You know that Bob Schaffer thinks he's getting a bum rap. The Colorado Republican Senate candidate says he's never met Jack Abramoff, but more than anything, he says his comments that launched the controversy were taken out of context.

Speaking to a talk radio host earlier this week, Schaffer said that he hadn't said that "I endorse everything that goes on in the [Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands]" -- meaning forced abortions, and other human rights abuses. He'd meant "a very narrow aspect of the CNMI's, of the commonwealth's, immigration process, and that was a pre-process of qualifying foreign labor in their home country before they're given entry visas to set foot on American soil."

And that's true, sort of. In his original comments to The Denver Post, Schaffer had been asked about guest-worker programs. And as a successful model for the U.S., he'd pointed to the Marianas, saying "prequalifying foreign workers in their home country under private- sector management" works "very well" there.

It was a comment that mirrored those of ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Jack Abramoff's staunchest ally in Congress, ten years before. From The Houston Chronicle in 1998:

Rather than impose more regulation on the [Marianas], DeLay said, the United States ought to adopt the islands' business and labor practices by creating a guestworker program of its own 'where particular companies can bring Mexican workers in' to fill jobs that Americans won't take. DeLay said the workers could be paid at 'whatever wage the market will bear.'

DeLay had just returned from a tour of the Marianas, where he'd rung in the New Year. Abramoff, of course, had organized the trip, and his clients, the Marianas government and garment manufacturers there, had paid for it. In an interview with the Chronicle, "Delay said he saw nothing wrong with accepting the trip, and said Abramoff, who went on the trip as well, was just 'doing his job (as a lobbyist).'" DeLay remains under federal investigation for his ties to Abramoff.

Beyond the free trips, the Marianas' reliance on private sector management had a clear philosophical appeal to conservatives which Abramoff was keen to exploit. But doing so meant ignoring a host of evidence and findings that the Marianas' guest worker system was at the heart of the abuses there.

A report by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1997, for instance, did not find that the system was working "very well" there.

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While House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) presides over negotiations on the new surveillance bill, House Republicans have continued to push the Senate's version, which contains retroactive immunity for the telecoms, every which way they can.

Earlier this week, they tried to convince moderate Dems that it really was in their best interest (sub. req.):

"This is an opportunity for the 21 Blue Dog Democrats who signed a letter supporting the bipartisan, Senate-passed FISA bill to prove that they are serious about America's national security," said Michael Steel, House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-Ohio) spokesman. "Will they choose to protect their constituents or will they back the Democratic leadership in kowtowing to trial lawyers and liberal special interests?"

Meanwhile, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) (yes, that Jerry Lewis) will try to tack on the Senate's bill to the war supplemental spending bill. As The Politico notes, the Dems on the appropriations committee will likely vote that down, but "at the very least, he would put members of the majority on the record rejecting the Senate bill, something Republicans have done repeatedly."

So far the moderate Dems have held strong to the Dem leadership's position that retroactive immunity is off the table. Hoyer has said that he hopes that negotiations will result in a new bill by late May. Regardless, the next showdown is likely to take place before August, when the wiretaps authorized under the Protect America Act will actually begin to lapse. So we'll see what happens then.

TPMmuckraketeers, allow me to draw your attention to the shiny new widgetbox below the masthead to the right, which allows muckraking bloggers to install a feed to TPMm in their sidebar. Also, don't forget that TPMm is also available through our RSS feed.

The U.S. government claims they are doing all they can to prop up Iraqi security forces for an eventual hand off ... one of these days. Yet the transitional path may be rockier than expected, according to an audit by the Pentagon that reveals many dead or inactive troops are on the Iraqi government payroll in an effort to support their families. (Associated Press)

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is hearing calls for his swift impeachment, by fellow Democrats no less, for allegedly promising a job to a state finance official in exchange for campaign contributions. The official, Ali Ata, pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, implicated the governor in the wrongdoing and is now expected to testify against Blagojevich ally Tony Rezko for accepting kickbacks from state businesses. (Chicago Sun-Times)

A faculty-led panel at the University of West Virginia is investigating the retroactive master's degree given to the daughter of the state's Gov. Joe Manchin in 2007. The panel issued a report saying there was no proof the recipient, Heather Bresch, earned the 1998 master's degree of business administration. Bresch has said she completed the degree program fairly, yet her faculty advisor at the time says otherwise. (Associated Press)

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Ooh, that must sting. For ringing up his state's U.S. attorney at bedtime to interrogate him about whether that high-profile corruption case against a prominent state Democrat will result in an indictment before the election, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) has been branded with the dreaded QA: that's right, qualified admonition.

The Senate ethics committee says it left no stone unturned in coming to this conclusion, including interviewing "current and former executive branch officials and attorneys," but that the "Committee finds no substantial evidence to determine that [Domenici] attempted to improperly influence an ongoing investigation." The key word there being "substantial."

