U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minneapolis and House Judiciary Chair John Conyers have moments ago sent a letter to the acting U.S. attorney general demanding all communications from the staff of the Minnesota U.S. attorneys office to the Justice Department about Rachel Paulose’s management of the office, documents relating to the evaluations of her predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger that might shed light on why he was on a list of U.S. attorneys to be fired, and all documents reflecting the search for Heffelfinger’s replacement, which led to the appointment of Paulose.
Ellison’s spokester, Rick Jauert, said the letter had been received at the office of Acting U.S. Attorney Peter Keisler.
The letter follows up on the revelation earlier this week that Paulose is under federal investigation for allegedly mishandling secret national security documents, retaliating against a whistleblower within her office who reported her for that, making racist comments about a staff member, and other alleged inappropriate treatment of her staff.
The federal Office of Special Counsel has been investigating the allegations. OSC is an independent executive branch agency that handles such complaints. It is not part of the Justice Department.
When the Judiciary Committee investigated the controversy over the firing of several U.S. attorneys, Ellison, who is a freshman member of the committee, took the lead in asking about the Minnesota case. He has been publicly critical of Paulose’s management of the Minnesota U.S. attorney’s office and of her appointment.
The letter seizes on the latest revelation of new allegations of mismanagement to renew a request for documents that Ellison and Conyers had requested in May from then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and to reopen the entire matter of how Paulose got the job and how she has run the office.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar had also previously asked Gonzalez how Heffelfinger came to be on the list to possibly be removed. She did not receive an answer.
In the letter, Ellison and Conyers tell Keisler that the new “extremely serious allegations” put the issue back on the front burner. Describing Paulose as “a politically well-connected former senior aide in the Department of Justice,” and alluding to their “concern that U.S. Attorneys were being appointed solely for their loyalty to the Bush Administration, rather than for their competence and commitment to justice,” they said they needed to again ask these questions:
- “Was Mr. Heffelfinger’s resignation entirely voluntary?
- Was Ms. Paulose’s appointment based on ‘political loyalty’ and part of a broader strategy to suppress voter turnout?
- What steps are being taken to address the ongoing turmoil that has plagued this office?
- What steps will be taken to assure that the office can regain its integrity in the public eye?”
Justice Department spokester Peter Carr said the department had just received the letter and was evaluating it. Paulose’s spokester, Jeanne Conney, said Paulose would have no comment.
Keisler is filling in until confirmation proceedings for Pres. Bush’s nominee to be the new attorney general, Judge Michael B. Mukasey. It seems unlikely that a caretaker appointee will try to change the situation in Minnesota. If the Office of Special Counsel decides that Paulose has committed serious offenses, OSC could refer the matter to the White House with a recommendation that she be removed.
Technically, only the president can fire a U.S. attorney. But, as happened in the previous cases that caused all the controversy, it would be more likely that if a high-ranking Justice Department official requested a resignation, Paulose would be comply. Paulose has privately said that she hopes to serve out her term until January 2009.
Insiders have speculated the change from Gonzalez to Mukasey could undermine Paulose’s chances of lasting that long. The thinking is that if Mukasey wanted to make a statement that the controversies of the Gonzalez era are over, he might try to clear out some of the less-popular, more controversial holdovers.
[…] her, and made racist remarks about a support staff employee. Here’s the WaPo story, and an earlier item from a Web site run by Eric Black, a former longtime reporter at the Star […]
The NATIONAL SECURITY INFO ON TERRORISM was the casefile on me, THOMAS S. BEAN, who also:
–contacted Sen GRASSLEY with a ten page memo, resulting in Grassle confronting Mueller at FBI, and FBI flipped on The NSA TSP. Three weeks later, NY TIMES ran the story on NSA TSP.
–signed, under penalty of prosecution, a 47 page US DOJ OIG Complaint articulating thousands of felonies committed by Sioux Falls, SD, Minneapolis, and Austin, Texas FBI agents who “colluded with” and “aid and abetted” a conspiracy to violate my civil liberties under color of authority during the course of a 16 year Orwellian harassment surveillance designed to TAMPER WITH A COOPERATING MATERIAL WITNESS who gave a crime tip to Sioux Falls PD about “the electronic detenators manufactured in Canistota, SD” that were seen by Denver US Marshall’s informant CARY GAGEN.
