The New York Times brings more details to light of the meeting between the Pentagon general counsel, William J. Haynes II, and top military lawyers:

[A]t the meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Haynes sought to enlist the lawyers on the administration’s side by asking whether any would object to signing a letter lending their support to aspects of the White House proposal over which they had voiced little concern.

The lawyers agreed, but only after hours of negotiating over specific words, so that they would not appear to be wholly endorsing the plan.

What followed was a scuffle that left at least some of the military lawyers embittered and stoked old tensions at the Pentagon between civilian leaders and uniformed military officers, who under Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have often found themselves privately at odds.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, tells a slightly different story:

Officials who attended the meeting in question, in the office of Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II on Wednesday, said there was no pressure on the military lawyers to produce the letter, describing a robust discussion about how to word its contents. The lawyers initially drafted a letter saying they "support" the two sections but later settled on saying they "do not object" to them.

The White House is spending the weekend trying to figure out how to save its political fortunes, and possibly its legacy.

Last week, in a move widely perceived as a last-minute political gambit, the Bush administration tried to force two proposals through Congress which would radically expand its powers when spying on, interrogating and prosecuting terrorism suspects. The trick? To garner enough 'nay' votes from Democrats that Americans would be reminded, on the eve of the midterm elections, of how soft the party is on national security issues.

But the plan quickly met with turmoil within the Republican party.

In the House, GOP leaders succeeded in squelching -- for now -- Rep. Heather Wilson's (R-NM) more moderate proposal to address the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, which they had once backed. In the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has not yet made up his mind on how to handle the open rebellion of three senators in the Armed Services Committee, who advanced a detainee treatment bill that's counter to White House wishes.

The result: a nettle of fights no Republican wanted to have over how to resolve serious differences within their party. And all just weeks before an election which could shove the GOP into dreaded minority status in one or both chambers of Congress.

For once, the Democrats aren't complaining about getting shut out of a debate over national security issues. "Look at the lineup for the morning talk shows this Sunday," one Democratic staffer told me happily this afternoon. "It's all Republicans!"

Read more »

It hasn't gotten much attention, but Bob Ney's guilty plea released today contained dirt on at least one other politician.

In the document, Ney fessed up to lobbying Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), then a Bush cabinet official, on behalf of an Abramoff client. The official's department later acted favorably toward Abramoff's client, according to news accounts.

Ney admitted to arranging a January, 2003 meeting with Mel Martinez, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, to "[advance] the interests of Abramoff's Native American Indian Tribal clients."

Ney told Martinez that his "number one priority as the newly installed Chairman of the Housing Subcommittee was Native American Indian Tribal housing," according to the plea.

Martinez has said he can't recall the meeting.

Read more »

We've been following the growing concern among senior senators that the White House pressured top military lawyers to weaken their opposition to the administration's torture policy.

Now, Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) are asking for an investigation.

Text of the letter after the jump.

Update: Here's an image of the letter.

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So Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) pled guilty. But is he cooperating?

I talked to Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who now runs the D.C.-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Ney's getting a pretty light sentence, she said -- but what's more, he's hardly giving anything up: There's no line in the plea agreement stating Ney would snitch to prosecutors on anyone but himself, unlike the earlier pleas of Jack Abramoff and others.

"It doesn't look like he's providing any cooperation," she said. "I don't think he could. I don't think he knows something."

Ney faces a maximum sentence of 10 years for the crimes he admitted. In return, prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence of 27 months.

"Bob Ney got off pretty easy," Sloan said. "He's getting a very light sentence. He could have gotten a lot more time."

But Sloan said she wasn't shocked Ney likely won't pull a long stretch in the pokey. "Considering that Duke Cunningham only ended up with 8 years, I'm not surprised. I don't think that what Ney did was as bad as Duke Cunningham – but in general I don’t think these guys get the punishment that they should."

Pointing out the many bribes Ney has admitted taking, Sloan suggested that Ney's slim sentence of two years might even "provide incentive for others to behave badly."

But what about the other misdeeds Ney confessed? Others have been implicated (though not yet indicted) for some of the same nefarious activities. They'd best watch out, Sloan said. In particular, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), whose staff, like Ney's, accepted free tickets from Abramoff, and who also has been reported as frequenting Abramoff's restaurant Signatures, "has a lot to worry about."

"The Jack Abramoff story is far from over," she said. "This is going to be going on for awhile."

According to lawyers for Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who has admitted to a slew of corrupt activities while in office, the congressman has already entered an alcohol rehabilitation facility. Via the Hotline, a statement from Mark H. Tuohey III and William E. Lawler III:

Congressman Ney accepts responsibility for his actions, and we hope that the treatment he has begun will enable him and his family to face the future in a healthy and productive way.

Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) statement on his guilty plea:

As shown in papers filed in court, I have reached an agreement to bring the government’s investigation of me to an end. The agreement will enable me to accept responsibility for what I have done, to start repairing the damage I have caused and to start healing my family.

