers recover money from contractors who cheat the
Government. Ms. McBride is one such whistleblower.
With this week marking three and a half years since the occupation of Iraq began,
it is possible to conduct an appraisal of the role that contractors have played in Iraq. It is
not a pretty picture. While U.S. forces are praised for their professionalism and
discipline, there have been countless reports of government contractors in Iraq
undermining the mission, wasting money, and stealing money. Half of the $18 billion in
Iraq reconstruction funds are unaccounted for. Senator Dorgan has said that there is an
“orgy of greed” among contractors in Iraq, and there is ample evidence to back that up.
This Committee, a modern-day Truman Commission, has uncovered many
examples of this. So has the media. What you will not hear about, however, are many
examples from False Claims Act whistleblowers, because the Bush Administration has
systematically kept those cases out of the public eye.
Out of all of the cases filed by whistleblowers regarding fraud in Iraq, only two of
them have been litigated. The Bush Administration refused to participate in either one.
In the first case, a suit that I helped whistleblowers bring against Custer Battles,
the company’s own internal audit report found the company guilty of criminal fraud. The
U.S. Military suspended the defendants, finding adequate evidence of that fraud. Yet the
Bush Administration did literally nothing to recover the millions of dollars that the
Defendants stole. We brought that case to trial, without the help of the Bush
Administration, and won a jury verdict worth over $10 million for the taxpayers. But the
2
judge ruled that the Bush Administration had messed up the contract paperwork, and now
the issue is on appeal.
The second case is Ms. McBride’s complaint against Halliburton. Her case was
filed well over a year ago. The Bush Administration sat on it for that period, investigated
only one of the five allegations of fraud in her complaint, and then – without explanation
– refused to participate.
In both the Custer Battles case and the Halliburton case, the defendants’ intimate
connections with the Bush Administration are well-known.
As for all of the other whistleblower cases filed against contractors alleged to
have defraud the U.S. Government in Iraq, after three and a half years the Bush
Administration perpetuates the masquerade that it is “investigating” these cases. The
False Claims Act provides that these cases must be brought under seal, and gives the
Administration 60 days to investigate. That 60 days became 60 weeks, and is now
approaching three or more years in some cases. Obtaining one extension after another for
these court-ordered seals permits the Bush Administration to keep these cases out of sight
indefinitely. The last thing that the Administration wants, it appears, is more bad news
coming out of Iraq, and it is willing to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery of
justice to prevent that.
As a result, the Bush Administration has not litigated a single case against a
contractor alleged to have defrauded the U.S. Government in Iraq. It has obtained one
guilty plea from a Halliburton employee, however – but for defrauding the company, not
the U.S. Government.
As one reporter on this beat recently noted, the U.S. military has been spending
over $1 billion a week in Iraq, but DoD’s Inspector General has had zero inspectors on
the ground since at least October 2004.
A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal was kind enough to say that I am
conducting a one-man war against contractor fraud against Iraq. I keep wondering when
we will see reinforcements. President Bush twice took an oath of office to see that the
laws are faithfully executed. Regarding fraud in Iraq, it is plain and simple – he has
violated that oath.
An earlier wartime President, Abraham Lincoln, had this to say about war
profiteers, when he proposed enactment of the whistleblowers’ False Claims Act, seven
score and three years ago:
“Worse than traitors in arms are the men who pretend loyalty to the flag, feast and
fatten on the misfortunes of the Nation, while patriotic blood is crimsoning the
plains of the South, and their countrymen moldering the dust.”
3
As Lincoln himself said, in the Gettysburg Address, it is far above my poor power
to add or detract from this. But let history note that as patriotic blood is crimsoning the
plains of the Sunni Triangle, and as our countrymen lie moldering in the dust, some at
Halliburton, with their Super Bowl Parties and their stock options, feast and fatten on the
misfortunes of this Nation while pretending nothing but loyalty to the flag.
Thank you.
Lawyer Uses Civil War-Era Law
To Go After Firms for Corruption,
But Administration Won't Help
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
April 19, 2006
ORLANDO, Fla. -- From his home office in a pink-painted mansion here, lawyer Alan Grayson is waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq.
Mr. Grayson has filed dozens of lawsuits against Iraq contractors on behalf of corporate whistle-blowers. He won a huge victory last month when a federal jury in Virginia ordered a security firm called Custer Battles LLC to return $10 million in ill-gotten funds to the government. The ruling marked the first time an American firm was held responsible for financial improprieties in Iraq. But it also highlighted the limits of the broader efforts to stem contractor abuses there.
The False Claims Act that Mr. Grayson used in the Custer Battles case is a Civil War-era statute allowing whistle-blowers to sue contractors suspected of defrauding the government and then keep a chunk of any recovered money. There are an estimated 50 such cases pending against Iraq contractors, including large firms like Halliburton Co.'s Kellogg Brown and Root subsidiary. A technicality in the statute, however, has allowed the Bush administration to prevent the other lawsuits from moving forward. Cases filed under the statute are automatically sealed, which means that they can't proceed to trial -- or even be publicly disclosed -- until the administration makes a formal decision about whether to join them.
