Josh Marshall passes along the story from the Anchorage Daily News (in Alaska). It is customary for all U.S. Attorneys to be selected from names recommended by the Senators from the state where the prosecutors are to serve. Nelson Cohen, however, was named to the post in 2006, by the DoJ's Mary Beth Buchanan, with nobody troubling themselves to even notify in advance - never mind the recommendation process - the two Republican Senators, Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens. "You just think, 'It can't be, wait.' There was no consulting, no process, no nothing. That's where I was certainly caught blindsided," Murkowski said.
Stevens, himself a former federal prosecutor in Alaska, was enraged. "I am just furious at the way the attorney general handled this," he said at the time. Josh notes that Mary Beth Buchanan is the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh and preceded Michael Battle as head of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. She is on the list of folks that Rep. John Conyers is seeking to interview as part of his committee's ongoing investigation.
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