Stan Quoted in Roll Call re: "Murky Legal Trail in DOJ Case"

“Obstruction, perjury, false statements —that’s always how these things get started,” said ethics attorney and former House counsel Stan Brand.

Brand pointed to the Watergate defendants, many of whom were charged with similar crimes.

“There were not many substantial offenses charged in most cases. That was a cover-up,” he said.

Brand represented J. Steven Griles, the former Interior Department deputy secretary, who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress at the end of March after misrepresenting his relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005.

But the question of whether the Justice Department actually could bring criminal charges, if it came to that, against its own employees, or former employees, is a tricky one. That has led some attorneys, such as Brand, to argue that the appointment of a special prosecutor in the investigation is inevitable.

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