Did you think that little things like a federal investigation, a crowd of Republican challengers and dismal poll numbers would keep Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) from running for reelection?

You were wrong.

In written answers to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bradley Schlozman, the former Justice Department official and U.S. attorney who's been at the center of the firings controversy, admitted that he'd once urged hiring certain prosecutors for his office based on their political affiliation. It's against civil service laws to do so.

But he had a reason, he explains (how good a reason, you can decide for yourself). When serving as the interim U.S. attorney for Kansas City, Schlozman had been unable to hire assistant U.S. attorneys on his own, as Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys are able to do. For that, he had to go through the central office, or in this case, Monica Goodling, the Department's White House liaison. He'd "heard rumors," he writes,"that Ms. Goodling considered political affiliation in approving hiring decisions for career positions." Goodling, of course, admitted in testimony to Congress that she'd made sure that only Republicans were hired for certain non-political positions.

And so, Schlozman explains, in order to "maximize the chances" of being able to hire his desired candidate, he "once noted the likely political leanings of several applicants" in a conversation with Department officials.

But there was no damage done! Schlozman adds that none of his desired candidates were hired.

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From The AP:

Rep. William Jefferson accused the Justice Department of bringing corruption charges against him in Virginia to reduce the chance of drawing black jurors.

Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat who has been charged in an international bribery case, made the argument Friday in federal court documents seeking to move the case to Washington.

"The court has an obligation to ensure that the forum selection in this case was not tainted by racially discriminatory motive," Jefferson's attorney, Robert P. Trout wrote.

Transportation Weekly editor Jeff Davis takes a thorough look at the historical precedent for Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) Coconut Road earmark language edit, discovering that the Supreme Court has looked at this issue before .

In the freewheeling 1890s, the court concluded in Field v. Clark that a bill signed into law is the law, despite any apparent discrepancies in the Congressional record:

Better, far better, that a provision should occasionally find its way into the statute through mistake, or even fraud, than that every act, state and national, should, at any and all times, be liable to be put in issue and impeached by the journals, loose papers of the legislature, and parol evidence. Such a state of uncertainty in the statute of laws of the land would lead to mischiefs absolutely intolerable...

Davis notes that since the Field decision, the court has grown more wary of official corruption, as reflected in McConnell v. FEC. This could mean the court would consider overturning Field in a case currently being considered for review, Public Citizen v. Clerk. It that decision did overturn Field, the entire 2005 highway bill could be found unconstitutional. That outcome seems unlikely and would certainly take a long time to reach.

In the meantime, Republicans on the House Transportation Committee have signaled that they may allow the Florida county involved to keep the money for the purpose originally described, though they do not have a concrete plan of how that would happen.

If it seems like the FBI has been mighty busy investigating public officials lately (and it certainly seems that way to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and others), it's no accident. As Peter Stone reports in August's National Journal (not available online), the FBI has put a major emphasis on bagging crooked pols:

According to FBI officials, cases involving corrupt government officials are now the bureau’s top criminal priority. The number of FBI agents focusing on public corruption has jumped by more than 40 percent—from 451 agents in fiscal 2001 to 641 in fiscal 2007. In 2005 and 2006, FBI probes were instrumental in the convictions of 1,060 government officials on corruption charges -- 177 federal officials, 158 state officials, and 725 local officials and police -- an increase of 40 percent from the previous two-year period.

In an interview with National Journal, Kenneth Kaiser, the assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division, emphasized that public corruption probes typically are lengthy and require “a lot of evidence” to end in conviction. “Corruption cases are the most difficult to investigate and the most difficult to prosecute,” Kaiser said. “A lot of the time, we use very sophisticated techniques to make these cases.”

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With thanks to reader RJ, here's Iraq Body Count's chart of civilian casualties during the surge, broken down by Baghdad vs. non-Baghdad; and by shooting/execution vs. car bomb deaths. IBC, which relies on verified press reports in English and in Arabic, here lists civilian deaths per day, apparently on average, for each month in 2007.

From The Chicago Tribune:

[Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL)], a southwest suburban congressman with a fondness for Latin America, has sunk a large share of his investment capital into a land development in Nicaragua. But he didn't declare the extent of his holdings on his required congressional disclosures, and he indicated dramatically different purchase prices for the land in American and Nicaraguan records.... House ethics rules require representatives to disclose all property they own except for their personal residences.

So we may not get to see the basis for General Petraeus' computations that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq. An anonymous senior military officer tells The Washington Times' Bill Gertz not to expect a paper trail when Petraeus testifies to Congress on Monday.

A senior military officer said there will be no written presentation to the president on security and stability in Iraq. "There is no report. It is an assessment provided by them by testimony," the officer said.

