The Pentagon defied a Congressional subpoena yesterday by refusing to let the head of its sexual assault program testify at an oversight hearing about sexual assault in the military.

The House panel had issued a subpoena for Dr. Kaye Whitley, the director of the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.

But Pentagon officials ordered her not to testify and instead sent her supervisor, Michael Dominguez, a principal deputy undersecretary for defense, in her place.

Whitley's absence came on the same day a federal judge rejected the White House's claim to blanket immunity from Congressional oversight in an unrelated case.

Dominguez told the committee the Pentagon was not citing executive privileged but had simply instructed Whitley not to show up.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Cynthia O. Smith, provided a statement today in response to questions about Whitley's defiance of the subpoena.

It is inappropriate to question Dr. Whitley about the program when Mr. Dominguez, the decision maker responsible for the program and for the program's results, is available to answer those questions.

Mr. Dominguez has full accountability and responsibility for the Sexual Assault Prevention Office and he has the full authority to discuss and answer all questions regarding the SAPRO and the Department's sexual assault policies. Dr. Whitley is responsible for implementing the policy....

Dr. Whitley has been on the Hill numerous times discussing the DoD's sexual assault program and she will continue to do so.

Lawmakers interpreted the move as an affront to Congressional authority and said they had specifically sought Whitley based on her knowledge of how the military's sexual assault programs actually work in practice.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said to Dominguez at the hearing:

"What is, what it is you're trying to hide? She's the one in charge, let me speak, she's the one in charge of dealing with this problem. We wanted to hear from her. And despite a subpoena from a committee of Congress, you've been instructed by the secretary, undersecretary or deputy secretary in charge of legislative affairs not to allow her to come? ... I don't know who you think elected you to defy the Congress of the United States. We're an independent branch of government. ... this is an unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable position for the department to take and, uh, we are not going to let it stand."

Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) tersely dismissed Dominguez without asking him any questions about sexual assault.

"Well let me tell you something Mr. Dominguez, we decide who we want to have for witnesses at this hearing, we decide who, uh, the people that are going to give us factual testimony, the ones that we want to hear from when we are investigating or having a hearing. So for now Mr. Dominguez, you're dismissed."

Here is a clip of the entire nine-minute exchange between Dominguez and the lawmakers.

In June, the House panel asked Whitley to testify. When the Pentagon resisted, the committee issued a subpoena on Monday compelling her to attend the hearing yesterday, according to a statement today from Tierney, the chair of the oversight committee's National Security and Foreign Affairs subcommittee.

The hearing on sexual assault in the military came the same day as a
GAO report that found sexual assault in the military is probably underreported by half.

Some victims in the military do not report sexual assault because they fear "that nothing will be done; fear of ostracism, harassment, or ridicule; and concern that peers would gossip," according to the report.

Whitley's office is essentially a policy office and the bulk of the military sexual assault support programs are run by individual commanders. The Pentagon has resisted efforts to create an Office of the Victims' Advocate, which would oversee those efforts more independently.

An advocate for military victims of sexual assault tells TPMmuckraker that Whitley's office is under-resourced and reflects the Pentagon's lack of attention to sexual assault.

"We are concerned that it does not have all the tools and personnel it needs to go forward. And we're increasingly concerned that it is becoming politicized," said Anita Sanchez, communications director for the Miles Foundation.

Tierney said the committee is considering "ALL our options here in the face of this blatant disregard of a validly-issued subpoena," including seeking a contempt of Congress charge for Whitley, Dominguez or others.

Following the letter sent by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) sent his own demand for the testimony and documents following the ruling yesterday in House Judiciary Committee v. Harriet Miers et al.

In a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, Conyers called for "quick compliance" with the ruling and an answer to the subpoena issued to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for documents relating to the politicization of the Department of Justice.

Conyers also wrote to Miers attorneys, reminding him that the ruling meant his client was "legally required to testify" in answer to Congress' subpoena.

