It seems that U.S. Attorney Margaret Chiara of Michigan's Western District is the eighth prosecutor to have been fired by the administration in recent months.

In a press release today, Chiara, who was nominated by President Bush in September, 2001, only said that she was resigning and that she'd step down March 16th. But according to The Grand Rapids Press, a district judge claims that Chiara was fired as part of the administration's wider purge:

The Justice Department has recently fired seven U.S. attorneys across the country. Chiara is the latest victim in the shake-up, U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell said this morning.

"I was shocked to learn that her resignation had been requested," Bell said. "She's clearly part of a larger pattern."

The paper notes that Chiara had clashed with the administration on the death penalty before, which she opposes, but there's no apparent reason for her resignation.

Update: I just spoke with Judge Bell, who says that he has no knowledge about whether Chiara was asked to step down: " I was not privy to what happened here with her," he told me, "I just got her resignation letter myself late yesterday." He said that he planned to "clarify" his remarks to the paper.

But he did say that Chiara was an "exemplary" U.S. Attorney in "every sense of the word" and "one of the best USAs we've ever had here." Her resignation, he said, certainly raised questions about whether it was tied into the other firings.

Later Update: Here is the only section of the press release from Chiara's office that deals with her stepping down (the remainder discusses her accomplishments in office):

United States Attorney Margaret M. Chiara announced that she is resigning her position as United States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan effective March 16, 2007. Ms. Chiara was nominated by President George W. Bush on September 4, 2001, and she was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 23, 2001. She is the first woman in the history of the State of Michigan to serve as a United States Attorney. Ms. Chiara intends to remain in public service.

What does it mean that she "intends to remain in public service?" Certainly sounds like she doesn't have a job lined up. A spokesperson for her office declined to elaborate beyond the release.

So-Late-It's-The-Next-Day-Update: The Washington Post reports: "Sources familiar with the case confirmed that she was among a larger group of prosecutors who were first asked to resign Dec. 7."

Yesterday, I reported that Democrats had accused the Justice Department of stonewalling a Congressional study on the U.S. attorney purge. A Congressional Research Service analyst was trying to find out if the administration's move was unprecedented; but after a month, the Justice Department still hadn't gotten him the data he needed.

Justice Department spokesman Jonathan Block responded to my request for comment late last evening:

"[The Executive Office of the United States Attorney] was contacted and the inquiry was referred to the Office of Legislative Affairs. The material requested is in the process of being provided."

Maybe this whole thing will speed the process a little.

Expert Declares Padilla Mentally Unfit for Trial
“Alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla suffers from intense stress and anxiety after being imprisoned in isolation for years and cannot adequately help his lawyers prepare for a criminal trial, a mental expert testified Thursday.” Padilla is charged with helping al-Qaida operatives in North America provide supplies, money, and new recruits to other terrorist cells. (Time)

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"I've had enough of 'nonbinding,' " says Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA). OK, then. So what's next?

The new plan from Senate Democrats, revealed today in the major papers, is to supersede the 2002 Iraq War authorization resolution with one that would pull out combat troops starting in March, 2008. After that, only troops involved with counterterrorism operations (against Al Qaeda), training Iraqi troops, and securing Iraq's border would remain. The Politico has the best rundown of the resolution's nitty gritty details. Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Joe Biden (D-DE) are the main drivers behind it, but it has support across the spectrum of Senate Democrats. It's unclear when a vote would occur.

Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) plan to restrict funding for only those troops deemed fully rested, trained and equipped was too aggressive for a number of moderate Democrats (says Blue Dog Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN): "Congress has no business micromanaging a war, cutting off funding or even conditioning those funds."). A sort of compromise strategy settles for making President Bush acknowledge that he is sending troops into Iraq underequipped and under-rested -- but still hands over the funds, no strings attached. From The Washington Post:

Several Democratic aides say the Iraq funding bill, due for a vote the week of March 12, may contain some of Murtha's demands for more training and better equipment for combat troops. But the proposals that set the toughest requirements are likely to drop out, such as a demand that troops be trained on and deployed with the combat equipment they will use in Iraq.

More important, the legislation may include a waiver that the president or defense secretary could invoke to deploy troops who are not fully combat-ready, Democratic aides said. That way, the commander in chief's hands would not be tied.

