Van Hollen: ‘The Department of Justice does not keep a
detailed tracking of attorney or staff hours.’
MADISON – Attorney General JB Van Hollen’s latest claim that his politically-motivated GAB lawsuit has cost taxpayers less than $1,000 shows that he’s either an incompetent manager who can’t track his own attorney hours, or he’s lying to taxpayers about the true costs of his lawsuit.
“Who does the Attorney General think he is, P.T. Barnum?” asked Joe Wineke, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “Either he’s trying to play the taxpayers for a bunch of suckers, or he’s the most inept manager to ever oversee a team of attorneys.”
Van Hollen released a letter yesterday to the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee claiming that the only costs incurred by his months-long politically-motivated lawsuit stunt were associated with filing the suit and filing the appeal.
Responding to the third request by the JFC for an accounting of the full DOJ attorney costs, Van Hollen amazingly responded, “The Department of Justice does not keep a detailed tracking of attorney or staff hours.” (Source: Van Hollen letter to JFC, 1/29/09, http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/_Sen_Miller_Rep_Pocan_response_with_enclosures_1_28_09.pdf)
Earlier this month, Van Hollen abandoned the appeal of his baseless lawsuit, which became completely moot after the GAB agreed on a process to perform the same cross-checks the lawsuit sought on voter registrations dating back to 2006.
As state chair of the McCain Campaign, Van Hollen abused his authority as Attorney General and misused his taxpayer-funded office for partisan purposes by filing a politically-motivated lawsuit designed to disenfranchise voters and sway November’s election in favor of his candidate.
