NJ: DAG McNulty Ordered Calls to USAs

It’s already been a rough week for Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. Now this:

The chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty has told congressional investigators that phone calls he placed to four fired U.S. attorneys — calls that three of the prosecutors say involved threats about testifying before Congress — were made at McNulty’s direction.

Michael Elston, the chief of staff, told congressional investigators in a closed-door session on March 30 that McNulty specifically instructed him to make the phone calls after the Justice Department’s No. 2 official learned that the fired prosecutors might testify before Congress about their dismissals.

Elston also, according to Murray Waas, told congressional investigators what he’s been saying all along — that none of those calls were meant to threaten the U.S. attorneys.

But somehow, three of the U.S. attorneys all got the same message: stay quiet or get smeared.