I have made serious mistakes and am sorry for them. I am very sorry for the pain I have caused to my family, my constituents in Ohio and my colleagues.

I know that this plea agreement will probably forever change the way people view my public service. I regret this very much because I hope and believe that I have helped people through my work, and I hope that someday the good I have tried to do will be measured along side the mistakes I have made.

These have been difficult times, and I appreciate more than I can describe the support, encouragement and friendship that people from inside and outside my District have given to me and my family over the past months.

I have gone through a great deal of soul searching recently, and I have come to recognize that a dependence on alcohol has been a problem for me. I am not making any excuses, and I take full responsibility for my actions. Over the years, I have worked to help others, but now I am the one that needs help. I am seeking professional help for this problem I am hopeful that with counseling, time and the support of my family and friends, I will be able to deal with my dependency.

A release just out from the Justice Department states that Ney's is a two count plea, and he's pleading to bad doings beyond Jack Abramoff.

This section in particular caught my eye:

In his plea agreement, Ney also admitted to charges that he had accepted thousands of dollars worth of gambling chips from a foreign businessman. According to the documents filed today in court, in February 2003 and again in August 2003, Ney made two trips to London, during each of which he and members of his staff met with a foreign businessman who was hoping to sell U.S.-made airplanes and airplane parts in a foreign country. Ney agreed to help the businessman with obtaining an exemption to the U.S. laws prohibiting the sale of these goods to the foreign country, and Ney also agreed to help the businessman obtain a visa to travel to the United States. On February 21 and 22 and again on August 29, Ney and the staff members accompanying him each received thousands of dollars worth of gambling chips from the businessman for use at private casinos in London. As a result, Ney eventually pocketed more than $50,000. Ney admitted that he never returned any of the free chips to the businessman and never shared with the businessman any of the money he had won as a result of the free chips.

The whole release follows. We'll have the docs up soon.

Update: Although the charges to which Ney has pled amount to a 10 year max sentence, his cooperation has lowered that to 2 years, 3 months.

Update: Here are the facts that Ney is pleading to, which you can also read about below.

Read more »

CNN's running the following banner on their site:

Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements as part of a deal in which he will cooperate with an influence peddling investigation, the Justice Department said.

So he will cooperate. More soon.

TPM Reader DM:

pretty much everyone who pleads guilty does so as part of some sort of deal, so i wonder, what were the terms of the deal? more broadly, assuming there was a deal, i wonder what motivated the prosecutors to offer ney a deal.

prosecutors offer plea deals for any number of reasons – resources, strength of their case, etc. the conventional wisdom is that bribery is notoriously difficult to prove. so maybe the prosecutors gave ney a deal because they didn’t want to roll the dice at trial. but the state does have four cooperating witnesses as well as pretty compelling circumstantial evidence.

which leads me to wonder. do you think prosecutors gave ney a deal for other reasons? in particular, is it possible ney is cooperating as well? if so, who might be the target?

Again, to see what prosecutors had in their arsenal, here's our primer on Ney.

The Justice Department has announced that Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher will be making a statement on a "public corruption case" at 10:30 AM. Justin's headed down to attend. More soon.

So Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) -- once known to Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team as "our friend," now known to federal prosecutors as "Legislator #1" -- is finally pleading guilty this morning, according to news accounts.

We'll be all over the event and its repercussions like CNN on a blonde's disappearance. But first -- a look back, to our favorite moments with Bob Ney:

July 28, 2006: When federal prosecutors subpoena one of his aides, Ney suggests they're trying to throw his upcoming election. "[D]on’t you find it unusual that after 17 months that the Justice Department all of the sudden, 120 days before the election, subpoenas a staffer. They could have called him within the last 17 months. I’ll leave it right at that. I find it very unusual.” (Ney has since dropped out of the race.)

June 9, 2006: Ney angrily emails a reporter for his story about a junket Ney improperly reported. "Let me tell you paul-last week you did not call us for comment ‘you were under deadline.' . . . Print the same story-change it to reprint the same story-people in new philly – d’s and r’s call it ‘elk’s politics.’ . . . Please-please-print this paul-you don’t care about ohio-i am sick of your crap. You are a d c person who couldn’t find ohio unless we gave you a map. You don’t give two shoots about our people."

April 20, 2006: Ney spokesman Brian Walsh told us, "Frankly, it's an unfortunate commentary on the justice system that someone has to spend a lot of money simply to clear their name. . . . in what is in this case completely false allegations." (Walsh has retained his own counsel in the matter; he resigned from Ney's office in June.)

May 8, 2006: Again, Walsh: "[T]he congressman is more confident than ever that he will be vindicated in this matter. . . . the congressman will not under any circumstances plead guilty to a crime he did not commit" -- in retrospect, a rather clever denial -- "Congressman Ney has said from day one that he has done absolutely nothing illegal, improper or unethical."

