Two Days, Two Resignations

And today’s (well, yesterday’s, but I was otherwise occupied) resignation is … DOJ Criminal Division Chief Alice Fisher:

Alice S. Fisher, chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said yesterday that she will leave government service at the end of the month after nearly three years overseeing major public corruption and corporate fraud cases.

[snip]

Her deputy, Barry M. Sabin, a former federal prosecutor in Miami, is serving in an acting capacity, and her chief of staff left for private practice earlier this year.

Justice Department officials said they are not ready to announce who will replace Fisher, who previously worked for several years at the law firm Latham & Watkins.

Fisher’s signature initiatives include a crackdown on corporate bribes and a new strategy to attack international organized crime.

No word yet on why Fisher is out, but JohnLopresti notes:

Reportedly, Robert Coughlin, who is former DoJ criminal division deputy chief of staff for Alice Fisher, last week filed and Judge Ellen Huvelle accepted, a guilty plea to conflict of interest charges for his work gifting and fundraising with Abramoff. As both DOJ’s public integrity section and the WA-DC US atty have recused, Baltimore Deputy US atty Stuart Goldberg is managing the case against Coughlin. The linked article says DoJ is mum about the process it used to select the Baltimore USAtty’s office to sub for the recused DC USAtty and the PublicIntegrity section, but sugggests associates involved in the matter may be at DoJ yet.

I don’t know whether I buy Lopresti’s suggestion (though it is a good suggestion). After all, if Fisher were about to be implicated in the Abramoff scandal, she probably would quit effectively immediately, not in three weeks.

But note how prominently Carrie Johnson highlights Fisher’s ties to corporate bribery–I wonder if that’s intentional? Corporate bribery … corporate bribery. Who is coming under threat because of DOJ’s investigation of corporate bribery???

I know! Bush’s "brother," Bandar bin Sultan. The BAE bribe investigation has been in the news of late, as the Brits try to figure out why Blair spiked their own investigation into Bandar and BAE.

The Justice Department is investigating allegations that U.K.-based British Aerospace Systems (BAE) paid millions of dollars in bribes to Bandar and other Saudi officials—in possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Bandar, whose close ties to the Bush family earned him the nickname "Bandar Bush," has retained former FBI Director Louis Freeh to represent him in connection with the Justice Department probe. A spokesman said Freeh was traveling overseas and could not be reached for comment.

Last week the British High Court ruled that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government may have interfered with the rule of law in December 2006, when it ordered the British government’s Serious Fraud Office to shut down its own bribery investigation, allegedly after Bandar threatened to cut off Saudi cooperation with U.K. terrorism investigations if the inquiry continued. The ruling could pressure the fraud office to reopen its own shuttered investigation into the alleged scandal.

Obviously, I have no idea whether the renewed focus on Bandar and BAE relates to Fisher’s resignation. But I can sure imagine why BushCo might not want buddy Bandar indicted.