Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Michael Joyce (R) has a problem of saying one thing and doing another.

Here’s what Joyce, who was indicted Monday on nine counts of money laundering and mail fraud, has said. Back in 2001, he was in a car accident. The injury was so bad that he had to forgo almost all physical activity. According to the narrative he filed with his insurance company, he couldn’t golf. He didn’t renew his scuba license because he couldn’t swim. And though he had received a primary nomination to the state Supreme Court, now the pain from his injuries meant that he couldn’t even imagine running an election campaign.

The only problem is, that’s not true. Okay, so some of it is true. Joyce was involved in a fender-bender with another car (at speeds around 5 miles per hour). The bump was minor, so no police or medics were called to the scene. And it is true that a year later Joyce filed insurance claims with both his insurer and that of the other driver; he received settlements totaling $440,000. And to be fair, even low-speed accidents can produce chronic injuries.

What doesn’t seem to be true is the idea that Joyce was suffering very much. He said he couldn’t play golf. But he turned in sixteen completed scorecards between the accident and the filing (who wants to lose his golf handicap?). He said he had forgone his scuba license. But a December 2001 check to the Professional Association of Driving Instructors says otherwise, as does a June 2002 scuba trip to Jamaica. Joyce says he had to abandon his hopes of a Supreme Court campaign, despite the support of his party. But the grand jury indictment says he received no such endorsement or nomination, and his local Republicans have so far agreed. You can see the full indictment here.

In fact, Joyce even found time in 2002 to pick up a few new hobbies. When he wasn’t driving around on the motorcycle he bought with the first round of his insurance money, Joyce was enjoying another new hobby: flying. Between April and October, he piloted a plane over fifty times. And in order to pilot, he had to sign off saying he that he was not experiencing physical limitations or problems. He even put some of his insurance windfall towards a down payment on a private plane.

Joyce is set to fight the indictment in court, promising to mount a “a vigorous legal defense.” Then again, he also said last week that he had no plans to abandon his reelection campaign. But this week, he announced that he will retire after this term. So it remains to be seen if this is the time Michael Joyce actually does what he says.

It's not just Barbour Griffith & Rogers, and it's not just Ayad Allawi. Ten different U.S. firms are registered through the Department of Justice's Foreign Agents Registration Act database as having active contracts with various Iraqi factions.

BGR isn't even making most of its Iraq-related money off Allawi: for the six-month period between January 1 and May 31, the Kurdistan Regional Government -- the political entity ruling the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq -- paid the firm $381,487.71 for its various services, which, from its mandatory reporting, includes a lot of phone calls to BRG President Bob Blackwill's old friend at the National Security Council, Meghan O'Sullivan.

A BGR lobbyist described as the point person on the Iraq contract, Loren Monroe, did not return TPMmuckraker's phone calls.

BGR is by a large margin the powerhouse firm representing Iraqi clients. Holding a contract that will be worth $100,000 come September 9 is the much smaller Focus on Advocacy and Advancement of International Relations, run by a certain Muthanna al-Hanooti out of Dearborn and Washington D.C. Since September 13, 2006, Hanooti has represented the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest constituent part of the larger Sunni parliamentary bloc, known as the Tawafuq. In its filing, the IIP lists its "suggestions for how to make Iraq a success story for democracy" -- which include not arbitrarily detaining Sunnis and negotiating with "the Iraqi Armed Resistance (not foreign fighters)" -- but the IIP is further away from power than ever. Last week, Nouri al-Maliki unveiled a new governing coalition that left the IIP, the rest of the Tawafuq and another Sunni faction in the cold. Attempts to contact Hanooti were unsuccessful.

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Alleged billion dollar thief Hazem Shaalan isn't Ayad Allawi's only infamous friend. Allawi is also a close ally of the head of Iraq's largest intelligence service -- a man who takes his billions from Washington, not Baghdad.

On the ground in Baghdad is a sprawling intelligence operation called the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, or INIS. Only INIS isn't really "National" at all. To the great chagrin of the Maliki government, it's financed and controlled by the CIA. And its boss is a longtime Allawi friend and CIA asset, Muhammed Shahwani.

Who's Muhammed Shahwani? He's a former Iraqi military officer who, along with Allawi, helped plot a botched coup against Saddam Hussein in 1996. Despite the failure, the CIA considered him a valuable asset, largely on the strength of his considerable knowledge of Saddam's military apparatus. In his memoir, ex-CIA Director George Tenet writes that when Shahwani returned to Iraq as part of "the Agency-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary group known as 'the Scorpions'" he became "key to developing a strong network inside Iraq for the Agency."

As a result, Shahwani, a member of Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party, was an obvious choice to lead the CIA-created INIS. Throughout the Coalition Provisional Authority era and the Allawi regime that followed it, Shahwani was a reliable fixture -- so much so that when the 2005 election saw Allawi's government replaced by a Shiite coalition known as the United Iraqi Alliance, the agency decided that INIS was too valuable to hand over to the less-reliable UIA. (Concerns about sovereignty have their exceptions.) INIS had control over extensive files on Iraqis tied to the insurgency -- and many others not suspected of crimes -- and the UIA bristled when unable to get access to what it considered the rightful spoils of its electoral victory. "I prefer to call it the American Intelligence of Iraq, not the Iraqi Intelligence Service," a Shiite parliamentarian and militia commander told reporters Hannah Allam and Warren Strobel.

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To be fair in our coverage of Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) controversial $10 million Coconut Road interchange earmark, we should point out that there are locals who want to keep the extra-Constitutional language change. One of the more vocal advocates also appears to have a financial stake in the decision.

Last week when county authorities voted to ask Congress to use the money to widen Interstate 75, rather than for the pet project, there was some opposition. Heather Mazurkiewicz, who belongs to the citizens advisory board, which advises the Metropolitan Planning Organization, supported keeping the changed wording. According to theNews Press she was appalled that the county ignored her advice:

"I should be able to discuss the merits of this without a bias from you," she said. "We make recommendations to you. You don't make them to us."

