Obama lawyer calls for internal Justice Department investigation

Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer called Monday for a government investigation into whether the White House is working with John McCain’s campaign to raise allegations of voter fraud, telling reporters attorney general Michael Mukasey needed to step in to ensure investigators are "not misused for partisan purposes."

Read: Bauer's Monday letter to Mukasey

A special prosecutor is investigating similar charges against the Justice Department over the controversial dismissals of several U.S. attorneys, including David Yglesias, who said he was fired for resisting pressure to prosecute ACORN, the embattled community group at the center of a sustained Republican campaign alleging voter fraud among supporters of Barack Obama.

Bauer spoke with reporters on a Monday conference call days after news broke that the FBI is taking a closer look at ACORN. Last week, he said the special prosecutor’s mandate should be expanded to include the rising government scrutiny of the community group.

On Monday, he sent a letter to Mukasey saying said that the inspector general needed to investigate, because the prosecutor didn’t have the jurisdiction needed to look into the department’s activities — whether it complied with its own policies.

ACORN has said it registered roughly 1.3 million voters this year, but has come under fire because some of the registrations turned in by contract workers hired by the group have contained false information.