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By Clark Kauffman| Iowa Capitol Dispatch

Tyson Foods CEO announced Thursday he has hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to lead an independent investigation into a lawsuits claims that managers at one of the companys Iowa plants placed bets on the number of workers who would contract COVID-19.

The claims of a betting pool at the food giants Waterloo, Iowa, plant,first reported by Iowa Capital Dispatch, are just one set of allegations Tyson is facing in lawsuits across the country.

In Iowa alone, at least three coronavirus-related cases, involving a total of five plaintiffs, are pending in state and federal court. Other COVID-19 lawsuits, filed on behalf of dozens of workers, are pending in Texas courts.

In response to the latest allegations involving a betting pool among managers at the companys Waterloo plant, Tyson Foods president and chief executive officer, Dean Banks, said Thursday in a written statement:

We are extremely upset about the accusations involving some of the leadership at our Waterloo plant. Tyson Foods is a family company with 139,000 team members and these allegations do not represent who we are, or our core values and team behaviors. We expect every team member at Tyson Foods to operate with the utmost integrity and care in everything we do.

We have suspended, without pay, the individuals allegedly involved and have retained the law firm Covington & Burling LLP to conduct an independent investigation led by former Attorney General Eric Holder. If these claims are confirmed, well take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behavior from our company.

Our top priority is and remains the health and safety of our team members.

Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International labor union, which represents many of the workers in the Waterloo plant, also issued a statement on Thursday:

Americas meatpacking workers are dying on the frontlines of this pandemic, putting themselves in harms way to ensure our families can put food on the table this Thanksgiving, Perrone said. This shocking report of supervisors allegedly taking bets on how many workers would get infected, pressuring sick workers to stay on the job, and failing to enforce basic safety standards, should outrage every American.

Perrone said the allegations are evidence that the Trump administration and Iowa Gov. Reynolds care more about industry profits than protecting Americas frontline workers … We are continuing to call on elected leaders to implement an enforceable national safety standard, increased access to PPE and COVID-19 testing, and rigorous proactive inspections.

More than 1,000 Tyson employees at the Waterloo plant a third of the facilitys workforce have contracted the virus since the beginning of the pandemic and at least five of the workers have died.

Nationally, at least 4,600 Tyson employees in 15 states have been infected with COVID-19, and at least 18 have died. According to theMidwest Center for Investigative Reporting, there have been at least 42,000 infections tied to meatpacking facilities in at least 470 plants in 40 states, and at least 215 deaths are associated with 51 plants in 27 states.

Tyson Foods hasseveral facilities in Missouri. In June, the company reported that 371 employees at its chicken processing plant in thefar southwestern corner of Missouri had tested positive for COVID-19.

The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting has found 1,146 COVID-19 cases tied to meatpacking plants in Missouri, along with four deaths. However, they note that those numbers reflect what has been publicly reported; there might be more that have not been publicly identified.

In Texas, at least three lawsuits have been filed against Tyson one by a group of 12 employees at the companys plaint in Center, Texas, one by 41 employees of Tysons Amarillo plant, and one by the family of a deceased Tyson employee.

In one of the Texas cases, employees allege that Tyson Foods forced workers at one plant to continue to show up during the COVID-19 outbreak at a time when Gov. Greg Abbotts stay-at-home order was in effect. The lawsuit also alleges that the company did not give workers proper personal protective equipment and did not provide employees with workers compensation insurance.

The lawsuit claims that in lieu of workers comp, Tyson implemented its own Workplace Injury Settlement Program wherein Tyson had employees sign liability releases before they could claim any benefits for on-the-job injuries. In many cases, the lawsuit alleges, Tyson had employees sign away their right to sue, and then either denied the workers benefits or paid out very smalls sums of money.

A common element of the lawsuits is the allegation that Tyson had plenty of advance notice as to the impact the virus was likely to have on its workforce in Iowa and other states.