GAGEN saw the detenators, C4, and the building schematic of The Murray Building in OK CITY, with the Iraqi intel assets seen with McVeigh in the hotel on I-40. Same motel was used by the 9/11 hijackers.
False Flag Terrorism tip leads to Federal Stalking and harassment for 16 years.
–wrote SD Medical Board complaint alleging “falsified test results” when I sought honest reporting of x-rays showing the NSA/FBI’s RFID verichip surgically implanted in my skull, shortly after I contacted Senator Grassley. I got chipped and tortured in my own home because I contacted the Senate Judiciary Committee?!
IS THIS A STORY…OR WHAT?
–Got fried in my own home with a Directed Energy Weapon.
–Wrote Letters to Leahy, Schumer, Biden, Pelossi, Reid, etc….detailing the “PATRIOT ACT MURDERS” OF THREE SOUTH DAKOTANS TIED TO ME AND MY COMPLAINT.
–Contacted SD Highway Patrol Captain JEFF TALBOT about the murder of his friend, YPD SGT MARK DEFENBAUGH, WHO I CONTACTED PRIOR TO HIS DEATH. I TOLD DEFENBAUGH ABOUT THE HARASSMENT OF DR. MARK GORDON (later coerced into working with Minneapolis FBI as a cooperating witness turned against me) by SIOUX FALLS FBI AGENTS DAVE HELLER (fired), DAN REYNALDS (fired) and their mentor, former SD US ATTORNEY JAMES MCMAHON (also fired).
TALBOT RESIGNED HIS POSITION after his murder investigation was obsructed by Bush White House. I told Talbot to compare the phone records between Defenbuagh and Yankton attorney JOHN KABIESEMAN who was murdered ten days after Defenbaugh. I contacted Kabieseman with this fact pattern before he was murdered.
RICH GORDON (ex chief of staff for former Senate Majority Leader TOM DASCHLE) was also murdered and died of a bain tumor.
Omaha attorney LEROY ROGERS hospitalized with brain stroke
Contacted SD US Senator TIM JOHNSON also hospitalized with brain stroke.
Contacted Vermillion, SD, attorney JON VAN PATTEN also hospitalized.
DR. MARK GORDON also complained on being fried with directed energy weapon used to induce fatal brain stroke, brain tumor, or heart attacks.
MINNESOTA US ATTORNEY HEFFLEFINGER…had all of this. He sought to prosecute the NSA TSP and 902nd COUNTERINTELLIGENCE GROUP for the harassment, pin hole spy camera monitoring, and directed energy weapons on DR. GORDON while he lived in St. Paul, Mn, across the street from the St. Paul Fed Building where “he admitted on tape” to “taking polygraph exams” for Minneapolis FBI agents who “engaged in interstate stalking” and harassment to force Gordon to work as a snitch deployed against me.
THIS IS ALL ABOUT THE CANADIAN WARRANT FOR FORMER MIAMI FBI AGENT TERRY NELSON’S BIG SKY CALI COCAINE DRUG PIPELINE IN MONTANA. Money laundered by Racicot (target of Waxman’s subpoena) into Bush and GOP campaigns. NSA and Cheney White House “whacked out alot of witnesses” to cover up the Daschle supported congressional inquiry.
It’s about drug dealing, murder, tampering with witnesses, and the new NSA Orwellian police state. THAT’S WHY FOUR US ATTORNEYS RESIGNED AND WERE QUOTED IN THE LAS VEGAS PAPER AS SAYING “….there is a shocking political scandal being covered up at DOJ HQ”.
GONZALEZ finally resigned….only after Schumer and Leahy used the memo I sent them that directed them to “subpoena Hefflefinger” and former SD US Attorney MICHELLE TAPKEN (a former law school classmate of mine) who replaced JAMES MCMAHON after I contacted DOJ OIG in Dallas and Denver (field agents MONTE CASSON and VAN LANCKER).