Mary ChehYesterday, City Desk provided a juicy bit of news for late on a summer Friday: Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) seems to think that D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles ought to hit the road:
“I think he should resign,” Cheh says. “I don’t think he should have ever been appointed…You start messing with a federal judge in a case where you are hiding evidence or destroying evidence—that’s gone to a new level.”…”This is a really shocking breach of faith…It’s lawless. I can’t get my jaw up from the ground it’s dropped so far.”
What leads Cheh to such conclusions? The severe mishandling of the hot mess that was the arrest of several anti-IMF/World Bank protesters in September 2002. That day, hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were rounded up in Pershing Park and arrested. The repercussions of the police’s actions that day have been broad, with claws deep in former Chief of Police Charles Ramsey (who publicly apologized for the arrests), current MPD Chief Cathy Lanier (who apparently developed with the “mass-arrest” strategy), and now, Nickles. Individual settlements between those detained and the District government rolled in over time — but evidence was so severely mishandled by the attorney general’s office during the overarching civil trial that Emmet G. Sullivan, a U.S. District judge, dubbed the office’s performance “abysmal”, while calling for a D.C. Council investigation of the A.G.’s office.
Allegedly losing, altering and destroying evidence? Yeah, that sounds like a bit of a problem. So far, Nickles’ only comments on Sullivan’s damnation blame the whole shebang on not having enough cash flowing into the office.
City Paper’s Jason Cherkis reports that Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) is considering launching an investigation into the charges, as Sullivan suggested. If that’s true, this part of the Post’s report may be a sign of things to come:
After the judge’s harangue, the District’s attorney, Thomas Koger, had tears in his eyes. He declined to comment.
Weeping attorneys? Something tells me that this situation is going to get much worse before it gets better.
