Sen. Whitehouse Still Asking What “Improper” Means

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) still wants to know where the Department of Justice sets the bar for “wrongdoing” or “improper” conduct.

Today, Whitehouse asked the Justice Department’s oversight arm, the Office of the Inspector General, to look into how the agency defines improper behavior. When U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April, Gonzales explained that actions become improper when they have an adverse affect on a particular case. Whitehouse was and is appalled.

“The notion that the definition of impropriety for DOJ employees should be set so low as to more or less mirror the definition of criminal obstruction of justice is disturbing,” Whitehouse wrote in a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine. “Indeed, it implies that it would be perfectly appropriate to dismiss a U.S. Attorney because he or she did not, for example, act in a sufficiently partisan manner, although without regard to a particular case.”

Check out the volleying during Gonzales’ Senate testimony: