US Attorney resigns during probe of online posts

[struggle4progress]

Source: Associated Press via Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press
Updated 9:06 a.m., Thursday, December 6, 2012

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, whose successful prosecution of a former Louisiana governor and numerous other public officials won him bipartisan praise for more than a decade, resigned Thursday while the Justice Department investigates alleged misconduct by his top deputies.

Letten's announcement was an abrupt end to his tenure as the nation's longest-serving U.S. attorney. His crusade against crime resulted in convictions of corrupt judges, killer police officers, bribe-taking officials in New Orleans' long-troubled school system and scammers who tried to rip off Hurricane Katrina aid programs. He first won fame as an assistant U.S. attorney leading the successful 2000 racketeering prosecution of former Gov. Edwin Edwards ...

Sal Perricone, resigned in March after acknowledging he criticized judges and politicians and commented on cases in anonymous posts on a local newspaper's website. Letten demoted his top assistant, Jan Mann, last month after she also confessed to posting several anonymous comments on the same site ...

Letten ...held onto the post through the Bush years and was kept in what is usually a political patronage position by Democratic President Barack Obama ...

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/US-Attorney-resigns-during-probe-of-online-posts-4096581.php

[midnight]

1. I'm not sure if these comments fall under first amendment rights, or why these comments are so

damaging... I would love to hear some legal in put on this?

[struggle4progress]

2. People who work for a US Attorney's office can impact

litigation results by flapping their gums

Bad mouth a judge? Wait! Somebody from the office could have a case before that judge

Bad mouth a defendant or a witness? Wait! Based on your gum-flapping, opposing lawyers may quickly put a motion before the court

[adigal]

4. But he did it anonymously. Unless he used "inside information" to criticize

These people, I think he should keep his job. As a teacher, I am always worried aut the piko commie liberal views I it on my Facebook page, such as I think all Americans should have enough to eat!

[geek tragedy]

5. It's extremely poor judgment for any attorney to do that, and it's even worse

for DOJ officials to do so.

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6. +

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7. Not so anonymous now, it seems