Oh look…another resignation…  And right before the hearings start too…

Embattled Interior official resigns post

WASHINGTON – An Interior Department official accused of pressuring government scientists to make their research fit her policy goals has resigned.

Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, submitted her resignation letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a department spokesman said Tuesday.

MacDonald resigned a week before a House congressional oversight committee was to hold a hearing on accusations that she violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

MacDonald was recently rebuked by the department’s inspector general, who told Congress in a report last month that she broke federal rules and should face punishment for leaking information about endangered species to private groups.

Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery confirmed MacDonald’s resignation but declined to comment further.

This is why the three branches of government are supposed to be equal and independent from each other.  And of course, why the republicans have been trying so hard to make them all into one great big party machine.  You have to understand…they don’t regard this sort of thing as corruption.  They hate the system precisely because it was designed to favor democratic over authoritarian governing, a premise they categorically reject.  The republicans of this day and age are anti-democratic authoritarian radicals.  This is not Goldwater’s republican party.