Iraq Contractors

Blackwater: Still in Business in Iraq

Paul Kiel | April 4, 2008, 6:28PM

Why is this man smiling? From the AP:

The State Department says it will renew Blackwater USA's license to protect diplomats in Baghdad for one year, but a final decision about whether the private security company will keep the job is pending.

A top State Department official said that because the FBI is still investigating last year's fatal shooting of Baghdad civilians, there is no reason not to renew the contract when it comes due in May. Blackwater has a five-year deal to provide personal protection for diplomats, which is reauthorized each year.

Iraqis were outraged over a Sept. 16 shooting in which 17 civilians were killed in a Baghdad square. Blackwater said its guards were protecting diplomats under attack before they opened fire, but Iraqi investigators concluded the shooting was unprovoked.

Since the "top State Department official" seems so blithe about the FBI investigation, it's worth recalling that Justice Department faces probably insurmountable obstacles in bringing a prosecution based on the Nisour Square shootings. That's despite the fact that the FBI determined that the guards had indeed opened fire without provocation.

Update: More from Reuters:

"I have requested and received approval to have task order six -- which Blackwater has to provide personal protective services in Baghdad -- renewed ... for one year," the head of diplomatic security, Gregory Starr, told reporters....

Asked whether the Blackwater Baghdad deal could be scrapped if the FBI investigation found wrongdoing, Starr said: "We can terminate contracts at the convenience of the government if we have to."

"I am not going to prejudge what the FBI is going to find in their investigation. I think really, it is complex. I think that the U.S. government needs protective services," he said.

"Essentially I think they do a very good job. The September 16th incident was a tragedy. It has to be investigated carefully," he added.

Election 2008

Appeals Court Reverses Ruling on Florida Vote Suppression Measure

Paul Kiel | April 4, 2008, 5:54PM

Hans von Spakovsky's legacy is still being felt down in Florida. From the AP:

Florida can temporarily enforce a law that disqualifies any voter registration where the Social Security or driver license numbers on the application can't be matched with government databases, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said a lower court shouldn't have ordered a temporary injunction in December that prevented Florida from enforcing an anti-fraud law that dismissed applications when matches couldn't be made.

As we reported last year, one of Spakovsky's achievements while at the Justice Department was promoting this interpretation of the law: that states ought to reject voter applications if the data did not match driver's license or Social Security records. Civil rights groups, calling the measure "disenfranchisement-by-bureaucracy," sued to halt the law in an attempt to minimize the effect on the 2008 election. A newspaper investigation found that the measure resulted in tens of thousands of voters being rejected, the overwhelming majority of them minorities.

Back in December, a district court agreed with the argument by the groups -- the NAACP, the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, and Southwest Voter Registration Education Project -- that the law ought to be halted from going into effect while the lawsuit was decided. That decision was overturned yesterday.

"Yesterday's ruling by the appellate court represents a setback for all eligible Floridians, particularly voters of color, who wish to register to vote and participate in the upcoming presidential elections," said Elizabeth Westfall of Advancement Project, one of the attorneys for the groups. But Justin Levitt, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, said that the suit would go on and that "the trial court must now consider whether disenfranchising thousands of eligible citizens because of typos, is consistent with the U.S. Constitution."

Surveillance

Post: Ashcroft Didn't Sign Off on Yoo Pentagon Torture Memo

Paul Kiel | April 4, 2008, 2:17PM

More evidence that John Yoo was the most powerful deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's history. The Washington Post reports this morning that when Yoo issued his now-infamous March 14, 2003 memo to the Pentagon, neither Attorney General John Ashcroft, nor his deputy Larry Thompson "were aware."

As Marty Lederman has pointed out, the fact that the memo was issued under Yoo's own name is further indication that this was a back door authorization of interrogation practices.

The Post also sheds light on Yoo's earlier October 23, 2001 legal memo, the one that declared that the Fourth Amendment had "no application to domestic military operations." The memo "focused on the rules governing any deployment of U.S. forces inside the country 'in the event of further large-scale terrorist activities' by al-Qaeda" according to "a Justice Department official." Just what that sort of operation that might have been discussed or how long that memo remained in effect are unclear. In fact, it's unclear whether it might still be relied upon:

Although the memo has not been formally withdrawn, the Justice Department yesterday repudiated the idea that there are no constitutional limits to military searches and seizures in a time of war, saying it depends on "the particular context and circumstances of the search," according to a statement.

All that is clear is that Department officials are insistent that that memo had nothing to do with the warrantless wiretapping program. But as the AP has shown, that appears not to be entirely true.

Barack Obama

State Replaces Top Passport Official

Paul Kiel | April 4, 2008, 12:40PM

I believe the appropriate reaction to this is "Hmmmm":

Two weeks after it was revealed that State Department employees were found snooping on five different occasions in the passport files of all three Presidential candidates, a State Department official tells NBC that the top official for Passport Services is being replaced.

The department intends to name a new acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services to replace Ann Barrett who will be stepping aside.

The official declined to offer an explanation as to why Barrett is being replaced, but the timing comes in the midst of a State Department Inspector General investigation into the passport breaches.

Iraq Contractors

No Testimony without Immunity, Man

Paul Kiel | April 4, 2008, 11:31AM

House oversight committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) wants the twenty-something senior executives of AEY, Inc. to appear for a Congressional hearing. You know, just to hang out and chat about how they managed to bag a $300 million contract to provide munitions to Afghan forces, and then allegedly lied about where they were coming from.

But they're not going to come easy, The New York Times reports:

Marc D. Seitles, the lawyer who represents David M. Packouz, the licensed massage therapist who is AEY’s former vice president, said he had sent a letter to Congress saying Mr. Packouz would speak publicly only if he was granted immunity from prosecution.

Mr. Packouz, 25, left AEY last spring and had no contact with the company since, Mr. Seitles said. Without immunity, he said, “I cannot allow my client to testify in this matter, and if he is subpoenaed he will invoke the Fifth Amendment.”

AEY and particularly its president Efraim Diveroli do have a lot to worry about. Federal investigators are digging to see if Diveroli committed a crime by promising in a contract to deliver Hungarian ammo, when he was in fact delivering forty year-old Chinese ammo (itself prohibited). And Government Executive reports today that AEY might have also misrepresented itself as a disadvantaged business, allowing it to pick up much more business.

