By Joel Thurtell
Remember back in 2002 when the FBI raided Ed McNamara’s offices in Detroit?
How could that highly publicized piece of law enforcement be connected to Sludgegate?
Well, there is a thread — In 2002, Detroit’s longtime U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. defended McNamara. Conyers then was ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, with tremendous power over the Department of Justice and FBI.
The late Ed McNamara was Wayne County Executive then, and the feds made it known that they suspected the powerful Democrat of shaking down county vendors for campaign contributions. The heat was on for many months, a couple of officials were tried on related charges and convicted.
Haven’t heard from the FBI on that one in a long time. McNamara died, true, but the investigation seemed to expire long before McNamara did.
I heard there was a meeting between Conyers and the U.S. attorney about the FBI probe of Mac. True?
Did the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee pressure the Justice Department to scrap its investigation?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that there’s now an investigation of someone closer to Conyers than Ed McNamara.
His wife, Monica Conyers, is said to be a target of the FBI’s investigation of bribery involved with Houston-based Synagro’s sludge-processing contract with the City of Detroit.
I haven’t heard anyone say Conyers has meddled in that probe.
Still, he’s no longer ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee. He’s chairman, since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006.
Now he’s the king of Judiciary. He wields huge power in Congress over law enforcement and judicial matters.
To avoid the appearance of a conflict, John Conyers should step aside as Judiciary chairman until his wife’s legal problems are resolved.
That way, if Monica winds up being indicted, nobody can suspect him of using his chairman’s influence to sway the prosecution.
And if the investigation of Monica fades away as did the one into McNamara, nobody can say Conyers used his considerable powers as head Judiciary honcho to make it vanish.
Contact me at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
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