For Democrats, the stakes are high for Hans von Spakovsky's nomination to the Federal Election Commission. They say that a man who politicized the Justice Department and worked to disenfranchise voters has no place on the body regulating election issues. But the stakes for the fallout from his confirmation battle may be even higher.

Right now, the fight over von Spakovsky's nomination is at a stalemate. Senate Republicans insist that if von Spakovsky isn't confirmed, then none of the other three nominees to the Federal Elections Commission will get a vote. But a select group of Senate Democrats, led by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Russ Feingold (D-WI), say that they'll prevent any vote on von Spakovsky if his nomination is tied to the other nominees. For now, neither side is budging.

In holding the other three nominees hostage, the Republicans have a clear strategy. The commission typically has six members, three of them Republicans and three Democrats. If the Senate did not vote on any of the four nominees up for confirmation, then the commission would be down to only two members by the end of the year, which would effectively incapacitate it. The commission requires four members to operate. To prevent that from happening, President Bush could stock the commission with recess appointees while Congress was out of session.

Either one of those scenarios is "fraught with potential danger," Fred Wertheimer, the executive director of the nonpartisan watchdog Democracy 21, told me.

Read more »

The Blackwater guard who drunkenly shot a bodyguard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi in December 2006 was back working for a Department of Defense contractor by February, CNN reported this morning.

And in a letter House oversight committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today, he asks why. He suggests that the reason it was so easy for the guard, Andrew J. Moonen, to get back to work, was because the State Department didn't inform the Defense Department about what the ex-Blackwater employee did to get initially expelled from Iraq. Moonen returned to Kuwait in February, CNN reported, working for Defense Department contractor Combat Support Associates (CSA).

During this week's Congressional hearing on Blackwater, a State official refused to tell Waxman anything about the incident -- including whether State had helped Moonen flee Iraq after the shooting.

"It is hard to reconcile this development with the State Department’s claim that 'We are scrupulous in terms of oversight and scrutiny not only of Blackwater but all of our contractors,'" Waxman writes.

Waxman requested all of the Departments documents concerning Moonen and the Christmas Eve, 2006 shooting.

Waxman's full letter is below.

Read more »

Associated Press spokesman Jack Stokes confirms today that the AP still hasn't received a videotape confiscated by U.S. troops on Wednesday.

Lt. Colonel Scott Bleichwehl told the AP that the footage -- shot in the aftermath of a Baghdad bombing that wounded the Polish ambassador -- would be returned to the news organization "shortly," in the AP's paraphrase. The cameraman who shot the footage was detained by an unnamed U.S. unit for about 40 minutes, with no reason provided to him or the news organization.

Bleichwehl has yet to respond to two emails requesting comment about the episode, nor has Multi-National Corps-Iraq spokesman Lt. Colonel James Hutton.

It happened nearly five years ago, but House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) still has plenty of questions about the New Hampshire phone jamming case.

In a letter Wednesday, he asked Acting Attorney General Peter Keisler a number of questions about the case, focusing in particular on whether the Justice Department has "adequately investigated and prosecuted" the case. You can read the letter here.

On Election Day, 2002, remember, Republicans schemed to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks (here's our timeline of the scandal). The executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, Charles McGee, who hatched the scheme, subsequently explained that he'd gotten the idea from his time in the Marines, where he was taught to jam the enemy's communications. Both McGee and Allen Raymond, who ran the consulting firm that arranged the jamming, pled guilty and have served their time.

The case moved slowly -- the pleas not occurring until June of 2004. And it wasn't until after the 2004 election that James Tobin, who'd been the Republian National Committee's New England Regional Political Director, was indicted for his role in the conspiracy. He was ultimately convicted, but then the verdict was reversed on appeal. Tobin will go to trial again this December.

Democrats say it's no accident that the case took so long.

Read more »

Not that State is conceding Blackwater or other private-security contractors protecting U.S. diplomats have done anything wrong, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is leaning in the direction of imposing a few restrictions on their activity in Iraq:

An internal State Department review ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recommends overhauling U.S. diplomatic security practices in Iraq after the Blackwater USA shooting incident in which 13 Iraqis were killed, a senior U.S. official said Friday.

Rice has ordered the recommendations be followed, including requiring U.S. diplomatic security agents to accompany Blackwater-escorted convoys of U.S. diplomats in Baghdad, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The government security service also will bolster monitoring of the private security escorts by installing video cameras in cars and recording radio traffic between convoys and the U.S. embassy.