It seems highly unlikely that Congress would even consider immunity for either Diveroli or Packouz, so either Waxman's planned hearing later this month will be deferred, or the two will spend a lot of time respectfully pleading the Fifth.

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Peter Sheehy and John Amick | April 4, 2008, 10:29AM

The Nation reports in harrowing detail on the rape of Lisa Smith (a pseudonymn), who worked as a paramedic for KBR in southern Iraq. A KBR supervisor told her to shut up about the brutal rape and the camp's military liaison officer also instructed her to keep quiet. (The Nation)

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has joined forces with the American Civil Liberties Union to launch an $8 million program to defend at least seven Guantanamo Bay detainees. The two organizations believe that the Pentagon has failed to provide adequate resources to military defense lawyers and that the military tribunal process permits convictions based on “secret evidence, hearsay and confessions derived from torture.” (New York Times)

The chairs of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the oversight and investigations subcommittee want Environmental Protection Agency documents to determine if the the chemical industry has improperly influenced expert review panels convened by the EPA. Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group called it a "landmark investigation" that "has called into question the ethics of the entire industry." (Washington Post)

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Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | April 4, 2008, 10:04AM

No doubt that good news about Iraq has been hard to come by lately for the administration. The failure of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's offensive against the Shiite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr in Basra and Baghdad still stings, and the postmortems by The New York Times and Washington Post are not pretty. The Times also reports this morning that "more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts" during the fighting last week, a toll that features "dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle."

Earlier this week, just after the offensive went kablooey, intelligence officials delivered a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to Congress. It's a bit of tentative good news amid all the bad. If the administration has its way, however, you'll never see a declassified version of it. Director of National Intelligence Mike "public debate of intelligence issues kills Americans" McConnell will do what he can to ensure that. Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) have begun a push for the administration to release a declassified version of the report, writing a letter earlier this week to McConnell earlier this week (see below).

The general conclusion of the report is evident from the headlines this morning. "Report: Security in Iraq is improving," says the AP. "U.S. Study Finds Progress in Iraq, but Fragile Security and Potential for Terror Attacks," says the Times. A senior administration official tells The Wall Street Journal, "The NIE update confirmed that the surge strategy the president announced in January of last year is working. There's more work to be done, but progress has obviously been made."

And that pretty much seems to be the scope of it. Democrats who have read it are mightily unimpressed and say that it's just part of the broader PR push which will culminate in next week's testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

As Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) puts it, "The stuff that was positive, they emphasized. The negative, they stated, but deemphasized." Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) complains that it doesn't cover most of the stuff you'd want it to cover: "It's much less insightful than other, recent products and focuses narrowly on counterterrorism efforts in Iraq and the progress of the Iraqi leadership."

And Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a member of the House intelligence committee, is mighty suspicious -- both of the report's content and its timing: "One might ask whether the timing of the release and the apparent departure from usual procedures means this is more of a political document than an intelligence document," he tells the Journal.

As the Journal points out, "intelligence reports are often delayed by major developments that could affect the assessments, such as the Sadr fighting." This report, however, was not delayed, and there is no mention of the failed offensive in the report. It has, however, come right in time for the Petraeus and Crocker hearings next week.

Read more »

Michael Mukasey

Conyers Questions Mukasey on FISA Claim

Paul Kiel | April 3, 2008, 5:45PM

It's gotten to be something of a pattern with administration figures of late: making sweeping claims about national security matters that do not stand up to scrutiny. Just Monday, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) complained that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell (who has something of a habit with this), had mischaracterized liberal opposition to retroactive immunity in the Senate as a bunch of impeachment-crazed loonies.

This time it's Attorney General Michael Mukasey who's catching flak. In a Q&A session after a speech last week, Mukasey said:

"[Officials] shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."

The problem with this, as Glenn Greenwald at Salon has shown, is that nothing of this sort seems to have happened. Greenwald asked former executive director of the 9/11 Commission Philip Zelikow, who responded that he was "not sure of course what the AG had in mind" and came up empty guessing.

In a letter today, House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) calls Mukasey's statement very disturbing and writes, "I am aware of no previous reference, in the 9/11 Commission report or elsewhere, to a call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States which, if it had been intercepted, could have helped prevent the 9/11 attacks." And anyway, he adds, there's no reason why the FISA law would not have served to intercept the call in this instance. So what's Mukasey talking about? he wants to know.

You can read the letter, which was also signed by fellow committee members Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Bobby Scott (D-VA), below. The lawmakers also ask, not for the first time, for a copy of the October 23, 2001 memo by John Yoo that declared the Fourth Amendment kaput (it had "no application to domestic military operations").

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Surveillance

Interview with The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau

Paul Kiel | April 3, 2008, 2:24PM

Do we really understand the scope of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program?

We've already written a number of times about the new book by New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau. And on Tuesday, I interviewed Lichtblau, who began reporting on the administration's wireless wiretapping program back in 2004 and won the Pulitzer Prize along with James Risen for breaking the story in December of 2005.

Among other things, I got him to walk me through what we do and don't know about the program. How broad was the surveillance? What does the NSA's massive data mining project have to do with the warrantless wiretapping? And does Lichtblau suspect that his own phone has been tapped?

Lichtblau also responded to Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who posted at TPMcafe on Monday of this week. Harman was in turn responding to a passage in Lichtblau's book, where he writes that when he approached Harman in 2005 about the administration's then-still-secret warrantless wiretapping program, she'd shushed him and told him that The New York Times did the right thing by not publishing the story in 2004. Beginning in February of 2003, Harman was a member of the so-called "gang of eight," the eight lawmakers, four Republicans and four Dems, who were briefed on the surveillance program.

Harman didn't dispute his account, but did take issue with his characterization that her position on the program underwent "a dramatic transformation" after the Times broke the story. She wrote in her post that she'd been completely in the dark that the program had involved wiretapping without warrants.

To which, Lichtblau responds below:

I think that assertion was consistent with what we’ve heard, that these briefings were very limited, very carefully crafted, that they were only told a certain amount about the program and given sort of a filtered view of it. I believe all that much is true.

I guess the next question is why the gang of eight were willing to settle for that....

