60 Days

The WSJ has a profile of Nora Dannehy, the prosecutor Michael Mukasey picked to further investigate the US Attorney purge. It includes a bunch of details that might make you more confident the investigation will be thorough.

In her 17 years in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Connecticut, Nora Dannehy has sent a governor and a state treasurer to prison. Is she up for tackling such a lengthy and politically dicey investigation? Legal peers and former bosses say the long-distance runner is up to it.

“She’s stubborn as hell and very, very smart,” said William Gerace, who went up against Dannehy in the investigation of his client, Lawrence E. Alibozek, who as a deputy chief of staff for Gov. John G. Rowland was accused of taking payoffs. “She doesn’t play politics.”

Because of the litany of public corruption cases Dannehy, 47, has prosecuted, she has a reputation as a pitbull, say attorneys.

But it’s not so much the profile that ought to give you pause–it’s the detail that the investigation already has a due date: in 60 days.

Today, Dionne Searcey, the newest addition to the WSJ’s legal gang, delivers us some background on the career prosecutor, who will have to turn around her investigation in a mere 60 days: [my emphasis]

Or roughly December 1. In other words, after the election (so results of the investigation can’t further sink the Republican Party), but before the next President appoints his own Attorney General. Or, to put it differently, long before the inevitable battle over whether Harriet Miers and Karl Rove have to testify, and whether the Administration has to hand over their own secret timeline of the firings.