J. Steven Griles, formerly the #2 at the Interior Department, has hired Washington D.C. attorney and political ethics expert Stanley J. Brand, reports Peter Stone of National Journal (not available online).

Griles, who was evidently Abramoff's inside man at the department -- and who may have lied to Congress to cover this up -- has been told by prosecutors that he is a target of the Jack Abramoff investigation. He's hired Brand, Stone reports, "in case Griles goes to trial." Griles already has another lawyer, Barry Hartman of K&L Gates.

In case? "Some lawyers believe that Griles may cut a plea deal," Stone gingerly notes.

Brand, an expert on congressional ethics, is on speed dial for most Washington reporters -- and the Abramoff scandal has been no exception.

In fact, he's already gone on record with his opinion of the affair: "When this is all over, this will be bigger than any [government scandal] in the last 50 years, both in the amount of people involved and the breadth to it... It will include high-ranking members of Congress and executive branch officials." So now Brand is finally getting a piece of the action.

This development leaves a gaping question for the Washington press corps: who are they going to call for comment if they have an Abramoff story now?

Jane Ann Morison of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, yesterday:

A GOP source said [Sen. John Ensign (R-NV}] was told that the decision to remove U.S. attorneys, primarily in the West, was part of a plan to "give somebody else that experience" to build up the back bench of Republicans by giving them high-profile jobs.

The White House is working with New Mexico's home-state GOP senator to pick its next U.S. attorney for that state, and is expected to submit their candidate for Senate approval, instead of unilaterally appointing him to an indefinite "interim" term.

"Yes," Matt Letourneau, a spokesman for New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici (R), told me when I asked him if his boss expected the White House to follow the official nomination process. "In our case there will not be an interim U.S. Attorney." He confirmed that the White House had asked Domenici to provide a list of names to consider for the position.

What's more, he said he expected the White House to follow Domenici's advice in selecting his state's next top prosecutor, instead of their own favorite. "They will nominate one of the four" candidates Domenici submitted, Letourneau said. "They didn't guarantee us, but we have no reason to think they won't."

It's a tenet of American justice that you have the right to face your accuser. But for several years, L. Paul Bremer -- the Bush administration's first point man in Iraq -- has avoided precisely that.

That may change in a couple weeks, in a hearing before the House Government Reform Committee, led by its new Democratic chairman Henry Waxman (CA).

During his time as head of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, Bremer was stalked by the United States' top fraud-buster in Iraq, Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The two were like the cartoon Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote: Bowen -- Mr. Coyote -- would come after Bremer with ever more devastating reports of fraud, mismanagement, abuse and utter chaos within Bremer's operations; yet Bremer had a road-runner-like ability to escape every time. Indeed, he walked away with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Department of Defense award for Distinguished Public Service, and even the Nixon Library's "Victory of Freedom Award."

Both men have testified before Congress, but never at the same hearing, a fact confirmed for me by Bowen's press aide, Christine Belisle. That could soon change: Waxman has "invited" the two men to testify at a Feb. 6 hearing on a lingering issue from Bremer's tenure: how nearly $9 billion in reconstruction funds went missing -- or in audit-speak, was "disbursed. . . without accountability."

Bowen's spokeswoman assures me the inspector general will testify at Waxman's hearing. Mr. Bremer? Are you ready for your close-up?

Update: We've tried to reach Bremer through his speaking agent. If we hear anything we'll let you know.

There are hints that suggest the Bush administration might not fill all its forcibly-vacated U.S. Attorney slots by bypassing the traditional congressional approval process.

The unusual appointment of an unqualified Republican partisan to an Arkansas U.S. Attorney post has been held up by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and others to justify their concern over the administration's recent ousting of several top federal prosecutors.

Just look at the case of Tim Griffin, they say -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made the former Republican National Committee oppo research chief the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Congress -- which normally must confirm such appointments -- won't do a damn thing about it.

But in at least one other case, there may be an indication that the White House could submit its nominee to congressional scrutiny.

