In the debate over the surge, there have been a number of questions raised within the government about an important metric for understanding whether the U.S. military's strategy is succeeding -- how Multinational Force-Iraq calculates sectarian violence.

Earlier this month, David Walker of the Government Accountability Office testified that he could not "get comfortable" with General David Petraeus' methodology for determining sectarianism, considering it too inferential to be reliable. His report, echoing objections from senior intelligence officials, instead tabulated the pace of attacks on civilians and found the surge didn't appear to have a significant effect on civilian-targeted violence. However, relying on data interpreted through the MNF-I methodology, Petraeus testified that sectarian violence had fallen in Iraq to mid-2006 levels.

The actual methodology MNF-I employs has remained unknown. Until now.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request I filed two weeks ago, MNF-I has provided TPMmuckraker with its criteria for identifying ethnic and sectarian violence. We've added the methodology to our Document Collection, and you can read it here.

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White House spokeswoman Dana Perino had a hard time with questions about the State Department's use of Blackwater during this afternoon's press briefing:

Q Why do you have to have private contractors who have, on the face of it, a lousy record?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that there is because -- I think that is because there is a need. I don't know why it was originally set up that way....

More from the briefing below.

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Keep your fingers crossed, Ted. The AP is reporting that a recent decision in the Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) case could make it impossible to tap lawmakers' phones in corruption cases. That's good news for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), since it was just reported that he was secretly recorded by the FBI while on the phone with former Veco CEO Bill Allen.

The decision, which one watchdog group worried would be a boon for corrupt politicians, dealt with the FBI's raid of Jefferson's Congressional office. The court found the raid unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the Speech or Debate Clause because agents thumbed through protected legislative documents.

And in an appeal of that decision last week, the Justice Department argued that the ruling "'threatens to complicate numerous ongoing and future investigations' and hinder the ability to use electronic surveillance."

The decision is already starting to affect federal investigations. The AP also reported that some members of Congress interpret the ruling as protecting staffers from speaking to the FBI.

In the heat of the summer, it seemed inevitable that the White House and Congress were destined to clash in court over a number of subpoenas, most relating to the U.S. attorney firings investigation. But that's appearing less and less likely.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has been warning since the beginning of the week that the confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general depended on the White House turning over certain "information."

Leahy has been uncharacteristically vague about just what "information" that might be, as the negotiations are ongoing, but there are a number of outstanding requests that Leahy might have in mind. Below is our accounting of where those many requests, along with those from Leahy's House counterpart, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), stand. It's also a reminder of the many loose ends that remain in the U.S. attorney firings probe.

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Looks like Condi Rice is taking a cue from her inspector general.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday she had ordered a "full and complete review" of security practices for U.S. diplomats following a deadly weekend incident in Iraq involving private guards protecting a U.S. embassy convoy in Baghdad.

Rice said she had directed the State Department to examine "how we are providing security to our diplomats."

To recap, while the Iraqi prime minister says Blackwater killed Iraqi civilians "in cold blood," the State Department is promising to "review" its security procedures -- with details on the scope of that review to come later -- and already has Blackwater back to work. Very diplomatic.

Citing recent reports that US attorney Rachel Paulose is under investigaiton by the Office of Special Counsel for mishandling employees, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and chair of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) sent a letter to the Department of Justice again asking for documents on the decision to hire her.

The letter is available here.

The former US attorney from Minnesota Tom Heffelfinger has said he voluntary resigned and did not know at the time that his name appeared on a list of potential prosecutors to be fired. Conyers and Ellison want details on how and why the very young and very conservative Paulose was picked.

Ellison and Conyers sent a letter to Alberto Gonzales back in May asking the same questions.

Since State Department officials' ability to travel in Iraq had been severely limited by Blackwater's temporary shutdown, it was just a matter of time:

American convoys under the protection of Blackwater USA resumed on Friday, four days after the U.S. Embassy suspended all land travel by its diplomats and other civilian officials in response to the alleged killing of civilians by the security firm....

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said the decision to resume land travel outside the heavily fortified Green Zone was made after consultations with the Iraqi governments. She said the convoys will be limited to essential missions.

If Dick Cheney or his right-hand lawyer David Addington are talking to Justice Department officials about individual cases, Congress wants to know about it.

What could be the second law change to emerge from the U.S. attorney firings scandal passed the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), would require the White House and Justice Department to detail in reports to Congress twice a year which Department officials had spoken to which White House officials about cases.

During questioning of Alberto Gonzales this spring, Whitehouse revealed that the Bush White House had thrown the door open to literally hundreds of White House officials being able to confer with Department officials about cases. A memo signed by John Ashcroft had initially opened the door. But a May, 2006 memo by Gonzales had exacerbated the problem and seemed to take special care in ensuring access for Cheney's staff. Gonzales, under questioning, was characteristically befuddled by the document that he'd signed: “I’d have to go back and look at this.... I must say I'm troubled by this.”

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Blackwater had better hope there's an Iraqi Abraham Zapruder out there. The Interior Ministry has pieced together an account of Sunday's shooting in Mansour alleging that the private-security company fired on civilians at a traffic circle in Nisour Squar with practically no provocation.

In the Interior Ministry account — made available to The New York Times on Thursday — Iraqi investigators interviewed many witnesses but relied on the testimony of the people they considered to be the four most credible.

The account says that as soon as the guards took positions in four locations in the square, they began shooting south, killing a driver who had failed to heed a traffic policeman’s call to stop.

“The Blackwater company is considered 100 percent guilty through this investigation,” the report concludes.

An internal U.S. forensic analysis is still ongoing, and an announced joint U.S.-Iraqi investigation has yet to get underway. But the Interior Ministry is already using the report as a lever for getting the State Department to cancel Blackwater's contract to protect U.S. diplomats -- a move State is refusing. The Iraqis also want U.S. security companies to be subject to Iraqi criminal liability.

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The FBI is so interested in what Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) says to former Veco CEO Bill Allen that they secretly taped his calls to hear. There is no word yet on the content of the conversations.

The recorded calls between Stevens and businessman Bill Allen were confirmed by two people close to the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way. They declined to say how many calls were recorded or what was said.

Allen, a wealthy businessman and Stevens' political patron, agreed to the taping last year after authorities confronted him with evidence he had bribed Alaska lawmakers. He pleaded guilty to bribery and is a key witness against Alaska legislators. He also has told prosecutors he paid his employees to renovate the senator's house.

Allen pleaded guilty himself to corruption charges and is cooperating in the broad investigation. During the corruption trial of former state Rep. Pete Kott (R-AK) this week, prosecutors played a recorded phone conversation between Kott and Allen where Kott admits Allen tucked extra money into a payment for a legitimate flooring project. The Anchorage Daily News has the audio here. (On the call, Kott and Allen also touch on Kott's dream of becoming a prison warden in Barbados.)

The AP also reveals that Stevens, whose home was raided by the FBI in June, has been of interest to investigators long before that.

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President Bush yesterday refused to comment on questions about the recent Israeli bombing in Syria. However, according to the Washington Post, anonymous government sources have confirmed that Israel did in fact attack a suspected nuclear site that was being created with an undetermined amount of North Korean assistance. Further, the U.S. shared intelligence on the site with Israel prior to the attack. (Washington Post)

A former financial manager of the Iraq reconstruction, Robert Raggio, is under investigation. Raggio quit his government job for the private sector, where he helped his company get a contract to fight fraud in Iraq. Turns out, it's illegal to write policy guidelines for the government while at the same time pursing a government contract that's under the purview of those guidelines. (USA TODAY)

Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for U.S. Attorney General, is out to prove that he ain't no Alberto. In a move that sharply distinguishes him from his predecessor, Mukasey has vowed to
fire any Justice Department employee who shares sensitive case information with the White House without his approval. (Boston Globe)

At least one lawmaker is attacking the politicization of fear. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) attacked Republicans and the administration alike for hyping bogus claims of impending terror this past August in order to facilitate the passing of an exceptionally broad FISA reform act, calling the move part of the "Rovian strategy of using terrorism as a wedge political issue." (Think Progress)

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So what defense contract in Iraq didn't involve a kickback? What contract was awarded through competitive bidding? As Pentagon investigators conduct an unprecedented review into corruption in the department's Iraq contracting, it's a rare bid that wasn't crooked.

