![\"ashcroft-boobie-anim.gif\"](\"https:\/\/impeachforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/ashcroft-boobie-anim.gif\")
\nThe Huffington Post
\nAshcroft to Testify on Monitor Contracts
\nby ANGELA DELLI SANTI
\n
\nTRENTON, N.J. — Former Attorney General John Ashcroft has agreed to appear at a federal hearing looking into no-bid contracts he and others received to monitor out-of-court corporate settlements.<\/p>\n
A House Judiciary Committee subcommittee announced the agreement with Ashcroft in Washington, D.C., on Monday, the day before the committee was to consider authorizing its chairman to issue him a subpoena.<\/p>\n
The committee hearing was hastily postponed after Ashcroft said he would voluntarily testify.<\/p>\n
The former attorney general is considered a key witness in the inquiry into lucrative federal monitoring contracts awarded by federal prosecutors to hand-picked monitors to oversee deferred prosecutions.<\/p>\n
The House hearing was prompted, in part, by complaints from two New Jersey congressmen after Christopher Christie, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, awarded a contract said to be worth $27 million or more to Ashcroft to monitor a medical device maker that had entered a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Such agreements have been used increasingly by the Justice Department in recent years.<\/p>\n
The House hearing is among several inquiries now under way in nation’s capital regarding the standards for creating monitorships and selecting monitors.<\/p>\n
Christie, who has defended the practice as a method to correct corporate misbehavior while preserving jobs, was once Ashcroft’s subordinate. Christie apparently will not have to testify.<\/p>\n
Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell said the Justice Department would send a U.S. attorney from Georgia to testify rather than Christie.<\/p>\n
Christie did not return after-hours messages seeking comment.<\/p>\n
Christie appointed Ashcroft in September as monitor for Zimmer Holdings Inc., of Warsaw, Ind., one of five makers of replacement hips and knees that agreed to pay $310 million and accept federal monitors to settle concerns over doctor kickbacks.<\/p>\n
Ashcroft’s Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, The Ashcroft Group LLC, stands to make from $27 million to $52 million over 18 months, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n