Who is Paul Singer? He and Rudy Giuliani would prefer you not think too much about it.

Singer, who founded the multibillion dollar hedge fund Elliott Associates, has raised $200,000 for Giuliani. He flies Giuliani around in his jet.

And, as of September, his $175,000 contribution was the sole backing for the Republican scheme to split up California's electoral votes. Instead of all the electoral votes in the country's most populous state going to the state's winner (almost surely the Democrat), the ballot initiative would throw the loser (the Republican) his percentage, potentially swinging the election.

Singer's no fan of publicity, which explains why he looks rather unhappy in the picture The New York Times photographer snapped of him on the street for today's piece.

Singer tells the Times that made the contribution because he "believes in proportional voting in the Electoral College." As the Times notes, Singer was also a donor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004. Presumably that was just because he believes in the truth.

But just because Singer is the only money behind the California scheme doesn't mean it's entirely his baby. There's a whole host of other Giuliani backers who've gotten involved:

-- Anne Dunsmore, who resigned as the Giuliani campaign’s chief fundraiser this September, has taken charge of raising funds for the effort. She said she quit because she couldn't meet Giuliani's fundraising demands, but says she still support Giuliani.

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Another year has almost passed under the Bush Administration, and so it's time to review how much less we know.

Last year, we launched the insanely ambitious project of recording every significant instance of this administration stifling government information. As we said then, "they've discontinued annual reports, classified normally public data, de-funded studies, quieted underlings, and generally done whatever was necessary to keep bad information under wraps." To be sure, the list will continue to grow through January, 2008.

TPMm research hounds Adrianne Jeffries and Peter Sheehy set to updating our already extensive tally, and those items have been added below (don't miss our new section on global warming!). But TPMm readers made the list what it is, so if you see something else that should be on there, let us know, and we'll update it accordingly.

So, without further ado, the list! Some notable additions:

* Does the intelligence community disagree with the administration's take on Iraq, Iran, or al Qaeda? Don't expect to hear about it. In October 2007, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell reversed the practice of declassifying and releasing summaries of national intelligence estimates.

* In July 2007, Richard Carmona, President Bush’s first Surgeon General from 2002-2006, testified to Congress that when he attempted to speak publicly about stem cell research, he was “blocked at every turn, told a decision had already been made, stand down, don’t talk about it.” He also testified that political appointees vetted his speeches “in such a way that would be preferable to a political or ideologically pre-conceived notion that had nothing to do with science.” Carmona was precluded from speaking openly with reporters.

* On June 2007, the New York Times reported that Dick Cheney's resistance to "routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information" is so intense that he has "suggested abolishing" the National Archives unit that monitors classification in the executive branch. Because Cheney has repeatedly refused "to comply with a routine annual request from the archives for data on his staff’s classification," "the Information Security Oversight Office, a unit of the National Archives, [has] appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter." In a related effort to prevent the release of information about his office, Cheney has also instructed the Secret Service to destroy copies of visitor logs.

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Despite the Pittsburgh TV station KDKA citing "thousands" of wounded soldiers being asked to return their recruitment bonuses, it's unclear how many actually were, according to Army spokesman Paul Boyce.

Boyce says he has personally been in touch with the station's reporters as part of the Army's efforts to get to the bottom of the bonus-recoupment story, and he's been able to determine that 300 soldiers were asked to send back part or all of their battlefield pay -- not their bonuses. So far, the Army attributes the mistake to an insufficient number of finance clerks at some hospitals where wounded soldiers were admitted in 2004 and 2005, resulting in paperwork mix-ups. In 99 of those cases, the remittance was waived "on the spot" after the Army caught the error. For the remaining 201, some measure of congressional assistance was required, Boyce said, but for all cases that didn't involve a soldier involved in obvious wrongdoing (a more precise number was unavailable), soldiers kept their money. In response, the Army beefed up their finance personnel at its hospitals, Boyce said.

It remains unclear how many wounded soldiers actually received notices from the Army demanding they return their recruitment bonuses -- or who don't receive installments of those bonuses -- after injuries prevented them from finishing their service commitments. Boyce says the Army is "presently looking into the circumstances" of how many soldiers were asked to send back their bonuses.

After learning from the media that a wounded Iraq veteran, Private First Class Jordan Fox of Pennsylvania, was asked to return his enlistment bonus when an IED prematurely ended his soldiering career, the Army has emphasized that its policy is not to recoup those bonuses. But it doesn't know how the snafu occurred. And that raises concerns that other wounded soldiers might lose their benefits through a different bureaucratic mix-up.

Apropos of Paul's good question on Wednesday about recruitment bonuses -- are they paid up front, allowing them to be partially withheld if soldiers are unable to complete their tours? -- we have an answer. Bonuses are paid incrementally, for the most part, except for military jobs facing a "critical shortfall" of personnel.