Jan. 15, 2006: Facing a growing scandal and pressure from GOP leadership, Ney resigns his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee. "I want to assure my colleagues and my constituents that I have done absolutely nothing wrong and I am convinced that I will be vindicated completely at the end of this difficult process," he says defiantly.

"[O]nce these false allegations have been put to rest, and I have the full confidence that they will be, I look forward to resuming the chair for the rest of my appointed term and continuing the important work of the committee," Ney declared that day. Alas, his spot on that panel appears to be gone forever. But he'll always be the chairman of a small place in our hearts.

Bob -- Thanks for the memories.

Ney Expected to Plead Guilty Today
" Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal charges related to his dealings with the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, lawyers and others with knowledge of the investigation said Thursday.

A guilty plea would make Ney, a six-term congressman, the first member of Congress to confess to criminal charges in the Abramoff investigation, which has focused on the actions of several current and former Republican lawmakers who had been close to the former lobbyist." (NY Times News Service)

Read more »

The Washington Post confirms that the Pentagon general counsel spent several hours "cajoling" top military lawyers into weakening their opposition to a White House-backed detainee treatment proposal -- and at least one senator wants to hold a hearing on the incident:

[T]he [Judge Advocates General's] letter was signed only after an extraordinary round of negotiations Wednesday between the judge advocates and William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department's general counsel, according to Republican opponents of Bush's proposal. The military lawyers refused to sign a letter of endorsement. But after hours of cajoling, they assented to write that they "do not object," according to three Senate GOP sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were divulging private negotiations.

[Sen. Lindsey] Graham [R-SC], a former Air Force judge advocate general, promised to summon the lawyers to a committee hearing and to ask for an explanation of the circumstances surrounding the letter.

Comments by Sen. John Warner (R-VA) this afternoon fuel speculation over whether and how the Bush administration pressured JAGs to reverse position on torture, on the eve of a crucial vote -- and what his panel intends to do about it.

The Armed Services Committee chairman made the statements after his panel passed his bill to constrain the detention, interrogation and prosecution of terror suspects in U.S. custody, a blow to the White House's agenda. Emphasis added:

QUESTION: A lot of what you put together is based on testimony by and large from the JAG.

WARNER: Yes.

QUESTION: A letter was sent, though, that would seem to be counter to your position.

WARNER: On its face, that is true, but there are further aspects to that letter that the committee needs to explore, and we will do so.

QUESTION: Can you clarify what you mean by that...

WARNER: Beg your pardon?

QUESTION: Can you clarify what you mean by that; "further aspects of the letter that you want to explore"?

WARNER: No. It's just that a senator has information that needs to be brought to the attention of the committee as it reviews the letter from the JAG.

QUESTION: What is that information?

WARNER: Beg your pardon?

QUESTION: What is that information?

WARNER: Until I get it, I can't explain it.

More signs that Bob Perry's 527 venture is a force to be dealt with this election.

The Economic Freedom Fund (EFF) is behind robo calls in at least four states; that's in addition to heavy TV ad buys and mailers (more than $500,000 worth) that the group is funding in Iowa, Georgia, and West Virginia.

In Indiana, the group's calls attacked Baron Hill, the Democratic challenger to Rep. Mike Sodrel (R-IN). You can listen to an audio of the call here (courtesy of Taking Down Words), as captured by an Indiana man who makes it a practice to record calls from telemarketers. Indiana law bans automated phone calls, and Indiana's Attorney General says he'll investigate the case.

The caller begins by identifying himself as from "Data Research" with a "45 second public survey," and then launches in to a number of leading questions. At one point, the robo voice inquires, "Baron Hill voted to allow the sale of a broad range of violent and sexually explicit material to minors. Does knowing this make you less likely for Baron Hill?"

It's not clear which vote the robo voice is referring to, but Hill spokeswoman Abby Curran said that "Baron Hill does not support allowing the sale of such materials to minors, nor has he ever supported this."

The caller ended with "this survey was conducted by the Economic Freedom Fund."

It's a classic "push poll," a dirty campaign trick used to smear an opponent, not collect data. Notably, the caller fails to collect basic polling data about the subject (such as age and party affiliation) before launching into its questions.

Read more »

From The Cleveland Plain Dealer's blog:

Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney has agreed with the Justice Department to plead guilty to at least one criminal charge in a deal that could be announced as early as Friday, Capitol Hill sources said Thursday....

Capitol Hill sources close to Ney said the plea agreement was ready to be publicized on Thursday, but an announcement was delayed to avoid influencing a special election in Ney’s congressional district.

Stay tuned....

Update: For those of you who need reminding as to what Ney might be pleading guilty, here's a reminder.

Late Update: The AP reports:

The Republican officials said they were not certain whether Ney intended to admit guilt to more than one charge, or precisely what offense would be involved in any plea agreement. They said a prison sentence was not out of the question.

Two officials said Ney would admit to having filed a false disclosure report with the House of Representatives in connection with a 2002 golfing trip to Scotland that Abramoff paid for.

