Thursday, February 19, 2009

Big stone wall: Many Bush ex-officials refuse to cooperate with DOJ probes.

While many of the Bush ex-officials are stonewalling DOJ probes such as USA firings, politization in the Civil Division, and so on, a little nugget from TPMmuckraker:

Another investigation by the Justice Department's Inspector General has focused on misconduct by J. Robert Flores, the Bush administration's former administrator of the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Although little known outside the Justice Department, the OJJDP doles out
more than a quarter of a billion in federal grants each year [or more than 50% of the federal grants according to the Oversight Committee's findings] to decrease the number of juveniles in dangerous facilities and to prevent juvenile delinquency. Flores came under investigation by the Inspector General for allegedly setting aside federal laws and government regulations to award federal grants to political allies of the Bush White House and for also allegedly using federal travel funds to play golf.

During that investigation, Flores' then-chief of staff, Michele DeKonty, took the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions from Congress about the awarding of federal grants for political reasons, and similarly refused to be interviewed by the Justice Department's Inspector General -- leading to her immediate firing by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

The Inspector General's probe has reportedly since transformed into a criminal investigation. DeKonty's attorney, David H. Laufman, declined to comment for this article as to whether his client has since cooperated with the criminal inquiry.

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