So Miguel Tejada, the shortstop for the Houston Astros, has been charged with lying to Congressional investigators about the use of steroids in baseball.

That news put us in mind of someone two other people who are suspected of lying to Congress, but so far, unlike Tejada, have escaped legal jeopardy. We refer, of course, to Alberto Gonzales and Bradley Schlozman.

A report released last July by the Justice Department's inspector general indicated that Gonzales may have lied to Congress about politicization at the department. And there have also been credible suggestions, including from Senate Judiciary chair Pat Leahy, that Gonzales perjured himself during his testimony on the US Attorneys firings scandal. A special prosecutor, Nora Dannehy, has been appointed to look into whether crimes were committed in connection with the firings, and the issue of Gonzales' possible perjury appears to be at the center of her probe. But as yet, Gonzales hasn't been charged (though he's certainly not in the clear).

As for Schlozman, a former top DOJ voting-rights official, another report by the department's IG, this one released last month, found that Schlozman lied to a Senate committee about his own role in politicizing hiring at the department. But the US Attorney's office for the District of Columbia declined to bring charges against Schlozman (a decision that Attorney General Eric Holder has said he will review.)

Meanwhile, Tejada is set to go before a DC judge tomorrow. And Roger Clemens is also under investigation for lying to Congress about steroids.

And consider this: Tejada isn't accused of lying about this own possible steroid use. Rather, prosecutors say he lied when he told Congressional investigators, during an interview in a Baltimore hotel room, that he didn't know about any other players using steroids. Gonzales and Schlozman, by contrast, are suspected of lying to conceal their own involvement in politicizing DOJ.

It's hard not to conclude that if federal investigators went after former DOJ officials as hard as they went after ball players, the world would be a better place.

A federal grand jury probe of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration is focusing on the role played by recently retired Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and former senior Bush White House aides in the 2006 dismissal of David Iglesias as U.S. attorney for New Mexico, according to legal sources familiar with the inquiry.

The federal grand jury is investigating whether Domenici and other political figures attempted to improperly press Iglesias to bring a criminal prosecution against New Mexico Democrats just prior to the 2006 congressional midterm elections, according to legal sources close to the investigation and private attorneys representing officials who prosecutors want to question.  Investigators appear to be scrutinizing Iglesias' firing in the context of whether he was fired in retaliation because Domenici and others believed that he would not manipulate the timing of prosecutions to help Republicans.

Previously, Domenici was severely criticized by two internal Justice Department watchdog offices, the Department's Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), for refusing to cooperate with their earlier probe of the firings of the U.S. attorneys. In part because of their frustration that Domenici and his chief of staff, Steve Bell, as well as several senior White House officials, would not cooperate with them, the Inspector General and OPR sought that a criminal prosecutor take over their probe. It is unclear whether Domenici will now cooperate with the criminal probe. Domenici's attorney, Lee Blalack, in an interview, declined to say what Domenici will do when he is contacted by investigators.

The focus of the grand jury probe was described by a federal law enforcement official, two witnesses who have been recently been asked to answer questions from investigators, and an attorney representing a former Justice Department official who has been told that investigators want to question his client.  People who had been contacted by investigators spoke on the condition that they not be named because they did not want to upset federal law enforcement officials who would question and investigate them and also because they believe that simply being questioned might unfairly tarnish their reputations.

The grand jury investigation is currently being led by Nora Dannehy, the acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut.  Then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey named Dannehy to "determine whether any prosecutable offense was committed" in the course of the firings following September's report by the Inspector General and OPR on the firings.

The report found that Iglesias was fired largely as a result of complaints made to the White House by Domenici and Bell. But the report also concluded that the probe was severely "hindered" by the refusal by Domenici, Bell, and several senior Bush administration officials to cooperate with the investigation. 

Read more »

The DOD's just-released report on its TV pundit hiring program finds that the department did not violate prohibitions on using public finds for propaganda by ceding the networks with retired military analysts (RMAs).