The plaintiffs note that Tyson Foods has extensive business interests in China, with one of the companys subsidiaries operating a facility in Hubei province. In January 2020, the companyformed a corporate coronavirus task forceafter observing the impact the virus had on its operations in China.

On Jan. 11, Chinese state media reported its first known death from COVID-19, and by February, Tyson had allegedly halted operations at some of its facilities in China and scaled back operations in others.

On March 8,three COVID-19 cases were reported in Iowa, and four days later Tyson Foods barred all non-essential visitors from entering Tyson offices and facilities and mandated that all non-critical employees at its corporate offices work remotely.

On April 6,Tyson temporarily suspended operationsat its Columbus Junction, Iowa, plant after more than two dozen employees tested positive for the virus. Despite that, employees of Packers Sanitation Services Incorporated allegedly moved back-and-forth between the Columbus Junction and Waterloo plants, working at both facilities without being quarantined and without being tested for COVID-19.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued general guidance on preparing workplaces for the virus was early as March 9. But it wasnt until April 26 that the agencies published additional guidelines that were specific to meat and poultry processing plants.

By that time, state lawmakers in Iowa had already filed an OSHA complaint against Tyson Foods in response to workers claiming they did not have sufficient personal protective equipment; social distancing measures were not being implemented or enforced; and nurses at the Waterloo Facility were unable to accurately conduct temperature checks.

On April 20, Iowas OSHA office inspected the Waterloo plant and later reported it hadfound no regulatory violations.The plant closed two days later and reopened in May with new safety measures in place.

The federal OSHA office, meanwhile, offered tosupport meatpackers in any litigationbrought by workers or their families due to workplace exposure to the virus, assuming the companies made a good faith effort to comply with voluntary mitigation guidelines.

Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group, has argued that state and federal efforts to provide legal immunity to businesses that demonstrate an effort to comply with federal guidelines could cripple the ability for workers and tehri families to sue, even in cases of gross negligence. The organization notes that guidelines from the CDC are just that suggested guidelines, not mandatory regulations, which means that compliance is discretionary and businesses need to show only that they considered following the suggested measures.

Where regulatory standards give near-total discretion to businesses, as is the case with the CDC guidelines, a compliance defense amounts to immunity even when the entities do almost nothing, Public Citizen reported in inan August reporton mitigation compliance.

This was originally published on Missouri Independent.

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Tyson hires former AG Eric Holder to investigate claims of betting on worker COVID infections - Columbia Daily Tribune

As President-Elect Joe Biden assembles a Cabinet, one of his most consequential decisions will be to choose the man or woman who will serve as the nations 85th attorney general. The eventual nominee will bear the heavy burden of restoring public confidence in the Department of Justice (DOJ), an institution whose most basic guiding norms have been upended, and whose dedicated but beleaguered career public servants have been subject to repeated attacks from the outgoing president and Attorney General Bill Barr.

Biden will choose from a pool of many qualified individuals. But, in our view, the key credentials of the next AG should be significant prosecutorial experience at the federal or state level and an abiding fidelity to the apolitical administration of justice, even if doing so results in outcomes that do not politically benefit the new administration. Such a choice would go a long way toward reassuring the public and rank-and-file DOJ attorneys and law enforcement agents that the incoming leadership understands that the Departments mission is to pursue impartial justice, guided by evidence and law, free from partisan considerations.

There may be no agency head more central to the effective functioning of American democracy than the attorney general. As the nations chief law enforcement officer, the AG must make real the constitutional promises of equal protection and due process under law. Once the AG emerges from the political process of presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, he or she must abstain completely from partisanship. The DOJs Justice Manual spells this out clearly: The rule of law depends upon the evenhanded administration of justice. The legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence.

Every day the attorney general is confronted with decisions testing his or her commitment to this ideal. Robert Jackson, who held the position before his appointment to the Supreme Court, once observed:

The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations. Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizens friends interviewed.

Any hint that political considerations influenced a prosecutorial decision undermines public confidence in the even-handed administration of justice.