But under such a bill the president would have to publicly acknowledge that he is deploying troops with less than a year's rest from combat, that he is extending combat tours of troops in Iraq, or that he is sending units into battle without full training in counterinsurgency or urban warfare, the aides said.

The Justice Department has "refused to cooperate" with a congressional analysis of whether the administration's recent firing of U.S. attorneys is unprecedented, according to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI).

Conyers and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) requested the analysis from the Congressional Research Service to see whether prior administrations had done anything like fire seven United States attorneys abruptly and without stated justification as the administration did in December.

But because "the Administration has refused to cooperate with CRS in their examination," Conyers office says in a press release, the CRS analysis is incomplete. Nevertheless, CRS issued an interim analysis to Conyers and Sanchez, which you can read here.

In the report, the analyst writes that despite contacting the DoJ for information needed to perform his study a month ago, he's still waiting:

In order to determine how many U.S. attorneys had served less than four years with tenure uninterrupted by a change in presidential administration, CRS began by contacting the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA), which serves as the liaison between U.S. attorneys and the Department of Justice. CRS first contacted the EOUSA January 24, 2007, to seek records on the appointment and termination dates for U.S. attorneys. As of February 20, 2007, EOUSA had not provided the requested data.

The analyst doesn't say explicitly in his report that the Justice Department has refused to cooperate, and efforts to reach him were unsuccessful. I also placed a call to the Justice Department, to see if there's an explanation for the delay, but my call was not immediately returned.

The initial results of the analysis, which, again, is incomplete, show that since 1981 only three U.S. attorneys were dismissed without apparent cause during the first four years of their terms, making the administration's recent purge unprecedented.

From the AP:

Rep. Gary Miller [R-CA] grew up poor. Even though he's now worth more than $13 million, he says he's still worried about his family's financial security.

So, while federal authorities investigate some of his real estate transactions, he says he'll keep on making deals...

"Some people are arguing I shouldn't have the opportunity to make an investment that every other American citizen has an opportunity to make," he said. "I've got kids, I've got grandkids, and it'd be nice, when I get ready to go, when they're older, if I can help them."

Miller, 58, who makes $165,200 as a congressman, is being scrutinized for the millions he made selling properties to two Southern California communities outside his district. FBI agents have interviewed officials in both towns.

The scandal over the government's top environmental prosecutor's purchase of a vacation home with an oil lobbyist isn't dying down, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) calling yesterday for tighter federal ethics rules.

But the story goes far beyond that one glaring conflict of interest. It's merely one troubling aspect of a romantic relationship between the Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who headed up the Justice Department's environmental division, and Steven Griles, the former energy lobbyist and Deputy Secretary of the Interior who's well on his way to being indicted as part of the Jack Abramoff investigation.

It's not your typical love story.

Griles came to the Interior Department in 2001, leaving a practice lobbying for coal, oil, and other corporate interests to help oversee the country's resources. Unsurprisingly, ethics officials were on his case almost immediately for allegedly lobbying on the inside for his former clients. On one occasion, for example, he called over to the Environmental Protection Agency to urge that an environmental study not delay a huge coal-bed methane project planned by his former clients in Wyoming and Nevada.

So to ensure that Griles not roam too freely, an Interior official was assigned to keep an eye on him. That official: Sue Ellen Wooldridge, then the deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

After a couple of months, the two were dating.

But they didn't tell that to anyone at the Interior Department, especially not the Inspector General, who was investigating Griles for ethics violations.

The relationship began in February, 2003, according to The Washington Post. And during that year, they gave each other "thousands of dollars in gifts and trips" -- only they didn't report them on their disclosure statements (required of federal appointees) until they filed amendments late last year as investigators were bearing down on them.

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Lobbying Work Nice Fit for Ex-lawmakers
Despite a number of scandals casting a dark shadow over the influence of interest groups in Washington, a total of five of the the 39 lawmakers voted out last November have found jobs as lobbyists in the capitol. (USA Today) After stepping down as the governer of Maryland, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is opening an office of a North Carolina law firm in the Baltimore area that will include a public affairs consulting group. (The Baltimore Sun)

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"A senior Iranian government official" sat down with CNN's Christiane Amanpour yesterday, and calling the U.S. and Iran "natural allies," he laid out the case:

"We are not after conflict. We are not after crisis. We are not after war," said this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But we don't know whether the same is true in the U.S. or not. If the same is true on the U.S. side, the first step must be to end this vicious cycle that can lead to dangerous action -- war."

