Justice Department’s Top Criminal Investigator Squeezed Out

What’s going on over at Justice?

The state’s former top criminal investigator said his recent retirement was “shoved down my throat” after a year of “constant war” with Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s administration, according to records released Tuesday.

The internal e-mails are the first public evidence that the January retirement of long-time, highly respected lawman Jim Warren wasn’t completely voluntary.

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There is no suggestion in the 256 pages of e-mails obtained by the newspaper that partisan politics was a factor in Warren’s retirement. And St. John said Van Hollen “runs the Department of Justice and all of its divisions without regard to party politics.”

But in the e-mails, Warren referred to his year under Van Hollen as “a nightmare” and “a constant war.”

When DOJ special agent Thomas Gorecki jokingly suggested that he and Warren were going to wait until Brett Favre retired from the Green Bay Packers, Warren replied, “I know, but Brett didn’t have to work with our current administration.”

It could all be just a matter of style.  I have often seen two quality individuals who can’t work together because of some deep-rooted personality differences.  It happens.  When that happens between a superior and a subordinate, it’s pretty clear who has to go. 

Still… we’re not getting the whole story here.