That means infantrymen are probably going to get their bonuses on the installment plan, though Army spokesman Paul Boyce -- who has the unfortunate assignment of fielding reporters' calls on the Jordan Fox story post-Thanksgiving -- says that wouldn't "necessarily" be the case. "It depends on the situation for the individual soldier," he explains.

So what percentage of recruitment bonuses are paid up front? Boyce doesn't know, and says that there isn't a system in place for determining that percentage "at this time."

Very well. So couldn't the Army conceivably not pay the remaining installments of a recruitment bonus to a soldier unable to complete his or her tour, as opposed to the current policy of not seeking recoupment?

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joe Connelly offers a Don Young (R-AK) quiz for readers (what better way to celebrate Thanksgiving?). A sample:

7) A man renowned for his temper, Young has during 35 years in Congress:

a) Waved an oosik, the penis bone of a walrus, at the first woman head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at a hearing.

b) Loudly argued, during a hearing on trapping and animal cruelty, that leg-hold traps are neither painful nor dangerous -- and put his hand into a trap.

c) Reacted to the effort by a Republican colleague to cut one of his pet projects by yelling across the House floor: "There's always another day when those who fight will be killed, too, and I am very good at that."

d) All of the above.

Boy, does Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) have something to be thankful for:

A federal judge spared Sen. David Vitter an embarrassing appearance on the witness stand in a prostitution case when she abruptly canceled a hearing scheduled for next week.

The Louisiana Republican was under subpoena to testify about his ties to a Washington escort service. Deborah Palfrey, the woman accused of running a prostitution ring, had sought to question Vitter about whether he paid for sex.

But U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler canceled the hearing Wednesday, saying it served no purpose in the criminal case. It was Kessler who originally set the hearing but, after seeing Palfrey's witness list, the judge said she was convinced Palfrey was just trying to game the judicial system....

The Nov. 28 hearing was merely a tangent to Palfrey's prosecution, but Vitter's testimony would have drawn a crowd. With Vitter on the stand, attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley said he would ask, "As a client, did you engage in illegal sex acts?"

It's a novel strategy, asking someone to say they paid for sex to help bolster a prostitution case. But Palfrey says she provided a fantasy service, not a sexual one, and anyone who sold sex was a "rogue escort" who violated her employment contract.

Oh, good. No more embarrassment. Like those embarrassing details offered up by New Orleans prostitute Wendy Yow Ellis in Hustler, such as the fact that he insisted that prostitutes not "wear any perfume, body lotions, not even take a shower," because "he did not want any scent on him whatsoever"; that he took his used condoms with him afterwards; or that after he found out that Ellis had the same first name as his wife, he stopped visiting her, although he'd still go to watch Ellis dance at a French Quarter strip club occasionally. Phew!

Saudi Arabia and Libya are both considered U.S. allies in the war on terror. Nevertheless, these allies contributed 60 percent of the foreign fighters who have come to Iraq to kill American troops. Though U.S. officials have focused on Iranian support for the insurgency in Iraq, only 11 Iranians have been detained by the U.S. (New York Times)

Saudi Arabia has had “more than 100 of about 130 citizens return home from Guantanamo, including dozens a military review panel found were security threats.” Yemen, on the other hand, has managed to repatriate only 13 of 110 citizens. Check out the Boston Globe’s report on the story of Ali Muhammed Nasir Mohammed, who In May 2006 was told he would heading home from Guantanamo on the next plane to Saudi Arabia. But when Mohammed explained that he was from Yemen, the plane left without him and he remained in his cell for another18 months. (Boston Globe)

The military tribunal system that President Bush established at Guantanamo has produced more suicides than trials. 330 detainees have been held since 2002 without even being charged with a crime. Only one case has been completed and that was because of a plea bargain. (Boston Globe)

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It's not just foreign-to-domestic calls involving suspected terrorists. Nor library, business and medical records of American citizens in (mostly) terrorism-related cases. The list of circumstances under which law enforcement can jettison probable cause as a standard for obtaining information is expanding to include... carrying a cellphone.

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

Basically, as carriers increasingly offer subscribers the ability to stay informed of where their associates are at all times, law enforcement gets an investigative tool. In one recent case, a DEA agent sought a drug-trafficking suspect's Nextel tracking information from a judge simply by asserting that the suspect was trafficking drugs, thereby turning probable cause on its head. The agent didn't get away with it in this case, but in several other recent cases, courts issued warrants based on a determination that the location information provides "specific and articulable facts" relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.

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Federal investigators are bearing down on Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson for setting up his buddies with contracts and then telling Congress that he didn't "touch contracts."

One contract in particular that prosecutors are scrutinizing involves Jackson's friend, Atlanta lawyer Michael Hollis, who was paid approximately $1 million for managing the Virgin Islands Housing Authority, the National Journal reported last week, adding: "Before landing at the authority, some sources said, Hollis had no experience in running a public housing agency." When asked about the contract, Hollis told National Journal that "he had negotiated his contract with Orlando Cabrera, a senior HUD official, and 'people on his procurement staff.'" A grand jury has issued a subpoena for documents relating to Hollis' contract.