For the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Attorney posts in New Mexico the state's GOP senator has suggested replacements. In Griffin's case, the Arkansas delegation played no role in his selection.

Read more »

With a federal judge's order to serve 30 months in a minimum security prison, former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) has received the longest sentence to date in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

He doesn't face much competition -- yet. Only one other figure has been sent to do time, former White House official David Safavian. He was sentenced to 18 months for four counts relating to obstructing the Abramoff investigation. (He's currently living at home, pending appeals.) Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, was recently sentenced to 24 months' probation for accepting illegal gifts from Abramoff.

Of course, Ney won't hold the record for long. When Abramoff and his key co-consipirators are sentenced, they will likely receive several years apiece. Their sentencings have been delayed because they have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

When he's told them everything, prosecutors are expected to recommend a sentence of between 9 1/2 and 11 years for the disgraced GOP superlobbyist himself. Abramoff business partner and confidante Michael Scanlon faces five years in prison and millions in fines once he tells all; former lobbyist (and onetime Ney chief of staff) Neil Volz could also face five years, though he'll likely get far less. Tony Rudy, another former Abramoff associate, will likely face a sentence of two to two-and-a-half years, depending on his cooperation.

Admin Official Gave No-Bid Contract to Friend's Company
"The chief of the U.S. General Services Administration attempted to give a no-bid contract to a company founded and operated by a longtime friend, sidestepping federal laws and regulations." (The Washington Post)

Read more »

A judge has just sentenced Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) to 30 months. Prosecutors had recommended a 29 month sentence.

According to Fox News, the judge is sending him to a federal prison in Morgantown, West Virginia.

More soon.

Update: From the AP:

When he is released, the judge said, Ney will serve another two years on probation and pay a $6,000 fine. She also ordered him into a prison alcohol rehabilitation program for treatment of a drinking problem he has acknowledged in recent months.

The sentence was harsher than recommended by prosecutors or Ney's lawyers, Huvelle said, because Ney had violated the trust place on him as a public official. "Both your constituents and the public trusted you to represent them honestly," she said.

Last week, the Chinese sent a missile up into orbit and obliterated an old satellite of theirs, creating a speeding debris cloud that will threaten other satellites for years.

Why'd they do that? As The New York Times reports, the Bush administration has been working on a "a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would be used against enemy satellites." And they don't want to give it up:

In late August, President Bush authorized a new national space policy that ignored calls for a global prohibition on such tests. The policy said the United States would “preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space” and “dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so.” It declared the United States would “deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests.”

The Chinese test “could be a shot across the bow,” said Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, a private group in Washington that tracks military programs. “For several years, the Russians and Chinese have been trying to push a treaty to ban space weapons. The concept of exhibiting a hard-power capability to bring somebody to the negotiating table is a classic cold war technique.”

Ah, it's like 1986 all over again.

Times are bad for Brent Wilkes, one of the two defense contractors ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) fingered for bribery in his plea deal.

According to a notice in a local paper in Poway, California, his mortgage company is putting his 99,000 square-foot corporate headquarters on the chopping block to collect unpaid debt. If Wilkes doesn't pay up, the property will be sold February 1st.

Wilkes was once a millionaire -- based on his success convincing Cunningham and other lawmakers to obtain federal funds for his many companies. But his business dried up after Cunningham pled guilty. He reportedly owes hundreds of thousands in property taxes, though somehow, he's found the money to pay a big-time criminal defense lawyer.

So, anybody in the market for a corporate palace (shown at right, during happier times)? If nothing else, it's a building with history. Ah, the fundraisers. Ah, the raids.

Ed. Note: Thanks to TPMm Reader CC for the tip.

Journalist Ellen Ratner, writing on Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) behalf to the judge who will sentence him, reports on her conversations with the "many" lawmakers who "would like to support former Congressman Ney, but because of the political climate in Washington, they dare not."

One jewel in particular (read the full letter here):

One of the members I spoke with told me how much then-Congressmen Ney had cared, and how other members of Congress had done far worse things. That member told me that those members are getting off with fines and so forth, but Congressman Ney did not act in lockstep. His voting in congress angered the powers that be in the majority, and he is paying for it unfairly. [Her emphasis]

Hard to know where to start here. But I'll settle with the image of Ney stuffing his pockets with gambling chips in a London casino, a bribe from a Syrian businessman known as "The Fat Man."