Because the role of the attorney general is so sensitive, the positon should be filled by individuals who need no on-the-job training. Both of the Senate-confirmed attorneys general who served during the Obama administration Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch had served as career federal prosecutors for significant periods in their careers. Both came up through the ranks and understood what it means to work in the trenches. Both possessed the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to win the confidence of the thousands of career public servants who carry out the day-to-day work of the Department. And both understood their roles as stewards of the Departments core value of fair and impartial administration of justice free from partisan political considerations. [Full disclosure: Ronald Weich, one of the authors of this piece, led a team assisting Holder through the Senate confirmation process and co-author Edgar Chen was part of the DOJ Legislative Affairs team handling Lynchs confirmation.]

The core value of nonpartisan justice has been sorely tested in recent years. The outgoing attorney general argued recently that career prosecutors could not be entrusted with difficult decisions and that political control over law enforcement was necessary and desirable. Meanwhile, Trump himself famously lamented, Wheres my Roy Cohn? in seeking an attorney general whose first priority would be to serve as fixer and personal lawyer for the president. Paradoxically, Trump held a misguided admiration for the relationship between Holder and President Barack Obama, erroneously viewing it as one of personal fealty and believing that protection of the president was the principal criteria for leading the DOJ: I will say this: Holder Protected President Obama. Totally protected him. Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, Ill be honest. This statement revealed the presidents deeply flawed and sub-elementary grasp of concepts such as rule of law. Holder got the last word: I had a president I did not have to protect.

While Holder was indeed a trusted adviser to Obama, that role was separate from his duties as attorney general. Holder, who had come up through the Department as a career public corruption prosecutor and later served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and deputy attorney general, took great pains to ensure that law enforcement decisions were strictly insulated from White House participation. In fact, there are several notable instances when Holder acted in a manner that did not favor Obamas or the Democratic Partys political interests.

Those events include:

In all these cases, decisions by the attorneys general (and we use the plural here to include Sessions correct recusal) were based on ethics rules; respect for the non-partisan, apolitical work of career investigators, prosecutors, and professional responsibility officials; and the willingness to buck political affinity in order to adhere to established principles, and in the case of the Stevens prosecution, overturning the decisions of career prosecutors only because clear and blatant ethics or judicial violations were unambiguously documented.

In recent days, career prosecutors have demonstrated their commitment to the apolitical administration of justice. When Attorney General Barr took theunprecedented step of authorizing federal prosecutorsto pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certificationof elections, contrary to longstanding DOJ policy, the Director of the Departments Elections Crimes Branch resigned in protest and at least 16 career federal prosecutors assigned to monitor electionsoffered a public rebuke of Barrs action, arguing the need to avoid speculation that it was motivated by partisan political concerns. These career civil servants placed principle over partisanship, even at great risk to their livelihoods. Whomever Biden selects as AG must share their determination to do the right thing, even at the risk of offending the occupant of the White House.

The Department of Justice is the only federal agency named after an ideal. The next attorney general should remain true to that ideal and follow in the examples described above by previous attorneys general and career prosecutors who have risked their positions and indeed careers to do what is right, in order to preserve the constitutional principles upon which justice in this nation is predicated.

See the article here:
The Next Attorney General's Allegiance Must Be to the Rule of Law - Just Security

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The fact that there are state election boards currently contemplating invalidating tens of thousands of votes is the only thing that keeps this off the top of every news outlet right now but the Attorney General potentially using his office to help his private book of business is not great.

Last night, Reuters broke the story that Attorney General Bill Barr, while working at Kirkland & Ellis, represented Caterpillar in a billion-dollar tax case that miraculously was dropped by the DOJ one week after Barr took over the Justice Department:

A week after Barr was nominated for the job of attorney general, Justice officials in Washington told the investigative team in the active criminal probe of Caterpillar to take no further action in the case, according to an email written by one of the agents and reviewed by Reuters.

The decision, the email said, came from the Justice Departments Tax Division and the office of the deputy attorney general, who was then Rod Rosenstein.