Here's the key passage:

The Comptroller General has interpreted the publicity and propaganda riders to prohibit three types of activities--self-aggrandizement or puffery, partisanship, and covert communications. Applying these standards, we found the evidence insufficient to conclude that RMA outreach activities were improper. Further, we found insufficient basis to conclude that OASD(PA) conceived of or undertook a disciplined effort to assemble a contingent of influential RMAs who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD programs.

With regard to RMAs who had ties to military contractors, extensive searches found no instance where such RMAs used information or contacts obtained as a result of the OASD(PA) outreach program to achieve a competitive advantage for their company.

But it also admits at the end that the report wasn't informed by much information from the networks themselves:

We requested interviews with the official responsible for the news divisions at five networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NBC. All declined our request for an interview. ABC, CNN, and FOX provided formal written responses to our inquiry. NBC forwarded copies of their responses to Congresswoman DeLauro and the New York Times. CBS provided "off the record" remarks.

Given that the networks appear to be just as culpable as DOD here, if not more so, that seems like a serious flaw.

It looks like Bradley Schlozman will escape prosecution, at least for now, despite having been found in a DOJ report to have broken the law by politicizing hiring decisions at the department, and then lying about it to a Senate committee.

But a flood of readers has written in to ask whether Schloz might still be disbarred in the state of Kansas, where he's currently practicing law.

So we called the state's disciplinary administrator, who would handle the issue. Stanton Hazlett told TPMmuckraker that Schlozman has been registered in the state since 1994, but no complaints about him have been filed.

Indeed, Hazlett at first said he wasn't familiar with Schlozman's name, and asked us to send him the DOJ's report released this morning. Eventually, he said that he did recall the allegations of politicized hiring, but wasn't aware that Schlozman had lied to Congress about it. Unsurprisingly, Hazlett suggested that he would take such a matter very seriously.

We'll keep you posted on any developments...

Late Update: The Washington Post reports:

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility chief H. Marshall Jarrett said they would refer their findings to legal disciplinary authorities.

According to one TPMmuckraker source: "DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility routinely refers findings of ethics violations by Justice Department lawyers to the state bar associations in states where that lawyer is licensed to practice".

So perhaps those complaints will soon start coming in.

It sounds like Sen. Pat Leahy isn't too happy about the US Attorney's office's decision not to prosecute Bradley Schlozman for making false statements to Leahy's Judiciary committee.

In a speech on the Senate floor this morning, Leahy left no doubt that he disagrees with the US Attorney's office's decision, and declared: "When somebody deliberately, purposely sets out to subvert the constitution of the United States, and then lies about it, lies about it, Mr. President, I find that a heinous crime."

You can watch the speech here, but here's the entire relevant excerpt:

I really wish that the current U.S. attorney's office appointed by this administration had prosecuted. I think that the only way you stop such blatant criminal violations by people who know better, people who are sworn to uphold the law, (unint.) that they know they'll go to jail for breaking the law. That's what should have been done. And just because they broke the law in the Bush administration and the Bush administration did not, or deemed not to prosecute, I think that raises real questions. Prosecution should be done no matter who breaks the law. I think about one of the people who testified that same investigation and said that, uh, "we swear an oath to President George Bush." I said, "no, you swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. That constitution is the constitution you're sworn to uphold and I'm sworn to uphold and it's the constitution that reflects all Americans."

...

And when somebody deliberately, purposely sets out to subvert the constitution of the United States, and then lies about it, lies about it, Mr. President, I find that a heinous crime. We will see some kid who steals a car, they'll be prosecuted as they probably should. But when you have a key member of the DoJ lie about it under oath, who subverts the consitution of the United States, all the more reason to prosecute that person. Mr. President what Mr. Schlozman did was reprehensible, it was disgusting, it was wrong, goes at the very core of America's principles. The distinguished presiding officer, like me, had the great opportunity to serve as a prosecutor, and I have every reason to believe that he did not show fear of favor when he brought prosecution, as I did, as I did not, I did not show fear of favor, most prosecutors do not. And when you have somebody who is part of the Justice Department lie under oath, and do it in a way to cover up subverting the laws that protect all of us, the civil rights laws protect all of us, white, black, brown, no matter what our race, our creed, it protects all of us. And what has marked this country since the time I was a young lawyer in the sixties, is our adherence to the civil rights laws. You can't go back to a time where they're enforced for some but not for others.

