Letters to the Editor
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There are others...
One example is Tom DiBagio, the U.S Attorney from Maryland. As the New York Times reported recently, he was forced to resign after he began to investigate corruption related to the republican governor of Maryland. At one point, the Governor's Chief of Staff called up DiBagio and essentially threatened him. DiBagio indicted that he viewed the contact as a personal threat to him and immediately reported it to the Justice Department. You know the rest. The threat was ignored and DiBagio was forced out, killing the investigation.
This is important for a number of reasons. First, it fits the established pattern for the Bush Justice Department, in that if you investigate fellow republicans, you're fired. Second, it undercuts one of the key elements of the Attorney General's testimony last week.
You see, Alberto Gonzales got a little clever when he told a Senate panel that David Iglesias should have reported improper contacts with Sen. Dominici and Rep. Wilson to the Justice Department immediately, even going so far as to imply that the failure to report the conversations was a contributing factor in his dismissal. But we already know from DiBagio's case that when a U.S. Attorney tries to report an improper contact from a republican official (Gov. Erlich) he is then forced to resign under pressure.
My question is this - why didn't any Senator follow up with the AG and point to DiBagio's experience and ask why his report of improper contacts wasn;t taken seriously. And given that we know what happened when DiBagio "followed procedure" - it was a front page story in the New York times, after all - why isn't the Attorney General facing any sanctions for telling an obvious lie to the Senate last week about David Iglesias? Or has the Senate concluded that the AG is just so damn stupid that he wouldn't recognize the truth if he ran into it on the highway?