The Washington Post recently published a story about corruption within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency that read like it was from some Third World country. Which is precisely what the American obsession with the drug war is doing to the American legal system.
The story involves a confidential information used by the DEA, IRS, FBI and other agencies. Andrew Chambers, originally applied to be a DEA agent in 1984, but was rejected because he was a high school dropout. The DEA did offer Chambers a deal to become a confidential informant with an amazing pay scale — Chambers would get a percentage of any seized assets.
And for 16 years, Chambers was amply rewarded, earning almost $2 million. Unfortunately Chambers had a habit of perjuring himself when testifying. An internal DEA report concluded that the agency knew that Chambers perjured himself in 16 of 25 sworn depositions and trials, and yet continued to use him as a paid informant anyway.
Los Angeles defense attorney John P. Martin told The Washington Post that the DEA was “addicted to” Chambers and that, “They were willing to overlook his perjury — if not assist him in continuing to perjure himself — because they were able to make cases.”
During his years of working for the DEA, Chambers was arrested 13 times and the DEA often stepped in to persuade prosecutors to drop all charges from their star witness (who turned around and lied under oath about his arrest record).
Now, the convictions Chambers helped to arrange are being undone, and the American justice system has demonstrated once more how the main corrupting force of the drug war is on legal institutions that are being warped and perverted by the win-at-all-costs mentality of the drug war.
Source
DEA Shielded Tainted Informant. Cheryl W. Thompson, Washington Post, July 19, 2001.