Federal judge orders Mukasey to respond to inquiry in Ted Stevens case

Legal Times:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s last few days in office just got a little more difficult.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan this afternoon ordered Mukasey to prepare a declaration, with his signature, that addresses questions about how the government handled the whistleblower complaint filed last month in the Ted Stevens case.

Sullivan gave a deadline of noon Friday, leaving prosecutors and a throng of reporters stunned at the afternoon hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “This is the most important thing on his desk right now,” Sullivan declared. “I want the declaration of the attorney general before he leaves office.”

The judge appeared furious, angrily pointing his finger and raising his voice as he pressed two top-level prosecutors, William Welch and Brenda Morris, for answers about how the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section handled the whistleblower complaint and when the section knew that the complainant had been denied whistleblower protection. Welch is the chief of the Public Integrity Section; Morris, who led the Stevens prosecution team, is principal deputy chief.


The whistleblower complaint, filed by an FBI special agent, alleges the prosecution team intentionally withheld evidence from Stevens's lawyers. Sullivan last month released a redacted version of the complaint.