The only hard copy will be Gen. Petraeus' opening statement to Congress, scheduled for Monday, along with any charts he will use in explaining the results of the troop surge in Baghdad over the past several months.

Will the charts explain the methodology used to derive the information they contain?

(Via ThinkProgress)

As Josh wrote on TPM, getting an apples-to-apples comparison of Iraqi civilian casualties statistics -- an all-important metric to determine the success of General Petraeus' "population protection" strategy -- over the course of the past year is something of a murky endeavor. One of the most credible Iraq-casualties tabulations, crunched by the United Nations, was lost this year after the Iraqi government, embarrassed by the high reported death toll, refused the U.N. access to Health Ministry statistics.

And it's not hard to see why: here are the 2006 numbers from the U.N., month by month, versus an AP-reported month-to-month breakdown of figures compiled from the Iraqi ministries of defense, health and interior.

Jan 06: 1700 UN -- 549 Iraqi ministries

Feb 06: 2100 UN -- 545 Iraqi ministries

Mar 06: 2250 UN -- 769 Iraqi ministries

Apr 06: 2200 UN -- 686 Iraqi ministries

May 06: 2669 UN -- 932 Iraqi ministries

Jun 06: 3149 UN -- 885 Iraqi ministries

Jul 06: 3590 UN -- 1062 Iraqi ministries

Aug 06: 3009 UN -- 769 Iraqi ministries

Sep 06: 3250 UN -- 1099 Iraqi ministries

Oct 06: 3600 UN* -- 1288 Iraqi ministries

Nov 06: 3400 UN -- 1846 Iraqi ministries

Dec 06: 2800 UN -- 1927 Iraqi ministries

If I've made any mistakes in compiling this, I'll adjust as necessary. But here you can see the discrepancy in determining how many Iraqis died each month in 2006 alone. In February, for instance, the violence in the wake of the Samarra mosque bombing killed at least 130 Iraqis in one day, making the Iraqi government's count of 535 casualties that entire month rather dubious.

*An Associated Press story from November 2006 pegged the October 2006 UN figure at 3709. There is no explanation for the discrepancy between the UN reported number and the AP account.

The Republican lawyer who implicated Karl Rove in the decision to prosecute former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL) will speak privately -- and under oath -- with House Judiciary Committee staff next week about what she knows.

The lawyer, Dana Jill Simpson, gave support to Siegelman's argument that his prosecution and subsequent conviction stemmed from a political vendetta against him.

The latest edition of The New Republic takes a look at Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) "twisted genius for getting what he wants" and the political atmosphere that has let him get away with it for so long.

The key to the most senior Republican senator's success seems to be his tactical use of his extreme temper. In conversations with Alaska locals, I've heard that the legend of Stevens' temper dates back to the death of his wife in 1978 when the couple's plane crashed landing at the Anchorage airport. TNR fleshes out how Stevens' first response to the tragic incident was to lash out at Sen. Mike Gravel (D-AK), grumbling that if it weren't for Gravel, he and his wife wouldn't have needed to rush to a meeting over a piece of legislation Gravel was trying to block.

His accusation became more specific in what a former Senate aide who was present calls "one of the most horrifying moments in the modern Senate." According to the aide (the story was also chronicled by The Washington Post at the time), Stevens hobbled into a Senate committee hearing a couple of months later on crutches and in bandages. With Gravel present, Stevens raised the topic of his reason for flying that fateful day. "I don't want to get personal about it," he told the stunned audience, "but I think if that bill had passed, I might have a wife sitting at home when I get home tonight, too."

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The U.S. attorney office in Los Angeles just can't seem to muster the manpower needed to investigate senior Republican appropriator Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA). In fact, it seems that the Justice Department is handicapping itself.

The veteran prosecutor who'd been heading up the Lewis case has been forced into retirement, The Los Angeles Daily Journal reported yesterday (not available online). It knocks the investigation, already stalled, further off course.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that budget shortages and the departure of top prosecutors from the office had caused the investigation to slow down since last fall. But the Journal noted that the interim U.S. attorney George Cardona (the prior U.S.A. Debra Yang left last year under questionable circumstances) had tapped veteran prosecutor Michael Emmick in June to "jump-start" the investigation.

So much for that.

