G
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Guest
Fresh from a grilling by a House committee investigating the firing of
8 U.S. Attorneys for political reasons, Western Pennsylvania U.S.
Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan went before news cameras to announce that
the one of the persons responsible for the murder of pizza deliverer
Brian Wells was . . . Brian Wells. The press conference to announce
this bizarre finding started over 30 minutes late, the gap filled in
by breaking news coverage of an under construction Miami International
Airport control tower that caught fire. U.S. Attorney Buchanan's case
against Wells is smoke and mirrors, based on the confession of one of
the people who locked a time bomb around Wells' neck, a person already
in jail for having a dead body in her freezer.
Buchanan was the U.S. Attorney when Wells was murdered four years ago,
arrested after he passed a robbery note to a bank teller, also passing
along the written instruction note he received from the people who put
the bomb collar on him. Her office's failed investigation went
nowhere, but incompetence is not important when you are a loyal
supporter of Bush 43.
Look at her scenario: a guy delivers a pizza to two criminals, and
next he is robbing a bank with a time bomb locked to his neck. She
says he is part of the conspiracy. Her evidence: the word of a killer
in jail who coincidentally killed at least one other person who knew
about the bank robbery. Wells is dead, his head cut off so law
enforcement would not have to damage the metal collar around his
neck.
Thomas J. Farrell, the attorney who wrote the commentary below on U.S.
Attorney Buchanan's political prosecutions, should have a field day
with the way Buchanan solved the murder of Brian Wells. The Feds had
this bogus information on Wells involvement with his murder since the
murder convictions of the two actual conspirators who forced Wells to
rob the bank. But only now, as U.S.Attorney Buchanan faces tough
questions, did she and her press agent come up with a **** and bull
story about solving Wells' murder According to Buchanan, Wells is
responsible for his murder, but since he is dead, she won't indict
him.
---
Our U.S. attorney should resign
Mary Beth Buchanan has pursued the partisan priorities of the Bush
administration
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
By Thomas J. Farrell
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07079/770820-109.stm
Thirteen of the eighteen years I've spent practicing law have been as
a criminal defense attorney and only five as a prosecutor.
Nonetheless, I am proud of my time as a federal prosecutor and of the
people I worked with. I sit on the board and Legal Committee of the
Pittsburgh American Civil Liberties Union and in that capacity I
lecture to community groups about federal criminal investigations.
Often I find myself defending the fairness and integrity of my former
colleagues, because I never doubted that the U.S. attorney's office
was above partisan politics -- until now.
Recent revelations about White House involvement in the firing of
seven U.S. attorneys sickened me, as if I were the parent who had
defended a teacher against vicious rumors only to hear him admit that
he molested children.
The Bush administration's efforts to use an obscure provision of the
Patriot Act to replace U.S. attorneys it deemed too vigorous in
investigating Republican officials, too slow in indicting Democratic
public officials or too reluctant to investigate "voter fraud" -- a
euphemism for attempting to suppress the minority vote -- caused me to
re-think my opinion of the fairness of Western
Pennsylvania's U.S. attorney, Mary Beth Buchanan. I began to wonder
why all of the recent public-corruption investigations in our region
have been of Democrats.
The Bush administration has politicized the Department of Justice,
just as it has every federal agency. The solicitor general used to be
known as "the 10th justice" for his presumed fairness and independence
in presenting arguments to the Supreme Court; the current solicitor
general is just a mouthpiece for the administration's far-right
ideology.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his subordinates have disgraced
their offices with the positions they've taken to justify torture and
the administration's evasion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act's restrictions, loose as they are, on wiretaps.
Ms. Buchanan has been a devotee of the administration's policies. She
has aided the effort to inflate the law-enforcement successes in the
war on terror by misclassifying routine immigration and false-document
cases as "anti-terrorism cases." For a time, the Western Pennsylvania
District topped the nation in the number of "anti-terrorism"
prosecutions, largely because dozens of Iraqi immigrant truck-drivers
were prosecuted for paying off a motor-vehicles official to obtain
commercial-drivers licenses. All of them did it to get work; none had
terroristic intentions; all received sentences of probation.
