This NY Times article reports on the Justice Department’s aggressive use of obstruction of justice laws in its investigation of accounting irregulaties at the giant software company, Computer Associates.
John F. Savarese, a former federal prosecutor who also represented Martha Stewart before her trial this year, led a team from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the prominent New York law firm that the company hired to investigate the charges in an internal probe. Savarese and Wachtell turned over information regarding the probe to the Justice Department. On April 9, three former executives of Computer Associates pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges that were not tied to statements told to federal investigators, but to statements made to Wachtell during the company’s internal investigation.
The executives were never accused of lying directly to federal investigators or a grand jury. Their guilty pleas were based on the theory that, in lying to Wachtell, they had in effect misled federal officials because Wachtell passed their lies on to the Justice Department.
As the story relates, the Justice Department’s use of the company’s law firm represents a serious extension of Justice’s use of obstruction of justice laws. Usually, obstruction charges cover behavior such as destroying documents, pressuring witnesses not to testify, or lying to federal officials. Inasmuch as an employee can be fired for asserting the privilege against self-incrimination in an internal company probe, this new Justice Department policy may actually hinder such internal probes. Lower level company employees will now be less willing to discuss matters with the company’s investigators, which will make it more difficult to implicate higher level company executives in the alleged wrongdoing.
This is yet another example of the unhealthy criminalization of business that is occurring under the Bush Administration’s Justice Department. And the Republican Party is supposed to be business-friendly?