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A federal judge struck down the FBI's authority to issue national security letters in lieu of court-approved warrants when seeking information from telecommunications firms. Not content merely with a decision that peels back some of the farthest reaches of the Patriot Act, the residing judge also bashed Congress for passing a law that had potential to become, "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values." (Associated Press)

One more, and it's a whole frame. A ninth Justice Department official has resigned. Peter Keisler ran the administration's fight over detainee rights at Guantanamo. He plans to spend some time with the family, but Bush is already pursuing his nomination to the D.C. Court of Appeals. (Associated Press)

The terrorist watch list, which determines who can and cannot flight in this country, is riddled with inconsistent entries and has a high error rate in identifying security threats. It seems not being able to trust the accuracy of the list might undermine the value of having a monitoring list in the first place; the Justice Department's Inspector General is beginning to agree. (Washington Post)

Get ready for a House-on-Senate battle royale over earmarks. That's because the House has managed to cut the list of earmarks in half in the latest draft of appropriations bill. But the Senate, who helped pass the earmark reform bill this year, thinks it has done its good deed for the year; their numbers of earmarks hasn't changed substantially from last year. (The Hill)

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We've been writing for a while about the difficulty of getting clear and consistent measurements about security in Iraq. The Government Accountability Office stated this week that there hasn't been a measurable decline in attacks on civilians over the course of the surge, something that General David Petraeus' command sharply disputes. Making matters more complicated, the Pentagon's quarterly Iraq reports have recently taken to revising its earlier estimates of sectarian killings without indicating what prompted the change. The statistical confusion is likely to play a prominent role in Petraeus' Congressional testimony next week.

So it's significant that Petraeus gave a subtly defiant interview to the Boston Globe's Charles Sennott. Petraeus, true to form, attaches qualifiers and caveats to his assessments, but he hits his main points hard: his is a "solid plan" that is achieving results, from the pacification of Anbar province to the increased capability of Iraqi Army and police forces that "hold" neighborhoods in Baghdad. He implies that the Sunni tribal turn against al-Qaeda is a turn for "reconciliation" with the Shiite-led Iraqi government, something that his subordinate commanders have doubted.

Unlike his interview last weekend with the Australian, though, he cites no statistics about overall declines in casualties. Instead, he pointedly states that "what our troopers have achieved is measurable and important." It's a loaded statement, implying that to question the statistics distributed by Multinational Forces-Iraq is to criticize the troops on the ground. That's something the GAO took great care not to do in its report this week, writing that the troops have "performed courageously under dangerous and difficult circumstances."

Something else to look for: Petraeus appears to anticipate a question about whether all or most of Baghdad has, in fact, been made secure. (He told the Australian that sectarian violence was down 75 percent in the capitol.)

As we have demonstrated through the employment of the forces that we have, we do not necessarily have to secure every part of Baghdad at once -- this can and has been done in stages. As the security situation in an area improves, forces are required to hold the gains that we have made. Over time some of those forces can be local police units working with the Iraqi Army and Coalition Forces in Joint Security Stations.

That sounds like Petraeus is conceding that Baghdad remains, at least in parts, unsecured. He's never explicitly said otherwise, and he would understandably resist being expected to solve the capitol's problems in less than a year. Indeed, to me and to other reporters, he's discussed how the Iraqis need to come to terms with an "acceptable" level of violence: after all, no city of 7 million can be completely secure. But expect Congress to grill him on what he's actually saying about the levels of security throughout Baghdad -- and how he measures it.

The New Hampshire phone jamming caper lives on!

In a letter to House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) today, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) asks that the committee investigate. Not only is there evidence that the White House might have been involved in the jamming, Hodes writes, but there's evidence that Justice Department officials interfered in the prosecution. He wants the committee to "determine if a politically motivated plot did in fact obstruct justice in this case, and if so to take such steps as may be reasonable." You can read his letter here. Democrats had earlier requested that the Senate Judiciary Committee probe the matter.

Three guilty pleas and one conviction have resulted from investigation of the scheme, where Republicans conspired to jam Democratic phone lines on Election Day, 2002.

The last time we checked in on Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) extra-Constitutional Coconut Road earmark, Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) had just written the House Transportation Committee asking that it back local officials who want to spend the $10 million on its original purpose -- rather than on the interchange popular only with an out-of-state real estate developer.

That appears likely to happen. A spokesman for the ranking Republican member on the committee Rep. John Mica (R-FL) said he supports allowing local authorities to use the money for the widening of Interstate 75 rather than Coconut Road, though how the process would play out is not entirely clear.

"I think however it is addressed going forward here, [Mica] would certainly want to do his best to make sure that it is done properly and technically correctly," said spokesman Justin Harclerode.

The letter is waiting for chairman Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) to take a look, but his spokesman said he will likely let committee Republicans handle the issue.

"I don't know what course of action we are going to take, but generally we defer to the minority party on [these requests]," said spokesman Jim Berard. "This was something that was inserted when the Republicans were in the majority, it was a Republican request and usually these are handled by the individual party."

