Justice Department Alleges Conditions at South Carolina’s Broad River Road Complex Violate the Constitution

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina today concluded that there is reasonable cause to believe that the conditions at the Broad River Road Complex in Columbia, South Carolina, violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Specifically, the Department concluded that there is reasonable cause to believe that the Broad River Road Complex fails to protect youth from youth-on-youth violence and places youth in punitive, prolonged isolation.

As required by the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), the Department provided the facility with written notice of the supporting facts for these alleged conditions and the minimum remedial measures necessary to address them.

“Youth held in custody for rehabilitation are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees reasonable safety from harm,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division. “Our investigation found reasonable cause to conclude that youth in the facility are at substantial risk of serious physical harm from other youth and that youth are regularly subjected to harmful isolation. The Justice Department hopes to continue to work with South Carolina to resolve the Department’s concerns.”

The Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney’s Office for District of South Carolina initiated the investigation in September 2017 under CRIPA, which authorizes the Department to take action to address a pattern or practice of deprivation of constitutional rights of individuals confined to state or local government-run correctional facilities. The investigation was also initiated under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-alleges-conditions-south-carolina-s-broad-river-road-complex-violate

Flooring Executive Charged in Antitrust and Money Laundering Conspiracies

Carter Brett, an account executive for a large flooring manufacturer, has been charged for conspiring to rig bids and fix prices for commercial flooring products and services, and for his role in a money laundering conspiracy involving kickbacks, the Department of Justice announced.

“The bid-rigging and money laundering schemes charged today cheated a state-funded school out of competitive bids and lined the defendant’s pockets with kickbacks,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “This latest charge in the ongoing investigation demonstrates the Antitrust Division’s commitment to bringing to justice those in the commercial flooring industry who have victimized Chicago-area schools, hospitals, charities, and businesses.”

“When businesses rig bids to increase their own profits illegally, it is our citizens who suffer,” said Special Agent in Charge Emmerson Buie Jr. of the FBI’s Chicago Field Division. “Today’s charges illustrate our ongoing efforts to protect Americans from price fixing and other dishonest business practices.”

According to a two-count felony charge filed today in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Illinois, Brett engaged in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition in the commercial flooring market by initiating and orchestrating a bid rotation conspiracy among three commercial flooring installation companies so that the designated company would win the bidding for jobs at a suburban community college. According to the charge, Brett and his co-conspirators carried out the conspiracy from at least as early as 2013 until as late as June 22, 2017.

The second count filed today charges Brett with engaging in a money laundering conspiracy wherein Brett solicited and accepted kickbacks from his co-conspirators in exchange for offering those co-conspirators unlawfully low pricing. The charge alleges that Brett established a shell corporation for the sole purpose of receiving the illegal kickback payments. According to the charge, Brett and his co-conspirators carried out this conspiracy from at least as early as 2013 until late 2017.

A violation of the Sherman Act carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million criminal fine for individuals. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine.

Conspiring to commit money laundering carries maximum penalties of a $500,000 criminal fine and 20 years in prison. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the value of the property involved in the money laundering transactions, if that amount is greater than the statutory maximum fine.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/flooring-executive-charged-antitrust-and-money-laundering-conspiracies

Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers the Keynote Address at the Department of Justice's China Initiative Conference

My original career goal was to go into the CIA as a China expert, and so I focused on Chinese studies for my BA and MA at Columbia University. I remember in one of my Government classes, we were having a debate as to which foreign adversary posed the greatest long-term threat – Russia or China.

I recall the observation of one of my classmates in arguing that it was China that posed the greatest threat. He said, “Russia wants to conquer the world. We can deal with that. China wants to own the world. That is going to be more challenging to deal with.” There was a certain truth in that.

In 1972, our hope was that integrating China into the international economic system would encourage the People's Republic of China (PRC) to liberalize its economy, and that a free market and economic growth would gradually lead to greater political freedom for its citizens.

Unfortunately, economic liberalization has only gone so far. While individuals have been permitted some degree of economic freedom, the Communist Party remains in firm control of the economy. It is an architecture of state power, whose principal features are central planning, state-owned enterprises, and government subsidies.

Politically, the PRC remains a dictatorship under which the Communist Party elite jealously guards its monopoly on power. Marxism-Leninism and Maoism linger on as justification for Communist rule, which is authoritarian through and through.

The Communist party is willing to resort to harsh measures to repress any challenge to its one-party rule, whether it be suppressing religious organizations, rounding up and “re-educating” Uighurs, resisting efforts of self-determination in Hong Kong, or using the Great Firewall to limit access to ideas and penalize their expression.

For a brief time after the Cold War, we had indulged the illusion of democratic capitalism as triumphant, unchallenged by any competing ideology. That was nice while it lasted. But we are now in a new era of global tension and competition. China has emerged as the United States’ top geopolitical adversary, based on competing political and economic philosophies.

Centuries before Communism, China regarded itself as the Central Kingdom –the center of the world. Its ambition today is not to be a regional power, but a global one.

For China, success is a zero-sum game. In the words of then-General Secretary Xi, Communist Party members should “concentrate [their] efforts on . . . building a socialism that is superior to capitalism.” Such efforts, Xi claimed, would require Party members to “consecrate [their] entire spirit, [their] entire life,” for socialist ideals. The reward for this sacrifice, Xi promised, is “the eventual demise of capitalism.”

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-keynote-address-department-justices-china

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