As it turns out, Mazurkiewicz is married to a consultant who pushed for the project and attended the fundraiser that netted Young $40,000 right before the earmark appeared. Joe Mazurkiewicz spoke with the New York Times and CNN about the fundraiser and the funding. In his initial interview with the Times, Mazurkiewicz was a bit more candid about the fundraiser, saying he and other developers were looking for "a lot of money" and Young delivered. According to Young's contribution records, the Mazurkiewiczs gave Young's campaign $1,000 a few weeks after the February 2005 fundraiser.

How does Allawi pay for his lucrative contract with GOP lobbying powerhouse Barbour Griffith & Rogers? The obvious guess is that his old buddies at the CIA pay for him. But he may not need the agency's cash. One member of his coterie is suspected of participating in what an Iraqi public-corruption judge calls "possibly the largest robbery in the world" -- the theft of approximately $1 billion from the Iraqi treasury.

In mid-2004, Hazem Shaalan had it all: he had risen from being a small businessman in London before the war to becoming Ayad Allawi's defense minister. (Shaalan had been a member of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, but the relationship between Shaalan and Chalabi became acrimonious, with the INC accusing Shaalan of being a Baathist spy.) The defense ministry was Allawi's single biggest priority, as he owed his appointment -- made jointly by the U.S. and the United Nations -- to his promise of restoring stability to the insurgency-wracked country. Shaalan came through for him, fully backing the joint U.S.-Allawi decision to fight the Mahdi Army in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in August 2004.

But that wasn't all Shaalan did at the defense ministry.

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Christina Davidson at IraqSlogger, who broke the story that influential GOP lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers are promoting Iraqi parliamentarian Ayad Allawi to be the new prime minister, has another scoop. On Monday, BGR president Robert Blackwill -- President Bush's former Iraq coordinator at the White House -- signed a contract with Allawi worth $300,000 over six months to provide "strategic counsel" for the would-be-premier "before the US Government, Congress, media and others."

Reports Davidson:

The filings stipulate that Allawi is not supervised by, owned by, directed by, controlled by, financed by, or subsidized by any foreign government, foreign political party, or other foreign principal.

While BGR registers him as an individual, rather than as a political party, they do identify him as head of the Iraq National Accord, and indicate they will not only represent Allawi, but also "his moderate Iraqi colleagues."

Coming up: who are Allawi's "moderate Iraqi colleagues" -- and how can they afford such a boutique lobbying firm?

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), following months of battling scandal that has prompted an FBI investigation, has decided not to seek reelection. Here are all of Renzi's highlights. (Arizona Star)

U.S. House Officials still won't allow investigators access to Mark Foley's computers, but they have told the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that there are no sexually explicit photos on the former lawmaker's hard drive. Of course, the investigators wanted to look for inappropriate emails from Foley, but I suppose that is still reassuring information. (Associated Press)

The secret's out. Private telecommunication companies did in fact play an integral role in the NSA warrantless surveillance program. We just thought we'd bring it up again, seeing as the man who informed the country is the same one who said openly discussing the program would cost American lives. Thanks, Mike Mcconnell. Democrats, towards whom some of McConnell's attacks were leveled, were duly shocked that the intelligence chief would be so cavalier in discussing information that was, well, classified. (Boston Globe)

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Now he tells us.

General Peter Pace became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2005, the first ever Marine to become senior military adviser to the president. Known as "Perfect Pete" inside the Pentagon, Pace was a consistent and steadfast supporter of the Iraq war. Throughout 2006, now considered something of a "lost year" in Iraq by war supporters, Pace painted a rosy picture of the war -- even describing it as going "very, very well" just weeks after the destruction of a major Shiite mosque sparked a new wave of intense sectarian fighting. Pace's boosterism cost him his job in June, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to renominate him to another two-year term rather than face a grueling reconfirmation hearing.

Now that Pace is on his way out, though, he's singing a much different tune. The Los Angeles Times reports that Pace, following a recent trip to Iraq, will call for nearly half of the roughly 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq to come home by 2008.

Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.

Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop buildup before force levels are decreased to their pre-buildup numbers sometime next year.

Pace's recommendations reflect the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who initially expressed private skepticism about the strategy ordered by Bush and directed by Petraeus, before publicly backing it.

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Yet another resignation from the Justice Department. Wan Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, announced today that he'll be leaving at the end of the month, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

Kim took the helm at the troubled Civil Rights Division in late 2005, just at the tail end of the stormiest period in the Division, when lawyers left the voting rights section, and other sections, in droves. Kim, like his predecessor, Alex Acosta, has never been anywhere near as controversial a figure as Division appointees Bradley Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky, the two fingered by former Department lawyers as leading efforts to politicize the Division, the voting section in particular.

Nevertheless, the Division continued in the direction set by the prior Bush years under Kim's direction, often pursuing causes favored by conservatives (such as religious discrimination and human trafficking) to the detriment of the Division's traditional emphasis (such as protecting African-Americans from discrimination).

Kim follows a flurry of senior resignations in the past few months, including former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, his chief of staff Michael Elston, White House liaison Monica Goodling, chief of staff Kyle Sampson, Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer, and Schlozman, who had moved to a spot in the office that oversees U.S. attorneys.

The Department's release is below.

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When developer Daniel Aronoff wanted an interchange built in Florida, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) came through -- after Aronoff arranged a $40,000 fundraiser for him. But Florida wasn't the only remote state where the Alaskan congressman proved popular in 2005. A massive transportation bill was making its way through Congress, and Young, as the chairman of the transportation committee, was in a powerful position.

In addition to Aronoff's $40,000 in Florida, Young raised tens of thousands of dollars in Wisconsin, Arkansas, and New Jersey during the spring and summer of 2005 from residents and special interests eager to curry favor with the man who would preside over a $280 billion authorization bill.

In fact, Young proved much more popular with those outside his state during that time than with Alaskans. Young raised only $37,862 from Alaskans for his campaign and political action committees in the first six months of 2005 -- that's compared to $90,000 from Floridians, $22,000 from Wisconsinites, $174,000 from Arkansans, and $30,000 from New Jerseyans.

