At least we’re not the only ones Kevin Ryan doesn’t call back.
Of the nine U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush Administration in 2006, it seems the former Northern District top prosecutor was the only one who declined to be interviewed by Justice Department investigators.
“After telling us that he would consider our request for an interview, Ryan never responded to our follow-up calls and e-mails,” DOJ inspectors wrote in their 356-page report on the sackings, released Monday.
We know how it feels. The former U.S. attorney hasn’t called us back in ages, and he did not respond to a call for comment on this subject.
After the jump: Furious e-mails, quiet hangups and long silences.
The DOJ report itself reconfirms the broad strokes of Ryan’s termination, concluding that it clearly resulted from his management problems. But it does contain a few little gems, like the former U.S. attorney’s response to a searing performance review of his office. Ryan wrote to DOJ honchos in 2006, telling them the review was “a distraction forced upon us [which] is not only unfair, disruptive and counterproductive; it is also a waste of taxpayers' money.”
Ryan’s number one detractor at main Justice was David Margolis, the top career prosecutor in the department. According to the report, Margolis told investigators that he “read [Ryan] the riot act” about his management style in March 2005, a few months after former prosecutor John Hemann sent around an open letter criticizing the boss.
Margolis eventually prevailed upon his DOJ colleagues to put Ryan on the termination list. When Ryan was finally informed that he was being asked to leave, Ryan “did not ask why his resignation was being requested; he just said ‘thank you very much’ and hung up.”
Investigators first contacted Ryan in May 2007, and after promising to get back to them, he didn’t. They tried again with a letter last December. “In response, Ryan contacted us by e-mail requesting additional information on the procedures for the requested interview,” they wrote. “After obtaining the information and saying he would consider the matter and get back to us with an answer, Ryan did not contact us and did not respond to follow-up telephone and e-mail messages.”
— Dan Levine
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