He confided that what he was telling me was not shared by all in the Iranian government, but it was endorsed so high up in the religious leadership that he felt confident spelling out the rationale....

I asked whether he meant Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself.

"Yes," he said....

He said the time is right for the United States and Iran to sit down and talk directly -- to say "we recognize each other." He said neither side has done this so far "because of the mentality on each side."

"Each of us is afraid of looking weak if we take the first step," he said. "We have this fear in common with America. Before contemplating recognition, each side feels it necessary to convince the other side that 'I am not weak.'"

Sure, there's that whole Hezbollah business, and Iran's nuclear program (which the official claimed was for peaceful purposes, and mainly as a kind of confidence booster for the country), but for both countries, the "major threat" is al Qaeda. The question is whether the administration, which has a talent for making enemies proliferate, will follow the simple arithmetic of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Of course, it's by no means the first time that Iran has made a diplomatic overture to the Bush administration. But since going through diplomatic channels didn't work so well then, this time Iran chose a more reliable route: CNN.

Note: Also don't miss the follow up to yesterday's Must Read. Maliki is still on the war path, doing everything he can to infuriate every Sunni in the country.

They began deliberations at 11:30.

Update: Day 1 of deliberations ends and no verdict.

Slow Going For Gitmo Trial Preparations
Hoping to charge between 60 and 80 of its 400 Guantanamo Bay detainees, the military has been agressively preparing cases by poring over 40,000 pages of amassed documents. With some prisoners having remained in the facility for over 5 years years without receiving formal charges, Pentagon legal adviser Thomas Hemingway argued that "if they want a faster process, we are going to need additional resources." (Associated Press)

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For those of you who might have wondered about the wisdom of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki....

On Monday, a 20 year-old Sunni woman went on Al Jazeera to say that she had been raped at the hand of three Iraqi policeman the previous day (the police force is overwhelmingly Shiite). The incredibly rare spectacle in Iraq of a woman publicly and graphically describing her rape immediately turned the case into a major scandal. (The New York Times does a very good job of telling the story.)

The woman said the Americans rescued her and gave her medical treatment. She was, according to the U.S. military, admitted to Ibn Sina Hospital, which the U.S. runs. A nurse who treated her at a clinic for Sunnis (it's unclear to me if this was before or after her visit to the hospital), interviewed by the Times, "said that she saw signs of sexual and physical assault."

The U.S. military would only say that they're investigating the case. Maliki was not so circumspect.

After initially issuing a statement promising a full investigation, Maliki suddenly issued a second statement a few hours later, declaring that the woman was a liar and a wanted criminal, and that the three officers were to be rewarded:

“It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever, and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies.... After the allegations have been proven to be false, the prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded.”

Now, I've never run a country riven by sectarian tensions. But I'd say that's not the best way to handle the situation.

Maliki has continued his rampage, firing, or attempting to fire, the head of the agency that tends to Sunni mosques and shrines in Iraq because he called for an international investigation into the rape allegations. The problem with that, apparently, is that he doesn't have the authority to fire him... or at least so the Sunni official says.

This is the man who holds the U.S.'s fate in Iraq in his hands.

As Josh noted, the National Republican Congressional Committee has released a statement to CNN about the $15,000 in contributions it got from Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, the man indicted last week for financing terrorists in Afghanistan:

"We are extremely concerned and disturbed by these charges but we need to be careful not to rush to judgment as the judicial process moves forward. If the individual in question is actually found guilty of a crime, it is our intent to donate the money to charity."

Just because you're the subject of a federal indictment, in other words, doesn't mean your money's not good enough for the NRCC. That's no surprise from the group that has refused to return the money contributed by ex-Reps. Mark Foley (R-FL) and Bob Ney (R-OH).

Lax though that may seem, it's a more serious response than the NRCC's reaction to the last member of their Business Advisory Council to be indicted for terrorist related charges, Yasith Chhun, the head of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters. Then, NRCC spokesman Carl Forti, after cautioning that Chhun "hasn't been convicted of anything" would only say that his case was "something we need to look at," adding that they "wouldn't want any leader of a terrorist organization being members of our business advisory council." He was silent on the question of Chhun's contributions.

Now, Chhun is up for trial next month, so the NRCC should get their answer pretty soon.