Berard also mentioned that Young -- who is a member of the committee -- will likely join in on the discussions because he is the original author of the earmark.

Former Washington D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey, the lead police expert on the Jones commission, knows all about community suspicion of the boys in blue. Yet, he told Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the distrust he saw directed at the Iraqi National Police was stunning. Maybe that shouldn't be surprising: corrupt and brutal, and responsive to an Interior Ministry that the commission describes as a "11-story powder keg of factions," the 25,000 member force, Ramsey disclosed, is a stunning 85 percent Shiite and only 13 percent Sunni.

The commission recommends disbanding the Iraqi National Police and reconfiguring it under the Interior Ministry. But commission members didn't really address how any improvement in the police force is possible absent a drastic overhaul in the Interior Ministry, which the Maliki government rejected today. Of course, the ministry is the way it is because Shiites and Sunnis remain unreconciled, so we're back to the central problem of sectarian reconciliation. Until that's magically fixed, it looks like you occupy a country with the Iraqi National Police you have, not the Iraqi National Police you might want or wish to have at a later time.

In this morning's testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the independent commission on Iraqi security forces led by retired General James Jones expressed a great deal of confidence in the Iraqi Army's growing combat capabilities and far less on those of the local police and National Police units.

But Jones wanted to make a broader point as well, one that doesn't directly relate to the state of the Iraqi security forces. Citing the "tactical successes" of the surge, Jones said, it's possible to start moving toward reduced combat missions for U.S. forces in 2008.

It's somewhat beyond the commission's purview, which had to do only with the conditions of the Iraqi military and police. But Jones said the "observable progress" of the Iraqi Army led to "some options" for U.S. forces in Iraq by early 2008, especially due to the (dubious) reduction in violence as the result of the surge. Specifically, the U.S. should -- however slowly -- begin to transition into a "strategic overwatch" role, protecting Iraqi borders and major infrastructure. Even though the Iraqi police face tremendous difficulties and the army won't be ready to act independently for at least a year, the U.S.'s "force footprint should be justified to represent an expeditionary capability and to combat the permanent-force image of an occupying power," Jones testified.

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The FBI rounded up 11 New Jersey officials today, including two mayors (both Dems), a county undersheriff, a city council staffer, one current and one former councilmen, and five school board members, in a bribery scheme involving roofing and insurance contracts.

The FBI set up an elaborate sting to catch the civil servants accused of accepting $150,500 in bribes.

The FBI set up an undercover insurance brokerage company that included undercover agents and two cooperating witnesses, one of whom had previously operated a roofing business, according to a statement released today by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The school board members allegedly took bribes from the cooperating witnesses, and the probe widened when school board members directed the cooperating witnesses to officials in north Jersey, authorities said.

They, in turn, directed investigators to other public officials, authorities said.

The battle to clear Rep. John Doolittle's (R-CA) name continues! The latest combatants were a pair of Doolittle aides who testified before a grand jury Wednesday.

Doolittle's deputy chief of staff Dan Blankenburg had this upbeat takeaway from the experience:

"This morning I testified before the federal grand jury.... Overall, it was a very uneventful experience. I was questioned primarily about the operations of our office. To me, the process represents a necessary and promising step toward the truth."

It seems that Blankenburg is working for the right man. Doolittle responded to the news that half a dozen of his former aides had been contacted by investigators by saying, "I'm glad."

Note: Here's our rundown of Doolittle's entanglements with ex-super lobbyist and current inmate Jack Abramoff.

A shame that the Washington Post ran this piece on A16, but Karen DeYoung does yeoman work in pointing out how the measurements don't add up for the Bush administration's repeated claim that violence is down in Iraq, something that we've reported on here and here. I've been stonewalled on how the military defines a "sectarian" attack, but DeYoung gets a frustrated U.S. intelligence official to explain:

Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome." Analysts found "trend lines . . . going in different directions" compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. "It began to look like spaghetti."

The cherry-picking has resumed, and apparently by design. There isn't one central clearinghouse for storing data on enemy attacks, which helps explain why the leaked draft of the GAO report on Iraqi benchmarks found entire "agencies" disagreeing about whether violence was down.

In an e-mailed response to questions last weekend, an MNF-I spokesman said that while trends were favorable, "exact monthly figures cannot be provided" for attacks against civilians or other categories of violence in 2006 or 2007, either in Baghdad or for the country overall. "MNF-I makes every attempt to ensure it captures the most comprehensive, accurate, and valid data on civilian and sectarian deaths," the spokesman wrote. "However, there is not one central place for data or information. . . . This means there can be variations when different organizations examine this information."

