Word: marstons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...long evening of affectionate oratory at the Gus Genetti Hotel ballroom was the uncomfortable fact that the dapper 74-year-old legislator is a prime target of a federal influence-peddling investigation. Indeed, coincidentally on the eve of the dinner, the Justice Department released an affidavit in which David Marston, the former U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia whose dismissal by the Carter Administration created a national controversy, predicted that Flood was "certain" to be indicted. But the closest anyone at the Genetti came to bringing up Flood's troubles was when County Commissioner Edmund Wideman chastised the nation...
...critics' principal target has been the Administration's inept firing of Philadelphia's Republican U.S. Attorney, David W. Marston, who had been digging into political corruption in Pennsylvania. But Civiletti, a former Baltimore attorney who has headed the Justice Department's criminal division for a year, has quite persuasively, and usually patiently, explained again and again that he had nothing to do with Marston's dismissal. In fact, when the Marston controversy became a national political issue, Civiletti was in South Korea interviewing Rice Broker Tongsun Park about the Korean influence-buying scandal...
...Wallop has persisted with hundreds of questions. How, he asks, could Civiletti not have been aware of the details of Marston's investigations, particularly the fact that the targets included two Pennsylvania Congressmen, Joshua Eilberg and Daniel Flood? Civiletti said he had never even heard of Flood until recently. Wallop was incredulous. "Senator. I have no idea who three-fourths of the Congressmen are," said Civiletti wryly...
...sworn statement, Baker claimed he passed the word about Marston's investigation of Eilberg to Civiletti last August and again in November?shortly after Eilberg leaned on Carter. Civiletti swore he did not gather from the first conversation that Eilberg was himself under investigation, and said he did not recall any subsequent conversation with Baker about Eilberg. The contradiction led New York Times Columnist William Safire to draw a harsh conclusion last week: "Ben Civiletti or Tim Baker?one, not both?is telling the truth [and]deserves advancement, while the other ought to be receiving, rather than dishing out, criminal...
There are other signs of ineptitude as well. Quite apart from Marston's probe in Philadelphia, Justice investigators in Washington became aware late last year that Eilberg and his fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Daniel J. Flood were both candidates for investigation. Following a federal bribery conviction, a former Flood aide named Stephen Elko arrived at the department offering to tell tales?in exchange for immunity from further prosecution?that implicated Flood and Eilberg. Yet by all accounts, this information did not travel up the department hierarchy in time to warn Bell and Carter away from the urgings of Eilberg, whose telephone...