By Aaron Kesel
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has ordered that lawyer and activist Steven Donziger, who was fighting for Amazonian villagers, can be fined an egregious amount of money per day.
To block historic Ecuador pollution judgment against @Chevron, U.S. judge Kaplan threatened me with jail and ordered me to turn over passport, computer and cell phone to the company. I am refusing, at least until appellate review. Read my statement: https://t.co/IVYQXOUYI4 pic.twitter.com/uQYr3w58Ev
— Steven Donziger (@SDonziger) June 20, 2019
On June 3rd, this reporter wrote an article for Activist Post entitled “Conflicted Judge Protects Chevron Abuse of Amazon Villagers’ Attorney Donziger,” which delved into a decade-plus struggle to get justice for Ecuadoran Amazonian Villagers suffering from billions of gallons of toxic waste dumped into the Amazon environment by Texaco (that was bought out by Chevron).
Chevron lost several legal battles, in Ecuador, in large part due to the efforts of New York activist and attorney, Steven Donziger, who has been fighting for the Amazonian villagers against big oil.
As my previous article pointed out, Chevron seeks to evade its accountability by utilizing NY Federal District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to assault Donziger’s legal credentials.
Also noted in my previous article is the fact that Judge Kaplan is a conflicted jurist who had money invested in Chevron!
Bias is running amok in Judge Kaplan’s adjudication upon the merits in the Chevron cases, as the justice is well read into the fact that Chevron’s key witness was bribed with big money and coached to falsely testify against Donziger, which abuses the Amazonian villagers even further.
Unfortunately, Judge Kaplan appears to show lack of care for justice; and, the day after this reporter’s article came out, Judge Kaplan escalated his abuse against Steven Donziger by issuing a cruel and unusual punishment.
The tyrannical Kaplan ordered Donziger to face fines up to $200,000 per day and to seize his passport for each day that he fails to turn over attorney-client privileged information.
Inexplicably and intolerably, Judge Kaplan is abusing his authority with extreme measures seeking to be coercive, to force Steven Donziger to turn over attorney-client privileged materials to Chevron, while having money invested in the same company — a breach of judicial ethics which prevents Kaplan from judging the case without bias.
This author was made aware of the Amazonian villagers’ suffering, and the plight of Steven Donziger, due to Laser Haas, who is the whistleblower in this reporter’s Wall Street fraud, protected by federal corruption, series.
This reporter asked Haas why he would take time out of his works to have me step back from another Goldman Sachs/Bain Capital article for the sake of attorney at law, Steven Donziger?
Hass responded referencing Steven Donziger as one of his heroes!
According to Laser, the serial Wall St whistleblower looks for several characteristics in any given saga before getting involved in external troubling matters.
Laser said some of the things he first looks for is the degree of physical threats, and then he looks for what the whistleblower referenced as a “Solomon” moment (a moment of purity that sets the troubled person, as a breed apart).
Once those dynamics of a case are fully probed, Laser has three standards he discusses with parties he seeks to assist.
First is that the parties must be a hundred percent honest in telling their story of a plight. Second, the parties must declare by email that they completely understand that Laser Haas is not an attorney at law. And the third one that Laser claims is equal to the other two rules, is that Haas’s time is at his own volition.
It’s odd that Laser considers the discussion about his time to be as important as honesty, or that the victim or witness must acknowledge they understand Laser isn’t a lawyer.
This reporter has come to realize that time is the most precious commodity we all have. Even though time is perspective, rather than relative.
Donziger has been in a war against Chevron for two decades; and, despite the fact the Chevron shareholders recently demanded the CEO settle with the Amazonian villagers, there seems to be no end in sight, or of justice coming anytime soon.
Being that it is a fact there are crooked lawyers and judges as the very reasons why Laser’s eToys case suffers, this reporter first found it odd that Laser would seek to spend his time seeking to help an attorney, since he has been screwed over by so many in the past.
It’s the last place that one would think Laser would seek to get into a ring, metaphorically speaking, jumping into an arena where crooked judges are observably rigging a case.
Laser’s answer to this reporter instantly clarified his stance. He said that in every battle currently facing humanity, whether it is climate change, immigrant children sleeping in the cold, ICE raids, warmongering, a radical President, or any other issue – the common element to seek salvation non-violently – is our courts.
Unlike most underground journalists, and other victims, witnesses, or whistleblowers who remain aloft or unreachable, Laser freely publishes his email, social media accounts, and even his phone number; because he understands one aspect of the civil wars, running amok within our justice system.
Tyrannical leaders of schemes, cronies and corrupts are unified in protecting their evil deeds, from being held accountable.
Unfortunately, although an activist may like, or even retweet another activist’s efforts – for the most part the good guys are out there on their own.
Previously, another victim of Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs partnership with Paul Roy Traub (who lost over $100 million in the Tom Petters Ponzi Polaroid saga), offered to fund Laser Haas bystarting a grassroots organization. Instead, Laser asked the party to help fund victims, nationwide, who Laser hoped would unify to battle manifest injustice.
Regrettably, none of the parties would unify, together.
It is the mindset of Laser Haas, that, if he leads by example, sharing his time, and hard-knock expertise, in decades of fighting tyranny, cronyism, corruption and coverups – that others may find renewed hope for justice.
Laser holds Steven Donziger in high esteem. Donziger was a lawyer until Judge Kaplan got his law license suspended (which reportedly goes on trial, in September).
In Laser’s view, Donziger holds a badge of honor (Solomon moment) in his unrelenting quest for justice not just for himself, but for the Amazonian villagers who are victims to a corporate ecological crime.
Furthermore, Donziger has not even asked for Laser to help; and, most assuredly, Donziger understands how precious the dynamics of time are.
