The following is the official response from the White House:
Thank you for signing the petition “Call an Investigation into Allegations of Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Case of Sholom Rubashkin.” We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov.
As explained in the We the People Terms of Participation, the White House may at times decline to comment on certain specific matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local governments in its response to a petition. For important policy reasons, this includes specific law enforcement and judicial ethics matters. With respect to law enforcement matters, the Department of Justice is charged with investigating crime and enforcing our laws. The Department also has mechanisms in place to investigate allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, including through its Office of Professional Responsibility. With respect to judicial ethics matters, the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 vests primary responsibility for investigating and adjudicating claims of judicial misconduct with the Judicial Branch.
This petition calls for an investigation into allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the case of Sholom Rubashkin and for action to correct the “gross injustice” in his case. For the reasons given above, the White House declines to comment on matters raised by this petition.
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36 Responses
A non-answer.
Can YWN please clarify this?
We were asking for a pardon mr. president and yes you are the only one that can do that we know the Department of Justice is involved, and to say that you cant get involved in a Department of Justice matter is insulting to our intelligence, the constitution gives the president the power to pardon and bypass all other avenues because the framers knew that sometimes it will happen that a major injustice will be done and gives the president the power to right the wrong. So dont stand on your high horse and sound the the good guy, “if only i could get involved and help you!” we all see through your charades and we will vote you out of office God willing before you totally destroy our constitution
Shame on him! Although I’m not quite sure what anyone expected him to do.
this is what to expect from the white house. obama is to busy setting up dictatorships overseas to bother commenting on the rubashkin petition
I was wondering from the beggining why anybody thought, that signing this petition would help. The president can’t override the Judicial system. Did they think that by signing this silly petition that The President would pardon him when leaving office in 2012
#6 (mormat) you are incorrect, the president has the power to pardon anyone for anything at his will, its the ultimate power and biggest power the president of the USA has for most anything else he has to come on to the elected legislature, but not for pardoning.
To those saying that the president has power to give pardons despite his inability to interfere with the judiciary:
A) You are right, he can pardon. But this president has given very few pardons and they were all for small crimes committed years ago.
B) This petition did not even request a pardon, it asked for the president to direct the Attorney General to look into the situation.
First let’s be clear, despite the fact that Rubashkin’s sentence was too harsh and that the Judge involved should have been thrown off the bench for the bias that was later revealed, Rubashkin is not innocent .
Secondly, Obama cannot involve himself because that would make him the new one man Supreme court and this will never happen!
The bigger question is why the supreme court acted the way it did. THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO UPHOLD JUSTICE!
I don’t get 2 things:
1. Why they don’t post guidelines one the main site as to which petitions they cannot look in to. This would save us all some time.
2.Why this response doesn’t direct us to an email to send this petition to the correct dept.
It states in the second paragraph “For the reasons given above, the White House declines to comment on matters raised by this petition” The only reason that I can see from the long and complex first paragraph is “For important policy reasons”. The President does not describe what these important policy reasons are. What a sham!!
The president does run the legal system. The Justice Department (the prosecutors) is part of the executive branch, which means they do their duties as employees of the president.
Thus, it is the presidents job to inquire into misconduct of the prosecutors. That is what we asked for: “to investigate… prosecutorial misconduct”.
How can we get Attorney General to investigate this case? I thought the President is fully within his right to ask AG to look over a case.
That’s all we asked for, we didn’t ask for a pardon.
You know, Eric Holder, the Attorney General, is just as bad (if not worse) as Obama. What makes anyone think that if the President tells Holder to “look into the matter”, we will get any justice? Neither the President nor the AG are really worth anything at all.
Friends, I hate to say it, but we had an indication a month ago that this petition wouldn’t go anywhere. Same reason the askonim on behalf of Jonathan Pollard aren’t pushing signatures on the site (though there are 2 active petitions on his behalf). The “Terms of Perticipation” on the We The People website cleary state the following:
“To avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition.” The Official Response above states,
“With respect to judicial ethics matters, the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 vests primary responsibility for investigating and adjudicating claims of judicial misconduct with the Judicial Branch.” Although I myself participated in signing the petition and tried to convince everyone I know to do so as well, my intention was more for the achdus and publicity factor, in the hopes that the yeshua may still come from somewhere. I’m definitely no expert in American Government, but I do believe the Judiciary is a separate branch from the Executive, and evidently we need to direct our efforts to get the Judicial Branch to investigate this situation.