This might be the most horrifying excerpt from the Schlozman report:

In that incident in August 2004, Voting Section Chief John Tanner sent an e-mail to Schlozman asking Schlozman to bring coffee for him to a meeting both were scheduled to attend. Schlozman replied asking Tanner how he liked his coffee. Tanner's response was, "Mary Frances Berry style - black and bitter." Berry is an African-American who was the Chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from November 1993 until late 2004. Schlozman forwarded the e-mail chain to several Department officials (including Principal DAAG Bradshaw) but not Acosta, with the comment, "Y'all will appreciate Tanner's response." Acosta said that when he was made aware of the incident, he required Schlozman to make a written apology to him for his role in forwarding the e-mail and that Schlozman did so.

Tanner, as longtime readers will remember, was the guy who left the voting-rights section soon after saying that voter ID laws discriminate against the elderly, and therefore not against African-Americans, because African-Americans die younger.

We've contacted both Berry and Tanner to get their reactions...

Given that the DOJ Inspector General's report found that Bradley Schlozman broke the law in making politicized hiring decisions, and lied about it to Congress, why and how did the US Attorney's office make the decision to decline to bring criminal charges?

We got a bit more information on that question from Patricia Riley, special counsel to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, which conducted the investigation.

Riley told TPMmuckraker that her office was only asked by the Inspector General's office to look into the possible perjury charges stemming from Schlozman's congressional testimony, rather than the underlying hiring decisions. She said that six career prosecutors, with between 10 and 21 years experience, conducted the investigation, reporting to Assistant US Attorney Channing Phillips (US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor recused himself from the probe).

The investigation continued until last Friday, said Riley, and included interviews with witnesses who were not contacted by the IG's report. Based on that investigation, a decision was made not to bring criminal charges.

Riley declined to say what specific information uncovered in that probe determined the decision.

We also asked the office of Sen. Pat Leahy, when they first learned that the OIG report had found that Schlozman lied to Leahy's committee. A spokeswoman responded in an email:

We received this IG report this morning, shortly in advance of the hearing, as is the usual practice of the IG's office.

Here's another great Schlozman line from the report:

For example, in an e-mail on July 15, 2003, to a former colleague, Schlozman wrote, "I too get to work with mold spores, but here in Civil Rights, we call them Voting Section attorneys."

As part of the same e-mail exchange, on July 16, 2003, Schlozman wrote, "My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs rights out of the section."

In case you were wondering about why the Schlozman report is dated July 2 2008 but was only released today, see this excerpt from page one:

We referred the findings from our investigation to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia in March 2008. We completed this written report of investigation in July 2008.

The U.S. Attorney's Office informed us on January 9, 2009, of its decision to decline prosecution of Schlozman. The Interim U.S. Attorney, Jeffrey Taylor, was recused from the matter and the decision.

We are now releasing our July 2008 report of investigation...

In other words, although the report found that Schlozman broke the law and lied to the Senate about it, he won't face criminal charges.

We've called the US Attorney's office to find out more about that decision.

Here's a voicemail message Schlozman left in February 2006 for a colleague:

[W]hen we start asking about, "what is your commitment to civil rights?" . . . . [H]ow do you prove that? Usually by membership in some crazy liberal organization or by some participation in some crazy cause. . . . Look, look at my résumé - I didn't have any demonstrated commitment, but I care about the issues. So, I mean, I just want to make sure we don't start confining ourselves to, you know, politburo members because they happen to be a member of some, you know, psychopathic left-wing organization designed to overthrow the government.

Peter Carr, a DOJ spokesman, released the following statement in response to the report on politicized hiring:

Today's report describes troubling conduct by a former supervisor in the Civil Rights Division prior to his departure from the Division nearly three years ago. The mission of the Justice Department is the evenhanded application of the Constitution and the laws enacted under it, and that mission has to start with the evenhanded application of the laws within our own Department. As today's report makes clear, Mr. Schlozman deviated from that strict standard.

