Yet Another Potential Scandal

The New York Times reports this morning that the Justice Department's inspector general and the F.B.I. are investigating the suspicious demotion of a veteran federal prosecutor in late 2002 (hat tip TalkLeft). The prosecutor, Frederick A. Black was the acting U.S. Attorney in Guam. In November 2002, Black informed the Justice Department that he was initiating a corruption investigation involving Republican superstar lobbyist Jack Abramoff (who is now the target of numerous other corruption investigations involving unrelated activities). Within days, Black was demoted and told he could no longer pursue public corruption cases. The Times reports:

Colleagues said they recalled that Mr. Black
was distressed when he was notified by the
department in November 2002 that he was
being replaced. The announcement came only
days after Mr. Black had notified the
department's public integrity division in
Washington, by telephone and e-mail
communication, that he had opened a criminal
investigation into Mr. Abramoff's lobbying
activities for the Guam judges, the colleague
said. The judges had sought Mr. Abramoff's
help in blocking a bill in Congress to
restructure the island's courts.
The colleagues said that Mr. Black was also
surprised when his newly arrived bosses in
Guam blocked him from involvement in public
corruption cases in 2003.

The Times also adds this bit of information:

Mr. Abramoff's internal e-mail messages show
that he boasted to clients about what he
described as his close ties to John Ashcroft,
then the attorney general, and others at the
department.

And concludes with this:

"Whatever the motivation in replacing Fred,
his demotion meant that the investigation of
Abramoff died," said a former colleague in Guam.

There have been so many stories of corruption lately (many of them involving Abramoff) that this one may get lost in the shuffle. But it's a serious matter. If a public corruption investigation was indeed halted because the target was well-connected, that's a serious breach of the public trust. One by one, these sort of stories add up and the cumulative effect may well be to discredit the entire enterprise of Republican governance. As Marshall Wittman puts its, "conservative governance is on the verge of being discredited by the trifecta of cronyism, corruption and incompetence."