The U.S. attorney, David Iglesias, who was of course fired a little more than a month after Domenici's call, testified that the call made him sick. And so the committee says that Domenici "should have known" better -- that such a call would create an "appearance of impropriety." But appearance of impropriety aside, maybe the good senator was just looking for an update. You know, just ringing up the local prosecutor at home to see how things are going.

The modesty of the punishment matches the modesty of the investigation. It wasn't the committee's job to investigate the U.S. attorney firings in general: "We do emphasize, however, that the Committee confined its inquiry to your October 2006 call to Mr. Iglesias, its context and consequences and related actions by you or your office."

Nevertheless, as Domenici serves out his last year in the Senate, it's worth reminding ourselves of the broader context.

Such as the fact that when the story first broke that two lawmakers had called Iglesias shortly before the 2006 election, the lawmakers were not identified, resulting in a media scramble to identify them. When all other members of the New Mexico delegation responded that they'd never done such a thing, Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) went to ground and refused to comment. Finally, cornered by an AP reporter, Domenici said "I don't have any comment. I have no idea what he's talking about."

But when it became apparent that Iglesias would be testifying to Congress about the call, Domenici eventually developed an idea and fessed up. He apologized, but said "I have never pressured him nor threatened him in any way." In their letter yesterday, the committee thanked Domenici for the "candor" of that statement.

Neither Domenici nor Wilson have admitted that it was Iglesias' failure to speedily dispatch with a couple high-profile corruption investigations into state Democrats that led to their dissatisfaction. Rather, they both hewed to the coded criticism that Iglesias had been slow to move cases -- when it's evident that they were really only talking about a few cases in particular.

We know that Domenici was also instrumental in Iglesias' firing, making calls not only to the Justice Department, but also to the White House. Of course, Iglesias had plenty of enemies, so it's certainly possible that other Republicans got him canned for, say, not jumping on the voter fraud bandwagon, and that's always been Domenici's best alibi.

But if you're looking to find out more about the context of Iglesias' firing, the Justice Department's forthcoming inspector general report will be much more informative.

Don't worry, America! Rep. Don Young (R-AK) will ensure that the blessed integrity of our nation's Constitution is upheld.

Last week, the Senate voted to require the Justice Department to open an investigation into how the language of Young's Coconut Road earmark was modified after it cleared both houses of Congress, but before it was signed by the President. Young, of course, welcomes scrutiny of any and all of his beloved earmarks. But it's the law of the thing that's got him upset:

"What the Senate did was unconstitutional," the Alaska Republican said Wednesday. "No other body can request an investigation on another body."

Now, while there are a host of touchy Constitutional issues surrounding the Senate's measure, this, to my understanding, isn't one of them. Democrats objected to Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) measure to create a bicameral committee because it would have involved one chamber investigating another (that measure failed). And there are legitimate concerns that any DoJ investigation would clash with Congress' Speech or Debate Clause protections. But no one else has put it quite the way Young has put it -- that the Senate's request for an investigation by the DoJ was unconstitutional.

Of course, just to underscore the circularity of all this, the Justice Department is already investigating Young's Coconut Road earmark, along with his ties to Veco and who knows what else. So if the Senate's possibly unconstitutional measure to force the DoJ to investigate Young's unconstitutional earmark fails, the DoJ will investigate it anyway.

Somehow I think that the Constitution will survive all this. As for Don Young...

Georgetown students will no longer have the benefit of Douglas Feith's insights into international law, his talent for seeing connections where others do not, or his ability to pack a PowerPoint presentation with punch. That's because his time there is up:

Asked about Feith's status, Robert Gallucci, dean of Georgetown's foreign service school, told us that when Feith was hired -- something that caused an uproar among the faculty -- it was understood he "was on a two-year appointment." Any decision not to renew should not be seen as "a judgment on his performance," Gallucci said, noting that Feith's students' "course evaluations were really good."

Feith, author of a bestseller about his Pentagon days called "War and Decision," said he hadn't decided what to do next. "I'm intensely occupied with book stuff," and there are "several things I'm thinking about," he said.

Word is that keeping Feith on beyond the two-year term again would have infuriated a number of faculty members.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller made it as clear as he could what the FBI's reaction to the CIA's use of waterboarding and other forms of torture in 2002 had been: keep FBI agents out of trouble.

But when House Democrats pressed as to why the FBI hadn't investigated the abuses, Mueller said his hands were tied. The CIA and the Defense Department had the green light. "There has to be a legal basis for us to investigate, and generally that legal basis is given to us by the Department of Justice." Thanks to John Yoo and others in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the CIA had its "golden shield."

He also testified that in 2002, he'd "reached out" to the Pentagon and the Department of Justice "in terms of activity that we were concerned might not be appropriate -- let me put it that way." Mueller said he couldn't testify as to what the reply was, since it might be classified. Given the fact that a group of senior administration officials had agreed on the use of the techniques, you can guess what the answer was. Here's video:

It's certainly not the first time that the FBI has separated itself from the conduct of CIA and military interrogators. FBI agents involved in the Abu Zubaydah's case have been publicly critical of brutal interrogation techniques that reaped "crap." Newsweek reported that one FBI agent "was so offended [by Zubaydah's treatment] he threatened to arrest the CIA interrogators." Of course, such an arrest could not happen without the Justice Department's say-so -- and it was on the DoJ's authority that the interrogation was taking place.