The Department agrees with the recommendations outlined in the report and has already taken steps to implement them. In addition, the Civil Rights Division has taken additional steps to update its own hiring policies and to increase the role of career employees in its hiring process. As a result of these reforms, and the procedures already in place for evaluating the work and conduct of lawyers throughout the Department, we are confident that the institutional problems identified in today's report no longer exist and will not recur.

Pat Leahy, the chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, just put out the following statement on the DOJ report into politicized hiring:

Today's report confirms some of our worst fears about the Bush administration's political corruption of the Justice Department. Not only did senior Republican appointees violate the law in hiring based on politics in the Civil Rights Division, they also lied about it when called to explain themselves to Congress.

I am particularly disturbed about the findings that a senior Justice Department appointee, Bradley Schlozmann, made false statements under oath when appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lying to Congress undermines the very core of our constitutional principles and blunts the American people's right to open and transparent government. Not only did he lie to me and the Committee, but he then refused to cooperate with Justice Department's internal oversight offices' investigation into illegal hiring practices in the Department's Civil Rights Division. The clear determination that he broke the law corrodes our trust in our system of justice and in the nation's top law enforcement agency. His actions in fact undermine the very mission of the Department's Civil Rights Division, which is charged with enforcing federal law prohibiting discrimination.

A strong and independent Civil Rights Division has long been crucial to the enforcement of our precious civil rights laws, and experienced and committed career attorneys have always been the heart and soul of that Division. Contrary to those traditions, however, this report details troubling revelations of political appointees who marginalize and force out career lawyers because of ideology, and, corrupt the hiring process for career positions. It should come as no surprise that the result, and of course the intent, of this political makeover of the Civil Rights Division has been a dismal civil rights enforcement record.

This report is just one of the final chapters in the regrettable legacy of the Bush administration at Main Justice, and it reinforces the need for new leadership. Now more than ever, it is necessary to confirm a new team to lead the Justice Department, starting with Attorney General designee Eric Holder.

Here's the key excerpt, finding that Schlozman broke the law by considering political affiliations in making hiring decisions, and made false statement about it to the Senate:

The evidence in our investigation showed that Schlozman, first as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and subsequently as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Acting Assistant Attorney General, considered political and ideological affiliations in hiring career attorneys and in other personnel actions affecting career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division. In doing so, he violated federal law - the Civil Service Reform Act - and Department policy that prohibit discrimination in federal employment based on political and ideological affiliations, and committed misconduct. The evidence also showed that Division managers failed to exercise sufficient oversight to ensure that Schlozman did not engage in inappropriate hiring and personnel practices.

Moreover, Schlozman made false statements about whether he considered political and ideological affiliations when he gave sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee and in his written responses to supplemental questions from the Committee. Schlozman is no longer employed by the Department and, therefore, is not subject to disciplinary action by the Department. We recommend, however, that, if criminal prosecution is declined these findings be considered if Schlozman seeks federal employment in the
future. We believe that his violations of the merit system principles set forth in the Civil Service Reform Act, federal regulations, and Department policy, and his subsequent false statements to Congress render him unsuitable for federal service.

The Justice Department's Inspector General has just released a report on politicized hiring at the Civil Rights division, focused on TPMmuckraker favorite Bradley Schlozman.

It's here.

More soon...

We're not sure whether this counts as a positive thing ... but Eric Holder, Barack Obama's nominee for Attorney General, has won the support of a former DOJ official who was seriously tainted by the US Attorney firings scandal.

In a letter obtained by Politico, former deputy AG Paul McNulty wrote that despite the issues raised by some GOPers about Holder's tenure at DOJ under Bill Clinton, he nonetheless deserved support:

When Eric Holder was Deputy Attorney General, he encountered a daily barrage of complex issues and demands," McNulty wrote. "His challenge was to exercise sound judgment, often within severely limited time constraints. As a result, it should come as no surprise that Eric can now look back and wish that he had handled some things differently. What is important, however, is that he remains the same person of high integrity, and through it all, he is far better prepared to lead the Department of Justice.

