Former Justice Department official charged in Jack Abramoff lobbying probe

April 21, 2008
Former Justice Department official charged in Jack Abramoff lobbying probe

WASHINGTON - A former high-ranking Justice Department official was accused Monday of criminal conflict of interest in the latest case stemming from the investigation of disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Robert Coughlin was deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division — the same division handling the Abramoff probe — before resigning a year ago, citing personal reasons. He was due in federal court in Washington on Tuesday for a plea hearing.

Justice Dept. accused of blocking Gonzales probe

January 29, 2008
Justice Dept. accused of blocking Gonzales probe

WASHINGTON -- The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.

Scott J. Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly "impeded" his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch's letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

House Judiciary Committee told Justice Department targeted Democrats

October 24, 2007

House Judiciary Committee told Justice Department targeted Democrats

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — Richard L. Thornburgh, attorney general in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, charged Tuesday that political reasons motivated the Justice Department to open corruption investigations against Democrats in Mr. Thornburgh's home state, Pennsylvania.

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Thornburgh became the first former Republican attorney general to join with Democratic lawmakers to suggest that the Justice Department under Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales had singled out Democratic politicians for prosecution.

Bush's EPA Is Pursuing Fewer Polluters

September 30, 2007
Bush's EPA Is Pursuing Fewer Polluters

The Environmental Protection Agency's pursuit of criminal cases against polluters has dropped off sharply during the Bush administration, with the number of prosecutions, new investigations and total convictions all down by more than a third, according to Justice Department and EPA data.

The number of civil lawsuits filed against defendants who refuse to settle environmental cases was down nearly 70 percent between fiscal years 2002 and 2006, compared with a four-year period in the late 1990s, according to those same statistics.

US attorney for Minnesota under investigation

September 19, 2007
US attorney for Minnesota under investigation

Rachel Paulose, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, is being investigated by a federal office that works to protect whistle blowers, according to a political blog and a source who spoke to KARE 11.

A source with knowledge of the investigation told KARE 11 the federal Office of the Special Counsel, an independent agency, is looking into allegations that Paulose carelessely handled classified documents, and then allegedly retaliated against the person who found the documents sitting out in the open.

U.S. Attorney Busted in Child Sex Sting

September 17, 2007
U.S. Attorney Busted in Child Sex Sting

DETROIT, Mich. -- A U.S Justice Department official has been arrested on suspicion of traveling to Detroit over the weekend to have sex with a 5-year-old girl, WDIV-TV in Detroit reported.

John David R. Atchison, 53, an assistant U.S. attorney from the northern district of Florida, was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Monday afternoon.

Justice Department Official Resigns

September 6, 2007
Justice Department Official Resigns

WASHINGTON - Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, who oversaw the Bush administration's lengthy legal fight over the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, announced his resignation Thursday as head of the civil division.

Keisler's departure comes in the wake of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' own resignation. Keisler is the latest senior official to leave at a time when lawmakers have criticized the department for not being politically independent from the White House.

DOJ Scandal Results in Another Resignation

August 20, 2007
DOJ Scandal Results in Another Resignation

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 — The head of the Justice Department's civil rights division announced Thursday that he was resigning, the latest in a long string of departures from the department in the midst of a furor over the leadership of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

The department said that the resignation of the official, Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim, had nothing to do with the recent controversies over Mr. Gonzales's performance, and that Mr. Kim had been planning his departure for months.

His departure was announced on the same day that department officials confirmed that a senior official who preceded Mr. Kim in running the civil rights division, Bradley J. Schlozman, had also resigned.

DOJ official resigns over attorney firings

August 22, 2007
DOJ official resigns over attorney firings

Facing multiple investigations, a senior Justice Department appointee has resigned his post.

Bradley Schlozman stepped down from his position as a counsel in the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, a branch of the Department of Justice, last week, a Justice spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

Schlozman, a key figure in several political controversies, is under investigation by the department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility for allegations he was involved in politicizing hiring and firing decisions at the Justice Department. He is also a subject of the congressional probe into the U.S. attorneys firing scandal.

DOJ Expands Attorney Firing Investigation

May 31, 2007
DOJ Expands Attorney Firing Investigation

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department said Wednesday it has expanded its internal inquiry on the firing of U.S. attorneys into whether politics played a part in hiring career prosecutors.

In a rare note updating lawmakers on its investigation, the department said it also was looking into hiring practices within its Civil Rights Division. Lawmakers have questioned whether the division has hired prosecutors with strong political resumes but little civil rights experience.

GOP's unsubstantiated voter fraud claims

May 19, 2007
GOP's unsubstantiated voter fraud claims

It is time to stop referring to the "fired U.S attorneys scandal" by that misnomer, and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans.

This is no botched personnel switch. It is not even a political spat between the fired U.S. attorneys and Bush administration officials who deemed some of them insufficiently zealous in promoting the department's law enforcement priorities. Connect the dots and you see an insidious effort to corrupt the American electoral system. It's Watergate without the break-in or the bagmen.

Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals

May 14, 2007
Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals

Nearly half the U.S. attorneys slated for removal by the administration last year were targets of Republican complaints that they were lax on voter fraud, including efforts by presidential adviser Karl Rove to encourage more prosecutions of election- law violations, according to new documents and interviews.

Democrats counter that such fraud is rare and that GOP efforts are designed to suppress legitimate votes by minorities, the elderly and recent immigrants, who are likely to support Democratic candidates. A draft report last year by the Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan government panel that conducts election research, said that "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud."

Congress demands e-mails; Justice says ask Rove camp

May 16, 2007
Congress demands e-mails; Justice says ask Rove camp

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department on Wednesday told an angry Senate Judiciary Committee chairman it does not have documents described in a subpoena that demands all materials relating to Karl Rove's possible involvement in the U.S. attorney firings.

Instead, it said, Rove's lawyer must have them. Rove is the chief political adviser for President Bush.

Many POWs at Guantánamo Rebuff Lawyers

May 5, 2007
Many POWs at Guantánamo Rebuff Lawyers

Some of the lawyers accuse Guantánamo officials of feeding the detainees' suspicions of the lawyers, a charge Pentagon officials deny.

Lawyers said many of the relationships appeared to have deteriorated as the detainees' legal cause has suffered setbacks in Congress and the courts, and as Justice Department officials have begun efforts to limit lawyers' access to detainees, raising new concerns among the detainees about their lawyers' effectiveness.

"Every lawyer is afraid, every time they go down there, that their clients won't see them," said Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who represents two Guantánamo detainees. "And it's getting worse, because it's pretty hard to say we're offering them anything."

Justice Department Asked to Limit Lawyers Access at Guantánamo

April 26, 2007
Justice Department Asked to Limit Lawyers Access at Guantánamo

The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to impose tighter restrictions on the hundreds of lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the request has become a central issue in a new legal battle over the administration's detention policies.

Saying that visits by civilian lawyers and attorney-client mail have caused "intractable problems and threats to security at Guantánamo," a Justice Department filing proposes new limits on the lawyers' contact with their clients and access to evidence in their cases that would replace more expansive rules that have governed them since they began visiting Guantánamo detainees in large numbers in 2004.

Justice probes hiring bias for Republicans

May 3, 2007
Justice probes hiring bias for Republicans

The Justice Department has launched an internal investigation into whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's former White House liaison illegally took party affiliation into account in hiring career federal prosecutors, officials said yesterday.

The allegations against Monica Goodling represent a potential violation of federal law and signal that a joint probe begun in March by the department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility has expanded beyond the controversial dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

In newly released statements, the two alleged that they were threatened by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's chief of staff immediately before Gonzales testified in the Senate in January.

Ex-Justice Dept. Lawyer Under Investigation

April 28, 2007
Ex-Justice Dept. Lawyer Under Investigation

A federal task force investigating the activities of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has in recent weeks been looking into whether one of Abramoff's colleagues improperly traded favors with a Justice Department lawyer, sources familiar with the Abramoff investigation said yesterday.

The lawyer, Robert E. Coughlin II, resigned on April 6 as deputy chief of staff in the Criminal Division, citing personal reasons, a department spokesman said.

"Bob gave a personal reason for his resignation," said spokesman Bryan Sierra. He stressed that Coughlin "had no involvement" in the department's investigation of Abramoff.

Coughlin had worked in the criminal division since 2005 but was recused from the Abramoff inquiry because of a longtime personal friendship with Kevin A. Ring, one of Abramoff's lobbying colleagues whose actions are under investigation, a law enforcement source said. Investigators are looking into dealings between the two in 2001 and 2002, when Coughlin worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, the sources said.

Justice Dept. Lists Withheld Documents

April 26, 2007
Justice Dept. Lists Withheld Documents

The Justice Department released a list of internal documents Thursday focusing on lawmakers' concerns and media questions about the firings of eight federal prosecutors, but the department resisted congressional demands for copies of the memos.

The list of 159 e-mails and memos, spanning nearly three months, at the least demonstrates concern about how the dismissals were being publicly received before they erupted into a firestorm that has resulted in calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign.

The House Judiciary Committee has demanded the full text of all documents that had been partially or completely blacked out among nearly 6,000 pages of e-mails, calendar pages and memos released to Congress as it investigates whether the firings were politically motivated. The documents being sought include correspondence with lawmakers and journalists about the firing.

DOJ, White House pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout

April 19, 2007
DOJ, White House pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout

WASHINGTON - For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.

Justice Department's Independence 'Shattered,'

April 16, 2007
Justice Department's Independence 'Shattered,'

Since the day he arrived at the Department of Justice in February 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has "shattered" the department's tradition of independence and politicized its operation more than any other attorney general in more than 30 years.

Q: In your view, what needs to be done to repair the department?

A: Based upon my experience, it's very hard to imagine how the department can viably move forward now without a Watergate-style repair. By that I mean the appointment of a new attorney general, one who by reputation, background and temperament is well-suited to at least begin the process of restoring the department's previous reputation for political independence and the reliably even-handed administration of justice.