Ashcroft Investigation?

Two Democratic Congressmen have requested the Justice Department investigate former Attorney General John Ashcroft's role in overseeing the Plame probe, before it was taken over by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Murray Waas, who has been all over the Plame case, has details:

The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman John Conyers, of Michigan, and Congressman Maurice Hinchey, Democrat of New York, will tomorrow formally request that the Inspector General of the Justice Department, Glenn A. Fine, investigate whether then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft "violated explicit rules on conflicts of interest when he failed to recuse himself from, and in fact was briefed on, the CIA name leak investigation despite his personal connection to Karl Rove, a person of interest to investigators."

Waas wrote about this in the Village Voice. Here's the big paragraph:

As the truthfulness of Rove's accounts became more of a focus of investigators, career Justice Department employees and senior FBI officials became even more concerned about the continuing role in the investigation of Ashcroft, because of his close relationship with Rove. Rove had earlier served as an adviser to Ashcroft during the course of three political campaigns. And Rove’s onetime political consulting firm had been paid more than $746,000 for those services.

Waas is using both mainstream media publication and blog post to cover this story. Quite impressive.