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Retired Marine General James Jones, a former NATO commander, helmed an independent inquiry into the state of the Iraqi security forces, and his top line is simple enough: the Army is incrementally improving, while the police are a shambles. Forces under the control of the Defense Ministry, "one of the better-functioning agencies" in Iraq are getting better at counterinsurgency, but they won't be able to operate without U.S. assistance for the next year to 18 months. Meanwhile, the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, which controls the police, is an obstacle to a competent, non-sectarian force. (Read Jones' conclusions here.)

The Iraqi police are improving at the local level predominantly where the ethnic makeup of the population is relatively homogenous and police are recruited from the local area. Police forces are hampered by corruption and dysfunction within the Ministry of Interior. In some areas, they have been vulnerable to infiltration, and they are often outmatched in leadership, training, tactics, equipment, and weapons by the terrorists, criminals and militias they must combat. The rate of improvement must be accelerated if the Iraqi police are to meet their essential security responsibilities. ...

The Ministry of Interior is a ministry in name only. It is widely regarded as being dysfunctional and sectarian, and suffers from ineffective leadership. Such fundamental flaws present a serious obstacle to achieving the levels of readiness, capability and effectiveness in police and border security forces that are essential for internal security and stability in Iraq.

And with that, official recognition catches up with the facts on the ground.

Much more on the report soon. Jones testifies this morning before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Last week, Barnett Rubin of New York University sparked a controversy by accusing hardliners in Dick Cheney's office of giving right-leaning think tanks in Washington "instructions" to start a drumbeat for war with Iran. Among the think-tankers Rubin called out was Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and Iran specialist, who wrote in this week's Newsweek that diplomacy with Iran and other "moderate tactics" are doomed to failure. I asked Gerecht for a response to Rubin's allegations, and he e-mails:

I like Rubin, but I have no idea of what he's talking about. (And I see that George Packer at The New Yorker seems to be similarly "informed" and similarly convinced of his sanity.) Newsweek contacted me. Fareed Zakaria was on vacation/book leave. They wanted to know whether I wanted to write about Iran. I said sure. Actually, I almost said "no" since I was in the midst of an international move and had no time. FYI: I don't know of a single instance of the VP's
office trying to encourage commentary from AEI staff. Not once. I suspect the VP's office knows that such forays would be highly unwise. The idea is offensive, and I think they know that, and would likely lead to considerable unpleasantness.

Imagine if Barack Obama won the presidency and his VP, Joe Biden, called you and George
Packer and suggested that you two write for them since all concerned were more or less on the same page. Even if you were in total agreement with Mr. Biden and wanted to advance "the cause," I suspect you would find such a suggestion presumptuous, to say the least. And on a side note, I wouldn't be so sure that the VP and his principals want to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. I've known a few folks from that office over the years, and I wouldn't say that confidently. The press commentary pitting the "wise" and "professional" State Department against the "reckless" and "bellicose" VP office is, to put it politely, hyperventilated. One of the good things that might come from a Democratic victory in 2008 is that center-left/left-wing journalists, i.e., the vast majority of journalists, might actually know somebody well enough in the government to make this conspiratorial reflex less acute.

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The White House has begun to float a short list for the attorney general spot privately among members of Congress. Roll Call (sub. req.) has a rundown on the six names currently being bandied about, but the big surprise is that the early front runner Michael Chertoff is not being seriously considered for the position. (Roll Call)

The GAO isn't making any friends these days. In addition to releasing a report saying that Iraq has met only three of eighteen benchmarks, the independent watchdog agency yesterday criticized the Department of Homeland Security for failing to meet over half of its performance expectations; in other words, DHS is only half protecting us from terrorists. And, in case they hadn't annoyed enough bureaucrats for one day, the GAO chided the federal government for not doing a good job of acknowledging and addressing the effects of global warming. By the way, in all three cases the government has blamed the GAO for writing inaccurate reports. (NY Times, Washington Post)

Vanity Fair undergoes an exhaustive search to trace the path of $9 billion in cash lost in Iraq. Their search takes them all over the world, but make sure you read through page 5, when it takes them to a Bahamas P.O. Box that represents NorthStar, the organized face of public accounting for Iraq contractors. Bonus question: who has more accountants on staff, the company charged with overseeing billions in federal reconstruction money, or the burgeoning TPM empire? (Vanity Fair)

This is fun. Last week, Democratic presidential candidates scrambled to return the donations of a star fundraiser Norman Hsu after it came to light that Hsu was facing an arrest warrant. Hsu didn't show up for his original hearing, but he's finally seen the light (15 years later) and turned himself in. Then yesterday, in what might be the best in-your-face moment since Vince Carter jumped a Frenchman, Hsu skipped out on his court date again! (ABC's The Blotter)

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Until now, real estate developer Bob Penney looked like maybe he just enjoys helping out Alaska politicians. (Like giving Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) half off on a prime piece of land.) But in today's edition of The Hill, it's starting to look more likely that at least his relationship with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) fetched him more in return than he's admitted. And Stevens' help neatly coincided with his involvement in a highly profitable land deal orchestrated by Penney.

