Okay, maybe the headline is a little premature.  Still, the single most exciting development in the 2009 Virginia Attorney General race since my Open Letter has been John Brownlee's resignation from his position as United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. 

Why?  Because Brownlee is rumored to be considering a run for Virginia Attorney General.

As you may or may not recall, Brownlee was responsible for the single largest false claims recovery in the history of Virginia in May of 2007.  The recovery, on the order of $634 million dollars, included criminal guilty pleas by three top Purdue executives, in which they admitted that Purdue fraudulently marketed Oxycontin.  Virginia received more than $34 million dollars from these three  Purdue executives, and an additional $25.3 million dollars as part of the settlement.  

In other words, John Brownlee returned almost $60 million dollars to the Commonwealth by his focus on qui tam and the False Claims Act. 

That alone would be enough to qualify him for Virginia's top law enforcement job.  But when we consider the courage and character Brownlee displayed to obtain the settlement, his candidacy gets much stronger.

Brownlee showed exceptional courage in obtaining the Purdue settlement because, by some accounts, it almost cost him his job.  In a little known turn of events, Brownlee rebuffed an apparent attempt from DOJ to obtain more time for Purdue to consider the agreement.  The date was October 24, 2006.  Brownlee stood firm, and the settlement/plea agreement was accepted that day.    

Exactly one week later, on November 1, 2006, Brownlee showed up on the infamous Kyle Sampson's "black list" of U.S. Attorneys to be dismissed.  (He was eventually removed from the list and not terminated.)

So everyone, pass the word—the effort to draft John Brownlee to run for Virginia Attorney General is under way! 

Zachary A. Kitts
Cook & Kitts, PLLC