Back in October, The Los Angeles Times reported that Mueller was suspicious of the legal memos that had authorized the torture and thought they might be overturned. Yoo's memos authorizing torture were ultimately overturned -- but Attorney General Michael Mukasey has made clear that doesn't mean the interrogators who relied on them have anything to worry about. From the Times:

By mid-2002, several former agents and senior bureau officials said, they had begun complaining that the CIA-run interrogation program amounted to torture and was going to create significant problems down the road -- particularly if the Bush administration was ever forced to allow the Al Qaeda suspects to face their accusers in court.

Some went to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, according to the former bureau officials. They said Mueller pulled many of the agents back from playing even a supporting role in the interrogations to avoid exposing them to legal jeopardy, in the belief that White House and Justice Department opinions authorizing the coercive techniques might be overturned.

"Those guys were using techniques that we didn't even want to be in the room for," one senior federal law enforcement official said. "The CIA determined they were going to torture people, and we made the decision not to be involved."

The full transcript of Mueller's exchanges on this with Reps. Steven Cohen (D-TN) and Robert Wexler (D-FL) are below.

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Nearly two years after the administration rolled out its big bust of the so-called "Liberty City Seven" (though they'll always be the Seas of David crew to us), the government has decided that the group of paintballers , whose leader used to roam the streets of Miami in a bathrobe, is such a continued threat that the government, after two trials ended in a hung jury, will be going for the hat trick:

Federal prosecutors announced plans Wednesday to retry six Florida men on terrorism charges despite two consecutive mistrials in a case once trumpeted as a success in the government's war on terrorism.

"We've worked very hard this past week, reviewing everything in this case and considering it very, very seriously," prosecutor Richard Gregorie said in Miami federal court. "The United States has decided it's necessary to proceed . . . one more time."...

The two trials have cost several million dollars, including fees for court-appointed defense lawyers and prosecutors' salaries. Providing security for the two trials has cost more than $1 million, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

"Enough is enough," said defense lawyer David O. Markus. "The feds are always saying that they don't have enough resources, so why are they clinging to this money-draining case?"

Many families of soldiers killed in Iraq, like Lt. Col. Billy Hall, have given permission for the media to cover the burial of the deceased to show the realities of war. But the Pentagon has done its best to block such coverage, quelling sound and video allowed for recordings and obstructing reporters and photographers. (Washington Post)

The senator who added "wide stance" to the American lexicon now faces further hardship. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), arrested last June by an undercover cop in an airport restroom, has used funds from this campaign committee to pay his lawyers. But the Senate ethics panel ordered him to pay out of his own bank account. (Washington Post)

Chalk up another victim to the scam artist Christopher Ward, former treasurer to several GOP campaigns and subject of an FBI investigation into alleged embezzlement charges. Rep. James Walsh (R-NY) is the latest (of the now six-member club) to reveal that he was a victim. (Washington Post)

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Whatever fellow said "ask and you shall receive" never tried to get anything out of the Bush administration.

More than six years after the administration initiated its now infamous battery of policies to fight the global war on terror, there is still a pitched battle over whether certain details can be released. Just earlier this month, there were new revelations about the involvement of senior administration officials in crafting the CIA's interrogation program, and the release of John Yoo's 2003 memo authorizing the military's use of torture shocked even those who didn't think they could be shocked any more.

The latest: Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law teamed up to press in a lawsuit for the release of documents related to the administration's programs of secret detentions, renditions, and torture. Now the CIA has replied that it has 7,000 responsive documents that it won't be turning over. Among them:

Nineteen of those documents were withheld from disclosure specifically because the Bush administration decided they are covered by a "presidential communications privilege," according to the filings, made in federal court in Manhattan. Some were "authored or solicited and received by the President's senior advisors in connection with a decision, or potential decision, to be made by the president."

Although the precise content of the documents is unknown, the agency's statements illustrate the extent to which senior White House officials were involved in decision-making on CIA detentions, interrogations, and renditions, a term for forced transfers of prisoners.

Among the protected documents are "dozens" of communications between the CIA and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo's old shop, otherwise known as the place where a fellow can get himself an "advance pardon." The CIA refuses to turn those documents over, but it's candid about what they were all about:

"The CIA's purpose in requesting advice from OLC was the very likely prospect of criminal, civil, or administrative litigation against the CIA and CIA personnel who participate in the Program," said a declaration from Ralph S. DiMaio, information review officer for the CIA's clandestine service. He added that the CIA considered such proceedings "to be virtually inevitable."

You can see the few documents that the groups were able to get from the CIA here.

You may remember that one of the ongoing battles between the EPA and Congress is over California's petition to institute tough limits on greenhouse gases from cars and trucks. EPA chief Stephen Johnson blocked the move, despite the unanimous recommendation of his staff, and has fought Congress' attempts to investigate. California and 17 other states have sued in response. But the administration had more than one trick up its sleeve....

