We told you yesterday about the ties between one of John McCain's top fundraisers and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Well, there's more. Looks like Juan Carlos Benitez was helping Abramoff out with efforts to lobby for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Remember that storyline? The U.S. territory's local government hired Abramoff (and Benitez as well, we've learned) to help fend of criticism of the massive sweatshop industry on the islands.

Those sweatshops were especially lucrative -- and controversial -- because they allowed big-name companies to use a "Made in the USA" tag," even though they are filled with low-paid immigrants from across Asia.

Workers from China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, were working below the local minimum wage, often seven days a week and up to 12 hours a day while living in shacks behind barbed wire and without plumbing, according to congressional testimony.

Let's look at the timeline -- we know that back in 2001 Benitez landed his big job (pdf) over at the Department of Justice with the help of a recommendation from Abramoff.

Specifically, the job Abramoff steered him into at DOJ was Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. That's the office in charge of -- guess what? -- prosecuting sweatshop owners.

"This position gave Benitez authority over enforcing provisions of ... alleged unfair employment practices, issues of importance to Abramoff clients such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands," according to a 2006 Congressional report (pdf).

In 2002, Abramoff's firm took in $600,000 in lobbying fees from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Efforts to crackdown on the sweatshops there stalled.

Benitez left the DOJ in 2003 and went to work for Cassidy and Associates, a top Washington lobbying firm. Within months -- by 2004 -- Benitez had registered to lobby for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Also in 2004, Abramoff went to work for Cassidy and Associates. But he soon left, as his name began popping up in news reports about corruption investigations.

So where did Benitez and Abramoff meet?

We're not sure, but it may have been in the late 1990s, when Abramoff was lobbying for a group called Future of Puerto Rico, Inc. which was pushing for a congressional vote on Puerto Rican statehood.

At the same time, Benitez was the legislative director for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration in Washington.

Yesterday McCain announced that Benitez has bundled between $50,000 and $100,000 for his campaign. Maybe that's not massive money for today's campaigns, but it's interesting since McCain used to be talk so much about Abramoff and corrupt lobbyists. He doesn't do that as much anymore.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all take long, leisurely European vacations with our whole extended family -- and have the $23,000 tab paid for by Russian and Eastern European business moguls?

Unfortunately, it seems that former Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) is among the only ones who actually gets to do that.

Ken Silverstein over at Harper's digs into the details of Weldon's January 2007 trip with ten family members (including his son's girlfriend and his daughter's boyfriend). They stopped in Moscow and Vienna (not cheap cities).

We're not sure the trip has anything to do with Weldon's new arms trafficking business. But there's a couple of interesting things to point out.

First, Weldon asked the notoriously lax House ethics committee for formal permission to take the trip before he went. He offered the lame explanation that the Russians and Serbs were paying for his trip because he was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and it had nothing to do with his House seat.

But when he got the sense the committee wasn't buying that argument, he "withdrew" his request for a waiver on the gift rules.

In other words: Weldon apparently didn't get the answer he wanted, so he simply ignored the committee's advice and ethics rules and went anyway, with the tab being picked up by outside sponsors.

And here's another key aspect of the trip: the Serbian family who paid for part of it was the Karic Group, run by the Karic family, which is barred from entering the U.S. due to its close ties with the warmongering Milosevic regime.

That's the same Serbian group who just a few months later hired Weldon's inexperienced 29-year-old daughter to lobby for then to the tune of $240,000 a year.

The Weldon family sure is living the American dream.

Just a day after Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) challenged the Washington Post to produce the letters he'd allegedly written on official stationary seeking cash for the academic center bearing his name, the newspaper has come through -- posting four such missives on their website.

Rangel uses his congressional letterhead and says he wants to "schedule a meeting" to talk about the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service. The letters don't explicitly state that he is seeking money.

They include:

* March 2007 letter requesting a meeting with David Rockefeller; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund donated $50,000 to CCNY

* March 2007 letter requesting meeting with Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, chairman of C.V. Starr Foundation; the foundation donated $5 million to CCNY

* March 2007 letter requesting a meeting with Donald Trump; Trump has not donated to the project

* June 2005 letter to about 100 foundation leaders seeking "a dialogue with you on the funding of the Rangel Center concept in the coming weeks and months." The letter helped generate contributions totaling more than $1.6 million from four foundations.

As we've reported , former Attorney General John Ashcroft was on the Hill yesterday, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.

Ashcroft's testimony called into question the timeline of the CIA interrogations and suggested that perhaps torture began before it was authorized by the DOJ. But it also shed some light on the DOJ's thought process about the authorization of the interrogations to begin with.

It was during Ashcroft's years as attorney general that the infamous "torture" memos were written. The memos approved the use of waterboarding and other forms of interrogation as long as they did not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure."

While Ashcroft approved the memos initially, he later withdrew them out of concern that they overstepped the bounds of executive authority, a decision that he described this way:

It wasn't a hard decision for me to - when they came to me, and I came to the conclusion that these were genuine concerns - get about the business of correcting it.

Just one week ago the committee was host to the current Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

And just like Mukasey, Ashcroft was ever the artful dodger, citing a lack of memory, executive privilege or the classified nature of the information as reasons why he could not answer lawmakers' questions.

When asked asked repeatedly about waterboarding, Ashcroft described it as "very valuable," "not torture," and claimed that it "has happened three times."

"I have been aware of waterboarding," he stated in answer to questions on how he learned that the interrogation technique was being used. "I'm not sure how I am aware."

The former attorney general conceded his lack of recall as to the events in question during his opening remarks.

"It's been difficult . . . to distinguish between what I in fact recall as a matter of my own experience, and what I remember from the accounts of others," he said.

And indeed throughout the hearing, Ashcroft informed the committee that he couldn't remember. . . and that even if he could remember, he wouldn't tell them because of executive privilege.

One particularly rapid-fire stonewalling occurred during Rep. Linda Sanchez's (D-CA) five minutes of interrogation. It really can't be summed into words, so we have the clip here. Enjoy.

Yesterday we told you how Stephen Payne -- the guy caught on video by the Times of London apparently selling access to the White House -- seemed strangely absent from the Justice Department's database for registering foreign agents.

His company, Worldwide Strategic Partners, has a brochure claiming to do lobbying work for numerous countries. But the firm shows up nowhere in the DOJ database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Payne claims that he spoke with a DOJ official who assured him that his contracts did not need to be registered.

We called DOJ to ask about that. They looked through their records and told us this:

"A preliminary search of our records indicates that the Justice Department's FARA Unit has issued no written, legal opinion to Worldwide Strategic Partners or to Mr. Payne concerning the activities of Worldwide Strategic Partners . . . We continue to search our records to determine whether or not there have ever been any verbal communications between the FARA Unit and Mr. Payne or Worldwide Strategic Partners specifically relating to the activities of Worldwide Strategic Partners."

Payne obviously has a lot of connections in Washington. But so far, if he's got a friend over at DOJ, that friend has not come forward to back him up.

Did the CIA start using torture before the DOJ authorized it in the infamous torture memos?

That's what it sounded like according to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was on the Hill yesterday testifying on interrogation techniques before the House Judiciary Committee.

It was during Ashcroft's years as attorney general that the infamous "torture" memos were written. The memos approved the use of waterboarding and other forms of interrogation as long as they did not "cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure." The first memo-- often called the Bybee memo -- was dated August 1, 2002 and was written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, who also testified before the Judiciary Committee in an earlier hearing in the series on torture.

But at least four months prior to the publication of that memo, the CIA captured al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah on March 28, 2002. Zubaydah's detention and interrogation has garnered much publicity, as it was thought to be especially brutal and involved waterboarding.

