US Attorney pressured to go slow on Oxycontin plea.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007; Page A01
The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.
John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney in Roanoke, testified that he was at home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received the call on his cellphone from Michael J. Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year.
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Brownlee settled the case anyway. Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired.
So is Michael Elston the "brains" behind the list of USAs to be fired? He's the mystery man that was running the list? Someone 2 levels or more under Gonzales?
Brownlee said the head of the criminal division had authorized him that afternoon to execute the plea agreement. In his testimony and in an interview afterward, Brownlee recounted that he asked Elston whether he was calling for his boss, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, and Elston replied, "No."
"I told him to leave it alone, to go away," Brownlee said, "and he did."
But Elston's attorney, Robert N. Driscoll, said his client had telephoned Brownlee at the direction of McNulty, who that evening had received an appeal for more time by Mary Jo White, a defense lawyer representing an executive for OxyContin's manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. White is a former Manhattan U.S. attorney.
A Justice official, who spoke about internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity, also said McNulty had asked his chief of staff to place the call.
Elston was McNulty's top aide until he stepped down in June amid the controversy over the prosecutors' firings. McNulty also has resigned, effective Friday, becoming the sixth senior aide to Gonzales involved in the controversy to leave the department in recent months.
Or was it McNulty?
In addition to assembling the Nov. 1 list of five prosecutors, including Brownlee, who were recommended for dismissal, Elston also played a controversial role in trying to quell the political uproar after the firings took place. Four of those prosecutors have told Congress that Elston warned them that Gonzales might criticize them in public if they spoke out about the circumstances of their removal.
Now how would he know to use that threat unless Gonzales had told him to?
Yesterday, Driscoll said on Elston's behalf that there was no connection between Brownlee's appearance on a firing list and the fact he had settled the case the next day in spite of Elston's call for more time. Driscoll said that the Nov. 1 list reflected recommendations his client had received from others in the administration, not his own views.
Sure, nothing improper. Yeah....
This whole episode with the USAs has political mud all over it meaning it seems clear that Rove and his folks seem most likely to be behind it. It certainly strains credulity to claim that an assistant to the Deputy AG was the mastermind....
Cheers,
Scott.
