In a few hours last week, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie put more elected officials in handcuffs than New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey has in three years, says the Newark Star-Ledger. Numbers like that — three Monmouth County mayors and four councilmen in one morning’s work — have state lawmakers, public officials, and law enforcement experts asking whether Harvey is fighting public corruption as vigorously as he should. “The United States attorney has been vigilant in this regard, and very few of the cases have been from the state Attorney General’s Office and from various state prosecutor’s offices, and that concerns me,” said Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance.
Christie said in a radio interview that the attorney general had not been “a very active partner” in fighting corruption. Responded Harvey: “We have achieved significant milestones in our office in a broad category of cases and initiatives, including public corruption. We may not do as much as others in a single category, but we do more than most in a broad number of categories.” Harvey was named director of the Division of Criminal Justice, which investigates public corruption, in January 2002 and became attorney general in June 2003. Christie took over as federal prosecutor in January 2002.
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