Another wrinkle in the story of ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who's currently a guest of the Bureau of Prisons in rustic West Virginia. Ney, of course, pleaded guilty last year to accepting bribes from Jack Abramoff.

It turns out that investigators built their case with the help of Ney's very young chief of staff, Will Heaton, who recorded phone conversations with Ney, even wearing a wire during a 2 1/2-hour meeting. The revelation came in a court filing earlier this week. Heaton, who's pleaded guilty to corruption charges, will be sentenced next month, and prosecutors are arguing for a lenient sentence for the staffer, given the help he was in bringing down his boss.

Here's another stop on our whirlwind tour of Alaska fundraisers: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) "shoots for the future" at the Midnight Sun Charity Shootout sponsored by friends of the NRA.

There are earmarks, and then there are earmarks.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has taken the political art form to an ethically questionable level that even some experts in the trenches have never seen. In 2005, Young waited until after the House and Senate passed a transportation bill, but before the president signed it into law, to rewrite a passage that would have granted $10 million for an interstate in Florida. His new wording targeted the money to a much smaller, more specific project to connect Coconut Road to that interstate. It's an unpopular project in the area, but a boon for real estate developer Daniel Aronoff, who held a $40,000 fundraiser for Young in Florida just before the earmark appeared.

Young has refused multiple requests for comment from different publications on these, and related allegations. Once he made an obscene gesture at a New York Times reporter who approached him about the earmark. His spokeswoman did not get back to us today.

I asked a few experts today for historical and ethical perspective on Young's move.

Former staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, Scott Lilly, said this is a very atypical procedure. Once the bill has been voted on by the House and Senate, only some very technical changes can be made by the clerk. Then it goes to the President.

"The committee chair really doesn't have any control over the bill at that point," Lilly said. "There are some really arcane things that you can do, but you would have to pass a resolution directing the enrolling clerk to make the change, but that would have to pass both Houses. There is very little the enrollment clerk can do. I don't know that they can change spelling mistakes."

The changes made by Young are far more substantive than spelling errors.

"To say it's unusual isn't enough," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It is an anomaly that we have never seen before."

Normally, members of Congress who want to clarify how an earmark is to be spent, outline the details in an accompanying report. These reports are only advisory, but are often followed to avoid falling out of favor for the next time an appropriation rolls around. Ashdown pointed out that the 2005 legislation was Young's last chance to oversee a transportation bill, which only come up every six years, as a committee chair. Advice from a sitting duck committee chair wouldn't carry the same heft as language in the law.

"[Young] knew that because this was a controversial project in the area, the only way to make sure his benefactor got the money was if he wrote it in the statute," Ashdown said.

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Earlier this week, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced, to the great embarrassment of the U.S., that he wouldn't be attending a joint Afghan-Pakistan tribal conference aimed at cracking down on jihadists.

Now, after phone calls from Condoleezza Rice and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, he takes it back:

Bowing to international pressure, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Friday agreed "in principle" to address a key joint Afghan-Pakistani tribal council in Kabul, the foreign ministry said.

Another invitation lost in the mail!

From Roll Call:

Undeterred in the face of a federal corruption probe, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is hosting a small klatch of top lobbyists and others this weekend for a fishing and fundraising trip to his home state.

The getaway, billed as the “Ted Stevens El Capitan Fishing Event,” combines “three days of some of the best salt water fishing you will ever have,” according to the invite, with a fundraising reception expected to net at least $2,300 per person for the Senator’s re-election campaign.

Apparently, lobbyists must fly into Seattle or Anchorage and then take a boat or a float plane to get to the El Capitan Lodge on the remote Prince of Wales Island. On top of their donation for accommodations, fishing and meals, participants pay $2,500 to rub shoulders with Stevens at the El Capitan.

What 83 year-old William Sidwell of Queen City, Missouri found in his mailbox last week scared him. It was a letter from the Republican National Committee, but it seemed to bear grave news: "Our records show that you registered as a member of our Party in Schuyler County, MO," the letter said. "But a recent audit of your Party affiliation turned up some irregularities."

Audit? Irregularities? Was he in trouble? Were they threatening him? Sidwell went immediately to his ask his son, Dennis, a licensed public accountant, for advice. You can see the letter, and the accompanying "Voter Registration Verification and Audit Form," right here. Particularly puzzling to the both of them, Dennis told me, is that his father is a life-long Democrat.

The letter, it turns out, is just a misleading pitch for a contribution to the RNC -- one of the "irregularities" cited in the letter is that "I cannot find a record of you taking a single action in support of the Republican Party -- not locally, not nationally!" A contribution, the letter suggests, would help set the record straight.

The letter is signed by Bill Steiner, the director of the RNC's Office of Strategic Information, a title Steiner assumed at the end of July. His responsibilities "include managing the RNC’s national voter file and Voter Vault, the committee’s highly touted micro-targeting operation," Roll Call reported last month. And indeed, the voter "audit" requests detailed information about the voter's voting history and current opinions on the 2008 presidential race.

It's unclear how many similar letters (tens of thousands? millions?) have been sent by the RNC. The RNC did not respond to our requests for comment.

The letter "appears to be in a gray area," David Becker, Director of People for the American Way's Democracy Campaign and a former voting rights attorney at the Justice Department, told me. "It could potentially run afoul of the law if it led an eligible voter to believe they're no longer eligible to vote." The letter, Becker said, "appears designed to give that mistaken impression."

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From the AP:

Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees asked a federal judge Thursday to invalidate a days-old law that lets government agents eavesdrop on suspected terrorists without first getting court-approved warrants.

They said the measure signed into law Sunday by President Bush is illegal because it gives the national intelligence director and the U.S. attorney general too much power to intercept communications of suspected terrorists overseas -- even when they are talking to someone in the United States.

