Senator Durbin Urges Favorable Action on Smith AAG Tax Nomination

Main Justice has article titled "Durbin Calls for Action on Tax Division Nominee" with Durbin's statement in full. The article is here.

Update on Mary Smith nomination for AAG Tax

Main Justice has a report here this morning titled "American Indian Leaders Question Delays On Tax Nominee."

The American indian constituency is circling the wagons (is that the right metaphor?) for Mary Smith, whose nomination as AAG Tax has been pending for some time now. The article is a nice piece setting forth the concerns. The article also quotes Tax Division alums Nathan Hochman (former AAG) and Carr Ferguson (former AAG chief and, long before that, real line attorney at DOJ Tax). (Note that Main Justice apparently picked up the wrong picture of Carr; the picture in the article as of my reading at 8:00 this morning is of Ronald Jensen of Pace University Law School; for a real picture of Carr along with a great article on him, see here.)

For the previous blogs on Mary Smith, see here.

Dana Boente Named First Assistant AUSA in EDVA

Dana Boente, formerly DAAG Tax and Acting USA for EDVA, has been appointed First Assistant AUSA in EDVA. For the Main Justice Article, see here.

Tax Recipients at DOJ AG Awards Ceremony

This item is from a PR Newswire here. I have cut and paste the items relevant to DOJ Tax:

Attorney General Eric Holder recognizes 247 department employees for their distinguished public service today at the 57th Annual Attorney General Awards Ceremony. Thirty-nine other individuals outside of the department are also honored for their work. Held at DAR Constitution Hall, this annual ceremony recognizes both department employees and others for their dedication to carrying out the Department of Justice's mission.

The John Marshall Award for Trial of Litigation is also presented to the team that litigated AWG Leasing Trust v. United States, the first case to go to trial involving the abusive sale in/lease out tax shelter. Recipients include, from the Department of Justice's Tax Division, Civil Trial Section, Southern Region Assistant Chief Angelo A. Frattarelli; from the Northern Region, Trial Attorneys Robert Kovacev, Matthew Von Schuch and Karen Smith.

Another John Marshall Award for Participation in Litigation is awarded to, from the Department of Justice Tax Division, Office of the Assistant Attorney General Kevin M. Downing, Senior Level Trial Attorney; Michael P. Ben'Ary, Trial Attorney, Northern Criminal Enforcement Section; Frank P. Cihlar, Trial Attorney, Criminal Appeals and Tax Enforcement Policy Section; and from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, Jeffrey A. Neiman, Assistant U.S. Attorney. This team is recognized for their outstanding work in negotiating the deferred prosecution agreement with UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland and one of the largest worldwide.

UPDATE: For the Main Justice web page on this see here.

Shelly L. Goldklang Named Special Counsel at Cadwalader

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, LLP announced here the promotion of some attorneys to Special Counsel. Included is Shelly L. Goldklang a DOJ Tax alum. The following is the portion of the release related to Shelly.

Shelly L. Goldklang is a member of the Business Fraud and Complex Litigation Group who advises clients on a wide variety of white collar criminal and regulatory matters, including issues involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, money laundering, and criminal tax. Prior to joining Cadwalader, Ms. Goldklang was a federal prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice`s Tax Division, Criminal Enforcement Section, where she also spent six months detailed to the United States Attorney`s Office for the District of Columbia. Resident in the Washington, D.C. office, Ms. Goldklang received her undergraduate degree, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, and her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Miami School of Law.

Mary Smith AAG Confirmation Documents

The documents related to Mary Smith's confirmation as AAG may be accessed here. Included is the webcast of the hearing considering Gerard Lynch for a spot of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and Ms. Smith for DOJ Tax AAG. The questions to and answers of the nominees are interspersed, so readers wishing to focus on only one nominee will just have to fast forward to the pertinent sections.

DOJ Tax AAG Designate Smith gets Senate Judiciay Committee Approval

The Legal Times has an article on the approval of Ms. Smith here. The approval was on party lines. The Republicans stated complaint was her lack of relevant experience.

