Two hours after Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie outlined a series of proposed ethics reforms, U.S. Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) and Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) emailed a press release announcing their introduction of a bill that seeks to regulate the Justice Department’s use of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs)– legislation that the Congressmen began pursuing after revelations that Christie gave the firm of his former boss, John Ashcroft, a monitoring contract with $27 to $52 million when he was U.S. Attorney.
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“Deferring a prosecution should never be an excuse for a federal prosecutor to defer justice,” said Pascrell in a statement.  “As federal prosecutors have dramatically increased the use of deferred corporate prosecutions in recent years, it is necessary that Congress have the oversight authority to ensure all legal arrangements are being made above the board.”

The Ashcroft contract, which was for monitoring a medical implant company that Christie had charged with giving doctors kickbacks to use its products in lieu of prosecution, has been wielded as a political weapon by Democrats seeking to take Christie’s corruption-busting image down a peg.  It led Pallone to introduce an earlier version of the legislation last year.  Ashcroft, under threat of subpoena, gave at-times heated testimony about the contract in front of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law.

The current chairman of that subcommittee, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), co-introduced the legislation.  

Rather than allow U.S. Attorneys complete discretion over the selection of federal monitors, the legislation would take the responsibility away from them in favor of district court judges, who would choose monitors from a pool of pre-qualified firms

It would also require that the Attorney General issue written guidelines on when U.S. Attorneys should use DPAs, force full disclosure of all DPAs and compensation amounts for monitors and make U.S. Attorneys file for approval for DPAs with a district court judge.  

"Deferred prosecutions can be useful tools for law enforcement but they should not be misused for political or financial favoritism," said Pallone.  "In the battle against white-collar crime, we need to set standards of legal responsibility and accountability that eliminate no-bid contracts and replace the secretive nature of past agreements with more transparency. One of the more important reforms would be transferring the authority to select corporate monitors from prosecutors to judges."