I’m not saying the program shouldn’t have continued, but it’s one thing for four members of Congress to know what they were approving and to say, okay. It’s another thing to say we had no idea, then to allow this to continue for five years.

The full interview is below. TPM research hound John Amick provided the transcription.

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Torture

Yoo: I Thought Torture Was A Bad Idea, Really I Did

Paul Kiel | April 3, 2008, 1:36PM

John Yoo, speaking to Esquire:

“I did not think as a matter of policy that it was a good idea for the military to use aggressive interrogations of the kind that would be permitted to the CIA,” he said, adding that he expressed those reservations “to officials higher up the chain of command.”...

“The memo released yesterday does not apply to Iraq. It applied to interrogations of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay. I don’t [necessarily] agree that the methods did migrate to Iraq, because I don’t know for a fact that they did. The analysis of the memo released yesterday was not to apply to Iraq, and we made clear in other settings that the Geneva Conventions fully applied to the war in Iraq. There was no intention or desire that the memo released yesterday apply to Iraq.”

Of course, Yoo was just a lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, so it is true that it was not his call what to do as a matter of policy. He was just the consigliere.

But nothing can erase the fact that it is, in fact, his legal analysis that's been dropping jaws for the past two days.

Surveillance

Yoo: Warrant Schmarrant

Paul Kiel | April 3, 2008, 10:58AM

Yesterday the ACLU noticed another of John Yoo's contributions to legal thought, tucked in a footnote of the March, 2003 memo. That footnote indicated that in a October 23, 2001 memo, Yoo had advised that the Fourth Amendment was too much bother. Here's that footnote:

The October 23, 2001 memo remains classified. And as the AP and The Wall Street Journal report, it's unclear exactly what sort of activities the memo was used to support. A White House spokesman denied that it had anything to do with the warrantless wiretapping program, but as the AP points out, "the government itself related the October memo to the [Terrorist Surveillance Program] when it included it on a list of documents that were responsive to the ACLU's request for records from the program."

And how long did the administration rely on this finding? "It was in use at least until March 2003 but not after January 2006," reports the Journal.

At the very least, it's apparent what Yoo thought about "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States." There seems to have been no limits to that authority. As Justin points out over at ABC, another of Yoo's infamous memos, the August 2002 "Torture Memo" signed by then-Office of Legal Counsel chief Jay Bybee, gave another indication of this:

A footnote to the Bybee document said that the October 2001 memo also concluded that Posse Comitatus –- an 1878 statute barring the military from participating in "law and order" missions domestically, under most circumstances – does not apply to the war on terror.

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Peter Sheehy and John Amick | April 3, 2008, 10:14AM

If the Army had conducted proper paperwork on the initial testing of its body armor, it would have been able to guarantee that the protective vests provided to soldiers met current safety standards. But it didn't, a Defense Department audit shows. (USA Today)

After September 11, 2001 the federal government established dozens of "fusion centers" across the nation that have access to personal information about American citizens. One center even has access to "top-secret data systems at the CIA." By employing "law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies," the centers are designed to enhance "national information-sharing networks that link local, state and federal authorities." (Washington Post)

Representative Don Young (R-AK) supports the Alaska SeaLife Center and its three-day fishing tournament. But Young's genuine appreciation of wild marine animals and marine biologists is now complicated by the fact that Alaska SeaLife Center (a 501(c)(4) nonprofit) used the same invitation to invite donors to both the fishing tournament and a campaign event for Young. Young and his campaign have refused to comment on the apparent violation of campaign finance law. (KTUU News)

Representative William Jefferson's (D-LA) needs a new chief political strategist. Mose Jefferson, who currently holds that position, and is also William's oldest brother, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on seven felony counts. Mose is charged with bribing a New Orleans school official to win support for a math curriculum he was selling. (Times Picayune)

Read more »

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | April 3, 2008, 9:56AM

Months after Justice Department lawyer John Yoo carefully delineated for the Pentagon how U.S. personnel could torture detainees all they wanted, the abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred. Does this put a dent in the "few bad apples" theory?

The New York Times mulls it and comes back with: "Some legal experts and advocates said Wednesday that the document, written the month that the United States invaded Iraq, adds to evidence that the abuse of prisoners in military custody may have involved signals from higher officials and not just irresponsible actions by low-level personnel." So it's no smoking gun.

The memo was intended to deal with "'unlawful combatants,' a label that would not apply to the largely Iraqi population captured during the Iraq war." Still, the natural suspicion remains that Yoo's expansive parsing might have migrated over to Iraq. After all, Major General Geoffrey Miller, then the commanding officer at Guantanamo Bay, did travel to Iraq in August of 2003 to advise officials there on interrogating Iraqi detainees. Miller had been briefed on the Pentagon's guidelines for interrogation, which owed much to Yoo's green light.

Not so, says Yoo:

“The ‘culture of abuse’ theory has no reliable evidence to support it,” Mr. Yoo wrote. He noted that several military investigations had found that what he called “the appalling abuses” at Abu Ghraib were not authorized by any military policy.

“While each case of abuse is regrettable,” Mr. Yoo wrote, “it is not possible for a large organization charged with protecting the national security, under extraordinary pressure, to perform its mission error-free.”

Shit happens.

Global Warming

States, Enviro Orgs Sue Stonewall Johnson -- Again

Paul Kiel | April 2, 2008, 6:09PM

The lesson is clear. If you want the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency to do something to help fight global warming, you better sue. And if you really want it to do something, you better sue again.

Today, officials from 18 states and a number of environmental groups, filed a petition to force the EPA to do what the Supreme Court said one year ago. In the landmark ruling -- itself the result of a lawsuit against the EPA -- the court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and that it had to act. Except it didn't.

It's become clear that EPA staff did, in fact, do the work to determine the agency's response. But EPA chief Stephen Johnson and the White House put a lid on it last December, and since then nothing has happened -- except that Johnson has deployed a succession of transparent delaying tactics.

The states and groups want the court to force the EPA to issue its "endangerment" finding within 60 days.

Now, don't confuse this lawsuit with another lawsuit by several states and environmental groups against the EPA. Earlier this year, California and 17 other states sued to reverse Johnson's decision to deny California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. Johnson made that decision against the unanimous recommendation of his staff.