I previously blogged Ms. Smith's nomination here.

The article also reports the committee's approval of U.S. District Judge (SDNY) Gerard Lynch for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. This nomination was approved on voice vote without dissent.

Thanks to the Tax Prof Blog here from which I picked up this item.

AAG Robert Jackson Speech on Republicans, Intelligence & Practicality

Yesterday, my DOJ Tax Division automatic Google search served up a reference to a remarkable speech in 1936 by then DOJ Tax AAG Robert Jackson (of later Supreme Court fame). The reference was to a publication by Professor John Q. Barrett who is writing a biography about Jackson and sends periodic emails on Jackson topics. (His lists of Jackson postings may be viewed here, where a pdf of this speech can be downloaded.)

The item that my Google search captured caught my attention because it was a speech made while Jackson was AAG. I asked Professor Barrett for permission to put it on this blog and he graciously gave permission, which I acknowledge thankfully. Professor Barrett further invited readers of this blog to review his Jackson documents at the link above and join his list. Professor Barrett's introduction to the speech and the speech are:

Jackson on Republicans, Intelligence & Practicality
(December 1936)
John Q. Barrett*
Copyright © 2009 by John Q. Barrett.
All rights reserved.

On Wednesday evening, December 2, 1936, more than 400 people attended a Democratic Party victory dinner and celebration at the Hotel Jamestown in Jamestown, New York. The guest of honor was Robert H. Jackson, a former Jamestown resident, lawyer and leading Democrat who was serving under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States Department of Justice as Assistant Attorney General heading the Tax Division. At the time, press reports from Washington indicated that the newly-reelected President Roosevelt was about to appoint Attorney General Homer S. Cummings to a new position, and that Jackson was the leading candidate to succeed Cummings. (As events developed, Cummings continued as Attorney General for almost two more years. His successor was, for a year, Frank Murphy. In 1940, Jackson succeeded Murphy as Attorney General.)

At the Jamestown dinner, following musical entertainment and various addresses, including a principal speech by Francis M. Shea, the young Dean of the University of Buffalo School of Law, Jackson delivered these timely—then, and now—remarks:

My friends and neighbors are generous as well as gracious in singling me out for honors tonight. Many of you could not be expected to enthuse over the political aspects of this occasion and your interest is deeply appreciated. Others are celebrating the event by which the Democratic Party became a majority party not only in state and nation but in this city as well. I share your joy at that achievement. It is a delight to have Dean Shea come to Jamestown for any reason and I feel honored that he should come now.

While I enjoy getting credit for achievements, whether earned or not, I must disclaim all except a very modest share in the victory. It was too general and too sweeping to be attributable to personal efforts. It was a result of a great many contributions.

The local party organization remained loyal from top to bottom. Organized labor gave the most effective demonstration of its strength and solidarity in local history. Our Swedish citizenry were not afraid of the cry of communism and ruin, for they knew that the efforts of the Roosevelt administration were already achievements in their native land. The Italian people have developed a fine group of young professional men who saw in the Democratic policy a fulfillment of the hopes of a people who came here seeking opportunity and security. So many groups broke with their old tradition and they are entitled to the credit for the result.

I am not so confident that the Republican Party is dead. Some sixteen million voters who remained loyal even this year is a very respectable political beginning, if properly led, and if it can make up its mind what its principles are to be. It is terribly handicapped in leadership. Its old leaders are discredited and its future leaders are unknown. They have few governorships, senatorships, or even large mayoralties in which to learn leadership and to develop public standing. Moreover the leadership problem is complicated by the tendency of the seaboard states to want one kind of leadership and the interior another. So the Republican Party is in a bad way. But it is not dead. Democratic blundering might give it life again.

The fact is that the election leaves us with a tremendous responsibility. It is no time for delusions of grandeur nor for animosities, pettiness or partisanship.

