How Many More Times?

We have ANOTHER case of a legislator calling up a US Attorney about an ongoing investigation, with said US Attorney magically turning up fired shortly thereafter.

This time it's Rep. Rick Renzi, who as you might remember had his business office searched by the FBI last week. After a day in which Renzi resigned his committee posts and asked to be removed from the House GOP's incumbency protection program, we get this story from the AP that shows Renzi called Paul Charlton about the imminent investigation into his corrupt dealings.

Even as he insisted that he had been "the subject of leaked stories, conjecture and false attacks" about a 2005 land exchange, Renzi became entangled in the U.S. attorneys probe when his chief of staff acknowledged calling Arizona's prosecutor's office to discuss the matter.

The prosecutor, Paul Charlton, was one of the eight prosecutors fired by the Justice Department over the winter.

Brian Murray, Renzi's top aide, issued a statement late Tuesday acknowledging that shortly after the local media reported that the congressmen was being investigated, he called Charlton spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle.

"I called Mr. Hornbuckle seeking information about press accounts which appeared just weeks before Election Day alleging a pending indictment," Murray said in a statement. "I left him a message asking for information about these allegations, but I was called back and told they would not comment."

Apparently Charlton just spilled the beans on this to the House Judiciary Committee, so Renzi's people had to come forward. Unlike David Iglesias' call from Sen. Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, Charlton reported this call to the Justice Department as per guidelines. Funny how THAT never came up in any of their testimony or document dumps, isn't it?

Just so we understand what Renzi is alleged to have done here, this is the lowdown from the AP article:

According to state records and officials involved in the land deal, Renzi helped promote the sale of land that netted his former business partner, James Sandlin, $4.5 million.

The property eventually was to be part of a swap in which potential buyers could exchange it for land owned by the federal government. Such deals are common in the West, where the government owns vast tracts. Renzi had said he wanted to prevent encroaching development near the Fort Huachuca Army post and to protect the environmentally threatened San Pedro River.

But Renzi never introduced legislation in Congress to complete the swap for the new owners.

We already had an inkling that Charlton was fired because of what he was doing with the Renzi investigation. Now we know that Renzi's aide called Charlton - and though Charlton reported the call, the DoJ never reported this in the voluminous amount of testimony and documents.

Forget Gonzales, the entire senior staff of the Justice Department should be fired.