While serving as deputy AG under Alberto Gonzales, McNulty was involved in an effort to keep details of the US Attorneys firing scheme from Congress. And his chief of staff, Michael Elston, told IG investigators for a separate inquiry that he looked for GOP or conservative credentials when making hiring decisions for McNulty's office.

So McNulty's endorsement may not be the one of which Holder is most proud. Still, Pat Leahy's comment to TPM that, depsite Arlen Specter's anti-Holder crusade, there was in fact significant Republican support for Holder's nomination, appears to be being borne out.

Baseball may be our national pastime -- and football our real national game -- but that doesn't mean taxpayers should be paying to make it easier for Fox Sports' announcer team to get away from the stadium more easily.

A new report by the Justice Department's inspector general finds that a lawyer for the U.S. Marshals Service arranged for the Marshals Service to provide a private escort for the limousines of Fox's star broadcasters, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, after two World Series games at Fenway Park in 2007.

The report also found that the lawyer, Joseph Band, had arranged for a US Marshals escort for Buck and colleague Troy Aikman, the former Cowboys star, after a January 2008 NFL playoff game in Tampa.

Band was working as a paid statistician for Fox Sports at the time.

Karl Rove may be relegated to Fox News appearances and hoping to avoid prosecution once President Bush leaves office -- but the political career of one of his proteges, Tim Griffin, may just be getting started.

The Associated Press reports that Griffin, a former White House and RNC staffer, is mulling a run for the US Senate from Arkansas against Democrat Blanche Lincoln in 2010.

"I am certainly thinking about it," Griffin told the AP. "I'm going to spend some time going around the state and talking to folks and getting an idea of the interest level. ... I'm going to try and hit all 75 counties as soon as possible and I know that's a tall order trying to hit all of those in the next few months."

A DOJ report released this fall found that the department improperly fired Bud Cummins as US Attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas in order to make room for Griffin, thanks in part to pressure from the White House political office. Wrote Kyle Sampson, the DOJ point man for the round of politically motivated firings of which Cummins' was a part: "Getting [Griffin] appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc."

Griffin served six months as interim US Attorney but was never confirmed by the Senate.

Griffin has a long trck record as a partisan political knife-fighter. He has been accused of participating in a scheme to cage black voters in Florida in 2004, and was paid by the RNC to dig up dirt on both John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama this year.

After leaving the interim U.S. Attorney job last year, a tearful Griffin said public service was "not worth it" and that he had no plans to return to politics.

He appears to have reconsidered. And as someone who, the evidence suggests, consistently puts partisan advantage over the public interest, Griffin should fit right in with his Senate GOP colleagues if he wins the seat.

Is the Department of Justice going back on its word about a report on its investigation into whether crimes were committed in the U.S. Attorney firings scandal?

When prosecutor Nora Dannehy was appointed to run the probe, in the wake of another investigation by the department's Inspector General, it was reported that Dannehy was expected to provide Attorney General Michael Mukasey with a status report on her findings within around 60 days.

That timeline was confirmed by DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine in testimony before Congress at the time:

REP. NADLER: Mr. Fine, it's been reported that Ms. Dannehy was appointed to special counsel, will make a preliminary report to the attorney general within the next two months. Do you know when this report will be made public?

MR. FINE: I think what it is is the status of the investigation at that point to the deputy attorney general or the attorney general to see where she is in the process.

...

I don't think it's sort of a formal report; I think it's more of a status report.

And it was reiterated a few weeks later in a letter from Mukasey to House Judiciary Chair John Conyers. Mukasey wrote:

As the Inspector General testified, Ms. Dannehy is expected to report on the status of the investigation to the Attorney General approximately 60 days after her appointment.

Now that 60-day deadline has come and gone. And DOJ won't confirm that any such report has been provided, instead referring us to a spokesman for Dannehy who wouldn't comment on the issue.