From the AP:

The Pentagon has drafted a manual for upcoming detainee trials that would allow suspected terrorists to be convicted on hearsay evidence and coerced testimony and imprisoned or put to death.

The Bush administration has refused to release any part of the order issued yesterday by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing NSA surveillance within the United States, saying doing so would risk exposing operational details.

It's not a consensus opinion: The presiding judge of the court says that if it were up to her, she saw no problem with sharing the order with Congress. But since the order contains "classified information," she says that it's up to the Attorney General to give the green light.

The letter was in response to a letter Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-PA) sent yesterday asking for copies of the order.

The AP has more.

It looks like J. Steven Griles, formerly the #2 at the Interior Department is a full-time target now.

The Washington Post reported last week that Justice Department prosecutors had notified him that he was a target of the Jack Abramoff investigation -- usually a sign that an indictment is coming down the pike -- and now Legal Times reports that he left his lobbying gig the same day. His firm's website is also down (though maybe it's just a coincidence); Griles was one of three partners at the firm.

The Times adds: "A source with knowledge of the investigation says prosecutors are exploring whether to charge Griles with lying to Congress and honest-services fraud." It would seem to be just a matter of time.

From The Plain Dealer:

Attorneys for former Ohio GOP Rep. Bob Ney today submitted 95 pages of letters from Ney's friends, family, and former staffers urging leniency for the disgraced congressman and citing the role of alcohol in his fall.

Ney's lawyer, Mark Tuohey, submitted the letters to make the case that Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle should send Ney to a residential drug abuse treatment program when she sentences him tomorrow on charges of conspiracy and making false statements.

"Bob was a functioning alcoholic who could rarely make it through the day without drinking and would often begin drinking beers as early as 7:30 a.m.," said a letter from his former staffer and campaign manager Matthew Parker.

At an oversight hearing this morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the sudden departure of several U.S. Attorneys at the administration's request.

"How many U.S. Attorneys have been asked to resign in the past year?" Feinstein asked Gonzales.

"You're asking me to get into a public discussion" of personnel issues, Gonzales replied.

"I'm asking you to give me a number."

"I don't know the answer to that question," said Gonzales.

"You didn't know the answer when we spoke on Tuesday, but you said you would find out," Feinstein pressed.

Read more »

Conservative activists have been screaming bloody murder about a provision in the Senate ethics bill that would require grassroots groups to report on their fundraising activities. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who previously had championed a similar measure, has heard their call and is switching his position on the matter.

So-called "grassroots" groups spend millions of unregulated dollars trying to change public opinion each year -- money that often comes not from individuals but from corporate coffers. McCain, as The Hill reports, "sponsored legislation last Congress that included an even broader requirement for grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors."

But conservative figures as powerful as Richard Viguerie and James Dobson have weighed in hard on the measure in the current bill. Viguerie is calling it "the biggest threat to free speech ever," and Dobson's Focus on the Family is circulating a petition against it.

Now, as The Hill reports, McCain, who recently said he wanted to have a "dialogue" with Dobson, "has told conservative activists that he will vote to strip a key provision on grassroots lobbying from the reform package he previously supported."

Lubrigate: Interior Dept. Gaffe Led to Billions Lost
"A top Interior Department official was told nearly three years ago about a legal blunder that allowed drilling companies to avoid billions of dollars in payments for oil and gas pumped from publicly owned waters, a report by the department’s chief independent investigator has found." (The New York Times)

Read more »

It's hard to make news that actually takes information away. But a day after the Attorney General announced that the Bush administration has decided to try to bring the NSA domestic spying program within the boundaries of U.S. law, he appears to have sucked information out of the air around the operation.

Did a court give a blanket OK to the program? Or did they approve surveillance against a single target, or group? How does the approval process work? How often does the NSA need to get approval? Who in Congress has been told, and how will they be kept informed? And -- is it really legal?

