Julie Kelly exposes the secret activities of the DC District Court

By John Dale Dunn

The outgoing DC Courts chief judge Beryl Howell has been involved in many secret activities and has closeted the trial court and grand jury proceedings as well as issuing secret opinions on many matters of Grand Jury activities and evidentiary matters.

Read this article, “Time to End the Veil of Secrecy Inside D.C. Kangaroo Court” by Julie Kelly, to get a sense of the magnitude of corruption and enablement of prosecutorial and grand jury abuses. Judge Howell appears to have enjoyed her role as a prosecutor's helper. Also getting special mention in this essay is Judge Tim Kelly who has left the constitutional reservation and is making new and creative violations of civil rights.

This is so bad only a judge or a lawyer could begin to fathom the significance of the violations of Judicial rules and civil rights of defendants.

Sit down and don't drink or eat or you may make a mess when you see what this Chief Judge has been doing that resulted in her fellow judges making some comments at the party marking her final days of Chief Judge. Catch the digs by her fellow judges:

…according to Politico, the retirement celebration turned into a “roast” of sorts as one judge after another chided Howell for her closed-doors dealings.

“Howell seemed to freeze in her seat as the most senior jurist on the court, Judge Paul Friedman, publicly described her still-secret rulings in grand jury-related matters,” reporters Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney wrote on March 17. “[Her] fellow judges made clear they were as tantalized as the rest of the political world by Howell’s secret work presiding over grand juries that could lead to charges against former President Donald Trump.”

Howell sat “stone-faced” when Friedman teased how, “we’d all love to read her opinions, but we can’t.” Friedman also noted that Howell issued “100 secret grand jury opinions” as chief judge.

Tanya Chutkan, another Obama appointee, also chimed in. “There’s so much work Chief Judge Howell has done that we may never know about,” she joked.

But keep in mind:

...nevertheless, Howell got the last laugh, once again, at Trump’s expense.

In yet another sealed ruling, Howell rejected claims of privilege and ordered Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s attorneys, to testify before a grand jury in the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into Team Trump’s handling of alleged classified documents.

Howell’s penchant for secrecy, of course, doesn’t extend to the news media; details related to the sealed order were leaked a few days later.

“Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump’s alleged ‘criminal scheme,’ echoing prosecutors,” ABC News reported on March 21. “Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.” (Corcoran testified on Friday.)

The past two years have introduced us to a new Stalinesque approach to prosecuting political opponents in America. Lavrentiy Beria and old Uncle Joe Stalin would approve.

John Dale Dunn is a nonpracticing lawyer and retired physician in Texas.

Photo credit: US District Court, Distrct of Columbia public domain