Reporter Manu Raju trolled through public documents and spoke with Alaska officials to confirm that Stevens quietly slipped Penney's group, the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, $4.5 million in earmarks between fiscal 2004 and 2006 to research salmon populations in the famed river and a connected stream.

The spending laws do not specifically say the money was targeted for the group, but the funds were given to it after Stevens’s office instructed the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to do so, according to officials there.

Penney has long fought for sport fishermen to get increased access to the Kenai, much to the chagrin of commercial fishing industry groups, which are fierce competitors with sport fishermen over salmon allocations. Officials from the commercial fishing industry say that the group shut them out of determining how to spend the earmarked dollars, alleging the sporting group is using the funding to lay the groundwork to help them at the commercial sector’s expense.

All of the fish-money funneling took place right around the time Penney brought Stevens in on a Utah land deal that turned a $15,000 investment into $125,000 in just one year. Penney told the Anchorage Daily News at the time (2004) that he and his fellow investors invited Stevens in "appreciation for all he's done for Alaska and the country. We respect him very, very much."

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Alberto Gonzales may be on his way out, but plenty of questions remain. One in particular concerns the prosecution of Wisconsin state bureaucrat Georgia Thompson, whose conviction on corruption charges was abruptly overturned when the court of appeals reviewed the case, finding the evidence against Thompson "beyond thin."

The case, because of its tenuous ties to the Democratic governor, became an election year hobby horse for Republicans. It's since become better known as a worrying indication of politicization of prosecutorial decisions, leading to Congressional scrutiny of Milwaukee's U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic and the decision to pursue the case.

Well, the House Judiciary Committee today released the first correspondence it's obtained in its investigation of the Thompson case. And as Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) characterizes it, the brief email exchange "demonstrates that even Justice Department insiders thought the Thompson case was seriously flawed."

In the exchange, Craig Donsanto, the Election Crimes Branch Director and a well-respected veteran of the Department, responds to an email from Raymond Hulser, Deputy Chief of the Department's Public Integrity Section, who forwarded to Donsanto the appeals court's opinion overturning Thompson's conviction.

Donsanto's reaction was simple: "Bad facts make bad law. How in the heck did this case get brought?"

That, of course, is precisely the question that Democrats are trying to answer. "This only underscores the need for further investigation into the Administration's alleged role in politicizing prosecutions," says Conyers.

It's official: Ayad Allawi is no longer represented by Barbour Griffith & Rogers, the White House-connected lobbying firm he retained to sell the U.S. government on his "parliamentary coup" to become Iraq's next prime minister. Well, sort of.

Allawi doesn't want to disclose who's paying BGR's $300,000 fee. But since Allawi admitted on CNN that he's not paying the bill himself, BGR has to either disclose to the Justice Department which "agent of a foreign principal" it receives money from or violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Disclosure, however, is for amateurs.

Yesterday, BGR took an anticipated third option: changing its filing with DoJ so that BGR no longer represents Allawi, but rather his political party, the Iraqi National Accord. Christina Davidson reports for IraqSlogger (sub. req.) that since political parties aren't required to disclose their sources of funding under FARA, "BGR has managed to pull an easy sidestep in order to maintain the anonymity of Allawi's backer."

Not every aspect of the GAO study on the Iraq benchmarks contradicts the administration line. Indeed, on one unfulfilled benchmark -- the persecution of Sunni military commanders -- the White House and the GAO see eye to eye. But the response amounts to the same thing. Instead of insisting that the benchmark is met and the strategy is working, the White House admits that it's not, but curiously insists that it doesn't need to do anything differently. We just need to stay the course.

The benchmark measures sectarian interference with security operations. According to the GAO, Shiite politicians have pursued groundless accusations of wrongdoing against Sunni officers that the U.S. considers trustworthy. In some cases, "questionable judicial warrants" against officers are issued by "the Office of Commander in Chief" -- otherwise known as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The persecution means that the Iraqi security forces' "formal command structure is compromised by influential sectarian leaders linked to the security ministries."

Funny thing: the White House doesn't disagree.