There was another familiar development today. The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming voted to issue a subpoena for EPA documents showing the Agency's progress in making the "endangerment" finding and proposing national emissions standards. That's the third subpoena issued this year by Congress for EPA documents.

Torture

Feith: Only "Assholes" Fret about Torture

Paul Kiel | April 2, 2008, 3:32PM

It won't surprise anyone that the least sympathetic portrayal in Phillipe Sands' Vanity Fair piece is of former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith.

Not only did Feith play a major hand in promoting the myth of Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda before the invasion of Iraq, but he also played a major role in developing the interrogation policy for Guantanamo Bay.

Feith boasted to Sands that back in 2002, he "was really a player" in ensuring that Gitmo detainees would not receive Geneva protections. But when Sands asked him "whether, in the end, he was at all concerned that the Geneva decision might have diminished America’s moral authority," Feith got nasty:

He was not. “The problem with moral authority,” he said, was “people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely.”

Torture

Torture from The Top Down

Paul Kiel | April 2, 2008, 3:18PM

Shedding light on the human rights abuses of the Bush administration's first term seems to be the order of the day.

Reporting for Vanity Fair, Philippe Sands, a professor of law at University College London, details the direct involvement of administration figures in developing the interrogation techniques to be used at Guantanamo Bay.

There are plenty of highlights, including an admission (finally) from a Pentagon official that Jack Bauer provided inspiration. Diane Beaver, a lawyer who worked underneath Major General Michael Dunlavey, the first commander at Gitmo, told Sands in an interview about brainstorming meetings (which included representatives from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the C.I.A.) held at Gitmo in September of 2002 about possible interrogation techniques. The military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) program, meant to train U.S. soldiers to resist torture used by the bad guys, was one inspiration. But:

Ideas arose from other sources. The first year of Fox TV’s dramatic series 24 came to a conclusion in spring 2002, and the second year of the series began that fall. An inescapable message of the program is that torture works. “We saw it on cable,” Beaver recalled. “People had already seen the first series. It was hugely popular.” Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo, Beaver added. “He gave people lots of ideas.”

Sands reports, relying on accounts from Beaver and Dunlavey, that a group of administration officials came down later that month to see for themselves:

On September 25, as the process of elaborating new interrogation techniques reached a critical point, a delegation of the administration’s most senior lawyers arrived at Guantánamo. The group included the president’s lawyer, Alberto Gonzales, who had by then received the Yoo-Bybee Memo; Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, David Addington, who had contributed to the writing of that memo; the C.I.A.’s John Rizzo, who had asked for a Justice Department sign-off on individual techniques, including waterboarding, and received the second (and still secret) Yoo-Bybee Memo; and Jim Haynes, Rumsfeld’s counsel. They were all well aware of [Mohammed al-Qahtani, allegedly a member of the 9/11 conspiracy and the so-called 20th hijacker who was already at Gitmo]. “They wanted to know what we were doing to get to this guy,” Dunlavey told me, “and Addington was interested in how we were managing it.” I asked what they had to say. “They brought ideas with them which had been given from sources in D.C.,” Dunlavey said. “They came down to observe and talk.” Throughout this whole period, Dunlavey went on, Rumsfeld was “directly and regularly involved.”

Read more »

U.S. Attorneys

DoJ Investigators Probing Whether Goodling Fired Lawyer Due to Gay Rumors

Paul Kiel | April 2, 2008, 1:36PM

The Department of Justice's inspector general continues to conduct its wide-ranging investigation of the U.S. attorney firings and the general politicization of the Department under Alberto Gonzales. And as we reported back in August of last year, one area of focus by investigators is allegedly political hiring practices by Monica Goodling. The inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility sent out a questionnaire to anyone who had interviewed for a job at the DoJ during Gonzo's tenure. One thing investigators wanted to know about was whether the interviewer had asked about the applicant's sexual orientation.

NPR today provides some more evidence that Goodling and her associates might have decided that being gay was a disqualifier. Leslie Hagen was the liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys' committee on Native American issues until her contract was suddenly discontinued in October of 2006.

No one seems to dispute that Hagen was extremely capable. The Department's job evaluation reflected that her performance had been "outstanding." And yet she was fired. Sound familiar?

The difference now is that Gonzales, Goodling, and the others aren't still at DoJ to explain what the "performance related" reasons for Hagen's firing were.

From NPR:

Justice Department e-mails obtained by NPR show that Gonzales's senior counsel Monica Goodling had a particular interest in Hagen's duties....

The Justice Department's inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is lesbian.

As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat."

Several people interviewed by the inspector general's staff said investigators asked whether people drew a connection between the rumors and Hagen's dismissal....

Someone who worked in Hagen's office says that in a 2006 meeting, senior officials were told that Hagen's contract would not be renewed because someone on the attorney general's staff had a problem with Hagen. The problem, it was suggested during the conversation, was sexual orientation — or what was rumored to be Hagen's sexual orientation.

One person at the meeting asked, "Is that really an issue?" But the decision had been made.

Torture

The Timeline Behind Yoo's Memo

Paul Kiel | April 2, 2008, 12:50PM

Marty Lederman has argued that Yoo's March, 2003 memo is "in effect, the blueprint that led to Abu Ghraib and the other abuses within the armed forces in 2003 and early 2004." Well, we decided we needed a brief timeline to size it all up. You be the judge. TPM Research Hound Peter Sheehy provided research for this post.

August 1, 2002
John Yoo authors and Jay Bybee, then the chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, signs a memo (now known as the Bybee memo or the Torture Memo) that narrowly defines what constitutes illegal torture.

October, 2002
Major General Geoffrey Miller assumes command of Guantánamo Bay and pushes his superiors hard for more flexibility in interrogations.

December 2, 2002
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gives formal approval for the use of “hooding,” “exploitation of phobias,” “stress positions,” “deprivation of light and auditory stimuli,” and other coercive tactics ordinarily forbidden by the Army Field Manual.

Early, 2003
In part to satisfy internal administration critics of the Pentagon's interrogation program at Guantanamo Bay, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2003 convenes a "working group" of lawyers from all branches of the armed services to develop new interrogation guidelines for the Pentagon.

March 28, 2003
Jay Bybee resigns from his Office as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, to become a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

March 14, 2003
The Justice Department sends Yoo’s legal memo to Pentagon's general counsel. The memo forms the basis of the working group's report.

