Former DOJ Official: Bush Administration Failing at Obscenity Prosecution

WASHINGTON - A former official in the Justice Department has criticized the Bush administration’s prosecution of obscenity, saying that it has come up short.

According to a recent report by conservative news source, OneNewsNow, former DOJ official Pat Trueman says that President Bush's administration has not kept its promises regarding obscenity enforcement. Trueman, a staunch conservative and pro-family attorney, is special counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and former chief of the Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity (CEOS) section.

“The Bush administration, I would say, gets a 'D' or an 'F' on obscenity prosecution,” Trueman told OneNewsNow. “They just haven't had an interest in it. They talk about it once in awhile. But they really can't be said to have done a better job than Bill Clinton and Janet Reno. We want to get to them now and get to the White House and get some concessions to make sure that the next attorney general will give his prosecutors the green light to vigorously prosecute obscenity or pornography crimes. That hasn't happened in this Bush administration.”

In 2005, the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) established an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force dedicated exclusively to the investigation and prosecution of obscenity cases. The Task Force acted as an addition to the Department's CEOS, and was expected to play the key Justice Department role in obscenity prosecution.

In an earlier report by AVN Senior Editor Mark Kernes concerning the DOJ’s release of more than 3,000 pages of e-mails regarding the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys, he noted a revealing statement by Brent Ward, the current head of the Obscenity Enforcement Task Force, to Matthew Friedrich, Chief of Staff and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, saying:

“It has now been more than 10 months since I arrived here,” Ward wrote on Aug. 29, 2006. “In that time two cases have been indicted. Only one of them was initiated by the FBI. In light of this the Task Force would have to be considered a failure so far.”