Since June 4, in response to Democratic requests, the U.S. Dept. of Justice has been investigating the possible misuse of DOJ personnel — federal marshals and the FBI — in the May search for the House Democrats who fled to Oklahoma. Naked City would have reported that news earlier, but the DOJ didn’t bother to tell anybody — not even the reps who had requested the probe. Lloyd Doggett found out about it only by repeated calls to the DOJ, whose investigators appear content to follow the strategy used in the Dept. of Homeland Security’s own internal inquiry — ignoring questions about the propriety of involving federal law enforcement in a partisan, noncriminal state matter and confining their review to whether any agents put in much work on the matter. “We’ve waited six weeks for a real response from John Ashcroft,” said Doggett. “Unless the misuse of federal resources was pervasive or the cover up is massive, surely a response can be provided immediately. We don’t need more hedging and shading; we need only the documents and tapes that will show the truth.” Meanwhile, Travis Co. District Attorney Ronnie Earle announced he was closing the grand-jury investigation into the Texas Dept. of Public Safety’s destruction of records of the Killer D search, saying DPS had been cooperative and there is no evidence of any “criminal act.”
This article appears in Lost Austin II.