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Torture

One Policy, Two Stories

Paul Kiel | April 2, 2008, 11:50AM

As I noted earlier, as outrageous as John Yoo's memo itself is, the process by which it came to be implemented is remarkable in its own right.

As Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker two years ago, Yoo's March, 2003 memo to Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes came to be implemented by a two-faced process.

In part to satisfy internal administration critics of the Pentagon's interrogation program at Guantanamo Bay, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2003 convened a "working group" of lawyers from all branches of the armed services to develop new interrogation guidelines. That group included Alberto Mora, the former general counsel of the U.S. Navy, who outlined his efforts to prevent the use of torture in a 22-page memo (pdf) that was ultimately made public, and who was the focus of Mayer's piece.

But Yoo's memo, issued shortly after the working group began meeting, pretty much determined the direction of where the working group would end up. While Mora and other lawyers concerned about the use of torture were able to see a draft version of the working group's report, Rumsfeld ultimately signed a final version of the report without the knowledge of several lawyers who were ostensibly its authors. That report was then related to Major General Geoffrey Miller, who was then in command of Gitmo. Soon after, the Pentagon sent him to Iraq to advise officials there on interrogating Iraqi detainees.

At the same time, Haynes publicly assured Congress and human rights groups in a June 25, 2003 letter that "it is the policy of the United States to comply with all its legal obligations in its treatment of detainees." The Pentagon had not authorized the use of torture, or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. Mora told Mayer that after he saw Haynes' letter, he'd "sent an appreciative note to Haynes, saying that he was glad to be on his team."

Mayer writes:

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Peter Sheehy and John Amick | April 2, 2008, 10:19AM

Just one week before General Petraeus is expected to testify about the progress of the surge, General Richard Cody, the army's vice chief of staff, asserted that the 30,000 additional troops sent to Iraq have inflicted "incredible stress" and have created "a significant risk" for the military. Cody added, "I've never seen our lack of strategic depth be where it is today." (Washington Post)

The U.S. and Britain disagree about the status and future of one of the two British residents who remains in detention at Guantanamo Bay. While the Pentagon is determined to pursue terrorism-related charges against Binyam Mohamed, Britain has criticized the American's military tribunal process as unfair. Britain is also concerned that information about its intelligence agencies could emerge during a trial: “there is some discomfort with what the defense will try to drag out.” (New York Times)

The ACLU believes that the Pentagon has been using the FBI's national security letters to hide its efforts to evade legal restrictions on obtaining private internet, financial, and telephone records of American citizens. After reviewing more than 1,000 documents that the Defense Department was forced to turn over in a ACLU filed law suit last year, the ACLU is "incredibly concerned that the FBI and DOD might be collaborating to evade limits put on the DOD's use of NSLs." (USA Today)

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Torture

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | April 2, 2008, 10:07AM

More than five years after its composition, we finally see a copy of John Yoo's March 14, 2003 memo to William Haynes, then the Defense Department's general counsel. It was, as The New York Times and Washington Post report, a green light for military interrogators to use just about any technique the Pentagon deemed useful. Criminal statutes prohibiting torture stopped at the water's edge, because, Yoo wrote, "such criminal statutes, if they were misconstrued to apply to the interrogation of enemy combatants, would conflict with the Constitution's grant of Commander in Chief power solely to the President."

As Thomas J. Romig, who was then the Army's judge advocate general, tells the Post, "it appears to argue there are no rules in a time of war." As Marty Lederman, a former lawyer at OLC writes, "it is, in effect, the blueprint that led to Abu Ghraib and the other abuses within the armed forces in 2003 and early 2004."

Despite the fact that Congress has been asking for the declassification of this memo, it appears to have only been released now as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The memo is 81 pages long (here's Part I and Part II). We've posted one of the more remarkable sections here.

In that section, Yoo explains how even if a particularly brutal interrogation might "arguably cross the line drawn" by the law, "certain justification defenses might be available." Those are "necessity" (the "choice of evils," the evils being torture and a terrorist attack) and "self-defense" ("If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.") Just about the only actions that were impermissible and indefensible in Yoo's eyes, it seems, were those motivated strictly by malice or sadism.

The memo was rescinded just nine months later by Jack Goldsmith, when he came in to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

Yoo himself doesn't see what all the hubbub is about. From the Post:

Yoo... defended the memo in an e-mail yesterday, saying the Justice Department altered its opinions "for appearances' sake." He said his successors "ignored the Department's long tradition in defending the President's authority in wartime."

"Far from inventing some novel interpretation of the Constitution," Yoo wrote, "our legal advice to the President, in fact, was near boilerplate."

But as Marty explains, the legal reasoning of Yoo's memo is only half the scandal. The circumstances under which it was instituted constitute the other half. More on that in a bit.

Election 2008

New Well-Connected Conservative Group Runs Pro-Coleman Ad

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 6:28PM

There are already indications that the 2008 election will be remarkable for the number of outside groups weighing in with major ad buys supporting or attacking candidates. The latest: a group called the American Future Fund that's hit Minnesota with a TV ad singing the praises of Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), who's locked in an already tight reelection battle with Al Franken.

You can see the ad, which began running March 19th and will last for approximately three weeks, below. With the feel-good synthesized music characteristic of positive ads playing soothingly in the background, it lauds Coleman's legislative accomplishments ("Coleman has worked with Republicans and Democrats to make college more affordable" etc.), adds, "An independent voice for Minnesota: Norm Coleman," and ends by urging viewers to call Coleman and "thank him." The ad buy cost "well into six figures," according to Larry McCarthy, the media consultant who produced it.

Because the group has established itself as a non-profit -- the popular choice this election for outside groups wanting to spend money without restraint while disclosing little to nothing about their activities -- details on the new group are sketchy.

The Rothenberg Political Report reported last month that a number of notable conservatives are associated with the group (no one seems to head the group, exactly, as you'll see below). McCarthy, the media consultant, runs a major firm that also recently produced ads attacking House Democrats run by another outside group called Defense of Democracies.

