Pittsburgh-based U.S. attorney Mary Beth Buchanan is playing a bit of hardball with President-elect Obama’s new administration!

While it’s customary for U.S. attorneys from both parties to issue letters of resignation ahead of a presidential transfer, Buchanan, who President Bush appointed in 2001, said this week that she plans on staying put:

Despite a new administration coming into power, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said she plans to stick around.

“It doesn’t serve justice for all the U.S. attorneys to submit their resignations all at one time,” she said yesterday. […]

More than that, she said she would consider working in the Obama administration. She would not discuss what her future might hold beyond the U.S. attorney’s office.

“I am open to considering further service to the United States,” Ms. Buchanan said.

Buchanan’s reasoning — that it "doesn’t serve justice" — sounds nice, but her checkered past makes us wonder what’s really driving this lady’s decision. Fiercely loyal to President Bush and the Republican party, Buchanan has previously been criticized for lobbing "politically motivated" investigations against Democrats and going over Alaskan politicians’ heads when she installed a Pittsburgh attorney as a U.S. prosecutor there. She also played a minor role in the firing of U.S. district attorneys when she discussed fired prosecutors with then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez’s chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. That said, one can’t help but wonder if Buchanan’s simply trying to complicate matters for the new administration, or truly cares deeply about the American justice system. Or, possibly, both.