1115.org

This sound like the Bush administration to you? Talk about ringing in a new year!

For the high-profile, politically charged investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos, the Justice Department is turning to a low-profile, politically independent prosecutor.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed John Durham, a veteran federal prosecutor in Connecticut, to oversee a full criminal investigation that could further challenge the Bush administration’s handling of terrorism suspects.
[…]
Durham, who has served with the Justice Department for 25 years, has a reputation as one of the nation’s most relentless prosecutors. He was appointed to investigate the FBI’s use of mob informants in Boston, a probe that sent former FBI agent John Connolly to prison.

“Nobody in this country is above the law, an FBI agent or otherwise,” Durham said in 2002 after Connolly’s conviction, a rare public statement for a prosecutor who usually avoids reporters.

Prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Va., had removed themselves from the case. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who worked with the Justice Department on the preliminary inquiry, also removed himself.
[…]
Durham will serve as acting U.S. attorney on the case, a designation the Justice Department frequently makes when top prosecutors take themselves off a case. He will not serve as a special prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald, who acted autonomously while investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative’s identity.

“The Justice Department went out and got somebody with complete independence and integrity,” said former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy, who worked with Durham. “No politics whatsoever. It’s going to be completely by the book and he’s going to let the chips fall where they may.”

… Former Attorney General Janet Reno hand-picked Durham to lead the investigation into the FBI’s use of mob informants in Boston.

Durham, a Republican, has shown no tolerance for corruption in either party. He supervised the corruption investigation that sent former Republican Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and several members of his administration to prison.

A real investigation? By the next best thing to Patrick Fitzgerald? If anyone has an explanation, I’m all ears. Give us something to do while we wait for the Iowa results to start rolling in.

(And in case you’re wondering how come we have no Iowa post today, does anyone who’s posting about it today really have anything to say?)