Chertoff Nomination Could Reopen Old Questions

The nomination of a former prosecutor to become secretary of homeland security could reopen questions about his response to allegations of wrongdoing by a longtime government informant and reputed organized-crime associate.

The claim that the nominee, Michael Chertoff, failed to rein in the informant, Stanley Myatt, was first raised in May 2003 when the ex-prosecutor was up for confirmation to the federal bench. A dispute over how to pursue the assertions, made by a conservative legal watchdog group, Judicial Watch, led six Democrats to vote "present" on the nomination in the committee.

According to Judicial Watch, Myatt worked as an informant for the FBI and other government agencies for three decades. The group said Myatt used his relationship with the government to bilk seven publicly traded companies of millions of dollars and to intimidate business associates.

"Myatt's an embarrassment for the Justice Department," the president of Judicial Watch, Thomas Fitton, said. "He's one of these informants out there doing these wrong things that they should have known about but they didn't do anything about."

Myatt, 64, appears to crave a low profile, but his background was detailed in an article published in Vanity Fair magazine just a few weeks after Judge Chertoff was confirmed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. At a 2001 racketeering trial, a former boss of the Philadelphia mob, Ralph Natale, said Myatt helped arrange contacts between local mafia figures and members of the Russian mafia based in South Florida. "He made a big connection with the Russian mob," Natale said. He also called Myatt a "Wall Street scam man."

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Given the source of the allegations about Judge Chertoff, the senators' apparent skepticism is understandable. Paul is a three-time convicted felon who departed America for Brazil as Stan Lee Media fizzled out. He is under indictment at California and Long Island on charges that he and cohorts engaged in a scheme to artificially inflate the company's stock price.
The Justice Department has since concluded, however, that one of Paul's most significant claims was true. Paul, who bankrolled a gala fund-raising event at Beverly Hills for Senator Clinton's 2000 campaign, asserted that the campaign grossly understated the event's expenses.
Last week, a federal court unsealed an indictment charging Mrs. Clinton's national finance director, David Rosen, with four felony counts for causing false reports to be filed with the Federal Election Commission. The indictment alleges that while the campaign reported the cost of the fund-raising affair to be about $400,000, Mr. Rosen knew that the true cost was about $1.2 million.
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