Lastly, Conyers penned a missive to Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's attorney, informing him that his client had been held in contempt of congress by the House Judiciary Committee, but that in light of the recent decision, he hoped that it would not be necessary to carry out the contempt proceedings:

. . .[T]he "precise legal issue" raised by Mr. Rove's claim of immunity from our subpoena as a former White House official was before Judge Bates in Committee on the Judiciary v. Miers. Yesterday's decision in that case provides an unequivocal answer. . . In his letter to me of July 29, 2008, Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith also noted the pendency of the District Court case and stated that "mr. Rove assuredly will abide by the court's decision when it issues." I trust that this is correct and that there will be no further need to enforce the subpoena through contempt proceedings in the full House, and have directed my staff to contact you immediately so that we can make arrangements for Mr. Rove to testify in September.

On the heels of the Senate Judiciary Committee's questioning on Wednesday of Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, and the two recently released OIG reports, seven Democratic members of the committee have requested that Attorney General Michael Mukasey review the damage done to the DOJ by the illegal hiring practices.

Signed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), and Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), the letter requests an assessment on the "long-term damage" done to the Department:

We are concerned that the people hired into important career positions throughout the Department using the unlawful, politicized process described in the reports remain in place. This raises the troubling possibility that those positions are held by unqualified, partisan individuals. With this possibility extant, we believe it is inadequate for the Department simply to commit to discontinue the bad practices. There may be continuing consequences of the widespread illegal hiring process. We urge you to ensure that the people put in place via this illegal process meet the Department's high standard of qualifications, and do not undermine the Department's independence and ability to enforce the law without fear or favor.

House Democrats defeated a measure to censure Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) yesterday. The bid to censure, put forward by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), was over Rangel's questionable rent-stabilized housing arrangement in Harlem. At the same time, the House ethics panel announced yesterday that they plan to review Rangel's lease and his use of congressional letterhead in solicitations donations. (AP, Politico)

A former official at the Treasury Department is the focus of a new civil complaint filed by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo against UBS. The official, David Aufhauser, is described as "Executive A" in Cuomo's case against UBS over fraud in the auction-rate-securities market. (Wall Street Journal)

A MnDOT emergency response executive who was fired for taking an unauthorized state-funded trip to Washington directly after the Minnesota bridge collapse, was recentlyhired by the Department of Homeland Security. The former executive, Sonia Pitt, confirmed Wednesday that she is now a Transportation Security Specialist at the department. (Star Tribune)

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Around 5 PM Alaska time, Sen. Ted Stevens' office issued a second statement on his arraignment earlier in the day in federal court.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

I am pleased that the Judge has set a speedy trial date, which should allow ample time for a decision before the general election. I am looking forward to this trial as a way of finally showing the truth - that I am innocent.

We have a Bill of Rights and a trial by jury in our country to protect our citizens - so that every person has their day in court.

I am humbled by all the outpouring of support, expressions of friendship, and offers of prayers. This process has lasted for more than a year, causing great distress to my family and confusing the Alaskans who have put their trust in me for more than 40 years.

When all the facts come out at the trial, Alaskans will know that I continue to be a dedicated public servant and that I am working hard for them every day.

Just hours after a federal judge shot down the White House's claim to sweeping immunity from Congressional oversight, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) fired off a round of letters renewing his demand for testimony from Karl Rove and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten.

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman sent a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding asking whether the two officials will agree to testify in light of today's ruling against the Bush administration's blanket claim of executive privilege.

The investigation at issue is the allegedly political firings of eight U.S. attorneys. The Senate committee issued subpoenas in June and July 2007 for Bolton and Rove to testify on Capitol Hill.

"Today's decision renders the grounds for Mr. Bolten and Mr. Rove's refusal to comply with the Committee's subpoenas moot," Leahy wrote in the letter to Fielding.

Leahy also sent a terse letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking whether he planned to rescind the legal memos based on the theory of blanket executive privileged that the judge dismissed today.