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Where do you find a job after lobbying for a (potentially) corrupt failure of a subprime mortgage company? You go work for Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) as commissioner of the state's Mortgage Lending Division, of course!

Gibbons just tapped Joe Waltuch, who served as legislative counsel to New Century Financial, which filed for bankruptcy protection in April (after predicting it wouldn't cover its weekly payroll) and is now under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in California and the Securities Exchange Commission.

Not surprisingly, some officials are pretty shocked by the choice, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports:

"I'm in total disbelief that the governor would appoint a former executive for a company that's under federal criminal inquiry, bankrupt and caused countless people to lose their homes," said Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas. "This company is a poster child for what not to do in mortgage lending. And now the appointee is supposed to watch out for consumers? Unbelievable."

We've noted Gibbons' decision-making skills here before, but he'd been laying low for awhile. The move is particularly surprising as both the House and the Senate are starting to probe the subprime mortgage industry now that an estimated 1.2 million people may lose their homes.

The Alaska-Veco scandal just got sexier -- sort of. Now all it needs is rock and roll.

According to court documents, the FBI recorded former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott and former Veco CEO Bill Allen talking about sleeping and sexual enhancement pills Allen gave Kott. Unfortunately for Kott, he seemed to get the pharmaceuticals confused:

"Man, I've been having a hard time sleeping," Kott complained to Allen.

"So that worked pretty good," Allen said, laughing.

"Which ones are which?" said Kott.

"Goddamn it, I told you now, just use the white ones ... to sleep," Allen reminded him. "And the the goddamn, ah, brown or whatever they are, that's for (explicit language for sex), and the other one is for sleeping."

"Yeah, I thought I was taking the sleeping pill. Took the wrong one. Still got the white one," Kott said.

"You're something else," Allen said, laughing. "You're something else, Pete."

Kott wants the evidence kept from the jury.

If you're bidding for a spot at the Bush Justice Department, you better come ready to field a barrage of questions. And not the variety you might expect. If you're not prepared, you might just leave feeling like you ran into a buzz saw.

Jack Goldsmith, in his new book The Terror Presidency, provides a first hand account of his interview at the White House to be the chief of the Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2003. The OLC position is among the most important at the Department, since its legal opinions bear directly on government policy. As Goldsmith explains, the OLC has the power to essentially offer "advance pardons" for dubious administration conduct.

So Goldsmith expected to spend the interview talking about his views on the law and the Constitution. Instead, he writes, this is how it began:

Sitting in chairs around [Deputy White House Counsel David] Leitch's desk as I entered the room were [then-White House Counsel Alberto] Gonzales and [Dick Cheney's counsel] David Addington. I had met both men briefly before, but I had never had an extended conversation with either. I shook everyone's hand and was settling in on the couch at the opposite end of the room when Leitch kicked off the interview.

"Who's Henry Perritt?" he asked in a slightly accusatory tone.

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The Iraqi government fully met only three out of 18 benchmarks, according to the GAO. Among them: the parliament has rules in place to protect the rights of ethnic and religious minority members. Sure, it's not the sexiest benchmark -- it's no militia demobilization or constitutional reform -- but in a multiethnic country without a democratic tradition, it's important.

Only one problem: the GAO felt compelled to point out -- over the objections of the State Department -- that minority protections don't exist outside the parliament hall.

According to the United Nations, attacks against religious and ethnic minorities continued unabated in most areas of Iraq, prompting these communities to seek ways to leave the country. The conflicts reportedly bear the mark of sectarian polarization and "cleansing" in neighborhoods formerly comprised of different religions.

Now, that's not part of the benchmark, which just looks at minority protections within the government. Why include general information about the plight of Iraq's minorities here?

[W]e believe it is important to provide some context of minority rights in Iraq. Iraqi legislators we interviewed insisted that the situation in their communities has a direct bearing on their work in the legislature, their freedom of movement to and from the legislature, and their ability to engage fully in Iraq [sic] political life.

That sounds a lot like GAO is saying the benchmark is a hollow one.

One question: how is it that GAO can judge sectarianism in attacks on ethnic and religious minorities but not against either Sunnis or Shiites?

Sometimes the Pentagon presents misleading Iraq data. Other times, it minimizes its own findings, as it does on one of the most controversial aspects of the Iraqi training effort: endemic corruption and sectarianism in the Ministry of the Interior.

Interior, which controls the police, is the sharpest weapon of Shiite power in Iraq. Here's the Government Accountability Office's report:

[M]ilitia influence affects every component of the Ministry of the Interior, especially in Baghdad and in other key cities, according to DOD. This influence, along with corruption and illegal activity, constrains progress in the development of Ministry of Interior forces.