Yup, that trip to Scotland. The one that wasn't a junket.

More details emerge about the allegations that the White House pressured top military lawyers to drop their opposition to its favored torture legislation.

It's believed that William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon counsel who wrote the department's infamous 2002 policies endorsing physical and mental duress during interrogation of terror detainees, was the man who applied pressure to top JAGs of the four branches to sign away their disagreements in letters to key senators.

"Jim Haynes, who's the counsel at the Pentagon, convened this meeting and got these guys to write this letter and something they told people they didn't agree with," an unidentified reporter told White House spokesman Tony Snow in this afternoon's briefing.

"It's not the case," Snow replied. "They were asked to write a letter that reflected their views and they edited and signed the letter."

According to one Hill source, the allegation that Haynes pressured the JAGs came up in the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting today, with at least one senator suggesting a hearing devoted to the incident.

Haynes has a bad history with the JAGs -- and with the Senate.

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AFP reports:

A US Senate panel rejected President George W. Bush's plan to relax standards on treatment of terror suspects, instead backing a substitute plan offering greater rights protections to "war on terror" detainees.

In a stinging rebuke to the US president, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 15 to nine in favor of a bill drafted by Republican chairman John Warner.

"Stinging" rebuke. Get it? Torture humor.

More on the Electronic Freedom Fund, the new deep-pocketed conservative 527 on the scene.

The group works exclusively with a two-year-old California consulting firm called Meridian Pacific, which, in further testament to its GOP bonafides, is headed by a onetime senior Republican National Committee official.

John Peschong joined Meridian Pacific in 2005, after seven years as the Western States Director for the RNC. Meridian Pacific recently handled a half-million-dollar series of television and print buys for the Economic Freedom Fund, a right-wing "527" group.

As a so-called 527 group, EFF is barred from coordinating its activities with specific parties or candidates. Peschong did not immediately return a phone message asking about his involvement with the group's activities.

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In the battle over torture and detainee treatment, did the White House engage in some "coercive techniques" of its own -- against top military justice officials?

Earlier, Justin noted the White House's desperation to pass a bill codifying the treatment of detainees.

A few days ago, however, the Pentagon's top military justice officials made that tougher -- by testifying as a group against the legislation the White House has been pushing for.

But this morning, the White House released a terse, two-paragraph letter from the JAG Corps leaders stating qualified support for the White House's legislation. But now some are suggesting that joint statement was coerced.

During Tony Snow's press conference today, Bret Baier of Fox News, referring to an earlier statement by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), asked Snow whether the White House, over the course of a five hour closed door meeting, tried to force officers from the Judge Advocate General Corps to sign a prepared statement supporting the White House's legislation. As we've noted before, JAGs have consistently argued that defendants must be able to see the evidence used against them; and the White House has found them a troublesome opponent.

Here's the clip:

Update: We've added the JAGs' letter to our document collection.

The man who bankrolled the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth just put $5 million behind a new 527 this campaign, according to new FEC filings.

Although only a month old, the "Economic Freedom Fund" has already been very active, dropping half a million bucks on negative TV ads against Democratic incumbents Reps. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) and Jim Marshall (D-GA). You can see the ads here.

Bob Perry the millionaire homebuilder from Houston, Texas behind EFF, has some of the deepest pockets in the GOP. He dumped nearly $8.1 million into 527 organizations in the 2004 elections, most of which ($4.45 million) went to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, where he was the single largest donor. Perry also donated $3 million to Progress for America Voter Fund, a so-called "527" group that raised more than $38 million that cycle.

527 organizations, of course, are ideal for deploying negative ads, since they are are not officially allied with parties or candidates. The organizations are tax-exempt, and unlike parties or candidates, can accept unlimited soft money contributions.

EFF says its aim is just to "Promote policies and issues favoring economic freedom, growth and prosperity of the economy, to the benefit of the people of the United States." But its early activities show it's up to much more than that. And the group's relative anonymity -- only one person is officially allied with the group, Charles H. Bell Jr., a lawyer from California -- means they can attack with abandon. (Bell also happens to be the General Counsel for the California Republican Party.)

Perry's $5 million puts EFF securely in the top ten biggest 527s this cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics Massie Ritsch -- alongside biggies like The Club for Growth.

More soon....

Update: We'll have the FEC filings up soon in our document collection.

Late Update: Here they are.

What happens when the vaunted discipline of GOP lawmakers breaks down on the eve of a crucial election? Chaos.

With less than three weeks left in this session of Congress, the White House has mounted an unusual full-court press on House and Senate Republicans to get its most dubious intelligence programs under some veil of legitimacy. But the unity they once found among the Capitol Hill GOP -- especially on national security matters -- is gone.

Vice president Cheney made a rare visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday; President Bush made an even rarer appearance before Hill GOP today. Former British PM Margaret Thatcher has even joined in the push. But their legislative agenda has all but disappeared in a furball of competing bills, parliamentary maneuvers, head-spinning position shifts and plain old dissent. And it's almost entirely Republicans turning on their own.