In a conference call with reporters yesterday afternoon, Justice Department officials demonstrated how little information they're actually making available about what has or has not changed. As the New York Times reports:

Justice Department officials said that the FISA court orders, which were not made public, were not a broad approval of the surveillance program as a whole, an idea that was proposed last year in Congressional debate over the program. They strongly suggested that the orders secured from the court were for individual targets, but they refused to provide details of the process used to identify targets — or how court approval had been expedited — because they said it remained classified. The senior Justice Department official said that discussing “the mechanics of the orders” could compromise intelligence activities.

Justice Department officials would not describe whether the court had agreed to new procedures to streamline the process of issuing orders or accepted new standards to make it easier for the government to get approval to monitor suspect e-mail and phone communications.

Clear as mud.

Moreover, there's reason to wonder whether the announcement was entirely true.

Read more »

The Senate Judiciary Committee's oversight hearing is set to begin in a few moments, featuring testimony from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

His surprise announcement that the administration's domestic wiretapping program would now receive some form of FISA court approval will surely be a topic of discussion. But Roll Call today reports (sub. req.) that key Democrats aren't dropping the issue of why so many U.S. Attorneys are being fired and replaced with administration appointees:

. . . [I]n what promises to be one of many showdowns between Congressional Democrats and the Bush administration, [Sens. Patrick] Leahy ([D-VT)] and [Dianne] Feinstein [(D-CA)] intend to grill Gonzales on the issue at a Judiciary Committee hearing today. Several Judiciary Democrats, who met Wednesday to plot strategy and discuss scheduling, said they were concerned about the appearance of undue political influence on the legal process.

“As a former prosecutor, I can’t believe they would give more power to the administration to interfere with prosecutions,” Leahy stated.

Added Maryland Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin: “I think the independence of the U.S. attorney’s office is something of major concern” to committee Democrats.

Update: You can watch the hearing live via webcast here (RealAudio).

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, during a long interview with journalists, gave the Bush administration a little of their own medicine. From The Washington Post:

Maliki disputed President Bush's remarks broadcast Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing" and took exception to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Senate testimony last week that Maliki's administration was on "borrowed time."

The prime minister said statements such as Rice's "give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort and making them believe they have defeated the American administration," Maliki said. "But I can tell you that they have not defeated the Iraqi government."...

"I know President Bush and I know him as a strong person that does not get affected by the media pressure, but it seems the pressure has gone to a great extent that led to the president giving this statement," Maliki said.

And there was this precious moment:

Maliki spoke slowly and seriously for most of the conversation, but occasionally broke into a smile, such as when he was asked whether Bush needs him more than he needs Bush. "This is an evil question," he said, laughing.

The Times has more, including the audio of the Maliki's interview with journalists.

Earlier today, two senior Justice Department officials participated in a phone briefing with reporters about the president's wiretapping program. We've posted the transcript for you below the fold, as it's the most detailed discussion of the program by administration officials that you're likely to see.

Read more »

The Washington Post checks in from the Libby trial. If you lived in DC, though, your sister's secretary's car detailer probably told you about it already:

To see just how small a town Washington really is, drop in on jury selection at the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, where nearly every candidate so far seems to have some connection to the players or events surrounding the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

There's the software database manager whose wife works as a prosecutor for the Department of Justice and who counts the local U.S. attorney and a top official in Justice's criminal division as neighbors and friends. And a housecleaner who works at the Watergate and knows Condoleezza Rice not by her title of secretary of state but as the "lady who lives up on the fifth floor." And a former Washington Post reporter whose editor was now-Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward; he recently lived across the street from NBC's Tim Russert and just published a book on the CIA and spying.

One guy in particular -- anybody know who this is? -- takes the cake:

Read more »

WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. reports:

Seventy-one employees in the Executive Office of the President, which includes the White House, owe $664,527 in taxes for 2005. About 20 of those employees have entered into an IRS payment plan, bringing the EOP balance down to $455,881owed by 50 employees.

