Ex-U.S. Attorney's Failings Documented

As U.S. attorney for Maryland, it was Thomas M. DiBiagio's wish that he be remembered as a prosecutor who, in the pursuit of justice, was fearless and beholden to none.

"That's the one thing I hope they say when I leave," DiBiagio once said to a reporter, "because that's what it's all about."

Last week, DiBiagio seemed to try to cement that reputation by declaring he was forced from office because of political pressure over a corruption investigation that targeted close advisers to his one-time patron and friend, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., then the Republican governor.

It was a new explanation for his hasty departure in 2005, but it fit with a self-portrait that had long simmered. DiBiagio first hinted as much in a Baltimore Sun op-ed piece last year, in which he alleged being told he'd be "hurt" if he didn't back off from public corruption inquiries.

The weakness in that version of events is that DiBiagio's shortcomings as U.S. attorney were amply documented. A steady stream of leaked internal documents made clear that his management style had alienated many in the office. Some of those documents undermined the very view that DiBiagio sought to cultivate: that he used the power of his office judiciously, "without fear or favor."

Within the office, prosecutors have said, tension sprang as much from DiBiagio's manner as from his use of discretion and his prosecutorial goals.

He investigated an agency run by Ehrlich's opponent at the height of the 2002 governor's race. DiBiagio angrily berated a career prosecutor and he famously ordered his staff to produce high-profile corruption indictments by a date that coincided closely with the 2004 presidential election.

DiBiagio went public with the new claim about his departure after Congress began investigating whether eight other U.S. attorneys were fired for political reasons.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) has raised the matter with officials at the Justice Department, but a Cardin spokesman said the senator has so far seen nothing that connects DiBiagio's dismissal to the treatment of the other former prosecutors.

Among those not persuaded by DiBiagio's claims was Stephen P. Amos, who was indicted and then cleared in the probe that focused on Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D), who lost the governor's race to Ehrlich in 2002.

"It bothers me that he thought he could redefine history and rewrite it in a way that he was a victim," said Amos, who said he had lost his home and savings by the time prosecutors dropped the case, days after DiBiagio left office. "He was not a victim."

In 2001, with Ehrlich's backing, President Bush appointed DiBiagio, a seasoned prosecutor with experience tackling money laundering and drug cases, to head the Baltimore U.S. attorney's office.