In the Senate, Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner (R-VA) is ignoring White House concerns over detainee treatment, and introducing his own bill -- backed by two other Republicans -- that would put up tougher restrictions on how prisoners were interrogated and prosecuted.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has a White House-friendly bill on the same issue.

Read more »

Sound familiar? From Reuters:

U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest", according to a letter obtained by Reuters.

The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.

Sent to the head of the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence by a senior aide to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the letter said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's activity.

The letter said the errors suggested Iran's nuclear fuel program was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments have determined.

Update: More from The Washington Post:

Privately, several [U.S.] intelligence officials said the committee report included at least a dozen claims that were either demonstrably wrong or impossible to substantiate. [The office of Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee] said the report was reviewed by the office of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.

'Anything Goes' at Interior Department
"Earl Devaney, the inspector general of the Department of the Interior, will give a blunt assessment of the level of ethics there in testimony to be presented to a congressional subcommittee Wednesday.

"'Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior,' Devaney will tell the subcommittee, according to an advance copy of his prepared remarks obtained by ABC News.

"Devaney was asked to investigate a controversy that's been brewing on Capitol Hill for months over what critics call a giant giveaway to the major oil companies.

"The giveaway, according to the critics, stems from leases issued by the government to oil companies in the late 1990s that exempted them from paying royalties on deepwater drilling, regardless of how much profit they ultimately reaped from that exploration." (ABC News, AP)

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Muckrakers, rejoice! The Coburn-Obama database bill passed the House by voice vote this evening and will likely soon become law.

By next year, the public should have a public, searchable website that in one place tracks the approximately $300 billion in grants that the federal government doles out to roughly 30,000 different organizations each year, in addition to the roughly one million contracts that exceed the $25,000 reporting threshold.

The bill now simply needs the President's siganture. That seems likely, as Bush applauded the bill's passage in a statement this evening.

It's 3 PM, do you know where your representative is?

If not, you should. As Justin wrote in May, "This year, the average working American will show up for work about 150 days more than his or her congressperson." Just what are they doing up there? We don't know.

So the Sunlight Foundation is organizing a push to get members of Congress to put their daily, work-related schedules on the internet.

But it gets better. If you're able to get a lawmaker to sign their "Punch Clock Agreement," you get a $1,000 "goodwill bounty." And it's $250 for a candidate.

Details here. Happy hunting.

In 2004, Washington Post editor Bob Woodward reported that the Saudis had promised the Bush administration they would lower oil prices to help his re-election bid.

As many folks have noticed, gas prices have dropped in recent weeks. Is a pre-election conspiracy to prop up the GOP to blame?

George Orwel, author of the 2006 book "Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors," and an analyst with the industry news outfit Energy Intelligence, said he doesn't believe so.

For one thing, Orwel said, OPEC representatives just met and didn't change their production quota, currently 28 million barrels a day. That's at least a million barrels a day shy of their maximum capacity, according to Orwel.

Read more »

Oops. Something tells me that Georgia voters will be hearing a lot of this over the next two months.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) has recently been nagged by a trickle of muckraking stories related to his real estate deals in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution, the most damaging of which was a column two weeks ago by Jay Bookman. The piece told how in 2005, Georgia legislators "quietly smuggled language into an otherwise routine tax bill that gave one particular Georgia taxpayer a special tax deferral worth more than $100,000." The taxpayer was, of course, Sonny Perdue, "who signed the bill into law on April 12, 2005, and shortly thereafter signed his state tax return taking advantage of that special legislation."

Flash forward to yesterday afternoon, when Perdue was a guest on the talk show "The Right Side with Shelley Wynter." A caller identifying himself as "Brian" gets the chance to ask a question [transcript from the AJC's "Political Insider" column]:

Brian: “Hello, Governor, I’m a big fan of yours.”

Sonny Perdue: “Thanks, Brian.”

Brian: “I’d like to think I’m a lot like you. I just graduated from UGA [University of Georgia] and recently married my high school sweetheart.”

Sonny Perdue: “All right. I hope you make it 34 years like we have.”

Brian: “Well, that’s my goal, Governor. The one thing I haven’t been able to do is find a way to have a friend of mine write me a bill that saves me a $100,000 on my taxes. I was wondering how I might be able to get that done.”

Sonny Perdue: “Well, you get elected governor, Brian. I appreciate your question. That was really nice. I appreciate you being a fan, and i wish you well on your honeymoon.”

The most recent poll shows Democratic candidate Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor trailing by about fifteen points. I wonder if this will make a difference?

Update: Audio is available here.

Update: The AP picks it up.

Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) is unlikely to be indicted before Election Day.