Notice that attribution: "according to DOD." But look at the relevant section of the June 2007 Pentagon quarterly report on Iraq (pdf), beginning at page 31. The top line is what GAO describes, on both the question of militia infiltration and corruption. But then the Defense Department explains it away:

The [Ministry of the Interior] still struggles with internal corruption, and the ministry made continued efforts this quarter to address this problem. Key to these efforts is effective investigations when allegations appear to have credibility.

In support of that statement, the report lists over 1900 internal corruption investigations which have resulted in the firing of nearly 900 ministry employees. But, according to a memo from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, those investigations don't exactly go anywhere.

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Pretty much anyway you slice it, these are great times for defense lawyers.

Iraq contractors are feeling the heat of Department of Justice scrutiny, and are turning to some heavy-hitters to help them out, The National Law Journal reports.

During the past year, several defense contractors hired to help rebuild Iraq have come under federal investigation or faced litigation for allegedly defrauding the government. Government officials estimate that $10 billion in Iraq-related contracts are unaccounted for and may have been lost to fraud or other misconduct.

Currently, about 80 federal investigations looking into contract fraud are under way, and more than 20 cases have been referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution, according to congressional testimony offered by federal auditors. During the last three years, contract fraud investigations have yielded 10 arrests, five indictments, five convictions and two imprisonments.

An "army" of heavy-weight lawyers are giving their contractor clients sage advice like: "don't throw records away" and "don't conspire with people to cook their testimony." The advice might be working, because, so far, the hundreds of DOJ investigations have yielded fewer than a dozen indictments.

Thomas Kontogiannis, the Greek-born businessman and veteran cooperator who's pled guilty to helping bribe Duke Cunningham, has gotten kid glove treatment from prosecutors. But here's something that seems to have puzzled even the trial judge.

As we noted last week, The North County Times reported that they'd tracked down Tommy K at a five-star hotel in Greece. It seemed an odd place to find an admitted felon. Judge Larry Burns agrees. From The San Diego Union-Tribune:

[John Michael's lawyer Raymond Granger] said that Kontogiannis has been on vacation in Greece this summer. Since pleading guilty, Kontogiannis has been free on a bond, but surrendered his passport to federal authorities and was allowed to travel out of the country only if accompanied by federal agents, or with their permission.

Burns seemed intrigued by that revelation, and ordered prosecutors to find out if it was true. He said he might hold another hearing to “clarify the terms” of Kontogiannis' bail.

“On no occasion did I contemplate he would be vacationing in Greece pending sentencing,” Burns said.

So it seems that there might soon be a Grecian five-star hotel clause in Kontogiannis bail.

There was another major revelation in yesterday's hearing, which centered on Michael's motion to dismiss the charges against him. The SDUT also reports that prosecutors "indicated" that Kontogiannis might not testify against his nephew Michael and alleged Duke-briber Brent Wilkes. Perhaps they've calculated that all Tommy K's dirty laundry (which Michael's lawyer did his best to air) might become a distraction for a jury.

Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA) is not under FBI investigation. At least, that's what Miller has told The Hill in a recent interview. Of course, as he points out, that doesn't dispute the fact that a federal agent could be looking into a few of his real estate windfalls; he explains: "a federal agent could be anyone — anyone flashing a badge." Just not the FBI. (The Hill)

Yesterday, the White House cleared up confusion about whether the Office of Administration was subject to FOIA by doing the respectable thing: it changed its website. But, as CREW points out, the rationale for excluding the OA is, well, false. (CREW)

The D.C. Madam is facing government persecution because her clients before 9/11 included Muslim men, some of whom cannot be named because the information is classified (according to her). I'm of the opinion that with a line of defense that crazy, it has to be true! (Washington Post)

Californians are likely to vote next year on a referendum that would change the state's winner-take-all system to disburse electoral votes by congressional district. In a sign that the change would be a huge advantage to Republicans, the organization supporting the reform has also worked closely as "Swift Boats for Truth" supporter Bob Perry; Perry has paid $65,000 in past legal fees for help with the PAC that helped attack Kerry's war creds. (Think Progress)

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has the worst luck; he just keeps getting money from corrupt donors. Joh Erickson was charged with illegally funneling a quarter of a million dollars to Florida candidates, including Ryan. Erickson is closely linked to Dennis Troha, a prominent businessman who just recently was charged with the same crime; Troha also gave to Ryan. (Journal Sentinel)

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From The Politico:

White House Counsel Fred Fielding is scheduled to visit the Hill Wednesday to discuss attorney general candidates with Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), according to Senate sources.

Last week Leahy wrote Bush to see if he was free to meet this week about the nomination.