Additionally, for some further backstory on Laser, his girlfriend is retired EEOC Judge Mary Elizabeth Bullock, who, herself, had her law license suspended by unscrupulous parties.
In the past Laser has also worked to assist Israel Weinstock and Richard Fine (two other lawyers who lost their rights to practice law, resultant of tyrants despising their truth-telling, i.e. challenging them).
Even individual reporters like Matt Taibbi and David Sirota (who have told Laser to, in a nice way putting it, “go fly a kite”), are still supported by Laser Haas, privately and publicly for their work.
Among many other heroes, Laser expresses this reporter as one, as well as other journalists like – Joe Nocera, RMuse (formerly with PoliticusUSA), Nathaniel Downs, Greg Palast, Lee Camp, Vegas Jessie, Daniel Wright, and the very first to report on Laser’s eToys case (WSJ Joseph Pereira).
Though, none of those other journalists will give Laser any time of day. Which, though this reporter finds some of these journalists’ nature to be obtuse and really sad, it is a fact that this reporter is reporting on Laser as a result of those journalists’ willful blindness or lack of knowledge about Laser’s case.
Judge Kaplan is abusing the Amazonians, while Kaplan is seeking to destroy attorney at law Steven Donziger, resultant of the fact that there’s not enough public outcry, or media attention to the tyranny, cronyism, corruption, and cover-ups seeking to protect Chevron. Allowing the company to get away totally ‘Scot Free’ with the profits made off from the Ecuadoran Amazon forest environmental damages.
According to Laser, what Judge Kaplan is doing is pretending to go by the Codes and Rules of Law.
Such efforts are actually known to be a Civil Rights violation via “color of law” (in violation of 18 U.S.C. $ 242). And color of law violations are frauds accomplished by arbitrary and capricious rulings, contrary to the facts and laws according to Laser.
U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the Magna Carta remarks on “protection against arbitrary action” in the 1996 case of Sacramento v.s. Lewis 523 U.S. 833 – that states:
after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at last settled down to this; that [the principles of due process] were intended to secure the individual from arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private right and distributive justice, Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 527 (1884).
At the end of the day, Judge Kaplan may succeed in his tyrannical pursuits to destroy Steven Donziger, and that would just prove how dire things have become as injustice after injustice happens flagrantly when it lacks public oversight. Even so, with public scrutiny involved, it seems like the tyrants don’t care anymore, openly committing acts such as these.
Chevron is already on the public record claiming that Donziger doesn’t have enough money to satisfy the $800,000 judgment Justice Kaplan has egregiously awarded Chevron, on top of the now-ordered $200,000 a day fine.
Therefore, Judge Kaplan yanking Steven Donziger’s law license and passport, preventing Donziger from earning a living, is beyond unreasonable and is the definition of “cruel and unusual punishment” much like what was issued against former Army analyst Chelsea Manning, requiring her to pay $500 dollars every day she fails to commit perjury against herself for contempt of court, by U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga.
Trenga, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ordered that “if Chelsea Manning does not purge herself of contempt within 30 days of this Order, she shall incur a conditional fine of $500 per day until such time as she purges herself of contempt.”
While Judge Trenga’s abuse of Manning is horrific, Judge Kaplan is even more heinous — on June 4th, 2019, Kaplan ordered that Steven Donziger can be fined up to $200,000 per day.
The cases of Donzinger and Manning have different elements, but still, the abuse is the same – a monetary punishment requiring both parties to pay to the courts money that they don’t have. Once again, by definition “cruel and unusual punishment” uses money as an intimidation factor to violate one’s rights.
Resultant of these affairs, there are certain dynamics anew that Judge Lewis Kaplan should pay attention to.
For one, Laser Haas is now in Steven Donziger’s fan club; and that’s significant of itself (because this reporter is also in that fan club, and writing articles about the Amazonian villagers’ plight, and Judge Kaplan’s abuse of Steven Donziger). Which means that this reporter’s friends, colleagues, and supporters are also aware of these incredulous abuses of power.
Number two, one would hope, though they might be silent in the background, that there are other fans of Donziger, like that of esteemed journalists Greg Palast and Karen Hinton, and English rock musician, singer-songwriter, and composer, Roger Waters.
Surely there are state and federal agents, along with members of state and federal courts, who see the manifest injustice happening in the Chevron case; and those parties are aiding the quest for justice, in their own – quiet – ways.
Laser has aided other judges and Justice Department persons, including higher-ups to turn in their papers and retire; because they couldn’t take the heat of truth, in the hands of many.
Steven Donziger is a true hero; as Laser says, Donziger’s temerity and tenacity are a badge of immense honor.
The one thing that Judge Kaplan and Chevron will never be able to escape, no matter how many lawyers they disparage and destroy, is the fact – unequivocal – that Chevron’s profitable empire is a result of billions of dollars in environmental damages that have destroyed parts of the Amazon forest, and caused extreme hardships upon Amazonian villagers.
As previously written, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan actually had the unmitigated gall to call the Amazonian villagers seeking retribution against Chevron “so-called plaintiffs”; which really makes tyrannical crony, corrupt Judge Lewis Kaplan out to be nothing more than a “so-called judge.”
Anyone who isn’t blind or willfully blind to justice can see that a Judge referring to victims of a company’s ecological terrorism as “so-called plaintiffs,” siding with a company that he himself also has money invested in, is not fit to serve the bench.
After all, even Chevron’s own shareholders are now demanding that Chevron settles with the Amazonian villagers. Which is a result, in no small part, due to the unrelenting pursuits for justice by heroic acts of Steven Donziger, who now suffers both monetarily and career-wise, for doing the right thing.
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Minds, Steemit, SoMee, BitChute, Facebook and Twitter.
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