In other words, at first DOJ had been clear that it wanted a report submitted within 60 days. But now it won't even confirm that such a report has been submitted, or give any further information.

So is the department now going back on its requirement that Dannehy submit a report within 60 days? Is it exerting pressure to reduce the likelihood that details about Dannehy's progress -- like the fact that she's contacted Gonzales -- will slip out? What's going on?

A staffer for the House judiciary committee told TPMmuckraker that they haven't been able to get anythign out of DOJ either on whether Dannehy has submitted a report. A call to the Senate judiciary committee was not immediately returned.

We'll keep you posted as we learn more...

A report in the Washington Post suggests that Nora Dannehy, the prosecutor assigned by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to look into the U.S. attorney firings, is taking an aggressive approach to the job.

The Post says Dannehy "has been meeting with defense lawyers, dispatching subpoenas and seeking information about the events, according to legal sources familiar with the case."

It adds: "A grand jury in the District has issued subpoenas, the sources said."

And there's another interesting nugget:

D. Kyle Sampson, who served as the chief of staff to Gonzales until his March 2007 resignation, recently took a leave from his job as a partner at the law firm Hunton & Williams while the investigation proceeds. A spokeswoman for the law firm said he is on leave "pending admission to the D.C. bar."

DOJ's Inspector General report, released in late September, found that Sampson's testimony was "not credible" and "unpersuasive."

Dannehy was appointed September 29 to determine whether crimes had been committed in the affair. She was given 60 days to submit a preliminary report on her findings. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPMmuckraker about the report's status.

More on this soon...

To defend him against charges that he politicized DOJ hiring practices, Alberto Gonzales will have a private attorney -- on the taxpayers' dime, reports McClatchy.

The move, requested by Gonzo himself, will likely end up costing taxpayers about twice as much as a top DOJ attorney would have, according to the news service.

Gonzales is being sued by a former high-ranking Justice official, Dan Metcalfe, on behalf of a group of his law students. An internal DOJ report found that, under Gonzales, the department had favored politically conservative candidates for internships, prosecutor jobs, and immigration judgeships. The students allege that their careers were irreparably harmed as a result of being unfairly passed over for two department programs that hire law students.

A Justice Department spokesman told McClatchy the department wouldn't comment on the reasons for the approval, or on the cost to taxpayers.

And how do you like this rationale from Robert Bork Jr. -- a spokesman for Gonzales, and the son of the unsuccessful arch-conservative Supreme Court nominee -- for why Gonazles requested the private lawyer?

Gonzales, said Bork Jr., "values the work that the Department's civil attorneys do in all cases" but believes that "private counsel can often be useful where (department) officials are sued in an individual capacity, even where the suit has no substantive merit."

The Department of Justice announced yesterday that, at an annual awards ceremony, it had given an award for "Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity" to David Margolis.

Why is that noteworthy?

Margolis, who has been at DOJ since 1965 and now serves as Associate Deputy Attorney General, makes frequent appearances in the report on the US Attorney firings released earlier this month by DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

By and large, the report depicts Margolis as a respected career DOJ-er, who was largely out of the loop on many of the details of the scheme to fire US Attorneys for political reasons.

But it also shows that right before the firings, Kyle Sampson, the point man on the plan, showed Margolis -- whose informal biography, says the report, listed one of his duties as being a liaison between main DOJ and the US Attorneys -- a list of six of the US Attorneys to be fired. Margolis had earlier recommended to Sampson that two US Attorneys -- Kevin Ryan and Dunn Lampton -- be fired for legitimate performance-based reasons, but neither one appeared on Sampson's list. And yet, says the report, Margolis neither raised any objections, nor asked Sampson about how the list was drawn up.

From the report's conclusion:

In November 2006, when Sampson advised Margolis about the impending removals, he either showed Margolis a list or read from a list of six U.S. Attorneys that Sampson indicated were to be removed. Margolis told us that he was struck more by the names Sampson did not mention than the ones he did. Margolis asked Sampson why Ryan and Lampton were not on the removal list, and Sampson responded that he would look into it. Based on Margolis's and McNulty's suggestion, Ryan was subsequently added to the list.