The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Thanks to Reader LC for the tip.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to a bill that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.

Seizing upon the new authority granted by Congress last March, the White House has pushed out several U.S. Attorneys, and begun to replace them without the Senate's consent.

"I can confirm for you that yes, it was a Specter provision," a spokesperson for the senator wrote to me in an email earlier today, responding to repeated inquiries. Earlier we reported that Specter had been fingered for the last-minute change, made in a select Republicans-only meeting after the House and Senate had voted on earlier versions.

Still, a mystery remains: Why Specter wanted the change, which arguably weakened the Senate's role in selecting federal prosecutors.

The senator made no public comment on the provision at the time of the bill's passage. A congressional report which accompanied the final version of the bill said that Specter's change "addresses an inconsistency in the appointment process of United States Attorneys." It's not clear, however, what exactly that inconsistency was.

In her email to me, Specter's aide did not respond to my request for an explanation of why Specter wanted the change.

So the president is finally submitting for court approval his special Terrorist Surveillance Program. How about the details? Why are they only getting approval now and not years ago? Tony Snow does his best to explain:

The National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program will be subject to court approval, according to a new letter from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to lawmakers.

The NSA program, dubbed the "Terrorist Surveillance Program," had been criticized for spying on Americans without warrants from a U.S. court. Now, according to Gonzales' letter, the program will operate under approval by the secret FISA court.

Gonzales is slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is mounting a PR effort to rebuff suggestions that the recent spate of administration-forced resignations of U.S. Attorneys may be politically motivated.

"Nothing could be further from the truth,” he told the Associated Press.

“We are fully committed to ensuring that, with respect to every position, we have a Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed U.S. attorney. . . We in no way politicize these decisions.”

Since the November elections, Gonzales' department has requested resignations from several U.S. attorneys. The only known replacements have been political appointees that do not receive Senate confirmation, thanks to a recent change in law.

And in a letter yesterday to Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Pat Leahy (VT), Gonzales assured that "United States Attorneys never are removed, or asked or encouraged to resign, in an effort to retaliate against them or interfere with or inappropriately influence a particular investigation, criminal prosecution or civil case."

Feinstein had earlier joined other senators in questioning the qualifications of one of the Bush-appointed replacements, Tim Griffin, a 37-year-old Karl Rove protege with a background in opposition research on behalf of GOP campaigns.

In his AP interview, Gonzales explained his expanded powers were necessary because federal judges -- who previously had appointed replacement U.S. attorneys -- were susceptible to cronyism and might appoint unqualified candidates.

In order to replace several U.S. Attorneys with handpicked successors, the Bush Administration has relied on a tiny, obscure provision tucked into last year's USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act.

How did it get there?

Former Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) slipped the language into the bill at the very last minute, according to one of the Republican managers of the bill.

A spokesperson for Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who led the House team working on the bill, said that the provision was inserted by Specter into the final draft of the bill. The language was apparently requested by the Justice Department. Specter's office didn't respond to numerous requests for comment.

Earlier versions of the bill did not contain the provision, which grants authority to the Attorney General to replace U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval. When the House and the Senate first voted in favor of the legislation, the provision did not exist.

Instead, the tweak was inserted during the conference committee, where lawmakers from the House and Senate reconcile discrepancies in the two versions and craft a final bill.

In an unusual move, Republicans blocked Democrats from participating in many of the committee's activities.

According to the original law, the Attorney General could appoint interim U.S. Attorneys, but if they were not nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate within 120 days of being appointed, the federal district court would appoint a replacement. The new law wiped away that 120 day rule, in effect allowing the administration to handpick replacements and keep them there in perpetuity without the ordeal of Senate confirmation.

But amidst all the controversy last year over the PATRIOT reauthorization bill (the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, their use of National Security Letters to get information on citizens), the new law simply went unnoticed. Until now.