That's not due to weakness in the Justice Department's case -- documents from the investigation show that the government has a wealth of evidence based on surveillance, an FBI informant's taping of conversations, and the testimony of two men who've pled guilty to bribing Jefferson. Prosecutors are reportedly very close to an indictment. Rather, the case is bogged down in litigation resulting from the FBI's raid of Jefferson's congressional office.

Sources close to the case tell Roll Call's John Bresnahan that the DoJ is unlikely to indict Jefferson without the documents seized from his office. They're still waiting to get those. A judge ruled in July that Jefferson must see them first; he gets a chance to contest certain materials being handed over based on his constitutional privilege. At issue is whether the docs qualify as legislative materials under the Speech or Debate Clause. The whole process is likely to go on through October, meaning Jefferson won't be forced to campaign under federal indictment.

Jefferson's district is heavily Democratic, but his weakness from the damning revelations of the feds' investigation has inspired a dozen candidates to enter the race, eight of them Dems. If nobody gets a majority on Election Day, there will be a December runoff.

Our item yesterday on White House speechwriter/Iraq war salesman Michael Gerson landing an op-ed gig with the Washington Post stirred up some memories for Arthur Woodstone, author of the 1972 book, "Inside Nixon's Head." He writes:

The Washington Post's hiring of Michael Gerson recalls 1972, when the New York Times also recruited a hired gun away from a Republican White House.

When Bill Safire, in charge of putting words in Spiro Agnew's mouth, was handed a column in the Times, ranking members of the Times editorial staff were outraged. A flack with virtually no experience as a journalist was being handed precious column inches on their editorial pages.

The revered columnist, Harrison Salisbury, shared a belief with other high-ranking Times staffers that Punch Sulzberger, publisher of the Times, had hired the flack who had authored "nattering nabobs of negativism," only to placate Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell who, at that moment in history, were threatening the very existence of the New York Times.

While the threats may have been largely empty, it seems they frightened Sulzberger just the same. While Safire turned out to be a pretty fair reporter, that did not alter the ethically impoverished motive behind his hiring.

Sound familiar?

Currently, the White House is campaigning to curtail the freedom of major outlets to report news that displeases Bush and his own bully boys. Is that what drives the Post's decision-makers to give another flack for right-wing thought precious editorial space in their newspaper?

House Panel At Odds over Duke Cunningham
"The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee are at an impasse over whether to subpoena jailed former Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham as part of an investigation into Cunningham's actions on the committee, the panel's top Democrat said Tuesday.

"The disagreement threatens to end chances for a bipartisan resolution to the investigation, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"Harman and Hoekstra also have been unable to agree on releasing the unclassified versions of the report by an outside investigator hired to look into Cunningham's committee actions. Harman supports releasing the unclassified report by investigator Michael Stern." (AP)

Read more »

Coingate felon and Bush fundraising Pioneer Tom Noe was sentenced to two years, three months in prison today for illegally funneling $45,400 to Bush's 2004 reelection campaign.

But that's not all. Noe still faces state criminal charges for allegedly embezzling $1 million and laundering more than $2 million from a $50 million rare-coin investment that he managed for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation. That trial is due to start next month.

A federal judge denied an appeal from former White House appointee David Safavian, who was convicted in June of four felony counts arising from the Jack Abramoff scandal.

"This Court concludes that there are no grounds for granting either defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal on any of the counts for which he was convicted," wrote Judge Paul Friedman, "or his motion for a new trial."

Safavian is scheduled for sentencing next month.

The big story in the New York Times' Sept. 8, 2002 edition was headlined, "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts."

That infamous article, by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, told the now-debunked tales of Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, through the voices of lying Iraqi defectors and anonymous quotes by Bush administration officials.

Most folks who read it probably can't recall the details of the article. But few have forgotten one comment from an unnamed "hard-liner" administration official, parahprased by the reporters:

The first sign of a 'smoking gun,' they argue, may be a mushroom cloud.

It was memorable then for being such a clever and powerful turn of phrase. It's memorable now because we know it was baseless -- yet oft-repeated. And it's important to remember at this moment because the man who wrote it, Michael Gerson, just got himself a regular column in the Washington Post. (Gerson's authorship of the "smoking gun" line was reported by Michael Isikoff and David Corn in their new book, "Hubris.")

With no apparent sense of irony, the Post announced on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that Gerson -- one of the men who worked hardest to dishonestly connect al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein in the public mind, and launch an invasion of Iraq based on the horrible events of that day -- will join its op-ed team.

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Mucked-up Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) may be in more trouble than he thinks. A poll released today by Democrat Charlie Brown's campaign shows the two in a statistical dead heat. The poll -- the first to be made public in the race -- of 400 likely 4th District voters was conducted (August 29-31) by Benenson Strategy Group for Brown and shows Doolittle leading 41-39 with a margin of error of 4.9 percent.

Despite Doolittle's connections to the Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals, the conventional wisdom had Doolittle taking the district easily. CQ Politics rates the race "Safe Republican," and the Cook Political Report has Doolittle as the likely winner. But this poll, although partisan, are the only numbers made public so far.