Yaasher koach to all who tried. As the second largest petition on the site, I hope we at least created a Kiddush Hashem, and that we don’t blow it with improper comments and responses of our own.
I received an email from the White House with this response. I chose to respond to the White House. Everyone should respond in disgust to the White House. They should be bombarded with emails and phone calls stating that we fully expect the White House to follow through on the promise of the We the People petition site and have the Attorney General and any other government agency who can look into this matter, look into this matter.
Is that a response to a petition signed by Tens of thousands of people?????
We must not let these rotten and cold-blooded middos seep into our lifestyle chas v’shalom!!
#17 is exactly correct.
A respectful response to the request of 50k people would have been proper.
At least acknowledge us.
In the case of the petition regarding student debt the president got involved. He directed the treasury to make changes.
As for his ability to have the justice dept look into it, he is absolutely capable of doing so, and he has in the past.
Had they ignored it rather than this reply I’d be less upset.
I hope that all of you who voted for hussein obama are happy now. Vote for him again! He loves us and he loves Israel.
double talk nonsense. Basically, the WH is saying nothing but using a lot of words.
#10-Signing wasn’t a waste of time. It was a great kiddush hashem to see how yidden do anything to “maybe” get another yid out of his plight.
We say every morning the brocha Matir Asurrim. Let’s all say it with a lot of kavuna and have in mind that Sholom be the next yid set free.
This is yet another stunning display of executive cowardice…
disgusting. such a cop out.
Typical political legalese talk say a lot and say nothing at the same time. What I don’t understand is that if the Whitehouse can’t involve itself in the process what purpose does this new initiative serve?
Oshama just wanted to collect Jewish emails
tryinghard
WADR Matir Assurim has nothing to do with prisoners. The Bracha is a thank you to Hashem for undying our limbs which were “bound” while we slept in bed. We thank Hashem that we can sit up and stretch. (Don’t believe me check out an artscroll or see a peirush on tefillah)
Untying*
Friends,it seems like we’re not “getting” it. As #22 said, “Signing wasn’t a waste of time. It was a great kiddush hashem to see how yidden do anything to “maybe” get another yid out of his plight.” However all this nasty, sometimes ridiculous, rambling in most of the rest of the comments is not just a waste of time, its counter-productive. It helps foster an atmosphere of Chillul Hashem and break down the achdus and Kiddush Hashem we worked so hard to create.
The reason they won’t address the petition is clearly stated both in the Terms of Agreement on the site and in the response. There is nothing unclear. In fact, it tells us what to do to address the problem. Instead of all this griping, why aren’t we petitioning the appropriate authorities listed in the response? Why aren’t we getting the same dozens of legislators, politicians etc. to write to the asppropriate investigatory agencies, instead of the White House?
Incidentally, if you haven’t realized it by now, it seems that there’s very little this whole “We The People” site can do other than earn some political brownie points for Obama (possibly). As of this morning there’s no less than 9 new petitions addressing the responses to the petitions, and we all know that those are a total waste of time. If they didn’t respond the way they wanted the first time, why would that change with a new petition? The fact is, those petitioners don’t want to accept a polite “no” to their request. As Yidden we know very well that even our most fervent tefilos are sometimes answered with a “no”. Why should we expect more from the White House?
Please let’s stop this useless ranting and spend our time continuing to make serious hishtadlus on behalf of R’ Sholom and other yidden in need.
The gibberish in the email was an intentional non-answer as some commented. They played with us from the onset and never had any intention or obligation of doing anything that wasn’t perceived as furthering their policies and politics. The WH gained all our emails and basic info though for their data base so they can use or abuse it at will. Thanks to Obama’s policy of making things transparent ie. our privacy being transparent.
I guess we all felt like we wanted to do something and that this might actually be something.
Ein lanu al mi lismoch ela avinu shebashmaim.
One more thing – when the WH saw that we were getting too many signatures they raised the amount needed to 25,000. So we more than doubled it. Now we got an official response that the WH can’t respond! Yay! >>>>>BUT…. There are petitions that got a response (not that it is worth anything) and they didn’t have close to the required 25,000!
see https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/fair-tax-%E2%80%93-national-sales-tax-increases-tax-burdens-middle-class-families
It’a all OUR fault for not donating enough at the fund-raisers. How do you expect Mr. Nat Lewin to attempt at even a half decent defense for a measly $800/hour?