That didn't take long.

Things aren't looking good for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).

The Anchorage Daily News reports that the FBI found a thank-you note Stevens hand-wrote to former US Attorney Wev Shea after the White House hosted a dinner in the Republican senator's honor in May. In the June 7th note, Stevens makes it sound like he got a good deal on the 2000 remodeling of his home:

"This is a sad portion of my life -- it will take time to explain," Stevens said in the two-page note. "Catherine and I personally paid over $130,000 for the improvements to our chalet in Girdwood. Someone -- or more than one -- keeps telling the FBI that's not so. Takes time to go back over five years to prove they are wrong."

Stevens has claimed before that there was nothing nefarious about the job, despite oil services Veco Corp. acting as general contractor while Stevens was in Washington.

But the Daily News' story raises pretty clear doubts about how Stevens could have managed to get all the work done for that amount of money:

If $130,000 is an accurate total, it would raise questions about how such a major renovation could have been accomplished within such a tight budget. The carpentry contractor alone said he was paid more than $100,000 by Stevens. Another contractor, who raised up the house to make room for the new first floor and built part of the foundation, said he too was paid by Stevens, though he didn't recall the amount. The earth-moving contractor who prepared the ground for the job also said he was paid by Stevens.

That would leave little if any left over for a range of other work that was done, everything from design to plumbing and electric to a new roof. As recently as this week, Stevens declined to answer questions about how the project was billed and financed.

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Support the troops (but not their education)! The administration is fighting efforts by Democrats to provide 100% free schooling to Iraq war veterans. The bill, which resembles the original G.I. Bill, would cover all expenses, including tuition, boarding and books. Current legislations covers approximately 75% of the veteran's tuition. Support the troops. (ABC's The Blotter)

The troubles just keep coming for Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA). Doolittle is being sued by one of his constituents for spamming her email account. The woman claims that she received about 8,000 emails from Doolittle over six weeks. Via Dump Doolittle. (Sacramento News 10)

You know the scandal is official when someone makes a bio of the key players. Check out this one-stop shop for your background on your favorite corrupt Alaskan politicians. (Anchorage Daily News)

A Justice Department program that has ex-officers follow up complaints of lewd Internet content (read: a program where ex-cops surf pornography) has so far produced not a single prosecution, despite the fact that the program has received over 67,000 referred complaints. (NY Times)

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The drumbeat against Iran from the administration has been constant this year -- reaching its highest pitch in February, when anonymous military briefers laid out the case to reporters. The Quds force, an elite military brigade, the administration line went, was channeling EFPs (explosively formed penetrators, a particularly dangerous type of IED) into Iraq to be used against U.S. soldiers.

The complications of the case were brushed aside, but despite an organized media offensive by the administration, it was not a wholly successful campaign. But lately the case has been revived. And now McClatchy reports that Dick Cheney has been pushing for strikes against Iranian forces in Iraq. But don't worry -- Cheney says that the administration ought to wait for "hard new evidence":

Behind the scenes, however, the president's top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy....

Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.

There is the expected divide within the administration on the question -- with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the other side. But a Cheney spokeswoman tells McClatchy "'the vice president is right where the president is' on Iran policy."

Note: The Los Angeles Times has an interesting companion to McClatchy's piece this morning, reporting on Bush's continued attempts to convince Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki that Iran is "not a force for good." From Maliki's perspective -- and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's -- things are obviously a lot more complicated.

Good luck with this one. Yesterday, the ACLU filed a motion (pdf) to declassify recent rulings of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court that administration officials cited in order to press legislators to massively overhaul FISA.

In particular, the civil-liberties watchdog wants the January 10, 2007 FISA Court ruling that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited as "innovative" enough to merit moving the Terrorist Surveillance Program under FISA; as well as the mysterious spring ruling that FISA applied to foreign-to-foreign communications routed through the United States.

Members of Congress referenced and characterized certain of the sealed materials in explaining support for the amendments (to FISA). Over the next six months, Congress will consider whether these amendments should be made permanent. Publication of the sealed materials will permit members of the public to participate meaningfully in this debate, evaluate the decisions of their elected leaders, and determine for themselves whether the proposed permanent expansion of the executive's surveillance powers is appropriate.

And if the public-interest argument the ACLU makes doesn't work, it adds another: Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) already revealed the outline of the ruling anyway.

The Anchorage Daily News made it out to Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) pig roast fund-raiser last night, where a boisterous crowd of 70 to 80 protesters shouted from the street.

Outside Don Young’s annual pig roast fundraiser on Wednesday night, a raucous crowd of all ages and political persuasions taunted the guests with shouts of “oink, oink,” waved signs against corruption and big money in politics, and generally protested anything Young was for.

Protesters also voiced their opposition to special guests Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) who made an appearance.

It might seem from a national perspective that an assembly of 70 to 80 people is a low turnout, but the Daily News calls it "remarkable." When I spoke with protest-organizer John Farleigh yesterday he said he hoped a dozen people would join him, and if 15 showed up he'd consider it a success.

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They say that earmarking is a rigged system, a system of organized bribery (the "favor factory" as Jack Abramoff called it). But rarely has there been such startling evidence of a quid pro quo as Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) $10 million earmark for a highway interchange in Florida (the state farthest from Alaska). The earmark came only days after a real estate mogul raised $40,000 for Young at an event in Florida.

But it gets worse. It turns out that Young had to bend, if not break, Congressional rules to do it.

The Naples Daily News reports that he probably changed key language in the bill after it had been passed in the House and Senate. The language left zero ambiguity about where exactly all that cash was supposed to go:

The words "Coconut Road interchange" were not in the federal transportation bill approved by Congress in 2005.

