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Abramoff Inquiry Extends to DOJ
(Philip Shenon, The New York Times, 07 October 2005)
The ranking Democrats on three House committees called Thursday for an outside investigator to determine why a prosecutor in Guam was demoted in 2002 after opening a criminal investigation of Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist now at the center of a federal corruption investigation. . . . The Democrats said in a letter to the Justice Department that an outside investigator was needed to determine if the prosecutor, Frederick A. Black, the acting United States attorney on Guam, was demoted as a result of "political manipulation of Justice Department officials" by Mr. Abramoff, a major Republican fund-raiser. . . . Colleagues said Mr. Black's reassignment in November 2002 resulted in the collapse of the investigation in Guam, where Mr. Abramoff had a lucrative lobbying practice. Law-enforcement officials have confirmed that the Justice Department's inspector general, the department's independent watchdog, opened an investigation in recent weeks into the circumstances of Mr. Black's demotion. . . . Mr. Abramoff has been indicted on federal fraud charges in Florida in an unrelated investigation and is under scrutiny by a separate grand jury in Washington. . . . A department spokesman had no immediate comment on the letter sent to the department from five Democrats, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee; Nick J. Rahall II of West Virginia, senior Democrat on the Resources Committee; George Miller of California, senior Democrat on the Education Committee; Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts; and Madeleine Z. Bordallo, who represents Guam.

posted by LoZo 3:48 PM