Please advise me by no later than next Thursday, August 7, when you will withdraw the erroneous [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion from Stephen Bradbury relied upon by the White House to justify its non-compliance with congressional subpoenas since that opinion has been repudiated by the court.

In addition, please inform me whether the court's decision will cause you to re-evaluate your memos and those from [Office of Legal Counsel] in support of overbroad and unsubstantiated executive privilege claims not only in the U.S. Attorneys investigation, but also in other matters, like the claims used to block Congress from investigating warrantless wiretapping, the leak of the name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame for political retribution, and White House interference in the Environmental Protection Agency's decision-making. Which of these do you now intend to withdraw?

Leahy sounds like he's asking for a complete surrender in this ongoing battle over White House officials' testimony. But there's a lot of litigation still to go in this case.

Now that we have a partial decision on House Judiciary Committee v. Harriet Miers et al. , maybe it's a good time for a little refresher on why the HJC wanted White House documents and Miers' testimony in the first place.

Miers name came up repeatedly over the course of congressional investigations into the U.S. attorney firing scandal, over her communications with former Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, Kyle Sampson.

Those communications revealed that Sampson and Miers began exchanging emails discussing the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, almost two years before those attorneys were purged from the department in December 2007. In March 2006, Sampson famously sent an email to Miers, ranking all of the sitting U.S. attorneys in order of "loyalty to the Attorney General."

Though Miers initially suggested that all 93 U.S. attorneys be dismissed, Sampson vetoed that idea, with the approval of the Attorney General, and arranged for limited dismissals, ultimately providing Miers with a seven person list of targeted candidates to be considered for removal.

Outside of the emails, others were observing politicization first hand. In the late summer of 2006, U.S. Attorney John McKay, who would be requested to resign just a few months later, described sitting down with Miers and others for an interview on a federal judgeship. McKay was asked, "why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry" with him in regards to his failure to prosecute allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial race.

A few months before the U.S. attorneys were asked to resign, in September of 2006, Sampson again emailed Miers another list of possibilities, this time with nine people listed.

The majority of this information and correspondence came out in the testimony of Sampson and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the spring of 2007.

Naturally all of this piqued the interest of the House Judiciary Committee, who were also investigating the U.S. attorney firings. They subpoenaed Miers to testify, and requested relevant documents from the White House. Miers and Bolten, on behalf of the White House, both claimed executive privilege in late June, with Miers even refused to show up to the Congressional hearing.

This ticked off House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) who held both Miers and Bolten in contempt. As we discussed yesterday, the contempt vote then went to the full House for a vote, where it was upheld, and the lawsuit was filed.

The Department of Justice has been taking a lot of heat lately for the inspector general's report detailing pervasive, illegal partisanship among upper-level officials.

But former employees from the Office of Special Counsel say they've been complaining about the exact same problems for more than three years, and the White House is blocking a public report about misconduct in that office.

We often remind you that Special Counsel Scott Bloch is under investigation by the FBI. He's accused of deleting emails -- and possibly obstructing justice -- in an investigation stemming from his employees complaining about the same kind of partisan activity outlined in Monday's report from the DOJ Inspector General.

Now that group of employees who filed that complaint back in 2005 wants the White House to publish a report about their former employer.

A lawyer for the former employees, Avi Kumin, wrote a letter today to the White House Counsel, urging for a formal, public report.

Kumin rattled off several examples of parallels between DOJ and Bloch's office.

My clients' complaint reported that OSC officials hired several career employees primarily because they attended the Christian, conservative (and at the time only provisionally accredited) Ave Maria Law School. ...

My clients reported years ago that Mr. Bloch fired them because of their perceived sexual orientation or perceived support for enforcing sexual orientation protections for federal employees. ...

My clients' compliant about OSC raised significant evidence that Mr. Bloch and his staff evaluated whistleblower and Hatch Act investigations based on partisan politics.