Well, perhaps it's a coincidence, but Cabrera, the Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing, announced that he would resign about a week before that National Journal piece came out. The resignation would be effective January 4th.

Why is he resigning? Cabrera told The Miami Herald, "I've had a wonderful experience these last few years, and I just want to take a few months to spend time with my wife and kids.... I know it sounds like the standard Potomac line, but it's not." He has "no firm career plans," the paper reports. The paper didn't ask him about the investigation, but you gotta wonder.

Ed. Note: Thanks to TPM Reader BK for the tip.

Rudy Giuliani has nothing to hide about his business dealings. Or, rather, he wants everyone to know that if the press finds what he's hiding, everyone will agree that everything's been "totally legal, totally ethical."

Every time reporters press Giuliani on his work with Giuliani Partners, his booming consultancy (Guiliani took home $4.1 million last year and his stake is worth anywhere from $5 million to $25 million), he's got the same answer: I'm not telling, but you should ask the firm. Then the reporter diligently calls over to Giuliani Partners to get the brush-off from its spokeswoman. That's what happened to The Wall Street Journal when the paper had questions about the firm's contract with Qatar. The Chicago Tribune got the same treatment when it asked about the firm's work for a developer's casino resort in Singapore.

When the AP asked him in an interview earlier this month if he'd disclose his client list, he responded that the business was "totally legal, totally ethical," "very ethical and law-abiding" and that there's "nothing for me to explain about it. We've acted honorably, decently." It was unfair to even ask, he said, employing the deft logic that since no one has found anything wrong, people shouldn't even ask the question:

"What's the standard? Giuliani Partners and Bracewell Giuliani are firms. Nobody has ever accused them of doing anything wrong. So all of the sudden, you are going to start jumping to conclusions about them when there are absolutely no suggestion they have done anything wrong?"

But those nasty journalists just keep at it. And though Giuliani won't discuss his clients, he says reporters have done a fine job in doing his disclosure for him. From the Tribune:

Questioned during a campaign appearance Tuesday in Chicago, Giuliani said that, "all of Giuliani Partners' clients, maybe with one or two exceptions, I'm not even sure that's right, are public. ... At least the ones that I was familiar with."

Confidentiality agreements prohibit disclosure of an unspecified number of clients, Giuliani said, "but somehow I think you -- you meaning the press in general -- have been successful in discovering. I'd have to check if it's every client. But just about every single client of Giuliani Partners. You'll have to check with them."

A spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners said that "a number of client relationships ... must remain confidential, as per the specific request of those clients."

She did not respond to questions about whether Giuliani was asking those clients to waive privacy in light of his presidential bid.

So.... just one or two more. The work of helping Rudy Giuliani prove how totally ethical, totally honest, honorable, decent, and law-abiding he is continues!

Yesterday, we noted a story about Iraq veterans who were being asked to return part of their enlistment bonuses because their injuries prevented them from completing their tours. The story focused on one vet in particular, Jordan Fox from Pittsburgh.

Well, the story kicked up something of a firestorm, so Brigadier General Michael Tucker, deputy commanding general of Walter Reed (he was tapped after the scandal broke), showed up on Fox News early this morning.

Reacting to Fox's case, he said, "We're not sure what happened but we're gonna fix it." Here's the clip:

The problem goes far beyond just that one soldier, though. No numbers are available, but the story yesterday quoted estimates by veterans groups that this sort of thing happened to "thousands" of others.

Tucker said that army policy "is that soldiers who are wounded in combat or have line of duty investigation injuries... we will not go after a recoupment of any bonuses they receive." Recouping bonuses, he said, "doesn't pass the common sense test."

But notice that phrasing. While that policy, if implemented, would prevent injured soldiers from having to pay back bonuses they'd already received, they might still not receive their full enlistment bonus. That's because the Army could still withhold parts of the bonus on the basis that the soldiers didn't complete their full tour due to the injury.

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), who introduced a bill last month that would require the Pentagon to pay bonuses to wounded vets in full within 30 days after discharge for combat-related wounds, said he was "heartened" by Tucker's announcement this morning that the Army won't seek repayment of bonuses. He added:

“However, I am disappointed that the policy does not go further by stating that wounded soldiers will also receive the remaining balance of future bonus payments. It is preposterous for our government to have a policy that says that a soldier who has sustained serious injuries in the field of battle has not fulfilled his or her service obligation."

Pentagon rules, Altmire says, prevent enlistees from receiving their full enlistment bonus unless they fulfill their entire military obligation.

The spectacle of defense attorneys struggling to defend their clients against secret evidence has become a familiar one during the Bush Administration. But it's a rare occasion when even the prosecutors are cut out of the loop.