Yesterday, Congress learned that $6 billion worth of contracts are under criminal review. That's right -- criminal:

Military officials said Thursday that contracts worth $6 billion to provide essential supplies to American troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan — including food, water and shelter — were under review by criminal investigators, double the amount the Pentagon had previously disclosed.

In addition, $88 billion in contracts and programs, including those for body armor for American soldiers and matériel for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, are being audited for financial irregularities, the officials said.

Taken together, the figures, provided by the Pentagon in a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, represent the fullest public accounting of the magnitude of a widening government investigation into bid-rigging, bribery and kickbacks by members of the military and civilians linked to the Pentagon’s purchasing system.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) called DOD's procurement process "a culture of corruption," an assessment that appears to represent the bipartisan consensus. Yet the Pentagon's deputy inspector general said the contracting corruption was attributable to "isolated incidents." Yes, $6 billion worth of isolated incidents.

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A knowledgeable government source says the account Admiral Mike McConnell gave to the House intelligence committee about the procedure for wiretapping Iraqi insurgents earlier this year is "really terrible."

McConnell told the committee today that restrictions derived by the FISA Court this year on wiretapping foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through the U.S. prevented the NSA from surveilling Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped U.S. soldiers for 12 hours. But the source, who is privvy to the timeline of the incident, says "internal bureaucratic wrangling," and not court-based restrictions, were responsible for the lag time. "To get an emergency warrant, you just have to believe the facts support the application that someone is an agent of a foreign power," the source says. "That takes approximately five seconds to establish if you're going after an Iraqi insurgent."

Why did so much time elapse before the surveillance? Top Justice Department officials needed to approve the emergency order. But according to the source, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was out of town; Deputy AG Paul McNulty had resigned already; Solicitor General Paul Clement "had left the building"; and the other responsible official, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein was not yet authorized to approve the emergency order. Wainstein testified today, but demurred from answering questions about the incident in open session.

Despite McConnell's testimony today and Tuesday that the FISA Court unreasonably tied the NSA's hands in the case, the source says, "it stems from their own internal process, and it stems from their own reading" of the court's ruling.

More on this tomorrow.

On Tuesday, Admiral McConnell, director of national intelligence, told the House Judiciary Committee that a FISA Court ruling earlier this year prevented the NSA from eavesdropping on Iraqi insurgents who had captured U.S. soldiers. At least one FISA expert we spoke with found the claim "totally implausible." Today, McConnell offered some details about the incident to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in response to a question from ranking Republican Peter Hoekstra.

Well, sir, I have to be a little careful because of sources and method issues. But the situation was, as you know, because global communications move on wire, you can have a situation where information would pass on a wire through this country. So for us to specifically target the individuals that were involved in that kidnap, we had to go through a court order process.

Now, when we've talked about this before, people frequently say, "Well, wait a minute. Why don't you just do emergency FISA?" Well, that is the point. We are extending Fourth Amendment rights to a terrorist foreigner foreign country who's captured U.S. soldiers. And we're now going through a process to produce probable cause that we would have authority to go after these terrorists.

And then people say, "Well, why don't you just go? You got emergency authorization." Well, emergency authorization doesn't mean you don't go through the process, which is probable cause. So some analyst has got to do it and some official's got to sign it out. And it has to come to either me or some other official. Then it goes to the attorney general. Then it goes to FISA court.

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If Erik Prince of Blackwater shows up at the House oversight committee's hearing into his company's activities in Iraq, expect him to get an earful. It's not just about the Mansour incident, or the murky legal status the private-security firm possesses. According to the Iraqi government, Blackwater employees engineered a jailbreak to free a minister convicted of corruption charges.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki referred obliquely to the incident yesterday. But a Defense Ministry spokesman told Leila Fadel of McClatchy that Blackwater, in December, broke former Electricity Minister Ahyam al-Samarrai out of prison in the Green Zone, where he was awaiting sentencing for embezzling $2.5 billion in reconstruction money.

Until now, Iraqi officials hadn't named the private security company that they believe helped Samarrai, the only Iraqi cabinet official convicted of corruption, to escape from a jail that was overseen jointly by U.S. and Iraqi guards. He subsequently was spirited out of the country and is believed to be living in the United States.

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John Bresnahan over at The Politico reports that a federal grand jury has subpoenaed House payroll records for Ed Buckham, formerly ex-Rep. Tom DeLay's (R-TX) chief of staff. Bresnahan notes that it's a clear indication that the feds are closing in on Buckham, who left DeLay to found the Alexander Strategy Group, the firm that made millions as the gateway to DeLay during the heady years when he ran the Hill.

Buckham, as DeLay's bag man, has long been considered the key to prosecutors building a case against DeLay as part of the Jack Abramoff investigation. The vise has been closing on him for quite some time. But Peter Stone reports in this month's National Journal that Buckham finally turned down a deal offered by prosecutors to plead guilty, and that "he expects to be indicted soon."

Buckham would be the third former DeLay aide to be targeted in the scandal. Two other ex-aides who went on to work with Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy, have pleaded guilty.

Note: Here's our rundown on all of Buckham's many entanglements.

Update: Back in May, DeLay challenged the Justice Department to "Fish or cut bait. Do something," since they seemed to be taking their own sweet time questioning his associates about his relationship to Buckham and Abramoff. It appears that the Department has chosen the "fish" option.

In the wake of the ongoing Blackwater scandal, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wants to have a frank discussion with Erik Prince, the company's founder. His House oversight committee will hold a hearing on Blackwater on October 2. And it just won't be a party if Prince doesn't attend.

Waxman sent Prince a letter today requesting his appearance at the hearing. The little-seen Blackwater official probably won't take kindly to Waxman's intent to question "whether the specific conduct of your company has advanced or impeded U.S. efforts."

The Blackwater hearing offers Waxman the opportunity to link the issue with a different investigation his committee is undertaking. Waxman is also looking into whether the State Department's inspector general, Howard "Cookie" Krongard, obstructed an inquiry into allegations that Blackwater, on a State Department contract, was illegally smuggling weapons into Iraq. Krongard has been invited to an October 20 hearing before the committee.

Text of the letter below the fold.

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Last month, in an interview with the El Paso Times, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said that openly debating changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- changes requested by none other than McConnell himself -- would mean that "some Americans are going to die." At first it seemed like an unfortunate bit of demagoguery. At a hearing today of the House intelligence committee, though, McConnell again anticipated bodies piling up in the streets as the direct consequence of discussing the McConnell's favored revisions to FISA. From Reuters:

He said debate over the programs was important to ensure authorities had proper tools to fight suspected terrorists, but that the open discussion would also help U.S. enemies.

"What this dialogue and debate has allowed those who wish us harm to do, is to understand significantly more about how we were targeting their communications," McConnell told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.

Asked if debates had cost U.S lives, he said, "They will."

Or as he also put it: "The intelligence business is conducted in secret. It's conducted in secret for a reason."

Why not just declare the 20 committee members enemy combatants and be done with it?

The U.S. attorney for Manhattan filed a 16-page criminal complaint against Norman Hsu today. You can read it here.

Hsu is charged with defrauding investors of more than $60 million. The scam, as described by prosecutors, was actually pretty simple. Hsu would lure investors in by delivering on small-time deals, gaining their trust. But when it came time for the big deals, he never actually invested the money as promised -- instead, he just used newer investors' money to repay older investors, and so on and so on. The classic Ponzi scheme.