Those words were attached to a $10 million earmark sometime after the House and Senate votes but before the president signed the bill into law.

Within that time, someone with access to the bill deleted the earmark’s original language that would have given $10 million more for widening and improvements to Interstate 75 and attached the phrase "Coconut Rd. interchange I-75/Lee County," according to a study by a former federal official who lives on Sanibel Island.

The wording must have changed during a process called "bill enrollment" when grammatical and technical -- not substantive -- changes are allowed to be made. As Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense tells the paper, "I’ve seen little gimmicks and little tricks used to make sure somebody’s friend or contributor is taken care of but this is by far one of the more underhanded, surreptitious examples I’ve seen — ever."

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Free Thomas Kontogiannis! Well, he hasn't been sentenced yet after pleading guilty to a count of money laundering in the Duke Cunningham case, so he can't be "freed." But freeing the transcripts of his plea agreement would be a welcome start for anyone interested in understanding more about the most mysterious aspect of a bribery scandal that brought down a congressman.

Nearly everything about Kontogiannis' guilty plea has been shrouded in secrecy. It wasn't until June that Judge Larry A. Burns even unsealed the plea, made by Kontogiannis in February. And that secrecy has come at the behest of the prosecution, which has sought to keep the proceedings under wraps -- even going so far as to make the novel argument that it can classify judicial records. The U.S. attorney's office further argued that it couldn't publicly disclose the reasons why such secrecy is necessary.

But now, after pressure from the San Diego Union Tribune to open the proceedings up, the prosecution is backing down -- somewhat.

Federal prosecutors said yesterday they would agree to release portions from some sealed transcripts concerning the guilty plea of a key figure in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge said the portion of a hearing in February where New York developer Thomas Kontogiannis pleaded guilty could be made public.

Forge also said prosecutors do not object to the release of 85 percent of the material in transcripts from four hearings regarding the plea that were conducted in February and April. All those transcripts are under seal and were the subject of a federal appellate court hearing Monday.

It's still unclear what substantive information from the pleading will emerge. But this is the first indication in months that some aspect of Kontogiannis' very unusual plea arrangements will become public.

So much for unity in times of crisis. Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) has accused Minnesota of exploiting the federal government's generosity in responding to the recent bridge collapse. He claimed that they accepted $250 million dollars in bridge repair "to screw us", because the state realized that "they were going to get all the money from the federal government and they were taking all they could get." Via Think Progress. (Times Leader)

Stop being hypersensitive. That’s effectively what officials are saying to employees at the Interior Department (which oversees the country's natural resources) who are suffering from nausea and headaches due to continuing renovations on the department’s DC headquarters. General Services Administration officials overseeing the 12-year renovation say they publish regular air quality reports and have installed a fan to “blow out bad air.” (WaPo)

While on the subject of Guantanamo, the British government did in fact request the return of five citizens that are currently being held as detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In true diplomatic form, the U.S. offered an even better deal: Britain can take all the detainees that we don't want anymore. Britain has thus far suggested that it is not interested in the U.S.'s "generosity." (Financial Times)

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Here's a painful Guantanamo Bay irony: What to do with detainees slated for repatriation who fear abuse back home?

That's a serious obstacle confronting the Bush administration as it considers shuttering the facility. The U.S. has legal restrictions barring it from sending people to countries where they're likely to be tortured. As much as human rights groups object to the indefinite detentions and harsh interrogations at Guantanamo, they also don't want to see further abuses occur in the name of closing the camp down, a problem the New York Times spotlights today.

Case in point: Ahmed Belchaba, an Algerian whom the Department of Defense no longer considers a danger to America. He's contesting his repatriation in a case set to be heard by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Lawyers for Mr. Belbacha have said he is at risk of torture or death by Islamist radicals because he once served in the Algerian army, and by the government, which is likely to view him as a terrorist because of his tenure at Guantánamo.

In a filing on Wednesday, the Justice Department opposed any order barring a transfer of Mr. Belbacha, saying that “as the United States has explained, it is in no one’s interest to detain enemy combatants longer than is necessary.”

That case could open courthouse doors to dozens of similar claims by detainees who do not want to be sent home.

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It's been a stormy day for Pervez Musharraf. First he blows off a joint Afghan-Pakistan anti-terrorism conference. Now Pakistani TV is reporting that Musharraf may declare a state of emergency.

An aide to the president, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Musharraf was due to meet with Cabinet ministers, the attorney-general and leaders from the ruling party on Thursday to discuss whether an emergency should be declared.

He did not expect a declaration of an emergency in the early hours of Thursday.

"I cannot say that it will be tonight, tomorrow or later. We hope that it does not happen," [Information Minister Tariq] Azim said. "But we are going through difficult circumstances so the possibility of an emergency cannot be ruled out."

This could turn out to be nothing, of course. But if it happens, it would represent quite the kiss-off to Washington.

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Alas, it looks like my invitation to the annual pig roast held in honor of Rep. Don Young (R-AK) got lost in the mail. The pork gala, which is just a few hours away, is usually hosted by former Veco CEO Bill Allen, but he's bowed out since pleading guilty to federal bribery charges and agreeing to cooperate in the federal criminal investigation of Young and other lawmakers.

But no worry -- the pork, and the fundraising, go on. Former Alaska Gov. Bill Sheffield will play host instead, with special guests Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) making appearances.

The event itself, which sent out colorful invitations in years past, has caught the eye of federal investigators, who are looking into Young's dealings with Allen and Veco. In the last ten years, Young has received at least $157,000 from VECO employees and its political-action committee. Guests at this year's pig party have been asked to contribute $250 to $1,000 (and $500-$5,000 if you're a PAC).