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

When the Bush administration announced proposed regulations Tuesday to raise fuel economy standards for cars and trucks to 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015, even some environmentalists applauded. But then they read the fine print.

Tucked deep into a 417-page "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" was language by the Transportation Department stating that more stringent limits on tailpipe emissions embraced by California and 17 other states are "an obstacle to the accomplishment" of the new federal standards and are "expressly and impliedly preempted" by federal law.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown called it a covert assault on California's rules. Environmentalists said the language will be used by automakers in their legal challenges to two recent federal court rulings that sided with the states.

Via Dan Froomkin.

I noted as an update to my earlier post that Karl Rove's attorney Robert Luskin had told The Chicago Tribune that Rove did not recall Republican bigwig Bob Kjellander or "anyone else arguing for Fitzgerald's removal."

I spoke to Luskin just now, and he said that his statement ought to be qualified a bit: his statement on Kgellander stands as is, he said, but during the independent counsel investigation, he said, Rove was "frequently" approached about canning Fitzgerald: "a number of people approached Karl and suggested that Fitzgerald be removed because of the alleged politicization of the investigation, but he never took any follow-up steps except to say that I can't talk about that. He didn't want to do anything seen as compromising Fitzgerald's independence." Those approaches, Luskin said, came during fundraisers or other political events "in an unsolicited way.... Karl simply never responded and did not take any action."

You didn't think that John Yoo would come easily, did you?

Earlier this month, House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) invited Yoo to testify to the committee about his time as the administration's point man for authorizing the use of torture in interrogations. Now Yoo, through his lawyer, is saying that he's not coming:

In a letter, Yoo's lawyer told Conyers he was "not authorized" by DOJ to discuss internal deliberations.

"We have been expressly advised by the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice that Professor Yoo is not authorized to discuss before your Committee any specific deliberative communications, including the substance of comments on opinions or policy questions, or the confidential predecisional advice, recommendations or other positions taken by individuals or entities of the Executive Branch," Yoo's lawyer, John C. Millian, wrote in a letter to Conyers.

Conyers has already said that a subpoena would be forthcoming if Yoo did not voluntarily agree to appear.

And it's not as if Yoo's appearance would be unprecedented. Earlier this year, the current head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury testified before the committee and freely discussed the Office's thinking on the matters of torture, waterboarding, and other touchy topics. And as Conyers pointed out in his letter inviting Yoo to testify, Yoo has made the rounds with the media, giving extensive interviews with Esquire and Frontline, among others.

From the AP:

The Union of Concerned Scientists said that more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work....

Nearly 400 scientists said they had witnessed EPA officials misrepresenting scientific findings, 284 said they had witness the "selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome" and 224 scientists said they had been directed to "inappropriately exclude or alter technical information" in an EPA document.

Just another indication that the EPA has been possibly the most politicized agency in the Bush administration (a bold claim, I know). And what does the EPA have to say about it?

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar attributed some of the discontent to the "passion" scientists have toward their work.

Update: You can see the report here. In response to the UCS survey, one scientist at an EPA regional office wrote: "Do not trust the Environmental Protection Agency to protect your environment."

Update: In a letter to EPA chief Stephen Johnson today, House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) warned Johnson that he can expect some questions about this when he testifies before the committee in May. That letter is below.

Update: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), calling the report "a scathing indictment of the Bush administration's repeated efforts to twist, misuse, and ignore scientific facts in favor of special interests" has also let it be known that the Senate environmental committee will be digging in on this.

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Call it a missed opportunity. The Chicago Tribune reports this morning that Ali Ata, a former official from Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) administration who's pleaded guilty to corruption charges, will testify that Tony Rezko told him that he had an inside track to getting U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald canned.

This all apparently happened back in 2004, when the Rezko investigation was just getting off the ground. Now Rezko is on trial for rigging state boards for contracts. And Ata will apparently testify that Rezko told him that Bob Kjellander, a connected Republican who's currently vice chairman of the Republican National Convention, "was working with Karl Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed."

Now, at the time, Rove would have had his own reasons to see Fitzgerald canned -- he'd just been tapped in December, 2003 as the special counsel to investigate CIA agent Valerie Plame's outing. But that would sure have been a bold move even for Rove. We've put in a call to Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin and we'll let you know if he responds.

This was not the last time that an administration official might have mulled firing Fitzgerald. Former chief of staff to Alberto Gonzales Kyle Sampson testified last year that he'd suggested canning the U.S. attorney in a conversation in the White House with Harriet Miers and her deputy in 2006. The two of them "just looked" at him, he said. When asked why he'd suggested it, Sampson testified that maybe it was just to "get a reaction out of them."

Update: Luskin responds to Tribune:

"Karl has known Kjellander for many years, but does not recall him or anyone else arguing for Fitzgerald's removal. And he (Rove) is very certain that he didn't take any steps to do that, or have any conversations with anyone in the White House -- or in the Justice Department -- about doing anything like that.''

