Exclusive: Monsanto used former top DOJ official involved in Epstein deal to quash felony case

[Celerity]

https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-monsanto-used-former-doj-lawyer-involved-in-epstein-case-to-quash-felony-charges-090028623.html

This spring, Justice Department prosecutors were on the verge of charging biotech giant Monsanto with a felony for illegally spraying a banned, highly toxic pesticide and nerve agent in Hawaii, not far from beachside resorts on Maui. But then, according to an internal April 2019 government document viewed by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), that decision was overruled.

Monsanto, battling a slew of high-profile lawsuits contending that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, had its Washington lawyers intervene at the highest levels of DOJ to stop the felony case, which has not been previously reported. A key attorney handling the matter for Monsanto, Alice S. Fisher, is a former senior DOJ official alleged to have played a part in keeping Jeffrey Epstein’s controversial plea deal secret from his victims more than a decade ago, although some U.S. officials have provided other reasons why victims were not notified. Fisher denies playing a decision-making role in the Epstein matter.

The felony case against Monsanto was halted after the company’s lawyers launched a last-minute appeal to the office of then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to sources close to the case. Rosenstein’s office, after consulting the Justice Department’s top political appointee on environmental law, then “directed” federal prosecutors “to resolve the Monsanto criminal case with misdemeanors only” before July 2019, according to the document.

A misdemeanor is a less serious offense, carrying reduced penalties; it is also less likely to attract public attention. Such directives to career prosecutors are rare, former Justice Department attorneys say, and are issued “in only the most unusual of circumstances,” as one Justice Department document written years ago put it. By long tradition, Washington defers to the 93 U.S. attorney offices around the country to make the vast majority of prosecution decisions in criminal cases.

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