Ms. Buchanan has cast herself as a champion of the Patriot Act by
repeating in articles and public debates some of the administration's
falsehoods. In an article in this newspaper, she asserted that until
enactment of the Patriot Act, federal prosecutors could not obtain
emergency wiretaps to prevent imminent terrorist attacks; to the
contrary, a 1995 Justice Department bulletin instructed prosecutors
like me and Ms. Buchanan how the pre-Patriot law could be used to do
just that.
She also argued that federal authorities could not share grand jury
information about imminent threats with state police, a blatant
misrepresentation of the federal rules. By advocating the
administration's demand for increased law-enforcement power, she
sacrificed her own credibility when the administration abused those
powers, as was most recently evident in the inspector general's report
on the FBI's misuse of national security letters.
Ms. Buchanan has spent considerable official time and taxpayer money
to advance the administration's agenda and her own ambitions. She has
employed a full-time press agent -- a novelty to her office -- and
misused senior staff to ghost-write her speeches and articles. While
she is prosecuting Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Democrat and devoted public
official, for allegedly abusing his office for private gain, she is
employing taxpayer dollars to further her own career.
She has reinforced this impression by making court appearances in high-
profile cases in which she has had no personal involvement. On Sunday,
the Post-Gazette reported on a study that found that the Bush Justice
Department has investigated seven times more Democratic politicians
than Republicans. Certainly, in Western Pennsylvania, the
investigation and prosecution of the Democratic sheriff's office was
worthy and useful. And while Ms. Buchanan did show proper judgment in
declining to prosecute ex-Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, she tainted her
decision with comments suggesting that she had done so in part to
advance a political agenda.
I've tried to defend Ms. Buchanan's choice of targets, but no more.
Democrats do occupy most public offices in Allegheny County, but are
the Republican officials in the 24 other counties of the Western
Pennsylvania District all squeaky clean? Why apparently no
investigation into Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy's use of government
office staff to support his campaign -- which is not unlike what
happened in the Allegheny County sheriff's office? Ms. Buchanan also
left to local authorities the prosecution of Republican state Rep.
Jeff Habay after similar accusations arose.
And what of ex-U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, Ms. Buchanan's political
sponsor? He misrepresented his family's residency in order to obtain
state-funded cyber schooling for his children. Yet there appears to
have been no investigation. I fear the worst.
Ms. Buchanan has been unique among her predecessors in the extent to
which she has looked to Washington for direction and political
advancement. I no longer have faith that she can remain independent of
the administration's partisanship. Her continued leadership casts a
cloud over the public corruption investigations and prosecutions now
pending in her office.
Those of us who have devoted our careers to the federal legal system
revere it. Its courts are our temples. Those who serve there must be
beyond reproach, which is true of the senior staff in Ms. Buchanan's
office. If, as has been proposed, Congress repeals the Patriot Act
provisions that empowered the attorney general to appoint interim U.S.
attorneys and returns that power to the judges in each federal
district, our bench would be sure to select one of these esteemed
public servants as U.S. attorney were Ms. Buchanan to leave office.
This is a necessary step to restore trust among the faithful.
In my old neighborhood we had a saying, "If you sleep with dogs, you
get fleas." Ms. Buchanan has snuggled too close for too long with the
corrupt Bush-Gonzales pack. She should resign, and we should entrust
the judges of the Western District of Pennsylvania to anoint a
successor.
Thomas J. Farrell, a Point Breeze resident and Pittsburgh lawyer,
served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of
Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2000 during the Clinton administration
(tfarrell@reichalexander.com).
----
House, Senate aides quiz Buchanan on firings
Saturday, June 16, 2007
By Jerome L. Sherman and Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07167/794643-85.stm
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan yesterday faced six
hours of questions from congressional staffers in the ongoing probe
into last year's controversial firings of nine other U.S. attorneys
from across the country.
Her lawyer, Roscoe C. Howard Jr., said she was "absolutely not
involved" in the firings, although she served as director of the U.S.
Justice Department's Executive Office for United States Attorneys from
June 2004 to June 2005, part of the time period under consideration by
investigators.
