Something dicey at DOJ

With an adminstration that delivers a scandal practically every hour on the hour, it's difficult to keep track of them all but here's a new twist in the attorney purge scandal that may shed some light on why the White House was so anxious to get Carol Lam out of the San Diego U.S. Attorney's office and it stretches all the way back to Duke Cunningham.

The hapless Mr. Cunningham is all but forgotten languishing in his lonely jail cell but the big fish in this bribery scandal, indicted money man Brent Wilkes and former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo are still free. Wilkes' high powered lawyer, Mark Geragos, filed a motion to dismiss this week alleging that Lam played politics with the indictments.

Geragos contended that Lam wanted the indictments to happen before she was forced from office by the Bush administration. But Lam was meeting resistance from bosses in the Justice Department, who had rejected drafts of indictments against Wilkes and former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, saying they needed revisions.

Lam, Geragos theorized, wanted to force reluctant officials to go along with her plans by leaking details of the indictments before they were officially released. Geragos has said he learned about indictments from reporters.

“These indictments as to my client were returned hours before Ms. Lam was to exit. . . . If it did come back to Carol Lam, it would strike me as the most compelling reason for dismissal,” Geragos told the court.

Geragos didn't elaborate on any proof he might have to back up this allegation but is said to have referred to the emails uncovered in the course of the Congressional investigation into the attorney purge while in court. Lam, for her part, denied the allegations and was supported by her peers who expressed doubt that Lam would undertake such dirty tricks, noting it was inconsistent with the way she operated.

Josh Marshall puts this development into further context.

From separate reporting, I know this to be true: the DOJ was holding up the indictments. Why was that? And in that context what does her subsequent dismissal tell us? Let's not be fooled on this one. The White House and the politicals at the DOJ were and are doing everything it can to spring Wilkes and Foggo.

Josh also reminds us that Wilkes was tied in with DeLay, Cheney (as evidenced by the photos of the Veep and Wilkes hanging out), Doolittle, and the whole rotten crew. And don't forget the prostitution connection and the questionable limousine contracts associated with Foggo's part in this sordid scandal. I don't doubt the White House would prefer that none of this be dredged up again at trial.

It certainly appears to me that if anyone has a compelling reason to game the system it is more likely the DOJ, not Lam, and I can't help but wonder if there isn't some back door finagling going on between someone at Justice and defense counsel. It's surely in the best interests of the White House to just make this case go away. One can only hope the judge doesn't allow them to get away with it and that for once, the real culprits will be held accountable for defrauding the taxpayers.