Supreme Court, here we come.

From the AP:

Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision of a law at the center of President Bush's anti-terrorism plan.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.

Barring detainees from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Mr. Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.

The ruling is all but certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration's original plan for trying detainees before military commissions.

Update: In a later edition of the story, the AP reports that that "attorneys for the detainees immediately said they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court."

For those interested in a nitty-gritty breakdown of the decision, Marty Lederman's got your fix. "The only reason" [Gitmo detainees] are not entitled to habeas rights," he writes on the majority opinion, "is that their U.S. captors chose to turn left and take them to the U.S.-run facility in GTMO, rather than turning right to go to a U.S. facility in say, South Carolina."

Lobbyists Lost Steam in '06
"Ethics jitters and the distraction of campaign season hit K Street with a one-two punch last year, as the top lobbying firms posted negligible growth. Revenues for the top 25 shops inched north of the $400 million mark for the first time ever, but earnings across the board climbed just 2 percent for the period. That’s compared to 2005, when the biggest firms grew by 9 percent. " (Roll Call)

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With Scooter Libby's trial speeding to a close, the focus today is partly on Libby, but mostly on the man behind the curtain for all of Plamegate: Vice President Cheney.

In National Journal, Murray Waas reports on the ugly facts Cheney avoided having to publicly confront when Libby's defense team suddenly decided not to call him to testify:

At the time that Libby offered his explanation to Cheney [in the fall of 2003, after the Plame investigation had begun], the vice president already had reason to know that Libby's account to him was untrue, according to sources familiar with still-secret grand jury testimony and evidence in the CIA leak probe, as well as testimony made public during Libby's trial over the past three weeks in federal court.

Yet, according to Libby's own grand jury testimony, which was made public during his trial in federal court, Cheney did nothing to discourage Libby from telling that story to the FBI and the federal grand jury. Moreover, Cheney encouraged then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan to publicly defend Libby, according to other testimony and evidence made public during Libby's trial.

Before the grand jury testimony, Libby testified that Cheney had only "tilted his head" when he'd heard Libby's recounting of things. And later, after Libby had discovered from his own notes that Cheney himself had actually been the one to tell Libby about Plame, he went back to Cheney. Upon hearing the news, Cheney only said, "From me?" and "tilted his head."

All this is not lost on prosecutors, Waas reports:

If Libby is found guilty, investigators are likely to probe further to determine if Libby devised what they consider a cover story in an effort to shield Cheney. They want to know whether Cheney might have known about the leaks ahead of time or had even encouraged Libby to provide information to reporters about Plame's CIA status, the same sources said.

But wait! That's not all, you Cheneyphiles. The New York Times reports on how the trial has "spotlighted" Cheney's "power as an infighter" (read: liar and manipulator), and The Washington Post reports on how Cheney's influence within the administration has waned in favor of what the paper calls a new "pragmatism" (I think that means problem-solving as opposed to problem-making).

Note: Nothing like a front page exposé in The Washington Post to get results. The Post reports this morning that the Army has suddenly decided to begin repairs on patients' housing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Oops! Building on my last post on the NRCC's bogus Business Advisory Council and "Businessman of the Year" program, it turns out that Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari isn't the first member of the council to be indicted on charges of supporting terrorism.

Yasith Chhun, the head of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, a group designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization, was indicted in May of 2005 for charges of plotting to overthrow the Cambodian government. He was also, The Los Angeles Times reported, a member of the NRCC's Business Advisory Council:

Before his federal indictment this week [Chuun] had raised $6,550 for the National Republican Congressional Committee and was invited to sit on the group's Business Advisory Council, which has tens of thousands of members nationwide, said Carl Forti, a spokesman for the committee....

Chhun attended the annual meeting of the National Republican Congressional Committee's business advisory council in Washington, D.C., last year. [NRCC Spokesman Carl] Forti said the committee did not know Chhun's group had been designated a terrorist organization, saying it was impossible to do background checks on all its members.

"At this point, the gentleman hasn't been convicted of anything," Forti said. If he is a terrorist, "it's something we need to look at. Clearly, we wouldn't want any leader of a terrorist organization being members of our business advisory council."