Ms. Buchanan was questioned by Democratic and Republican staffers from
both the House and Senate Judiciary committees in the Rayburn House
Office Building in Washington, D.C.
"I think it's a little premature to go into the actual substance of
it," Mr. Howard said after the closed-door meeting.
Ms. Buchanan, who has served as the chief federal prosecutor in
Western Pennsylvania since September 2001, declined to talk with
reporters, arriving at office of the House Judiciary Committee 45
minutes before the 9 a.m. meeting.
She also used another exit to leave the building around 3 p.m.,
heading directly to the airport for a flight back to Pittsburgh.
Mr. Howard, himself a former U.S. attorney for the District of
Columbia who was retained by Ms. Buchanan, said his client was "even,
professional and impressive" during the lengthy interview.
The discussion, he said, focused heavily on the creation of the
Justice Department's list of fired attorneys. Since the issue came to
light this year, critics have charged that partisan politics dominated
the process.
Several high-ranking department officials have left their jobs,
including D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales, and Monica Goodling, a former White House liaison.
Mike Elston, a senior Justice Department official who helped carry out
the dismissals of prosecutors, said yesterday he is resigning.
Mr. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is
the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the
dismissals of the prosecutors.
Mr. Elston's resignation is effective at the end of next week. Reached
yesterday, he confirmed his plans to leave but declined further
comment.
On Monday, Mr. Gonzales was spared a rare "no-confidence" resolution
in the Senate when Democrats failed to muster enough votes to bring
the issue to the floor for a full debate.
Still, 53 senators, including seven Republicans -- among them
Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter -- sided against Mr. Gonzales.
Mr. Sampson, the former Gonzales aide, raised Ms. Buchanan's name to
judiciary committee investigators back in April.
He said that Ms. Buchanan was among the DOJ officials he consulted
about which of the U.S. attorneys should be asked to resign. After
learning that information, the House Judiciary Committee requested an
interview with Ms. Buchanan, along with other officials at DOJ.
Then, last month, Ms. Goodling told committee members that she knew
Ms. Buchanan had discussed the firings with Mr. Sampson. Ms. Goodling,
who originally pleaded the Fifth Amendment to protect against self-
incrimination, would not testify until she was granted immunity.
Before she joined the White House, Ms. Goodling was hired by Ms.
Buchanan to work in the executive office.
During her testimony, Ms. Goodling said that she improperly considered
political affiliation for job candidates for career prosecutor
positions within DOJ.
Mr. Howard declined to address Ms. Goodling's testimony. He also said
Ms. Buchanan didn't plead the Fifth Amendment during her meeting with
congressional investigators.
He said he spent dozens of hours helping his client prepare for the
interview, and Ms. Buchanan reviewed many of the public documents that
have come out over the last few months. The questions she faced
yesterday were detailed, but "she was ready," Mr. Howard said.
Congressional staffers made a transcript, but they likely won't
release it publicly in the near future because their investigation is
continuing. On Wednesday, both the House and the Senate Judiciary
committees issued subpoenas to former White House counsel Harriet E.
Miers and its former political director, Sara M. Taylor.
A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee declined to comment on
Ms. Buchanan's interview yesterday.
Ms. Buchanan has solid support from at least one powerful
congressional Republican. Mr. Specter, the ranking GOP member of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, this week said she had "acted properly"
throughout the process.
He also called her an important witness.
Mr. Howard said he didn't know what to expect next for his client. One
possibility is public testimony before the congressional committees.
"As we have said from the beginning, Ms. Buchanan is ready, willing to
cooperate with whomever, wherever, whenever," Mr. Howard said. "And
that hasn't changed. So if somebody wants to ask us to come testify,
we'll be there."
Considered a stalwart supporter of the Bush administration, Ms.
Buchanan has been rewarded with several national posts, including as
chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee and her current
role as acting director of the national Office on Violence Against
Women.
"I think we were all happy this phase is over," Mr. Howard said of the
congressional investigation. "It's been a pretty long, hard road for
her."
