Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice

As the author herself notes, many Americans are increasingly cynical with what passes for justice in our legal system. This book conscientiously gives weight to that perception.Even if one grants Powell’s tendency towards self promotion, her description of deliberate and cavalier prosecutorial misconduct is clear and consistent.When pundits and legal scholars drone on about the “ rule of law, “ books like this one demonstrate how empty the phrase has become.Highly recommended.

This story might have been sub-titled The Godfather IV, despite the probable copyright issues. In the 1974 Academy Award Winning movie The Godfather II, the US Senate is investigating the Corleone crime family. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and his family are the subject of a Senate committee probe. Frank Pentangeli (Michael Gazzo), a former member of the Corleone family, has taken the stand to spill the beans about the Corleone’s criminal empire. Just then he notices that his brother (from Sicily) is sitting in the gallery, next to the Don. The threat is obvious; if Pentangeli cooperates with the government, his brother is dead.Fast forward to the early 2000’s after the bankruptcy of Enron and the Department of Injustice (I refuse to use the term “Justice” until they clean up their act) is prosecuting Arthur Andersen, one Andersen partner, and executives of Merrill Lynch, NatWest and of course Enron (in what I refer to as The Godfather Part IV). In the latest Godfather episode, the US Department of Injustice (DOI) is prosecuting former executives over the course of almost a decade in the Southern District of Texas, Houston, rather than before a US a Senate committee. And the DOI borrows a trick or two from Michael Corleone.Of course one might ask how any of these defendants could possibly get a fair trial in a town as collectively pissed off as Houston? But fair trials were not a priority for the DOI or the Houston federal court system.The DOI didn’t bring any long lost brothers to the courtroom. But their threat was nearly as terrifying—a federal indictment. An indictment is serious because the potential prison time is almost always decades, and the cost of paying for a legal defense will drain your last dollar (unless you are far richer than the average defendant or were one of the few defendants whose company would foot the bill). It was easy to envision that if you were indicted you would waste away in federal prison while your family had to move in with your in-laws. Even if you prevailed in court, your name would be ruined. And it would be impossible to earn a living while you worked overtime with your legal team on your underdog defense while no witness would speak to you for fear of being indicted and the prosecutors claimed they had no evidence favorable to your defense.In the case of the Enron Broadband trial, one of the defense witnesses that refused to be intimidated was Larry Ciscon (a real hero from my perspective). The prosecutors telephoned Ciscon three times the night before he was scheduled to testify to remind him that if he did testify, he would be indicted. Lucky for him it was a bluff. This threat would be judged as witness tampering if made by the mafia but for some crazy reason it is an intimidation tactic often used by federal prosecutors today—even when they have no intention of indicting someone.An indictment meant a minimum of a half million dollars in legal fees (for the defendant) and if the prosecution went full-course through trial, a legal defense probably cost at least $5 million. And you knew that the prosecution would charge you with everything under the sun and threaten any witnesses that might vouch for you. In the case of former Enron Treasurer, Ben Glison, who plead guilty without agreeing to testify against others, they threw him in solitary confinement until he decided to “cooperate” with the DOI. Cooperation meant telling the prosecutors what they wanted to hear—consistent with their “view” of the “facts.” Any contrary view was met with threats of indictment for perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. They made good on enough of those threats to make a believer out of everyone.In The Godfather II, the mafia threatened the witness, and it worked for the Corleones. In Houston this witness tampering worked for the DOI.But witness tampering was only a small part of the DOI’s playbook of dirty tricks. The crime the prosecutors most consistently violated was hiding evidence from the defense, lying about it to the court, lying about it the legal defense team, and most importantly lying about it to the jury. The irony is that in Jim Brown’s case (the main protagonist of Licensed to Lie), one of the charges against him was perjury. I am yet to see any evidence that Jim Brown lied. But the prosecution clearly lied many times trying to convict this innocent man.And when the unethical prosecution got caught lying, they ended up losing many of the cases and most of the charges. But the prosecutors never suffered any criminal prosecution themselves. In Jim Brown’s case, not only were the prosecutors never indicted (by their buddies at the DOI), they were promoted—to White House Counsel, General Counsel/Deputy Director of the FBI, and Acting Attorney General for the Criminal Division. The state bars refused to even investigate their wrongdoings. “Scott free” is the technical legal term for how these corrupt zealots (i.e. prosecutors) got away with these crimes. According to the Urbandictionary.com, Scott Free means “to completely get away with something, like murder.”The story that author Sidney Powell lays out is so riveting that it not only reminded me of the Godfather series, but also harkens back to a combination of John Grisham characters—ham-fisted judges and unethical and politically ambitious prosecutors. Unfortunately in many of these Enron-related cases, the federal appeals system was inconsistent and did little to reign in the DOI and the pliant district court judges.Sidney Powell showed tremendous courage writing Licensed to Lie. Now it is time for America’s federal trial system to stop condoning this organized crime by the DOI. The DOI might, at times, have slightly better motives than Don Corleone, but their unethical methods are just as frightening and completely unacceptable for those who swore to uphold the Constitution, and who are entrusted with such power.Download this book right now and make it your very next read!