The law says such decisions are supposed to be made within 60 days, but with the exception of the Custer Battles case, which it declined to join, the administration has yet to take a position on any of the suits, some of which were filed more than two years ago. The law allows the Justice Department to ask for extensions, which are almost always granted, for as long as it sees fit. The department has kept the other False Claims Act cases from proceeding by repeatedly asking for extensions in each one.
That has left the cases in legal limbo, with lawyers like Mr. Grayson unable to bring them to trial or detail them publicly.
Contracting experts say previous administrations often declined to join in False Claims Act lawsuits but that the Bush administration's refusal to unseal the cases is unprecedented. Justice Department spokesman Charles Wilson says he can't discuss sealed cases or comment on why the department has yet to act on them. "All of the cases are examined on their merits," Mr. Wilson says. With the Bush administration sitting on the sidelines, primary responsibility for pursuing the Iraq fraud cases rests with plaintiffs' lawyers like Mr. Grayson, a Harvard-educated lawyer who began his career defending federal contractors but now makes his living going after them.
FIGHT FOR IRAQ
See continuing coverage of developments in Iraq, including a look back at three years of war. Plus, see an interactive map of major insurgent attacks.
"With the sheriff asleep in the office, the only way you get justice is with private lawyers like Alan Grayson willing to step up and take down these fraudulent companies," says Patrick Burns, the spokesman for the advocacy group Taxpayers Against Fraud. "Alan Grayson showed that you can do that even without help from the government."
Though it is unclear when the cases will proceed to trial, Mr. Grayson is continuing to press ahead as best he can. He and other lawyers in his firm travel the country taking depositions, gathering documents and interviewing prospective witnesses for the dozens of currently pending lawsuits. Mr. Grayson says he also regularly passes information to the federal investigators probing the cases and the prosecutors deciding whether the government will participate in them.
A fierce critic of the war in Iraq, Mr. Grayson drives an aging Cadillac emblazoned with antiadministration bumper stickers such as "Bush Lied, People Died." He says the administration's botched handling of Iraq opened the door for corrupt contractors to improperly reap fortunes there. At a hearing in February 2005 held by Democratic senators, Mr. Grayson asserted that the administration had "not lifted a finger to recover tens of millions of dollars our whistle-blowers allege was stolen from the government."
His opinions on the matter haven't shifted since. "The Bush administration has made a conscious decision to sweep the cases under the rug for as long as possible," he says today. "And the more bad news that comes out of Iraq, the more motivation they have to do so."
For the contractors in his cross hairs, Mr. Grayson, 48, is a formidable opponent. He received his undergraduate, master's and law degrees from Harvard. He made millions during a two-year stint as the president of IDT Corp., a start-up that has since grown into one of the nation's largest providers of discount telecommunications services. Mr. Grayson says he has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal funds into his small eight-person law firm to help defray the costs of pursuing Iraq fraud cases that may not make it to trial for years. "I have deep enough pockets to subsidize the legal work," he says.
If he prevails, he might fill those deep pockets. Whistle-blowers generally receive 30% of any penalty, although the exact portion of every award is set by the judge in each case. Lawyers like Mr. Grayson, in turn, receive 30% to 50% of whatever the whistle-blowers get. "It's really a financial crapshoot," he says.
Mr. Grayson's firm switched its focus from working for contractors to representing individual whistle-blowers shortly after U.S. forces swept into Iraq in March 2003. He says the firm made the move because they began to be contacted by whistle-blowers who were referred by former clients and others.
Two of his first clients were William D. Baldwin, a former manager for Custer Battles, and Robert J. Isakson, a construction subcontractor who had worked with the firm. The company, run by a pair of politically connected military veterans, had won security contracts in Iraq worth more than $100 million. But the two men told Mr. Grayson that they had evidence the firm was substantially overcharging the U.S. occupation authority.
Mr. Grayson filed suit against the company under the False Claims Act in February 2004, but it languished under seal until that fall, when the Justice Department formally declined to join the case. The government never explained its decision. The case finally went before a judge in February.
After a contentious three-week trial, a federal jury on March 9 found the company's two founders, along with a business partner, guilty of using fake invoices from shell companies to overcharge the authorities by millions of dollars. The jury ordered the men to pay $10 million in penalties, with Mr. Grayson's clients standing to receive about $3 million of the money. Mr. Grayson declined to say how much money he will be paid. David Douglass, a lawyer for Custer Battles, says the company has appealed the verdict.
While waiting for the government to act on the other lawsuits, Mr. Grayson is weighing a career change. His congressional district is represented by a conservative Republican, and Mr. Grayson is strongly considering seeking the Democratic nomination to oppose him. He says his campaign, if he chooses to run, would center on the war in Iraq.
Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com
