How feds' top environmental prosecutor built home with big-oil lobbyist

I sure am glad Bush has brought honor back to the executive branch!!!


WASHINGTON -- A House committee will investigate and request documents on a real estate deal involving the government's top environmental prosecutor and ConocoPhillips' top lobbyist, and legal agreements between the government and the oil company.

Prosecutor, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, bought a $1 million vacation home on Kiawah Island, S.C., with ConocoPhillips Vice President Donald R. Duncan, nine months before agreeing to let the company delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup. It was one of two proposed consent decrees Wooldridge signed with ConocoPhillips just before resigning last month.

"There appears to be a breakdown of ethics at the Justice Department," the committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Wednesday night. "Senior Justice Department officials should not be handling cases that affect their close friends and investment partners."