Our danger is not from opposition so much as from the lack of it. Our victory may be too devastating to be wholesome. It is a temptation to be reckless, an invitation of factions. We have been given a lot of rope and it will take some self restraint to keep from hanging ourselves, by the excesses and arrogances which too often follow oversized majorities.

There is another danger. We must not forget our responsibilities to those who elected us, just because those who were lately so bitter are now outdoing themselves in proffers for good fellowship. This campaign was no tea party—it had a definite meaning. The cat cannot be put in care of the canary just because it is now purring. Visible opposition is gone but do not believe that invisible underground work has ceased by those whose motto is “Time Marches—Backwards.”

In the president [FDR] and the governor [Herbert H. Lehman] and in our local appeals we offered a fighting faith in real democracy, in economic freedom as well as legal freedom for the working masses. We denied that the injustice and disadvantage under which many people work must be accepted and worshipped as the American way. We believe the soul killing processes of industry and the cruelties of economic life are capable of improvement. We challenged the doctrine that God stopped His great clock in 1789 when our Constitution was framed and that He placed on the Supreme Court a duty of seeing that nothing ever moves again.

In this local campaign, we carried our cause directly to the people who cast the votes. We dealt with no broker. We wasted no time trying to reach workers through their employers. We had no middlemen. Let that be our method always. When we go to the people we educate them to understand us, but far more important they educate us to understand them.

Let us never forget that political campaigns in the large sense are not materialistic. They are of the spirit. Those who came with us cared nothing for our organization, our patronage or our narrower partisanship, and they overlooked our many mistakes. Their response was to ideas and ideals.

It is the salvation of democracy that both sides learn wisdom from a campaign. Although the campaign often seems so unintelligent, it is also characteristic that after the heat of the campaign both sides welcome cooler thought and are glad the bitterness is over with. There is evidence already that conservatives have become more aware of the need of concession, the liberalism more aware of the need of being practical. Only if conservatism is intelligent and liberalism practical can the struggle between the two be solved by the ballot.

So whether we were among the victors or the vanquished, we share together the exciting adventure of free government, with its process of claim and counterclaim, of progress by compromise, of trial and error. Slowly but surely we move to greater economic security, to a more humane and just and equal order of society.

From the bottom of my heart I thank you all for its demonstration of confidence and friendship. It gives courage in whatever little part I may play to remember your trust in me and to keep the faith.

Former AAG Hochman joins Bingham McCutcheon

The Tax Prof Blog reports here that Nathan Hochman will join Bingham McCutchen's Santa Monica, Calif., office on May 1 (today). The Bingham McCutcheon press release is here.

Mary L. Smith, AAG DOJ Tax Designee

According to a White House Press Release on 4/8/2009. the President announced his intent to nominate Mary L. Smith Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division. The portion of the press release related to Ms. Smith is:

Mary L. Smith currently is a Partner at Schoeman, Updike, Kaufman & Scharf LLP, a women-owned firm. Smith specializes in complex litigation, regulatory practice, and government investigations. Earlier in her career, she served as Senior Litigation Counsel at Tyco International (US) Inc. where she managed the securities class action multi-district litigation – one of the largest cases pending in the country. While at Tyco, Smith interacted with the tax department on a range of issues including employee benefits and more strategic issues involving litigation and the company’s corporate reorganization. Prior to Tyco, she was an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in Washington, D.C. Prior to her time at Skadden, Smith served in the Clinton White House as Associate Counsel to the President and Associate Director of Policy Planning where she was responsible for a number of policy areas including domestic violence, tax issues, equal pay, Internet gambling, Native American issues, and civil rights issues. She was the highest-ranking Native American in the White House during the Clinton Administration. From 1994-96, Smith served as a trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice Civil Division. Smith graduated from the University of Chicago School of Law, cum laude, where she was a member of the Law Review. Smith clerked for the Hon. R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She received a B.S., magna cum laude, from Loyola University of Chicago. Smith is a member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession and a member of the Board of Managers for the Chicago Bar Association.