"She wants to make sure there is a management feedback loop," McCormack told reporters.

What's not changed? Oh, yeah -- the rules of engagement that allow private firms to use lethal force with apparently minimal provocation, which U.S. military officials consider a liability. On the other hand, those video cameras are sure to capture some wacky bloopers:

A Government Accountability Office report described the ways in which the Federal Communications Commission broadcasts which items it is about to vote on “even though that information is not supposed to be released outside of FCC.” At issue is the extent to which some “stakeholders” gain advance access to FCC information and then gain a competitive advantage. One stakeholder informed the GAO that FCC staff calls them to directly inform them of scheduled votes. (Washington Post)

Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN) has proposed seven-year terms for inspector generals and new rules that subject them to removal for cause, rather than presidential whim. Cooper’s proposed law would also allow inspector generals to request funds directly from OMB and congressional committees, and establish a council to investigation any misconduct of the inspectors. (U.S. News & World Report)

Former Gov. Don Siegeleman will have to continue his case from prison, according to a recent court decision that denied him bail pending appeal. The judge ruled that Siegelman has failed to demonstrate that his appeal raises substantial questions of law or fact that might overturn the verdict. (Associated Press)

Read more »

While the State Department has frequently covered for Blackwater, particularly over the Nisour Square incident, the military has tended to be more candid. "It may be worse than Abu Ghraib," a senior officer said last week, at a time when diplomats were, at most, conceding "there's an issue here" and urging calm in the aftermath of the shooting. That shouldn't be surprising: after all, it's the 160,000 troops in Iraq who suffer by association with reckless contractors.

Now, after Blackwater got off lightly at a Congressional hearing Tuesday -- in which Nisour Square was not explored -- the military is pressing the point harder. U.S. military reports from the scene at Nisour Square, separate from the initial Blackwater-penned "first blush" inquiry, portray Blackwater guards as out of control and trigger-happy, firing on Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces almost indiscriminately. "It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong," a U.S. military official tells The Washington Post.

The most significant new detail added by the U.S. military account about the chaos at Nisour Square on September 16: Contrary to Blackwater's frequently-repeated account, no Iraqi civilian or policeman fired upon its guards. The small-arms fire was, in other words, all coming from the contractors.

Read more »

It looks like Veco plays favorites. Since 1993 the oil services company tangled in several of the Alaska corruption investigations has given Rep. Don Young (R-AK) more than two and a half times what it's donated to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), the AP reports.

Young's raked in $180,630, while Stevens has only pocketed $70,500 (but that presumably doesn't include other perks like Veco employees remodeling his house or parking cars at his fundraisers.) Young and Stevens are both under federal investigation for their ties to the corporation. The FBI is particularly interested in the annual pig roast former Veco CEO Bill Allen would host for Young.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has only pulled in a pittance ($41,250), but she's only been in Congress since late 2002, when her father bequeathed his seat to her to become governor of Alaska.

A statement just out from Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) after their opposition to Hans von Spakovsky's nomination scuttled a deal to move von Spakovsky quickly through the Senate:

“While at the Department of Justice, Hans von Spakovsky was directly involved in efforts to politicize the Department and use the Voting Rights Section to disenfranchise voters, rather than enforce our nation’s civil rights laws. As a recess appointee to the FEC he has been a committed, ideological opponent of the campaign finance laws he is supposed to enforce. Putting him at the head of the FEC is just another example of this administration putting the fox in charge of the hen house. We oppose his nomination, and any effort to tie his nomination to the other pending nominations to the FEC.”

Another day, another resignation.

This time, it's Scott Jennings, who worked under Karl Rove in the White House.

Jennings, among other things, was a frequent contact concerning the U.S. attorney firings for Justice Department aides Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling in the White House. The other Rove aide involved in the firings, Sara Taylor, left the White House earlier this year. When he was subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he refused to discuss the firings (or even discuss his role in appointing U.S. attorneys in general), citing executive privilege.

But we'll remember Jennings most of all for his remarkably effective parroting of the White House talking points about the political briefings Jennings gave at various department and agencies. Jennings, remember, gave the most infamous of those briefings, at the General Services Administration. After Jennings had finished his rundown of which GOP candidates were in trouble of losing reelection, GSA chief Lurita Doan asked aloud how GSA projects could be used to help "our candidates." Jennings reportedly replied that the top would be better discussed "off-line."

