The Hill News

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) complained Friday that the Department of Justice has yet to respond to his questioning of why it declined to prosecute an assistant U.S. attorney accused of looking at pornography on his government computer.

Grassley asked Justice for answers on why it declined to prosecute in a letter sent 100 days ago, his office said Friday.

Grassley said his staff has contacted the department several times since the letter was sent, but has yet to receive an official response from the Justice Department.

The attorney is accused of spending hours of work time viewing pornography on his government computer. The official also allegedly had at least one image of child pornography on his computer.

In a statement released Friday, Grassley provided a letter his office sent to Attorney General Eric Holder in early July to find out why the Justice Department declined to follow up, what kinds of cases the attorney worked o! n, and what steps the department has taken to keep pornography off its computers.

The letter read in part:

“As the case for disciplinary action is “pending” as of May 31, 2011, this means that, at the very least, the DOJ has allowed an admitted serial viewer of pornography â€" possibly child pornography â€" to serve as an AUSA for two months, if not longer, and has yet to take action. This is simply unacceptable and compounds the questions raised by the fact that this AUSA was found to have “at least one image of child pornography” on his government computer and yet he was not charged with a crime.”

From the Office of the Inspector General’s report on the incident:

“The OIG conducted an investigation concerning allegations that an Assistant United States Attorney was using his government computer to view inappropriate material on his government computer. The investigation determined that the AUSA routinely viewed a! dult content during official duty hours, and that there was at! least o ne image of child pornography recovered on the AUSA’s government computer. The AUSA acknowledged that he had spent a significant amount of time each day viewing pornography. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined prosecution. Disciplinary action against the AUSA is pending.”

This is not the first time Grassley has tried to root-out the use of pornography on federal equipment. In 2010 he called for mass firings after it was discovered that 33 Securities and Exchange Commission employees had been caught with pornography on their computers.