The CIA has long denied employing harsh interrogation techniques before it received authorization via the legal memos provided by the DOJ, but Ashcroft's testimony yesterday called that timeline into question, and raised the possibility that "the CIA started torturing at least one detainee before any of the memos were even written."

From Salon's War Room:

But during questioning, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., pointed out that the abuse of Zubaydah had reportedly begun weeks, if not months, earlier. "Did you offer legal approval of interrogation methods used at that time ... prior to August 2002?"

"I have no recollection of doing that at all," Ashcroft responded. He added that he did not remember anyone else at the Justice Department doing so either. He said later in the hearing that Zubaydah's interrogation "was done without the opinion that was issued on the first of August."

Video of the exchange below:

Newly revealed internal Army documents show that more deaths and injuries have been caused due to faulty electrical wiring in Iraq than previously thought. The documents show that the contractor responsible for the wiring, KBR, found a "systemic problem" in their work, contrary to the contractor's previous statements. (New York Times)

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) asked the Pentagon Thursday to release documents about the death of Pat Tillman. Waxman argued that the public and the Tillman family should be able to see documents relating to his friendly fire death. (AP)

Congress eased rules Wednesday over public disclosure of contributions and parties paid for by lobbyists. The new rules free lobbyists from filing disclosure statements by the end of the month. (Wall Street Journal)

Read more »

From the AP:

The second-in-command at the government's top whistle-blower office has quit in a dispute with his boss, whom he accused of putting "political agendas and personal vendettas" ahead of the agency's mission and independence.

James Byrne's resignation as deputy to U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch is effective Saturday. Bloch is under federal investigation, accused of destroying evidence potentially showing he retaliated against his own staff.

"Upon my departure, I am obligated to note that the mission, independence and very existence of the Office of Special Counsel are--and shall remain--at risk unless and until this agency is afforded a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed leader who is capable of putting OSC's mission and OSC's people ahead of political agendas and personal vendettas," Byrne, the deputy special counsel, wrote in a July 10 letter to Bloch that was obtained by The Associated Press.

"This agency, and the people whom we serve, deserve no less."

First Bob Schaffer says he didn't know.

Now he says he did.

Last year Colorado senate hopeful and former Representative Bob Schaffer (R) helped broker an oil deal between Aspect Energy, where he serves as vice president, and the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq -- a deal the US State Department says undermines Iraqi security and US interests.

The U.S. government didn't want people like Schaffer and Aspect Energy and others going into Iraq and cutting deals directly with the Kurds because it would undermine the federal government in Baghdad, which was still debating how to share the country's oil reserves. President Bush for years has pushed Iraqis to pass a national law permitting foreign oil companies to invest in Iraq and providing a system for distributing those revenues.

Back on July 9, Schaffer insisted that he was completely unaware that his firm's deal was at odds with U.S. foreign policy. "We didn't experience any discouragement," Schaffer said at the time.

But reporters in Colorado have been kicking the tires on Schaffer's story and last Sunday, Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, started to back away from what Schaffer said.

Wadhams, however, refused to answer questions about whether Schaffer knew or should have known that State Department officials wanted the Iraqi government to work out a national oil policy before any contracts were awarded.

Now, as these oil deals are starting to get attention on Capitol Hill, Schaffer is changing his tune too.

He's now conceding that he did know about State Department opposition but is still insisting (correctly it seems) that Iraqi law didn't specifically forbid such deal.

The Pueblo Chieftain reports:

He acknowledged that U.S. officials in Baghdad did not want U.S. oil companies doing business directly with the Kurds, but said that under the country's new federal system, such a working relationship was allowed.

So why did Schaffer change his story now?

That might have something to do with this report from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. The reporter started asking questions about Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) and found out that last year the senator asked the State Department about oil deals with the Iraqi Kurds in reference to Aspect Energy.

And on May 25th, 2007 the State Department responded to Allard in no uncertain terms ...

In that regard, we have conveyed to all parties, the Kurdish Regional Government, the central Iraqi Government, and international oil companies that signing deals before such a law is passed will complicate efforts of the parties to pass a good law. We strongly believe that having competing oil and gas investment laws will be both bad for companies and for Iraq.

Though the Allard story was published the day after Schaffer floated his new version of events, it seems likely that he may have gotten word that the story was coming.

We called Allard's office to ask whether he relayed the State Department's message to Schaffer last year. His spokesman was unsure.

"The senator communicates with former Congressman Schaffer [and others from the delegation] so much, I'm not sure of what he conversations he might have had at what time. So I don't want to be inaccurate and say he spoke with Mr. Schaffer about it at this time because I don't know," said Allard spokesman Steve Wymer.

Wymer said he'd get back to us if he hears anything else.

That answer's not surprising. Allard is retiring and, as a fellow Republican, presumably wants to see Schaffer win his seat in the Senate. If he does remember passing on the word to Schaffer, he probably isn't eager for that fact to come out.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) held a press conference today and blasted the Washington Post for their recent "foundless" article which alleged that Rangel had used official stationary to solicit funds for an academic center bearing his name from individuals with business before his committee.

Rangel denies that the recipients had business before his committee and challenged the Post "to show one line in any of the letters" that he sent "where there's a solicitation for funds."

He also demanded, and welcomed, a probe by the House ethics committee into the Post's allegations:

So to that extent. . . another potential headline is, "Rangel Insists That the Ethics Committee Investigate the Unfounded Charges," because, first of all, nobody that can read is going to bring any charges against me, including The Washington Post, which, of course, I encourage them to do it, because then they have to follow their own foundless story, and at least that gets some coverage on this in The Washington Post.

Rangel's demand for an investigation by the ethics committee follows a similar request from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington yesterday. According to Melanie Sloane, executive director for CREW, Rangel might have something to worry about.

"It's not a close call," she said to the Post. "He's clearly violated the rule against using the letterhead.

Lisa Graham Keegan, one of Sen. John McCain's top education advisers, is a forceful proponent of school vouchers and other market-based education policies.

But when it comes to managing money herself, she doesn't have a great track record.

Keegan was among four education advisers the McCain camp trotted out yesterday in a conference call with reporters to explain McCain's new education policy.

Nobody on the call asked her about her stint as CEO of the Education Leaders Council, a conservative non-profit, school-reform group that she led from 2001 to 2004.

With Keegan at the helm, the group began to prosper with money from Bush's No Child Left Behind law. The ELC raked in about $23.4 million in federal money, part of which it was later accused of mismanaging. An audit report(pdf) from the Department of Education's Inspector General ultimately recommended that the group give back about $500,000 in taxpayer dollars.

A large chunk of the earmarks and federal grants the group received were for a program to help schools with technological upgrades and getting curriculum in line with Bush's No Child Left Behind law.

Money management under Keegan became a source of tension when an internal audit in 2003 found Keegan was being paid a $235,000-a-year consulting fee and one of her aides from Arizona was paid $200,000 under a similar contract, according to an April 4, 2004 report in the Arizona Republic.

At least four board members out of 18 resigned shortly after the internal audit, according to the newspaper.

The Department of Education eventually got involved and concluded that the groups books were a mess with "weak or non-existent internal controls" that led to money spent on things not legally covered by the grant.

According to the audit (pdf):

Also, included in the questioned amounts were costs for alcoholic beverages, advertising, fundraising, and interest that are specifically unallowable under applicable cost principles.

A spokesman for McCain did not respond to a request for comment.

If this doesn't set the tone for former Attorney General John Ashcroft's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on interrogation methods at Guantanamo, I don't know what does.