So in appreciation for Jennings' service, here's last months' TPMtv episode on the subject, complete with Jennings' and Taylor's mind-wracking message discipline:

This didn't get Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson in trouble:

"Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

But maybe these words will: "I don't touch contracts." That's what Jackson told Congress last May to convince lawmakers that he'd never do something so outrageous as award a contract based on whether the contractor was a Republican.

But there's a problem with that, reports the National Journal -- it appears that Jackson did, in fact, touch at least one contract, and one for a friend of his. And the FBI is investigating:

Donohue's investigators are now working with the FBI, a federal grand jury in Washington, and prosecutors from the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section....

Investigators are exploring whether Jackson, despite that testimony, had actually lined up a contract at the HUD-controlled Housing Authority of New Orleans, or HANO, for a golfing buddy and social friend from Hilton Head Island, S.C. The friend, William Hairston, was paid more than $485,000 for working at HANO during an 18-month period, according to figures provided by HUD and a former HANO official. The work was not competitively bid.

In an interview, Hairston, a stucco contractor, said that Jackson had indeed helped him land the job at HANO. He said that the New Orleans housing agency, which HUD manages under receivership, was struggling to repair and rehab its housing units in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and needed a construction manager. "The secretary asked me if I would go to New Orleans and help them out," Hairston told National Journal.

Yesterday the AP reported that U.S. troops in Iraq confiscated an AP cameraman's videotape of the aftermath of a Baghdad bombing. A military spokesman, Lt. Colonel Scott Bleichwehl, explained that the troops were enforcing an Iraqi law prohibiting the photographing or videotaping the aftermath of acts of violence. That seemed strange -- U.S. troops enforcing Iraqi law?

So yesterday I asked U.S. military representatives in Baghdad about the confiscation, the alleged law, and the use of U.S. troops as law enforcement for a foreign country. A spokesman replied to me that he knew of no agreement or arrangement "that would compel [U.S. forces] to enforce Iraqi law." A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the matter at all -- even to confirm the existence of such an Iraqi media law -- and instead referred me back to the military. Making matters even stranger, my interlocutor in the military told me that a colleague "checked with the unit who responded to the scene of the attack... and they reported that there was no video tape confiscated" by U.S. troops. I was unable to learn the identity of the unit.

When I asked AP for clarification about what happened, AP representatives e-mailed me this just-updated story . Apparently U.S. troops detained the cameraman -- after first denying that they even had the videotape:

Read more »

It's a prime example of the lawlessness in Iraq. The details are sketchy and disputed, but here they are: An Iraqi corruption judge, continually thwarted in his pursuit of justice, finally helps convict a high-ranking official. But then the official breaks out of jail. Or, rather, the official is helped out of jail by guards working for one defense contractor, but is then returned -- only to leave jail with the help of another. Allegedly.

Testimony today from Iraqi corruption judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi touched on the conviction of
Ayham al-Samarrai, the former Iraqi electricity minister. al-Radhi helped put al-Samarrai away for what the judge called "wasting" public funds. al-Samarrai is the highest-ranking official to be convicted of corruption in Iraq.

His name may be familiar to Blackwater watchers. Last month, an Iraqi defense official told McClatchy's Leila Fadel that Blackwater helped break al-Samarrai out of prison in the Green Zone last December. Today, however, al-Radhi suggested that the defense official was wrong. A rival private-security company, DynCorp, assisted al-Samarrai's prison break, al-Radhi said.

But DynCorp says it's a huge misunderstanding. "It's absolutely untrue," says spokesman Gregory Lagana. "We are absolutely 100 percent convinced it wasn't us." However, Lagana says, he knows why al-Radhi thinks DynCorp was behind it. Two DynCorp employees, one named George Dillman and another whom Lagana didn't recall, were stationed in Iraq to assist in training Iraqi policemen. Among the police stations the two were detailed to was the Green Zone station where al-Samarrai was detained. In October, al-Samarrai, who holds dual U.S.-Iraqi citizenship, told the DynCorp employees that he would be murdered if he was convicted.

Read more »

House Transportation Committee ranking member Rep. John Mica (R-FL) said no one who works for him was involved in the infamous change to Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) Coconut Road earmark in the highway bill of 2005. Young chaired the committee back then, so the main culprit for the change (made after the bill passed both houses of Congress) has been one of his staffers.