Shocking, appalling, Kafkaesque. Add perverse, nightmarish, and evil, and you have accurate descriptors of the corruption of the U.S. prosecutors, who ran roughshod over the lives and honor of innocent citizens, the wrongly indicted and potential witnesses alike, FOR YEARS, and the Department of Justice itself. .... Our DOJ. The US DOJ. ..... Not that of some banana republic somewhere, not that of Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany, Mao's Communist China, Kims' North Korea, ..."Licensed to Lie" is absorbing, riveting, an emotional roller coaster. It will make your blood boil, and rightly so. It (the saga) brought me to tears several times; tears of sadness, tears of indignation, tears of relief, even tears of rage.Except for one part (the 2005 Supreme Court vignette re Andersen, which didn't quite hang together until finally sorted out using online sources for the statutes, in context, which Sarbanes-Oxley modified in 2002, before the SC arguments; the author was apparently skirting a technical aside, at the expense of rendering some of the questions seemingly awfully superfluous), it kept me spellbound, reading rapidly, but reflecting often. Truly fascinating. It reads like a thrilling fictional novel, only much more densely packed with complex real-world connections and correlations, being real as opposed to invented. Like a painting painted from actuality, as opposed to one relying only on imagination, with all the added, unpredictable depth of detail of reality. You want to gobble it down, but at the same time to slow down to fully appreciate and savor it.The astonishing prosecutorial corruption and gobbledygook "arguments", the years of persecution of the innocent, the sheer judicial incompetence and resolute obtuseness, the absurd politicalization of the issues, exposed by "Licensed to Lie", are a clarion call to all those who despise Injustice, who love and demand Justice, a call to arms to DO something to rein-in our out-of-control, megalomaniac, narcissistic, increasingly corrupt federal government, lest we continue down the road to becoming people of, by, and for The Government."Licensed to Lie" deals mainly with failures of the DOJ (Executive Branch) and the District and Appellate Courts (Judicial Branch), but the other two "estates" of our Republic, the Legislative Branch and our Free Press, share in the ignominy as well. More generally, today it seems more and more difficult to decide which of the four estates of our Republic, each of which serves an essential role in preserving our Freedom and Liberty, has sunk the lowest, which is most Corrupted, which is most malfeasant, which is most misfeasant, which is most nonfeasant.By the time I was into the last quarter or so of the book, the performance of the judiciary (the judges) repeatedly left a sour taste in my mouth. Literally. Disgusting. Soon, I began feeling that sense of being "dirty", of needing a shower, that I had felt a couple of times before, when serving on grand juries. This time was very different though. The feeling came not from the association with the dire allegations, the testimony, the "accused", the purported depraved deeds, the low behavior, and dismal world-views ... it came from association with the prosecution, the prosecutors, or rather the persecution, the persecutors, and the various distracted, apparently clueless, and incredibly culpable judges .... and the harm they needlessly and senselessly inflicted on the innocent.I have written this review before finishing the book, while I still have both hope and fear for the ending, to avoid spoiling it for anyone who will read it. Read the book. Whatever the ending, it is an eye-opener, a must-read for those who care about Justice and our Republic. And need to KNOW.Also, many kudos to the truly heroic figures to be found in the pages of this book, especially the Browns. And especially the author herself, and her long-suffering colleagues. It is hard to imagine the incredible fortitude it took to fight this incredible fight, over many long years, and what courage of conviction it took to steadfastly defend even those wrongly accused, while suffering all the "slings and arrows", the egregious stonewalling, of the outrageous and unreachable antagonists, the prosecutors and the judges, both, in reality, the persecutors.One last comment before I return to finish the final chapters of the book. I have long wondered what pernicious impacts the follies of our Supreme Court --- the 5-4 decisions, the olio majorities, the narcissistic purely-personal ideological "opinions", the "rights" loudly trumpeted in one decision only to be violated by the Court itself in another, the illegitimate suspension BY THE COURT ITSELF of the Constitutional rights of some citizens, the piecemeal destruction of our precious and irreplaceable WRITTEN Constitution in favor of a fictitious "living" Constitution, whose eisegetic "living" part in reality resides only in the personal opinions (with a lower case "o"), personal prejudices, and Talmudic pseudo-logic of the living justices, producing not a "living" Constitution but a "vampire document", the "living dead" : for a written document that does not mean what it says, is dead --- might have on our subordinate courts and judges, on our halls of Justice. ... I fear "Licensed to Lie" speaks all too clearly to that question.