In his opening statement, Ashcroft admitted that he had "limited recollection" of the events pertinent to the committee's inquiry. Specifically, "it's been difficult . . . to distinguish between what I in fact recall as a matter of my own experience, and what I remember from the accounts of others."

Before these hearings commenced, I had but a limited recollection of many of the events pertinent to your inquiry. In attempting to prepare for this hearing, I have reviewed testimony from prior hearings, I've read portions of publications recounting some of the timely events, and I must admit, it's been difficult for me sometimes to distinguish between what I in fact recall as a matter of my own experience, and what I remember from the accounts of others. As a result, what I hope, what I say will be of value to the committee. Reliance on my statements and observations aught to be tempered by these awarenesses.

For smart guys, there sure seems to be an awful lot of lack of recall in the Bush administration.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft left the Department of Justice more than three years ago, but he's still in the news and will be up on Capitol Hill this morning for testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

This morning's Washington Post takes us back to to 2003 and shows how the White House insisted on getting its own man inside the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft offered the White House a list of five candidates to lead the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel in early 2003, but top administration officials summarily rejected them in favor of installing a loyalist who would provide the legal footing needed to continue coercive interrogation techniques and broadly interpret executive power, according to two former administration officials.

In an angry phone call hours after Ashcroft's list reached the White House, President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., quickly dismissed the candidates, all Republican lawyers with impeccable credentials, the sources said. He and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that Ashcroft promote John Yoo, a onetime OLC deputy who had worked closely with Gonzales and vice presidential adviser David S. Addington to draft memos supporting a controversial warrantless wiretapping plan and detainee questioning techniques.

Ashcroft's refusal created a tense standoff and was the only time in the attorney general's tenure that Bush was called upon to resolve a personnel dispute, the sources said.

Ashcroft's testimony starts at 10 AM ET. We'll be watching and posting, so stay tuned for updates.

After perusing the Fundraising Disclosure filed by John McCain's camp yesterday, one particular name jumped out: Juan Carlos Benitez, a lobbyist, lawyer, and Jack Abramoff recommendation to a top post at the Justice Department.

Benitez was appointed as Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices in 2001, where he strongly supported former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales-- even after the firings of the eight U.S. Attorneys had been made public.

According the the disclosure, Benitez has raised raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Sen. McCain's bid for the presidency.

The White House confirmed on Wednesday that leaders of France, Germany, and Britain lobbied President Bush over the controversial U.S. Air Force aerial refueling tanker contract. The contract was initially awarded to a European firm but has since been put back into competition by Defense Secretary Gates. (McClatchy)

Ceclia M. Grimes, the former lobbyist and friend of former Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), will plead guilty to destroying records related to a federal probe of Weldon. Grimes is charged with the destruction of evidence and has a hearing scheduled for next week. (UPI)

IndyMac Bancorp is being investigated by the FBI for possible fraud. The FBI has revealed the investigation in light of the bank's collapse, but it is unknown how long the probe has been ongoing. Law enforcement says the investigation is focused on the company itself rather than the individuals who ran it. (AP)

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The White House has taken further steps to stamp out the scandal that erupted this week with the release of a video showing a Homeland Security adviser offering access to high-ranking officials in exchange for a big donation to Bush's future presidential library fund.

Talking to the New York Times, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino revealed new rules to prevent the appearance of any quid pro quo.

On Wednesday, Ms. Perino said Mr. Bush had asked that members of his foundation "do not inform him about anyone who has written a check, or decided not to write a check, until after he's no longer president."

That comes on the heels of a Bush library spokesman this week saying the library has decided not to accept foreign donations until after Bush leaves office in January. It remains unclear whether the library will disclose its donors, which is not required by law.

The library foundation, which is planned for the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is expected to cost more than $200 million, most of which will be raised from donors. The library foundation has formed a fundraising committee, but formal fundraising has not yet begun, a library spokesman said.

So far, however, no one from the White House has told us what kind of relationship Bush has with the (now-former) Homeland Security adviser and longtime Bush fundraiser who was caught on video apparently peddling a cash-for-access deal.

It looks to us like the adviser, Stephen Payne, has known the president for at least 20 years.

So far, Perino has described Payne only as "somebody who's been involved in Texas politics for a long time and been a supporter of the Republican Party."

We already know that the the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating the alleged politically motivated prosecution in the case of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D). Today, TPMmuckraker independently verified that the OPR is looking into another complaint-- this one for prosecutorial misconduct-- involving the Northern District of Alabama's U.S. Attorney's office, specifically U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.

The new OPR investigation stems from a case involving Axion Corp., which was acquitted in October 2007 of violating the Arms Export Control Act. In an interview with TPMmuckraker this morning, Henry Frohsin, an attorney for Axion Corp., confirmed that they had sent a letter of complaint against Martin to the OPR on May 9. News of the investigation was first reported by Scott Horton, at the American Lawyer, citing anonymous sources.

"We consider this a serious case of prosecutorial misconduct that impacted the rights of the defendant," Frohsin, of the Birmingham office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell and Berkowitz, told us, "and we intend to rigorously pursue this matter with authorities at the Department of Justice."

Frohsin also stated that a DOJ attorney had been assigned to look into their complaint.

Martin has been with the Northern District of Alabama U.S. Attorney's office since September, 2001 and originally prosecuted a bid-rigging case against Siegelman, which was thrown out due to lack of evidence. U.S. Attorney Leura Canary started the successful, but disputed, prosecution of Siegelman for federal corruption -- but mysteriously recused herself from the case before it culminated. Both Martin and Leura Canary have been named in the affidavit of Republican lawyer, Jill Simpson, who claimed to have overheard a conversation assuring Siegleman's downfall, that occurred between William Canary, a wealthy Republican donor and Leura's husband, and the son of Siegelman's opponent in the governor race.*

Martin's case against Axion Corp., began in 2007 when the company was charged with violating the Arms Export Control Act by exchanging drawings for a Blackhawk helicopter part to a Chinese manufacturer.

According to an article on the case in the Birmingham News, one of the prosecution's own witnesses stated that the drawings Axion sent to the Chinese were not marked "with customary warnings barring it from being sent to trading partners subject to arms control laws." And according to the defense, the Black Hawk drawings were also available over the Internet-- excluding them from arms-control provisions:

"Hang on, I have not heard about that before," trial judge Johnson said as Alex Latifi lawyer James Barger cross-examined a government witness on the trial's fifth day. "These drawings are on the Internet?"

Despite their crumbling case, the prosecution refused to withdraw. Judge Inge Johnson of the Federal District Court of Birmingham threw out the case, writing that the "evidence was insufficient to sustain a conviction."

The defense later filed a claim for compensation from the government-- called a Hyde motion. The defense argued that the Justice Department engaged in wrongful prosecution, and they were entitled to whatever money they spent fighting the prosecution.

And Judge Johnson agreed, ordering the Justice Department to pay the legal expenses incurred by Axion in defending itself from federal prosecution in April 2008.

From the Birmingham News:

Latifi, an engineer trained at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, will be able to collect about $500,000 in expenses, said his Birmingham attorney, Henry Frohsin. Latifi contends that he was selected for prosecution under arms-export laws because of his ethnic background.

And apparently the DOJ immediately started covering its tracks:

Johnson's ruling also said the government has withdrawn its request for a certification from the court endorsing the asset seizure as having had a reasonable cause. That eliminates any chances for Axion's lawyers to demand a hearing to examine the Justice Department's memos, legal papers and investigative methods, said Frohsin, a lawyer with the Birmingham office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.

[Late Update]: This post has been changed from its original form to reflect the accurate roles of Alice Martin and Leura Canary in the prosecution of Don Siegelman.