Intelligence Group: US Interrogation Techniques Based on Nothing
According to a new report from the Intelligence Science Board, an intelligence advisory group, there "is almost no scientific evidence to back up the U.S. intelligence community's use of controversial interrogation techniques in the fight against terrorism, and experts believe some painful and coercive approaches could hinder the ability to get good information." The report added that "that no significant scientific research has been conducted in more than four decades about the effectiveness of many techniques the U.S. military and intelligence groups use regularly," and that this lack of research may be partially responsible for the abuses reported in American-run detention facilities. (The Washington Post)

Read more »

With people calling for his head, Deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs Charles Stimson wants everybody to know "I'm sorry!"

His letter today in The Washington Post:

During a radio interview last week, I brought up the topic of pro bono work and habeas corpus representation of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Regrettably, my comments left the impression that I question the integrity of those engaged in the zealous defense of detainees in Guantanamo. I do not....

I apologize for what I said and to those lawyers and law firms who are representing clients at Guantanamo. I hope that my record of public service makes clear that those comments do not reflect my core beliefs.

And just as a reminder, here's what he said last week:

I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there?’ and you know what, it’s shocking....

I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.

Now that's a witness list. From Reuters:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could join Vice President Dick Cheney as a potential witness in the perjury trial of Cheney's former top aide, as jury selection began on Tuesday in the case which has cast a spotlight on how the White House justified war in Iraq.

The names of Cheney, Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, appeared on a long list of government officials and news reporters who may be called as witnesses or whose names may come up in the trial of Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby....

Others on the list include White House political advisor Karl Rove, former CIA director George Tenet and former Pentagon secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Remember "Operation Wagon Train," the six-state operation to bust up an "identity theft" ring? The Department of Justice just posted a final tally of prosecutions.

Of the nearly 1,300 workers arrested and detained, 148 have been prosecuted on criminal charges, all for identity theft.

Good enough for government work?

The press release is after the jump.

Read more »

The administration is replacing U.S. Attorneys throughout the country. How'd they get that power?

It was an obscure provision in the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, and it didn't take them very long to use it. The president signed it into law in March of last year -- by June, they were already moving to replace unwanted prosecutors.

Former Arkansas USA Bud Cummins told the Wall Street Journal that "a top Justice official asked for his resignation in June, saying the White House wanted to give another person the opportunity to serve." Cummins was finally forced out in December, replaced with Timothy Griffin, formerly the research director of the Republican National Committee.

Section 502 of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization, which was first drafted in July of 2005 and finally signed in March of 2006, changed the law regarding the appointment of U.S. Attorneys. Whereas before the relevant federal district court would have appointed a replacement within 120 days after the Attorney General picked one, now that pick stood without challenge.

How did this (brief, legalistically worded, but powerful) section get in to the bill? It's not clear. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has consistently referred to the provision as "little noticed." What is clear is that Feinstein and her colleagues did not expect the provision to be used in this way. We'll have more on this as we learn more.

As Justin mentioned in his previous post, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) hit the administration hard on the floor of the Senate this morning for its unexplained "forced resignations" of federal prosecutors around the country.

Here's the video:

We hope to have a transcript of her remarks soon.

Update: We've pasted Sen. Feinstein's remarks below.

Read more »

During a floor speech on the topic moments ago, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said the White House has told her it was replacing from five to 10 Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys with its own interim appointees.

We know of seven who have left during the last couple of months, many under unusual circumstances. Here is our list:

San Francisco - 1/16/07 - Kevin V. Ryan - unclear

Nevada - 1/15/07 - Daniel Bogden - pushed out

San Diego - 1/12/07 - Carole Lam - pushed out

New Mexico - 12/19/06 - David Igleslias - pushed out

Arizona - 12/19/06 - Paul K. Charlton - unclear

Seattle - 12/15/06 - John McKay - unclear; likely pushed out

Little Rock (Ark.) - 12/15/06 - Bud Cummins - pushed out

Feinstein said she also knew of seven, and listed those above. Curiously, she mentioned an eigthth -- from Texas. We haven't been able to identify that one.

There is an eighth recently-departed U.S. attorney we know of, which some readers have noted: Debra Wong Yang, the former U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, Calif. Yang was overseeing the investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA). She announced her resignation in October 2006, but to date there hasn't been evidence that her departure was forced.

