McGee, Jim and Duffy, Brian

New York. 1996. July 1996. Simon & Schuster. 1st Printing. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0684811359. McGee Shared A Pulitzer Prize In 1987 For His Reporting On The Iran-Contra Affair. 399 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Michael Accordino. keywords: Law America Cops Crime. FROM THE PUBLISHER - Jim McGee and Brian Duffy take us behind the walls of Main Justice, as the department's headquarters is known to insiders, to show how its awesome powers to investigate and punish wrongdoing are used - and sometimes abused - in the war on crime. Setting their sights on the department's Criminal Division, and on the anonymous career lawyers whose decisions often become the stuff of front-page headlines and congressional hearings, McGee and Duffy show how the Justice Department has marshaled its legal firepower against Colombia's murderous Cali cocaine cartel, violent gangs in Shreveport and Chicago, CIA-agent-turned-traitor Aldrich Ames, and international terrorists. They also expose cases in which U.S. attorneys - whether to further a political agenda or because of excessive zeal - have abused their powers, often with devastating results for ordinary Americans. The story of Main Justice is told from several vantage points: from the streets of America, where FBI and DEA agents employ sophisticated investigative tools to make arrests; from the executive suites in Washington, where career lawyers decide which cases will be prosecuted; and from the federal courtrooms, where U.S. attorneys spar with defense lawyers and judges to obtain guilty verdicts. MAIN JUSTICE also shows how the Clinton administration has altered the focus of federal law enforcement by targeting the violent street gangs that terrorize our cities and towns, and has established new procedures to safeguard the public against prosecutorial misconduct. In addition, McGee and Duffy explore the intersection of federal law enforcement and the nation's intelligence operations, a netherworld in which the constitutional limits on domestic law enforcement are increasingly challenged. inventory #22477 ISBN: 0684811359.