Stephen Payne, the Bush supporter caught on tape offering access for cash, claims his firm has done a lot of work for foreign governments and politicians, but neither he nor his firm show up much in the DOJ database that tracks registered foreign agents.

For example, one of the firm's brochures claims they did extensive work for Azerbaijan, including:

Arranged for the President of Azerbaijan to visit the U.S. and meet with President Bush -- a task the Azeri Government had been trying to do over the past three years

Arranged a private phone call between the Vice President of the United States and the President of Azerbaijan, prior to the Azeri Elections in November 2005

That sounds a lot like working for a foreign agent. The brochure also maintains that the firm did work for Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and an Uzbek opposition leader -- and alleged terrorist -- called Muhammad Salih.

Yet the only place Payne or Worldwide Strategies shows up in the DOJ database is for some work that Payne did for Pakistan a few years ago under the name of a firm called Team Eagle, also known as Team Barakat, according to the database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Payne told UPI that he spoke with the Department of Justice about this work and a DOJ official assured him that he did not have to register, in part because they were "commercial" contracts.

"I believe that we are in compliance with FARA regulations," Payne wrote in his e-mail to UPI. "We did not need to FARA register as the basis for our work was commercial projects in these countries. We checked with the Department of Justice's FARA division and were informed that we did not need to register for these commercial projects."

Officials over at DOJ read that this morning, too, and they're not entirely sure what Payne's talking about.

"We have seen the media reports about Mr. Payne's assertion and, at this time, we are attempting to determine whether or not they are accurate," DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd told TPMmuckraker.

Maybe the investigation into Payne will help explain what that's all about.

First we heard about how Texas-based Hunt Oil might have gotten a behind-the-scenes thumbs up to forge an oil deal with the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq.

We say behind-the-scenes because officially the White House and State Department opposed all oil deals with the Kurds until the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad reached a deal on oil-revenue sharing. (which they haven't yet)

Last week we told you about how Bob Schaffer, the Republican candidate for Senate from Colorado, helped forge a deal between Aspect Energy, where he worked, and the Kurds at about the same time last fall.

Now several lawmakers want the State Department's Inspector General to investigate the matter.

From the AP:

Any behind-the-scenes meddling would have violated administration policy, which was to discourage the business dealings until Baghdad passed a law that would fairly divide the nation's oil resources among the various provinces. The hydrocarbon law is widely seen as necessary to prevent sectarian tensions once Iraq boosts its oil production.

"We are concerned that U.S. policy regarding these oil contracts has not been clearly defined, communicated, or consistently implemented by the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan Regional Government and international oil companies seeking to do business in Iraq," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Harold Geisel, the State Department's acting inspector general.

The letter was signed by [Sen. Carl Levin] Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

Late Update: Read more for the text of the entire letter.

Read more »

We've seen a lot of assertions of executive privilege in the last few months-- from Karl Rove to Stephen Johnson -- but now Attorney General Michael Mukasey has claimed executive privilege on behalf of President Bush.

Mukasey's letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) last night, pre-empted a vote this morning on contempt of Congress stemming from the White House's refusal to release FBI documents relating to the Valerie Plame leak scandal. The documents were subpoenaed by Committee on June 16.

From the Mukasey's letter to Bush:

I am greatly concerned about the chilling effect that compliance with the Committee's subpoena would have on future White House deliberations and White House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations.

Hmmm. Where have we heard that before?

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) hasn't been having the best week. The House Ways and Means Committee Chairman relinquished his rent-controlled campaign office yesterday, after intense scrutiny in the wake of a New York Times article that exposed his holding of four rent-controlled apartments. And today, the congressman is facing the possibility of a House ethics probe after a Washington Post piece published yesterday, revealed he's been soliciting donations from corporations with business interests in front of his committee for an academic center that bears his name.

Known to Republican critics as the "Monument to Me," the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York, caused controversy when Rangel gave it a $1.9 million earmark last year to start it.

Now, in an effort to raise more cash for the center, Rangel has been writing fundraising letters on his official House stationary to business leaders like Donald Trump and Hank Greenberg, former head of AIG, an current CEO of C.V. Starr & Co. If accurate, Rangel's fundraising letters violate a House rule that specifically bans the endorsement implied by the use of congressional stationary.

Rangel has raised $12 million for the project according to college officials interviewed by the Post. And not all of that has come from private donors:

The congressman has corralled more federal money as well, securing two Department of Housing and Urban Development grants totaling $690,500 to help renovate the college-owned Harlem brownstone that will house the center, according to HUD and school officials.

In response to Rangel's private fundraising, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the House minority leader have separately requested a probe from the House ethics committee. According to Melanie Sloane, executive director for CREW, Rangel's actions are obviously unethical:

"It's not a close call," she said. "He's clearly violated the rule against using the letterhead."

Salim Hamdan, one of the most famous detainees at Guantanamo Bay, gave testimony yesterday at his trial about his life at the prison. He told his disturbing account as his defense lawyers claimed he must be moved for the facility in order to focus on his trial. (New York Times)

The House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on one of Rep. Dennis Kuchinich's (D-OH) articles of impeachment. But Democrats said the hearing would not lead to a vote on impeachment but is instead only an "election year review" of President Bush's reasoning to take the country to war in Iraq. (AP)

A new report shows that Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, gave special deals on loans to people other than just senators and star athletes. This "Friends of Angelo" group also featured, among others, a California state appeals court judge, who just happened to toss out a case against Countrywide in August of 2004. (Portfolio)

Read more »

Globetrotter Stephen Payne has left his post as a Department of Homeland Security adviser.

The Department told him told him he could no longer serve on its top advisory committee. Publicly, the department didn't say why, according to UPI:

"The department asked him to step down" from his post on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, [Department spokeswoman Laura] Keehner said, declining to comment on the reasons.

Payne was appointed to the committee last year, where he served along with government officials, academics and others from the private sector.

Certainly his ouster had something to do with the video of Payne apparently offering to help a Kazakh politician arrange high-level meetings with Bush administration officials in exchange or large donations to the Bush presidential library fund.

But there's also Payne's apparent claim that he "transformed" an Uzbeck man named Mohammad Salih from an "accused terrorist" to a "U.S. ally."

In a brochure from Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners, the group claims that its work on behalf of Salih included:

-- Worked with the White House and the Department of State and Justice to facilitate the removal of Mr. Salih's name from the terrorist watch list and the waving of the Interpol Warrant for his arrest

-- Worked with the White House, Department of State, Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and key Congressional Leaders -- to provide Mr. Salih with a U.S. Visa.

We can see why that's not really the kind of guy Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff would want advising him.

If a meeting with the vice president in Washington might cost about $600,000, getting the vice president to actually go visit a far-flung central Asian country might run you up to $2 million.

That's the suggestion buried in the string of emails we received today from Homeland Security adviser Stephen Payne.

Payne was caught on tape by the Times of London offering to set up meetings with high-level Bush administration officials in exchange for large payments to the future Bush library fund. In that video and the emails we obtained, Payne was talking with a Kazakh politician known as Eric Dos, whose real name is Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov.

In the emails and the video, Dos claims that back in 2006, the Kazakh government paid Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners, $2 million with the understanding that he would secure a visit from the vice president.

Cheney visited the country's capital in May 2006 and had dinner with the president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. The visit was part of a broader effort to cozy up to central Asian countries and keep them independent from Moscow. They are also considering a pipeline that would allow European markets to access central Asian oil and natural gas.

While there, Cheney heartily endorsed the government, despite a spotty human rights record and questions about the legitimacy of the 2005 elections there.

Dos makes reference to the payment and the trip while talking about the logistics of transferring money.

[Note: The emails quoted here were lifted directly from the document provided by Payne and contain a lot of spelling errors.]