The Hill reports that Mica queried his staff and believes that if a Republican Transportation staff member was involved, he/she no longer works for the committee:

[Mica] also said he was so concerned about how the earmark was inserted that he asked his entire Transportation Committee staff whether any of them had anything to do it.

“If they had, I would have fired them,” Mica remarked, noting that none were involved.

Many of the aides had remained on the committee after Young stepped down as chairman when Democrats assumed the majority in January.

Read more »

Rep. David Price's (D-NC) bill putting private-security companies' activities overseas under U.S. civilian law has passed the House:

The House passed a bill on Wednesday that would make all private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones subject to prosecution by U.S. courts. It was the first major legislation of its kind to pass since a deadly shootout last month involving Blackwater employees.

Democrats called the 389-30 vote an indictment in connection with a shooting incident there that left 11 Iraqis dead. Senate Democratic leaders said they planned to follow suit with similar legislation and send a bill to President Bush as soon as possible.

"There is simply no excuse for the de facto legal immunity for tens of thousands of individuals working in countries" on behalf of the United States, said Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas.

From Roll Call (sub. req.):

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Wednesday derailed a plan blessed by Senate leaders to vote on controversial Federal Election Commission White House nominee Hans von Spakovsky, a move giving Democrats time to breathe in the ongoing Senate stalemate on FEC nominees.

According to Democratic Senate aides, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) struck a deal mid-week to hotline four FEC slots that must be confirmed by the Senate before next year. As part of the proposed deal, a voice vote on fellow commission nominees only would take place if no Senators objected to von Spakovsky's nomination.

But a vote on the deal, which was expected to come to the floor as early as today, appeared to be off by mid-day Wednesday after Obama -- and unconfirmed others -- voiced concerns that von Spakovsky's nomination was too controversial not to go through regular floor proceedings.

A Democratic aide said Senate offices continue to explore "concerns with Mr. von Spakovsky, if they rise to the level of other objections, as well as where the caucus lies."

Obama earlier called von Spakovsky an "unacceptable nominee." For a rundown for why Dems would find von Spakovsky so objectionable, see here and here.

Rick Hasen has more on where things might go from here over at the Election Law Blog.

Classy guy, that Rep. John Mica (R-FL). Hearing about how Radhi Hamza al-Radhi's investigators have been tortured and murdered by militias affiliated with Iraqi political parties -- including the prime minister's -- Mica kept his eye squarely on the real target: Bill Clinton. Mica read out a list of what he described as the Clinton administration's misdeeds -- officials under indictment; officials who fled the country rather than testify; and, of course, impeachment -- to make the point, he said, that "no administration is left without corruption."

It's a responsible comparison. After all, Bill Clinton hung his opponents up on meat hooks, tortured them with power drills and sent Democratic Party-affiliated armed bandits to steal oil revenue in order to finance their illicit activities.

It was too much for Radhi, who, through translation, reminded Mica of the billions of dollars stolen by the Iraqi government and asked, "don't you think it deserves follow up and attention?"

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and subcommittee chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) today demanded the Justice Department release secret legal opinions from 2005 and 2006 that The New York Times described today as "an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency."

The opinions, authored by acting Office of Legal Counsel head Stephen Bradbury, had been previously unknown until the Times wrote about them this morning -- even to the committee. And they were penned even as the Bush administration was publicly renouncing torture.

"Both the alleged content of these opinions and the fact that they have been kept secret from Congress are extremely troubling, especially in light of the Department’s 2004 withdrawal of an earlier opinion similarly approving such methods," Conyers and Nadler wrote. They also demand that Bradbury -- who has never been confirmed by the Senate despite serving as OLC chief for years -- testify about his justifications for such techniques as waterboarding. You can read their letter to acting Attorney General Peter Kiesler here.

For fans of circular reasoning, today's press gaggle was a classic. Here's White House spokeswoman Dana Perino reacting to this morning's New York Times blockbuster that revealed secret Justice Department memos that authorized brutal interrogation techniques:

QUESTION: You maintain that the administration still does not torture?

PERINO: Correct....

QUESTION: But is it not possible that some of these classified opinions may have changed the definition of "torture"?

PERINO: No. I don't believe so. I have not seen them. But as everything was described to me, no, I don't believe that's possible....

