Van Hollen said he may have been kept in the dark on the progress of cases overseen by Division of Criminal Investigation Administrator Jim Warren, who retired in January after clashing with Van Hollen.
The division is the state's elite crime fighting unit and is overseen by the Department of Justice, which Van Hollen took over in January 2007 after winning election.
Van Hollen said he has no evidence investigators ever looked into allegations that Gov. Jim Doyle's administration improperly influenced the award of a major University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee building contract. The case was closed without his input or knowledge, and it's possible others were too, he said.
"We are in the process of reviewing all of those," he told reporters at the grand opening of a new crime lab in Madison.
DCI administrator Mike Myszewski, who took over in March, is conducting the review, Van Hollen said. He cautioned it will take time given other investigations and personnel and funding problems Myszewski is handling.
Of course, when the case was dropped by Van Hollen's office, he didn't seem to have a problem basking in the glow of support from those on the Left who praised Van Hollen for his non-political handling of the case. In fact, Van Hollen lashed out at his critics on the political right at the time.
Now Van Hollen (who graded his first year in office an "A") is now claiming he has no idea what his chief investigators did or didn't do.
I wonder what grade he'll give himself this year?