I am also telling them that transfer can do well. It did work when you successfully brought VP Cheaney to Kazakhstan in 2006. Corect me if I said wrong, last time the Kazakh govt through KMG or whatever entity transferred directly to Worldwide Strategic and then some of it was transferred to Bush's people? Was it to the Bush Sr library or foundation? or what? or did your company just pass it on to Cheaney's people?

It's not clear what KMG is referring to here, although there is a large oil and gas firm in Kazakistan called Kazmunaigas, which goes by the acronym KMG

A brochure from Payne's firm says Payne accompanied Cheney on the vice president's 2006 trip to Kazakhstan. A spokesman for Vice President Cheney's office did not respond to a request for comment.

In the email Payne provided us, Payne was emphatic that he had no idea what Dos was talking about.

Let me be clear on these issues you just raised -- "Cheney's people" were not paid anything as a result of his visit to KZ -- he came to KZ because he wanted to -- no other reason...I personally, as you know, have given and raised over a million for the Republican party over the past several years -- but these donations are never tied to any specific request or Govt. action.

Payne apparently wanted to talk directly and ended his email with: "we need to visit by phone asap -- what number should I call you on?"

Doug Feith was on the Hill today to testify about the interrogation techniques in Guantanamo. Joining him before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties was his nemesis, Philippe Sands, who goes back a ways with Feith.

As Spencer Ackerman blogs at the Washington Independent, Feith started off the hearing denying the statements made in Sand's book, and then got right down to alleging that the Guantanamo interrogators were rogue agents:

After going back and forth with Feith--in which Feith conceded there were indeed abuses in Defense Dept. detention and interrogation operations-- Rep. Bobby Scott (D.-Va) asked why the abusers might think they could torture detainees. "I don't believe they necessarily did think they did" had authority to torture, Feith said. "Some people do bad things."

[Late Update]: According to Ackerman, Feith also spent a fair amount of time, detailing the "great care" given to the interpretation of the 2002 memo written by Jim Haynes:

"I imagine one could apply these things in an inhumane fashion," Feith replied. "'Removal of clothing' is different from 'naked.' ... It could be done in a humane way. . . They could be used in a way that could violate the [Geneva] Convention," he explained, "they could be used in a way consistent with the Convention."

Cecelia Grimes, the lobbyist and "very good friend" of former Rep. Curt Weldon, has been charged with destroying evidence relating to the federal investigation of the former Pennsylvania congressman.

According to the court documents filed today, Grimes "placed her Blackberry device in a trash can near an Arby's restaurant in Southeastern Pennsylvania. . . for the purpose of keeping the FBI from reviewing certain of her emails."

But apparently Grimes creative disposal of evidence only extended to fast-food restaurants.

She also tossed the grand-jury subpoenas, Amtrak receipts, American airline boarding passes, and fourteen RSVP cards for a dinner honoring Weldon, which call for responses to be sent to Grimes. The FBI "surreptitiously retrieved" the garbage bags containing the documents from the trash cans next to Grimes' house.

[Late Update]: In October, 2006, it was revealed that Weldon was under federal investigation for his alleged nepotism activities, notably his lucrative arrangements for his daughter. He lost re-election that November, and has since been working as a Chief Strategic Officer for Defense Solutions-- an organization that has also come under media scrutiny for its shady arms deals.

Cecelia Grimes has been tied to Curt Weldon's investigation before. Back in 2004, Ken Silverstein reported that Curt's family had an uncanny ability to get hired by large defense companies.

In January 2006, Silverstein reported that Weldon's ties also seemed to extend to more than just family-- also helping, his close friend Cecelia Grimes. Grimes was realtor turned lobbyist at Grimes and Young, a small lobbyist firm comprised of only herself and Cynthia Young. Curiously, Young is the daughter-in-law of Rep. Bill Young (R-FL).

According to Silverstein's piece, Grimes was retained by Oto Melara, a subsidary of an Italian defense firm with a $20,000 annual retainer. Weldon had previously championed the causes of Finmeccanica, Oto Merelara's parent company, in legislation before the House Armed Services Committee, on which he used to be vice-chair.

The Homeland Security adviser accused of selling access to the White House provided TPMmuckraker with a string of emails that he says prove he did nothing wrong.

Stephen Payne says he never meant to suggest that meetings with high-level Bush administration officials were contingent on big contributions to the future Bush library fund.

He says the Times of London tried to "entrap me into alleging that an illegal relationship could be established."

He says these five pages of emails show how the Kazakh politician he met with was trying to pressure him into an illegal arrangement.

Payne starts out with the July 1 email he received from a man known as Eric Dos, a Kazakh politician whom Payne said he first met on a pipeline project in 2005.

Dos wrote in the email that he wanted to arrange high-level Washington meetings for the former president of Kyrgystan, Asker Akayev, who now lives in Moscow.

[Note: The emails quoted here were lifted directly from the document provided by Payne and contain a lot of spelling errors.]

...I told him [Akayev] that these services were not free. He was very keen to rebuild his good standing with the White House. Would you be willing to consider taking up his case while GWB is still in the White House. It would be helpful if you could indicate how much this would cost for him? Would it be possible to arrange a meeting with Dr Rice or even GWB when Prof Akayev travels toWashington DC. Could you please indicate if thsi is possile at all and what would the reciprocal amount of donation to the Republican Party or any other institutions affiliated with the Bushs or the Republican party?

Payne did not provide TPMmuckraker with the email he sent in response. Instead, he wrote: "NOTE: I deleted my response e-mail back saying I'd meet w/him."

Payne met with the the Kazakh politician at a hotel in London a few days later, which was caught on video by a reporter for the Times of London.

After the meeting, Payne said he followed up with an email on July 8 under the subject line: "Nice to see you!!"

"...Let's not do the Bush library contribution yet -- we need to lay some groundwork evern before we do that...let's set the total budget for 2008 (including the 250 library contribution) at 700.."

The next day, Dos pressed the idea of giving money to the library.

Money can be tomorrow. They can give the Bush donation in cash as I told them that the Bush library still to be created. Do you want me to bring cash to London to simplify things? Regs, Eric

Payne apparently tried to clarify that the he was planning a contribution to be made publically.

The 450 out of 700 we discussed is for my firm to help Pres. Akayev re-estabilish his standing in Washington and let the truth come out as to which President of Kyrgistan is really a friend to the USA -- that 450 is for public relations and for our consulting efforts -- if I choose to make some political donations it will be my personal decision ... for me to accept the 250 and pass it directly to the library is legal but it would be done publically in Akayev's name..

You can see the statement Payne gave us here and the full string of emails here. TPMmuckraker has no way of authenticating them and we have no way to know how many other emails the two men may have exchanged.

Payne declined our request for a telephone interview and has not responded to our written questions.

It was just one month after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

U.S. forces were poised to invade Afghanistan in just a few weeks.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan was getting a lot of pressure from the White House to cooperate with the newly declared War on Terror. And he wanted a few favors in return.

Who did the Musharraf government turn to to help navigate relations with the U.S.?

A few Houston-based Republicans, including Stephen Payne, who was recently caught on video telling a politician from Kazakistan he could arrange meetings with high-ranking Bush administrations officials in exchange for a large donation to Bush's presidential library fund.

Payne was one of several Bush supporters who made up a firm known as Team Eagle, which signed a $180,000-a-year contract with the Pakistani government on Oct. 13, 2001, according to a government database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The firm was also known as Team Barakat, according to FARA documents.

Payne was partners in the firm with Gary Polland, the head of the Harris County Republican Party, according to a January 14, 2002, report in the Houston Chronicle, which we found in the Nexis database.