QUESTION: But the idea that you can't discuss it and that you blanketly say there's no torture when, clearly, in the Department of Justice there has been a debate about if those techniques were too severe ... and to simply say there's no torture, but then to never provide any insight as to what the limitations are, with the exception of death or organ failure ...

PERINO: I'm not disputing that there can be legal disagreements between reasonable people who may look at something one way and another person looks at it in another way. I'm not disputing that. What I am saying is that we do not torture, and I disagree with the notion that just because information is leaked or provided to The New York Times or any other news organization that this country should ... that this government should then have to spell out any specifics. And I'm not confirming or denying anything that you just listed ... all the ones that you just listed.

QUESTION: How can you say that ... how can you say with assurance that we don't torture if you don't know what was in the ...

PERINO: Because we follow the law.

Much more from this morning below.

Read more »

Substantive new evidence makes it look even more likely that politics played a role in the decision to prosecute Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL) on corruption charges.

Siegelman supporters have long claimed that Siegelman was targeted for being a successful Democrat in a largely Republican state.

According to documents obtained by Time, in 2002 a lobbyist and trash dump developer named Lanny Young told investigators, including representatives from the local US attorney's office, the Justice Department's public integrity unit and the Republican attorney general's office, that he'd given illegal gifts and contributions to Siegelman and a number of other powerful Alabama politicians. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Session's successor as attorney general and now federal judge William Pryor (R) were named.

One of Young's contracts with the state triggered the Siegelman investigation. Siegelman was acquitted on 25 of 32 counts, with about half of the charges stemming from Young's testimony.

Notably, none of the Republicans named by Young were ever investigated, reports Time's Adam Zagorin, let alone prosecuted. Zagorin also points out that "several of the lawyers involved in the Siegelman investigation were from Pryor's office and had worked for Sessions as well when he held the post." But instead of raising any issue of a possible conflict of interest, the investigators "chose not to recuse themselves but to simply ignore the allegations."

The documents obtained by Time are a sensitive portion of materials requested by the House Judiciary Committee -- but which have been so far withheld by the Department of Justice.

Read more »

Here's how bad corruption is in Iraq. An Iraqi corruption judge, Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the former head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, is testifying now before the House oversight committee. It's been known that institutional mechanisms in the Iraqi criminal code allow the Iraqi ministers to stifle corruption investigations. But al-Radhi, who is now seeking asylum in the U.S., stated that a whopping $18 billion has been lost to thieves in "nearly every ministry." (That's not the U.S.-provided Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund.) Corruption, he said, is not just getting worse, but has "stopped" reconstruction efforts.

Al-Radhi testified that the Maliki government's corruption "has helped fund sectarian militias," as has that of Maliki's rivals in the Sunni parties. According to al-Radhi, the militias controlling cities like Taji (Sunni) and Basra (Shiite) control oil sales and use the revenue to buy weapons. "These militias are from the parties' blocs, and it is a source of revenue for them." Even worse is what happens to those who try to stop the corruption: The militias have systematically targeted al-Radhi and his investigators. His staff and their relatives have been kidnapped, detained, tortured and murdered. Their bodies have been found hung on meat hooks, tortured with power drills, and attacked by suicide bombers.

He said Maliki -- who recently issued counter-charges of corruption against al-Radhi -- has protected his deputies and "his relatives" from corruption investigations. These are allegations that the State Department tried to stop Waxman from airing publicly.

Video of al-Radhi's opening statement coming shortly.

Update: Here's the video.

Finally, Brent Wilkes' trial is under way:

"Lies, deceit, greed. Most of all greed. This case is all about greed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern told jurors as he laid out the government's case in his opening statements....

"The evidence will show the politician was bought by the defendant lock, stock and barrel," Halpern said, adding that the bribes include "the truly astonishing," such as machine gun lessons and the services of prostitutes.

Among the expected witnesses are Duke Cunningham's former staffers, former Pentagon officials, and Wilkes' nephew, who's expected to give the most detail about how his uncle kept Cunningham in pocket. Cunningham is on the prosecutors' witness list, but apparently is not likely to be called.

Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos will make his opening statement next Tuesday -- when we'll finally hear how he plans to get his client off the hook.