Even though I got the cold shoulder from Young's party planner, an email did show up today in my in-box about a protest planned for outside the roast.

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Saying that he's waited long enough for the White House to comply, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) set a new deadline for documents related to the administration's warrantless wiretapping program today. August 20th is the date, and Leahy expects to receive documents concerning the legal basis for the program (in its variety of forms dating back to 2001), in addition to authorization documents.

Leahy had, at the request of White House counsel Fred Fielding, delayed a prior deadline. But now that an informal date suggested by the White House has come and gone, Leahy writes to Fielding that he's running out of patience:

Despite my patience and flexibility, you have rejected every proposal, produced none of the responsive documents, provided no basis for any claim of privilege and no accompanying log of withheld documents. I had been requesting this information for an extended time before issuing the subpoenas.

Included in that request are documents surrounding then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey's refusal to reauthorize the surveillance program. That refusal led to the March 10, 2004 showdown between Comey and Alberto Gonzales at John Ashcroft's hospital bed.

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For the most part, here at TPMmuckraker we've only quoted Rep. Don Young (R-AK) threatening to bite a fellow congressman like an Alaskan mink. It turns out he has much more to say.

In an interview with the AP, he covers topics ranging from his hot temper to the campaign dollars former Veco CEO Bill Allen, who has pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges, has given him over the years. And now we know where Young stands on Machiavelli's question of whether it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved (feared). Unfortunately, Young said that he couldn't comment on the ongoing investigation. But he had plenty to say nonetheless. From the interview:

Q. Let me ask you your assessment of two things: the investigations and your short temper that is well-known there - is that ultimately hurting the state?

A. No, no. People don’t understand this, you know? I have found no weakness in the Congress at all. You will find no one who does not respect me in the Congress. You may find some that don’t like me. That doesn’t bother me.

...

Q. Bill Allen’s been in the news, and you’ve had some association with him. What can you tell us about that association? His employees have donated $150,000 over 10 years.

A. Figure it out. Ten years, $150,000. It’s what, $20,000 or less a year. That’s not very much money.

Q. Some state representatives have returned money to these people. Do you have any plans to do that?

A. No.

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Now that's how you show you're committed to fighting terrorism: by pulling out of a tribal council convened to... fight terrorism.

That's what Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan announced today. Indicating his displeasure with accusations from the U.S. that he's acquiesced to the entrenchment of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in his country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Musharraf cited "engagements" preventing him attending a joint Afghan-Pakistan tribal conference aimed at cracking down on jihadists. On Monday, President Bush and Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai expressed high hopes for the joint "jirga," conceived of by the three leaders in 2006.

So: jirga on preventing terrorism? No go. Deal with FATA leaders that U.S. intelligence believes led to the reconstitution of al-Qaeda in Pakistan? Probably still in place.

Why would anyone think Musharraf is less than 100 percent committed to fighting al-Qaeda?

Explaining that he doesn't want to interfere with an ongoing investigation, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) told reporters in Alaska yesterday that he would not answer any questions about the federal criminal probe into his dealings with Veco Corp. and others.

"I know you're interested in the items that have been in the media recently. I wish I could discuss those in detail. But to avoid any suggestion that I as a senator am attempting to influence an investigation by the Department of Justice, I simply cannot talk about it," he said at the start of his speech before The Anchorage Rotary Club at the Anchorage Hilton. He talked for more than 30 minutes, counting time for questions.

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Earlier this week we flagged news that Ben Stevens -- son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), former president of the Alaska Senate, and currently under investigation -- returned to work on a "vessel" to raise money for his mounting legal fees. It looked like he was back to his old career on a crab fishing boat in the Bering Sea.

Not so. The Anchorage Daily News reports today that in fact he took a job as a crewman "aboard a work boat supporting Dutch oil giant Shell's planned Arctic Ocean exploratory drilling campaign." It's not clear when he'll be coming back to land and his troubles.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick on the Democrats' failure to remove Gonzales:

A Democrat-controlled Congress that truly wanted Gonzales gone has options beyond the mere rending of garments and pulling of hair. But thus far, Congress has declined to force the issue....

There is, however, a real cost to the Democrats' strategy of pounding away at the attorney general purely for sport....

This past Sunday, a heap of Democrats voted to rush through changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law that governs electronic surveillance of anyone in this country. The new law expands the authority of the attorney general to approve the monitoring of phone calls and e-mails to suspected overseas terrorists from unknowing American citizens. Make no mistake about it. The vote to update FISA rewarded the AG for years of missteps and misstatements by giving him expanded authority to enforce the president's alarming constitutional vision. Sans oversight. Sans judicial approval.

There is virtually no way to reconcile Sen. Mark Pryor's, D-Ark., claim that Gonzales has "lied to the Senate" and needs to go with his vote to expand the reach of our warrantless eavesdropping program. And how can one possibly square Sen. Dianne Feinstein's, D-Calif., claim that the AG "just doesn't tell the truth" with her vote to give him yet more unchecked authority? You either trust this AG with the power to listen in on your phone calls or you do not, and the mumbled justifications for these "yes" votes ( … but Gonzales shares his authority with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell; … but the bill sunsets in six months) do nothing to lessen the impression that some Democrats mistrust Gonzales when it's convenient, but not when it's truly important.

That was a short honeymoon for Admiral Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence. His nomination to the top intelligence job was viewed as a rare instance of Bush-administration maturity, as his tenure at the helm of the National Security Agency earned him a great deal of bipartisan respect. The chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), greeted his confirmation the next month by beaming, "It is hard for me to imagine a better choice than Admiral McConnell."

But after last week's rapid, controversial revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, in which McConnell played chief Congressional negotiator, lawmakers are wondering: Was McConnell set up by the Bush administration? Or is he a willing flunky?

