U.S. Justice Department: Intimidation or Logical Threat Investigation?

An artwork containing mock 37-cent stamps showing President George W. Bush with a revolver pointed at his head was part of an exhibit at Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery titled 'Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin' Tuesday, April, 12, 2005 in Chicago. The exhibit captured the attention of the U.S. Secret Service who sent agents to inspect the works according to gallery officials.

Here are facts surrounding another threat investigation carried out by federal law enforcement officers. Was the following threat investigation logical, an act of intimidation, or both?

On January 15, 2010 two officers of the U.S. Department of Justice were sent to interview a man who quoted a federal official in his blog as having said about a matter unrelated to the man: "This case has been screaming for attention for years."

The blog author applied, in a blog post he had written, the official's statement to the subject matter of a lawsuit the blog author had been involved in years before as a plaintiff-employee. The blog post in question implied that a senior management partner of the defendant law firm, where the plaintiff blogger had been employed, had influenced the head of a state agency to render a determination favorable to the defendant law firm. The senior management partner had close ties to the highest levels of the state government.  The blog post further disclosed that the head of the state agency, a lawyer, was later investigated for commiting a Hatch Act violation and was later disbarred by reason of unethical conduct. 

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/12/judge-huvelle-how-many-years-have-you.html

In the unlawful job termination lawsuit in which the blogger was the plaintiff-employee, the following facts pertain to the defendant-employer:

1. The defendant is a large and influential law firm;

2. One of the defendant's senior attorney managers has close ties to the highest levels of the Justice Department, which sent two officers to interview the plaintiff blogger on January 15, 2010;

3. That senior attorney manager had reportedly tried to buy the silence of a White House intern in the 1990s in order to prevent disclosure of facts by that intern that might lead to the impeachment of the president of the United States, who was a close personal friend of the attorney manager;

4. The defendant law firm summarily fired the plaintiff blogger days after the plaintiff blogger had lodged a harassment complaint against a court-adjudicated racist supervisor;

5. Persuasive circumstantial evidence tends to prove that the defendant law firm had fabricated evidence that the plaintiff blogger was severely disturbed and potentially violent and therefore unfit for employment -- facts known to the Justice Department at the time of the threat investigation interview on January 15, 2010;

6. The court-adjudicated racist supervisory employee of the defendant law firm had made self-serving statements to her employees to impute homicidal tendencies to the plaintiff blogger, an individual who had an exemplary employment record with no history of reprimands -- facts known to the Justice Department at the time of the threat investigation interview on January 15, 2010;

7. The defendant law firm had acquiesced in its legal counsel's use of defamatory and legally-irrelevant evidence to make it appear that the plaintiff blogger had the intent to acquire firearms, and carry out a mass homicidal assault on the defendant law firm's premises -- facts relating to the wrongful actions of the defendant law firm and its legal counsel that were known to the Justice Department at the time of the threat investigation interview on January 15, 2010;

8. The defendant law firm's legal counsel had been a law partner of the judge's spouse;

9. The defendant law firm's legal counsel had been the law partner of the current head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department;

10. The defendant law firm's legal counsel had been a senior law partner at the firm where the current U.S. Attorney General practiced law;

11. Contrary to the defendant law firm's sworn statements that the defendant law firm had determined in consultation with a psychiatrist that the plaintiff blogger was severely disturbed and potentially violent, comprehensive psychological testing later failed to disclose that the plaintiff blogger suffered from any mental illness at all or had any psychotic thought processes -- facts known to the Department of Justice at the time of the threat investigation interview on January 15, 2010;

12. The plaintiff blogger had no arrest record, a fact that was known to the Justice Department before it's threat investigation interview on January 15, 2010; and had never been institutionalized;

13. Despite the obvious reasons why the plaintiff blogger would find the circumstances of his job termination suspicious and sufficient motivation to write a blog about the subject of his termination, the Justice Department officers sent to interview the plaintiff blogger on January 15, 2010 asked, with an air of naive incredulity: "What was your motivation in writing a blog?"