That's what has been happening in the case of Ali al-Timimi, a U.S. citizen who was convicted back in 2005 on terrorism charges. His lawyers are arguing that he was the subject of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, and that his constitutional rights were violated. It's been a messy appeals process, and yesterday, the judge who presided over the case threw up her hands:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sent the case back to [U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema] last year after Timimi's attorneys raised the wiretapping argument. That led to a flurry of secret litigation. Yesterday, at a rare open hearing in the case, Brinkema said it was "ludicrous" that even prosecutors had not been allowed to see a series of filings that the intelligence community submitted to the judge.

"I am no longer willing to work under the circumstances where both the prosecuting team and defense counsel are not getting any kind of access to these materials," Brinkema said, according to a transcript of the hearing. "Frankly, if I can't get some flexibility on the government's part, then I'm going to be inclined to grant a motion for a new trial."

The New York Times sat on a story for three years about the United States’ and Pakistan’s joint secret efforts to protect nuclear weapons at the request of the Bush administration. The paper asked the administration if they could publish the Sunday story in light of recent developments in Pakistan that made it newsworthy, and this time, the “White House withdrew its request that publication be withheld.” (Politico)

Justice Department lawyers are concerned that an “unprecedented expansion” of the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution may have the unintended effect of hampering corruption probes and investigations of members of Congress. The expansion, which occurred in a ruling during William Jefferson’s (D-LA) trial, bans "cursory exposure to legislative materials without a Member's consent.” (Washington Post)

While other senators have bolted the capitol for the holiday, senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is holding down the fort. Webb is remaining in the Senate to hold pro-forma sessions that will prevent Bush from making recess appointments. (New York Times)

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Why can't people just trust Rudy Giuliani?

As today's piece in The Chicago Tribune points out, Giuliani is a deviation from the mold of the successful businessman turned politician. Instead, Giuliani went from politics into business, and the success of that business relied in large part on Giuliani's continued prestige and the promise that he would eventually return to politics.

Giuliani Partners (not to be confused with Bracewell & Giuliani, the law firm he joined in 2005), which has been steadily growing since it's formation in 2002, is a consultancy. Which is a fancy way of saying that it does whatever its clients need it to do. Mostly, that seems to have been some form of security consulting -- but it's been nearly impossible to find out, because Giuliani won't say who the firm's clients are or were.

Today's Tribune takes a look at one of those clients:

Nine days after registering his presidential exploratory committee last November, Rudolph Giuliani appeared in Singapore to help a Las Vegas developer make a pitch for a $3.5 billion casino resort....

Giuliani's public involvement in the gaming bid began at a September 2006 news conference in Singapore hosted by Mark Advent, CEO of Eighth Wonder LLC, a Las Vegas development company heading one of three consortia competing to build the Sentosa Integrated Resort.

Giuliani Security & Safety LLC, a division of Giuliani Partners, was to provide security on a celebrity-studded, multibillion-dollar project featuring participation by soccer legend Pele, chef Alain Ducasse, New Age guru Deepak Chopra and designer Vera Wang, according to Advent.

Advent estimated that he spent more than $30 million to assemble and present his plans to Singaporean authorities.

He declined to disclose the fees paid to Giuliani, but described them as "fair and priceless."

Besides the obvious potential conflicts of interest this creates for a future president, there's the more pressing concern of not knowing who Giuliani has chosen to do business with. You might say his track record of business associates doesn't quell suspicion.

The piece goes on to tug on one thread. Giuliani Partners was working for Eighth Wonder, one of the companies making the resort bid -- and Eighth Wonder partnered with another company (called Melco) to make that bid. It turns out that the former CEO of that company, Stanley Ho, is "a controversial Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime by the U.S. government." A mobbed-up casino mogul is the shorter version of that description. The company is currently run by his son.

Now, Giuliani didn't work directly for Ho, and the spokeswoman for his firm called the link between Stanley Ho and the Eighth Wonder partnership "a stretch." And surely, if his business ties become an issue in the campaign, there will be other relationships that will prove more troublesome. But it just goes to show what little people know about how he's made his money for the past five years.

Just in time for the holidays, there's a special place in Hell just waiting to be filled by some as-yet-unknown Pentagon bureaucrat. Apparently, thousands of wounded soldiers who served in Iraq are being asked to return part of their enlistment bonuses -- because their injuries prevented them from completing their tours. From Pittsburgh's KDKA:

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

He finds solace in the hundreds of boxes he loads onto a truck in Carnegie. In each box is a care package that will be sent to a man or woman serving in Iraq. It was in his name Operation Pittsburgh Pride was started.

Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want their money back," he explained.

Perversely, President Bush phoned Fox's mother to ask after Fox in May. Now his administration is taking money out of the pockets of wounded veterans like him.

