Glenn Fine Stepping Down as DOJ Inspector General

/in /by

Back during the FISA Amendment Act, Jay Rockefeller tried hard to prevent DOJ’s Inspector General, Glenn Fine, to have any role in overseeing the revamped domestic surveillance program. I always assumed that was because Fine, unlike the other Inspectors General (except perhaps John Helgerson, whom Michael Hayden had thoroughly neutralized by that point anyway) was actually effective. Fine was a particular problem because he treated the work FBI did in its counterterrorist guise–like surveilling peace activists–as he did his other work.

Well, it looks like the expansive executive branch doesn’t have Glenn Fine to worry about anymore.

Glenn A. Fine is stepping down as Inspector General at the Department of Justice after a decade in the post, Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Monday.

“I believe it is time for me to pursue new professional challenges,” Fine, 54, said in a letter to President Barack Obama and to Holder in which he said he was proud of his service at DOJ.

Holder, in turn, praised Fine, who will depart in January. “In the Justice Department’s most critical operations and practices, especially our efforts to combat corruption, fraud, waste and abuse, the work done by the Office of the Inspector General is essential,” Holder said on the DOJ’s internal “watchdog.”

“Thanks to Glenn’s outstanding leadership, this Office has never been stronger,” Holder said in a statement.

Note, Fine’s office has recently been under attack for its recent report showing that Chris Christie and other Rove favorite US Attorneys like Mary Beth Buchanan were big spenders on the taxpayer dime. Let’s hope that noise machine whir has nothing to do with his departure.

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  1. perris says:

    Note, Fine’s office has recently been under attack for its recent report showing that Chris Christie and other Rove favorite US Attorneys like Mary Beth Buchanan were big spenders on the taxpayer dime. Let’s hope that noise machine whir has nothing to do with his departure.

    sort of like hoping the ocean doesn’t contribute to the rain

  3. strangely enough says:

    “Let’s hope that noise machine whir has nothing to do with his departure.”

    Did Glenn Beck do a “commies in the FBI” story lately? That seems to be a career killer in this admin…

    • Mary says:

      Did Glenn Beck do a “commies in the FBI” story lately?

      Seriously? Has he done those? I’m so out of it.

      @5 – if it was really over something like that, though, you’d think he’d at least take a stand with his goodbye. Something like, “I’ve been sad to see a loss of effectiveness in my office as DOJ policies and review becomes more and more political, with too many investigations swept under the rug or shut down for political purposes.* Sounds more like an “accomodations were made” situation to me. *You’re not happy, but here’s a nice little opportunity for you if you just go and keep your grumblings to yourself”

  4. Mary says:

    Once your boss is pretty much on board with assassinations and your other boss doesn’t want anyone talking about them – – it’s a good time to leave.

    • bmaz says:

      Well, and remember, Fine has tried for years to get DOJ-IG jurisdiction over the professionals – read attorneys – at DOJ too, arguing that the in house co-opted OPR is simply insufficient and conflicted. Been ever more shut down and out on that. Seeing what OPR/Margolis does with impunity in the face of those efforts would have to be disheartening.

  6. PeasantParty says:

    OT, the Senate is now voting on the Food Safety bill to give FDA more regulation power to check food facilities and agrobiz.

    They just voted against the earmark ban. Ha, we knew they would do that.

    • onitgoes says:

      Thanks for the update. We ALL knew the earmark bill wouldn’t pass, but frankly that’s something that’s too stupid for words anyway. Another bright shiney object to wave in front of credulous tea-baggers & other rightwingers who wish to live in fantasyland.

      As for the FDA bill, I fully expect it not to pass, more’s the pity. Too many rich Oligarchs don’t want any kind of regulations bc it’s much more profitable for *them* that way. Who cares if the peons die from salmonella and such?? We are entirely expendable; plenty more where the serfs come from.

  8. Ymhotep says:

    What a surprise. The capitalist right wing world wants to curcify a private 1st class for informing the public about just how corrupt its public officials are. Yet the Obama WH wants to be “forward looking” and not prosecute those who lied us into illegal wars and tortured folks in the process. Seems about right. Peace

  9. mattcarmody says:

    Even though I’m going to be completely screwed by this system and probably wind up in a 21st century version of debtors’ prison, I cannot wait for the complete collapse of this fucking country as it is currently constituted.

  11. onitgoes says:

    Why now here’s a big surprise… not. Someone who was just trying to their job suddenly finds a reason to “explore new challenges.” Yeah, right: tried to uphold what the office represents & is supposed to do, so Fine was “encouraged” to exit stage left. Figures. Good luck to Fine.

  12. JohnLopresti says:

    I think Fine*s known integrity is drawing him into a quieter, less politicized zone, compared to the repoliticization of DoJ and all government agencies planned by Darrell Issa and Boehner, v. NYTimes Herszenhorn map of strategem there. The issue is the plan to get the House to force all government agencies* InspectorsGeneral to wield new subpoena powers, especially at the behest of Boehner*s new Operations chair Issa. I think the Republican plan goes tangential, like the gambit Senator Whitehouse halted in the US attorney purge scandals; as one Bushco official tartly characterized it, to gum up the works. I think, in Issa*s and Boehner*s eyes, the new IG subpoenas and increased workload for Issa*s committee are components of a plan which would be the dysfunctional equivalent of McConnell*s cyclical holds and filibusters in the upper chamber; a way to bring the House*s hypercharged politics into each agency governmentwide, to block any achievements by Obama*s administration during the next 18 months. Backed with Murdoch monopoly media, the chant of incapacitation of the Democratic party administration and its leadership would be the opening salvo in the 2012 Palin campaign, actually already underway, although, given her dislike of government in essence, she will frame it as a benificient reproportionalization of government, or some term with fewer syllables. In 2011 a decennial redistricting occurs, which RNC in parallel likely is projecting to bolster Republicanism before the 2012 elections.

    I think Fine saw all this and said, *Bye*. Why be a lonely voice for equity when the Republicans plan to grind all agencies to a halt with IssaMcCarthyism?