Below is our rundown of Young's special tour of our great nation, and how the locals fared.

Florida
First and foremost, of course, is Young's infamous $10 million Coconut Road earmark, one which Young inserted (changing the language after the bill passed Congress) against the wishes of local officials.

Following the typical Young-earmark pattern, a fundraiser arranged by part-time Naples resident and real estate developer Daniel Aronoff triggered the earmark, after netting $40,000 for Young's campaign.

The project is unpopular in the area and local authorities have asked for permission to use the money for what was outlined by the original earmark before it was changed.

Wisconsin
In late May of 2005, businessman Dennis Troha, his family, and associates gave $22,000 to Young.

He had his reasons. Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported that Troha was angling to have truck hauling legislation included in the transportation bill that would benefit Troha's trucking conglomerate. Troha got what he wanted (thanks also to Reps. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Jim Oberstar (D-MN)), but has since been indicted. Earlier this summer, he pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Democrats and Republicans alike. He's yet to be sentenced and faces a maximum of two years in prison.

Bice reports that Troha is currently cooperating with federal prosecutors as they probe the trucking deal. Young says that he's never met Troha and didn't know the rule change would benefit him.

Around the same time the US attorney's office began looking into the contributions, Young retained Akin Gump for $25,000.

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We're slowing down for a repeat stop on our Alaska fundraising tour. The last time we dropped in on former Alaska Gov. Bill Sheffield's (D) house, he was hosting the annual Rep. Don Young (R-AK) pig roast. This time he's helping out Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). Thanks to TPMm Reader LDR for sending us the invitation to "Ted's in Town" where guests are encouraged to contribute $250 to the senior senator's campaign fund. No word on the spread.

Last night, CNN took a look at Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) extra-Constitutional methods, airing a segment on Young's $10 million Coconut Road earmark.

Remember that someone, apparently at Young's behest, changed the language in the massive 2005 transportation bill after a vote in both the House and Senate.

Young's office has stayed quiet about the Constitutional issue at hand. Notably, he isn't even talking to CNN.

CNN did talk to a businessman, Joe Mazurkiewicz, who attended the Young fundraiser in 2005. That fundraiser, organized by Daniel Aronoff, netted Young $40,000 in contributions.

Mazurkiewicz told CNN there's nothing nefarious here -- it's just "really proper planning." That's at odds with the blunt description he gave to The New York Times in June:

'We were looking for a lot of money,'' said the consultant, Joe Mazurkiewicz. ''We evidently made a very good impression on Congressman Young, and thanks to a lot of great work from Congressman Young, we got $81 million to expand Interstate 75 and $10 million for the Coconut Road interchange.''

Blitzer wraps up the piece saying this can't possibly be the only example of an altered earmark in the 800-page highway bill. But according to our review, it certainly is 1 in 6, 371.

From the AP:

Florida's top police agency said Wednesday its investigation into former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's lurid Internet communications with teenage boys has been hindered because neither Foley nor the House will let investigators examine his congressional computers.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says it hopes to conclude its investigation next week. Foley, a Florida Republican, resigned from Congress on Sept. 29 after being confronted with the computer messages he sent to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill.

"We have requested to review federally owned computers that Mr. Foley used during his time as a representative, but the U.S. House of Representatives ... cited case law restrictions that prohibited them from releasing those computers," said Heather Smith, an FDLE spokeswoman.

The AP notes the court decision early this month that the FBI had wrongfully seized Constitutionally protected legislative materials from Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) office, which strengthens the House's refusal to turn over the computer. Probably not precisely what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has developed a bit of an M.O. (No, he hasn't threatened to bite anyone else like an Alaskan mink.)

In the last year, Young thrice doled out reimbursements for fundraisers in what appear to be last ditch efforts to redeem himself. Perhaps the lawyers he retained in March -- and has since paid at least $262,000 -- had something to do with the decisions:

-- In June, the congressman reimbursed the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa $2,602 for "lodging and reception" costs from a fundraiser in February 2005. The event, arranged by businessman Daniel Aronoff, raised $40,000 for Young and appears to be the impetus for the contentious $10 million Coconut Road earmark. The arrangement is now part of an FBI inquiry into shifty earmarks. The Anchorage Daily News noted the tardy payback last week.

(Young's campaign lists the Hyatt payment as a June 2007 expenditure, which is a bizarre way to handle a reimbursement for 2005. In any case, Young's chief of staff Mike Anderson told me definitively that Young has not visited Florida at all this year and there was no reception. Young's campaign contributions also confirm no fundraiser took place.)

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By the end of this year, the U.S. military will have delivered fewer than half of the blast-resistant vehicles it promised would go to Iraq. The explanation? The first delivery estimate didn't account for the time spent adding amenities like radios and armaments to the vehicles. Defense Secretary Gates has referred to these vehicles as the top priority for military acquisitions. (NY Times)

Silence is golden. It seems to be the case in the court martial of Steven Jordan, the only officer being charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal. That's because every witness for the prosecution seems to bolster the defense' case; none has any reason to believe Jordan played a part in the scandal. Yesterday, one of the judges gave this advice to a prosecution lawyer: "Don't speak." Taking the hint, the prosecution rested its case yesterday. (Washington Post, Associated Press)

Lobbying reforms are motivated in part by the industry habit of financing expensive trips for lawmakers. Thank goodness those rules don't apply to executive officials, who have been traveling on the dime of companies and trade associations overseen by their agencies. Some of the highlights include free trips to Geneva to attend conferences and an all-paid weekend in Vegas. (USA TODAY)

A new administration plan will require charities and non-profits that do work outside the country to provide detailed information on all key personnel, in order to ensure that these organizations are not aiding terrorists. The government also reserves the right to reject certain organizations based on its findings. To be clear, the source of the evaluations will remain secret, standards will not be published, and the government has final say on whether an organization can exist. Trust them. (Washington Post)

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Barbour Griffith & Rogers has long been a powerhouse GOP lobbying firm. Now, apparently, American politics are just too small-time. BGR, according to a report by IraqSlogger's Christina Davidson, is trying to influence Iraqi politics as well.

