Ex-U.S. Attorney's Failings Documented

Quickly, he asserted his independence from his political sponsors by bringing a public corruption case against Edward T. Norris, Ehrlich's superintendent for state police, for Norris's abuse of an off-the-books expense account while he was Baltimore's police commissioner.

In 2002, DiBiagio sent a scathing letter to the lead agent in the FBI's Baltimore office. The letter was leaked, and it was soon widely known that DiBiagio considered the bureau "a marginal presence" that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks had been "distracted and almost useless" for the task of pursuing white-collar crime and public corruption. "This is completely unacceptable," he wrote.

In an August 2004 letter announcing her departure from the office, veteran prosecutor Lisa M. Griffin wrote that she was leaving partly because she could no longer tolerate DiBiagio's "aggressive management style."

"You have said your goals include creating a 'premier law firm,' but many excellent career prosecutors have left after unpleasantness that seems to arise from honest disagreements with you," Griffin wrote to DiBiagio. She wrote that she was "embarrassed to hear" that DiBiagio had lashed out at one of his prosecutors during a meeting, using crude and aggressive language. He later apologized and said he had lost his temper.

Among the most damaging missteps, said David Margolis, an associate deputy attorney general, was the internal e-mail that earned DiBiagio a public rebuke from his superiors in July 2004. DiBiagio urged his prosecutors to obtain "Three 'Front-Page' White Collar/Public Corruption Indictments" before Nov. 6, four days after the presidential election. Although DiBiagio has said the memo was taken out of context, he was told after it was publicized that he could bring no public corruption cases without high-level approval.

A performance review conducted later that year detected morale problems in the office and other issues that prosecutors felt could not be resolved with DiBiagio in place, Margolis said.

"I lost confidence in his abilities," said Margolis, a career Justice Department employee. He said he asked for DiBiagio's resignation after a performance review found concerns over his judgment, temperament and candor.

DiBiagio has declined repeated requests for interviews with The Washington Post but has been clear even before last week that he believes the problems he encountered stemmed from his tough approach to public corruption cases.

He often expressed frustration that the office had drifted from its tradition of probes such as those in the 1970s that led to the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew (R) and the fraud conviction of Gov. Marvin Mandel (D), which was later overturned.

DiBiagio seemed to foresee that his approach would create friction. In a 2000 law journal article, he described the "character, commitment and courage" to prosecute "a popular public official." Such a prosecution, he wrote, "will appear to some to be astonishingly principled, while to others it will appear to be stunningly ill-advised."

After he left the job, he hinted at such difficulties, with little elaboration, in the January 2006 op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun. "There was constant pressure to aim low and look the other way from potentially corrupt officials," he wrote, decrying "smear tactics" that he said were intended to deter the well-meaning from public service. "The pressure finally culminated in a threat that I would be 'hurt' if I continued doing what I was doing."

It might have ended there had the notion of politically motivated firings not resurfaced in the news. Last week, as Congress began pushing for details about the dismissals of several U.S. attorneys, DiBiagio declared himself another victim in a burgeoning Washington scandal, telling the New York Times that he, too, was forced out for political reasons. In the Times article, DiBiagio said he believed a 2004 probe into whether associates of the governor were improperly using money from gambling interests to promote the legalization of slot machines "played an integral role in what was done to me."

Ehrlich, who struck up a friendship with DiBiagio more than two decades ago, has said he was aware of the investigation but was not concerned about it. Attorney David Irwin, whose clients were among the recipients of subpoenas in that investigation, said the slots probe was an example of DiBiagio's tendency to "cast the net out too far" and "in an injudicious" fashion.

"I just thought he went way overboard with that," Irwin said.

DiBiagio's claim might bear out, but, absent corroborating evidence, his claim's merits will remain difficult to evaluate. He has not publicly identified the Maryland Republicans who he says pressed him to back away from his inquiries, despite requests from reporters for him to do so.

Ehrlich has denied the assertion that DiBiagio was offered a judgeship to back off or threatened with punitive action.

It was clear to some, though, that the administration "had soured on DiBiagio's performance," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert). "I think they felt that he had been one of their guys, and that all of a sudden he wasn't returning their phone calls. Investigations would continue even after he would get a call saying this person is a close friend of the governor."