Interestingly, the prosecutors say that Hsu's considerable fundraising skills (for Hillary Clinton and other Dems) were part of the fraud:

During the same time period, NORMAN HSU, the defendant, in an effort to raise his public profile and thereby convince more victims to invest in his fraudulent scheme, pressured victims into individually contributing tens of thousands of dollars to various candidates... he supported. HSU made implied threats to the victims leading them to believe that their failure to make the required political contributions would adversely affect the victims’ ongoing investment relationship with HSU.

The complaint also alleges that Hsu reimbursed two people for $20,000 in political contributions, a crime.

The charges, two counts of fraud and one of violating campaign finance laws, amount to a maximum 45-year sentence if served consecutively. Hsu also faces a maximum fine of $120 million.

Hear that? That silence is the sound of my phone not ringing. It's been a familiar quiet since I first started trying to get some answers about Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) Coconut Road earmark last month.

Someone, apparently acting on Young’s behalf, managed to change the bill’s language in the massive 2005 transportation bill after it had passed both houses of Congress, but before the President signed it into law. The change no doubt gratified real estate developer Daniel Aronoff, who’d raised $40,000 for Young earlier that year in his push for $10 million to construct a highway interchange. Young’s language change steered that cash away from the community’s requested use and to Aronoff’s pet project.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to figure out how, in a very technical sense, a bill's language can change after it passed both houses of Congress. Surely there must be a process to keep bills awaiting the President's signature safe from tampering, or so I assumed.

But after being passed repeatedly from office to office, I’m still none the wiser as to how Young might have changed the bill’s language. It’s become crystal clear, however, that those who should know don’t have a ready answer -- and don't seem eager to find one.

I started with a call to the current House clerk in late August; I heard nothing. Then I tried the House clerk who was in place in 2005 when the rewording occurred. Jeff Trandahl, now the executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, was on a cruise two weeks ago. When he returned, his secretary called to let me know he is too busy to talk -- too busy indefinitely, that is. I pressed, asking if that means he is saying no comment. "No, he is just too busy with an upcoming fundraiser." (Classic Washington blow-off line!)

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The Congressional Budget Office's cost-analysis of a U.S. presence in Iraq following the Korea model -- stationing 55,000 troops there indefinitely, in CBO's reckoning -- allows for the crunching of numbers several different ways. But most appear to be fairly conservative.

CBO estimates that a Korea-style garrisoning will require 55,000 troops for either combat missions or non-combat missions. The former is expected to cost $25 billion annually, and the latter $10 billion annually, on top of one-time fixed costs of $4-$8 billion for the former and $8 billion for the latter. But neither scenario envisions total costs of what President Bush has cited as an "enduring relationship" between the U.S. and Iraq. Funding for the Iraqi security forces, diplomatic operations or country-to-country aid -- probably billions of dollars -- is outside the scope of the CBO report.

Totaling the full cost of the Iraq war requires accepting a range of estimates, particularly in the case of tabulating prospective costs, rather than ones already incurred. Both this report and a preceding CBO report present a ballpark, not a set projection. And an aggregate set of projections for the Iraq war's future cost can only emerge when an endpoint is envisioned. Since the Bush administration has flirted with a Korea-style model for U.S. troops, it seems reasonable to envision a 50-year endpoint, commensurate with the 54 years U.S. troops have been garrisoned in postwar South Korea.

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The Protect America Act was a near total victory for the administration. But there's one major aspect that they didn't succeed in securing -- immunity for telecommunication companies that cooperated with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program dating back to 2001. But as Newsweek reports, a cabal of connected lobbyists are making sure that the administration gets what it wants this time around:

But congressional staffers said this week that some version of the proposal is likely to pass—in part because of a high-pressure lobbying campaign warning of dire consequences if the lawsuits proceed....

Among those coordinating the industry’s effort are two well-connected capital players who both worked for President George H.W. Bush: Verizon general counsel William Barr, who served as attorney general under 41, and AT&T senior executive vice president James Cicconi, who was the elder Bush's deputy chief of staff.

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Things are going to get a lot worse for Norman Hsu before they get better. From The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.):

Federal officials are expected to bring a criminal case against Norman Hsu today, charging the Democratic super-donor with operating a $60 million pyramid scheme and violating campaign-finance laws.

The case, to be announced this afternoon by the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York, encompasses complaints by investors who gave tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Hsu, who said he was putting the money into a lucrative apparel operation. It also is expected to charge Mr. Hsu with crimes relating to his legendary fund-raising.

Update: The AP reports the prosecutors will announce an indictment at 1 PM.

Later Update: Oops. The AP now says that it won't be an indictment, but a criminal complaint.

A new Congressional study finds that President Bush's plans for the U.S. in Iraq over the next several decades will reach the trillions of dollars, on top of the approximately $567 billion the war has already cost. That accounting assumes a significant troop draw-down -- and still tallies a daunting expense for the United States.

We've added the report to our document collection. You can read it here.

On June 1, during a trip to U.S. Pacific Command in Honolulu, Defense Secretary Robert Gates mused about how to "posture ourselves" in Iraq "for the long term." The Vietnam experience underscored the undesirability of a sudden, abrupt withdrawal. Far better for the U.S. to follow the experiences of post-conflict garrisoning in Korea and Japan, he said: "a mutually agreed arrangement whereby we have a long and enduring presence." President Bush is reportedly intrigued by the so-called Korea model, wherein the U.S. has guaranteed security on the Korean peninsula with at least four U.S. Army combat brigades for half a century. Indeed, in his speech on Thursday, Bush declared himself ready to build an "enduring relationship" between the U.S. and Iraq.

The study, conducted by the Congressional Budget Office, decided to follow the Korea model to calculate its expense. Since it's unclear for how long or under what conditions combat operations will ensue, the CBO projects both a combat and a non-combat presence. Both, however, are projected to require 55,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The combat scenario entails one-time costs of $4 to $8 billion, with annual expenses of $25 billion, projected outward. Under the non-combat scenario, a $8 billion one-time cost -- mainly for the construction of additional "enduring" bases -- would be followed by annual costs of $10 billion or less.

A prior CBO study, released in August, estimated (large pdf) that U.S. costs in Iraq from 2009 to 2017 will total approximately $1 trillion on the assumption of a troop presence of 75,000. On top of that, under the reduced-force combat scenario envisioned in this CBO estimate, the U.S. will spend another $1 trillion by 2057 -- the lifespan of the U.S.'s Korean presence to date.

All estimates are in 2008 dollars. Both estimates are arguably conservative. In the combat scenario, for instance, Army units serve 12-month tours, whereas they now serve 15-month tours. In the non-combat scenario, the CBO ratcheted down the Defense Department's cost-of-war estimates to reflect "lower costs for such items as equipment maintenance, fuel and consumable materials."

Representative Murtha is batting 1.000 but he is not alone. Murtha has received campaign cash from every private entity that he favored with an earmark in the most recent defense bill. Murtha’s war chest (sub. req.) was augmented by $413,250 just since the beginning of 2005 and a stunning $100,750 flowed into his coffers in the two weeks leading up to March 16, the original deadline for lawmakers to file their earmark requests. Murtha is joined by Defense Subcommittee. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), who also received campaign cash from all of the entities that he helped. (Roll Call)

Representative Jerry Weller (R-IL) boasts the largest foreign land holdings of any member of Congress. But Weller, who failed to disclose land transactions in Nicaragua, is now dogged by ethics questions and will probably be resigning as early as Thursday. (Chicago Tribune)

Norman Hsu may be a savvy businessman, but the guy just doesn't understand mass transit. Hsu's lawyers maintain that their client intended to board a California commuter rail, but accidentally got on the wrong train... headed to Chicago. (WSJ's Washington Wire)

Hillary's donation problems don't stop with Norman Hsu. Yesterday, her campaign announced (sub. req.) that it would return some funds associated with the bundler William Danielczyk. Danielczyk's employees made contributions to Clinton--even though they were Republican--because the donations were a "corporate contribution." That is, Danielczyk paid them back for their gifts. (Wall Street Journal)

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Blackwater: Above the law.