BGR, the firm started by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, has been promoting Ayad Allawi, the one-time Iraqi interim prime minister who over the weekend published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for the parliamentary overthrow of current PM Nouri al-Maliki. The piece amounted to a trial balloon for American support for a second Allawi-led government, promising non-sectarianism and stability. Allawi has decades-old ties to the CIA, making him a known quantity to U.S. officials during a time of extreme frustration with Maliki.

But frustration alone doesn't get governments to fall. That's where BGR comes in. On August 17, the firm purchased the domain name Allawi-For-Iraq.com (the site's not yet live). Following publication of the op-ed, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) called on the Iraqi parliament to hold a no-confidence vote on Maliki. BGR circulated Levin's comments around Washington -- and particularly to Congressional staffers -- using the e-mail address DrAyadAllawi@Allawi-for-Iraq.com.

Yet BGR hasn't registered any affiliation with the ex-premier:

Allawi's relationship with BGR apparently is relatively new, however, because official Justice Department and Senate lobbyist tracking records provide no indication of the BGR-Allawi relationship.

BGR's Web site, which identifies dozens of BGR clients by name, makes no mention of Allawi.

But the firm's ties with Allawi perhaps shouldn't be so surprising. Among BGR's executives is Ambassador Bob Blackwill, who in 2004 served as the White House's Iraq coordinator. In that role, Blackwill was an enthusiastic booster of Allawi, helping manage the process that led to Allawi's selection by the U.S. and the U.N. as interim prime minister in advance of the dissolution of the Coalition Provisional Authority. After the 2005 elections in Iraq, Blackwill wrote a laudatory op-ed in The Wall Street Journal praising Allawi's strategy for crushing the insurgency: "Mr. Allawi's message is simple: Join us in building the new Iraq and accept its benefits or, if you support the insurgency, get ready to die."

As it happened, the strategy didn't live up to its promises. The elections knocked Allawi out of power, as his tenure ended up alienating a large swath of the majority Shiite population. His attempts at enlisting American support to return to office -- a perennial rumor in Washington
over the past two years -- have all fallen short. Evidently, though, Blackwill and BGR evidently think that the time is right to get the old gang back together.

After initially granting tepid support to the current Iraqi government during the current fracas, President Bush clarified yesterday in his speech to the VFW convention that he supports Maliki, whom he called "a good guy." We'll see how long that lasts.

You may have heard about New York Republican operative Roger Stone, who has been accused of placing an obscene, threatening phone call to Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer's 83-year old father. Stone is not only denying he placed the call, but has gone one step further by accusing Spitzer operatives of illegally entering his home to hijack his phone, using audio samples of his voice from TV appearances so that they could fake the phone call in order to make him look bad.

As it turns out, the chairman of the state Senate Investigations Committee informed TPMmuckraker that he will not be investigating Stone's various allegations. "Any alleged phone call would be more appropriately investigated by a law enforcement office as a potential harassment charge," said Republican state Senator George Winner, who has been spearheading other probes against the governor. "But this committee has no jurisdiction, really, or interest in that."

So does Senator Winner think Stone's accusation might be true?

"I have no idea about that. Mr. Stone and I have no involvement with one another. He is not involved with any activities of the Senate Investigations Committee," said Winner, adding that he only ever met Stone once, at a luncheon that also hosted a lot of other Republicans.

Winner did, however, recommend that people check out SpoofCard.com, a Web site that allows someone to fake a Call ID number and even disguise their voice — a sight that is currently the target of investigations by a different state Senate committee and Democratic state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

While Winner seems to be allowing for the hypothetical possibility that a call can be faked, on the other hand he's not taking any role in investigating the accusation, and he's definitely saying it was a good idea for Joe Bruno to let Stone go. "If he made that call, it was an improper action on his part, and I'm glad that Senator Bruno has terminated his relationship with the campaign committee as a consultant," Winner said. "I don't know whether it's true or isn't true, but I'm glad his services are no longer being utilized by us, because it's something of a distraction."

"The whole thing is very bizarre. I can't understand what advantage it would for anybody to make the call, and I can't understand what advantage there would be to direct anyone to make the call," Winner said. "I mean, what advantage would anyone have to make a harassing phone call to an 83 year old man?"

With a heavy heart, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told a Texas newspaper last week that due to the public debate over revising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Americans will die.

McConnell, who before the late July-early August FISA legislation enjoyed broad bipartisan respect, placed the predicted deaths of Americans at the doorstep of an open society. Thanks to widespread efforts to understand what the NSA's highly classified warrantless surveillance program is -- from journalists, from legal scholars, from national security experts, from elected officials -- the Bush administration was forced last month to reveal too much about how the program operates, in order to correct misunderstandings. And that means, McConnell said, "Americans are going to die."

...So that's, we've got a lot of territory to make up with people believing that we're doing things we're not doing.

Q: Even if it's perception, how do you deal with that? You have to do public relations, I assume.

A: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. And you give them the facts the best you can. Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they're using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means and when they go to an alternative means, remember what I said, a significant portion of what we do, this is not just threats against the United States, this is war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Emphasis added.

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On July 29, 2005, after both houses of Congress had passed a massive transportation bill, someone changed the language of a $10 million authorization for Florida to read just how Rep. Don Young (R-AK) wanted it. Who? How? It's not clear, and Don Young's not talking. But we do know one thing for sure: it was a unique case.

The 800-page, $286.4 billion bill included $24.2 billion for 6,371 special earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Out of those 6,371 earmarks, only one underwent a substantive change after it passed Congress. How do we know? We checked. Our, rather, our tireless (and by now nearly blind) researchers Will Thomas and Tanvir Vahora checked. Every single one. Lawmakers tucked 6,371 projects into the bill, and sure, there were minor differences between the conference report that passed Congress and the bill that the President signed, such as an extra word here or there, different punctuation, etc. But the only earmark that underwent a substantive change was Young's pet Coconut Road project:

As Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense explained to us, Young had a motive for making the change. Local authorities had signaled that they didn't want to spend the money on the I-75 Coconut Road Interchange and would rather have it for a more general highway widening project. But Young's rainmaker, businessman Daniel Aronoff, wanted the interchange. And so Young made sure that the money was targeted to that project.

