Before Nora Dannehy was appointed to investigate the Bush U.S. attorney firing scandal, her team of lawyers was found to have illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case. This previously unreported fact calls into question her entire probe. It similarly undercuts the work of her DOJ colleague, John Durham, named first by Bush officials and then continued by the Obama administration, to probe DOJ and CIA decision-making on torture. Read this exclusive report by the Justice Integrity Project via Nieman Watchdog.  

In September 2008, the Bush Justice Department appointed career federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate allegations that Bush officials in 2006 illegally fired nine U.S. attorneys who wouldn’t politicize official corruption investigations. But just four days before her appointment, a federal appeals court had ruled that a team of prosecutors led by Dannehy illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case in Connecticut.  The prosecutors’ misconduct was so serious that the court vacated seven of the eight convictions in the case. Now, almost two years later, Dannehy has provided arguably the most important blanket exoneration for high-level U.S. criminal targets since President George H.W. Bush pardoned six Iran-Contra criminals after the 1992 Presidential vote.