Ashcroft orders coverup at Justice Department

1. I am offended by this an obscene use of the
taxpayers monies.
2. Surely this is proof of Aschroft's mental
instability. What would Freud say?

-----

Tuesday January 29 8:19 AM ET

$8,000 Curtains Cover Semi-Nude Statues

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A cover-up at the U.S.
Justice Department?

A Justice Department spokeswoman said on Monday
about $8,000 has been spent for curtains to
conceal two Art Deco aluminum statues of semi-nude
figures in the building's Great Hall.

At one end of the stage is a 1930s era female
statue representing the ``Spirit of Justice.''
Though she wears a toga-style garment, one breast
is exposed. At the other end of the stage, a male
statue represents the ``Majesty of Justice,'' and
has a cloth draped by his waist.

Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock
said the decision to install the curtains was made
by Attorney General John Ashcroft's aide who
handles advance work. ``It was done for TV
aesthetics,'' she said.

When Ashcroft on Nov. 8 announced plans to
restructure the Justice Department to focus on
terrorism after the Sept. 11 hijacked plane
attacks, photographers took pictures showing him
with the towering female statue in the background.

``He did not know this was being done,'' Comstock
said. ``The attorney general has more important
things to do than worry about what appears in
pictures.''

The statues were hidden by curtains on Nov. 20,
when President Bush came to the Justice Department
to name the building after the assassinated former
attorney general, Robert Kennedy.

Those curtains were rented. Comstock said the
decision then was made to buy dark-blue curtains
and install them because it would be more ``cost
efficient.''

On Monday, a day with no public events in the
Great Hall, the curtains, with the Justice
Department emblem in the center, were placed
across the stage, concealing the statues.

A former Justice Department official e-mailed a
copy of an article about the statues to
colleagues, adding the caption, ''homeland
security?''

The most famous picture of the female statue came
in the 1980s, when Attorney General Edwin Meese
released the final report of his commission on
pornography.