The question remains, of course, how this happened.

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It seems like everyone down in Florida is teaming up to undo what Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has done.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) have taken up the cause of Lee County officials who want to use Young's infamous $10 million Coconut Road earmark for a broader project.

Mack, congressman for the district where the projects sit, sent a letter to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure asking the committee to allow Lee County "flexibility" in how it may use the money. Lee County officials voted last week to send back the money to Congress in hopes of having it reauthorized for I-75.

The county wants the money to widen I-75, as was originally described in the bill approved by the House and Senate. But as Mack writes, "at some point after the conference report passed Congress but before the bill was signed by President George W. Bush, this language was changed." Despite Mack's tactful employment of the past tense, all signs are that Young or someone on his staff was behind the change.

The Coconut Road interchange would benefit a real estate developer who helped raise Young $40,000 a few days before he slipped the earmark into a 2005 highway bill.

Some distortions are so massive and so deliberate as to constitute outright lies. See if you can spot the dishonesty in this line in President Bush's speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars' national convention today:

U.S. forces have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January.

That "and other extremists" line sure does a lot of work here. No order of battle for the insurgency is available, but all credible estimates peg al-Qaeda in Iraq as by far the smallest contingent. One rough assessment, cited byThe New York Times last month, put AQI at possessing perhaps 5,000 fighters. Yet Bush suggested this morning that the U.S. has captured as many as 12,000 members of AQI so far this year.

Since the surge began, the U.S. has had between 17,000 and 23,000 Iraqis in custody each month, according to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index (pdf). Last month, Ned Parker of the Los Angeles Times reported that of the 19,000 detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, only 135 were foreigners -- the most likely indicator of membership in al-Qaeda. Military and intelligence veterans of the Iraq war typically say that determining Iraqi membership in AQI is extraordinarily difficult, and not something that lends itself particularly well to flat, quantitative statements.

No wonder the president picked the artful qualifier "and other extremists" to lard his presentation of who the U.S. is capturing in Iraq. It's impossible to disprove the statement, since it conceals precisely how many of the 1,500 monthly captures are in fact AQI. But an inability to disprove a statement doesn't ever make that statement true -- rather, that makes it gibberish.

If Major John Cockerham had only known Thomas Kontogiannis, maybe the whole sordid story would have turned out differently.

Cockerham was an Army contracting officer in Kuwait who, a criminal complaint alleges, is at the center of the largest corruption case yet to emerge from the Iraq war. It's a picaresque story involving crooked Kuwaiti and Emirati businessmen with codenames like "Mr. and Mrs. Pastry." In 2004 and 2005, according to the complaint, Cockerham, his wife and his sister, took $9.6 million in bribes, kept in safe-deposit boxes in a number of Persian-Gulf cities, in exchange for contracts for things like drinking water.

According to the Washington Post, the Cockerham family could be formally indicted as early as today. While investigators have only been able to locate $415,000 of the nearly $10 million the money that the Cockerhams allegedly took from their business partners, they face charges for money-laundering, bribery and conspiracy.

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An ad war over the Iraq war is about to begin. Freedom’s Watch, a pro-Bush group co-founded by Ari Fleischer and other high-profile Bush supporters, will spend $15 million on an ad campaign (including radio and television ads featuring military veterans) that will try to garner support for Bush’s troop “surge” in Iraq. (The Politico)

A former lawyer at the Texas secretary of state's office has filed a lawsuit claiming that she lost her job because of political pressure. Elizabeth Reyes appeared in an article discussing Karl Rove's voting record; she was fired shortly after Rove called her boss to ask about quotations from the story. (Think Progress)

Yesterday a federal judge ruled that the Bush administration broke the law when it failed to create two environmental reports, an updated climate change research plan and an impact assessment plan. The administration has until March 1st to create the first of the two plans. (Associated Press)

The power of the probe. Congressional Democrats are using subpoenas and public investigations to pursue their agenda, according to AP. The article details the various subjects Congress is pursuing through its oversight powers, while House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said Congressional investigative powers could be “more important than legislation.” (Associated Press)

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Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is tired of the local Alaska press making him out to be a "senator-for-life" figure. He's not royalty!

In other news, protesters were kept out of his sight and earshot at the official opening of the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute in Juneau yesterday.

We've noted before this administration's extraordinary talent for secrecy. A growing number of agency reports, fact sheets, databases, and records have been re-classified, discontinued, or simply withheld.

And it seems that sometimes the administration surprises even itself. On the White House website, a trip to the Freedom of Information Act page about the Executive Office of the President gives you a list of the agencies subject to FOIA:

Right there, you can see that the Office of Administration is listed as an agency subject to FOIA. But apparently that's because the administration never gave it much thought.

In a motion filed yesterday, Justice Department lawyers argued that the Office of Administration is not subject to FOIA. Their reasoning: the office is not an "agency," by the definition of FOIA.

The motion was triggered by a suit from the D.C. watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking documents relating to the disappearance of at least 5 million missing White House emails between 2003 and 2005. The White House has suggested that the problem stemmed from a move from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook.

But the Office of Administration's non-agency status hasn't stopped the office from processing plenty of FOIA requests up until now -- as many as 65 last year alone, the AP reports.

The Department lawyers admit as much in their motion, but say that doesn't matter. "To be sure," they write, "OA currently has regulations implementing FOIA and has not taken the position in prior litigation that it is not subject to FOIA." But every day is a new (secret) day in the Bush White House.

Karl Rove made sure that agency and department officials were busy, busy, busy come election time, The Washington Post reported this weekend. And now House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wants to figure out just how busy.

Waxman sent out a request to 19 different agencies/departments today (take a deep breath: Departments of Justice, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Labor, State, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration, General Services Administration, United States Agency for International Development, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy), all of which apparently took part in Rove's scheme to use agency officials to help vulnerable Republicans.