At issue is Thursday's FISA deal. As TPMmuckraker reported, Democrats left a marathon negotiation session with McConnell believing he had agreed to a deal. The proposed revision to FISA would allow the NSA to obtain foreign communications without a warrant. But soon they learned that the White House had rejected the bargain and were left perplexed by McConnell's acquiescence -- a confusion compounded by Friday's Senate passage of a far broader bill.

Despite Democratic recollections of McConnell citing "pressure" from above, both he and the White House now deny that there was ever any "deal" for the administration to scrap. But the acrimony that followed among Democrats, fueled by widespread criticism of the act from civil libertarians and of the Democrats from the press, was intense. After all, the administration used McConnell to negotiate its bill in order to exploit his credibility: its other principal architect, Alberto Gonzales, is politically radioactive. Chairman of the House intelligence committee Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) tells The Los Angeles Times that while he thinks McConnell negotiated in good faith, "I think he got caught up there at the end in the politics of it."

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You know how it is: clerical errors lead to thousands of missing weapons. Top commander in Iraq General David Petraeus said thousands of weapons meant for Iraqi security forces have been unaccounted for because of “bookkeeping deficiencies.” Tracking the weapons’ serial numbers were not of the greatest concern in 2004 and 2005 when priority was to provide weapons to Iraqi security forces, according to Petraeus. Of course, looking back, it might have been useful considering many officials fear these U.S.-issued weapons are being used now against American forces. (WaPo)

Let's face it. The federal government, in particular the Bush administration, doesn't have a great record in managing disasters. So you can understand why the states would be upset that the administration has rewritten our national response plan without considering the advice of local emergency officials. Oh, and -of course- the administration rewrote the plan in secret. (Washington Post)

Call it a half-baked solution: the FBI has loosened its hiring standards when it comes to drug use. In an effort to fill many job vacancies, the FBI has gotten rid of its previous drug policy to disqualify anyone with extensive drug use (using marijuana more than 15 times or other illegal drugs more than five times). (WaPo)

As part of last week's 9/11 bill, the CIA will declassify its inspector general's report on the attacks, which was completed two years ago. The report is set to be released on Labor Day. (The Hill)

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Recently, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) appeared in the news for purchasing property on the Kenai River at far below market value last year from Alaska businessman Bob Penney. It turns out, the plot is nearby one of her more notable earmarks: a three-mile stretch of road that abuts the property of about 50 residents, for which Murkowski has secured $6 million in federal funds since 2003.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) rounded up an extra $2 million for the three-mile road project, which is just under half mile from Murkowski’s plot, which she sold back to Penney in the wake of the controversy. And even that's not all. To cover matching costs required by some of the federal money, Murkowski's father, then-Gov. Frank Murkowksi ponied up another $325,000 in state funds. It’s unclear whether the project, construction for which is set to begin next year, will boost the value of the land.

Local residents initiated what they coined the Keystone Drive Project back in 2002. The 3-mile road leads to the National Kenai Wildlife Refuge, passing some 50 residents, one of whom is retired NBA star Karl Malone. The locals were fed up with the influx of tourists on their gravel road during the last two weeks in July, when nature enthusiasts come to fish, camp and visit the refuge. So, they rallied neighborhood support and first took their case to the local government. When that didn't pan out, they pressed on to their federal representatives in Washington.

Keystone Drive resident Jane Madison, who spearheaded the effort, said a group of neighbors flew to Washington to take their case directly to the delegation in 2002. They had meetings with all three offices, and then, serendipitously, they sat in front of Murkowski on the flight back home.

"We discovered that this woman is a very, very bright, very, very focussed woman," Madison said. "Even though other people were tapping her on the shoulder, she focussed right on us, so we told her the story of Keystone Drive. She said 'I'll do everything I can to help you.'"

And help she did.

Pleased with the results of Alaskan-style direct democracy, Madison said she thinks Murkowski has kept her word.

Madison cited a number of reasons why the road deserved the improvements -- from better access for emergency vehicles to runoff prevention. But her chief argument remains that the increased traffic is caused by the public attractions, including the refuge and two public Kenai River boat launches, making the federal and state government responsible for the road. Madison claims that during the peak weeks in summer, they see as many as 1,000 additional vehicles on their road each day, though where those cars are going is unclear since there appears to be only two small parking lot at the end of the road.

To be sure, a nicer road would benefit those tourists, however many there are. But when I asked if any of the $8 million has been set aside for extra or improved parking lots, Madison was initially puzzled. The answer is no. The project is solely for the road, without any plans for other amenities that would benefit the public.

Though Penney lives just up the road, he doesn't appear to have had a hand in the repaving campaign. It also appears that Murkowski would not have needed to use the road when heading to the main highway. But had she been able to hold on to her sweetheart land deal with Penney, her road-paving earmarks would have made her pretty popular in the neighborhood.

Nobody knows why prosecutors want to keep details surrounding Thomas Kontogiannis' guilty plea secret, and it's anyone's guess what classified information the Greek, New York based businessman had access to. But it's clear that prosecutors have been using some novel arguments and tactics to keep the information under wraps.

At the end of a secret hearing on the issue yesterday, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invited the newspaper's publisher, which is litigating to have the material released, to weigh in:

At the end of the hearing, the judges said they wanted more arguments from the newspaper and the government on a key question: Can members of the executive branch of government – such as federal prosecutors – declare records generated by the judicial branch as “classified”?

It's unclear when the court will rule.

Taking advantage of the difficulty many experts have in understanding Sunday's revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Bush administration is pleading exasperation with misunderstandings of the law. Why can't people understand, asked two senior administration officials in a conference call with reporters yesterday, that the changes to FISA impact only a handful of people? Foreigners, at that! "We're really talking about targeting people, directed targeting at people overseas," assured one of them.