Federal Prosecutors have named top executives from TDC (a Louisiana-based company) as co-conspirators in William Jefferson’s alleged bribery scheme. TDC was awarded a $450,000 grant from a government agency that Jefferson attempted to influence. No word yet on whether TDC kept the cash in their freezer. (The Hill)

Just after Alberto Gonzaleswas sworn in as Attorney General, the Justice Department began retreating from its 2004 public declaration that torture is “abhorrent.” The New York Times reports that under Gonzales, the department issued new, highly secretive endorsements of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA. James Comey, then deputy attorney general told department colleagues at the time that they would be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of the Gonzales-sponsored memos. (New York Times)

Under the recently enacted lobbying reform bill, former senators-cum-lobbyists are barred from working out in the senate gym during a one year “cooling off period” (in January the term will be extended to two years) but they are allowed to dine with colleagues in the Senate while active members discuss legislative agendas. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who organizes such lunches, insists, “"There's no lobbying that ever goes on," it’s just a “kind of a small courtesy to former senators." (Washington Post)

Off in Seattle, a former Army paratrooper lives and works behind the padlocked chain-link fence that surrounds his house. Though Blackwater will not confirm or deny whether he was an employee, he is the sole suspect in the shooting of the bodyguard of an Iraq vice president. His lawyer says he has not yet been charged with a crime. (NY Times)

Read more »

Some farces, it turns out, can be avoided. The FBI team traveling to Iraq at the behest of the State Department to assist in the investigation of Blackwater's September 16 shooting at Nisour Square was supposed to be guarded by... Blackwater. (Shades of Darrell Issa's threat hover over that one.) However, the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security realized yesterday that the ensuing conflict of interest would be just too egregious.

Under Blackwater's State Department contract, the company provides security for all official travel outside the U.S.-protected Green Zone. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that security for the team would be handled by the department's Diplomatic Security Service.

Of course, the DSS needed a bit of prompting, which is perhaps to be expected after chief Richard Griffin's vigorous defense of Blackwater on Tuesday. In a letter, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) urged (pdf) Condoleezza Rice to step back from the precipice of absurdity.

But other absurdities linger.

Read more »

You can add Sen. Pete Domenici's (R-NM) name to the flurry of Justice Department officials who bowed out in the wake of the U.S. attorney firing scandal. The Washington Post reports that he's expected to retire next November rather than seek reelection.

A brief walk down memory lane: in October of 2006, Domenici called U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias to ask about whether an indictment against a prominent state Democrat on public corruption charges was forthcoming before the election. When Iglesias said no, "the line went dead."

After ducking questions about the first reports of the call this February, then saying "I have no idea what he's talking about," he finally admitted that he'd made the call and said he regretted it.

And not only did Domenici call to pressure Iglesias, he was also instrumental in his firing, making calls not only to the Justice Department, but also to the White House.

Read more »

"The scandal at the Department of Justice has gone on long enough," said Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL) back in March. "Careers have been destroyed and legitimate public corruption cases have been derailed. It is time for accountability -- it is time for the truth."

Six months and several Department senior resignations later, it's a different time. The urgency is gone.

More than two months after the House Judiciary Committee passed contempt resolutions against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers for ignoring committee subpoenas, it's still unclear when, or if, Democrats will hold a vote on the full floor.

The leadership has indefinitely delayed taking up the issue. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) told The Politico last month, “I don’t think anything is going to happen on that for a while,” and couldn't offer a range. Three weeks later, that hasn't changed.

And apparently scheduling concerns are not all that's at issue. A source familiar with the ongoing discussions told TPMmuckraker that getting the leadership to bring the contempt resolutions to the floor at all is an "uphill struggle."

Read more »

The New York Times has a piece out today adding new details about the September 16 Blackwater shootings in Nisour Square. Relying largely on 12 Iraqis described as eyewitnesses, Iraqi investigators and a U.S. official familiar with one of the American investigations, the account suggests Blackwater's rules of engagement worked against both the Blackwater convoy and the Iraqis left dead and wounded.

The State Department's rules of engagement for Blackwater call for a series of escalating measures starting with signaled and verbal warnings to halt and progressing to the use of deadly force.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry account of the shooting is familiar by now: a car carrying a young family was ordered to stop by a traffic policeman so a Blackwater convoy could pass through. But the car rolled forward, resulting in Blackwater guards killing the driver, his wife and their young child -- and sparking the melee that followed.

But the Times reports that the car may have proceeded because its driver was already dead:

The car in which the first people were killed did not begin to closely approach the Blackwater convoy until the Iraqi driver had been shot in the head and lost control of his vehicle. Not one witness heard or saw any gunfire coming from Iraqis around the square. And following a short initial burst of bullets, the Blackwater guards unleashed an overwhelming barrage of gunfire even as Iraqis were turning their cars around and attempting to flee.

