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He must have really POed someone....

An Ass't US Attorney Attorney fails to give the defense exculpatory material (material suggesting the defendants might be innocent, whose disclosure is required) -- that's not news. The judge reverses convictions because the AUSA failed to disclose -- OK, minor news.

But the government indicts the AUSA and another official for conspiring to conceal the evidence from the defense -- no doubt at all that IS news. Never heard of that before. It's always been -- if a person conceals evidence from the prosecution, charge them with obstruction of justice -- if someone conceals it from the defense and gets caught, oh, sorry, here's the evidence, best of luck with it. More here.

Am I too cynical when I suspect the difference might be that this particular former AUSA dared to complain abot how the Department handled the case, and then filed a whistle-blower lawsuit, following which "He said he got a call last week from his high school that his records were subpoenaed by the Justice Department, as were his college transcripts. "My phone records, my computer, my e-mail, my files in my office. My secretary has been subpoenaed..."

As an old bureaucrat, I know that in the bureaucracy the one unforgivable sin is to embarass your own agency. (You can embarass other agencies at will, but not your own). That was illustrated when Waco revived in 1999. The independent counsel (whose staff was mostly Justice lawyers on detail, so much for independence) found lots of coverups, and wrote them off as mistakes, misjudgments, etc. The one person he prosecuted was the AUSA, Johnson, who had let Mike McNulty see the evidence and thus expose the matter. The others walked, but Johnson had to take a dive on a felony for failing to hand over a few pages of notes to a grand jury.