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Iraq

Not-Technically-An-NIE NIE Won't Be Released

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 5:35PM

We've been wondering whether the public will be seeing the results of the intelligence community's hard work on assessing the situation in Iraq. Turns out (not surprisingly, no). Spencer is the bearer of bad news:

For weeks, analysts within the 16-agency U.S. intelligence community have been toiling to complete an assessment of the situation in Iraq. This morning, it finally went to the Hill: the Senate and House intelligence committees, and the leadership in both chambers, are the proud owners of an update to the August 23, 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee received a briefing on it. But you'll never see it.

According to an administration official with knowledge of the intelligence process, this morning's intelligence document isn't itself a National Intelligence Estimate. "It's not a formal report," the official said, "it's more or less an assessment memo, an update to policy makers."

So does the intelligence community think that the political situation in Iraq is in a hopeless deadlock? That the security gains of the past few months are meaningful and lasting? Well, I guess we'll just have to take the word of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker when they testify before Congress next week.

Jack Abramoff

Bill to Reform Northern Marianas Moves to Senate

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 3:37PM

Unbelievably, there's still some unfinished business from the Jack Abramoff years. From ABC News:

A bill to reform the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) immigration system will be introduced on the Senate Floor today, addressing more than a decade of mounting concerns about the exploitation of workers, sex trafficking and porous borders and years of political maneuvering by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"After fighting for these reforms for many years, we are now closing the legal loopholes that had allowed some of the poorest men and women to be abused and exploited in sweatshops in this American territory," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who has championed the fight for CNMI reform since the 1990s.

The bill would extend U.S. immigration laws to the CNMI and establish a federally administered guest worker program in the American territory.

If you're wondering where Abramoff is these days, he's still serving out his sentence for defrauding investors in his purchase of a fleet of gambling boats, but has yet to be sentenced for his bribes to lawmakers. That's because he's still cooperating with prosecutors, who've repeatedly requested a delay for his sentencing since he's got more to give (as Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Tom DeLay know full well).

Surveillance

Hoyer: The Administration Wants to Talk

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 12:15PM

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) confirms this morning's Wall Street Journal story that the administration has changed its tune. From Roll Call (sub. req.):

The Bush administration is “now in a position where they want to talk about a possible compromise” on stalled electronic spying legislation, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters today.

“I think, frankly, they were surprised” that House Democratic leaders were able to pass their preferred version of the bill, which would reauthorize and update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, just before lawmakers left for the two-week spring recess, he said.

Hoyer said he has been in conversations with administration officials and with House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), all of whom have indicated that they are ready to reach a compromise.

William Jefferson

House, Justice Department Hashing out Process for Hill Searches

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 12:05PM

From Roll Call (sub. req.):

The House of Representatives and the Justice Department are in negotiations over new protocols and procedures for law enforcement searches of Congressional offices — talks that began in the wake of the controversial May 2006 raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) Capitol Hill office.

An appeals court has ruled that raid was unconstitutional and the Supreme Court on Monday refused a Justice Department request to reconsider that ruling.

According to House General Counsel Irv Nathan, discussions between the House and DOJ are in “preliminary” stages, but “we have put forward concrete proposals.” Nathan said the goal of the discussions — led by his office and by Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher — is to produce “either a set of procedures, a memorandum of understanding or perhaps legislation, that would make clear the rules for law enforcement actions in Congressional offices.” Nathan would not set a timetable for the talks, but said he hoped a resolution could be reached this year.

Surveillance

Feingold: McConnell Distorted Senate Surveillance Debate in Speech

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 11:23AM

As we've often noted here, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has frequently gotten into trouble for making statements that were either impolitic or, well, not true. And last week, in his zeal to demonstrate the unreasonableness of liberal critics, he made a statement that was both.

Speaking at Furman University, he said (pdf):

We had a bill go into the Senate. It was debated vigorously. There were some who said we shouldn't have an Intelligence Community. Some have that point of view. Some say the President of the United States violated the process, spied on Americans, should be impeached and should go to jail. I mean, this is democracy, you can say anything you want to say. That was the argument made. The vote was 68 to 29. It's a bill we can live with. It's the right bill.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) is not happy. Sure, many senators -- particularly Feingold and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) -- objected to key aspects of the legislation, including the provision granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms. But the debate was nothing like McConnell describes. And Feingold writes in a letter to McConnell today that he ought to either back up his statement or "issue an immediate correction and an apology."

Feingold concludes:

While all sides of this debate deserve to be heard, to falsely attribute statements to United States Senators serves only to mislead the American people. It also undermines your credibility and that of the position of Director of National Intelligence.

We put a call in to McConnell's office to see what the response is. We'll let you know when we hear back.

You can see Feingold's letter here or read it below.

Update: As Spencer reported over at The Washington Independent last month, McConnell was similarly glib in criticizing those who disagree with him at a talk at Johns Hopkins.

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Peter Sheehy and John Amick | April 1, 2008, 10:06AM

When Rush Limbaugh launched his "Operation Chaos" plan which urged Republicans to register as Democrats so that they could vote for Hillary Clinton in Mississippi, he may not have realized the extent of the chaos he was causing. Party-switchers in Mississippi who voted in the presidential primary last week - an unusually high number - will not be allowed to cast ballots in an important congressional contest this week. (Politico)

The U.S. military has struggled throughout the Iraq war to contain blogs, especially those written by soldiers. A 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University - "Blogs and Military Information Strategy" - proposed that ""hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering." But the plan also conceded that "on the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names." (Wired)

The book is now officially closed on the investigation into the CIA leak that outed the identity of agent Valerie Plame. The price tag: $2.58 million, according to the Government Accountability Office. The extensive 45-month investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald involved many prime players of the Bush Administration and the State Department, including I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff who was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. (AP)

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Surveillance

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 9:57AM

OK, things were said. Patriotism was impugned, fear was mongered, attack ads were run. But that doesn't mean we can't work something out, does it?

The administration is ready to talk turkey, reports The Wall Street Journal. But if the administration "has signaled to Democratic lawmakers it is open to negotiation" about the surveillance bill, it's not entirely clear just yet where the administration is willing to give.

The centerpiece of negotiations, of course, will be whether telecoms will receive retroactive immunity for their participation in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Though a number of Senate Dems crossed over to support that, the House has managed to hold firm, twice passing a bill without retroactive immunity. Some Dems are floating "a pared-back version of immunity," such as limiting immunity to certain aspects of the program or capping possible damages. Talks about other aspects of the legislation, for instance concerning judicial oversight of surveillance, might come more easily.