Yesterday we reported that not only is Blackwater immunized from liability under any Iraqi law, but the State Department has allowed it to operate under less restrictive rules of engagement than any other private military company. As a result, the State Department bears responsibility for the culture of impunity that resulted. Today The Washington Post adds more detail:

Blackwater "has a client who will support them no matter what they do," said H.C. Lawrence Smith, deputy director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, an advocacy organization in Baghdad that is funded by security firms, including Blackwater.

The State Department allowed Blackwater's heavily armed teams to operate without an Interior Ministry license, even after the requirement became standard language in Defense Department security contracts. The company was not subject to the military's restrictions on the use of offensive weapons, its procedures for reporting shooting incidents or a central tracking system that allows commanders to monitor the movements of security companies on the battlefield.

"The Iraqis despised them, because they were untouchable," said Matthew Degn, who recently returned from Baghdad after serving as senior American adviser to the Interior Ministry. "They were above the law." Degn said Blackwater's armed Little Bird helicopters often buzzed the Interior Ministry's roof, "almost like they were saying, 'Look, we can fly anywhere we want.' "

Last year, Congress passed a law placing contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the law that establishes legal conduct for U.S. forces. Little follow-on work has established what exactly that means for private security companies, however. While the Pentagon has issued a number of so-called fragmentary orders seeking to regulate the private security firms, Blackwater is exempt, since its contracts are with the State Department and CIA. Blackwater isn't required to keep the U.S. military command informed of its operations or file incident reports to it.

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A newly-identified key player in the investigations of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK), construction worker Robert Williams, told the AP about the testimony he gave a federal grand jury on his double-duty rolls while on the Veco payroll:

Williams said he was in charge of "special projects" for VECO founder Bill Allen, and the renovation of Stevens' home was one such project. Others included working three or four fundraisers for Stevens while on the clock with VECO. Federal elections laws prohibit candidates from accepting donations or free services from corporations.

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He didn't get anywhere near the media attention yesterday that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell did. (Including from me.) But James Baker (not that James Baker), who until earlier this year helmed the Justice Department office in charge of preparing FISA warrants, testified to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the process in place for obtaining FISA warrants "worked during wartime."

Indeed, the portrait Baker painted of the FISA process doesn't bear much resemblance to the one on display from McConnell, who's been aggressively pushing to keep FISA's oversight role diminished.

Baker described FISA as an intelligence tool rather than a hindrance. The process yielded "information that the intelligence community could use to take action to thwart the activities of our adversaries, including terrorist groups." It was never the case that foreign-to-foreign communications, even those that passed through the U.S., were considered under the auspices of the act.

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The Anchorage Daily News has what we've all been waiting for, new information on the imfamous "Corrupt Bastard Club" hats the FBI seized last year when they raided the offices of half a dozen Alaska politicians, including Ben Stevens'.

According to testimony from former Rep. Pete Kott's girlfriend, she was paid $900 to embroider "Veco" on 100 hats, with the "CBC" logo on the back of about a dozen.

The prosecution had a box of different color CBC hats in the courtroom. A red one was entered into evidence.

Alaska's Republican Gov. Sarah Palin wants Ben Stevens to give up his seat as the national committeeman for the Alaska Republican Party now that former Veco CEO Bill Allen testified to bribing Stevens while he was state Senate president.

Palin probably won't get her way since there is no mechanism to remove him, though, (ouch), Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich said:

"[Stevens] will serve through the March 20008 convention. We look forward to electing a new committee man at that time," Ruedrich said.

Yesterday, the director of national intelligence, Admiral Michael McConnell, casually informed the House Judiciary Committee that the FISA Court had gotten so restrictive that its rulings required the NSA to obtain warrants before spying on Iraqi insurgents that had kidnapped U.S. troops.

That sounded dubious to us. Would the FISA Court have really issued such a patently absurd ruling? And it turns out we're not the only ones. FISA expert Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies also finds McConnell's statement dubious.

"It's totally implausible, like the claim about the arrests in Germany. Doesn't NSA have collection capabilities in Iraq? If so, they are totally outside FISA," Martin says. "Even if they're taking the Iraqi insurgent calls off the wire in the U.S. talking to each other, they don't need a court order and no court is going to bar them. Or is it that the NSA is so incompetent that it doesn't know they are Iraqi insurgents talking to each other and they were just blindly searching all traffic, which the court said they weren't allowed to do?"

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Here's a copy of the request for an ethics investigation into Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) murky Coconut Road earmark that we mentioned earlier.

Last month I spoke with executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Melanie Sloan who said there's virtually no chance that the famously inactive House ethics committee will pursue the issue. But as Paul just noted, maybe the sleeping giant has awakened. We here at TPMmuckraker like to think of the glass as half full.

STOP THE PRESSES!

The slumbering beast awakens?

The House Ethics Committee announced an investigation Wednesday of Rep. Bob Filner's run-in with a baggage worker at Dulles International Airport last month. The incident resulted in misdemeanor assault and battery charges against the congressman.

As we noted this morning in the Daily Muck, the new investigation was actually triggered by the new ethics rules recently passed into law that require a review of members charged with a crime. Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) is the unhappy inaugural case.

Will this mean that it's still more likely that a member of the House become a target of an FBI investigation rather than an ethics investigation? I'm afraid so. But at least now, those members are sure to face the fury of the ethics panel after they see criminal charges.

Once he was known as the "Flies On The Eyeballs" guy. Lately, he's been the vice president of controversial private security company Blackwater. Now, Cofer Black has a new position: top counterterrorism adviser to Massachusetts Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

The one-time chief of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center got his flamboyant nickname after delivering a famous post-9/11 briefing to President Bush about the CIA's plans to destroy al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. ("They'll have flies on their eyeballs" when CIA is done with them, Black is reported to have said.) But that wasn't Black's most famous utterance. In September 2002, in his first-ever public testimony before a joint Congressional inquiry into 9/11, Black -- by then the head of the State Department's counterterrorism shop -- acknowledged that in terms of the CIA's "operational flexibility," after 9/11, "the gloves come off." In retrospect, it's considered the first public reference to the agency's detention, rendition and interrogation policies.

Black left government in 2005 to join Blackwater, whose activities in Iraq have drawn both the ire of the Iraqi government and the opprobrium of House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA). But that hasn't disqualified Black from advising Romney's campaign.

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The Democratic candidate running against Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has asked for an official investigation by the House ethics committee into Young's extra-Constitutional Coconut Road earmark.

The earmark was rewritten after Congress voted on the legislation, prompting legal experts and watchdogs to question the ethics and legality of the earmark and call for an investigation into how it happened, as the candidate, Diane Benson, noted in her announcement of the complaint.

She also told Alaska Public Radio Network that despite the many scandals Young faces, including a federal investigation into his Veco ties, she has decided to focus solely on the Coconut Road earmark controversy.

"I don't want to see this be ignored because I think the implications are too great," Benson said on APRN. "This is exactly how we end up where we are now with people getting indicted. We have a responsibility to say: we want you to tell us the truth."

Blackwater doesn't just operate in a legal black hole in Iraq. The private-security firm has grown expert in protecting itself from oversight and regulation in Washington as well.

