On Friday, May 24, 2013, President Obama signed a Congressional bill bestowing posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal to the four victims of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing: 11-year -old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthis Wesley. NAFUSA board member Doug Jones, shown left, was invited to attend the ceremony at the White House. Jones, during his service as United States Attorney, was the lead prosecutor in the 2001 and 2002 convictions of two men for the church bombing, nearly 40 years after the 1963 bombing. The ceremony was also attended by the mayor of Birmingham and surviving relatives of the four victims.
In an interview with The Birmingham News, Jones said:
It’s hard to describe how special it is being there in the Oval Office with the first African American president, who really is in that office in part because of the deaths of those four girls. It’s indescribable what it means to me.
As reported by The Birmingham News, Jones called the Gold Medal and other commemoration activities in Birmingham this year important for several reasons. Events in Birmingham 50 years ago had world-wide significance, changing policy in this county, and inspiring human rights efforts elsewhere, Jones explained.
The lessons of Birmingham from 1963 show what can be done to change people’s hearts, people’s minds and give everyone access to civil rights. That was one of the pivotal points in the county’s history for basic civil rights.
Jones called the civil rights era a revolution that should be celebrated just as the nation continues to celebrate the American Revolution.
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Tamika Moore tmoore@al.com)
In an Op-Ed column in this morning’s New York Times entitled Stop the Leaks, former Attorney General William P. Barr, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick and former Assistant Attorney General for National Security and NAFUSA board member Kenneth L. Wainstein, published an Op-Ed joining the current debate over the disclosure that the Justice Department obtained the telephone records of Associated Press journalists, stating:
As former Justice Department officials who served in the three administrations preceding President Obama’s, we are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of A.P. journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message to the government officials who are responsible for our national security.
While neither we nor the critics know the circumstances behind the prosecutors’ decision to issue this subpoena, we do know from the government’s public disclosures that the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak vigorously. The leak — which resulted in a May 2012 article by The A.P. about the disruption of a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner — significantly damaged our national security.
As for the process which led to a warrant for telephone toll log records for about 20 phone lines that the leaker might have used in conversations with A.P journalists, the former DOJ officials argued:
The decision was made at the highest levels of the Justice Department, under longstanding regulations that are well within the boundaries of the Constitution. Having participated in similar decisions, we know that they are made after careful deliberation, because the government does not lightly seek information about a reporter’s work. Along with the obligation to investigate and prosecute government employees who violate their duty to protect operational secrets, Justice Department officials recognize the need to minimize any intrusion into the operations of the free press.
Former NAFUSA Executive Director and current board member Ronald G. Woods, shown above left, was honored on May 9, 2013, in Houston when he was chosen as the recipient of the 2013 Garland R. Walker American Inn of Court’s Professionalism Award. Each year the award is made to a Houston-area lawyer “whose personal life and professional achievements have exhibited integrity, compassion and a commitment to the highest standards of the legal profession.”
The Garland R. Walker American Inn of Court is one of over 300 Inns across the nation that make up the American Inns of Court movement. The mission of the ALC is to foster professionalism, ethics, civility and excellence in legal skills.
Woods served as United States Attorney 1990-1993 for the Southern District of Texas. He is also a former FBI Speical Agent. He holds his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.
NAFUSA lifetime member Matthew G. Whitaker will make his official announcement to enter the U.S. Senate race on June 3. He is the first Republican in Iowa to declare his intentions for the seat currently held by Democrat Tom Harkin. Whitaker served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa from 2005-2009. He played college football for the Iowa Hawkeyes, earning Academic All- American honors in 1992. He was the tight end on the 1990 Big Ten Champion football team and played in the 1991 Rose Bowl game.
Whitaker is the managing partner of Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff LLP, a law firm located in Des Moines, Iowa. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law.
NAFUSA board member Joe D. Whitley is the program chair for the 8th Annual Homeland Security Institute to be held at the Capital Hilton in Washington, DC on June 20-21, 2013. Pre-program workshops will be held on June 19th at Greenberg Traurig, located at 2101 L Street NW, Washington. This year will mark the 10th anniversary of the formation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Whitley served as he first general counsel of DHS, as well as serving as a three-time appointed United States Attorney for the Northern and Middle Districts of Georgia. Click here for program details and registration information.
Affiliated Monitors, Inc., NAFUSA’s newest sponsor, has announced the addition of NAFUSA President Elect Donald K. Stern, former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and former Chief Legal Counsel to Governor Michael S. Dukakis, as Managing Director, Corporate Monitoring and Consulting Services, effective May 1, 2013. In this new role, Stern will oversee the company’s corporate monitoring programs across a spectrum of industries: healthcare, financial services, environmental and others. He will continue his law work on internal investigations, white collar defense and commercial litigation at business litigation boutique Yurko, Salvesen & Remz, P.C. (YSR), where he has become Of Counsel to the firm.
Affiliated Monitors, based in Boston, has joined NAFUSA as a 2013 sponsor at the $5000 level. It is the first company of its kind to provide businesses and government agencies with independent, proactive and remedial solutions to specific regulatory and contractual issues.