Back in October, Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) introduced a bill, the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act, that would require the Pentagon to pay bonuses to wounded vets in full within 30 days after discharge for combat-related wounds. Back then, the Pentagon's flack vaguely assured The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "We are going to give our wounded warriors and their families what they need to recover and return to duty or private life." But apparently the policy has yet to change. It seems that the enlistment contract that at least some troops sign (whether it's service-specific is unclear) allows for withholding some of the signing bonus if a tour isn't completed. We're in touch with the Pentagon to clear this up, and we'll let you know as soon as we do.

Thanks to TPM Reader DB.

Speaking of Iraq contracting fiascos, TPM friend Laura Peterson of Taxpayers for Common Sense dug through the $471 billion defense bill President Bush signed last week and found some new oversight provisions included for future Iraq contracts.

The bill asks Defense Secretary Bob Gates to come up with regulations for incorporating private security contractors like Blackwater or DynCorp within the U.S. military chain of command in combat zones, a measure Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed on last month. Perhaps more significantly, the bill prohibits any government agency from issuing new contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan after New Year's deal "until a memorandum of understanding is signed between the heads of Defense, State and USAID clarifying their roles in overseeing and managing contracts.

There's a catch, though, right? Sure there is. "This can be waived by the president," Peterson adds.

There you have it: the contracting equivalent of a signing statement. FYI: TCS's big earmark database is here.

Ah, Iraq. The land of milk and honey for a defense contractor. Not that all those contractors have such high profiles. In fact, due to a clever bit of disclosure chicanery, some of them are completely unknown, even to budget watchdogs.

The Center for Public Integrity's brand-new report on Iraq contracting, Windfalls of War II, identifies at least $20 billion in contract money that has gone to non-U.S. companies that it cannot identify:

When the 2003 study was published, federal agencies did not comprehensively distinguish war contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan from other government contracts; therefore, Center researchers had to flush out these contracts one by one. Since then, however, most such contracts list Iraq or Afghanistan as their "place of performance," making the contracting process more transparent and the search for data—available from the General Service Administration's Federal Procurement Data System—more methodical.

But not all contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan are reported in this federal data system, including awards originating at one contracting agency in Baghdad, which reports only some aggregate totals for inclusion in the central database. Because the agency has so far refused to furnish these missing contracts, the Center is now seeking copies via Freedom of Information Act requests.

What would happen to you, do you think, if you couldn't account for, oh, $2,000 of your boss's money? And then pleaded that there was a glitch in the database you maintain to keep track of the cash?

Earlier this month, we reported on a Florida law that requires the state to reject voter registration applications if the data does not match driver's license or Social Security records. The law, first implemented in January, 2006, was based on advice from Hans von Spakovsky -- yet another addition to his legacy of voter suppression at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Civil rights groups, calling the measure "disenfranchisement-by-bureaucracy," have sued to halt the law in an attempt to minimize the effect on the 2008 election.

This weekend, Southwest Florida's News-Press ran an analysis of state records, and, well, the law seems to have had a predictable effect (enjoy the spin from election officials):

County election officials say the number of voters lost through Florida's central registration system is small -- 90 percent of applications get voter cards.

The result is applications from more than 43,000 Floridians hoping to become eligible voters over the past 21 months were rejected by state computer programs and kicked out for special review.

More than 14,000 initially rejected -- three-quarters of them minorities -- didn't make it through that last set of hoops.

Blacks were 6 1/2 times more likely than whites to be rejected at that step.

Hispanics were more than 7 times more likely to be failed.

As for von Spakovsky, his nomination to be a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission remains stuck in the Senate, due to the opposition of Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Russ Feingold (D-WI).

Ed. Note: Thanks to TPMm Reader KH for the catch.

Now that Buzzy Krongard has quit Blackwater's advisory board, will State Department Inspector General Howard "Cookie" Krongard rescind his recusal from Blackwater investigations?

I'd like to be able to answer that question, but unfortunately it'll take a little while. During the pre-Thanksgiving rush to leave town, the Office of the Inspector General's press operation is in the hands of Terry Heide, who normally handles congressional affairs for the OIG. When I called Heide and posed the question, she replied, "The OIG has no further comments on anything related to Mr. Krongard's situation." Attempts at a follow-up were repelled by an instruction that there was "no need to call us back, because we have no comment." Click.

In September, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) accused Heide of threatening IG whistleblowers Ron Militana and Brian Rubendall. According to Waxman, when Militana and Rubendall attempted to cooperate with his investigation of Krongard for stifling waste, fraud and abuse inquiries, Heide told them, "You have no whistleblower protections. Howard could retaliate and you would have no recourse.” ... Howard can fire you." In a phone interview with me the day Waxman issued the charge, Heide "categorically" denied threatening Militana and Rubendall.

How did Alberto Gonzales' $40,000 speech to University of Florida students go last night? The front page of The Alligator tells the story:

Next stop: Wash U.!

So what provoked U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Rachel Paulose's sudden move back to Washington? The Washington Post reports that Paulose's interview with the National Review might have something to do with it. In the interview, a response to the variety of employee complaints against her, she decried the "McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color)."