In theory, federal employees who feel they've faced discrimination for partisan or ideological reasons can file a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel. But it's hard to think that would get investigated impartially by an office itself accused of discriminating against people for political agendas.

A federal judge has granted Sen. Ted Stevens' request for a speedy trial -- calling for jury selection to begin just weeks before the elections this fall.

Stevens (R-AK) is set for trial Sept. 24 on seven counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms, court documents show.

Accused of taking more than $250,000 in undisclosed gifts from the CEO of an Alaska-based oil services firm, Stevens said he wants to "clear his name" before voters decide whether to give the 84-year-old lawmaker a seventh term.

The schedule outlined allows less than two months for all pretrial preparations, a remarkably quick turnaround for a federal case.

For now, the case is scheduled for trial before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, DC. The judge has not yet ruled on Stevens' attorney's request that the case be moved to federal district court in Alaska, where Stevens is a popular political patriarch.

From the AP:

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied about accepting more than a quarter of a million dollars worth of gifts from a powerful oilfield contractor.

In the midst of his re-election bid, lawyers for the Senate's longest-serving Republican maintained Stevens' innocence at his afternoon arraignment in federal court in Washington.

Stevens did not speak when U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan asked for his plea. Stevens' attorney, Brendan Sullivan, answered for him.

Prosecutors say the Alaska Republican accepted more than $250,000 in house renovations and gifts from contractors but didn't disclose them on Senate financial records.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) hailed today's court ruling and said he expects former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and political director Karl Rove to testify on Capitol Hill in September.

"Today's landmark ruling is a ringing reaffirmation of the fundamental principle of checks and balances and the basic American idea that no person is above the law.

Judge Bates' decision makes clear that the Congress had the right to subpoena Harriet Miers to learn of her role in the US Attorney firings, that her claim to be immune from subpoena was invalid and that the Committee was entitled to challenge that claim in Court. The Judge also ruled that the White House may not claim Executive Privilege over documents without describing them in reasonable detail so that these claims of privilege can be evaluated by Congress.

We look forward to the White House complying with this ruling and to scheduling future hearings with Ms. Miers and other witnesses who have relied on such claims. We hope that the defendants will accept this decision and expect that we will receive relevant documents and call Ms. Miers, as well as ex-White House official Karl Rove, to testify in September"

Later, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) echoed Conyers' statements:

The claims are part of an arrogant White House cover up, designed to shield from public view the inappropriate and illegal actions of this administration. It is past time for senior administration officials to abide by the law and appear before Congress to offer testimony compelled by subpoena.

We already know that in the years just before the invasion of Iraq, Randy Scheunemann, now John McCain's top foreign policy aide, was part of the circle of advisors and operatives around Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who used bogus intelligence to sell the war. Over the last few days we've spoken to associates of Chalabi's and Scheunemann's from those years to fill out the picture of the working relationship between the two men.

Entifadh Qanbar, who worked for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) in Washington in 2001 and 2002, described Scheunemann to TPM as a "close friend....We exchanged thoughts, exchanged ideas. We would often meet, go for lunch." Qanbar said Scheuenemann was also very close with both Chalabi and Francis Brooke, a longtime Chalabi aide and spokesman. Qanbar said he believes it was Brooke who first connected Scheunemann to Chalabi and the INC.

In fact, said Qanbar, Scheunemann was so friendly with the INC crowd that when the INC moved out of the shabby office space that Qanbar had found at 918 Pennsylvania Avenue SE on Capitol Hill, Qanbar suggested to Scheunemann -- who at the time was looking for a cheap spot to house his new lobbying shop, Orion Strategies -- that Scheunemann take the place over. To this day, Orion HQ is at 918 Penn (though the McCain campaign has said Scheunemann suspended his activities there earlier this year). And that was also the address Scheunemann later used for the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), the group he founded in late 2002 to gin up public support for the war.