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Josh, looking into Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari (aka Michael Mixon), the New York businessman indicted last week for terrorist financing and bilking investors of millions of dollars, notes that Alishtari, in addition to doling out thousands to the National Republican Congressional Committee, also claims in an online CV to be a member of the "White House Business Advisory Committee" and at having been a "National Republican Congressional Committee [New York State] Businessman of the Year" in 2002 and 2003.

So was Alishtari a Republican heavy hitter?

Well, if he was, these awards aren't an indication of it.

As ABC's new ace investigative reporter Justin Rood reports today in his story on Alishtari, "the NRCC 'Businessperson of the Year' fundraising campaign, which gave such 'awards' to at least 1,900 GOP donors, has been derided as a telemarketing scam by political watchdogs."

Here's how it works, as reported in The Washington Post back in 2003:

The call starts with flattery: You have been named businessman of the year, or physician of the year, or state chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee's Business Advisory Council.

Then comes the fundraising hook: a request for as much as $500 to help pay for a full-page Wall Street Journal advertisement, then a request for $5,000 to reserve a seat at a banquet thrown in your honor. Can't handle that? How about $1,250 for the no-frills package?

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Pelosi Appoints Jefferson to Homeland Security Panel
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who stripped embattled Rep. William Jefferson of his seat on a powerful tax committee last year, has decided to put him on the Homeland Security panel, infuriating some Republicans who charge he may be a security risk. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, was kicked off the Ways and Means Committee amid a federal bribery probe, yet still won re-election to a ninth term." (Associated Press)

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Last Friday, we noted that Karl Rove's former aide Tim Griffin, now the U.S. Attorney for Arkansas' Eastern District, said that he would not seek confirmation in the Senate.

Since the Justice Department had declared to the press and the Senate that President Bush will in fact nominate someone for the job, this would seem to mean that Griffin's days on the job are numbered.

It takes about two months on average for a nominee to make his way through the Senate. But that, of course, depends on the president nominating someone, and thanks to last year's change in the law, the administration isn't under any legal pressure to do that. And as for Griffin, he's not packing up his things quite yet. From McClatchy:

Griffin, 38, said he would be willing to remain interim U.S. attorney until a replacement is named. Under a change in the law last year, that means he could stay in office until the end of President Bush's term.

"I will be here as long as the White House and Department of Justice wants me here," he said. "Under the law, I could be here, hypothetically, until end of 2008 or early 2009."

Actually, to be exact, the law says that Griffin could stay on the job until he is replaced. But apparently even Griffin doesn't entertain the notion that the next administration, Republican or Democratic, would keep him on.

The Washington Post had more details on the prosecutor purge yesterday:

Most of the firings came on Dec. 7, when senior Justice Department official Michael A. Battle -- a former U.S. attorney himself -- called at least six prosecutors to inform them that they were being asked to resign. Battle was apologetic but offered little in the way of explanations, telling some that the order had come from "on high," according to sources familiar with the calls.

...one source who was familiar with the episode said last week that an eighth U.S. attorney was asked to resign in December along with the others. The unidentified prosecutor is negotiating to stay in the job, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of those discussions.

"On high," to refresh your memory, means outside the Justice Department.

We know how things are going in Iraq and in Afghanistan -- so how's the fight against Al Qaeda going?

Badly, reports The New York Times -- so badly that the Times invokes a comparison to Al Qaeda under Taliban rule as a gauge of its strength:

Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

Officials said the training camps had yet to reach the size and level of sophistication of the Qaeda camps established in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. But groups of 10 to 20 men are being trained at the camps, the officials said, and the Qaeda infrastructure in the region is gradually becoming more mature....

“The chain of command has been re-established,” said one American government official, who said that the Qaeda “leadership command and control is robust.”...

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, told the House Armed Services Committee last week that Al Qaeda “is on the march.” He said, “Al Qaeda in fact is now functioning exactly as its founder and leader, Osama bin Laden, envisioned it,” because, he said, Qaeda leaders are planning major attacks and inspiring militants to carry out attacks around the globe.

The Times paints the administration as somewhat nonplussed about what to do. A missile strike? "State Department officials say increased American pressure could undermine President Musharraf’s military-led government." But Musharraf's own diplomatic forays into the tribal region, called North Waziristan, seem to have only made the situation worse. Today's front page story, however, will certainly rachet up pressure on the administration to do something... or at least to claim that something is being done.

Note: I'd be remiss if I didn't also link to The Washington Post's investigative report on the dire conditions for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.