Justice and the I.G.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/opinion/02wed4.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Justice%20and%20the%20I.G.&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Subject: re: Justice and the I.G.
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   In 1975, in the wake of the Watergate abuses, the Office of Professional Responsibility was created to reassure the American public that our Department of Justice was serving our interests.  Congress attempted a more sweeping solution by creating The Offices of the Inspector General in 1978  in every cabinet department and independent agency to prevent " fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement of the government programs and operations within their parent organizations". At that time, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice should have subsumed the powers of the OPR. Instead, it was given the  debased authority to investigate only those members of our DoJ who are not attorneys. It is overdue that this be repaired. The Congressional mandate was for an I.G. answerable only to the President, with power to investigate all the doings of the DoJ.

Barry Levine