The basic state of any human being is to try and get what they want, no matter the cost. It is more natural to cheat, lie, steal, and abuse others for your own benefit than it is to be honest even if it hurts. This applies to those in government positions of power more than others since it draws people who want power.I’m glad I read this before going to law school and applying to the DOJ. If I ever do apply and get to work there, I will be prepared to see much more of this abuse.

Maybe there have been rebuttals of SP's thrust of political corruption, but I am not convinced of their worth. SP painstakingly outlines the blatant distortion of justice to achieve a conviction. As for some of the lead characters who have risen beyond their level of competence, I am appalled. Especially after some were involved in the Trump Russia collusion narrative.

In America there seem to be two sets of laws, one for the elites and the other for the common people. Hard to believe that the judges allow the gross corruption of the government prosecutors to frame the innocent.

Excellent read and very insightful material. I administer and often produce content for a "Miscarriage Of Justice" site, www.freesimon.com.au. I found the content to be a very useful reference and has helped greatly in focussing my thoughts.

Sidney Powell in an impartial presentation of facts unveils the current continuous egregious abuses of power by federal prosecutors and the federal courts and their representatives who insulate these lawyers to do so. Courts insulation that results in false convictions of innocent defendants whose lives are destroyed. Sidney Powell accredited lawyer herself, presents evidentiary proof of these abuses in power where she represents clients as an appellate lawyer in such big cases as the United States vs. Enron & United States vs. Merrill & Lynch. These federal court outcomes with their hidden abuses of legal precedences have been presented to the public in this book as the narrative for the media these corrupt representatives of the U.S. federal government fabricated to advance their careers into higher echelons of national power. Despite these abuses being exposed in courts through theses cases of law by Ms. Powell, other lawyers and judges faithful to the rule of law this book exposes that they continue. This book is a vital treatise of how broken the United States Department of Justice has become and the much needed reforms that if not enacted put all citizens and their freedoms in serious jeopardy.

I discovered that Sidney Powell had written a book, as part of what I read about her investigations into voting machines and possible fraud in the recent US election. Since everyone has an opinion about that, and about the people involved in it, I wanted to find out a bit more about Ms Powell, her character. This is a brave, fascinating and frightening book, and Sidney Powell comes across as someone I would trust with my life and liberty.