Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty (inset, left) is resigning from the No. 2 position in the Justice Department.

According to a prepared statement released by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, McNulty will “leave the Department later this summer.”

Prior to working in the DOJ’s headquarters in 2005, McNulty was the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virignia, prosecuting some of the highest profile terrorism cases. These included the successful prosecutions and convictions of:

• 9-11 Frenchman and Moroccan-born Zacarias Moussaoui
• American Talib John Walker Lindh
• The Khobar Towers bombing case where Hezbollah terrorists attacked a U.S. Military residence in Saudi Arabia
• The espionage case against FBI mole Robert Philip Hanssen

With McNulty leaving, it seems very likely that his Chief of Staff (and former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Virginia) Michael Elston (inset, below) will also be announcing his resignation soon.

Elston’s resignation also seems likely, given that fired U.S. Attorneys Paul K. Charlton of Phoenix, Arizona and John McKay of Seattle, Washington reportedly told the House Committee on the Judiciary that they felt threatened by McNulty’s aide in telephone calls that he made to the former prosecutors just before Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18, 2007.