It’s not unusual for law enforcement agencies to clash behind close doors. It just happens sometimes.
But it is unusual when they start to spat in a very public way the way the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office and the state Attorney General’s Office did.
The Newark Star-Ledger reports that each claimed credit Monday for a national, $150 million health care fraud settlement.
The paper reported that Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Gilmore Childers first publicly said in a statement to reporters that the state “played a limited administrative role in this case.”
“It is troubling and disappointing that they would take credit for years of tireless work done by federal agents and prosecutors,” Childers said, “particularly concerning an issue so important to the people of New Jersey.”
An hour later, the paper reported, Attorney General Paula Dow publicly said the feds account was a “mischaracterization.”
She said he was “downplaying the role of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office in leading 41 states to participate in this important national healthcare fraud case.”
The feds then fired back, according to the Star-Ledger.
“While pretending to be disinterested in who gets credit, the AG’s office has continued to make claims about its role that are not true,” a spokeswoman, Rebekah Carmichael, said in a statement.