Ah, if only it were so.

The most conspicuous aspect of the Protect America Act of 2007 is that nowhere in the bill is there anything approaching individualized suspicion of who is to be monitored. The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence can authorize surveillance on anyone "reasonably believed to be outside the United States," provided that a "significant purpose" of the surveillance is the "acquisition of foreign intelligence information." Nowhere do the two officials need to specify, to the FISA Court or the Congress, precisely who is under surveillance. They need only tell the FISA Court that their surveillance methods are geared at communications that probably outside the U.S., primarily. If communications involving people in the U.S. are part of that communication chain, so be it -- as long as the government says it didn't mean to acquire the information as a primary "target." The FISA Court can only object, months after the fact, to the surveillance if those methods are "clearly erroneous."

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Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) pointed out this weekend to Neil Cavuto that FISA reform was needed to address a ruling by the FISA Court that "prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States." CREW has asked the Justice Department to investigate Boehner for leaking classified information for partisan gain, as the decisions of the FISA Court are top secret. (CREW)

The NYPD must hand over thousands of pages that detail surveillance of potential protesters before the 2004 Republican National Convention, according to a federal judge. While the judge will allow certain sensitive information to be redacted, he agreed with plaintiffs that the documents are necessary to show how the police overstepped legal guidelines by detaining and fingerprinting hundreds of protesters rather than issuing summonses for minor offenses. (NY Times)

The Department of Defense's Inspector General released a report on Friday criticizing several generals, two colonels and a chaplain for supporting a film made by an evangelical organization, the Christian Embassy, under the guise that they were participating in a documentary. Their compliance allowed the organization to film in Pentagon locations. One of the generals, however, asserted that he had done nothing wrong by using his office to support the Christian Embassy because the group has become a "quasi-federal entity." (Time)

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I can't count how many times I read stories last year about the new culture of fear on K Street. In the wake of the Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham prosecutions, the story went, lobbyists were now shifty-eyed, hunted creatures. Suddenly their every move was suspect. Even an innocent campaign contribution could be construed as a crime.

But, with the Republican Congress in power, the reforms never came. And all in all, 2006 was a banner year for lobbyists. According to Political Money Line, special interests spent nearly $2.6 billion on lobbying last year, $229 million more than 2005.

But now the reforms have come, courtesy of the Democratic Congress. And while it's unclear whether they will really change the culture of Washington, one thing is clear: they will make lobbying a lot less fun.

No gifts, no meals, no sports tickets, no trips from lobbyists are allowed anymore. And breaking that ban could land a lobbyist with up to five years in prison. Witness, courtesy of The New York Times, what a sad state this has put influence peddling in:

....[W]orse still for [veteran lobbyist H. Stewart Van Scoyoc], under the new law he is required to certify each quarter that none of the 50 lobbyists in his firm bought so much as a burger or cigar for someone on a lawmaker’s staff....

Another lobbyist recently scaled back the menu at a breakfast briefing for lawmakers, offering bagels and cream cheese instead of ham and eggs. The rules permit lobbyists to provide refreshment of “only nominal value.” The House ethics committee guidelines suggest “light appetizers and drinks, or soda and cookies,” a standard that is known as “the toothpick test.”....

Lobbyists complain that Congress is unfairly punishing them for the misdeeds of its own members, not to mention ruining the social lives of innocent and underpaid staff members.

“All those people who grew up in the system — who aren’t evil-doers, just good people — used to be able to entertain and have fun,” lamented Jim Ervin, a veteran military industry lobbyist.

No more sushi (a favorite of ex-Rep. Bob Ney's, a "sushiholic"), no more well-done filet mignon (Duke Cunningham's preference), not even ham and eggs. Bagels (and probably plain ones at that). How's a lobbyist supposed to get anything done?

Well, it's not so bleak, it turns out. While lobbyists are prevented from their more traditional avenues of access, they can still throw political fund-raisers -- in fact the new bill may have the perverse effect of increasing the importance of those events. And the requirements melt away when lawmakers and lobbyists find themselves side by side at “widely attended events” -- then the lawmakers can be made more comfortable.

Furthermore, all these requirements might serve to professionalize influence peddling even more, since corporations might be unsure of how to comply with the new laws. Rather than risk going to jail for buying a representative a cheeseburger, why not hire someone who knows the loopholes?

Even the "bundling" provision of the new bill, which will require that lawmakers disclose when lobbyists solicit and provide a group of individual contributions (as, for instance, from company executives), might not turn out to be a bad thing, the Times points out:

But lobbyists say the recognition may only encourage them to bundle. Ties to lawmakers are calling cards for clients.

“That is not going to be viewed as the mark of Cain or anything,” Lawrence O’Brien III, a Democratic lobbyist and fund-raiser, said dryly. “It could be perceived as bragging rights.”

But if there's one group for whom this bill is plainly good news, it's muckrakers. The bundling provision allows a journalist to keep tabs as to who's bragging about access to a lawmaker, and the earmark provisions make it much easier to follow an earmark from the lobbyist to the lawmaker:

A self-described “earmarks guy” who specializes in spending items, [James Dyer] said the new rules were an invitation to scandal hunters. For the first time, the law will require disclosure of both the lawmakers who sponsor such items and the campaign contributions of the lobbyists who seek them.

“It is a road map that says, ‘Hey, come look at me; I have got my name against an earmark,’ ” he said.

Update: Actually, as The Washington Post points out, it's unclear who will be supervising all these new filings. So we'll have to wait and see whether the new system of disclosure is what it's cracked up to be.