From the AP today, here's a selection of questions that Libby's lawyers want to put to prospective jurors:

What is your political party preference? Democrat, Republican, Independent or other?

Please describe any feelings you have about Vice President Cheney.

Based on what you know at this time, do you believe that the administration misled the American people to justify going to war?

Have you been following any of the recent political scandals involving Jack Abramoff, William Jefferson, Tom DeLay, Cynthia McKinney, or Mark Foley?

Do you have particularly strong feelings about the war in Iraq?

Based on what you know at this time, do you believe that the administration misled the American people to justify going to war?

Update: More questions here.

More fishiness with the U.S. Attorneys Office? U.S. Attorney for San Francisco Kevin V. Ryan is out, according to the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). His office is handling the investigation into back-dating of stock options, among other high-profile cases.

Potential Libby Jurors to Get Politically Charged Questions
Jury selection is set to begin today in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former Cheney chief of staff accused of perjury and obstruction in the Valerie Plame case. "[A]ttorneys for both sides want to ask potential jurors about their opinions of the Bush administration, political scandals and the Iraq war." Given that the trial's venue is DC, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 9-to-1, Libby and his attorneys will be hard-pressed to find sympathetic ears. (AP)

Read more »

Yesterday, the Iraqi government hanged two of Saddam Hussein's top henchmen, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, the former head of Hussein’s secret police, and Awad Hamad al-Bandar, the former chief judge of his revolutionary court.

But this time, there was to be no chanting, no yelling, no loyalists of Moktada al-Sadr. Half as many people were allowed into the chamber. And those that were allowed in were forced to sign documents "saying they would behave with dignity and restraint." This time, it would be different.

Alas. From The New York Times:

After executioners in full-face balaclavas pulled black hoods over the two men’s heads, tightened nooses around their necks and pulled the lever opening the trapdoors, both fell like weights. But the hangmen’s calculations of weight, gravity and the momentum needed to snap their necks — a grim science that has produced detailed “drop charts” used for decades in hangings around the world — appeared, in Mr. Ibrahim’s case, to have gone seriously awry....

Iraqi officials who attended the hanging said the calculation in the case of Mr. Ibrahim, a 55-year-old of medium height and build, had allowed for a “drop” of eight feet — too much, according to at least one United States Army manual — and about that amount of thick yellow rope could be seen coiled at Mr. Ibrahim’s feet before the hanging.

The video showed his head being snapped off as the rope went taut, and ending up, still inside the hood, lying in the pit of the gallows about five feet from his headless body.

But... at least this time there was, as an aide to Prime Minister Maliki claimed, "No ethnics, no chanting, everything a very smooth transaction, everyone very well behaved?”

Maybe. As John Burns of the Times notes, reporters were only allowed to see the three-minute video of the hanging once -- and it was soundless.

When we noted Rep. John Doolittle's (R-CA) conversion to ethical purity last week, we appended a loud "Sike!"* to note our skepticism.

But it didn't take long for Doolittle to take it back himself. In an interview with McClatchy newspapers Friday, he backtracked on his key reform: severing his campaign's and committee's financial relationship with his wife, who had been getting a 15% commission on funds raised.

Though Doolittle trumpeted the decision last week, now he says that she "dropped his congressional campaign as a client, rather than him firing her." And by the way, she'll still be doing fundraising for his political action committee; it just won't be in the form of a commission.

A brand new man.

*Note: Language purists are encouraged to read the comments to our last post before writing us an email on the spelling of "sike."

Before joining the White House staff, former Dick Cheney aide "Scooter" Libby worked for a law practice that now represents Guantanamo detainees.

Libby -- "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" -- worked for the Philadelphia, Penn.-based firm Dechert LLP before the vice president hired him to be his chief of staff.

Last week, a senior Pentagon official joined conservative efforts to blackball law firms who provided legal assistance to detainees being held at the military's Guantanamo Bay prison. Charles Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, called on corporations to sever ties to such firms in order to pressure them to drop their detainee clients. The Pentagon has disavowed the comments; Stimson has been silent.