So Doolittle may have a real fight on his hands. And the conventional wisdom that the drip-drip of muck stories (Abramoff called Doolittle his "hero"; Doolittle paid his babysitters out of his campaign funds; Doolittle's wife takes a cut of most big campaign donations) aren't having an effect on his campaign might just be wrong.

Perhaps most strikingly, the poll showed Doolittle, in a heavily Republican district, with just 42% of voters viewing him favorably, and 44% unfavorably. That put him behind other Republican leaders, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (69% favorable) and President George W. Bush (54% favorable).

Although Brown has plenty of fodder to run a campaign based on charges of Doolittle's corruption (see the full accounting here), he's also been running as an opponent of the Iraq War, where his son is serving as an Air Force captain. The poll showed that Iraq was the most important issue for voters.

Update: We'll be posting the full details of the poll soon.

Update: Here they are.

That was fast. The Coburn-Obama database bill will be introduced in the House tomorrow, according to Majority Whip Roy Blunt's office, and is expected to easily pass. From there, it will head to the President's desk. Then, it's up to him.

The bill slightly amends the Coburn-Obama bill, which passed the Senate last Thursday by unanimous consent, with "minor" compromises, according to Coburn's office -- the end product will be a public, searchable website listing all recipients of federal financial assistance such as loans and grants as well as all contracts over the $25,000 reporting threshold.

Beaten in Primary, Lieberman Turns to Lobbyists for Help
"Sen. Joe Lieberman (?-Conn.) increasingly has been relying on Washington, D.C., lobbyists — Republicans as well as Democrats — to help him hang on to his seat.

"Though it won’t be known until mid-October how much money Lieberman has or will have raised from Republicans since his August primary loss, GOP lobbyists clearly are eager to help him.

"Take, for example, an invitation to an upcoming Lieberman fundraiser circulated by Ruth Ravitz Smith, a GOP lobbyist at Brown Rudnick.

"'I hope that you will join me in demonstrating your support for Senator Lieberman’s campaign for the US Senate,' Smith wrote in the e-mail. 'This will be the only major event for the Senator in Washington this fall. Please help spread the word to colleagues, clients and friends.'

"Democratic lobbyists seem just as eager to help out with the event, which is scheduled for Sept. 26 at the Phoenix Park Hotel on Capitol Hill. (The suggested price of admission is $1,000 per person and $2,500 per political action committee contribution.) " (Roll Call) (sub. req'd.)

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We've noted the desperate straits that the Republicans in Texas' 22nd District find themselves in before. How can they possibly achieve the almost unprecedented feat of winning with a write-in candidate? And one with a hyphenated name at that?

The Los Angeles Times has the answer: song.

At a campaign stop last week, congressional candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs asked a group of women who own businesses to vote for her twice in November: once in a special election to fill the unexpired term of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and again in the general election as the Republican write-in candidate running for the full two-year term.

The women, meeting for breakfast in a hotel banquet room, looked up from their scrambled eggs as Sekula-Gibbs launched into a jingle to drive home the point: "Vote twice for Shelley," she sang to the tune of "Roll Out the Barrel." "Special and then write her in."

Hmm... Under most circumstances, I'd say that "Vote twice for Shelley" is an unwise campaign slogan.

We seem to begin a number of our posts about Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) with phrases like "[his] case just got even uglier" and "This does not bode well for [him]." Oh well, here's another.

In another bad omen of Rep. Jefferson's fate, businessman Vernon Jackson was sentenced (sub. req.) to seven years in prison Friday on bribery charges. If this is the penalty for someone who pleads guilty and cooperates with prosecutors, what can Jefferson, who's refused to admit wrongdoing, expect?

Despite Jackson's cooperation, the judge was not moved to mercy, calling "public corruption" the "worst kind of a virulent and malignant cancer." He said pretty much the same thing when he sentenced Brett Pfeffer, another conspirator in the Jefferson case, to eight years in prison.

Jefferson, remember, is cruising to indictment on a slew of bribery-related charges including bribery and bribery of a foreign official. Jackson's sentence is just another sign that should Jefferson be convicted, he'll most likely shatter the record for longest sentence given a congressman, currently held by Duke Cunningham (8 years, 4 months).

Jackson admitted to funneling more than $400,000 to the congressman through a company owned by Jefferson's wife and children. In return, Jefferson allegedly helped Jackson "obtain telecommunications contracts from the U.S. Army and several African nations, including Nigeria and Ghana," according to Roll Call.

Update: I have to add that Jackson had apparently intended to retire from the telecom business and join the ministry before he got tangled up in a federal bribery investigation.

In Tennessee, a new development in a three-year-old lawsuit may force new revelations out of the state's GOP Senate candidate, just weeks before the November election.

