Mary Patrice Brown, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, and supervisor of the inquiry into whether the department inappropriately dropped voter intimidation charges against the Black Panther Party, has a bit of a conflict-of-interest. She is a candidate for a federal judgeship in the District of Columbia, and is being vetted by some of the same lawyers she is supposed to investigate.

From a Washington Times editorial:

Imagine if ace reporter Carl Bernstein had been interviewing to be White House press secretary while he was covering the Watergate scandal. That gives a sense of the scope of the conflict of interest facing Mary Patrice Brown, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). Main Justice reports that Ms. Brown “is expected to secure a nomination to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.”
As it is, OPR has been dragging its heels in its internal investigation, with some published reports suggesting that OPR still hasn’t formally interviewed the career attorneys who brought the Black Panther case in the first place. If OPR can’t even take that simple, necessary step seven months after commencing an inquiry, there is every reason to believe Ms. Brown and her staff have no real intention of getting to the bottom of this mess.
Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, was referring to Ms. Brown in a Jan. 26 letter to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine when he wrote: “I do not believe that this office is capable of conducting an unbiased and independent review of this case, given that it reports to a political appointee – an inherent conflict-of-interest. …”

Leaving Brown aside, Fine had already told Congressman Wolf that he didn’t believe the OPR should have jurisdiction, because it is “not statutorily independent” enough, and has a clear “conflict of interest.”

How bad does this thing have to stink before the MSM starts to smell it?