Mizelle Nominated to District Judgeship (8/13/20)

President Trump nominated Kathryn Kimball Mizelle to be a District Judge for the Middle District of Florida.  See White House press release here.  The relevant part of the announcement is here (emphasis supplied):

Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, of Florida, to serve as Judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Kathryn Mizelle is an attorney at Jones Day, where her practice focuses on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals.  Ms. Mizelle previously served at the Department of Justice as Counsel to the Associate Attorney General, a Trial Attorney in the Tax Division, and as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.  Ms. Mizelle also serves as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.  Upon graduation from law school, Ms. Mizelle served as a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Gregory G. Katsas of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Chief Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and Judge James S. Moody, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.  Ms. Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she served as the Executive Notes & Comments Editor of the Florida Law Review.

Death of Sumner Redstone (8/12/20)

Sumner Redstone died on August 11, 2020.  See Wikipedia, here.  Also from Wikipedia:

After completing law school, Redstone served as special assistant to U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark (who later served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967) and then worked for the United States Department of Justice Tax Division in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, and thereafter entered private practice.

I am not sure about that Tax Division in San Francisco, but he did work in the Tax Division.  See Tax Division Alumnus in the Tax News (DOJ Tax Division Alunni News 10/27/15), here (quoting Estate of Redstone v. Commissioner, 145 T.C. 259, 261 (2015), here).

The New York Times obituary is here.

 

Recent DOJ Alumni Statement Condemning on the Flynn Case (2/18/20)

I previously posted the following:  DOJ Alumni Statement Condemning AG Barr (DOJ Tax Alumni Blog 2/18/20), here.  In that post, I advised about an informal DOJ Alumni group, with considerable mass (i.e., alumni participants) who were making a statement of dissatisfaction with Attorney General Barr.  In that notice, I provided it only for the information of DOJ Tax Alumni that might be interested and otherwise did not know about the initiative.  I did not recommend it to anyone.

In the same vein, I offer this new statement by the DOJ Alumni Group.  DOJ Alumni Statement on Flynn Case (Medium 5/11/20), here.

The group says that it will continue to update the list of those supporting the statement here for those who may not have considered it yet.

Again, I am not endorsing the statement for others.  I did join the list, but that is not a recommendation for others to do so.

Trump Announces Intent to Nominate De Mello as Inspector General for Dept of Education (4/5/20)

President Trump has announced his intention to nominate Andrew De Mello, a Trial Attorney for DOJ Tax - Northern Region to be Inspector General of the Department of Education.  The nomination announcement on the web, here, says:

Mr. De Mello currently serves as a Trial Attorney for the Tax Division at the Department of Justice where he manages all aspects of complex, affirmative, and defensive litigation in United States District and Bankruptcy courts.  He has been on detail to the Inspector General’s Office at the Department of Homeland Security as a Senior Special Counsel since October 2019. 

Mr. De Mello received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his juris doctorate from Columbia Law School.

Pat Mullarkey, retired Chief of the Northern Region Section, said on his Facebook page:

Andrew De Mello, a trial attorney in the Northern Region civil trial section of the Tax Division, DOJ, who has been on detail to the Inspector General for Homeland Security for the past year and one-half, was nominated by President Trump on Friday to be the Inspector General for the Department of Education. If there is a problem there, Andrew will find it, assuming he is confirmed.

With that praise, let's hope he is confirmed.

Note: In my original posting, I said that the announcement was of the nomination.  I was corrected that it was only announcement of an intention to nominate.  I am not sure of the normal routine for such announcements -- whether, after announcement of intention to nominate, there is a material delay in the actual nomination or its announcement, or whether some nominations are not made after announcement of intention to nominate.  In any event, this seems to be a case where the nomination should be made.

Larry Wallace of SG's Office and Footnote Fame Dies (2/24/20)

Lawrence G. ("Larry") Wallace, a formidable presence in the Solicitor General’s office for many years, died today.  See Tony Mauro, Larry Wallace, Former Deputy Solicitor General and Courageous Civil Servant, Dies at 88 (Law.com 2/23/20), here.  Although Larry was not a DOJ Tax guy, one of his principal claims to fame, recounted in the article, was his famous footnote in a brief in a tax case involving denying tax exempt status to racially discriminatory schools (Bob Jones University and Goldsboro Christian Schools). The Government won both of those cases at the Fourth Circuit, but when the schools petitioned for certiorari, the Reagan administration decided to pay back the South for its support by attempting to throw the case in the Supreme Court.  Wallace was in the SG’s office at the time.  They needed someone to sign the brief, he agreed provided that he could put in a footnote that he did not agree with the position of the Reagan administration. Here is the Law.com description of that footnote:

In 1982, he included a memorable footnote in a brief signaling that he would not support the Reagan administration’s position in Bob Jones University v. United States. At issue was the Internal Revenue Service policy that denied tax-exempt status to institutions that discriminated by race. The Reagan White House wanted to oppose that policy in the government’s brief. 