Stern has most recently been senior counsel in the litigation department and a member of the Boston office of Cooley LLP. His practice focused on internal investigations, white collar defense work and business litigation. He represented companies and individuals in complex civil, criminal and regulatory matters as well as clients in grand jury and civil enforcement investigations involving allegations of securities fraud, healthcare fraud, foreign corrupt practices, political corruption, insurance fraud and antitrust violations.
In addition to serving as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts,1993-2001, Stern served as the chief legal counsel to Governor Michael S. Dukakis. He advised the governor on a range of legal and policy issues and was a liaison between state and federal criminal justice agencies and the state judiciary. He also spent seven years as an Assistant Attorney General under Massachusetts Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti, where he held several positions, including Chief of the Government Bureau.
He is currently co-chair of the American Bar Association/Department of Justice White Collar Liaison Committee, and a liaison to the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Corporate Monitors. He was an advisor to President Barack Obama’s transition team for the Justice Department. He will become president of NAFUSA at the fall conference in Washington.
Stern was on the faculty of Boston College Law School, where he directed the civil and criminal law clinics. More recently he taught the popular Government Lawyer course at Harvard Law School. He received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. He received an honorary LL.D. from the New England School of Law in 1997. He is an Executive Fellow at the Bentley University Center for Business Ethics.
Affiliated Monitors, founded in 2004, is the first company in the country to focus on providing top quality, independent monitoring services across a wide range of regulated industries and professions. It provides businesses and government agencies with independent, proactive and remedial solutions to specific regulatory and contractual issues. The website for more information is http://www.affiliatedmonitors.com.
Yurko, Salvesen & Remz, P.C. is a boutique business litigation law firm based in Boston that was founded in 1995. YSR helps clients in a broad range of industries to resolve complex business disputes in areas including real estate, securities, shareholder and partner disputes, professional and fiduciary liability matters, business transactions and contract disputes, and employment litigation. It serves corporations and other business organizations of all sizes, investors, business executives, officers, directors, law firms, partnerships, and lenders, as well as non-profit organizations.
NAFUSA member John McKay, who served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington, 2001-2007, will be moving to Ramallah in the West Bank on June 1, 2013, to take a two year job consulting for the State Dept. in the West Bank coordinating our Rule of Law initiatives there. These programs are in support of the Palestinian courts, prosecutors and police and McKay will be the chief of the team responsible for liaising with the courts and other justice institutions as well as State Dept. officials in Jerusalem.
Federal allegations of multi-million dollar fraud have reached to the top of Pilot Flying J, the nation’s largest truck-stop operator. The Knoxville-based company is majority-owned and controlled by the family of Gov. Bill Haslam. The allegations suggest that the truck-stop chain may have deliberately cheated its customers on rebates they were supposed to have earned on diesel-fuel purchases. Jimmy Haslam, the chief executive officer of Pilot Flying J, and the governor’s brother, is also the owner of the Cleveland Browns.
NAFUSA members Tom Dillard, Ed Yarbrough and Hal Hardin are representing some of the Pilot Flying J officials in the ongoing federal investigation. Dillard, shown left, served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee in 1981 and the Northern District of Florida, 1983-1987. He also served as a United States Magistrate in the ED of Tennessee, 1976-1978. He is a partner in the Knoxville firm of Ritchie, Dillard, Davies & Johnson, PC.
Ed Yarbrough, shown below, served as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, 2007-2010. He is a partner in the Nashville firm of Walker Tipps and Malone, PLC.
NAFUSA board member Hal Hardin, shown below left, served as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, 1977-1981. He currently practices in Nashville.
Joe D. Whitley, a member of NAFUSA’s board of directors, has been sworn in as a member of the Atlanta Police Foundation board of directors. In addition, Whitley received his official badge as an honorary deputy chief with the Atlanta Police Department. The Atlanta Police Foundation is a public/private partnership focused on advancing public safety in Atlanta, in collaboration with the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Department and the business community.
Whitley is also co-chair (along with Robert E. Gallagher of PwC, one of NAFUSA’s 2013 sponsors) of Georgia’s Institute of Continuing Legal Education annual International Business Crimes: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), Criminal Antitrust and Export Controls conference which will be held in Atlanta on June 6, 2013. Click here for more details and to register
Whitley served as the United States Attorney for both the middle and northern districts of Georgia. He was also the first general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security and served as the acting associate attorney general. He is currently a shareholder of Greenberg Traurig, and chair of the firm’s Atlanta white collar practice.
On Friday, May 24, 2013, President Obama signed a Congressional bill bestowing posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal to the four victims of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing: 11-year -old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthis Wesley. NAFUSA board member Doug Jones, shown left, was invited to attend the ceremony at the White House. Jones, during his service as United States Attorney, was the lead prosecutor in the 2001 and 2002 convictions of two men for the church bombing, nearly 40 years after the 1963 bombing. The ceremony was also attended by the mayor of Birmingham and surviving relatives of the four victims.
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