Good show Ashcroft. I must respect people like Ashcroft and Justice Scalia(re: SCOTUS pledge case), both of which I have idealogical differences with, but both of them show integrity by getting out of the way when a conflict of interest puts them at odds with their duties as public servants.
I do still wonder if we will ever get to the bottom of the leak....
Link
Quote:
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has decided to recuse himself from a widening Justice Department investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, sources said today.
The probe into the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to a columnist will be overseen by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald of Chicago, who will report to new Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, sources said.
The decision will be formally announced by Comey at Justice Department headquarters this afternoon.
The recusal of Ashcroft marks the latest twist in the ongoing saga of Plame, whose identity as a CIA officer was disclosed by unidentified senior administration officials to columnist Robert D. Novak, who published her name July 14. Disclosing such information may be a violation of federal law.
Several Democratic lawmakers have been calling for Ashcroft to remove himself from the case for months, arguing that the former Republican senator from Missouri has a conflict of interest because of his close ties to senior White House aides. FBI agents have questioned top figures in the administration, including senior advisor Karl Rove.
Plame is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a prominent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policies who concluded during a 2002 mission to Africa that there was little evidence that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium there. Wilson has said he believes his wife's identity was disclosed in retaliation for his public discussions of those findings.
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[ 12-30-2003, 02:05 PM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]