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U.S. appeals judge's order in Stevens case
Firm News/Alaska |
2009/01/17 19:55
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IN LIMBO: Explanation is not filed by attroney general.
Anchorage Daily News
The 5 p.m. eastern time deadline came and went Saturday and no explanation was filed by the Attorney General in U.S. District Court in Washington about how an Alaska-based FBI agent's complaint was handled by the Justice Department.
A Justice Department official said nothing was filed because the government appealed the unusual order on Friday by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan directing Attorney General Michael Mukasey to account for the agent's complaint. A stay of Sullivan's order was granted in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, said the official, who spoke on the condition of not being identified by name.
A copy of the appeal or the stay couldn't be obtained independently from the court on Saturday. With pre-inaugural plans and events taking over Washington, the normally difficult job of finding official information on a Saturday became nearly impossible.
Sullivan, the trial judge in whose courtroom former Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was convicted in October of felony disclosure violations, has been dealing with a number of post-trial issues, including the complaint by FBI agent Chad Joy. Joy, one of the agents investigating political corruption in Alaska, asserted that the lead agent in the case engaged in unethical and possible illegal activities during the investigation. He also charged that Justice Department attorneys intentionally withheld information that Stevens' lawyers were entitled to.
Sullivan said he was dissatisfied with explanations from prosecutors about how Joy's complaint was handled and demanded a sworn statement from Mukasey himself or one of his top deputies. |
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