Over at POGO, Nick Schwellenbach connects Blackwater to House oversight committee chairman Henry Waxman's investigation of Howard Krongard, the State Department inspector general whom Waxman alleges stifled numerous corruption probes in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of those probes involved an alleged Blackwater scheme to funnel weapons into Iraq, and, Schwellenbach notes, it wouldn't be so difficult for Blackwater to know how to get around an IG probe. Its parent company, the Prince Group, recently hired the Pentagon's ex-IG, Joseph Schmitz.

Indeed, all throughout Blackwater are ways to get around government oversight: Cofer Black, the company's vice chairman, used to work at the CIA with A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, formerly CIA's executive director. And, yes, you read that last name correctly: Krongard of CIA is the brother of the current State Department IG. Think Schmitz or Black knew which numbers to call in the event of a State inquiry into the company?

That's not all.

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Yesterday news broke that the Office of Special Counsel is investigating US attorney Rachel Paulose for personnel practices in her office, which was roiled with a major staff shake-up this spring when four top administrators stepped down from their leadership positions in protest. Paulose declined to comment in the original story, but acknowledged the investigation when the Minneapolis Star Tribune followed up:

Paulose declined to discuss the specifics of the investigation. "Since the matter is ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment at this time. I am confident the truth will be brought to light," she said.

"I am focused on doing the work of the people, which is what I was appointed to do."

Paulose is reportedly under investigation for such bad acts as retaliating against a lawyer who reported how she mishandled classified information and for using racial slurs against another employee.

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On Monday, we noted that Peter Keisler was unexpectedly slotted in as the man to replace Alberto Gonzales until the President's nominee, Michael Mukasey, was confirmed by the Senate. This morning, The Washington Post is the first paper to take much notice of the move, and reports that it caught pretty much everyone, including officials in the Justice Department, by surprise:

While Mukasey's nomination is pending, the Justice Department will be run by former civil division chief Peter D. Keisler, a conservative appointee who this week was a surprise replacement in that role for Solicitor General Paul D. Clement. Clement, who was publicly tagged last month as the temporary replacement for Gonzales, wound up officially taking the helm at 12:01 a.m. Monday and relinquishing it 24 hours later, officials said.

The switch was made on Sunday by the White House with no input from Justice Department officials, said two sources with knowledge of the matter. The change added another level of uncertainty to life at the Justice Department, where nearly every top senior official has resigned in the wake of controversies under Gonzales....

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Few people not employed by Blackwater know more about the rising world of private military companies than Robert Young Pelton, author of Licensed To Kill, an exploration of military contracting in the war on terrorism. Pelton told me it's a mistake to point a finger at Blackwater for Sunday's debacle in Mansour without looking at the role of the State Department -- which, after all, pays Blackwater to protect its diplomats. State doesn't want to take chances with its peoples' lives in the chaos of Iraq.

Blackwater's rules of engagement "are set by State and are different than other security contractors who use the Military Rules of Engagement and Rules of Force," Pelton says via e-mail. "State went from a kinder, gentler Rules of Force (they were told to shoot flares, throw water bottles or wave a flag to warn off motorists) to shoot if a threat is imminent with no warning shots required. They are supposed to use aimed shots and have to file a report if there is any discharge of a weapon." The State Department has said that Blackwater fired warning shots in Sunday's Mansour attack at an approaching car.

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The new, stronger congressional ethics rules will get their first test in the next 24 hours with the baggage manhandler himself, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA). The new rules state that any member charged with a crime must be subjected either to a review, or an explanation by the ethics committee as to why a review was unnecessary. Either way, the decisions must be made within 30 days of the incident; that time frame expires tomorrow. (The Hill)

The SEC is on the case of the mysterious campaign financier. After two individuals reported that investments made with Norman Hsu (totaling more than $70 million) have gone missing, investigators are a bit curious what he is actually doing with all of this money. (Wall Street Journal)

Alexis Debat, the discredited terrorism expert and ABC news consultant who had a knack for publishing interviews that he never conducted, was preparing a study on Islamic warfare for a
think tank (The Center For Strategic and Budgetary Assessments) under contract from Andrew Marshall, head of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. Debat also had a relationship with the Nixon Center, a think tank that claims to be "America's realist voice." (Mother Jones)

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The Iraqi government is pressing hard to kick private-security giant Blackwater out of the country. After a pitched battle between Blackwater operatives and Iraqi insurgents in the Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour left at least nine civilians dead, the Iraqi Interior Ministry revoked Blackwater's license to work in Iraq. Now, the Iraqis are escalating their campaign against Blackwater, claiming that an official inquiry found that the company's agents fired the opening rounds. Reports the New York Times:

The report, by the Ministry of Interior, was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants. The report said Blackwater helicopters had also fired. The Ministry of Defense said 20 Iraqis had been killed, a far higher number than had been reported before.

In a sign of the seriousness of the standoff, the American Embassy here suspended diplomatic missions outside the Green Zone and throughout Iraq on Tuesday.

“There was not shooting against the convoy,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government’s spokesman. “There was no fire from anyone in the square.”

The explanation from the U.S. on Sunday for the Mansour incident was that a State Department convoy came under attack, prompting the Blackwater guards protecting it to respond with small arms fire and employ helicopter support. A State Department official said Blackwater's people were forced to "defend themselves" against an ambush.

But Dabbagh, the Iraqi spokesman, contradicted that entirely. According to the Iraqi inquiry, he said, a car bomb detonated far from the convoy, prompting Blackwater to overreact. A traffic policeman attempted to clear an area for the convoy to pass, but a "small car" didn't heed the warning. Blackwater responded as if the car represented a follow-on attack. Witnesses interviewed by the Times said that the ensuing confusion prompted Iraqi soldiers and police in the area to fire into the crowd as well.

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In response to questions from lawmakers about possible surveillance of Americans, McConnell and Wainstein both stated flatly that the Protect America Act doesn't remove robust "minimization" procedures for handling information collected on U.S. persons in the course of a foreign intelligence information. For instance, names of U.S. persons -- citizens and non-citizens -- collected in the course of a foreign-foreign warrantless surveillance investigation have to be blacked out and removed from reports based on that collected intelligence.

Under questioning from Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), however, Wainstein conceded that there are certain situations under which intelligence analysts might disseminate information on U.S. individuals throughout the government -- if it's necessary for the official reviewing the information "to understand the foreign intelligence value" of the intercept, for instance.

Wainstein suggested that's something of a trivial and minor circumstance, but who knows? Cohen referenced a 2006 Newsweek story that said the NSA has improperly turned over10,000 names of U.S. persons acquired through surveillance to other agencies.

McConnell seemed to be a bit irate at the question, scowling that the "issue is protecting the country," and not "incidental" concerns about what happens to U.S. person information collected in the course of a foreign intelligence investigation. However, this was the first time that McConnell and Wainsten elaborated, even a bit, about what minimization procedures exist under the Protect America Act.

In a blistering 14-page letter today (pdf), House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) charged that the inspector general for the State Department Howard Krongard has been actively impeding probes into waste and corruption in Iraq and elsewhere. The basic allegation, as Waxman simply puts it, is that "you believe your foremost mission is to support the Bush Administration, especially with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than act as an independent and objective check on waste, fraud, and abuse on behalf of U.S. taxpayers." In other words, Waxman is charging that he's a hack, and the worst kind, too -- one that can do real damage.

Waxman has a litany of examples of Krongards' alleged hackishness, but one is particularly colorful.

There have been allegations that the contractor First Kuwaiti used forced labor building the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. So Krongard looked into it.

Only he had a peculiar method, according to Waxman's investigation. First, he insisted on doing the report entirely by himself and shut out his staff. And instead of seeking out the source of the allegations, he allowed the contractor to choose the employees that he'd interview. He ultimately interviewed six employees.