A judge today required Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker to testify and provide documents in response to a subpoena from a group of environmental activists with Democratic ties, who have filed suit over the former Chattanooga mayor's involvement in a questionable land development deal. Typically, such documents and testimony are public.

The judge ordered the information shared on Oct. 20 -- just three weeks before Tennessee voters are to decide whether he or Democrat Harold Ford Jr. will represent them in Congress. The two candidates are in a statistical dead heat, according to a new Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll.

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On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, some are taking a closer look at the record of a man whose reputation enjoyed the biggest -- and most prolonged -- boost from his response to those horrible events: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

At the time, he was America's hero. As Time magazine wrote in its 2001 Man of the Year portrait:

When the day of infamy came, Giuliani seized it as if he had been waiting for it all of his life. . . . Improvising on the fly, he became 'America's homeland security boss". . . He was the gutsy decision maker, balancing security against symbolism, overruling those who wanted to keep the city buttoned up tight, pushing key institutions--from the New York Stock Exchange to Major League Baseball--to reopen. . . He was the crisis manager, bringing together scores of major players from city, state and federal governments for marathon daily meetings that got everyone working together.

But what journalists are finding today doesn't jibe with those sentiments. And it casts doubt on whether Giuliani's reputation as a strong and able leader was honestly earned by his performance during and after the attacks. Not the kind of news you want to hear if, like Giuliani, you aspire to the White House and you're the GOP frontrunner in recent 2008 presidential polls.

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Very impressive, Illinois. Last week, the former governor, George Ryan (R), was sentenced to six plus years in prison on corruption charges. And now, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (yep, that Patrick Fitzgerald) is investigating current governor Rod Blagojevich (D) for "endemic hiring fraud" (i.e. cronyism). The muck is flying fast.

Sunday's Chicago Tribune has the latest of what is turning into a very messy investigation:

The FBI is investigating allegations by the wife of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's former campaign treasurer that her state job may have come in return for a $1,500 personal check her husband wrote to one of Blagojevich's children....

The governor's office released a statement Friday saying the check was a gift for his daughter's 7th birthday from the governor's best friend and any suggestion otherwise is "simply ludicrous."

"It is an outrage that we even have to answer this question," the statement said.

Yes, you read that right. A $1,500 check to a seven year-old girl. Continuing...

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So the White House appointee who's in charge of protecting government whistleblowers abruptly canceled last week's "Whistleblower of the Year" award ceremony, the WPost reports today.

The award was to go to a prison safety manager, Leroy Smith, who jeopardized his health, his marriage and his job in order to alert officials that dangerous toxins were poisoning workers and inmates at a California facility.

So why did the appointee, Office of Special Counsel (OSC) chief Scott Bloch, pull the plug on the event? Bloch says the sudden death of an employee's relative caused it. But OSC staffers say that's B.S.:

Bloch scuttled Smith's fete, these employees believe, because he got wind of Smith's plan to take his award and head over to a news conference with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Smith and the watchdog group -- which has criticized Bloch in the past -- planned to blast a whistle-blower investigation process that they believe is so lengthy, uncertain and short on employee protections that would-be whistle-blowers might decide it's not worth it.

Bloch's gotten attention in the past for behavior that seems counter to his purported mission. For instance, he gagged OSC employees from talking with whistleblowers whose complaints were incomplete or unclear, according to the D.C.-based watchdog group Project on Government Oversight. Those cases, he ordered, should simply be dismissed.

Last year, he was accused of "purging" 20 percent of his office's staff -- career lawyers and investigators who had spent years developing an expertise in working with whistleblowers.

Following that move, Bloch found his office so short-handed he considered using summer interns to investigate and process stacks of whistleblower complaints, POGO says. How's that for fighting waste, fraud and abuse of power in the federal government?

CIA Operatives Sign Up for Torture Insurance
"CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program.

"The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They worry that they will not have Justice Department representation in court or congressional inquiries, the officials said." (WPost)

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The LA Times reports:

Halliburton Co. executives ordered a big-screen television and 10 large tubs of tacos, chicken wings and cheese sticks delivered to Iraq for last year's Super Bowl, then billed U.S. taxpayers for their party, according to a lawsuit unsealed Friday.

The Houston-based company also defrauded the government by double- and triple-billing for Internet, food and gym services for soldiers, according to the lawsuit by a former employee for KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary that runs dining halls for troops in Iraq.

Just to be clear: American taxpayers paid for Halliburton executives in Iraq to watch the Super Bowl on a big-screen TV. And eat their favorite comfort foods.

Perhaps more alarming, the LATimes story says that the lawsuit which brought this little fiesta to light is just one of "several dozen" that have been filed by U.S. citizens, all charging companies with war profiteering in Iraq.

The details of the other cases are being kept from the public until the Justice Department decides whether it wants to be join the suit against the alleged war profiteers. Such cases can be kept secret almost indefinitely as long as the Justice Department claims it can't make up its mind -- which means taxpayers could wait months or years before hearing stories like the Halliburton Super Bowl party.