As the gunfire continued, at least one of the Blackwater guards began screaming, “No! No! No!” and gesturing to his colleagues to stop shooting, according to an Iraqi lawyer who was stuck in traffic and was shot in the back as he tried to flee. The account of the struggle among the Blackwater guards corroborates preliminary findings of the American investigation.

Yesterday, Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater, said that it's far from clear that Blackwater did anything wrong. That response might be self serving, but it's not necessarily false -- at least from the perspective of the State Department-issued "escalation of force" policy.

Read more »

Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had a simple message: the President's nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, wasn't going anywhere until the administration finally handed over documents he'd long been seeking.

But now it appears that things are moving along, though it seems that the administration hasn't handed over anything.

In a letter this morning, Leahy listed roughly a dozen questions he wanted answers to -- all of them relating to whether Mukasey would lead the Justice Department differently from Alberto Gonzales (e.g. would he fire a large number of U.S. attorneys at the direction of White House political operatives?). We've posted that letter below.

Chief on that list, apparently, is whether Mukasey would work with Leahy in a way that Gonzales, who often ignored Leahy's queries, did not. Leahy writes:

With so much to do and so much damage that needs to be repaired, I had hoped that the White House would have taken advantage of the time since the resignations of Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Rove to work with us to fulfill longstanding requests for information so that we could all agree about what went so wrong at the Department of Justice and work together to restore it. Instead, they have left you to answer the unanswered questions and left longstanding disputes unresolved.

Leahy offered to meet with Mukasey October 16th as a prelude to a confirmation hearing.

Read more »

Yesterday Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked if Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) "really" wanted to investigate Blackwater, since if he went to Iraq to snoop around, "Blackwater will be his support team."

Well, apparently it's not so hypothetical of a scenario. From The New York Daily News:

When a team of FBI agents lands in Baghdad this week to probe Blackwater security contractors for murder, it will be protected by bodyguards from the very same firm, the Daily News has learned.

Half a dozen FBI criminal investigators based in Washington are scheduled to travel to Iraq to gather evidence and interview witnesses about a Sept. 16 shooting spree that left at least 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

The agents plan to interview witnesses within the relative safety of the fortified Green Zone, but they will be transported outside the compound by Blackwater armored convoys, a source briefed on the FBI mission said.

"What happens when the FBI team decides to go visit the crime scene? Blackwater is going to have to take them there," the senior U.S. official told The News.

A new Supreme Court term, a new chance for a legal challenge to the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance efforts. Today the ACLU asked the Court to take up a case it brought last year against the administration by American citizens who suspect that their communications were unlawfully monitored.

Last year, District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered an injunction on the surveillance in response to the case, an order that led to the Bush administration placing the program(s) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (well, for the time being). The Justice Department objected, saying the plaintiffs in the case -- a collection of "prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and national advocacy organizations" -- couldn't prove they had been surveilled, since the administration wasn't revealing who it spied upon. Circuit Court Judge Alice Batchelder sided with the government in July.

Read more »

There's good news and there's bad news for lawmakers.

First the good news: Brent Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos withdrew the twelve subpoenas for House lawmakers after the judge signaled that he'd only approve them if they specifically related to Wilkes' defense -- i.e. the alleged bribes he gave Duke Cunningham.

The bad news:

Even though Geragos dropped the initial subpoenas, he told reporters later that he planned to file new ones against former House Speaker U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and California Republican Reps. John Doolittle, Duncan Hunter, Darrell Issa and Jerry Lewis.

The basis for all this, Geragos says, is that "we've got members who were on these plane flights with Mr. Cunningham [on Wilkes' plane], who were going to these dinners hosted by Mr. Wilkes." Presumably this would be part of Wilkes' defense that his gifts to Cunningham were just part of a system of which he was the victim.

So the lawmakers still on Geragos' list are there because they had a relationship with Wilkes. And perhaps not coincidentally, two of those five are already under federal investigation -- Lewis for his ties to Wilkes and other lobbyists and Doolittle for his ties to Jack Abramoff.