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While the House Judiciary Committee hearings are in recess, take a look at this great post from Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal. Goldenberg combs through the just-released quarterly Pentagon report (pdf) and compares its civilian-casualty numbers (pdf) to those presented last week to Congress by General David Petraeus (also pdf). And sure enough, it appears that the quarterly report's numbers -- which were taken from Multinational Corps-Iraq, the command just under Petraeus' -- make the pre-surge period seem better than Petraeus' numbers; and the surge period seem worse.

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The federal Office of Special Counsel is investigating the US attorney for Minnesota, Rachel Paulose, for a variety of infractions, former Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Eric Black reports on his blog.

In March, Paulose, a former special aide to Alberto Gonzales and Federalist Society member, replaced Tom Heffelfinger, who resigned before the mass firings of nine US attorneys, although his name was later discovered on one of the lists of prosecutors under consideration for termination. The U.S Attorney's Office went through a major staff shakeup after Paulose's arrival. Four of the top attorney's in the office resigned to rank and file prosecutor positions saying they disagreed with the young attorney's management style and lack of experience.

From Black:

The federal Office of Special Counsel is investigating allegations that Rachel Paulose, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, mishandled classified information, decided to fire the subordinate who called it to her attention, retaliated against others in the office who crossed her, and made racist remarks about one employee.

Black reports that one of the four prosecutors who resigned knew Paulose, who has developed a reputation for quoting Bible verses, would likely fire him before he decided to step down.

The US Attorney's Office in Minnesota is working on a statement. We'll update you as soon as we have it.

Here's something unexpected. During the hearing, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) asked to see the FISA Court rulings from earlier this year, in closed session, that McConnell and Wainstein and others have said required a probable-cause based warrant for purely foreign-to-foreign communications, prompting the August revision to FISA. McConnell's lawyer, Benjamin Powell, said that as the rulings compounded this year, the intelligence community found itself "in a place" where more and more foreign communications became covered by FISA, contrary to the original language and intent of the act.

Then McConnell dropped a bombshell: the rulings required the NSA to get a warrant before listening in on the communications of Iraqi insurgents who kidnapped U.S. soldiers.

The ACLU has filed motions with the FISA Court to obtain those rulings. If the court ultimately rules in the ACLU's favor, we'll be able to see whether this extreme claim -- it's safe to say no one thinks the NSA needs warrants to conduct surveillance on Iraqi insurgent communications -- is based on an explicit order of the Court or on a lawyer's interpretation of a FISA Court ruling. Or, for that matter, whether McConnell has, again, said something about surveillance that just isn't true.

Update: Responding to our request to elaborate on McConnell's comments, his spokesman Ross Feinstein replies:

I am not going to expand on what [McConnell] said in the HJC hearing. However, I will add, that before the Protect America Act, the [intelligence community] was missing vital intelligence - intelligence gaps. That was the reason we proposed legislation to modernize FISA - in April '07.

The Protect America Act has solved these gaps.

Wainstein and McConnell are holding firm that no civil liberties are adversely impacted by the Protect America Act. In that context, Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) asked a good question: Why, then, seek to codify in the law a prohibition on suing telecommunications companies from complying with government surveillance?

Wainstein's answer? It's "just not right" not to provide that immunity for a company cooperating with the FBI or NSA on surveillance. "It isn't right if a company alleged to assist the country in a time of peril, turns around and faces costly litigation and maybe crushing liability," he said. He didn't say what laws the telecoms might be breaking currently. Later, McConnell told Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) that he would specify those laws to the panel in closed session.

Wainstein added that it might be a problem for a company just to be named in association with the surveillance program, due to public fear and skepticism of it. Yet last month in an interview with the El Paso Times, McConnell said AT&T and Verizon were cooperating with the government on surveillance.

The head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, Kenneth Wainstein, clarified something that had perplexed several national-security experts: the Protect America Act's change in the definition of "electronic surveillance" under FISA -- essentially, the definition that spells out what kind of communications the government can collect -- doesn't mean that warrantless physical searches in the U.S. are now allowed. "It's to let us get the assistance of communications providers," he said, who aren't going to be the people who "let us see your mail or get into your basement."

In the first blood-drawing exchange, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) asked Admiral McConnell how many Americans not serving as primary targets for surveillance have been spied upon without a warrant. McConnell first said "none," based on an understanding of the word "target," which Conyers found legalistic. Conyers wanted to know how many Americans have been inadvertently surveilled. McConnell's answer: "I don't have the exact number," but he said it was a "very small number."

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) sat down with the president's attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey this morning to chat. The meeting was a brief one, but in remarks afterward, Leahy announced that he was beginning "this process of Senate review of the President’s nomination with hope and with optimism." So far, so good.

But Leahy again sounded a note of warning that unfinished business from Gonzales' reign (he calls it "that dark period") needs resolution. Recent discussions he had with White House counsel Fred Fielding have been "encouraging," Leahy said, but he made a point of adding that he'll "take him at his word" that he'll actually hand over documents Leahy's seeking about the U.S. attorney firings and the administration's warrantless surveillance program.

His full remarks are below.

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The House Judiciary Committee hearing on FISA is just getting underway, but one GOP line of argument is clear even before Admiral McConnell finishes his opening statement. Both Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking GOP leader on the committee, and, more sharply, J. Randy Forbes (R-VA), said that it's unnecessary from a privacy perspective to require warrants for surveilling persons inside the U.S. when communicating with "known terrorists." (Incidentally, the Protect America Act isn't limited to surveilling "known terrorists" overseas without a warrant.) That's because the Justice Department's "minimization" procedures for discarding unlawfully-collected communications of U.S. citizens are sufficient -- and that it would be an impossible burden for the DOJ or the National Security Agency to tell the FISA Court that someone it seeks to monitor overseas might be communicating with people inside the United States.

What are those minimization procedures, under the new Protect America Act? We're waiting to hear, since McConnell's prepared testimony is vague on this question. Maybe that's why Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) swore in McConnell and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein.

Here's Randy Forbes:

Reading about Veco CEO Bill Allen's testimony of Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) home makeover didn't capture Allen's mentality quite like reading the actual transcript. (Available here.)

While we learned last week that Allen admitted to paying for some of the work (alleged bribes of a U.S. senator), Allen's full answers make it sound like he has a very hazy recollection of the job. He wasn't completely sure how much he spent, how many Veco employees he assigned to the job, how long the project took or if he gave Stevens anything else besides some old furniture. It almost seems like it was routine (which for Allen, who's admitted to bribing a group of Alaska pols, it was).

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Brent Wilkes goes subpoena crazy. From the AP:

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Republican Whip Roy Blunt and 11 other members of Congress have been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of a defense contractor charged with bribing jailed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

All of the lawmakers said they do not intend to comply with the subpoenas.

It's not clear what the method is behind the madness. Wilkes' lawyers didn't respond to the AP's calls and the lawmakers say the subpoena comes out of left field. They also say that they've been advised by the counsel that it would be against House rules for them to comply.

It's a pretty impressive roster Wilkes' is after (9 GOPers, 4 Dems), including House Appropriations defense subcommittee chairman John Murtha (D-PA) and former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Some, like Lewis, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), had been reported to be involved with Wilkes. Most of the others have not.

So it's anybody's guess as to what Wilkes' lawyers got cooking. Wilkes came out last year to offer the defense that he didn't bribe lawmakers -- it was the other way around: they shook him down. "Transactional lobbying" (i.e. no free favors) was his phrase for it. Perhaps the subpoenas were part of that defense strategy?

Wilkes' trial for his alleged bribes of Cunningham was originally scheduled for October, but that seems unlikely to happen, meaning that a more likely trial date would be early next year.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) may be under federal investigation, but that's not keeping him from what he does best. In the 2008 defense appropriations bill, his earmarks for individual projects topped The Hill's list at $189 million. He shares $24.7 million in earmark requests with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) -- who's certainly no slouch herself.