However, Margolis told us that he did not think to question Sampson about the six U.S. Attorneys who were on Sampson's list. Margolis said he was more focused on the names that were omitted and assumed Sampson had valid reasons for the six slated for removal.

Margolis is the senior career attorney in the Department and someone who had significant knowledge about U.S. Attorneys and their performance. He was involved in panel interviews for the selection of most U.S. Attorneys, and as part of his duties handles misconduct allegations involving U.S. Attorneys. He is highly respected within the Department, and his opinion was valued because of his experience and stature.

Yet, prior to the removals, he never questioned Sampson concerning why the specific U.S. Attorneys slated for removal were chosen or what process was used to select them. We believe that under these circumstances - an unprecedented dismissal of a group of U.S. Attorneys at one time allegedly for performance reasons - Margolis should have raised questions about the list and the process used to identify the names to ensure there were no improper reasons and that the Department was following a defensible process for the removals. But Margolis never raised those issues, and instead focused solely on seeking to ensure that Ryan was added to the removal list.

...

We recognize that the decision to remove the U.S. Attorneys was not Margolis's to make. But given his position, we believe he should have asked Sampson, McNulty, or other senior Department leaders about the removal process. This is particularly true given that this removal of U.S. Attorneys was unprecedented, and it did not appear from the names on Sampson's list that the U.S. Attorneys Margolis thought were weak had been included.

The report also quotes from Margolis' subsequent testimony to Congress, in which he acknowledged he should have done more:

I should say that I am a bit exasperated by my role here because I'm the only one of all the people involved who knows how to fire a United States Attorney or a Marshal based on experience. And I was not aggressive enough or vigilant enough, and I should have done a number of things, I should have inserted myself. I was too passive, and I'd like to, I think--and I hold myself accountable for this--that if I had stepped in and said something, that maybe this would have been - we would have handled this better...

The report further concludes:

We believe that given Margolis's experience, position, and stature he was too deferential to others on this important and unprecedented removal of U.S. Attorneys. Had he raised questions, as he acknowledged he should have, the damage to the Department by the fundamentally flawed removal process might have been mitigated.

Margolis was clearly a long way from being the main villain in the US Attorneys saga. But he didn't exactly cover himself with glory in the affair.

And he certainly didn't demonstrate "Outstanding Professionalism and Exemplary Integrity" -- the qualities for which he's just been honored.

Now that the dust has settled on the U.S. attorney firings report, released Monday morning by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, we thought it was worth taking some time to lay out what it tells us.

Almost since the scandal broke early last year, there have been clear signs that the plan to fire U.S. attorneys as a means of advancing the Bush administration's political goals was being driven by the White House. That impression has been strengthened as top current and former White House officials, including Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, have consistently stonewalled efforts to look into the matter.

The OIG investigation was no exception. As the report notes, Miers, Rove and several other Whte House officials refused to talk to investigators, and the White House wouldn't provide internal emails or documents relating to the firings. Perhaps the most crucial of the documents denied to OIG was a memo, written in March 2007, which contained the results of an internal White House investigation into the firings, conducted by associate White House counsel Michael Scudder. Scudder had interviewed top DOJ and White House officials, including Rove, and had compiled a timeline that "appeared to contain information we had not obtained elsewhere in our investigation," according to the OIG report.

Still, a close examination of the report makes clear that, although on a day-to-day basis the plan was put into effect by mid-level DOJ political appointees -- enabled by a shocking lack of oversight from top department officials, principally former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- the impetus for the move came straight from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Many of the individual pieces of information have been previously reported, as DOJ provided emails and internal documents to Congress for its 2007 investigation. But the OIG report provides a far clearer sense of the longer-term trajectory of the plan, and the consistent interest in it from Miers and Rove, than we've yet been offered.