Ah, well, if Rod Rosenstein blessed it while fresh off telling his department to kidnap children then it must be legit! This is a quick reminder that no one should ever do business with these dirtbags forever looking your way, King & Spalding clients. The Justice Department makes mistakes but when the allegation is you stole 2.3 billion from the government the question is whether it should really be $1.8 billion, not maybe its zero.

Potential conflicts of interest, whether real or apparent, often arise when high-powered lawyers switch between private practice and government service. Bruce A. Green, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Fordham Law School, said it is not unheard of for attorney generals to have clients who had business before the DOJ. He noted that in 2009, President Barack Obamas attorney general, Eric Holder, recused himself from a case involving Swiss Bank UBS, a prior client.

But Green said he could not recall a case where agents were told to take no further action on a matter involving an incoming attorney generals former client without some kind of explanation. Why would you just stop? he asked.

Why the f**k indeed!

Caterpillar was routing profits through Switzerland where they had negotiated a massive tax break for themselves. Those facts dont seem to be in dispute. They just said their massive dodge scheme was legal. A grand jury had already heard these allegations and said, Yup, those guys look dirty. The DOJ sent agents to raid Caterpillars corporate offices, which and I cannot stress this enough as a former white-collar defense attorney myself is NOT NORMAL. Usually in cases against a blue chip company the government will just politely ask you to turn over documents. They raid your offices when they think youre laundering El Chapos money, not when they think youve under withheld.

Say what you will about the United States Department of Justice under the Trump administration but it does not pursue criminal matters against corporations lightly. This was a case that they clearly saw as a slam dunk and one that every level of the Justice Department was cool with pursuing from 2017, when the grand jury rendered its thoughts, until the week after Barr got the job.

And then it all stopped. When Caterpillars defense attorney became the Attorney General.

If the country ever gets a chance to come up from a rampaging pandemic, economic meltdown, and bungling coup attempts, hopefully this can get more attention.

Exclusive: U.S. investigators were told to take no further action on Caterpillar, ex-client of Barr [Reuters]

Joe Patriceis a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Bill Barr Did WHAT? How Is This Not The Biggest Story In The Country Right Now? - Above the Law

Former Attorney General Eric Holder cast doubt on President Trump's chances at victory on Election Day, saying the only way Trump could win reelection is if his party doesn't play fair.

"[Trump] is trying to come up with a way in which he's going to be able to say that the election was stolen from him, that there was cheating or something like that," Holder told SiriusXM radio host Joe Madison on Tuesday. "The reality is, if you look at all the empirical evidence, if you look at the polls, the only way that I think that Trump is going to win is if the Republicans are successful in cheating."

Holder, a vocal Trump critic, served as the nation's first black attorney general under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2015 and coined himself the former president's "wingman."

Holder endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in March when Biden was competing against other Democratic contenders for the nomination.

In an interview with the Washington Post this spring, Holder said he believed Biden would continue the work the two embarked on during the Obama years, especially when it came to criminal justice reform.

Holder contemplated his own White House run in 2020 early last year.

In his Tuesday interview, the former top law enforcement officer criticized GOP-led efforts to request a federal court in Texas to discard almost 127,000 ballots that were cast by curbside voting.

On Monday, a federal judge rejected the last-minute bid by four Texas Republicans to throw out the ballots, which came from a Democratic-leaning country.

"They're prepared to do a whole bunch of things on a whole bunch of fronts," Holder said. "[Republicans] don't want to have an election that's truly fair. And that truly represents the desires of the people for change. That is what I hear as I have been all around the country."

National and state polls have largely shown Biden leading Trump through Tuesday. As polls opened on Election Day, over 100 million people had already cast an early ballot.

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Former Biden colleague Eric Holder claims 'only way' Trump can win is 'if the Republicans are successful in cheating' - Washington Examiner

By Jenna Greene

When it comes to celebrity supporters, Joe Biden dominates the A List. Think Taylor Swift.