Polland was widely celebrated as the man who empowered the Houston-area party machine in the 1990s.

A third partner was Houston lawyer Brian Ettinger, former aide to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE), according to the Chronicle report. (Ettinger may have worked for a Democrat, but he's given more than $20,000 to Republican political campaigns and PACs since 2002, FEC reports show)

Payne, Polland and Ettinger did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

You might remember that just before September 11, 2001, our relations with Pakistan were very rocky. The U.S. State Department had strongly condemned Pakistan for testing a nuclear bomb in 1998. And we denounced Musharaff as an undemocratic dictator after he staged a coup in 1999 and ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Specifically, the U.S. had imposed a range of economic sanctions on Pakistan.

But all that came into question after the Bush administration decided it wanted Musharraf to let the U.S. run massive military supplies through his county as we sought to overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

It was those economic sanctions that the Pakistani government wanted some help with from the Houston firm.

According to the contract signed in October 2001, the Pakistanis wanted:

"Meetings with Administration officials and members of congress and/or staff and share with Pakistan the U.S. attitudes and desires regarding the bilateral relationship with Pakistan and assist in bringing U.S. interests together. The policies in issue are:

(1) In ending U.S. sanctions against Pakistan.

(2) In providing economic assistant on Pakistan's external debt and related trade issues.

Payne's current firm, Worldwide Strategies, has a brochure that rattles off a list of major accomplishments it achieved for Pakistan in a brochure originally obtained by the Times of London:

Helped Pakistan negotiate a 5-year, $3 billion dollar aid package from the United States .

Coordinated the removal of economic and military sanctions imposed on Pakistan under the Clinton Administration
`
Secured Pakistan the prestigious 'Major Non-NATO Ally Status" including: Japan, Australia, Israel, Egypt

And this might be the most interesting accomplishment Payne's firm claims:

After intensive coordinated efforts, Pakistan was finally able to purchase f-16 fighter jets (previously canceled under the Clinton Administration) and secured the delivery of C-130 transport aircrafts, helicopters and night-vision equipment from the U.S. to fulfill Pakistani military requirements."

Worldwide Strategies also quotes a letter from Musharraf to Payne:

... It gives me great pleasure to thank you for playing such an important role in strengthening US Pakistan ties . . . The challenges faced by both our countries in the aftermath of September 11th, brought us even closer, in which you played a pivotal role . . .

-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
Letter to Stephen Payne, Dated January 21, 2006 . . .

It was the reporter's fault.

That's pretty much what Homeland Security adviser and Houston businessman Stephen Payne said.

Payne claims he never meant to suggest -- as a video from the Times of London suggests -- that he could arrange meetings with high-level Bush Administration officials in exchange for a large contribution to the Bush presidential library fund.

He told the Houston Chronicle:

"I was not there to raise money for the library, I have no interest in the library. I was there to get a client," Payne said.

Payne met in a swanky London hotel with a man known as Eric Dos, a Kazakh politician Payne said he first met on a pipeline project in 2005. Payne did not know the other man was a reporter or that he was being videotaped.

Payne says the two men asked him leading questions.

"After we completed that hourlong conversation, they kept wanting to come back to making a donation to the library. I made it clear on multiple occasions that the library wasn't taking any money yet, and that foreign contributions may or may not be accepted."

Payne told the Dallas Morning News that the paper edited out his remarks that would absolve him of suspicion.

"Over the course of an hourlong conversation in a social setting, isolated comments can be taken out of context," he said in the statement. Mr. Payne accused the paper of "manufacturing" the news and making him the victim of a "confidence game."

A spokesman for the Bush library foundation said rules are in place to prevent the solicitation described by Payne.

In Austin, a spokesman for the Bush library foundation said no money will be accepted from foreign sources while Mr. Bush is still in office.

"It's safe to say the things that are alleged in this story would never be encouraged or allowed," foundation spokesman Dan Bartlett said.

Have no fear, Brent Wilkes! Your secret benefactor is here!

Wilkes, the defense contractor convicted of bribing Duke Cunningham, has been sitting in federal custody unable to meet his $1.4 million bail pending appeal of his case. But now, an anonymous donor has emerged, agreeing to provide "Wilkes's shortfall" in making bail-- but only on the condition that his identity is kept a secret.

From the North County Times:

"Mr. Wilkes' third party surety seeks to keep his identifying information, including his full name, confidential," Wilkes' attorney, Robert Rexrode, wrote in a motion filed Friday. "Revealing this would both be damaging to his livelihood and would reveal his net worth. ..."

Under the deal proposed by Wilkes through his attorney, even though the man's name would be kept from the public, federal prosecutors could be privy to it.

As we previously reported, Wilkes is now broke-- a long fall from the multi-million defense contracts he once held. He and his family have tried to put their homes up for collateral, but falling housing prices have made them worth less than the $1.4 million needed for bail.

Doug Feith is set to testify before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties today at 10 AM ET, to discuss interrogation techniques used on detainees. Feith has a history of not showing up for this Committee, so we'll see how it goes this time around.

Phillipe Sands, author of "Torture Team," reported in a recent Vanity Fair article that Feith boasted to him that he was a "real player" in the Guantanamo interrogation policy. Feith later defended himself, saying he'd been misquoted-- but Sands countered with the tapes from the interview. Sands will also be before the committee to testify.

We'll be covering the hearing as it happens, so stay tuned for updates.

Tanya Hollander, a woman accused of being a booking agent for the prostitution ring that former governor Eliot Spitzer was involved with, is planning on pleading guilty in a hearing on August 25. Hollander was one of four people accused of running the Emperors Club VIP and she is the only one not to already make a guilty plea. (Reuters)

The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center is calling for an investigation into the death of a 23 year old man who was held at an immigration detention center in South Florida. Valery Joseph, who died in June, was detained after a robbery, despite having lived in the country for most of his life. (New York Times)

Karl Rove defended himself Monday against accusations from the House Judiciary Committee that he had unfairly used a claim of executive privilege. Rove upheld his decision not to testify over possible political prosecution, saying that he has offered to speak with individual members of Congress. (AP)

Read more »

Ron Fournier, the Washington Bureau Chief of the AP, issued a statement late last night to his media company explaining his correspondence with Karl Rove in a 2004 e-mail excerpted in the House Oversight Committee's report on the death of Pat Tillman:

"I was an AP political reporter at the time of the 2004 e-mail exchange, and was interacting with a source, a top aide to the president, in the course of following an important and compelling story. I regret the breezy nature of the correspondence."

Fournier's told Rove to "keep up the fight," in an email exchange discussing the death of Pat Tillman and the quality of American soldiers.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) plans to investigate reports that a Homeland Security adviser was soliciting donations to the Bush presidential library fund in exchange for access to high-ranking government officials.

Waxman sent a letter to Stephen Payne's Houston office requesting written responses to a series of questions:

1. What is your affiliation with George W. Bush Presidential Library? Have you been authorized or asked to solicit funds for the library?

2. Have you ever solicited funds for the library from any individuals, governments, companies, or organizations?

3. If you have ever solicited funds for the library, please describe each solicitation, including the persons or organizations solicited and amounts requested and received, and describe whether you arranged or attempted to arrange any meetings for such persons or organizations with U.S. government officials.

Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security officials are also investigating Payne, who was appointed last year to sit on the department's main advisory board.

"This is a horribly unfortunate story," said Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner. "We are looking into the facts." She declined to comment further.

Waxman asked that Payne provide his responses to the committee by July 23.

Read more for the full text of the Waxman's letter.

Read more »

It looks like George W. Bush has known Stephen Payne pretty well for a long time.