Read more »

In the almost two years that TPMmuckraker has been covering the scandal over the removal of the U.S. attorneys, there have been many questions raised over the reasons behind the firings. On Monday, the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General's report answered some of those, but raised others. While it concluded that only three of the firings were carried out for political reasons or to interfere with active prosecutions, it could not gather sufficient evidence to conclude the rest of the firings were politically based. Regardless, the report strongly condemned the DOJs overall mishandling of the firings, calling the process "fundamentally flawed . . unsystematic and arbitrary."

As we wrote earlier this week, the report reveals that Todd Graves, David Iglesias and Bud Cummins were fired for reasons of politics, not performance.

The report lays out the investigations into each of the remaining U.S. attorney firings, but repeatedly states that its analysis and investigation were "hindered" due to many witnesses' "lack of recall"; the refusal of many witnesses to cooperate with the investigation or give testimony; and the administration's stonewalling in disclosing documents. Citing these obstacles, the report hedges its findings, requesting a prosecutor to continue the investigation with the power to compel testimony.

In the case of Margaret Chiara, the former Western Michigan U.S. attorney, the report could find no evidence that the rumors that Chiara was in a lesbian relationship with one of her subordinates were behind her removal.

Chiara has stated publicly that she believes the rumors -- which she called "false and malicious" in a statement yesterday from her attorney -- were the reason for the loss of her position.

Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of California, was believed to have been asked to resign over her prosecution of former Executive Director of the CIA, Dusty Foggo and Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor who bribed former Republican Rep. Duke Cunningham and Foggo. But the report "found no evidence" to support those claims, stating that "the investigation and prosecution of Cunningham and Foggo were aggressively pursued by career prosecutors in Lam's office, both during and after her tenure."

Instead, the report supports the Department's previous claims that Lam was removed because of her poor statistics on gun and immigration prosecution statistics -- but blames the DOJ for poor handling of her removal.

In the case of Daniel Bogden of Nevada, little was known about his removal, except that he had not been diligent in prosecution of obscenity cases. The report found the claim to be behind Bogden's removal, but added some color to the removal. Interestingly, the report found that the complaints of Bodgen's dalliance in obscenity prosecutions were made by Brent Ward, the head of the DOJ Obscenity Prosecution Task Force -- who was friends with Attorney General Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson's brother and had direct conversations with Sampson regularly.

When questioned by the DOJ, Sampson stated he "did not recall whether those complaints played a role in the decision to remove Bogden," a response the report found "particularly suspect, given his role in the removal process."

In Arizona, Paul Charlton's termination was believed to be connected to his investigation of Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, but the report states that it could find no evidence to support that claim. Charlton had previously clashed with Main Justice on a decision he made to not seek the death penalty on a case involving a murder that transpired during a drug deal. Charlton believed it was this death penalty case as well as his policy of tape recording interrogations that led to his removal -- theories the IG report confirmed as the primary reasons for his dismissal.

Lastly, there is Seattle's John McKay who was believed to have been fired over his failure to prosecute voter fraud related to the 2004 Washington governor's election.

McKay famously received a call from Ed Cassidy, chief of staff to Washington Rep. Richard Hastings (R) asking about his prosecution, to which McKay responded, "Ed, I'm sure you're not about to start talking to me about the future direction of this case," after which Cassidy quickly ended the call.

Hastings claimed ignorance and told investigators that "he could not remember telling Cassidy to call McKay. . . or whether Cassidy had told him he had done so."

The report also mentions a meeting in Washington between McKay and White House Counsel Harriet Miers in which Miers reportedly asked McKay "why Republicans in the state of Washington were angry with him."

The report concludes that the "evidence suggests" that the primary reason for McKay's removal was an argument with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty over an information sharing program -- not because of failure to prosecute voter fraud as McKay conjectured.

The OIG report, though nearly 400 pages long, is far from comprehensive. The investigation lacked the power to compel testimony or documents outside of the Justice Department and were consequently limited in their investigation. As a result, the report is forced to reserve judgment on whether many of the firings were inappropriately political, though it recommends that a prosecutor be appointed to look into whether crimes were committed.

Nora Dannehy, appointed on Monday by Attorney General Michael Mukasey will take up that mantle. It remains to be seen if that will be enough to ferret the truth out of unwilling witnesses and departments.