Source:
WPAttorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is preparing to name a new person to lead the Justice Department's internal ethics unit, moving to put his stamp on a department reeling from the dismissal of criminal charges against former senator Ted Stevens and accusations of political motivation during the Bush years.
Holder will name Mary Patrice Brown, a well-respected career prosecutor in the District, as the new leader of the Office of Professional Responsibility as early as this afternoon, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Brown, who leads the criminal division at the U.S. attorney's office in the District, will become only the third chief of that unit since it was established in 1975 after the Watergate scandal.
The move comes a day after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed a lack of confidence in the office, which has been investigating lapses with witnesses and evidence that ultimately demolished the government's case against Stevens. Citing the seriousness of the prosecutorial misconduct, the judge took the extraordinary step of appointing a special prosecutor to probe six government lawyers involved in the case against the former Alaska senator, convicted last fall of ethics violations for accepting gifts from an oil services company executive.
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The ethics job is among the most sensitive and secretive within the Justice Department. Among other issues, the OPR has been examining whether Bush-era lawyers who drafted memos in support of waterboarding and other harsh detainee interrogation tactics followed professional legal standards. Two key Senate Democrats have been advocating for the release of the report on the Bush lawyers.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040802594.html?hpid=topnews