The former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, is off the hook for assuring New Yorkers in 2001 that air surrounding the World Trade Center after 9/11 was safe to breathe despite having no basis for such claims. Though numerous reports of sickened residents and workers near the site pour in, a federal appeals court ruled she did not intend to cause harm. Whitman contends now that she was talking about Lower Manhattan in general, not just Ground Zero. (Washington Post)

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday challenging the equitable value of the "millionaire's amendment," which puts restrictions on wealthy congressional candidates while allowing their opponents to raise more money. Justices were split in their views of the law: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the law was created to fight the perception of congressional seats for sale. Justice Antonin Scalia argued that logic had nothing to do with fighting corruption. (New York Times)

Officials of the private military firm Blackwater Worldwide were not deterred by those protesting their projected training facility east of San Diego ... they just moved their focus-area elsewhere in San Diego County. Blackwater Vice President Brian Bonfiglio says the over 61,000-square foot building in Otay Mesa will cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars," and should be ready for Navy training this summer. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

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People have been giving Bob Schaffer, the Republican candidate for Senate in Colorado, a hard time about his advocacy on behalf of the Northern Mariana Islands. But Schaffer thinks it's about time to give credit where credit is due: after all, he braved an interminable flight to the end of the earth to investigate human rights abuses.

But the trip was organized by Jack Abramoff, you might say, and has been demonstrated to have been just another cog in Abramoff's lobbying strategy. Abramoff's goal was to keep the federal government from spoiling the Marianas' "perfect petri dish of capitalism," and a key tactic was to attack Clinton's Interior Department to distract from the human rights abuses on the islands. Schaffer was a more than willing participant.

Schaffer took to the airwaves earlier this week to air his grudges on a local conservative talk radio program. The Denver Post had done him wrong, he said, by covering the issue with such clear bias.

But more than anything, he's not getting credit for going where so few other lawmakers dared to go:

And by the way, I'll tell you there's 435 members of Congress, these reports had been in circulation throughout the 90s, and there weren't very many who went and investigated them the way I did. I don't owe anybody any ... any kind of remorse or regret for investigating these abuses firsthand....

This is a controversial issue, this island has been at the source of great political conflict for quite a long time, on a number of levels, not just these allegations of sweatshops and so on, but there's a big political controversy taking place there about the sovereignty and relative independence that this commonwealth has compared to other states, or even compared to other U.S. protectorates.

So, a lot of people in Congress would walk away from that and not even look into it because of the controversy. I frankly didn't care, and went and saw what I saw, and followed my own instincts and inclinations based on both favorable and unfavorable reports about the island.

Of course, this might carry more heft if Abramoff hadn't been constantly ferrying lawmakers, staffers, and their families over to the Marianas in the late nineties -- some 85 people in all by mid-2000. It turns out that it wasn't that hard to lure people over for a free trip to tropical islands.

Abramoff didn't sponsor all the trips. Like, say, the one taken by then-Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK), who returned outraged by the conditions there and spent the next several years trying to pass a bill to reform the labor and immigration laws on the Marianas (Abramoff was able to block it with the help of his House Republican friends). But somehow those who took the Abramoff organized trips didn't come back so angry.

Omitting the fact that documents show that he knew Abramoff's lobbying firm had made the travel arrangements for his trip, Schaffer says that nobody led him around by the nose while he was on the islands. It was five days of unfettered and unrelenting access, he says:

Nobody led me around there, nobody showed me a sanitized version of what they wanted me to see. My wife and I, and a staffer, and the two individuals from the Family Values Coalition led an investigation according to what I as the member of Congress thought was the best way to spend five days.

We worked around the clock by the way and conducted dozens and dozens of interviews, both on-site and off-site.

Ignore that picture of him parasailing with his wife during his visit there and it's an inspiring evocation.

You can read a full transcript of portions of the interview below. The audio is here.

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You can always count on Jack Abramoff's crew for subtlety.

As part of the guilty plea of Robert Coughlin, the former Justice Department official, prosecutors filed a document that lays out the mutually profitable relationship between Kevin Ring, Abramoff's associate, and Coughlin. You can read that here.

Coughlin got $6,180 worth of meals, drinks and sports tickets, prosecutors say, and Ring got a constant inside stream of information from DoJ. The filing lays out a laundry list of Coughlin's favors. If Abramoff's team needed information about his tribal clients, a corporate transaction, or something to do with speeding along permits for Abramoff's Jewish prep school, Coughlin was there.

Coughlin was particularly helpful with getting the Mississippi Choctaw the full $16 million for a jail-construction grant that that had been promised via an earmark. The jail was one of the main priorities for Abramoff's team between 2001-2002, as they fought the Justice Department's determination that the Choctaw, a very wealthy tribe, didn't need the funds.