But the links between Chalabi's INC and Scheunemann's CLI may go even further. Here's a photo of a webpage from the INC site. But notice the web address at the bottom: http://liberationiraq.org. That's the address for the CLI. The picture was taken by the Washington journalist Jim Lobe, who blogged about it in May, and confirmed its authenticity to TPM. According to Lobe, in April 2003, he typed in the address for Scheunemann's group, and got the INC homepage. When he called CLI to ask why, Scheunemann "mumbled something about how both the CLI and the INC used the same server in London."

Scheunemann seems to have set out from the start to make himself useful to Chalabi. Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, got a firsthand look at just how. Ritter told TPM that back in 1998, he came to Washington for a meeting with Scheunemann. Instead, Scheunemann sent him over to Chalabi's Georgetown townhouse, where Chalabi, Brooke, and a who's-who of Washington neoconservatives explained their half-baked plan to topple Saddam. The next day, Ritter did meet with Scheunemann, and shared with him a lab report that, Ritter believed, suggested Saddam was making chemical weapons (the intelligence proved to be flawed). Ritter asked Scheunemann to leak the report to the press, in order to put pressure on the Clinton administration and the UN to toughen their inspections. Scheunemann was more than happy to do so, says Ritter. But when, a short time later, The Washington Post ran a story on the lab report, the story was sourced to Chalabi's INC. Scheunemann, it seemed, had, without Ritter's permission, passed the intel on to Chalabi to leak, as a way of enhancing Chalabi's status, and currying favor with the INC leader. Ritter wrote about the incident in March.

The House Judiciary Committee has won the first round of its lawsuit against the White House over contempt of Congress in House Judiciary Committee v. Harriet Miers et al.

From the order:

Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena from plaintiff; and Ms. Miers may invoke executive privilege in response to specific questions as appropriate.

and that. . .

Joshua Bolten and Ms. Miers shall produce all non-privileged documents requested by the applicable subpoenas and shall provide to plaintiff a specific description of any documents withheld from production on the basis of executive privilege consistent with the terms of the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date

The ruling is the latest in an ongoing battle between Congress and the White House, to have senior aides testify about the U.S. attorney firings.

After looking over the Opinion, Federal Judge John Bates lays out protocol for Congressional subpoenas, stating that while there may be perfectly legitimate claims of executive privilege, a subpoena from Congress can't just be ignored-- and if it is, Congress has a right to sue for failure to respond.

But as far as those claims of executive privilege go, the questions of their validity is still on the table. The Opinion specifically states that the Court "expresses no view on such claims," but it does go so far as to demand that the White House produce specific descriptions of all documents that relate to the claim of executive privilege. This list of descriptions, often called a "privilege log," helps lift the veil on the swath of documents that are being considered under the Administration's privilege claim.

So in short, the White House can continue to claim executive privilege, and Congress can continue to sue them on the legitimacy of the claims. Unless the two parties can work something out, around and around we go.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey sent a letter to all Department of Justice employees yesterday trying to boost morale and addressing the Inspector General's report from Monday that concluded numerous high-ranking officials violated civil service laws.

In the letter first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Mukasey wrote:

I was disturbed and disappointed by those reports: disturbed by the finding that some Department employees had violated federal law, rules and regulations; and disappointed that these actions have harmed the reputation of this great institution.

He outlined several changes the Department has made in recent months, including a new process for hiring immigration judges and "mandatory training for all political appointees regarding prohibited personnel practices."

Mukasey also referenced the two additional pending reports from the IG, one about the firing of U.S. Attorneys and the other about politicization in the Civil Rights Division.

I do not know when those reports will be issued or what they will find. I am hopeful that they will recognize the many changes and actions taken by current Department employees to address the relevant issues. But I will review carefully those reports and any recommendations in them, as I have past reports, and I will not hesitate to respond as appropriate.

