http://thehill.com/business--lobby/demoted-u.s.-attorney-protested-office-shutdown-loss-of-resources-2007-03-21.html Demoted U.S. attorney protested office shutdown, loss of resources
By Kevin Bogardus
March 21, 2007
A U.S. attorney targeted by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff complained to his superiors in Washington about losing investigative resources little more than a month before his demotion.
Years before Abramoff was sent to jail, the Department of the Interior ignored an October 2002 letter from Frederick Black, then the acting U.S. attorney for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and had shut down the territories’ Inspector General’s office by the summer of 2003.
Obtained by The Hill through a Freedom of Information Act request, Black’s letter laid out ongoing investigations, including a probe into an Abramoff friend, Carl Gutierrez, then Guam’s governor.
Gutierrez and Abramoff had discussed removing Black from his position, “need
to get this guy sniped out of there,” according to one of the lobbyist’s e-mails. Black had already indicted several members of Gutierrez’s administration and was starting to look at Abramoff.
Black’s case may get another look from Congress. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) wrote to both the Senate and House judiciary committees last week, asking them to add Black’s demotion to their broader investigation of the U.S. attorney scandal.
In a statement made to The Hill, Miller repeated his calls for another investigation.
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