House Democrats are proposing new legislation that strengthens independent oversight of the Bush administration. Their proposed legislation would put more teeth into the 1978 law that established independent inspector generals by making it more difficult for the administration to fire inspector generals or otherwise control internal watchdogs. The White House is threatening a veto, arguing that the law will interfere with the president’s Constitutional right to fire inspector generals. (CQ Politics)

Ray Hunt, CEO of Hunt Oil, claimed (sub. req.) yesterday that he did not take advantage of his connections with Republicans- and specifically, the President- to help land an oil arrangement with the semi autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq. The State Department has previously claimed that it advised Hunt against the deal; Hunt claims he did not communicate with anyone in the government prior to the agreement. (Wall Street Journal)

If the White House won't talk, try the telecoms. ABC's investigative superstar Justin Rood reports that Congress is seeking information about the government's warrantless wiretapping programming by asking telecommunications firms about their role. The firms have until October 12th to suddenly become a part of the executive branch so that they can claim privilege. (ABC's The Blotter)

Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-IN) earmarks over $7 million for a technology start-up incubator to be built (sub. req.) in his state. The first five businesses to take up residence in the new building are all clients of the lobbying firm PMA. PMA is Visclosky's largest political contributor. Nothing to see here, folks. (Roll Call)

Read more »

It was a major talking point for Erik Prince at yesterday's Blackwater hearing: Blackwater contractors discharged their weapons during only about one percent of the 16,000 missions they've undertaken since 2005. Relying on his company's statistics, Blackwater owner/CEO pointedly told the House oversight committee that his contractors fired their guns an average of 1.4 times a week, a discharge rate hardly befitting the company's reputation for recklessness.

Prince may have accurately reported his company's weapons-discharge statistics to the committee. But, reports Steve Fainaru in The Washington Post, contract employees for private-security companies in Iraq, including Blackwater, frequently under-report how many often they open fire.

[T]wo former Blackwater security guards said they believed employees fired more often than the company has disclosed. One, a former Blackwater guard who spent nearly three years in Iraq, said his 20-man team averaged "four or five" shootings a week, or several times the rate of 1.4 incidents a week reported by the company. The underreporting of shooting incidents was routine in Iraq, according to this former guard.

"The thing is, even the good companies, how many bad incidents occurred where guys involved didn't say anything, because they didn't want to be questioned, or have any downtime today to have to go over what happened yesterday?" he said. "I'm sure there were some companies that just didn't report anything."

Defense and State Department officials conceded that the terms of most contracts require the security firm to report their shooting incidents, but in practice, few comply. The apparent silence among contractors has led to a lack of understanding by the U.S. about the true rates of contractor violence in Iraq. Last year, for instance, officials with the Army Corps of Engineers grew concerned that their bodyguards from Aegis, a British-run firm, had turned "out of control" because of their high numbers of reported shootings. But a closer look determined that Aegis only appeared trigger-happy because of its high pace of operations and under-reporting by its competitors. Functionally, whether or not contractors tell responsible officials in the State or Defense Departments about their shooting incidents "is up to them," according to an ex-ACE program manager.

Read more »

The senators did their best to wring more information from Jack Goldsmith about the administration's warrantless surveillance program during today's hearing. It was Goldsmith's legal analysis, after all, which led to the Justice Department leadership's revolt in 2004. But it was a mixed result.

Since the beginning of this year, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been seeking documents from the Justice Department and the White House about the legal basis for the program. They're still waiting.

And today, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) tried a more modest tack. He tried to get Goldsmith to say what Constitutional principle had been violated by the program. Goldsmith replied that the executive branch had told him that he couldn't discuss any aspect of his legal analysis. Specter asked again, and Goldsmith again said that he'd been instructed not to.

Goldsmith did manage to add some details, however. He revealed that only four lawyers at the Justice Department were permitted to examine the program -- that's including the attorney general and Goldsmith himself. When asked why the administration had so restricted that access, he said that it was probably because they did not want the legal analysis (that had, until Goldsmith, allowed the program to go forward) scrutinized.

As it was, he said, the basis for the program was "a legal mess" when he took over the Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 -- the "biggest," he said, he'd ever encountered.

Read more »

If the House ethics committee doesn't investigate the Coconut Road earmark that someone slipped in to a 2005 highway bill at the behest of then-transportation chair Rep. Don Young (R-AK), then a watchdog group may file a lawsuit to get to the bottom of it.

The non-partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense called on the House ethics committee to review how $10 million listed for a highway widening project ended up making its way to a project benefiting a developer and major Young campaign contributor after both chambers voted on the bill. But despite the fact that the change seems a blatant violat