Coughlin was there to warn Ring that a DoJ official handling the matter had "Democratic political leanings" and so couldn't be trusted to be helpful, according to the filing, and to otherwise advise Ring who the "friendlies" were at DoJ. He also showed up at a DoJ meeting along with Ring, because, as Ring wrote in an email, "it would be good if you were there so some of the clowns there know that I have friends, if you get my drift."

Finally, possibly with the intervention of a "high-ranking DoJ official" (it's not clear), the full $16 million was released. Ring was elated, writing "CHA-CHING!!!" in an email.

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As expected, Robert Coughlin, formerly deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division, pleaded guilty today to taking all sorts of goodies from Jack Abramoff and his associate, Kevin Ring:

Robert Coughlin admitted in federal court Tuesday that he accepted meals, concert tickets and luxury seats at sporting events from a lobbyist. He pleaded guilty to a single conflict-of-interest charge and faces up to 10 months in prison under a plea deal with the government.

Coughlin's next court date is September 18th.

Update: Coughlin has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of his guilty plea, the AP reports.

Update: The only comment from Coughlin's lawyer, Joshua Berman, was that Coughlin "is deeply saddened by these events and looks forward to focusing his attention on his family and moving forward with his life."

Update: So what did Ring and Abramoff hope they'd get for all those blandishments? The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Ring asked for Coughlin's help "freeing up a $16 million jail-construction grant Congress earmarked for the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe."

The jail was one of the main priorities for Abramoff's team between 2001-2002, as they fought the Justice Department's determination that the Choctaw, a very wealthy tribe, didn't need the funds. The team ultimately approached Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman in an attempt to get the Choctaw their money (see much more on this, including the emails, here). Abramoff ultimately won, avoiding what would have been "SUCH a HUGE embarrassment."

The administration's campaign to gin up alarm over the lapse of the Protect America Act having failed , Republicans first signaled a willingness to sit down with Democrats earlier this month.

Of course, the administration still wants its retroactive immunity for the telecoms that participated in the warrantless wiretapping program and the House Dems still refuse to grant that. So it's unclear what sort of compromise might emerge. But the talks have begun. From The Politico:

Congressional staffers from both parties met with administration officials Monday to discuss controversial electronic surveillance legislation, an aide to House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.)confirmed, offering a ray of hope for the long-stalled bill....

Behind the scenes, Hoyer has emerged as a deal maker on the issue over the past several weeks, working as the go-between for liberal House Democrats unwilling to accept immunity and Senate Republicans who would block any bill that does not protect the telecoms from prosecution....

One House GOP aide said Hoyer is trying to get a proposal by the end of the week.

"He has August on his mind," said the GOP aide. "He knows it is the real do-or-die time for this."

Several of the authorizations governing ongoing surveillance programs are set to expire in August, which could force congressional action.

Yet another possible legacy of former Justice Department official John Yoo's legal advice: the use of drugs on detainees as an interrogation technique.

The charge that drugs were used on detainees by the CIA and military interrogators is not a new one, The Washington Post reports, but it's given new credence by the fact that Yoo specifically authorized the use of drugs on detainees "as long as they did not inflict permanent or 'profound' psychological damage" in his recently released 2003 legal opinion.

The Department of Defense denies ever using drugs on detainees for interrogations, and the CIA, through a "senior official" speaking anonymously, did the same. But the Post reports that a number of former detainees say that they were forcibly injected with something that made them drowsy and lethargic. Others describe getting injections that made them "crazy." One Saudi says he signed a confession just to make the interrogators leave him alone, and so they did -- and he was ultimately freed years later regardless.

It all adds up to what is arguably among the greater human rights abuses in Gitmo:

Medical ethicists and experts in international law say such accounts raise serious questions. While the Geneva Conventions do not specifically refer to drugs, they ban any use of force or coercion in interrogating prisoners of war, said Barbara Olshansky, a law professor at Stanford University and the author of a book on military tribunals. "If you're talking about interrogations, you're talking about very specific prohibitions that mean you cannot use any force, at all, to interrogate someone," Olshansky said. "The law is beyond clear."

Update: See also CQ's Jeff Stein on this earlier this month.

In January of 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the minimizing of troop-tour extensions. A few months later, the number of troops affected by "stop loss" was at a three-year low. But since then, the number forced back into service has spiked by 43 percent ... and it will be a year before the "stop loss" policy will cease. (USA Today and Associated Press)

Bob Lady was the former CIA base chief in Milan, Italy. He was tabbed by the CIA to go after al Qaeda suspects, including top operative Abu Omar, in Milan beginning in early 2003. The mission ended up in kidnappings that Italian authorities are now putting CIA employees on trial for, and Lady, deserted by the CIA, is on the run. (Congressional Quarterly)

In search of visits by leaders of the religious right with the Bush administration, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington challenged the White House policy of concealing all visitor logs from the public. The Bush administration claims the records are not, nor have ever been, open to the public. A federal court is now seeking a compromise between the president's right to privacy and the public's right to access. (Associated Press)

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You know the story: after surviving the Keating Five scandal, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) vowed to be incorruptible. Sure, he surrounds himself with lobbyists, but that is only to test his vigilance.

