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DOJ inspector general refuses to investigate Occupy public safety threats

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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The Department of Justice’s inspector general has refused to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder’s response to public safety threats stemming from the ongoing “Occupy” movement nationwide, especially in New York City and Washington, D.C.

The nonprofit investigative firm Cause of Action asked DOJ Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar to look into Holder’s response to concerns about the potential for violence in connection with Occupy protests. (RELATED: Full coverage of the Department of Justice)

In his request for Schnedar to investigate, Cause of Action executive director Dan Epstein cited a March 2011 letter from Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz to Holder. In that letter, Chaffetz warned that former Service employees International Union official Stephen Lerner was plotting a massive “secret plan” to “cause a financial crisis [to] weaken Wall Street’s grip on power … [via] civil disobedience.”

Epstein’s Nov. 9, 2011, request came just days after Occupy protesters attacked elderly women in Washington, D.C. outside a political summit hosted by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. Epstein asked Schnedar to “investigate the status of the DOJ response to any threats to public safety posed by the Occupy Wall Street events and whether the DOJ investigated the allegations in Rep. Chaffetz’s letter.”

More than six weeks later, on December 28, 2011, Schnedar responded: “We are declining at this time to initiate the review requested in your letter.”

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