(Jerome L. Sherman can be reached at jsherman@post-gazette.com or
202-488-3479. Paula Reed Ward can be reached at pward@post-gazette.com
or 412-263-2620. )
8 U.S. Attorneys for political reasons, Western Pennsylvania U.S.
Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan went before news cameras to announce that
the one of the persons responsible for the murder of pizza deliverer
Brian Wells was . . . Brian Wells. The press conference to announce
this bizarre finding started over 30 minutes late, the gap filled in
by breaking news coverage of an under construction Miami International
Airport control tower that caught fire. U.S. Attorney Buchanan's case
against Wells is smoke and mirrors, based on the confession of one of
the people who locked a time bomb around Wells' neck, a person already
in jail for having a dead body in her freezer.
Buchanan was the U.S. Attorney when Wells was murdered four years ago,
arrested after he passed a robbery note to a bank teller, also passing
along the written instruction note he received from the people who put
the bomb collar on him. Her office's failed investigation went
nowhere, but incompetence is not important when you are a loyal
supporter of Bush 43.
Look at her scenario: a guy delivers a pizza to two criminals, and
next he is robbing a bank with a time bomb locked to his neck. She
says he is part of the conspiracy. Her evidence: the word of a killer
in jail who coincidentally killed at least one other person who knew
about the bank robbery. Wells is dead, his head cut off so law
enforcement would not have to damage the metal collar around his
neck.
Thomas J. Farrell, the attorney who wrote the commentary below on U.S.
Attorney Buchanan's political prosecutions, should have a field day
with the way Buchanan solved the murder of Brian Wells. The Feds had
this bogus information on Wells involvement with his murder since the
murder convictions of the two actual conspirators who forced Wells to
rob the bank. But only now, as U.S.Attorney Buchanan faces tough
questions, did she and her press agent come up with a **** and bull
story about solving Wells' murder According to Buchanan, Wells is
responsible for his murder, but since he is dead, she won't indict
him.
---
Our U.S. attorney should resign
Mary Beth Buchanan has pursued the partisan priorities of the Bush
administration
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
By Thomas J. Farrell
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07079/770820-109.stm
Thirteen of the eighteen years I've spent practicing law have been as
a criminal defense attorney and only five as a prosecutor.
Nonetheless, I am proud of my time as a federal prosecutor and of the
people I worked with. I sit on the board and Legal Committee of the
Pittsburgh American Civil Liberties Union and in that capacity I
lecture to community groups about federal criminal investigations.
Often I find myself defending the fairness and integrity of my former
colleagues, because I never doubted that the U.S. attorney's office
was above partisan politics -- until now.
Recent revelations about White House involvement in the firing of
seven U.S. attorneys sickened me, as if I were the parent who had
defended a teacher against vicious rumors only to hear him admit that
he molested children.
The Bush administration's efforts to use an obscure provision of the
Patriot Act to replace U.S. attorneys it deemed too vigorous in
investigating Republican officials, too slow in indicting Democratic
public officials or too reluctant to investigate "voter fraud" -- a
euphemism for attempting to suppress the minority vote -- caused me to
re-think my opinion of the fairness of Western
Pennsylvania's U.S. attorney, Mary Beth Buchanan. I began to wonder
why all of the recent public-corruption investigations in our region
have been of Democrats.
The Bush administration has politicized the Department of Justice,
just as it has every federal agency. The solicitor general used to be
known as "the 10th justice" for his presumed fairness and independence
in presenting arguments to the Supreme Court; the current solicitor
general is just a mouthpiece for the administration's far-right
ideology.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his subordinates have disgraced
their offices with the positions they've taken to justify torture and
the administration's evasion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act's restrictions, loose as they are, on wiretaps.
Ms. Buchanan has been a devotee of the administration's policies. She
has aided the effort to inflate the law-enforcement successes in the
war on terror by misclassifying routine immigration and false-document
cases as "anti-terrorism cases." For a time, the Western Pennsylvania
District topped the nation in the number of "anti-terrorism"
prosecutions, largely because dozens of Iraqi immigrant truck-drivers
were prosecuted for paying off a motor-vehicles official to obtain
commercial-drivers licenses. All of them did it to get work; none had
terroristic intentions; all received sentences of probation.