From the Post:

The brief interview provoked some of Paulose's staff, according to her predecessor as Minnesota U.S. attorney, Thomas W. Heffelfinger. He said in an interview last night that "at least one and as many as three of her current staff managers either had resigned or were threatening to resign today."

Such defections would have been the second in Paulose's office in less than a year. This spring, her top assistant and two other senior prosecutors stepped down from their management responsibilities, saying they no longer could work with her.

"Last week she was talking about staying, and today she is leaving," said Heffelfinger, a state and federal prosecutor for nearly 20 years before he resigned last year to enter private practice. "So something happened."

Her departure "was a mutual decision" between Paulose and officials in Justice's headquarters, said one source familiar with the decision, speaking about a personnel matter on the condition of anonymity.

The trial of Brent Wilkes (recently convicted of bribing Duke Cunningham) and former CIA executive director Dusty Foggo, both charged with multiple counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, may be headed east. The presiding judge believes that an Alexandria, Virginia venue would make it easier for the parade of beltway witnesses who will testify.(San Diego Union Tribune)

Bernard Kerik may be testifying under oath next week in a suit unrelated to his federal indictment last week. The trial concerns the claims of a former correction Officer, Eric DeRavin, who filed a bias suit against Kerik for his alleged racial discrimination when he headed the city Correction Department. (NY Post)

The list of donors who helped raise $165 million for President Clinton’s library has remained a secret - except to those who bought portions of the list through a data company owned by a Clinton donor and friend. Walter Karl, a subsidiary of the data company InfoUSA, compiled the list of 38,000 donors for the auction block. (ABC’s “The Blotter”)

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Remember that recently-impaneled grand jury looking at Blackwater's Nisour Square shootings? Turns out it's not just about Blackwater.
Four years into the occupation, prosecutors are attempting to build the first criminal case against private security companies -- who up until now worked in a system rigged to ensure unaccountability.

The Washington Post:

The Washington grand jury has issued subpoenas to several private security firms, including Blackwater, a legal source briefed on the probe said yesterday. Authorities are seeking company "after-action" reports and other documents that may shed light on specific incidents, he said.

The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, declined to say which incidents have been targeted, but he said the investigation ranges well beyond Blackwater. Private security companies in Iraq "have been shooting a lot of people," he said.

That's an understatement.

There's no word from the piece about which non-Blackwater firms are in the grand jury's crosshairs, nor which incidents are potentially criminal. As the paper reports, the Iraqi government claims it knows more than 20 potential criminal incidents involving private security companies -- most of which it lays at the feet of Blackwater -- but whether that list has anything to do with the grand jury's focus is unknown.

Also unknown is the specific law which the security firms could be accused of breaking:

But the U.S. government's ability to prosecute remains hampered by the lack of clarity over what laws may apply. For instance, contractors were immunized from Iraqi laws under a June 2004 order signed by the U.S. occupation authority. That ruling remains in effect.

In addition, investigations are complicated by questions about evidence, jurisdiction and the availability of witnesses. "If they're going to try to indict, they've got a lot to overcome," said Patricia A. Smith, an Alexandria lawyer who represents two former employees of Triple Canopy, a private security firm based in Herndon, in a civil lawsuit. The former employees say they were wrongfully terminated after reporting that their Triple Canopy team leader fired shots into the windshield of a taxi for amusement last year on Baghdad's airport road.

That's one way of solving the problem. Just breaking now from the AP:

Rachel Paulose, the embattled U.S. attorney for Minnesota, will be leaving the post to take a position at the Justice Department in Washington, according to a Bush administration official and congressional aide.

What position? We'll have more when we know more.

No matter what position it is, it's hard to see it as anything other than a way of defusing the problems with the 34 year-old Paulose. She was the focus of an Office of Special Counsel investigation into whether she'd discriminated against office employees, including allegedly using the words “fat,” “black,” “lazy” and “ass” in remarks to one employee.

And that was after four top attorneys in the office voluntarily demoted themselves in protest of Paulose's Bible-quoting management style.

Update: The Star Tribune reports:

U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose has quit her job in Minnesota and will return to Washington, D.C., in January to take a job as a legal policy adviser to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy....

According to a press release issued by her office this afternoon, in her new job Paulose will advise the assistant attorney general for legal policy, who serves as the primary policy adviser to Mukasey and his deputy.

So it sounds like she's returning to essentially the same job she had before she was appointed U.S. attorney for Minnesota. Before that appointment, she was "senior counsel to then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty in Washington, D.C., where she was also a special counsel for health care fraud." It's not a promotion -- it's a way out.

Update: Here's Paulose's resignation letter.

So just like that, another symbol of the Gonzales years is outta there.

Apparently The New York Times correctly reported that an as-yet-unfinished FBI investigation into the Nisour Square shootings considers Blackwater to have fired without provocation. ABC News reports that a grand jury in Washington D.C. is considering some kind of indictment for the guard who fired on an Iraqi traffic circle, resulting in 17 dead Iraqis.