In an interview just released with Newsweek's Michael Hirsch, Mahmud Ali Durrani, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, denied that his country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas provide, as the National Intelligence Estimate put it (pdf), "safehaven" for al-Qaeda. And he used the WMD fiasco as a way of discrediting U.S. intelligence on Pakistan:

(M)any times [American] information is faulty. It’s not timely. It’s inaccurate. It’s the same intelligence you’ve been getting in Iraq. People here [in Washington] take it as the gospel truth. We challenge that very seriously.

Durrani expends a great deal of effort parsing the difference between a "safe haven" (none in Pakistan!), a "compound" (depends on your definition) and a "training camp" (ok, they've got a few of those).

And there's more. At a hearing two weeks ago, defense and intelligence officials attributed the growth of al-Qaeda in Pakistan to a controversial 2006 peace accord in the tribal areas that moved the Pakistani military into a more reactive posture. A senior defense official, Mary Beth Long, said that despite fierce fighting over the last month, the Pakistanis might try to revive that accord. Sure enough, Durrani says that's what's happened:

Even today, there are tribal leaders who are literally begging the government not to destroy this agreement. So is the agreement still intact? I think so.

Somehow, this doesn't seem like what counterterrorism officials mean when they talk about the importance of "denying safehavens."

Experts are still digesting the revision to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act signed (pdf) by President Bush yesterday, known as the Protect America Act. It's a fairly safe bet, judging by the amount of expert disagreement about the act's provisions, that most members of Congress don't know what they've just passed.

What's clear is that now the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence can now obtain the international communications of U.S. citizens or residents without a warrant provided that such surveillance is "reasonably believed" to be "directed at" persons outside the country. The FISA Court's new, restricted role here is to determine -- up to six months after the fact of the surveillance -- that the government's procedures in seeking the primarily-foreign data is not "clearly erroneous." If it isn't, the surveillance goes forward.

One of the most controversial, and little understood, provisions in the bill changes the definition of electronic surveillance -- but not substantively. In short, it takes out from Fourth Amendment protections surveillance of a person "reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States," no matter who that individual communicates with, inside or outside the United States. "This deems certain acts as not electronic surveillance as a legal matter, when they certainly would be surveillance as a factual matter," says Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

In fact, the legality of collecting such information without a warrant turns entirely on who the government says it's primarily interested in. "If you are talking with somebody overseas, and the government intercepts that communication, it is electronic surveillance if government says they were directing the surveillance at you," says Jim Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. That kind of electronic surveillance would require, under FISA, a probable-cause warrant. But the law allows the government to skirt that requirement by shifting the emphasis of its investigation: "It is not electronic surveillance if the government says it's directing the surveillance at a person overseas."

This goes beyond the Terrorist Surveillance Program. As described by President Bush in December 2005, communications monitored by the TSP had to involve, on one end, a known al-Qaeda figure. Now, the subject of surveillance simply has to be "reasonably believed" to have "foreign intelligence information" and be, more likely than not, outside the U.S. "The only thing they can't do is that they can't ask the FBI to go put a tap on your phone to listen to your phone conversations with other people in the U.S.," says Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies. "But what they basically do is they scoop up the stream of all calls going in and out of the U.S. ... There's no individualized suspicion, no individualized collection or acquisition" of information.

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As The Washington Post reported over the weekend, Justice Department officials attended a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001. You can see the Justice Department's catalog of the briefings here.

Karl Rove and his aides, remember, delivered the briefings for agency officials throughout the government. Briefing slides from a presentation at the General Services Administration and the State Department show that Rove's shop lectured the officials on which GOP incumbents were vulnerable. It wasn't publicly known until Friday that Rove had included Department officials in his briefing circuit. White House aides have defended the briefings by saying they were merely meant to "inform" appointees by giving them the "political landscape."

As you can see, most briefings were attended by the White House liaison at the Department, and a number were delivered by Karl Rove himself.

Most notable is a September 5, 2006 briefing for "agency Chiefs of Staff and White House Liaisons" at the White House; both Kyle Sampson, Gonzales former chief of staff, and Monica Goodling, the White House liaison, were scheduled to attend. Rove led the briefing.

These, of course, were the two 30-something senior staffers at the center of the U.S. attorney firings, and the briefing was given shortly before the firing process entered its final stage. One week after the briefing, Sampson sent then-White House counsel Harriet Miers another draft list of U.S. attorneys to fire -- the first such list he'd drafted for more than six months. There's no evidence that the briefing, which was given to political appointees from a number of agencies, led directly to the generation of that list, but surely it helped Sampson and Goodling, who were at the forefront of the politicization of the Department, to be well apprised of "the political landscape."

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We're worried about Rep. Don Young (R-AK) over here at TPMmuckraker. First, in an out-of-character move he apologized for threatening to bite a New Jersey congressman like an Alaskan mink -- and now he's giving back illegal campaign contributions -- even though he doesn't have to.

Last month Young said he would not give back the full $5,500 he illegally accepted from Pacific Seafood Processors Association since 2001. He told federal officials he would only return $2,400 because the rest fell outside of the statute of limitations on campaign finance regulations.

Young is under federal criminal investigation for his ties to oil services Veco Corp. Maybe that has something to do with his sudden impulse for good behavior?

Sometimes it's worth reading all the way to the very end of a long feature. A story recapping the Alaska political corruption scandal in this weekend's Seattle Times certainly was.

Wrapping up where all the key players stand, the story ends noting that former state Senate President Ben Stevens, son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), has returned to his old line of work as a fisherman to cover mounting legal bills:

Ben Stevens is back in private life and faces legal expenses. To make money, he has returned to the sea to work. As of last week, he was on a vessel.

Looks like Stevens' consulting fees -- $775,000 from various seafood companies and $240,000 from Veco -- are drying up.