Ms. Buchanan has cast herself as a champion of the Patriot Act by
repeating in articles and public debates some of the administration's
falsehoods. In an article in this newspaper, she asserted that until
enactment of the Patriot Act, federal prosecutors could not obtain
emergency wiretaps to prevent imminent terrorist attacks; to the
contrary, a 1995 Justice Department bulletin instructed prosecutors
like me and Ms. Buchanan how the pre-Patriot law could be used to do
just that.
She also argued that federal authorities could not share grand jury
information about imminent threats with state police, a blatant
misrepresentation of the federal rules. By advocating the
administration's demand for increased law-enforcement power, she
sacrificed her own credibility when the administration abused those
powers, as was most recently evident in the inspector general's report
on the FBI's misuse of national security letters.
Ms. Buchanan has spent considerable official time and taxpayer money
to advance the administration's agenda and her own ambitions. She has
employed a full-time press agent -- a novelty to her office -- and
misused senior staff to ghost-write her speeches and articles. While
she is prosecuting Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Democrat and devoted public
official, for allegedly abusing his office for private gain, she is
employing taxpayer dollars to further her own career.
She has reinforced this impression by making court appearances in high-
profile cases in which she has had no personal involvement. On Sunday,
the Post-Gazette reported on a study that found that the Bush Justice
Department has investigated seven times more Democratic politicians
than Republicans. Certainly, in Western Pennsylvania, the
investigation and prosecution of the Democratic sheriff's office was
worthy and useful. And while Ms. Buchanan did show proper judgment in
declining to prosecute ex-Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, she tainted her
decision with comments suggesting that she had done so in part to
advance a political agenda.
I've tried to defend Ms. Buchanan's choice of targets, but no more.
Democrats do occupy most public offices in Allegheny County, but are
the Republican officials in the 24 other counties of the Western
Pennsylvania District all squeaky clean? Why apparently no
investigation into Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy's use of government
office staff to support his campaign -- which is not unlike what
happened in the Allegheny County sheriff's office? Ms. Buchanan also
left to local authorities the prosecution of Republican state Rep.
Jeff Habay after similar accusations arose.
And what of ex-U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, Ms. Buchanan's political
sponsor? He misrepresented his family's residency in order to obtain
state-funded cyber schooling for his children. Yet there appears to
have been no investigation. I fear the worst.
Ms. Buchanan has been unique among her predecessors in the extent to
which she has looked to Washington for direction and political
advancement. I no longer have faith that she can remain independent of
the administration's partisanship. Her continued leadership casts a
cloud over the public corruption investigations and prosecutions now
pending in her office.
Those of us who have devoted our careers to the federal legal system
revere it. Its courts are our temples. Those who serve there must be
beyond reproach, which is true of the senior staff in Ms. Buchanan's
office. If, as has been proposed, Congress repeals the Patriot Act
provisions that empowered the attorney general to appoint interim U.S.
attorneys and returns that power to the judges in each federal
district, our bench would be sure to select one of these esteemed
public servants as U.S. attorney were Ms. Buchanan to leave office.
This is a necessary step to restore trust among the faithful.
In my old neighborhood we had a saying, "If you sleep with dogs, you
get fleas." Ms. Buchanan has snuggled too close for too long with the
corrupt Bush-Gonzales pack. She should resign, and we should entrust
the judges of the Western District of Pennsylvania to anoint a
successor.
Thomas J. Farrell, a Point Breeze resident and Pittsburgh lawyer,
served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of
Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2000 during the Clinton administration
(tfarrell@reichalexander.com).
----
House, Senate aides quiz Buchanan on firings
Saturday, June 16, 2007
By Jerome L. Sherman and Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07167/794643-85.stm
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan yesterday faced six
hours of questions from congressional staffers in the ongoing probe
into last year's controversial firings of nine other U.S. attorneys
from across the country.
Her lawyer, Roscoe C. Howard Jr., said she was "absolutely not
involved" in the firings, although she served as director of the U.S.
Justice Department's Executive Office for United States Attorneys from
June 2004 to June 2005, part of the time period under consideration by
investigators.
