Can Justice Be Trusted? (Page 2)

Up to this point Abramoff had lobbied to replace Black because Governor Gutierrez had hired him to do so. Now he had a personal stake in Black's investigation--he was a target of it. It's not known whether Abramoff tried to stop Black's investigation of him, but such interference would have been in character. Earlier in the year Abramoff had persuaded Justice to kill a risk-assessment report on Guam and the CNMI, which Black had ordered. The report might have jeopardized the influx of cheap labor to CNMI, where Abramoff had $1.6 million in lobbying contracts. In an e-mail dated October 1, 2001, Abramoff told CNMI officials he learned of the results of the security review from Ashcroft's chief of staff, David Ayres, whom he hosted at a Washington Redskins game. Abramoff mentioned an upcoming meeting with Ashcroft and another meeting, at a pickup basketball game, between the Attorney General and an Ashcroft aide who'd become an Abramoff staffer. "We'll hope that higher ups will take some time to squash this on their own," Abramoff wrote. Sure enough, the report never came out and Justice demoted its author, regional security specialist Robert Meissner. Did Abramoff use the same Justice channels to quash Black's inquiry?

Despite Justice's refusal to help him, Black convened a grand jury, which subpoenaed the Abramoff contract with the Superior Court on November 18, 2002. The next day the Bush Administration announced that Black would be replaced as US Attorney and demoted him to Assistant US Attorney, after twelve years on the job. His replacement was Guam's Assistant Attorney General, Leonardo Rapadas. "Fred was removed because he asked to indict Abramoff," says one of Black's colleagues at Justice. "I don't believe it was a coincidence."

Rapadas's conduit to the White House, veteran Washington lobbyist Fred Radewagen, "had access all the way up to Karl Rove," says David Sablan, former head of the Guam Republican Party. At the time of Black's demotion, former Abramoff aide Susan Ralston was working as a top assistant to Rove, a post she still holds.

Before Rapadas's confirmation, in May 2003, law-enforcement officials in Guam had supplied extensive information to Ashcroft and senior Justice officials indicating that he would have to recuse himself from the Gutierrez investigation because he was related to two people implicated in the scandal. Also in May, Guam's new Governor, Felix Camacho, a former Black ally, met with Abramoff in Washington. That same month, Jus tice dispatched Assistant US Attorney Russ Stoddard to Guam. Stoddard proceeded to bar Black from working on any public corruption cases and demanded that all new cases be approved through him, rather than the criminal division--a highly unorthodox procedure. Black's investigation into Abramoff's activities was forceably halted. Reportedly, the FBI and the DOJ Inspector General have begun looking into Black's demotion. Sources close to the IG investigation say its findings will be released soon. But the way Justice silenced Black and Meissner in part prompted Senators Chuck Schumer and Ken Salazar to call for the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Abramoff investigation. The circumstances of Black's removal raise several questions. Did the White House interfere to stop Black's investigation? Was Gonzales involved? Was Ashcroft?

More broadly, how can Justice be trusted to investigate a matter in which it is so deeply implicated? Despite the Public Integrity Section's reputation for impartiality, there are few institutional checks to prevent further political meddling into its current investigation of Abramoff. On January 25 Bush nominated the current Public Integrity Section head, Noel Hillman, to a federal judgeship in New Jersey and named a temporary replacement mid-investigation. Justice can prosecute the case without any political pressure "as long as the targets are members of Congress," says former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. "If, however, you start to develop ties between Congress, Abramoff and people in the White House, it becomes problematic, especially from an appearance perspective. Because of the Deputy Attorney Gen eral's and the Attorney General's ties to the President, the need for an outside counsel becomes greater."

Otherwise, how can the public be sure that the President's man, Alberto Gonzales, will conduct an honest, thorough investigation of Abramoff when the targets might include his top deputies, his former White House colleagues, his predecessor, his boss--indeed, himself?

• « Previous
• 1
• 2

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.