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Last week, the trial of former Alaska state Rep. Pete Kott (R-AK) on corruption charges churned up an unwelcome amount of muck for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). But yesterday it was Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) turn. Former Veco president Rick Smith testified that he arranged Young's annual mega-fundraiser pig roast at a cost of about $10,000 to $15,000 for a decade. Smith wasn't asked if Young reimbursed him.

The pork galas had been hosted at Veco CEO Bill Allen's house, but since he pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska lawmakers, a change of venue was necessary. So it took place at former Gov. Bill Sheffield's place this year, where about 70 protesters hollered outside. Back in January, Young reimbursed Allen $38,000 for "fundraising costs," though Young hadn't held a fundraiser that month. The refund seems to be part of Young's new habit of returning suspect fundraising money after federal investigators become interested.

Reps. Murtha (D-PA), Moran (D-VA) and Visclosky (D-IN) have a friend in PMA. The three lawmakers have made the group their lobbyist firm of choice, steering over $100 million in earmarks to PMA clients this year. Meanwhile, the firm and its clients now represent one quarter of the three representatives' fundraising money, bringing in over $500,000 in campaign contributions. (Roll Call)

The New Republic has an article on Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) entitled "The K Street evil genius who took over Mississippi," which encapsulates the story nicely. Disregard the disturbing cartoon of Barbour and dive into an examination of the GOP political machine that made a national lobbyist into a rural Governor (who thought he was still a national lobbyist). (TNR)

Iraq has joined an "elite club", of weapons buyers from the U.S. According to General Petraeus, Iraq has agreed to buy $1.6 billion in arms with the "possibility of up to $1.8 billion more." Critics of Iraq policy, already aware of the nearly 200,000 weapons that went missing under Petraeus' watch in 2004-05, warn that "a war zone flooded with weapons that could be turned on U.S. soldiers, or supply huge firepower for a full-blown civil war." (Salon)

Break out the Congressional district map, the TPMmuckraker archives, and a whole lot of gambling money. It's time to guess who made CREW's 3rd annual list of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress. Just in case you can't quite remember which scandal goes with which lawmaker, there's a rundown for each member on the list. (CREW)

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As we reported yesterday, Admiral Michael McConnell, the head of the U.S. intelligence community, goes before the House Judiciary Committee today to defend the August revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But he's also seeking to salvage his reputation as a straight shooter following a recent fusillade of inflammatory and false comments about the new law, known as the Protect America Act. Since the law, which Democrats mistrust, largely allows domestic-to-international surveillance to proceed on McConnell's say-so, restoring trust is imperative for him -- lest Congressional Democrats, as they've promised, scale the law back.

Unsurprisingly, then, here's how he begins his opening statement to the committee:

I have not appeared before this Committee previously as a witness, and so I would like to take a moment to introduce myself to you. I am a career intelligence professional. I spent the majority of my career as a Naval Intelligence Officer. During the periods of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, as well as during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I served as the primary Intelligence Officer for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. I then had the privilege of serving as the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1992 to 1996, under President Clinton. In 1996, I retired from the U.S. Navy after 29 years of service - 26 of those years spent as a career Intelligence Officer. I then turned to the private sector as a consultant, where for ten years I worked to help the government achieve better results on a number of matters, including those concerning intelligence and national security. I have been in my current capacity as the nation’s second Director of National Intelligence (DNI) since February 2007.

See, fellas? I'm not a hack! In fact, if anything, I'm a Clintonista! Can I keep my new surveillance powers now?

Maybe not. It might have helped if McConnell addressed any of the questions posed by Chairman John Conyers in a letter last week about his recent gaffes, but he punts on those in his prepared testimony.

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To the Tongolese: I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for writing on Friday that you're not a member of the Iraq coalition. Sure, the Congressional Research Service said you had pulled out. But according to this Pentagon quasi-press release today, you deployed 55 members of your Tonga Defense Services last month to guard MNF-I headquarters in the Baghdad International Airport complex. It's not exactly a combat mission, but still, this is a huge contribution: Tonga, a South Pacific island nation with a population of under 120,000, has only 450 men under arms.

Says Pacific Command chief Admiral Tim Keating:

Keating, who observed the Tongan troops during a Khaanquest training exercise earlier this summer in Mongolia, said he has no doubt of their capabilities. “They’re very tough,” he said. “They’re not just very good; they’re first class.”

My apologies, Tonga -- and, yes, to President Bush as well.

Right off the heels of Iraq's intended expulsion of private-security giant Blackwater, House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman vows -- what else? -- to investigate:

“The controversy over Blackwater is an unfortunate demonstration of the perils of excessive reliance on private security contractors. The Oversight Committee will be holding hearings to understand what has happened and the extent of the damage to U.S. security interests.”

For more on Blackwater, see the Brookings Institution's P.W. Singer, one of the foremost scholars of the private-military revolution, blogging over at TPMm pal Noah Shachtman's Danger Room.

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Back in April, Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, announced that his office would "leave no stone unturned" in pursuing White House malfeasance. In fact, a special task force was assembled to handle all of Karl Rove's alleged dirty doings.

Problem is, Bloch apparently forged ahead without actually having the money to fund the task force. And as Justin reports over at The Blotter, it's not looking like he'll be able to land that extra $3 million. So some of those stones might just have to stay right where they are.

Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical equipment it needs to investigate allegations that White House political operatives may have improperly injected politics into government activities, according to Jim Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel....

The cost of the task force for 2008 would be $2.89 million, according to OSC estimates. But Bloch started the probe long after he submitted his 2008 budget request. And now he's having a hard time convincing those holding the nation's purse strings to loosen up and give him some last-minute extra funding.

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So why was Thomas Kontogiannis, who's pled guilty to helping bribe Duke Cunningham, staying at a five-star Greek resort? Because the government told him to, prosecutors say. From The North County Times:

A federal judge allowed a New York man who has admitted bribing former North County U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to remain free on bond, after an Assistant U.S. Attorney said at a hearing this morning that the man's recent trip to Greece was at the direction of federal agents.

U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns had called the hearing to learn whether the man, Thomas Kontogiannis, had traveled overseas without permission. Any such trip requires prior approval because Kontogiannis pleaded guilty earlier this year on a money laundering charge.

At today's hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge said the trip was made at the government's behest.

"My understanding is that everything Mr. Kontogiannis did was not just 'with permission,' but at the direction of agents and other representatives of the government," Forge said.

Stranger and stranger.

Welcome to the worst week of Admiral Mike McConnell's life.

Before the week is out, the director of national intelligence will appear before the House judiciary and intelligence committees to defend the Protect America Act -- August's McConnell-pushed relaxation of restrictions on surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Even before the act passed, prominent Democrats vowed to roll back FISA changes that many on the left consider ill-advised, including the abandonment of individualized suspicion.

McConnell once enjoyed a sterling reputation as a non-partisan defense professional. That's all over, thanks to a string of events in the past couple months.

House Democrats believe McConnell negotiated with them on the Protect America Act in bad faith, reaching an agreement with them on a FISA compromise just before the August recess, only to see McConnell fall silent as the White House scotched it. (McConnell denies any such deal existed.) Then, in an interview with the El Paso Times, McConnell chastised Congress for allegedly revealing classified information during the surveillance debate -- only to go on to do so himself. (For good measure, he added that "some Americans are going to die" because of loose Congressional lips.) Perhaps most egregiously, McConnell told the Senate Government Affairs Committee last week -- completely contrary to the facts -- that the Protect America Act was responsible for the apprehension of three German terrorist suspects earlier this month, and then waited two days to retract his false statement.

All this was enough to prompt the former top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Jane Harman (D-CA), to remark, "Jane to Mike: Please stop. You're undermining the authorities of your office."