Ms. Buchanan was questioned by Democratic and Republican staffers from
both the House and Senate Judiciary committees in the Rayburn House
Office Building in Washington, D.C.
"I think it's a little premature to go into the actual substance of
it," Mr. Howard said after the closed-door meeting.
Ms. Buchanan, who has served as the chief federal prosecutor in
Western Pennsylvania since September 2001, declined to talk with
reporters, arriving at office of the House Judiciary Committee 45
minutes before the 9 a.m. meeting.
She also used another exit to leave the building around 3 p.m.,
heading directly to the airport for a flight back to Pittsburgh.
Mr. Howard, himself a former U.S. attorney for the District of
Columbia who was retained by Ms. Buchanan, said his client was "even,
professional and impressive" during the lengthy interview.
The discussion, he said, focused heavily on the creation of the
Justice Department's list of fired attorneys. Since the issue came to
light this year, critics have charged that partisan politics dominated
the process.
Several high-ranking department officials have left their jobs,
including D. Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales, and Monica Goodling, a former White House liaison.
Mike Elston, a senior Justice Department official who helped carry out
the dismissals of prosecutors, said yesterday he is resigning.
Mr. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is
the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the
dismissals of the prosecutors.
Mr. Elston's resignation is effective at the end of next week. Reached
yesterday, he confirmed his plans to leave but declined further
comment.
On Monday, Mr. Gonzales was spared a rare "no-confidence" resolution
in the Senate when Democrats failed to muster enough votes to bring
the issue to the floor for a full debate.
Still, 53 senators, including seven Republicans -- among them
Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter -- sided against Mr. Gonzales.
Mr. Sampson, the former Gonzales aide, raised Ms. Buchanan's name to
judiciary committee investigators back in April.
He said that Ms. Buchanan was among the DOJ officials he consulted
about which of the U.S. attorneys should be asked to resign. After
learning that information, the House Judiciary Committee requested an
interview with Ms. Buchanan, along with other officials at DOJ.
Then, last month, Ms. Goodling told committee members that she knew
Ms. Buchanan had discussed the firings with Mr. Sampson. Ms. Goodling,
who originally pleaded the Fifth Amendment to protect against self-
incrimination, would not testify until she was granted immunity.
Before she joined the White House, Ms. Goodling was hired by Ms.
Buchanan to work in the executive office.
During her testimony, Ms. Goodling said that she improperly considered
political affiliation for job candidates for career prosecutor
positions within DOJ.
Mr. Howard declined to address Ms. Goodling's testimony. He also said
Ms. Buchanan didn't plead the Fifth Amendment during her meeting with
congressional investigators.
He said he spent dozens of hours helping his client prepare for the
interview, and Ms. Buchanan reviewed many of the public documents that
have come out over the last few months. The questions she faced
yesterday were detailed, but "she was ready," Mr. Howard said.
Congressional staffers made a transcript, but they likely won't
release it publicly in the near future because their investigation is
continuing. On Wednesday, both the House and the Senate Judiciary
committees issued subpoenas to former White House counsel Harriet E.
Miers and its former political director, Sara M. Taylor.
A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee declined to comment on
Ms. Buchanan's interview yesterday.
Ms. Buchanan has solid support from at least one powerful
congressional Republican. Mr. Specter, the ranking GOP member of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, this week said she had "acted properly"
throughout the process.
He also called her an important witness.
Mr. Howard said he didn't know what to expect next for his client. One
possibility is public testimony before the congressional committees.
"As we have said from the beginning, Ms. Buchanan is ready, willing to
cooperate with whomever, wherever, whenever," Mr. Howard said. "And
that hasn't changed. So if somebody wants to ask us to come testify,
we'll be there."
Considered a stalwart supporter of the Bush administration, Ms.
Buchanan has been rewarded with several national posts, including as
chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee and her current
role as acting director of the national Office on Violence Against
Women.
"I think we were all happy this phase is over," Mr. Howard said of the
congressional investigation. "It's been a pretty long, hard road for
her."
(Jerome L. Sherman can be reached at jsherman@post-gazette.com or
202-488-3479. Paula Reed Ward can be reached at pward@post-gazette.com
or 412-263-2620. )