The New York Times tests the limits of McCain's vigilance in a piece today about McCain's decades-old ties to a wealthy Arizonan developer named Donald Diamond.

The main thrust is this: on a number of key occasions, McCain played a key role in helping Diamond, a major campaign contributor, make deals that made him millions of dollars. The piece focuses on three deals in particular: two of those involved bills (in 1991 and 1994) co-sponsored by McCain that swapped public land for Diamond's land, and the other involved McCain doing a couple personal favors in order to help Diamond land an incredibly lucrative piece of land owned by the Army. In each of those cases, Diamond was able to secure the assistance of other members of the Arizona delegation, and it's crystal clear from the piece that Diamond knows how to work his lawmakers.

Part of what makes the piece so amusing is that while the McCain camp was obviously keen to minimize McCain's assistance -- pointing out, for example, that McCain refused a number of Diamond's requests -- Diamond doesn't seem to have much patience for pussyfooting. For example:

Mr. Diamond is close to most of Arizona's Congressional delegation and is candid about his expectations as a fund-raiser. "I want my money back, for Christ's sake. Do you know how many cocktail parties I have to go to?"

To raise money for Mr. McCain, Mr. Diamond invites local Republicans to make fund-raising calls from his Tucson office. Ray Carroll, a member of the council that controls zoning in Pima County, Ariz., said Mr. Diamond followed up on one fund-raising session with a thank-you note "on behalf of Mr. McCain," sending a copy to the senator.

"To reciprocate, if you need any zoning in the county, let me know," Mr. Diamond wrote. (Mr. Diamond said it was the kind of joke he often made.)

The most delicate of the three transactions for the McCain camp is undoubtedly the Army deal: an old base in Monterey County, California called Fort Ord. Helped along by a meeting with an Army official set up by a McCain aide, Diamond got the inside track on the land, which ultimately made him a $20 million profit. McCain had also written a letter to the city of Seaside, California, enthusiastically recommending Diamond, who was making a bid to buy Fort Ord's two golf courses that had been acquired by the city.

Sound like some pretty special treatment for a multi-millionaire campaign contributor? Not so, says the McCain camp. Any average Joe Arizonan making a bid for a luxury resort in another state would be sure to get the senator's assistance:

A spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, Jill Hazelbaker, said the senator, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, "had done nothing for Mr. Diamond that he would not do for any other Arizona citizen."...

For the California projects, the campaign said the McCain aide arranged the introduction to an Army official for Mr. Diamond's team as "a constituent matter." The campaign said it had no knowledge of the aide helping to expedite the sale.

In Mr. Diamond's other project at Ford Ord, the campaign initially said that the senator "would not have issued" the letter vouching for Mr. Diamond "if he knew at the time it would be used to favor any particular party in the course of a pending competition." Later, the campaign described the letter as "a character reference" and said it was included only at a "pre-competition" stage in the selection process. The campaign also noted that two other members of the Arizona Congressional delegation provided similar letters.

And Diamond, typically, doesn't see why there would be any fuss:

Mr. Diamond, for his part, said Mr. McCain had only done his job. "I think that is what Congress people are supposed to do for constituents," he said. "When you have a big, significant businessman like myself, why wouldn't you want to help move things along? What else would they do? They waste so much time with legislation."

The Duke Cunningham case continues to interest in more ways than one. Thomas Kontogiannis, a Greek businessman who helped launder bribes to Cunningham and a relatively minor player in the case, has proven the most sensitive prosecution of the bunch. Indications are that Kontogiannis was a counterterrorism informant, and prosecutors have fought to keep the details of Kontogiannis' cooperation secret ever since he pleaded guilty.

It's becoming one of the more remarkable cases of government secrecy, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune:

More than a year ago, a New York financier pleaded guilty to laundering bribe money for former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in a deal that was kept secret for months.

That closed-door bargain triggered a battle between federal prosecutors and public-access advocates that took secrecy to unprecedented heights.

At one point, attorneys arguing for openness were prohibited from sharing their briefs with their clients, who were media. Even the court's docket tracking the progress of the case was not publicly available until recently.

While portions of the case remain secret, a batch of previously sealed court filings was released this week that show the government arguing what media law experts said was an astounding position....

In essence, prosecutors argued that once the executive branch says something is classified, courts are virtually powerless to review or disagree.

From the AP:

A former high-ranking Justice Department official is being accused of criminal conflict of interest in the latest case stemming from the investigation of disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Robert Coughlin was deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division before his resignation a year ago.

In court papers filed Monday in federal court in Washington, prosecutors accused Coughlin of providing assistance to a lobbyist and the lobbyist's firm while receiving gifts from the firm and discussing prospective employment there. The lobbyist isn't named but The Associated Press has previously reported that Coughlin was lobbied during the period in question by Kevin Ring, a member of Abramoff's lobbying team who also is under investigation.

Update: The filing today is a criminal information, meaning that Coughlin will very likely be pleading guilty sometime soon. We'll have that document up soon.

