Matt Ortega

[Updated]

Reuters reports of an incident where an FBI agent was instructed to “keep quiet” on the firing of one U.S. attorney after speaking to the media. FBI Director Robert Mueller defended it by saying that I do not believe it’s appropriate for our special agents in charge to comment to the media on personnel decisions that are made by the Department of Justice.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), however, did not see eye-to-eye with Mueller:

“I profoundly disagree,” replied Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat, who told the panel of the warning to the agent. “He (the agent) was simply saying that it would affect cases that were ongoing. And I think he’s entitled to his opinion.”

Also, Director Mueller testified, in response to questioning from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York), that he was not aware of any voter-fraud cases that should have resulted in indictments, a key claim that Republicans cling to for numerous dismissals, including U.S. attorneys John McKay, Western District of Washington, and David Iglesias, New Mexico.

Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), a New York Democrat, noted that among the shifting reasons given for firing prosecutors was failure to energetically pursue voter-fraud investigations.

Schumer asked Mueller if he was aware of any FBI voter-fraud probe that should have resulted in an indictment but did not.

“Not to my knowledge,” the FBI director replied.

Both federal prosecutors were involved in politically charged cases: McKay angered Republicans in his state when he declined to file any charges of voter fraud following the close 2004 gubernatorial race. The Democratic candidate won the race by a slim margin of 129 votes. Iglesias refused to speed up indictments of high-level Democrats in his state prior to the 2006 midterm elections.

Updated 03/28/07 at 1:49pm: Josh Marshall rounded it up quite nicely:

Back in January, Dan Dzwilewski, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the San Diego field office, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Carol Lam’s dismissal would jeopardize on-going corruption investigations and that “I guarantee politics is involved.”

After his quotes were published, the folks back in DC told him to keep quiet.