The White House today tried to distance Bush from a former lobbyist who was caught on tape by the Times of London offering to arrange meetings with high-level U.S. officials in exchange for large payments to the future Bush presidential library fund.

But the president and the Houston-based consultant have known each other for at least 20 years.

Payne was George W. Bush's personal travel aide during the senior Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, according to an out-dated version of Payne's firm's Web site.

More recently, he's been running a firm called Worldwide Strategic Partners (pdf), which bills itself as an "International Relations and Energy Development" consulting firm.

A photo of Payne with Afghan President Hamid Karzai is featured in one of his firm's powerpoint slides.

Payne has helped Bush and Cheney when they visit the Middle East. He joined the president at the Red Sea Summit in Jordan in June 2003, serving as a "Senior Presidential Advance Representative," according to his firm's own description.

With the vice president, Payne has traveled to the Middle East in 2002 and 2005, to Korea in 2004, Kazakhstan in 2006, and Afghanistan for the inauguration of Afghan President Karzai.

Payne's firm says he's been a "governmental affairs consultant" representing Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Morgan Stanley, SAP Software, & Continental Airlines. He's also worked for Yukos Oil, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Payne registered a few lobbying contracts back in 2001 and 2002 for companies including SAP America and United Space Alliance.

Payne also appears to have deep ties with the Texas GOP fundraising machine.

In 2000, Payne was listed among Bush's "Pioneers," the list of campaign bundlers who helped raise more than $100,000 for the president's first bid for the White House.

As the 2004 campaign geared up, Payne was among some 350 bundlers invited to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas for a barbecue, billed as a "donor maintenance event," according to the Houston Chronicle at the time.

In the 1990s, Payne served as a fundraiser and staffer for Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison (R-TX). He served as "vice chair" of her two most recent campaigns.

Recently, he was appointed by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff to serve on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, where he sits on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee.

Buried in the 50-page report on Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch released today by the House Oversight Committee, is a priceless quote from none other than the new head of the AP's Washington Bureau, Ron Fournier.

Straight from page 21 of the report:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

Fournier did not immediately return calls for comment.

[Special thanks to TPM Reader DD for the tip.]

How much does it cost to get a meeting with top Bush administration officials?

According to one lobbyist, maybe about $600,000. And you can make that check out to the future George W. Bush presidential library fund.

The Times of London has a video of a Homeland Security adviser and Houston-based lobbyist telling a Kazakh man that he could arrange a meeting with high-level administration officials in exchange for a big donation to the future Bush Library.

In the video, Stephen Payne tells "Eric Dos," a politician from central Asia whose full name is Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov, that he can help arrange meetings with top Bush officials for Askar Akayev, the former president of Kyrgyzstan, who is now in exile in Moscow.

"The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library," Payne said in the video. "I think that the family, children, whatever [of Akayev], should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library."

An undercover reporter sits at a table with the Kazakh politician and asks Payne who the meeting might involve.

"Cheney's possible, definitely the national security adviser [Stephen Hadley], definitely either Dr Rice or . . . I think a meeting with Dr Rice or the deputy secretary [John Negroponte] is possible . . .

"The main thing is that he [the Asian politician] comes, and he's well received, that he meets with high-level people . . . and we send positive statements made back from the administration about 'This guy wasn't such a bad guy, many people have done worse'."

Unlike campaigns, presidential libraries do not have to disclose their donors.

Last year Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff appointed Payne to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, which is made up of government officials, academics and others from the private sector.

Today, when reporters in Washington asked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino about Payne, she distanced the president from him, saying that "the President has probably met him on a number of occasions," but Payne has never worked at the White House.

The House Oversight Committee released its proposed report (pdf) on the investigation this afternoon, on the death of Corporal Patrick Tillman and the capture of Private Jessica Lynch.

Unfortunately the report says that the Committee was unable to resolve "the key issue of what senior officials knew" because of the "universal" memory loss suffered by Tillman's chain of command upon testifying before Congress:

Despite receiving information from all the top military leaders in Corporal Tillman chain of command -- including Secretary Rumsfeld, General Myers, and General Abizaid -- the Committee could not determine if any of the officials had communicated with President Bush or White House officials about fratricide in Corporal Tillman's case. The lack of recollection also prevented the Committee from understanding how information about Corporal Tillman was handled within the Defense Department and how the Defense Department and the White House shared information on this matter.

As we've previously reported, the White House was very interested in the initial reports of Tillman's death. In fact, the report details that White House exchanging almost 200 e-mails relating to Pat Tillman on April 23, 2004, during the first reports of Tillman's death. But once the death was suspected to be caused by friendly fire, there was no further discussion of Tillman at the White House, according to the report.

So what did all of the silence convey to Oversight?

If the testimony the Committee received is accurate and if the documents submitted are complete, then the intense interest that initially characterized the White House's and Defense Department's reaction to Corporal Tillman's death was followed by a stunning lack of curiosity about emerging reports of fratricide and an incomprehensible carelessness and incompetence in handling this sensitive information.

Rep. William Jefferson is is already facing his own federal corruption case.

And one of his little sisters has one, too.

Now we've learned that the two of them are unindicted conspirators in a completely separate federal investigation down in New Orleans.

The target of that case is one of Jefferson's political rivals and a challenger from his 2006 reelection bid, Louisiana state Sen. Derrick Shepherd.

Shepard is accused of fabricating records at his law firm to receive illegal payments that helped him pay off his campaign debt. He faces five criminal charges, including mail fraud, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

When that indictment was handed up in April, it made reference to "Public Official A" and "Public Official B," which the Times-Picayune now says are Jefferson and his sister, Orleans Parish Assessor Betty Jefferson.

After Shepard dropped out of the race in 2006, Jefferson steered him toward a bond broker and convicted felon named Gwen Moyo, who arranged to give Shepard about $65,000 out of her account that was frozen by state officials, the indictment says.

Shepard allegedly used some of the money to pay off his campaign debt.

Shepard claims the payments were just bills for legitimate legal services he provided for Moyo.

Jefferson's sister was also accused of accepting wire payments totaling about $320,000 from Moyo.

We talked to a lot of people in the direct-mail fundraising business last week, trying to get a sense of how BMW Direct's business compares to others in the same field.

We've told you about how the conservative Washington political firm has a pattern of raising tons of money for longshot candidates, but spending most of that money on the direct mail campaign itself. Not much money gets back to the candidates. A lot of it goes to vendors that -- whaddya know? -- are run by people tied into BMW Direct.

When we asked BMW Direct to explain how millions could be eaten up in fees, the company emphasized that they front all the money in the first place.

"That's the risk we take every time we take on a client," said Jordan Gehrke, the firm's director of development. "If we bill a client a flat creative fee (because that's the only thing BMW makes money on, not printing, not postage, no percentages) and not enough money comes back to cover the costs of the package, then the client doesn't pay us."

That sort of no-money-down deal with candidates is unusual, according to others in the business.

"Most of the fundraising firms require the candidate or the campaign to put the money up front for the printing, postage, etc.," said Jeff Zenk, owner of Chinook Consulting, a Seattle-based political firm that does direct mail.

"And that is a huge risk to take -- especially when you are dealing with an unknown commodity," Zenk said.

That risk not may be as big for this particular firm. BMW Direct comes to the table with a proven track record -- and time-tested donor lists -- that show it can raise money for long-shot candidates by going to reliable GOP donors with nationwide mailings.

One candidate, Brian Chavez-Ochoa, a little-known Republican who tried to take on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in 2006, was encouraged to get into the race by BMW Direct. Chaves-Ochoa ultimately dropped out of the race months before the election.