Read more for the full text of Mukasey's letter

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The House Oversight Committee yesterday questioned Pentagon and KBR Inc. officials over delays in protecting U.S. forces in Iraq from faulty electrical wiring. Oversight Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) interrogated the Pentagon's inspector general about absolving KBR in the death of a soldier. The faulty wiring has killed at least 16 people. (AP)

A secret government document submitted at the military commission of Osama bin Laden's driver Salim Hamdan confirms that Hamdan was sexually humiliated by a female government agent. Hamdan's lawyers claim the document is proof that Hamdan was coerced into making a confession. (New York Times)

Some Army recruiters have been caught lying to recruits in order to keep them from dropping out. One high school student in Houston was threatened with jail time if he left the recruitment program, despite signing up for a non-binding program. (KVUE)

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There are still two more uncompleted inspector general reports pending -- one about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and another about political agendas in the department's Civil Rights Division.

Yet from the IG report Monday on hiring practices, it's already clear that a culture of partisanship prevailed inside the department, and many DOJ officials were playing along, some more actively than others.

"It had a significant effect throughout the department. I think one of the most significant things is people not objecting, people not standing up," Inspector General Glenn Fine told lawmakers today on Capitol Hill.

To be sure, Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson and others appear to have been serious party hacks who violated department policy and federal law by screening out prospective lawyers and judges for partisan reasons. But many others went along, if only more passively.

Take for example what Michael Elston told the IG's investigators. Elston clearly understood how Goodling and others operated and admitted to adopting a go-along, get-along attitude.

For example, Michael Elston, former Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, stated that when he sought attorneys for details to the [Office of the Deputy Attorney General], he would generally look for candidates with the type of experience required by the position, but he also looked for candidates with Republican or conservative credentials in order to get them approved by the [Office of Attorney General].

Elston said that Goodling made it clear to him that she did not want Democrats detailed to the ODAG because she had a "farm system" approach to filling vacancies in the Department, and she wanted to "credential" Republicans so that they could move on to higher political positions.

We saw an example of this in an email sent by Bradley Schlozman, the U.S. Attorney for Missouri's western district. He was sending resumes for three prospective hires to DOJ headquarters. Apparently without any prompting, Schlozman began touting their political credentials.

In his e-mail, Schlozman described the three candidates as "rock-solid Americans" who would be a "hugely positive legacy for this Administration." Schlozman described each candidate in terms of their conservative political credentials. He wrote that the first applicant's "involvement with the Bush/Cheney campaign speaks for itself."

Yes, in some cases, Goodling and others actively screened out prospective lawyers and judges for partisan reasons. But in many situations, they didn't have to. Others did it for them.

Yesterday we learned that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote a letter to Special Counsel Scott Bloch urging the embattled chief of the independent investigative office to step down.

Bloch's had a lot of problems lately. He's under investigation by the FBI and his top deputy quit recently complaining about "political agendas" at the office that's supposed to investigate things like misconduct related to political agendas.

Today we see that Bloch promptly fired back, sending Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, a terse letter saying he has no plans to resign his post until his term ends next year.

Read the letter here.

One year after the feds searched his Alaska home, and one day after a grand jury handed up a seven-count indictment, Sen. Ted Stevens is the subject of today's TMPtv. Muckraker reporter Kate Klonick recaps Ted's troubles and tells us what that means for the GOP in Alaska and nationwide.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knew essentially nothing about the partisan culture and violations of federal law that were routine at the agency under his watch.

That's what we heard today from Glenn Fine, the Department of Justice Inspector General.

Fine told lawmakers on Capitol Hill today that his investigators interviewed Gonzales for their report, which found numerous senior officials were illegally using partisan considerations when hiring some prosecutors and judges.

The IG was emphatic. Take a look:

Should federal judges interpreting the new U.S. wiretapping law be able to hear and consider legal arguments from outside parties like the American Civil Liberties Union?

The Bush administration says no.

The Department of Justice filed court papers yesterday seeking to block the ACLU -- and any other third party -- from submitting briefs to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the classified forums that will be primarily responsible for translating the federal law signed last month into practice.