Can't keep all of the ins-and-outs of the Alaska political corruption scandal straight, what with one jury conviction, three guilty pleas, three impending corruption trials, seven current and former officials in the spotlight, a murky non-profit taking heat, an oil services company facing scrutiny and a sea life tourist attraction under fire? The Anchorage Daily News posted a user-friendly run down of all of these key players, here.

We reported a couple of weeks ago on one David Palmer's nomination to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Palmer, who heads the employee litigation section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, had left a number of career employees dismayed with his handling of the section -- namely its official direction (away from protecting minorities from discrimination) and his personal leadership (treating subordinates with "disdain and contempt"). The former employees also noted in their letter opposing his nomination that Palmer was also the subject of at least one employment discrimination complaint.

Palmer, apparently, has had enough of the mounting opposition to his nomination. From The Washington Post:

David Palmer, whose nomination to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had languished for nearly a year, withdrew his name over the weekend, bitterly complaining that partisanship in the confirmation process has gotten out of control....

"I have received what can only be called a crash course in how bitterly partisan the nomination process has become," he wrote in his withdrawal letter to Bush.

Thomas Kontogiannis, long the most mysterious link in the Duke Cunningham bribery case, has continued to be something of a mystery even after pleading guilty to channeling millions in corrupt payments to Cunningham. He pled guilty back in February -- a fact that did not become public until June. An even now, it remains unclear whether Kontogiannis will be cooperating and against whom he might testify.

What's clear is that prosecutors really want to keep the details surrounding Kontogiannis' plea secret. The Cunningham case, of course, has reached deep into the CIA with the prosecution of the former executive director Dusty Foggo. Does Kontogiannis have more information to provide about Foggo? Or does the classified information concerning his case run in a different vein?

This morning, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hold a completely closed hearing on whether the transcripts of Kontogiannis' prior hearings should remain sealed, something, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports, that's unprecedented in recent history.

Welcome to the black sites, the off-the-books detention facilities where the CIA subjected senior al-Qaeda captives to a methodically harsh regime of interrogation.

In this week's The New Yorker, Jane Mayer gives the first reportorial glimpse into the black sites after the Washington Post exposed their existence in 2005. She relies on new sources, including those with direct knowledge of the interrogations, as well as on the Council of Europe's investigation into European Union complicity with the CIA on terrorism detentions.

Inside the black sites, detainees are subject to psychological and physical abuse -- from simulated drowning to prolonged nudity -- so severe that CIA officials fear prosecution. Yet many CIA veterans describe the interrogations there as "nothing like Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo," in the words of a former chief of the agency's Counterterrorism Center, Robert Grenier. "They were very, very regimented. Very meticulous."

Some of the methods employed in the black sites, however, did appear in both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. military, not the CIA, primarily handled detention and interrogation operations. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, was paraded on a dog leash, much like at Abu Ghraib. Black-site denizens, additionally, are subject to exposure to extremely cold cells, which can induce hypothermia, and extended periods of sleeplessness, both of which have been documented by official inquiries (pdf) into Guantanamo Bay. While Mayer's article does not explore the connection, she reports that psychologists from the Special Forces' program to survive torturous interrogations, known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape), helped design the interrogation regime, much as they had at Guantanamo.

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It's a bad time to be a government leaker (of a certain kind, at least). Last week, the FBI executed a classified search warrant against a Justice Department lawyer on the grounds that he might have leaked information about the government's warrantless wiretapping program to The New York Times. (Newsweek)

A top-secret document listing a log of calls monitored by the NSA is the crux of a lawsuit that has been labeled by some experts as the strongest case against the administrations warrantless wiretapping program. So how does the charity that has been wiretapped know about this secret document? Well, some aides at the Treasury department accidentally handed it out amid a collection of press clippings. Whoops. (Associated Press)

Sen. Nelson (D-FL) has sent a letter to the Interior Secretary, and he wants to know why the Everglades are no longer listed as an area in "environmental danger." More importantly, he wants Todd Willens to be fired. Willens, who pushed for the removal of the Everglades despite the recommendation of scientific evidence, is a former aide for Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA). And when under Pombo, Willens managed to take an overseas trip sponsored by Jack Abramoff. (St. Petersburg Times)

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By now you've probably heard that the House and Senate passed bills that gutted FISA. The bills, supported unanimously by Republicans* and a handful of Democrats in both houses, categorically exclude from FISA court oversight all surveillance "directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States." As Marty Lederman explains:

For surveillance to come within this exemption, there is no requirement that it be conducted outside the U.S.; no requirement that the person at whom it is "directed" be an agent of a foreign power or in any way connected to terrorism or other wrongdoing; and no requirement that the surveillance does not also encompass communications of U.S. persons. Indeed, if read literally, it would exclude from FISA any surveillance that is in some sense "directed" both at persons overseas and at persons in the U.S.

The key term, obviously, is "directed at." The bill includes no definition of it.

The bill's one saving grace is that it will expire after six months, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already signaled that she won't wait near that long, wanting instead to bring up legislation "as soon as possible," i.e. early September, after the August recess.

We'll also have more on this tomorrow.

*Update/Correction: Actually two Republicans in the House voted against: Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Tim Johnson (R-IL). As commenters below have helpfully provided, here's the House roll call and here's the Senate.

From The Washington Post:

Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released yesterday.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he did not believe that senior Justice Department officials had attended such briefings. But he clarified his testimony yesterday in a letter to Congress, emphasizing that the briefings were not held at the agency's offices....

Justice officials attended 12 political briefings at the White House, and another held at the Department of Agriculture, from 2001 to 2006, according to the list sent to Waxman. At least five were led by Rove or included presentations by him.

We'll have more on this tomorrow.