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The Quakers can sleep easier. This morning, the Pentagon announced that it's canceling a database created to monitor threats to Defense Department installations in the U.S. that ended up compiling lists of citizens engaged in peaceful, constitutionally-protected protest speech. For good measure, the Talon database was run by an intelligence office that doled out millions to crooked defense contractor MZM.

Talon, which compiled unverified threat information related to domestic Pentagon-run facilities, will go out of business on September 17. That's a long-planned obsolescence: in April, Defense intelligence chief James Clapper stated that the Pentagon needed to "lay to rest the distrust and concern about the department's commitment to civil rights." And for good reason. Internal DOD memoranda obtained and disclosed by the ACLU revealed that Talon had ensnared information on over 2,000 American citizens, some for posing little more of a threat than "the possibility" of "some type of vandalism."

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Sure, the FISA Court has been reduced by the Protect America Act to a rubber stamp for the Justice Department and the Director of National Intelligence. But don't weep for the court. As a kind of consolation prize, it's getting new office space!

The nation's spy court is moving from its longtime home at the Justice Department to a nearby federal courthouse, a move that some hope will assert the court's independence even as Congress shifts some of its authority to the Bush administration.

Since its inception in 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been located in a secure area at Justice Department headquarters, where government attorneys armed with secret evidence seek permission to conduct surveillance.

"It's always been an anomaly and it suggested to critics that the court was subordinate to its Justice Department hosts," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

Now that's a new vista in cynicism: moving the FISA Court out of Justice right when it really does become an adjunct of executive power.

It's tough being friends with someone under federal criminal investigation.

That's what Bob Persons says. The longtime friend of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) testified before a grand jury last fall about his involvement in the Veco-overseen renovations of Stevens' home, because he'd been the one to keep tabs on the job while Stevens was in Washington. News of Persons' testimony put him in local and national media stories about the Alaska corruption probe and soiled his good name, he told the Turnagain Times in an interview.

Persons has largely stayed quiet during the investigation, but he wanted to let his neighbors know he isn't a bad guy. In the interview with the Turnaround Times he revealed that he is the "Secret Santa" who has provided the needy children of Girdwood with presents each Christmas for the last 25 years.

He's also racked up $35,000 in legal fees recently.

“This is kind of embarrassing for me,” Persons said. “I’ve kept quiet for 25 years (as “Secret Santa”) and once I got caught up in the investigation, I wanted to stand up. I don’t want my reputation that I’ve built up over 25 years being sullied by an investigation. Things that are unproven, things that nobody knows."

When news broke that Persons testified and produced documents, I tried getting in touch with him at his Girdwood restaurant, The Double Musky Inn. I didn't have any luck.

On the one hand, there are benchmarks for Iraq, which can be subject to political manipulation. On the other hand, there's how life in Baghdad is actually lived by Iraqis. And a new report by IraqSlogger gives a glimpse at how tenuous that life can be.

IraqSlogger, the most comprehensive web resource on Iraq, put together a 95-page overview of a topic as ignored in the U.S. as it is crucial to Iraqis: the conditions of Baghdad's bridges. As the sprawling city is bisected by the Tigris river and the Army Canal, and belted at its south by the Diyala River, it's these access routes that determine how habitable the city is. Control of the area around a certain bridge by an insurgent group or militia is an invaluable resource.

The report costs $495. But we've been able to get a peek at what it contains. And sure enough, the bridges and their surrounding neighborhoods are battlegrounds for Iraq's multifaceted sectarian war. The spillover effect of unsafe areas nearby the bridges deeply influences Baghdad -- something that demonstrates just how much of a long shot Gen. David Petraeus' "population protection" strategy is.

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The White House found the subpoenaed warrantless surveillance documents! They were in Cheney's office all the time (presumably in a man-sized safe). Of course, Cheney's made it clear he's not handing those docs over anytime soon. (Washington Post)

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey is facing contempt charges after his agency dropped fish-killing fire retardant on wildfires. After Rey blocked the first review of this information, a federal judge ordered Rey to complete a case review before October or face a contempt citation. (Associated Press)

Only one officer has been charged in cases of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. Now, the most serious charges against him have been dropped because investigators failed to read him his rights. (Associated Press)

Pakistan freed an al-Qaeda operative and computer expert Monday after three years of custody. Mohammed Naeem Nour Khan was never charged in court prior to his release, but government officials say that intelligence gathered from his interrogation sessions led to the capture of at least one other key operative. (Associated Press)

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Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) faces assault and battery charges for pushing an airline worker at Dulles International Airport, Roll Call reports.

We haven't heard of other alleged angry outbursts from the border-region lawmaker. But, to be fair, it sounds like the incident had something to do with lost luggage. We've all been there, Congressman.

From Roll Call (sub. req.):

According to the statement, at about 6 p.m. Sunday, while at the baggage-claim area for United Airlines, Filner “allegedly attempted to enter an area authorized for airline employees only, pushed aside the employee’s outstretched arm and refused to leave the area when asked by an airline employee.” Airport police arrived on the scene and interviewed Filner and other witnesses but let the Congressman leave. Later that evening, the airline employee whom Filner allegedly pushed appeared before a Loudoun County magistrate, who issued the summons charging Filner with assault and battery, according to the statement. Assault and battery is classified as a class 1 misdemeanor in Virginia. That charge could result in up to 12 months in jail and/or a $2,500 fine under Virginia code.

Filner's office said the news is factually incorrect. He'd correct the story now, said aides to the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, but he's on his way to Iraq to visit the troops, so a full statement about the "ridiculous charges" will await his return. As will, in all likelihood, some very angry United employees.

Once, Brent Wilkes built a railroad. Made it run. Made it race against time. Made it spend over $1 million to bribe a Republican Congressman in exchange for multi-million dollar defense contracts. (Allegedly!) Now, the tracks have supposedly come apart on Wilkes' financial railroad.

Yesterday, Judge Larry Burns, the San Diego federal district magistrate presiding over the multifaceted Duke Cunningham-related trials, ruled that Wilkes is too broke to afford representation in his upcoming trial for bribery, money laundering and conspiracy. Wilkes, of course, made millions as the head of defense contractor ADCS, thanks largely to Cunningham, who Wilkes (allegedly!) rewarded with cash and the occasional prostitute. Can he really be bankrupt?