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald helped reunite Libby with his old firm, although it was likely a few years before Scooter had hoped: Libby retained Dechert partner Joseph Tate to help represent him through the Plame leak probe.

Dechert is the second detainee-loving law firm we've noted Libby is paying for his defense. The other is New York-based Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

Strange days? Less than a week after news broke that the Bush administration has forced the resignation of San Diego U.S. attorney Carole Lam, we learn that it has done the same to Daniel Bogden, U.S. attorney for Nevada.

According to today's Las Vegas Review-Journal, no one seems to know why he's been asked to leave before his term expires in 2008. As in Lam's ouster, there appear to be no charges of wrongdoing against Bogden.

An anonymous source inside Bogden's office told the Review-Journal that his management style had led to "low morale." However, the source said that was likely "partly Bogden's fault and partly the result of inadequate staffing and funding from the Justice Department."

Nevada's GOP senator, John Ensign, had recommended Bodgen for the post, and spoke to the paper for the record. "His priorities, to prevent terrorism and prosecute violent and drug crimes, have made our communities and families safer," he said.

The paper did not include a quote on the topic from Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who also represents Nevada. However, it noted that a spokesperson for Reid said the lawmaker was in favor of legislation to prevent U.S. attorneys from being replaced without Senate approval.

Uh-oh. The Interior Department's internal watchdog says top officials at the agency knew about problems costing taxpayers as much as $10 billion in revenue, but tried to hide the problem from the public, according to Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Tollefson.

One official may even have lied to Congress about when she knew things were screwy with her agency's energy contracts, which have allowed companies like ExxonMobil and Shell to pay billions less than they should have to extract oil and gas from federal lands, CQ reports:

A much-anticipated report to Congress will allege that Interior Department officials covered up a problem with oil and gas leases after it was discovered in 2000, according to congressional aides.

The Interior Department inspector general (IG) also has been investigating whether Johnnie Burton, head of the agency that collects royalties, might have been told about the problem earlier than she said in congressional testimony last fall.

Are You Likely Being Investigated? Grab a Calculator and Find Out
FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a rather roundabout way that his bureau is conducting 8,000 terrorism-related investigations. Testifying on Jan. 11 before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mueller noted that Britain's MI-5 intelligence agency is tracking 1,600 individuals, and then explained that "in general, the number of subjects we are monitoring is proportional to the number of subjects BSS is monitoring–based on gross national population." Mueller also pointed out that, compared to the British investigations, the 8,000 include few "active plots involving physical attacks within the United States, less defined networks of extremists, and less developed attack planning." (US News & World Report)

Read more »

Bush officials are finally coming to grips with reality in Iraq. Circa 2003.

As The Washington Post reported Sunday, it's out with ideological purity, and in with "a sense of reality," as the administration tries to undo the many errors made handling Iraq's reconstruction (privatizing state factories, de-Baathification, etc.).

The piece focuses on one Timothy Carney, exactly the sort of battle seasoned, quick thinking, feet-firm-on-the-ground type you'd want helping with reconstruction, and who left his senior post in disgust only a few months after the U.S. took over in 2003.

Why? For instance:

"This is a big mistake," Carney thought in May 2003, when Bremer told senior CPA officials that he would soon issue an edict prohibiting many former members of Hussein's Baath Party from holding government jobs....

From the moment the order was issued, most of Carney's time was devoted to de-Baathification. He held long meetings with the industry ministry's management, first to explain the policy and then to comb through records to identify people who were ineligible for future employment.

"It was a terrible waste of time," Carney said. "There were so many more important things we should have been doing, like starting factories and paying salaries."

After a few months, the CPA began to receive reports that 10,000 to 15,000 teachers had been fired because of the de-Baathification order. In some Sunni-dominated areas, entire schools were left with just one or two teachers.

Now Carney has been tapped to help roll back those efforts (setting up a clash with Iraq de-Baathification kingpin Ahmad Chalabi) and, as the new Iraqi reconstruction czar, do what he wished he could have done four years ago.