But the reason for the White House's new tack is pretty clear: they used every weapon at their disposal -- presidential statements and press conferences, alarming letters and public appearances by the director of national intelligence and attorney general, time pressures created by the lapsing of legislation or a Congressional recess -- and none of it worked. The House, after all that, still passed a bill a world away from what the administration was pushing for. It was, as the Journal points out, a strikingly different outcome from August, when the White House's squeeze play worked to perfection.

The difference? Well, a number of things. But one thing in particular is the fact that Dems no longer trust the administration's point man, DNI Mike McConnell. From today's Los Angeles Times:

On the eve of a House vote on controversial wiretapping legislation last month, the nation's intelligence director, J. Michael McConnell, convened a secret weekend meeting in northern Virginia with members of the House Intelligence Committee.

The two-day session was designed to promote a calmer atmosphere for discussing an array of intelligence issues, including the nation's eavesdropping laws. But participants said the event ended with a series of acrimonious exchanges.

Democrats accused McConnell of making exaggerated claims and of doing the bidding of the Bush administration, according to officials who attended the event. McConnell bristled at the Democrats' charges, and chastised members of the committee for failing to defend the intelligence community amid a barrage of bad press.

As a wise man once said, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Surveillance

Harman: I Didn't Know Surveillance Program Broke The Law

Paul Kiel | March 31, 2008, 6:03PM

Earlier this month, we published an excerpt from Eric Lichtblau's new book, Bush's Law, in which Lichtblau wrote that when he'd approached Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), then the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, about the administration's then-still-secret warrantless wiretapping program, she'd shushed him and told him that The New York Times did the right thing by not publishing the story in 2004.

In a post at TPMCafe today, Harman doesn't dispute Lichtblau's telling of the interaction, but does dispute that her position on the program underwent "a dramatic transformation," as Lichtblau writes, after Lichtblau and James Risen of the Times broke the story under the headline "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts" in December of 2005.

Before the story broke, she writes, she had no clue that "the Administration was violating FISA." She writes that the gang of eight had been briefed on "an NSA effort to track al Qaeda communications using unique access points inside the US telecommunications infrastructure," but that they'd been told nothing about warrantless wiretapping. Her "first inkling that the program was in not compliance with FISA but was conducted pursuant to claims of “inherent” executive power," she writes, came after the story broke, when she was free to consult her staff.

So what does Lichtblau think of this? Well, we'll be interviewing him tomorrow about his book and we'll pop the question.

Iraq Corruption

Feds Still Investigating Iraq Inspector General

Paul Kiel | March 31, 2008, 1:36PM

The Washington Post had an update this weekend on the criminal investigation of Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), whose reports of waste and fraud in Iraq have caused the administration regular headaches. The Post broke word last December that Bowen was the focus of a number of investigations, the most serious of which was a probe by the FBI. Congress Daily first broke word that Bowen was under investigation by the FBI.

Now the grand jury is mostly focused on whether Bowen and his deputy Ginger Cruz (a wiccan who has allegedly spooked staff with threats of hexes) illegally viewed staff emails, the Post reports. There seems to be no dispute that Bowen and Cruz actually viewed the staff emails. Where there's a difference of opinion is why:

"Bowen and Cruz were looking at e-mails to find out who was loyal and who was not," said a former SIGIR official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Berenson said senior officials reviewed employee e-mails "as part of an authorized internal investigation into possible press leaks. SIGIR policy permits such e-mail reviews and all employees are notified, regularly reminded and trained on these policies."

William Jefferson

Supreme Court Refuses Appeal of Jefferson Decision

Paul Kiel | March 31, 2008, 11:18AM

Roll Call reports (sub. req.) that the court has rebuffed the Justice Department's request for an appeal of last summer's decision.

That decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals in Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) case found that Constitutional protections meant that the feds could only search a Congressional office if the lawmaker was consulted. The lawmaker would also have the right to review materials. So instead of the feds raiding an office and taking material relevant to the investigation, the court suggested that FBI agents could lock down the office, and then allow the lawmaker to set aside Constitutionally protected documents. A judge would decide whether the records could be taken.

Because of the apparent strength of the feds' case against Jefferson, the decision is not likely to strike much of a blow there. But prosecutors and watchdogs were dismayed with a ruling that was a definite blow to public corruption prosecutions in general. As CREW's Melanie Sloan put it, "If I were Ted Stevens, and I had some evidence of wrongdoing, I'd be putting it in my Congressional office, because the court basically just issued a blanket cover against searches.... It's such a help to any corrupt members of Congress, since it offers so much more protection than was previously offered."

The Justice Department had argued in its request for an appeal that the decision "'threatens to complicate numerous ongoing and future investigations' and hinder the ability to use electronic surveillance" as a means of investigating lawmakers.

Rep. Rick Renzi's (R-AZ) lawyers have already signaled that the decision will play a role in their defense. And you can be sure that it will play a role in every prosecution of a lawmaker from here on out. Does the decision mean that prosecutors can't use wiretaps against lawmakers? Does it mean that the feds can't speak to legislative aides?

Alphonso Jackson

Jackson Bows Out to "Attend More Diligently to Personal and Family Matters"

Paul Kiel | March 31, 2008, 10:26AM

Yup, more quality time with the family it is. From the AP:

The Bush administration's top housing official, under criminal investigation and intense pressure from Democratic critics, announced Monday he is quitting.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said his resignation will take effect on April 18....

The HUD chief made no direct mention of [the criminal investigation] in his resignation statement. Explaining his move, he said: "There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me."

He did not take questions or elaborate on the family reasons he cited for the decision. The group assembled to hear Jackson's statement applauded and he left the room.

His resignation letter to the president was similarly brief.

Update: Here's Jackson's statement this morning in full:

On April 18th, I will step down as Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters.

Now is such a time for me.

I have devoted more than 30 years of my life to improving housing opportunities for all Americans regardless of income, skin color or spoken accent. My life’s work has been to build better communities that families are proud to call home.

Seven years ago, President Bush gave me an extraordinary opportunity to serve HUD and the nation. As the son of a lead smelter and nurse-midwife, and as the last of 12 children, never did I imagine I’d serve America in such a way.

I am truly grateful for the opportunity.