When Solicitor General Rex Lee recused, the task of signing the brief fell to Wallace. Wallace did so, but insisted on adding the footnote, which angered Reagan administration officials. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the policy. 

The late Erwin Griswold, who served as the U.S. solicitor general from 1967 to 1973, told The Washington Post in 1982 that Wallace’s action was “an attempt to preserve the credibility of the office.” 

Wallace remained in the office, but he was relieved of handling civil rights cases for the government, and a new position of a politically appointed deputy solicitor general was created. 

Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus on Saturday called Wallace’s legendary footnote “an act of extraordinary personal courage and professional integrity.” Lazarus continued: “The more recent action of the career Justice Department attorneys in resigning from the Stone prosecution to make clear their disagreement with orders from the Attorney General to withdraw their sentencing recommendation is strikingly reminiscent of Wallace’s action.”

An aside, I handled both cases in the trial level.  I handle Goldsboro Christian Schools to decision.  The Government won, with a decision by a S.C. judge, Judge Hemphill, after the N.C. judges recused themselves.  I handled the Bob Jones case until I left DOJ Tax, when Martin Whitaker took over.  Bob Jones won that case.  Both went to the Fourth Circuit which held for the Government.  Then the case went to the Supreme Court with the drama recounted above about the footnote.  There was even more drama when the Supreme Court, realizing that an amicus to argue for the Fourth Circuit holdings.  That amicus was William Coleman respected lawyer and head of the Washington office of O’Melveny & Myers.  Coleman won and, as a result, the Government won despite the attempt by Reagan and his minions to torpedo it.

DOJ Alumni Statement Condemning AG Barr (2/18/20)

Most DOJ Tax Alumni have by now read that there is a statement joined by former DOJ attorneys condemning Attorney General Barr’s conduct in office that seems to have injected political factors into leadership beyond what has become the norm to insulate DOJ from politics.  That statement is here.

When the original announcement hit the newspapers a few days ago, the number was more than 1,000 DOJ Alumni.  I understand that now the number is around 2,000 or more.  The list as updated from time to time may be viewed at the bottom of the statement linked above.  (Added 2/19/20: the count is 2,460 per an email I received on 2/18/20.)

Some DOJ Tax Alumni may not yet be aware of the statement or may be aware only  through news summaries.  And some who may agree with the statement may wish to make their voices heard by joining the statement.  I am not aware of a forum for DOJ Alumni to express their approval of Attorney General Barr or disagreement with the statement.  (Of course anyone reading this blog can do so by commenting on the blog, but remember that readership of this blog is low; if anyone knows of a similar list of DOJ Alumni taking different positions than the statement, please let me know and I will consider posting it as well.)

So I provide a link here for those wishing to join the statement to do so.  (The link is also at the bottom of the statement linked above.)

I am not advocating that any other DOJ Tax Alumni (or any, more broadly, DOJ alumni) reading this blog entry join the statement.  I did join it but that not should not be read as encouragement for anyone else to join.

Richard Zuckerman Nominated to be AAG (2/4/20)

President Trump nominated Richard Zuckerman, currently the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General (Tax)  to be the Assistant Attorney General (Tax Divison).  The announcement is here.  The description is:

Mr. Zuckerman currently serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division at the Department of Justice, where he also serves as the Division’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Matters. Mr. Zuckerman began his legal career as a trial lawyer with the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section assigned to the Detroit Strike Force at the Department of Justice, prosecuting complex organized crime cases as well as criminal tax cases relating to organized crime figures. Mr. Zuckerman was previously a partner at Honigman LLP in Detroit. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Zuckerman served 4 years as an officer in the United States Navy. Mr. Zuckerman received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, a J.D. from Southwestern University, and has advanced education in taxation from Wayne State University School of Law.