Ortiz on the hot seat-U.S. attorney facing Congressional scrutiny [View all]

[The Straight Story]

Ortiz on the hot seat
U.S. attorney facing Congressional scrutiny


The Justice Department is scrambling to answer pointed inquiries from a congressional committee about U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz’s prosecution of Internet whiz Aaron Swartz, raising the specter of a brutal Beltway hearing that could call her judgment into question as she pursues high-profile cases, including her Probation 
Department probe.

The Justice Department yesterday met a deadline to set a briefing date with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — the same bipartisan panel that held Ortiz’s boss, Attorney General Eric Holder, in contempt of Congress last year for what it said was failure to comply with its probe of the “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking fiasco.

“We have been in discussions with the committee and plan to conduct a briefing,” a DOJ official told the Herald yesterday.

Congressional scrutiny will likely raise the heat on Ortiz after the Swartz tragedy and as she looks to bring Beacon Hill power brokers to trial on patronage hiring in the Probation Department.

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/02/ortiz_hot_seat