During my time here, I have sought to make America a better place to live, work and raise a family. We have helped families keep their homes. We have transformed public housing. We have reduced chronic homelessness. And, we have preserved affordable housing and increased minority homeownership.

We have done this together. I take great pride in working alongside some of the most dedicated civil servants in America. The hardworking people at HUD make a difference in the lives of thousands of Americans daily.

Marcia and I want to thank you for the many acts of kindness we have received over the last seven years.

May God bless you and may God continue to bless America.

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Peter Sheehy and John Amick | March 31, 2008, 10:10AM

Murat Kurnaz, a German resident, was captured in Pakistan in 2001 as a suspected terrorist and imprisoned for two months at a U.S. base in Afghanistan. Kurnaz insists that he was hung from a ceiling for five days and was checked periodically by doctors who determined that the torture could continue. Kurnaz, who was eventually freed (the U.S. military gave no reason why) also alleges that he was systematically tortured again in 2005. (Washington Post)

Within hours of its launch, the Bush administration's eavesdropping plan that the NSA implemented in October 2001, generated protests and sharp legal debate. Eric Lichtblau's new book, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice, also reveals that within 12 hours of the program's launch, FBI technicians "stumbled" upon it, creating a "firestorm of anxiety." (New York Times)

In 2003, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) co-sponsored a law that would limit the role of money in politics by expanding the federal matching system for presidential candidates. But in 2006 and 2007, he refused to add his name to similar laws. (Boston Globe)

A report by Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares reveals that Darren Dopp, Spitzer's former communications director, has provided strong evidence that former Governor Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) directly ordered him ("in a profanity-laced exchange" ) to give reporters records on Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno's use of state aircraft. Soares believes that had Spitzer not resigned, he could have been indicted. (AP)

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Alphonso Jackson

Crony's Reign Comes to Early End

Paul Kiel | March 31, 2008, 10:00AM

So it looks like HUD chief Alphonso "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president" Jackson is looking to bow out early, with his announcement expected within minutes.

As both The Wall Street Journal and AP report, it's unclear why Jackson is resigning. Or, rather, it's unclear what reason he'll give for resigning. We hotly anticipate his statement this morning, but chances are you won't hear any mention of the grand jury investigation that's probing the depths of his cronyism. Both pieces make mention of the fact that with the country facing a mortgage crisis, Jackson might not be the best man for the job. He's certainly not the best man to be working with Congress, since he's stonewalled Congress' questions about the investigation and allegations that he retaliated against Philadelphia's public housing director when he didn't agree to dish a property to one of Jackson's buddies. Oh, and the senators who chair the two oversight committees think Bush ought to fire him.

So has he been struck by a sudden desire for more QT with the family? We'll see.

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | March 31, 2008, 9:27AM

It was supposed to be, as President Bush called it, "a defining moment in the history of Iraq." And it might just be. But certainly not in the way that Bush meant it. Instead, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's offensive in Basra and Baghdad against Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's forces has confirmed his government's essential weakness.

Consider: with Maliki's campaign stalled, a parliamentary delegation from Maliki's own coalition went off to Iran to broker a deal with Sadr. And the terms of that deal, which involves the release of hundreds of detained Sadr followers and the return of his followers displaced by raids and violence, will surely strengthen Sadr's political position. That's assuming, of course, that the deal holds and the fighting actually stops. All of the papers report that fighting has not stopped in Baghdad and Basra. And while it's unclear whether the deal will actually last, it's crystal clear what the deal means for Maliki. The New York Times sees no upside:

The negotiations with Mr. Sadr were seen as a serious blow for... Maliki, who had vowed that he would see the Basra campaign through to a military victory and who has been harshly criticized even within his own coalition for the stalled assault.

Last week, Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Kadir al-Obeidi, conceded that the government’s military efforts in Basra have met with far more resistance than was expected. Many Iraqi politicians say that Mr. Maliki’s political capital has been severely depleted by the Basra campaign and that he is in the curious position of having to turn to Mr. Sadr, a longtime rival, for a way out.

And it was a chance for Mr. Sadr to flaunt his power, commanding both armed force and political strength that can forcefully challenge the other dominant Shiite parties, including Mr. Maliki’s Dawa movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq....

After [Sadr's] statement was released Sunday, a spokesman for Mr. Maliki, Ali al-Dabbagh, appearing on the television station Iraqiya, said that the government welcomed the action and that Mr. Sadr’s gesture demonstrated his “concern for Iraq and Iraqis.” And he insisted that the government offensive in Basra was not aimed specifically at Mr. Sadr’s militiamen but rather against rogue Shiite factions there, seemingly trying to leave room to maneuver with Mr. Sadr’s political organization.

A fighter from Sadr's Mahdi Army in Baghdad, speaking to The Washington Post, sees things similarly: "The fighting has proved they have learned a lesson. The government is dead from our point of view."

All Muck is Local

All Muck Is Local: Busted!

Diane Vacca | March 30, 2008, 12:48PM

"Damn that. Never busted. Busted is what you see!"

Most people would have thrown up their hands by now. But not Kwame Kilpatrick, who's never busted and seems determined to remain mayor of Detroit until that final gavel falls. He insists, despite the evidence that keeps mounting against him, that he’s still the person best suited to be mayor, because he believes with absolute certainty that he’s on a mission from God.

Handsomely dressed in dark suits and accompanied by a team of lawyers, the mayor and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, were booked and fingerprinted and posed for their mug shots last Monday, the day before their arraignment. For the apparent contradictions between their sworn testimony and the messages they texted each other on their cell phones and the unwarranted dismissal of three cops who they feared were about to disclose their illicit love affair, Kilpatrick was charged with conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice, two counts of misconduct in office and four counts of perjury.

Beatty’s seven counts were similar. She resigned in January after the incriminating text messages were published by the Detroit Free Press.

But Kilpatrick remained positive after being arraigned on Tuesday. “I look forward to complete exoneration,” he said.

He appears to face an uphill battle. In her news conference announcing the charges against the mayor, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy accused him of ruining the lives of three former police officers and then buying their silence with $8.4 million of the taxpayers’ money in a secret legal agreement.

“[T]he justice system was severely mocked, and the public trust trampled on,” she said. Worthy scolded Kilpatrick, 37, as one would a wayward child:

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