Federal Prosecutor Appointed in Attorneygate

Well, hello there again—haven't seen you in awhile:


Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Monday appointed a federal prosecutor to continue an investigation into the dismissals of nine federal prosecutors in 2006 as an internal Justice Department inquiry concluded that political pressure drove the action against at least three of them.

The internal investigators said that the White House’s refusal to cooperate in the high-profile investigation produced significant "gaps" in the understanding of who was to blame and that they did not have enough evidence to justify recommending criminal charges in the affair. Now the task of determining if anyone should be prosecuted will fall to Nora Dannehy, the federal prosecutor in Connecticut.
Those "gaps" may, just possibly, perhaps, maybe, have something to do with the fact that former Bush administration svengali Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, former Justice Department-White House liaison Monica Goodling, and current White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, all refused to testify. Just a guess.

A federal judge ruled in July that "the executive's current claim of absolute immunity from compelled Congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law," with respect to the House Judiciary Committee's investigation of Attorneygate; one hopes that bodes well for Ms. Dannehy as she dives into the morass.

[More on the prosecutor purge, aka Attorneygate, here and here.]

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