Comments on: Two Louisiana Men Indicted for Software Exports to Iran

By: Mike Deal

Mike Deal — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:50:13 +0000

The US Attorney’s manual requires US Attorneys to obtain the permission of main Justice before bringing any indictment for violation of any export control statute, and main justice always consults with the jurisdictional agency. While there have been cases where the US Attorney’s office has ignored this requirement, e.g., a recent case in Phoenix where knuckledraggers at the FBI were the principal investigators, its unusual

By: CariN

CariN — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:23:36 +0000

To be fair - DOJ is a separate entity from OFAC and there is no requirement that the AUSA consult with OFAC in drafting the indictment (it’s a little nutty to say that OFAC and DoJ conspire!). Further, IEEPA penalties are pretty potent these days so there is no need to “lie” about the length of the embargo or draw unsubstantiated links to nukes. An export to Iran is a violation unless it’s otherwise authorized - if it’s civil, OFAC can take of it — if it rises to a criminal violation, DoJ gets to go after it. Interested to see the indictment –

By: Mike Deal

Mike Deal — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:50:38 +0000

This is typical misrepresentation by OFAC and DoJ: When they indict people for exporting EAR99 products to Iran, and they have indicted a lot of poor folks for doing that, they always seed their press releases with misleading statements regarding keeping dual-use or advanced technology out of the hands of proliferators, when in fact the goods were of no strategic interest and the only dual use involved was the use of the indictment for the dual purpose of plumping up the OFAC numbers and spinning the US Attorney’s record for the next political job

This DoJ routinely lies to courts and grand juries, for example telling courts and grand juries that there has been a continuous embargo against Iran since the Hostage Crisis of 1979 when in fact the embargo that was proclaimed in1979 was rescinded in 1981 pursuant to the Algier Accords. Such lies by this DoJ to courts has a dual use: First, by fraudulently asserting that there has been an embargo since 1979, this DoJ purposely misleads judges and grand jurors into believing that any reasonable business person would know that trading with Iran was illegal (a necessary requisite of a criminal IEEPA violation), when in fact there has only been a total embargo since 1996 and there have been various waivers and exceptions since then that laymen may well be uninformed. Second, it reminds jurors of the Hostage Crisis - which had nothing to do with the present embargo - and inflames them against anyone who might do business with Iran. Its just sleazy, like everything to do with the Bush Administration or OFAC in general.

By: hass

hass — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:38:00 +0000

I suspect they’re trying to lard the indictment in order to make it seem that Iran was trying to obtain the software to build nuclear-related things. Vague, open-ended references to the software’s “potential uses” is clearly an invitation to speculate about — what else? — Iranian nukes. Thus it has more to do with indicting Iran than the particular defendants. In short, its political.