A number of Blackwater security guards assigned to the ill-fated convoy have been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury next week.

A Department of Justice spokesperson, Dean Boyd, said, "We do not comment on grand jury investigations."

But sources familiar with the Blackwater case say the guards called to testify were, while present, not those who allegedly fired on any civilians.

According to statements given to State Department diplomatic security agents, obtained by ABCNews.com, only five guards admitted to firing their weapons.

Will there be indictments? Stay tuned.

So much for the pleas of defense attorney Barbara van Gelder not to turn brother against brother.

On Saturday, van Gelder, attorney for State Department Inspector General Howard "Cookie" Krongard, asked Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) to abandon a planned hearing into whether Krongard lied to the House oversight committee about his brother's ties to Blackwater. But Waxman isn't buying it. Says a committee staffer: "Our plans are the same. The dispute with his brother reinforces the questions regarding his credibility and competence."

No word yet on whether Buzzy Krongard will testify at the hearing, which is scheduled to occur the week of December 3rd.

On Friday, we noted Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) vague threats to the media, particularly The Anchorage Daily News. If reporters didn't stop tying him and his son to the ongoing Veco bribery scandal, then he'd... well, he didn't say what he'd do. But he'd do something, and those reporters would be sorry.

Well, that wasn't the first time, TPMm Reader DW pointed out to us. Back in 2005, Stevens was furious that journalists were asking about a 2003 earmark of his which gave exclusive fishing rights of pollock to Alaska natives in the remote Aleutian community of Adak. The papers were zeroing in on a lawsuit which claimed that Stevens' son, Ben, had an option to buy 25 percent of the fishery there at the time of the earmark. The FBI has since launched an investigation of the Adak measure among many other entanglements between Stevens, his son, and area fisheries.

Reporters' questions about Adak sent Stevens into a flurry of threats. From the Daily News:

"I know who you're after," he said, wagging his finger at the Daily News reporter in his office. "You're after me, and you've done a good job so far of keeping me tied down."

He said the "attack" on him involving his son in effect alleged a criminal conspiracy and was "very close to libel."

And when would that suit come? "I'm going to wait and see just how far you go in libeling me," he replied, according to The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner account of the remarks, which he made to four reporters in his Capitol Hill office. Apparently neither the Daily News, nor KTUU, Anchorage's NBC affiliate, have gone far enough, because Stevens never sued.

But the possible retaliation wasn't limited to just legal reprisal. Stevens lamented that he used to have such a good relationship with the Daily News. But then McClatchy Newspapers came along and bought it. From the News-Miner:

Stevens said he personally helped the Daily News with at least two financial challenges over many decades.

"Why the subsequent owners, the McClatchy people, have decided to continue this malicious attack on me, I don't know," he said.

"I intend to pursue to find out why it is the owners of these media that I have had a relationship with for over 40 years have changed and decided to maliciously attack me as consistently as they have."

So, what to do? Maybe McClatchy needed to be taught a lesson. Again, from the Daily News:

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The investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) lives! Or at least investigators were doing some investigating this summer. Roll Call reports (sub. req.) that an FBI agent peeked at Lewis' personal financial records in July of this year, along with those of former aides.

The FBI also took a look at Rep. Ken Calvert's (R-CA) personal records, as they did once before, about a year ago.

The apparently stalled probe of Lewis has focused on his relationship to buddy and lobbyist Bill Lowery. Roll Call notes that the feds pulled records for two of Lowery's lobbyists, Jeffrey Shockey and Letitia White. Both once worked to Lewis, but moved over to work for Lowery. Shockey has since moved back to Lewis again. The feds also pulled records for Lewis' wife, his chief of staff Arlene Willis.

As for Calvert, it's unclear just what the feds are scrutinizing (one of his "honest graft" schemes?) or even if he's the focus of a full-blown investigation:

His trouble started last May, when the Los Angeles Times reported that he and a partner pocketed a profit of nearly a half-million dollars in less than a year on a land deal. The report found that while he owned the land, Calvert earmarked $1.5 million for commercial development nearby and $8 million for a freeway exchange 16 miles away.

About a week later, the California FBI agent pulled Calvert’s financial disclosure forms for 2000 through 2005. Calvert never retained legal counsel, but buzz over the issue compelled GOP leaders to skip over him last year when a slot opened on the Appropriations panel....

In July, a local FBI agent pulled Calvert’s financial disclosure forms for 2006 and 2007. Rudman said the lawmaker welcomes the scrutiny. “As far as we know, there is no investigation. He has no problems whatsoever and any time they want to look at any publicly available documents, that’s completely fine with him.”

Maybe the feds are just curious?

It may be a pale substitute for his old job heading the National Counterterrorism Center, but it's not bad.

