In a Feb. 24 letter to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the U.S. Department of Justice denied knowledge that two of its prosecutors accepted bribes in connection with a years-long investigation into financial crimes that National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC) executives allegedly committed over the past ten or more years.

The DOJ’s letter to Grassley, signed by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, was in response to the Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member’s request on Feb. 10 for the Department to brief his staff after The Daily Caller first reported on the scandal on Feb. 1.

TheDC’s investigation discovered that the DOJ had failed to arrest and prosecute already-indicted financial executives because bribery had corrupted the process.

In his letter to the DOJ, Grassley said he read TheDC’s investigation into the bribery allegations “with great concern.” That investigation unearthed allegations that two DOJ prosecutors on a team of more than 25 accepted cash bribes from indicted finance executives in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

(RELATED: Read the letters between Sen Grassley and Assistant Attorney General Weich)

According to TheDC’s source, a knowledgeable government official who served on a DOJ team put in place to arrest those finance executives, five other prosecutors on the team were also compromised in some way other than being bribed.

The DOJ never acted on the sealed indictments, which were the consequence of a lengthy criminal scheme involving bank fraud and other financial crimes. This, TheDC’s source said, was because Attorney General Eric Holder is embarrassed by the corruption that has plagued his DOJ internally.

U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. John de Jongh, a Democrat, was personally on the receiving end of a portion of $20 million in cash bribes spread to officials in the Virgin Islands government, according to TheDC’s Justice Department source. (RELATED: Full coverage of the Justice Department)

The bribes went to de Jongh, his attorney general Vincent Frazer and assorted Virgin Islands legislators, the source said. The bribes were intended to quash local concerns about financial irregularities identified on CFC’s books.

TheDC is withholding the name of its source in order to reduce the likelihood of career retaliation from political figures in the Obama administration.

“The article describes in extensive detail the alleged financial crimes of the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation in the U.S. Virgin Islands,” Grassley wrote to Holder in his request for a briefing.

“If the article is correct, the case was apparently a priority for the Department because more than 25 prosecutors were working on the case in some capacity. The whistleblowers in the article allege that confidential information was being leaked from the Department to the targets of the investigation. The article states that a meeting was held with all of the prosecutors involved and it was uncovered that two Department officials had accepted cash bribes and other improper contact had occurred.”

“It is further alleged that the bribed officials attempted to disrupt the investigation and protect certain targets,” Grassley added. “The article states although the suspects had been indicted and arrest teams were in place, the case went dormant due to the leaks and bribes at the Department. The article also goes on to allege that the sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands and top officials in the government also accepted bribes.”