BMW Direct had tallied up its fees and Chavez-Ochoa's final FEC reports show he was about $13,000 in debt to BMW Direct and other mail service firms. But he told us in a recent interview that they've never seriously asked him to pay it back.

To be sure, the process of raising all that money is good for BMW Direct's affiliates.

Take, for example, Scott Mackenzie, the firm's "Client Accounting / FEC Compliance" official. He works in BMW Direct's office building in downtown Washington and shares a receptionist with the firm. And he serves as the treasurer for a handful of campaigns that work with BMW Direct.

Mackenzie has in the past two election cycles served as the designated treasurer for candidates and PACs including:

-- Deborah Travis Honeycutt of Georgia
-- Duane Sand of North Dakota
-- Russell Williams of Pennsylcania
-- Alexandria Coronado of California,
-- Bill Spadea of New Jersey,
-- Brian Chavez-Ochoa of California,
-- Charles Morse of Massachusetts
-- Black Republican PAC
-- The Madison Project

We asked Mackenzie whether he thought there was any conflict of interest in overseeing campaign accounts that cut checks to his colleagues here in Washington.

"I don't work for BMW. I work with BMW. Because that is a company that's involved in raising money for these campaigns," Mackenzie said.

"I have a close working relationship with them, but I'm not part of this company," he said in a telephone interview.

Well, it's easy to get confused about that, since the BMW Direct Web site lists him on the "Our Staff" page.

But, in fact, Mackenzie bills himself out as Mackenzie and Company, listed on FEC documents as "consulting -- compliance."

BMW Clients have paid Mackenzie and Company more than $80,000 so far this election cycle. And a whopping $43,620 came from the campaign of Deborah Travis Honeycutt, a little-known Republican from Georgia running in a Democratic stronghold in suburban Atlanta.

Mackenzie has been handling political money for a long time. He worked for Ronald Reagan's campaigns in the 1980s and later worked on Jack Kemp's 1988 bid for the GOP presidential nomination. He later signed on with Pat Buchanan in 1992 and served as Buchanan's campaign treasurer in 1996.

According to a 1996 New York Times story, Mackenzie and Buchanan's sister, Bay Buchanan, set up a company in Virginia that the campaign used to buy advertising. The company, WTS Inc., received $1.46 million from the campaign during the 1996 election cycle.

Buchanan was known as a master of direct-mail fundraising campaigns.

There are only two elected officials left standing in the musical chairs among those publicly tied to the state's massive political corruption scandal: current U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R) and his son, former State Sen. Ben Stevens (R).

The indictment of Alaska State Sen. John Cowdery (R) last Thursday, means all of the state legislators whose offices were raided in August of 2006 (except Stevens) -- Cowdery, Vic Kohring (R), Bruce Weyhrauch (R), Pete Kott (R) and Don Olson (D) -- are now either cooperating with federal investigations, convicted or indicted. The FBI warrant allowing the search named former VECO executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith.

Allen and Smith were indicted and pleaded guilty. Their testimony at the trials of Kott, Kohring and Weyhrauch helped convict the three indicted state representatives. While Kott and Weyhrauch's convictions are pending appeal, Kohring recently began his 3.5 year prison sentence. Cowdery's recent indictment on two counts of bribery and conspiracy named an anonymous "Senator A" who was later revealed by Cowdery's lawyer as Olson. Olson followed with a statement that he has been cooperating with the U.S. attorney's office for over a year, and is unlikely to be indicted.

That leaves just the Stevens boys without a fall out. Both are under federal investigation for their ties to VECO, but the investigation of Uncle Ted also stretches to his suspicious pet projects.

As one juror at Kohring's trial observed after his conviction, "they didn't get the sharks. They got the minnow." Cowdery appears to be the last of the "minnows," but does that mean federal prosecutors will be going after bigger game in the near future?

And don't forget the other big fish: Seemingly more tenuous, but still present is the ongoing federal investigation into U.S. Rep. Don Young (R), for his own ties to VECO.

Federal prosecutors in Miami took the unusual step of summoning the U.S. Ambassador to Albania to testify before a grand jury in the ongoing probe of arms dealer AEY Inc. and its 22-year-old president.

The Los Angeles Times landed an extensive interview with Ambassador John Withers II and wrote up a interesting story this morning, giving Withers an opportunity to deny allegations of any State Department cover-up in the case of Efraim Diveroli.

The story doesn't make clear what the grand jury in Miami is hearing testimony about, since Diveroli and three others were already indicted on June 20.

And while Withers tells the Times how cooperative he's been with the investigation, a source on Capitol Hill tells TPMmuckraker that State has not yet delivered documents that the oversight committee requested by June 30 or made officials available for interviews by the committee's July 11 deadline.

It's been a few weeks since Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and the oversight committee unveiled a stack of documents suggesting that Withers and others of knew about and helped cover up concerns that AEY's shipment of Chinese ammo may have violated U.S. law.

The Times story boils down to the ambassador's aggressive defense against the extraordinary allegations.

Important questions about Waxman's allegations emerged last week as Withers spoke out for the first time in interviews with The Times, denying any embassy involvement in a cover-up and insisting officials there worked closely with investigators to secure evidence for the prosecution.

Withers' version has been supported by at least four other U.S. officials. In addition, a criminal investigator working on the case credited embassy staff with providing "outstanding support" to the criminal inquiry, according to a Nov. 28, 2007, Defense Department e-mail that was reviewed by The Times.

"Far from covering this up, we were helpful to this investigation, and proud of it," said Withers, a 24-year Foreign Service veteran. Withers has been given permission by State Department officials to speak publicly providing he does so as an individual and not as a representative of the U.S. government or the State Department.

It's not clear what "investigation" Withers was referring to cooperating with. U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement officials have said they began an investigation into AEY Inc. in 2005, but other law enforcement and military officials have also conducted investigations.

The State Department's inspector general launched an investigation into the matter after Waxman publicized the allegations of a cover up.

According to Withers' account to the Times, the ambassador agreed to a late-night meeting with the Albanian defense minister in November because he feared the minister may have had information related to terrorism.

When the minister, Fatmir Mediu, arrived, he started talking about how a reporter from the New York Times was asking questions about Chinese-made ammunition and corruption in the Albanian Ministry of Defense.

Mediu begged Withers to help prevent a potentially damaging story. Withers said that Mediu, in an emotional state, had "outlandish" suggestions such as blocking the reporter's access and repackaging the munitions to hide their Chinese origin.

Withers said that he and the other U.S. officials present gave no sign that they approved of his ideas, suggesting only that Mediu prepare a rebuttal to the article once it appeared.

A U.S. Army major working at the embassy in Tirana gave a conflicting account of that meeting to Waxman's committee and his own military bosses.

Today's story also throws out an oddly sourced suggestion that Army Major Larry Harrision may have recanted his allegations.

Withers and other U.S. officials said Harrison had since denied in private conversations that he intended to accuse Withers of wrongdoing, and had claimed that his words were taken out of context by the committee.

Private conversations? That seems like something the State Department would want to document, doesn't it?

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) is demanding that the American Psychiatric Association release an account of its financing. The request comes after investigations revealed that a large amount of the money the association receives comes from pharmaceutical companies, raising questions of a conflict of interest. (New York Times)

A survey by the Associated Press revealed that despite state laws granting public access to government e-mail, many states simply delete internal messages. In this practice, mirrored by the federal government, many state officials are given discretionary control over which emails are sent out under Freedom of Information requests and which are erased. (AP)

In response to allegations that he is getting a "special deal" on his rent, New York Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) came out with an angry defense on Friday. Rangel scoffed at the New York Times report that he was receiving unprecedented rent-stabilized apartments, saying that he "didn't see anything unfair about it." (AP)

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