Last month, NCTC Director Scott Redd told NBC News that the Iraq war had not "tactically" made the U.S. safer, and acknowledged that it had provided al-Qaeda with a recruiting tool. Mere days later, Redd announced his resignation. Draw your own conclusions.

Now comes word that Redd's ex-boss, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, saw him off with full honors. From a prepared statement:

Director McConnell presented Redd with the award – the highest granted by the DNI – at a Nov. 9 ceremony held in Redd’s honor at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.

“Scott Redd has devoted his life to serving his nation,” the DNI said at the event, which attracted several other heads of IC agencies, including FBI Director Robert Mueller; CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden; Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; and Scott Large, director of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Redd also received at the ceremony other awards from IC partners, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the NGA.

Palliative or kiss-off? You make the call.

When you talk to your brother on the phone, you take notes, right? Well, Howard "Cookie" Krongard does.

As we mentioned, Cookie's criminal attorney Barbara van Gelder sent Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) his notes of what brother Buzzy Krongard told him about Buzzy's relationship with Blackwater. We've added Cookie's notes to our document collection (read them here), along with van Gelder's request that Waxman stop investigating her client (read that here).

I, for one, envy Cookie's handwriting. Line one: Buzzy has "NO financial interest whatever" in Blackwater. Paragraph three: "Was on short list for Advisory Board position but is not taking it." That, of course, contradicts what Buzzy Krongard told me and Waxman and anyone else who'll listen. We'll see what he has to say about his brother's notes.

Now that someone else is saddled with the job of salvaging the department he damaged, Alberto Gonzales is free to speak to the nation's youth. It's a whistle-stop tour to spread the good news of cronyism, mismanagement, and politicization, to tell tales from his years as the administration's doormat at the Department of Justice. He's already scheduled a couple of speaking engagements.

But Gonzo doesn't come cheap. It's costing the University of Florida $40,000 for his appearance tonight. And Washington University in St. Louis is looking to pay him $30,000 for a speech in February (plus $5,000 for the necessary security). The student paper, Student Life, reports that "The decision to bring Gonzales to campus comes as part of a larger effort on the part of [the Student Union] to bring well-known and controversial speakers to campus." He fits the bill.

For those who can't mount the funds necessary to bring Gonzales to campus, remember: you can always give to his defense fund.

Prosecutors have accused Representative William Jefferson (D-LA) of two more crimes. Both involve soliciting bribes, but no new charges will be filed. (USA Today)

A federal appeals court has sided with the government’s argument that state secrecy laws can be used to preclude
evidence about the NSA’s wiretapping program. But the court also acknowledged that the government's voluminous public statements in defense of the program mean that many parts of the program may not be secret. (New York Times)

The push has begun in the New Hampshire and Iowa Republican primaries: push polls, that is. New Hampshire’s attorney general is now investigating calls in his state that smear Romney on the basis of his Mormon faith. Opponents John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have denied involvement and the focus is on Western Wats, a Utah-based market research firm. (Boston Globe)

The State Department has launched a "digital outreach team" to spread its message in Arabic blogs. The State Department’s three bloggers will seek to counter misrepresentations of Bush policy and promote moderate views among Islamic youth. But according to high officials, because blogging is “informal” and “chatty,” thus making it “very dangerous to blog," State will have a senior supervisor checking every post. (Washington Post)

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State Department Inspector General Howard "Cookie" Krongard's new strategy to get out of a possible perjury investigation? Begging.

It turns out Krongard has retained a criminal defense lawyer named Barbara van Gelder. (Maybe for the perjury fight, maybe because of the FBI's recent parley with Cookie's subordinates.) Van Gelder wrote to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) on Saturday to ask the House oversight committee chairman to cancel an upcoming hearing on whether Krongard lied to the committee about what he knew of his brother's (since-renounced) position on Blackwater's advisory board. According to van Gelder, the committee would be doing little more than interfering in an unseemly family feud: "There is no legitimate purpose to be gained by publicly pitting two brothers against each other."

And yet she makes it so tempting. Van Gelder provided what she describes as Krongard's notes of his crucial phone conversation with his brother Buzzy on Halloween. Buzzy says he told Cookie he was joining the Blackwater board during that conversation. Van Gelder says that's not so, and Cookie has evidence to prove it. Take it away, Justin:

A page van Gelder purports to be Howard's contemporaneous notes on the conversation appear to indicate Buzzy Krongard said he had no financial ties to Blackwater and would not take the board position he had been offered.

"No financial interest whatsoever," the alleged notes read. The word "no" is underlined. "Was on short list for Advisory Board but is not taking it," the document states.

But, she argues, Waxman shouldn't seek to resolve the contradiction between the two accounts -- one of which was administered under oath, and the other of which was formally reported to Congressional investigators. Van Gelder is surely worth every penny.

Oh, and if that name sounds familiar: Barbara van Gelder, an ex-federal prosecutor, was last seen representing former OMB procurement official David Safavian.