The DOJ argues that any briefs the ACLU might file would be ill-informed because its lawyers cannot access the classified information at the heart of many FISA cases, and the proceedings would just clog the flow of cases

"The collective effect of these restrictions is to make any meaningful participation by the ACLU...impossible. ... Indeed, allowing third-parties to use this Court as a general forum to present facial challenges to the Government's surveillance activities could cause a flood of litigation that would district this Court from its important national security functions."

But the ACLU, which has filed a lawsuit seeking access to the FISA court, says the new law is public and complex and the judges should be able to consider a wide range of views when handing down important rulings. Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU's National Security Project said in a statement today:

"If the government's request is granted, the court won't hear arguments from anyone except the government and those arguments will be presented to the court in secret briefs. ... Especially because the new surveillance law departs so significantly from the standards that have applied to government surveillance for the last 30 years, any proceedings relating to the new law's constitutionality should be adversarial and as informed and transparent as possible."

Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, supports the ACLU's position. He wrote a paper in 2004 calling for greater participation in the FISA court.

"The DOJ is taking an expansive view of executive power and narrow view of judicial power, Swire told TPMmuckraker in an interview today. "Under the government's view, the judges seem required to uphold an unconstitutional system because the judges are forbidden from getting briefing from anyone other than the executive branch."

While there is limited precedent for third-party involvement in the typically classified proceedings under the 1978 FISA law, the new technologies that prompted lawmakers to updat the law law may also warrant new procedures, Swire said.

"The 1978 version of FISA targeted one individual at a time or sometime one terrorist organization. The new approach sweeps far more broadly and it looks more like an administrative system than a traditional judicial wiretap order."

"In light of those changes and the constitutional challenges to those changes, the court would be well served to be briefed with multiple viewpoints," Swire said.

The DOJ argues that the ACLU already has an opportunity to contest the constitutionality of the FISA law a lawsuit currently pending in New York's Southern District.

For those in a quandary about what the House Judiciary Committee's contempt citation of Karl Rove means, we refer you to the currently pending House Judiciary Committee v. Harriet Miers, et al.

Following the path of Miers, we see that after the committee votes on contempt, the resolution is then passed to the entire House. If the House approves the contempt of Congress resolutions, it goes to the DOJ for action.

But since Rove is claiming executive privilege, it is unlikely the DOJ will take any action -- at least they certainly didn't for Miers.

After the predicted DOJ demurring occurs, the House has passed a resolution that allows the HJC to file suit against the parties held in contempt-- which brings us back around to where we started: HJC v. Miers.

According to Press Secretary Dana Perino, the president and White House have "overall disappointment" in former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' politicized Justice Department.

Transcript from White House Press Briefing with Perino today:

QUESTION: Dana, what's your reaction to the Justice Department report where they -- the report essentially says, yes, that there was inappropriate influence on politics and ideology that was part of our hiring and firing practices?

PERINO: Well as I have read the coverage of it -- I haven't read the report, but as I read the coverage of it, there's obviously information in there that would cause concern to anybody. And we agree with Michael Mukasey that -- the Attorney General -- that there was concern. There should be concern any time anyone is improperly using politics to influence career decisions. We believe that is improper. We could absolutely not defend that. And we are pleased that the Attorney General has taken steps to change it there at the Justice Department.

QUESTION: Can I infer from that that President Bush is disappointed in Alberto Gonzales?

PERINO: I think that if you look at the report, and it is in line with what the Attorney General said at the time, which was that he was not aware of that going on. And so I don't think there's anything -- disappointment doesn't necessarily go to the Attorney General.

QUESTION: You don't think it would change -- it doesn't change the President's . . .