The government doesn't buy it. Wilkes' current attorneys -- who apparently see the end of the gravy train in front of them -- submitted a sealed financial document to Burns claiming indigence. But prosecutors are fighting to have it released, claiming that Wilkes may have profited from a transaction shortly after his March indictment alongside his best friend, ex-CIA official Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. Reports the San Diego Union-Tribune:

During the hearing, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office questioned whether Wilkes should be allowed to have an attorney paid for by the government, noting that the defense contractor is believed to have greatly profited from his alleged crimes. In April, Wilkes sold a Poway building that owed millions in past-due mortgage payments for $16.8 million to a San Francisco real estate investment firm.

The government also wanted to view the financial affidavit, arguing the public has a right to know its contents, Jason Forge, a federal prosecutor, told the judge.

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Bradley Schlozman, a former Justice Department official who was at the center of the U.S. attorneys scandal and is under investigation by the Departments inspector general for his alleged efforts to politicize the Civil Rights Division, has finally left his post at the Department.

After he left his position as the U.S. attorney in Kansas City this April, Schlozman moved to the Justice Department office that oversees all U.S. attorneys. Reached on his cell phone today, Schlozman confirmed that he'd left the Department last week, but refused to say anything more and then hung up.

That makes Schlozman the latest in a long line of Department officials to leave in the wake of the firings scandal, including former White House liaison Monica Goodling, chief of staff Kyle Sampson, Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and his chief of staff Michael Elston.

Before being tapped as the U.S. attorney for Kansas City in March of 2006 (after his predecessor Todd Graves was abruptly fired), Schlozman oversaw the voting rights section of the Civil Rights Division with an iron hand. Former employees say that, in tandem with Hans von Spakovsky, Schlozman gutted the voting rights division's efforts to protect African-American voters and made sure that the group did not oppose voter ID laws. The two also punished lawyers and other employees who did not toe the line, former employees say, sometimes changing performance evaluations to add negative comments.

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If John Michael's motion against his uncle, Thomas Kontogiannis, could be summarized in two words, they'd be these: Stop Snitching. The only thing is, judging by some of the filings in the motion, snitching is how Kontogiannis has been able to stay out of jail, despite at least two previous convictions.

Kontogiannis's first known conviction came when he pleaded guilty in 1994 to conspiring to bribe an official at the U.S. embassy in Athens, secure fraudulent visas, and commit immigration fraud. An unknown individual paid Kontogiannis to get him a fake visa, and so Kontogiannis flew to Athens, where he conspired with a Greek employee of the embassy, Pantelis Papazachariou, to supply the visa, and got the balance of his money when he supplied the individual with the goods. Additionally, he got a second individual in touch with Papazachariou to secure a fake student visa. Only one problem: both unknown individuals were federal informants. Kontogiannis was caught red-handed.

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During a press conference this afternoon, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced that the White House had still not responded to the committee's subpoena for documents relating to the legal basis for the warrantless surveillance program. "Time is up," Leahy said, "we've waited long enough." He went on to say, however, that he remained open to cooperating with the White House for the production of the documents: "I prefer cooperation to contempt." But if the administration has still not responded to the subpoena by September when Congress returns from recess, he said that he would pursue contempt proceedings in the committee "if that's what it takes."

You can see video here:

Leahy made clear that contempt proceedings would be a measure of last resort and that he'd prefer getting the documents through cooperation to a long court battle. On the other hand, he signaled that there's a limit to what that cooperation might mean. Asked by a reporter about noise from the White House that it would need certain "accommodations" in turning over documents relating to the surveillance program, Leahy said "the only accommodations we tend to get from the White House are 'do it our way and we'll be happy with you.'" That said, he clearly remained open to negotiating, saying that it was a choice between a court battle and "find out what happened."

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Remember the good old days when politicians faced scrutiny in discrete media -- print, radio and television? No longer. New media convergence is here and it's killing folks like Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), according to the NBC affiliate in Alaska, KTUU.

KTUU said there's a new rule for politicians: "if it's out there, it's going everywhere."

Stevens learned that lesson last week when the Anchorage Daily News posted audio from an editorial board interview on its site, where Stevens complained that the paper is out to "assassinate" him. It was a big first for the paper and popular with several other outlets that picked it up (cough), including a local radio show that aired parts of the interview.

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Thomas Kontogiannis really can't help himself. We knew that the New York-based businessman was convicted in 1994 of committing visa fraud and bribing officials at the U.S. embassy in Athens; and again in 2000 of paying a Queens school district official 50 grand in a paper bag to steer lucrative contracts to his company. But there was big money in those capers: the contract for installing computer equipment at the schools involved millions of dollars, and Kontogiannis and his henchmen ultimately had to repay the district nearly $5 million. Most notably, in February, Kontogiannis pleaded guilty to a count of engaging in an illicit monetary transaction for Duke Cunningham after Cunningham gave him up for laundering millions in bribes from Mitchell Wade and Brent Wilkes.

But in his nephew John Michael's motion, we see a seedier side of Kontogiannis: a guy who can't help himself when there's money to be snatched. Apparently, in 1996, Kontogiannis stole the identity of a certain Thomas Conti, opened at least ten credit cards in Conti's name, and racked up a couple grand in purchases. All this occurred when Kontogiannis was on federal probation in the visa-fraud case.

That's not all. Exhibits filed along with Michael's motion also reveal that in December 1996, Chase Manhattan declined Conti's application to start a line of credit, alerting him that he already had a delinquent account with the bank. In response, Kontogiannis actually created a limited power of attorney for himself over Conti's finances in order to stop fraud investigations by the banks and credit card companies. He and "Conti" wrote to American Express's fraud division on December 23, 1996:

Since all accounts with American Express were current and in good standing and after a personal visit with Mr. Kontogiannis, there is no reason to further pursue this and it would be greatly appreciated that Mr. Contis [sic] accounts be restored at the earliest convenience.

