Justice Admits U.S. Attorney Was Forced Out

[MountainLaurel]

The Justice Department acknowledged yesterday that Thomas M. DiBiagio, the Maryland U.S. attorney who stepped down early in 2005, was forced from office and did not, as he said at the time, decide on his own to leave for personal reasons.

But the department official who asked for his resignation dismissed DiBiagio's claim in a New York Times article yesterday that he was ousted because of political pressure over public corruption investigations into the administration of then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

In fact, the Republican governor's chief legal counsel, Jervis Finney, twice contacted the Justice Department to argue in DiBiagio's behalf, said David Margolis, an associate deputy attorney general. Finney contacted the department in fall 2004, not long after DiBiagio drew a rebuke for ordering his subordinates to produce "front-page" indictments, Margolis said.

Finney, he said, "called me during this process, claiming that I was being too harsh on Tom and that Tom was being railroaded by a bunch of Democrats in the U.S. attorney's office."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602330.html