The chief law enforcement officer of the Unites States of America meets with similar officials of the world at a global summit sponsored by the Ducth at The Hague.  Ashcroft exhorts his peers to fight corruption and declares that the battle is not merely one for justice, but also of morality.  Ashcroft draws a parallel to the fight against corruption with the ideals of religion and faith.  Most significantly, Ashcroft singles out the challenge of fighting corruption within the Judiciary and Law Enforcement.

TESTIMONY of A. JAY CRISTOL, Chief Judge Emeritus, United States Bankruptcy Court before the Subcommittee on Administrative and Commercial Law House of Representatives Judiciary Committee as to the misguided efforts of the DOJ's office of the U.S. Trustee.  Judge Cristol referred to these government attorneys as "a pack of dogs" and criticized their misguided focus on punishing individual bankruptcy filers for trivial and technical issues and their related efforts at grandstanding and self promotion built upon the backs of the poor in the bankruptcy courts.

A Bankruptcy Attorney states to a creditor in the WorldCom bankruptcy : "I see you, I'm going to kill you."  Taken in the full context of the transcript the statement is shocking.  The transcript was affirmed as being accurate by this quoted attorney in Federal court before Judge ARTHUR J. GONZALEZ .  At "best", this lawyer is advising to his client the legality of issuing death threats and portrays this lawyer's casual acceptance towards the use of extortion by a bankruptcy professional against a creditor in the ordinary course of a "mega case" bankruptcy.  Perhaps more accurately we witness the lawyer conveying a death threat to his client: either a thinly veiled warning that other parties will kill the client, or the lawyer himself is threatening his own client.
   Either way, there is no possible dispute of the fact that this lawyer brought up the subject of death threats during an increasingly heated discussion in which this lawyer adamantly refused to expose  before the court the issue of conflicted relationships with and favoritism towards certain hedge funds.  In a Fabulous Flip Flop Fantastique, this lawyer forbade his own associate attorney (his employee) from filing the very same document which his employee drafted for the client at the client's expense.  In other words, the client did not prepare a document and tell this lawyer"Put your name on what I wrote and file it".  This Lawyer's own associate wrote the document, and then this more senior partner said "I won't let my own employee file the work he prepared at your expense"!  (Plus the death threat).  Why such a 180 degree change of heart?  Why the mention of death threats?  The document merely asks the court to direct the official law firms working on behalf of the Worldcom Bankruptcy estate (they earned hundreds of millions of dollars in fees) to update their conflict disclosures, and  for Worldcom to  identify differences in distributions to creditors as to the timing of payment and the percentage of payment.   Such a simple request that the Court orders a party to disclose information is extremely common in bankruptcy cases.  What isn't common is that the nations most powerful billion dollar BigLaw firms and their hedge fund clients are the target of the request. 

   Why bring up death threats?  What lawyer in his right mind interjects the subject of death and murder - in the context of extortion - when giving legal advice to a client in a bankruptcy case? Did the remarks by this lawyer constitute a criminal act?  Any preliminary investigation would first have to determine if there were any undisclosed conflicts or favoritism in the distributions to the small circle of claims traders holding some $600 Million dollars worth of claims.  Such an investigation would be extremely easy given that a special prosecutor could start with a form letter to the few dozen law firms involved, and the 50 or so claims traders  Since these 50 or so claims traders shared lawyers in "negotiating" a higher payout thansimilarly situated creditors ( in violation, without limitation, of 11 U.S.C. § 1129) they could share lawyers in drafting their responces.  Furthermore, Worldcom's complete distributions are maintained in a computer database and each payment amount and date is easily compared to the amounts and dates of payments to "normal" creditors who have never otherwise paid any of these lawyers any money.  And while the special prosecutor is investigating, maybe he can figure out why Eliot Spitzer refused to allow New York State to perform any criminal or ethical action against any of the New York lawyers involved, even after his office received a complete copy of the affirmed transcript.
  Here is an important point of information and possible explanation: a few special BigLaw firms which make hundreds of millions of dollars from estate fees (such as the fees in the Worldcom bankruptcy) when they seek advantage for certain hedge funds, are both supremely powerful and financially motivated to destroy any small law firm which dared to question the facts of undisclosed conflicts and violations of bankruptcy law which might interfere with their "business model". 300 pound gorillas follow their own set of ethics rules and are otherwise above the law when their organized crime affiliates infiltrate the DOJ and the Judiciary.  This is the reality of ACPOC Syndrome and the fact that a small law firm could get detroyed by merely exposing misconduct of more powerful firms.  Was a Doug a coward, or a pragmatist?

A former U.S. Trusttee attorney testifies as to the misguided and mean spirited administration of the U.S. Trustee program as it seeks to punish the poor and other small individuals for the sake of statistics.  (Meanwhile, the highest level administration of the Office of the U.S. Trustee keeps blinders wrapped tightly around it's head so as to avoid seeing, or acting upon, outrageous criminality when it involves their related law partners, relations, past employers, hedge funds, or any potential future employer.)

Why are exceptions to law made?  Surely, there could be good reasons.  Surely, there could be many reasons.  Surely, there is the law.