Top DOJ Official Helped Keep Opioid Executives From Prison. She’s Since Defended Pharma Against The Government

The head of the Justice Department’s criminal division during the George W. Bush administration reportedly opposed pursuing felony charges against pharmaceutical company executives for downplaying OxyContin’s dangers. Top DOJ officials similarly rejected a prosecutor’s recommendation to file felony charges after they met with executives from Purdue Pharma and their defense team, according to The New York Times. Members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, sought to mislead the public about abuse surrounding OxyContin, a lawsuit alleges, citing company emails and other documents.

The head of the Justice Department’s criminal division under President George W. Bush reportedly opposed levying felony charges against executives of a pharmaceutical company that’s widely blamed for helping start the opioid epidemic. She has since joined a private law firm and has successfully defended pharmaceutical companies against government investigations. A federal prosecutor recommended the felony indictments, which could have resulted in jail time if convictions were secured, but the DOJ officials rejected the notion after meeting with the Purdue Pharma executives and their defense team, according to The New York Times. It’s unclear if the criminal division chief attended that meeting. Over 12 years later, it’s still unknown which senior officials attended that meeting, who rejected the indictment recommendations, and why they were rejected. Local and state governments have since mounted hundred of lawsuits against Purdue alleging the company downplayed the dangers of its blockbuster opioid, OxyContin. The DOJ declined to comment on this story.

Purdue representatives lobbied top DOJ officials on multiple occasions during the Bush administration, according to news reports and congressional testimony. Future FBI Director James Comey was involved in one instance, and Rudy Giuliani, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s attorney, was tied to another.

The prosecutor who recommended felony indictments against Purdue executives found he was recommended for termination after a third instance that occurred hours before Purdue accepted a plea deal that was offered in lieu of felony charges. As part of the plea deal, Purdue and three executives conceded they downplayed OxyContin’s addictiveness and collectively paid a historic $635 million in fines in 2007. No one saw jail time. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people have died from overdoses involving prescription opioids since OxyContin was launched in 1996, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Purdue is privately owned by the Sackler family, whose wealth skyrocketed after OxyContin sales raked in $35 billion over a 20-year period, giving the family a $13 billion net worth and making them the 19th richest in the U.S. in 2016, according to Forbes. Massachusetts was one of the states to file a lawsuit against Purdue in 2018, but it uniquely named eight members of the Sackler family. A recent complaint cites documents indicating the Sacklers headed a campaign to deceive doctors about the dangers of OxyContin and passed blame of negative press onto addicts. “The launch of OxyContin tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” Richard Sackler, the son of a Purdue founder and the company’s president from 1999 to 2003, said while celebrating the drug’s entrance to the market, according to a document cited in the complaint. “The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense, and white.”

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/01/20/doj-purdue-pharma-opioid-sackler/

Thai tycoon resigns from Bangkok Dusit, Bangkok Airways after regulator's order

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai tycoon Prasert Prasarttong-osoth resigned on Monday as CEO of Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS.BK) and Bangkok Airways (BA.BK) after the regulator barred him from holding executive positions in listed Thai firms citing share manipulation. Prasert also stepped down as chairman of Bangkok Dusit, Thailand’s largest hospital network, and vice chairman of Bangkok Airways, the companies said in separate statements.

Late on Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand said Prasert, his daughter Poramaporn and another executive Narumon Chainaknan executed and matched trading in Bangkok Airways shares between Nov 2015 and Jan 2016 that caused price and volume to be inconsistent with market conditions. They were fined 499.45 million baht ($15.75 million) and barred from holding directorships and executive positions in listed companies. Poramaporn, chief operating officer at Bangkok Dusit, and Narumon, executive secretary to the CEO of Bangkok Airways, also resigned from their positions on Monday. The accused will “prove their innocence in the matter”, the companies said.

Currently, Prasert holds 18.4 percent of Bangkok Dusit and nearly 6 percent in Bangkok Airways, while Poramaporn, has a 6.49 percent stake in the boutique airline, according to Refinitiv data. Bangkok Airways shares fell more than 5 percent while Bangkok Dusit slid 7 percent on Monday morning.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bdms-bangkok-airways-ceo/thai-tycoon-resigns-from-bangkok-dusit-bangkok-airways-after-regulators-order-idUSKCN1PF0CJ?il=0

>>4843069

Absolutely no doubt about that!