That, at least, was generous of Tommy K. The documents, unfortunately, don't specify what he bought with Conti's money. But his buddies down at the Bing must have been impressed.

On Friday, indicted Duke Cunningham co-conspirator John Michael attempted to turn the tables on his uncle Thomas Kontogiannis, who appears to be cooperating with the government to convict Michael in order to get his own sentence reduced. Michael threw down the gauntlet in a wide-ranging motion seeking the dismissal of charges against Michael, the exclusion of Kontogiannis's testimony, and the removal of one of the U.S. attorneys on the case, Philip Halpern, as Kontogiannis's daughter purchased a home owned by Halperin's uncle in Nassau County, New York. Reports the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The papers allege that Kontogiannis' daughter, Annette Apergis, purchased a Nassau County, N.Y., home from a member of the Halpern family in June 2005. The prosecutor's uncle died in 2003 and the home, on a privately owned and maintained street, was bought from his widow, according to the papers.

But the transaction wasn't recorded until this year – after Kontogiannis took a plea deal from prosecutors. Kontogiannis pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering for his role in hiding the bribes given to former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham through mortgages.

The motion filed by Granger, says the case against Michael should be dismissed because prosecutors have allowed Kontogiannis to continue to profit from his complex mortgage and financial frauds, even after he pleaded guilty in February.

Granger is asking District Court Judge Larry Burns to dismiss the indictment against his client, or prohibit Kontogiannis from testifying. Michael is going on trial along with Brent Wilkes, the Poway defense contractor who is alleged to have bribed Cunningham to win lucrative defense contracts.

We've added Michael's motion to our Document Collection, and you can read it here. Check back for choice tidbits, as it reveals aspects of Kontogiannis's murky, extralegal history.

Update: This post initially stated that Kontogiannis' daughter sold her home to Halpern's uncle, when in fact it was Annette Kontogiannis Alpergis who purchased the property.

On Friday, the White House requested a second extension to the deadline to comply with subpoenas issued about the origins of the warrantless surveillance program. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy's (D-VT) response? "The deadline is 2:30," says Leahy spokeswoman Erica Chabot.

White House counsel Fred Fielding wrote in a letter to the committee Friday that the White House needed until after Labor Day to cull its files for information pertinent to the legal justifications for the surveillance program -- and, in any event, practically all of it falls under executive privilege.

The original compliance deadline was July 18, but the committee and the White House agreed to an extension after Fielding and chief of staff Josh Bolten called Leahy to say that "thorough collection and review of responsive documents" would take until around August 1. After another week lapsed beyond that, on August 8, Leahy told the White House that August 20 -- today -- is the final deadline.

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Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) isn't letting a federal investigation stop him from doing business with his favorite lobbying firm. Innovative Federal Strategies, a lobbyist firm under watch for its relationship with the California lawmaker, nevertheless secured $55 million for its clients through earmarks that were sponsored or co-sponsored by Lewis. (The Hill)

Another kind of deployment. The Washington Post details how Karl Rove, along with his “deployment” team, coordinated official government announcements to maximize President Bush’s political gain, particularly during election time. Cabinet officials with government largesse would visit key battleground states just before the elections. Rove may have executed nearly 100 political briefings to various Cabinet departments and agencies. (Washington Post)

The Defense Intelligence Agency is looking to outsource even more of its intelligence gathering responsibilities this year. As of now, the cost looks to be over one billion dollars paid to private firms in charge of core intelligence gathering and analysis. This comes only months after Congress forced the DIA to decrease the number of private contractors gathering intel. (Washington Post)

Michael “Brownie” Brown, the former director of FEMA who resigned under pressure after the government’s dismal response to Hurricane Katrina, has found a new (and we imagine, a more lucrative) calling: consultant to government agencies and other customers on disaster relief and data-mining. With his success, Brown is not that bitter about being the scapegoat for the Bush administration: “There is life after government…even after you have been thrown under a bus by the leader of the free world.” (Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp)

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It looks like Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) $10 million Coconut Road earmark has roped him into another FBI investigation, McClatchy reports.

Young slipped the money into a 2005 transportation bill just days after a real estate developer, Daniel Aronoff held a fundraiser in Florida that fetched Young $40,000 in campaign contributions. The earmark raised our eyebrows higher when a report commissioned by the local government in Lee County, Florida exposed how Young rewrote the bill's language after the House and Senate had voted, but right before the legislation landed on the President's desk, targeting the money specifically for a Coconut Road-I-75 interchange, rather than a larger project. The Coconut Road interchange is unpopular in the community, but a boon for Aronoff.

Already entangled in the widening, criminal Veco-Alaska corruption investigation, this scrutiny appears to be entirely separate, according to McClatchy:

Young's action is among a number of congressional "earmarks" for specific pet projects drawing scrutiny from the Justice Department and an FBI team investigating alleged influence peddling on Capitol Hill, said the source, who insisted on anonymity.

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Call it a rookie political mistake. It's one thing for a politician to lend a hand to his constituents, particularly the ones who can afford to make campaign contributions. But please; be discreet.

Last week Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning ordered Nelnet, a student lending company caught up in the recent industry-wide scandal, to pay a fine of one million dollars. Nelnet has, at least twice, paid university administrators who recommended that students finance their debt through the firm. The company is also hired by universities to educate students about how to pay for college; not illegal, but surely a conflict-of-interest practice that they have agreed to stop.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, except the million dollars is actually a fine that Bruning assigned the company all the way back in April, a fine that he forgave only two weeks ago.

Bruing erased the fine after New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo ordered a similar punishment for Nelnet. Cuomo has made investigating student lenders a focus of his office; already, several banks have been ordered to contribute to a national education fund. Cuomo announced on July 31st that Nelnet would be paying $2 million to the fund.

Upon hearing the news, Bruning immediately forgave Nelnet his part of the obligation. He also used the opportunity to take a few shots at his fellow AG, saying that he “never believed that the investigation was particularly useful.” Bruning went even further, saying, "Nelnet is an ethical, decent, honest company…. I will never apologize for being a defender of Nelnet."

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