Soccer Dad

Dibiagio's baggage

Thomas Dibiagio's term as U.S. Attorney for Maryland was marked by a number of high profile successes and a number of high profile scandals. Among the successes were the prosecution of Nathan Chapman, a fund manager with close ties to former Governor Glendening and the prosectuon of Maryland State Police Chief Edward Norris. In the latter category was the mysterious death - still unsolved - of one of his prosecutors and a memo in which he demanded high profile convictions.

That last incident led to his reprimand by his highers up at Justice. As the Washington Post notes in an editorial A Vote of No Confidence:

THOMAS M. DIBIAGIO, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, has embarrassed his office and discredited himself by instructing his staff to produce at least three "front-page" indictments for public corruption or white-collar crimes by Nov. 6. His astonishingly inappropriate directives, contained in internal office memos disclosed by the Baltimore Sun, earned him an unusual and deserved public reprimand from his superiors in the Justice Department. In a letter released by the department, Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey ordered Mr. DiBiagio to submit "to me for review any proposed indictment in a public corruption matter." In case Mr. DiBiagio missed the point, Mr. Comey added, "You may not bring such a case without my personal approval."

(The Post questions Dibiagio's choice of Nov. 6 as being overtly political because it was just after the election. That makes no sense. If he were trying to hurt Democrats wouldn't he want to get those conviction before the election?)

A few months later Dibiagio's performance was under review and he resigned his position. Now Dibiagio has a bombshell. He was forced out in order to protect then Governor Ehrlich (who was apparently once his friend.)

But as MD Politics Today points out something seems fishy here.

Forgive me for opining here, but something to me really stinks to high heaven when a local former government official does not go to a Baltimore paper or even a Washington paper to discuss their departure. That is why I question the motives of former U.S. Attorney for Maryland Thomas DiBagio. He resigned in 2005 after pressure and controversy.

It's not like the Sun would necessarily have been unsympathetic to such charges. The editors of the Sun actually regretted Dibiagio's resignation. In Dibiagio steps down (Baltimore Sun, Dec 7, 2004)

But if that is what most people remember about Mr. DiBiagio's term, they do him an injustice. Those who know him say that some of his mistakes were made because he wasn't politically savvy. After all, he sparred not only with Baltimore's Democratic mayor over gun prosecutions but also with the Republican governor who nominated him for the job. He wasn't adept at dealing with the media, which may have exacerbated his problems in the courthouse and surely with his bosses at the Justice Department.

If Mr. DiBiagio was eager to prosecute public corruption cases, he did so because such action was overdue. Corrupt politicians are a worthy cause, but after the dust-up over his memo, he had to clear those cases with his Justice Department superiors.

To his credit, Mr. DiBiagio was as aggressive in prosecuting murderous drug dealers who killed for a living and killed more with the poison they sold on Baltimore streets. At the request of city prosecutors, he took on sexual offenders and other predators who brought him no headlines. Mr. DiBiagio's independent, hard-driving style distinguished him in the job, but his desire to accomplish his goals in under four years may have led to his personnel problems. His office put away violent criminals who managed to escape conviction in city court, and that contribution to a safer Baltimore will be long-lasting. He wanted mightily to make a difference in the lives of Marylanders - and that dedication will be sorely missed.

The Washington Post gives a lot of space to Ehrlich's defense against the charges.

The claim is extraordinary in part because of the friendship that DiBiagio and Ehrlich once shared and because Ehrlich, while he was a Republican congressman, had played a key role in securing the prosecutor's post for him. In an interview yesterday, Ehrlich said DiBiagio's comments "really came out of left field."

The former governor denied trying to influence DiBiagio's investigations or seeking his removal. "To try to tie this to slots is just crazy," Ehrlich said, and he expressed amusement over the idea that he would have held enough sway with officials in Washington to have the federal prosecutor removed.

Ehrlich also noted that he was nearly alone in publicly defending DiBiagio in summer 2004, when Democrats were calling for his resignation and editorial boards were questioning his fitness for office. "I've known him for a long time, and I think he should be given the benefit of the doubt," Ehrlich told the Baltimore Sun at the time.

Another factor favoring Ehrlich's interpretation is that the Justice Department official who fired Dibiagio is a 42 year employee of the department named David Margolis. Margolis would thus hardly be the kind of person who would engage such partisan moves. (Not impossible, but unlikely.)

It looks like Dibiagio, aware of his somewhat mixed legacy, went to the Times to make himself look better. Not an especially noble coda to his career.

UPDATE: In fairness to Dibiagio, though, he's been accused of partisanship, he's never been accused of being an outright liar. So while there are plenty of reasons to suspect his story now, it isn't impossible that it's true.

Blogdigger tags: Thomas Dibiagio, Robert Ehrlich, Justice Department.