Israeli military strikes Iranian targets in Syria

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel’s military said on Monday it struck Iranian Quds targets inside Syria and warned Syrian forces not to attack Israeli territory or forces. Syrian state media cited a Syrian military source as saying Israel launched an “intense attack through consecutive waves of guided missiles”, but that Syrian air defenses destroyed most of the “hostile targets”. Witnesses in Damascus said loud explosions rang out in the night sky for nearly an hour. “We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory. We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory,” Israel’s military said in a statement. The Quds Force is in charge of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ overseas operations.

The strikes followed cross-border attacks on Sunday in which Syria said it repelled an Israeli air attack. Israel said it intercepted a rocket fired at the Golan Heights. “We have a permanent policy, to strike at the Iranian entrenchment in Syria and hurt whoever tries to hurt us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier. The Israeli army said a popular winter sports site on Mount Hermon in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights would be shut for the day. It added that otherwise things remained “routine” along the frontier with Syria.

Netanyahu last week acknowledged an Israeli attack on what he called an Iranian arms cache in Syria, where Tehran provides Damascus with vital support. He told his cabinet Israel had carried out “hundreds” of attacks over the past years of Syria’s war to curtail Iran and its ally Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Usually silent about its attacks on Iranian targets near its frontier, Israel has lifted the veil this month, a sign of confidence in a campaign waged amid occasional tensions with Syria’s big-power backer Russia.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-israel-strikes/israeli-military-strikes-iranian-targets-in-syria-idUSKCN1PE0Y2?il=0

Philippines holds referendum for Muslim autonomy in troubled south

MANILA (Reuters) - Minority Muslims in the southern Philippines cast votes on Monday in a long-awaited referendum on autonomy, the culmination of a peace process to end decades of separatist conflict in a region plagued by poverty, banditry and Islamist extremism.

Some 2.8 million people in the volatile Mindanao region are being asked if they back a plan by separatists and the government to create a self-administered area known as Bangsamoro, or “nation of Moros”, referring to the name Spanish colonialists gave to the area’s Muslim inhabitants. A clear “yes” vote is widely expected, which would grant executive, legislature and fiscal powers to a region where more than 120,000 people died a four-decade conflict that left it one of Asia’s poorest and at risk of infiltration by radical groups.

Philippine referendum on Muslim autonomous region. The central government would continue to oversee defense, security, foreign and monetary policy, and appoint a transition authority run by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the separatist group expected to dominate the new setup after a 2022 election. “We are confident that ‘yes’ will win,” MILF chairman Murad Ebrahim told CNN Philippines on Monday. “If there is no manipulation, no intimidating, there will be overwhelming approval,” he added. That would be a much-needed boost for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who remains a hugely popular personality among Filipinos but has so far struggled to make inroads on his ambitious policy agenda.

Though the Bangsamoro plan was negotiated by his predecessors, Duterte, a mayor in Davao City in Mindanao for 22 years, is credited with ensuring it got the support of Congress, which the previous administration was unable to secure. A result is expected by Friday. Duterte last week urged voters to approve the plan and show they wanted peace, development and a local leadership that “truly represents and understand the needs of the Muslim people”.

The plan’s advocates say it would address what are the predominantly Catholic country’s lowest levels of employment, income, education and development, which experts say are exploited by pirates, kidnapping gangs and armed groups that have pledged allegiance to Islamic State. The MILF has denounced extremists and said disillusionment over the slow progress towards devolution was a factor behind a 2017 occupation of Marawi City by rebels loyal to Islamic State, which the military took five months of ground offensives and devastating air strikes to defeat. The whole of Mindanao has since been under martial law. The MILF and the government hope autonomy would lead to greater investment in infrastructure and natural resources, and allow for expansion of fruit and nickel exports and development of a palm oil industry.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-politics-autonomy/philippines-holds-referendum-for-muslim-autonomy-in-troubled-south-idUSKCN1PF06U