I highly doubt that everyone is stupid enough to be duped and believe that this is all on the up and up. Forget the White House and Obama. It has nothing to do with them and I think we all really know that. Let’s be honest even if it means admitting our shameful behavior. There was and still is a HUGE (hidden) agenda here. SMR and family and friends were railroaded by some very greedy people (pl.) and very few of us in the know (myself included) and those that simply figured it out logically (ditto) yelled about it. This shameful compliance seems to be too commonplace with us these days (but maybe it’s OK since it has all been foretold as great signs). Every novice lawyer or wannabe (including Lewin) knows that a little remorse (even if just for show) goes a long way and works much better than arrogance (which almost always adds to the sentence – as it did in this case as well). But then again, there’s less money with this approach.
As I said earlier the way to handle this is to bombard the White House with 50,000 and more emails and phone calls demanding that the petition be addressed.
I sent the following email to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Re: Petition at the “We The People” site
“Call an Investigation into Allegations of Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Case of Sholom Rubashkin.”
To Whom It May Concern:
I don’t understand this response. We did not petition to the Whitehouse to do the actual investigation.
We understand your policy of not being involved aor comment on juristrictional matters.
Please read our petition more carefully. We asked you “TO DIRECT THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO
INVESTIGATE”. and we ask again: We don’t expect you to comment on the actual case, we just ask to respond that you hear the concern of over 50,000 civil citizens and has “DIRECTED THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL TO INVESTIGATE” and let “HIM” comment on this.
Thank you
Please don’t overreact! The WH did NOT exclude a pardon!!!
All the WH is saying is that they cannot intervene with the judicial system, and that is (officially) true. You want the WH to call the Supreme court to demand the release??!!
Do not bad mouth the president, because the pardon is of course on the table. You think he ain’t got any brains? But the official letter has to be this way. A pardon is definetly not ruled out.
There is a mitzva in the Torah of pidyon shevuyim, reedeming captives from jail. Rabbanim have stated that redeeming R’ Shalom Mordechai falls into this category because of the gross injustice of what the government did to him by going after him in every way possible. This includes bringing military helecopters to aid in a raid so massive in size that it was unheard of that eventually brought him to bankruptcy. It includes citing him for tens of thousands of offenses including one that was never used to prosecute someone since it was enacted as law over 100 years ago! It includes threatening prosecution against potential purchasers of the company to ensure that the company would not remain solvent, so that when the bank suddenly called in the loan for immediate repayment and refused to negotiate an almost complete payment offer that one of his friends of R’ Shalom Rubashkin was willing to give the bank on the spot, the government had a ready-made case of multi-million dollar “bank fraud” because of the alleged loss of the bank – and it was made as large as possible because the bank pumped in as much money as possible before the bankruptcy and then was unwilling to accept any type of negotiations to allow for the eventual full payment! It includes their sudden decision to drop all charges because there was no longer any reason to pursue the charges for which the military style raid claimed as the reason to attack the company because they now had a more serious offense with which to charge him, yet he could not defend himself from all the terrible occusations made against him at the trial. It includes having one the people involved in bringing him down sitting as judge. It includes having this judge upon whom serious allegations of judicial misconduct in the case arose judging the very case in which she herself was being accused of the allegations during the first appeal. It includes the fact that it was arranged for this same judge to sit in with two of the three judges of the second appeal for almost ten hours immediately before the case. It includes the fact that although the heartrending appeal was very successful in terms of their strong presentation of the gross injustices involved; furthermore, one of the judges noted that the sentense seemed overly harsh, yet during the private deliberations not provided to the defense, some unknown factors influenced the appeal judges to make an about face and state in the ruling that the original ruling was actually very lenient!
Therefore, doing whatever one can to redeem R’ Shalom Rubashkin from what amounts to almost a life sentence certainly falls into this category. Whether or not the current administration decides to be responsive to the outcries of hundreds of thousands of people voiced both through the petition and by dozens of congress members and numerous Attorney generals and correct the injustice by using the executive branch to provide the necessary checks and balances that are provided in the Constitution, should strongly determine which candidate they should vote for next November, and thereby fulfill the mitzvah of pidyon shevuyim through their vote.