U.S. Department of Jusice Office of the Attorney General
The Accomplishments of the U.s. Department of Justice 2001-2009 The Accomplishments
of the U.s. De pa rtment of Justic e 2001-2009
I. Executive Summary
he mission of the Department of Justice is to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide Tfederal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. From 2001 to 2009, the Department has fulfilled that mission and advanced the interests of justice and the rights of the American people.
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Department made combating terrorism its top priority. This shift required a significant revision to the Department’s structures, polices and procedures and a sub stantial investment of resources. Most significant were the creation of a separate National Security Division and the FBI’s efforts to transform itself from primarily a law enforcement agency into a law enforcement and domestic intelligence agency. In 2006 the Department set up the National Security Division, a new com ponent tasked with leading the Department’s efforts to combat terrorism. As part of that reorganization, the Department launched an extensive effort to prosecute threats to national security as soon as the law, evidence and circumstances permitted. In addition, between Fiscal Year 2001 and FY 2008, the FBI’s budget roughly doubled, allowing for large increases in the number of intelligence analysts and language analysts, and increasing the use of special initiatives such as Joint Terrorism Task Forces. As a result of these efforts, numer ous domestic and international terrorist plots were disrupted and many of the people involved were prose cuted and sent to prison, including Richard Reid (the “shoe bomber”), Zacarias Moussaoui and Jose Padilla.
Another top priority of the Department over the past eight years was combating violent crime. This priori ty included targeting gun crimes, dismantling gangs, disrupting drug trafficking and protecting children from sexual exploitation. The Department made strides in each of these areas. For example, since the inception of the Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative approximately eight years ago, the Department has more than doubled the number of gun crime prosecutions when compared to the previous eight years. Recognizing that our nation faced an epidemic of technology-assisted exploitation crimes targeting children, the Department launched Project Safe Childhood in 2006. As a result, federal child sexual exploitation charges increased by 33 percent between FY 2006 and FY 2008. The Department also maintained its overall drug prosecution rate, successfully targeting and prosecuting the manufacturing and distribution of drugs such as metham phetamine. These measures and others, all of which have emphasized cooperation with the Department's state and local law enforcement partners, contributed to violent crime rates near a 30-year low.
The Department has made a significant effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. Working with other agencies in the executive branch, the Department has obtained approximately 1,300 convictions, including more than 200 corporate chief executives or presidents, more than 120 vice presidents and more
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE i 2001-2009 I. Executive Summary
than 50 chief financial officers, at corporations including WorldCom, Adelphia and Enron. The Department also focused on investigating and prosecuting fraud associated with the dispersion of federal money. In par ticular, the Department established a National Procurement Fraud task force and focused its efforts on areas such as Medicare spending, defense procurement connected to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and gov ernment aid following hurricanes and other natural disasters. Since 2001, the Department’s suits against vio lators of the nation's antitrust, tax and environmental laws have resulted in record fines.
The Department launched new enforcement initiatives to enforce civil rights laws, including investigations into housing discrimination and human trafficking, and a concerted effort to combat a backlash against Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South-Asian Americans following 9/11. Substantial efforts were made to protect religious liberties and the rights of America's service members, the disabled, women and other protected groups. With respect to elections and the voting process, the Civil Rights Division brought record numbers of cases under the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and expanded the use of federal moni tors and observers to ensure ballot access and integrity.
Over the past eight years, the Department has amassed a strong record of accomplishment. The work of law enforcement touches all aspects of American life, and the dedicated men and women of the Department work hard on behalf of the American people. The appendices that follow lay out in greater detail those accom plishments and the results, and extent, of that hard work. Taken together, the Department’s record is one of which all Americans can and should be proud.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ii 2001-2009 II. Table of Contents
I. Executive summary...... i
II. Table of contents ...... iii
III. Litigating Division Accomplishments ...... 1
Antitrust Division...... 1
Civil Division ...... 11
Civil Rights Division ...... 21
Criminal Division...... 28
Environment and Natural Resources Division ...... 43
National Security Division ...... 53
Office of the Solicitor General ...... 63
Tax Division ...... 65
IV. Law Enforcement Component Accomplishments...... 71
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - ATF ...... 71
Drug Enforcement Administration - DEA ...... 77
Federal Bureau of Investigation - FBI ...... 88
Federal Bureau of Prisons - BOP ...... 101
U.S. Marshals Service -USMS ...... 107
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE iii 2001-2009 II. Table of Contents
V. Special Initiatives ...... 119
Intellectual Property Task Force ...... 119
President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force ...... 123
Project Safe Childhood...... 128
Project Safe Neighborhoods ...... 131
Rule of Law (Operation Iraqi Freedom) ...... 134
VI. Administrative, Policy and Other Accomplishments ...... 143
Community Oriented Policing Services - COPS ...... 143
Community Relations Service ...... 149
Executive Office for Immigration Review...... 150
Justice Management Division ...... 150
National Drug Intelligence Center ...... 152
Office of Federal Detention Trustee ...... 153
Office of Information and Privacy ...... 153
Office of Legislative Affairs and Office of Legal Policy ...... 155
U.S. Trustee Program ...... 166
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE iv 2001-2009 III. Litigating Divisions Accomplishments
ANTITRUST DIVISION
The mission of the Antitrust Division is to enforce our nation’s antitrust laws to protect and promote competi tion. In a competitive marketplace, U.S. consumers benefit from lower prices, better quality goods and servic es and greater innovation. The Antitrust Division has achieved significant success in protecting U.S. consumers and businesses from anticompetitive practices by cracking down on international cartels and obtaining record levels of criminal fines and prison sentences. The Division has enhanced cooperation with foreign counterparts, ensured effective merger and civil non-merger enforcement, and promoted economic growth and consumer welfare through continuously refining its legal and economic analysis and engaging in vigorous competition advocacy.
UNPRECEDENTED CARTEL ENFORCEMENT
Cartel enforcement is the Antitrust Division’s highest priority. Since January 2001, the Division has obtained more than $3.5 billion in criminal fines against more than 120 corporations and 160 individuals as a result of criminal antitrust prosecutions. Some highlights include:
� Former chairman of Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. convicted of fixing commission rates charged to sellers of works of art, jewelry and furniture at auctions (December 2001).
� Mitsubishi Corporation convicted and fined $134 million for its participation in a price-fixing con spiracy among the world’s major manufacturers of graphite electrodes, bringing the total fines imposed against the seven companies and three individuals charged with participating in the graphite electrodes cartel to more than $400 million (February and May 2001).
� Irving Materials Inc. pleaded guilty and was sentenced to pay a $29.2 million criminal fine, the largest fine ever in a domestic antitrust case, for fixing the price of ready mixed concrete in the Indianapolis area (June 2005). MA-RI-AL Corp. and two executives were convicted at trial on charges of conspiring to fix prices of ready mixed concrete in Indianapolis (November 2006). In total, four companies and nine individuals were convicted for their participation in the Indianapolis ready mix conspiracy and more than $30 million in total fines and 111 months in jail were imposed.
� Samsung Electronics, a manufacturer of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and its U.S. sub sidiary pleaded guilty and were sentenced to pay a $300 million fine for participating in an international DRAM price-fixing conspiracy (November 2005). The Division’s investigation of price fixing in the
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 1 2001-2009 III. Litigating Divisions Accomplishments
high-tech DRAM market resulted in total fines in excess of $700 million against DRAM manufactur ers Samsung, Hynix, Infineon and Elpida, and 16 DRAM executives sentenced to a total of 3,185 days in jail for their participation in the DRAM cartel.