Coughlin stepped down about a year ago as the investigation of Kevin Ring, a former DoJ official and aide to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), was heating up.

Update: Here is the charge filed today, which has very little in the way of facts about what Coughlin might be admitting. As I said, it's an information, which means that a guilty plea is likely to follow.

Update: The Washington Post reported last year that Coughlin, who worked with Ring on John Ashcroft's Senate staff, had accepted tickets to sporting events from Ring, who was by then one of Jack Abramoff's closest associates. Those coveted skybox seats, remember, constituted one of Abramoff's prime means of wooing lawmakers and staffers. Coughlin worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the time. It looks from the information that Ring and Abramoff also talked to Coughlin about working for Abramoff after Coughlin was done with public service.

When Coughlin later moved to the criminal division, the DoJ said that he recused himself from any dealings with the Abramoff investigation.

How do you say goodbye to a HUD chief who ineptly presided over the worst national housing crisis in recent memory, who made HUD a byword for cronyism, and who resigned under the cloud of a federal criminal investigation?

Last Wednesday, Alphonso Jackson got the send off he deserved, as you can see from the cover of the program for the event obtained by TPMmuckraker. The event, which was held in the main auditorium at HUD, included an overflow crowd of about 1,000 HUD employees, said HUD spokesman Jerry Brown. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the special guest speaker at the event, Brown said.

Despite the regal appearance of the program, Brown said that the event mainly involved "a slide show and a person who sang the national anthem." It was "pretty much the standard fare when a secretary departs." You can bet that the slide show contained plenty of pictures of Jackson -- and maybe even a painting or two.

You can see the full program here.

From the AP:

Under pressure to increase their numbers, the Army and Marine Corps are sharply raising the number of recruits with felony convictions they are admitting to the services.

Data released by a congressional committee shows that the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.

You can see a breakdown of the numbers by service and felony released by the House oversight committee here (pdf).

Bob Schaffer's Jack Abramoff problem isn't going away.

Ever since the Colorado Republican Senate candidate declared that he thought the guest worker system used in the Northern Mariana Islands was so great that it ought to be exported to the mainland, the media has been on his back. And now a conservative organization has jumped into the fray, a spokesman for Colorado's Right to Life telling The Denver Post that Schaffer's boosterism for the Marianas meant he was no pro-life advocate: "The pro-life movement will no longer give a pass to candidates like Bob Schaffer who look the other way when Chinese women are forced to abort their children."

Schaffer's response to the comment was twofold. First, he made clear that he didn't question the veracity of federal investigations that found instances of Chinese guest workers being forced to get abortions. But he wants everyone to know that he did his due diligence as a crack investigator when he went on his trip to the islands in 1999 -- which was organized and managed by Jack Abramoff, the Northern Mariana Islands government, and the garment manufacturers. And, try as he might, he just couldn't find any evidence of it:

Schaffer, who visited the Marianas in 1999 while in Congress, said allegations of forced abortions were among the things he looked into on that trip.

"I absolutely did not look the other way on this issue," Schaffer said, saying he interviewed "dozens" of workers and met with local religious leaders about the topic....

Schaffer said during his visit he tried to determine how often abortions occurred.

"In five days, I did not observe a forced abortion or meet anybody who had any knowledge of them," he said, adding that no subsequent examples were ever brought to him.

The comment from Colorado's Right to Life has sparked something of an intra-pro-life activist battle, with Colorado's Citizens for Life calling Colorado's Right to Life's criticism "simply irrational."

After a steady string of legal defeats, including conviction on all counts for bribing Duke Cunningham, Wilkes finally caught a break last month when an appeals court ruled that he could be released on bail pending his appeal of the case. Wilkes had been sent immediately to prison after his conviction because the judge simply thought Wilkes was such a crook and liar that he'd be sure to skip bail.

But it seems that Wilkes, once flush with multi-million dollar defense contracts, won't be able to seize his second chance:

A federal judge said Friday that [Wilkes] hasn't raised enough money to get out of jail while he appeals his case.

Wilkes sighed as U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns said roughly $400,000 in retirement accounts pledged by family members couldn't be used as part of his bail....

Burns said he wants to be sure the government can collect on Wilkes' bail if necessary. He said he doesn't trust that a "stubborn" Wilkes will be able to stick to bail conditions "if it's not consistent with his agenda."

It appears that Wilkes is yet another victim of the burst housing bubble: real estate pledged by himself and his family as collateral for bail was sufficient to get him free in February of 2007 when he was indicted, but dropping property values have left him well short of the needed $1.4 million.

God giveth and he taketh away. Detroit Mayor Kwame "Busted Is What You See!" Kilpatrick can attest to that:

The mayor addressed a crowd Saturday at Fellowship Chapel Church in Detroit. He and his former chief of staff face perjury and other charges stemming from their testimony during a whistle-blower trial last year.

Kilpatrick told the crowd: "I'm not being whupped by the devil; I am being punished by my God. I know that my disobedience put me in the situation I am in."

So it seems that Kilpatrick finally understands what he did to deserve