A new low for DOJ torts department

Agents working for the Boston FBI today must be cringing. Not only do they have to deal with the sins of their forefathers who joined Whitey Bulger's gang, their own lawyers have decided it's good legal strategy to humiliate and hurt Bulger's victims 26 years later.

In a federal courtroom this week, the Justice Department sought to embarrass the widow of Michael Donahue. He was killed in the crossfire as Bulger, riding the waterfront in his "hit car' in 1982, pumped bullets into former gangster Brian Halloran for ratting to the feds.

Judge Reginald Lindsay has already ruled the FBI owes Patricia Donahue for causing her husband's death by tipping Bulger about Halloran. The only question before the judge now is how much does the government owe for the murder of a 32-year-old father of three boys.

In the course of grilling Patricia about her lost husband, Justice Department lawyers this week drew attention to her decision to move away from Dorchester where "black strangers" were moving in in the early 1980s. On the witness stand, in front of a black federal judge, Patricia was forced to admit that, yes, she used those words in a deposition, and yes, she was part of white flight out of Dot.

Boston Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis (see link above), who has written eloquently about these lawsuits, put it this way:

"In trying to hold a fig leaf over the FBI’s criminal history in Boston, the DOJ’s hack lawyers have assumed the role of cheesy defense sharks, or even worse, those pinstriped whores who are paid to smother the sins of corporate arrogance and greed."

Team DOJ is representing the taxpayers like Philip Morris' lawyers trying to convince a jury that smoking doesn't cause cancer.