Among lawyer nerds, the same thing could be said about Biden's stand-out legal team, with former White House counsel Bob Bauer, former deputy White House counsel Dana Remus and election law giant Marc Elias at the helm.

Also on board are former solicitors general Walter Dellinger III and Donald Verrilli Jr., plus former Attorney General Eric Holder.

The Trump campaign, by contrast, has tapped less prominent lawyers in filing election-related challenges, although we can't overlook William Consovoy and Jay Sekulow, who've risen to prominence during his presidency. Also on board is Mark Thor Hearne II, former President George WBushs national legal election counsel.

Also read:Could US election be decided in the courts?

But overall, the bigger legal names are in the Biden camp.

To be clear, Im not suggesting that any attorneys arent up to the task at hand or for that matter, that having lawyers who are household names is any guarantee of success.

David Boies, arguably the most famous lawyer in America, couldnt save presidential candidate Al Gore in the court battle with George W. Bush in the 2000 election. And Elias was general counsel to Hillary Clinton, for all the good it did her when she lost the presidential election to Trump in 2016.

Filing frenzy

For Trumps team, while its lawyers might not be famous, they are certainly busy.

In Georgia, for example, the Trump campaign and the Georgia Republican Party on November 4 sued to stop the counting of absentee ballots in Chatham County.

The suit was filed by lawyers from Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield as well as Taylor English Duma in Georgia. Neither is among the largest or best-known firms nationally.

However, former deputy White House counsel Stefan Passantino, now a partner at 242-lawyer Michael Best & Friedrich, adds additional muscle to the complaint.

On Thursday, Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass Jr. threw out the lawsuit, finding no evidence that local election officials failed to comply with the law.

Passantino and Vincent Russo of Robbins Ross did not respond to requests for comment.

Michigan litigation

In Michigan, Hearne, of four-lawyer True North Law, sued in Michigan to stop vote counting and demand greater access to the tabulation process.

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens tossed the suit on Thursday.

Hearne in an interview said the campaign would make a decision whether to appeal once they see the judges written decision.

Also read:Trump faces tough road in getting Supreme Court to intervene

In the event of a recount, he said, the key issue to ensure transparency and oversight and observation for the various stakeholders will be crucial.

I couldn't agree more.

In Nevada, the campaign on Thursday said it planned to file a federal suit to stop vote counting, citing what it called voting irregularities. An earlier suit was filed in state court by lawyers from the small firms of Marquis Aurbach Coffing, the OMara Law Firm and Harvey & Binnall, seeking greater access for election observers.

Keeping track of the Trump campaign litigation is general counsel Matt Morgan, a former deputy assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff to the vice president.

Included in that litigation are multiple lawsuits pending in Pennsylvania, led by perhaps the Trump campaign's biggest guns, Consovoy, of Consovoy McCarthy, and Sekulow. They've asked the US Supreme Court to intervene in a fight over counting absentee ballots that they say are "untimely and unlawful."

Biden response

Biden lawyers are pushing back. Bauer told reporters on Thursday that the legal challenges were a meritless distraction and part of a broader misinformation campaign that involves some political theater.

As for Elias, who did not respond to a request for comment, post-election litigation is familiar ground.

The Perkins Coie partner previously served as lead counsel for former Democratic Senator Al Franken in the 2008 US Senate election recount in Minnesota; for Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring in a 2013 recount fight and for former Senator Harry Reid in connection with his 1998 recount.

Elias came under fire in 2016 for hiring Fusion GPS on behalf of the Clinton campaign to conduct research on Trumps ties to Russia. Fusion then hired former British spy Christopher Steele to dig up dirt.

As the Biden campaigns litigation point person, Elias has kept up a steady stream of Tweets sharing case updates in real time. Trump is losing in court, because his claims have no merit, Elias tweeted on Thursday.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is fundraising on its website for its legal election defense fund. We need your help to ensure we have the resources to protect the results and keep fighting even after Election Day.

Read more:
Who are the Biden and Trump lawyers slugging it out? - Deccan Herald