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Bush threw an unexpected change-up in his announcement this morning. Towards the end of his remarks about his nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, he also said that outgoing Justice Department official Peter Keisler would serve as the acting attorney general until Mukasey is confirmed.

The administration had said that Solicitor General Paul Clement would serve as the acting attorney general. But Keisler, who announced his retirement from the Department two weeks ago, will apparently stick around in his stead.

That's a move likely to provoke Democrats, who had been signaling that they'd block Keisler's pending nomination to the D.C. Court of Appeals. Keisler was first nominated in last year and was renominated this year. Only this May, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) warned that Keisler's nomination was "controversial." As a result, Keisler will now be in the odd position as acting attorney general of having to deal with the Democrats who are holding up his still-pending nomination.

Among the strikes against Keisler for Democrats was the fact that he's a co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society. He also "oversaw the Bush administration's lengthy legal fight over the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay."

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Within the hour, Thomas Kontogiannis is scheduled to go before U.S. District Judge Larry Burns in San Diego and explain why his recent Greek vacation doesn't violate the terms of his $1.5 million bond, under which he had to surrender his passport. But that's not the only new Tommy K-related morsel. On Friday, Burns ruled that attorneys for former ADCS chairman Brent Wilkes will get to review the sealed addenda to Kontogiannis' guilty plea. From the ruling:

1. The government shall disclose to defense counsel any sealed written addenda to the plea agreement of defendant Thomas Kontogiannis, case no. 07CR423-LAB, which addenda shall remain under seal. 2. The only persons to whom defense counsel may disclose, directly or indirectly, the contents or substance of any written addenda are John Michael, Brent Wilkes, and investigators or other agents assisting in the preparation of defendants’ defense.

What, we can't see? Shucks. Wilkes will stand trial next year for bribery and fraud related to the Randy "Duke" Cunningham corruption case. Kontogiannis has pleaded guilty to related charges and is cooperating with the government.

Muck accusations are flying the other way up in Alaska these days. A lawyer for former state Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK) said the FBI had another former lawmaker who was secretly cooperating in the ongoing Veco probe pressure Kohring into pleading guilty to bribery.

From the AP:

Investigators normally are prohibited from contacting defendants once they have a lawyer.

Kohring has pleaded not guilty to bribery and extortion charges despite what defense lawyer John Henry Browne contended was persistent pressure from the Justice Department to change the plea.

That pressure culminated recently, Browne said, when Kohring's former aide received a call from an aide in state Sen. Fred Dyson's office. The message, Browne said, was to take a plea deal.

It was only last week that Browne learned Dyson had been working with investigators since 2006. Details about the cooperation emerged in a related trial and showed that Dyson helped prosecutors persuade oil contractor Bill Allen to cooperate in the overarching investigation.

In July, Kohring's lawyers asked to push back his corruption trial for three months because it was going to take them that long to get through the mountain of physical and digital evidence the FBI collected against Kohring. The trial is slated to start on October 22.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the man who will preside over Michael Mukasey's confirmation hearing, signals hard that Mukasey's not going anywhere until the committee gets the information it's been seeking on the U.S. attorney firings and the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. A statement just out:

“The Judiciary Committee will approach consideration of the nomination of an Attorney General in a serious and deliberate fashion. The Administration took months determining that a change in leadership was needed at the Department of Justice and then the President spent several weeks before making a nomination. Our focus now will be on securing the relevant information we need so we can proceed to schedule fair and thorough hearings. Cooperation from the White House will be essential in determining that schedule.

“The next Attorney General needs to be someone who can begin the process of restoring the Department of Justice to its proper mission. I am hopeful that once we obtain the information we need and we have had the opportunity to consider the nomination, we will be able to make progress in this regard.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), by contrast, sounds upbeat in his statement.

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Following a Baghdad shootout yesterday that left at least nine civilians dead, security-contractor giant Blackwater will no longer be permitted to operate in Iraq, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

The Interior Ministry's decision is likely to be a source of friction between the U.S. Embassy and Iraq. Not only does Blackwater guard many important U.S. officials there, but the embassy is unlikely to want a precedent established that allows the Iraqi government to kick out U.S. contractors for excessive use of force.

Yesterday's incident involved an insurgent attack on a State Department convoy in the Sunni neighborhood of Mansour in western Baghdad. Blackwater personnel guarding the motorcade returned fire -- "to defend themselves," according to a State Department official quoted by The Washington Post. A Post reporter on the scene in Mansour witnessed Blackwater's Little Bird helicopters "firing into the streets." Almost immediately, an Interior Ministry spokesman said the company's license to operate in Iraq would be revoked.

However, it's unclear how the Interior Ministry would expel Blackwater. Unlike other private U.S. security firms in Iraq, as of May, Blackwater hadn't registered with the Iraqi government to operate in Iraq. The Coalition Provisional Authority -- the now-defunct occupational government -- issued a decree in 2004 (pdf) immunizing security contractors from Iraqi prosecution and placing their operations under the jurisdiction of U.S. authorities.

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General David Petraeus' own statistics reveal that there are now even fewer Iraqi forces capable of operating independently than there were at the start of the year. The number of Iraqi battalions considered "not ready" has more than tripled while the number of battalions deemed to be prepared has fallen 20%. Some U.S. and Iraqi officials fear that "return on success" could return Iraq to the chaos of 2006. (Boston Globe)

David Petraeus thinks the US will be able to draw down troops by December. Obviously he doesn't read the classifieds, where commanders posted private contractor openings in combat-supply warehouses because over half the soldiers supposed to work there have been moved to patrol duty. (Washington Post)

The Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are both failing to meet the basic accounting requirements set forth by Congress a decade ago in The Federal Financial Management Improvement Act, and thus can't be audited. No wonder that in Iraq "$9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed." (AP, Vanity Fair)

Thanks to a Florida statute of limitation, Rep. Mark Foley is unlikely to face any criminal charges. The best evidence against Foley is an online exchange with a 17-year old page, which took place in February of 2003, which is outside the scope of the statute. (ABC's The Blotter)

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Michael Mukasey is it, the president's pick for attorney general to be announced as soon as today.

What do we know about the guy? Relatively little, it's apparent from the morning papers.

His relevant experience is comprised four years as an assistant U.S. attorney and 19 years on the federal bench after being appointed by Ronald Reagan. Of all that time, the most telling decision for liberals and conservatives alike is his ruling in the Jose Padilla case, where he found that the U.S. could detain Padilla indefinitely without charges (eventually reversed on appeal), but that he should be able to meet with his attorneys. Mukasey is, in other words, conservative -- but independent-minded. And the first indications are that Democrats are likely to determine that they can live with him. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) remains an enthusiastic supporter.

Politically, all that's known about Mukasey is that he backs Rudy Giuliani, with whom Mukasey served as a prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney office -- both he and his sons advise the campaign, and his son heads up the white collar defense practice for Bracewell & Giuliani, the law firm that Giuliani joined two years ago.

The only signs of controversy are supposed grumblings among conservatives about the pick. But although that dissatisfaction is noted by all the major papers, not one of them names an actual dissatisfied conservative. Even the note of warning sounded at The Corner doesn't put a name to Mukasey's detractors, just noting that there are "perfectly sane conservative activists who are concerned." The Wall Street Journal reports, however, that "the White House was reaching out to conservative legal activists over the weekend to make a detailed case for its choice." Bill Kristol started the charge this weekend, by arguing that conservatives shouldn't be upset that the president didn't nominate Ted Olson (after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) threatened to block him) because Mukasey is Olson without the mess: he'll "come to judgments similar to Olson's on key issues of executive power and the war on terror."

For now, the big fight over Mukasey, barring some unexpected revelation, is likely to be how much Democrats push to get documents and testimony relevant to the U.S. attorney firings before they allow a vote on his confirmation, as they've warned.