PERINO: No, I don't. The whole situation -- the whole situation in terms of the politicization -- or accusations of politicization -- if you look at career hires that should not have had any sort of questions put towards them as to what sort of party they represent, or what affiliation they might belong to, or who they might vote for -- those are inappropriate for career positions. And the President is glad that the -- Attorney General Mukasey made sure that that is no longer ongoing at the Justice Department. And it's nothing that we could defend, and we never have.

QUESTION: But you won't go so far as to say that, looking at Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department, President Bush is disappointed this was going on?

PERINO: Well, I think that we are -- overall disappointment in the situation, sure.

To see Perino express the White House's disappointment in living color, click below:

We wrote late Monday about the possibility of Margaret Chiara, one of the the nine fired U.S. attorneys, being dismissed over the rumors that she was in a lesbian relationship with assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Hagen. The OIG report released on Monday morning disclosed that Hagen was refused a promotion at Main Justice after Monica Goodling got wind of stories about her alleged sexual orientation and her rumored relationship with Chiara.

In a statement yesterday to the Los Angeles Times, Chiara stated she agreed that the stories were the source of her firing:

"I could not begin to understand how I found myself sharing the misfortune of my former colleagues," Chiara said of the eight other U.S. attorneys who were fired. "Now I understand."

Justice officials said after her firing that Chiara was let go because of mismanagement and because she had caused morale in her office to sink. Chiara said Monday she believed those concerns were raised by the same people who spread rumors about her and Hagen.

"I guess now I am persuaded with deep regret that this is what was the basis," she added. "There is nothing else."

The next phase of Inspector General's report is due out any day now. Maybe it will shed more light on the issue of why Chiara, and the other dismissed U.S. attorneys, lost their presidential appointments.

Throughout the investigation of improper political influence on the Department of Justice's hiring process, the DOJ's inspector general interviewed 85 people -- but only one from the White House.

The IG, Glenn Fine, testifying this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Karl Rove aide Scott Jennings was the only White House official he sought to interview for his report released Monday.

"Why were no others at the White House questioned?" Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) asked Fine.

"From the evidence that we had, both emails and discussions, we did not see that others were involved in this process, and we questioned the person who was involved," Fine said, referring to Jennings.

The process Fine was referring to was the partisan screening of prospective prosecutors and judges.

Yet Fine did note at least one exception, an example his report cited of a prospective immigration judge who was appointed after Rove expressed support for the candidate.

Fine was said he did not believe any of the misconduct described in his 140-page report called for criminal prosecution for false statements.

"We looked at that and clearly in our judgment and in the judgement of prosecutors who have been working on this case, we do not think there was a sufficient basis for a criminal prosecution for false statements."

Late Update:
Here's the exchange between Specter and Fine.

The House Judiciary Committee has just voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt for failing to respond to a subpoena to face questioning from the Committee on the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

The final vote was 20 ayes and 14 nays. With Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) voting "absolutely, 100% aye."

In a memo on the Full Committee meeting, Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) summarized the facts surrounding Rove's refusal to even appear before the committee and assert executive privilege:

Mr. Rove has refused even to appear before the Committee and assert whatever privileges that he believes may apply to his testimony, relying on excessively broad and legally insufficient claims of "absolute immunity" - never recognized by any court - in declining to appear.

The former mayor of Newark was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday for selling city land to a 39-year-old mistress who is close to half his age. Former mayor Sharpe James apologized to his family and admitted to making "a mistake" before going into custody. (AP)

General Norton Schwartz, the Bush administration's nominee to be the next Air Force Chief of Staff, will face an uncommon second round of classified questioning from the Senate today. Schwartz faces questions over testimony he gave after the initial invasion of Iraq and concerns that he withheld information. (LA Times)

Former Dallas district attorney Henry Wade's legacy is in shambles seven years after his death. Some 19 convictions for murder, rape, and robbery that Wade and two of his trained successors won have been overturned due to DNA exonerations. No other county in America has freed more innocent people in recent years than Dallas. (AP)

Read more »

The House Judiciary Committee's ongoing battle with Karl Rove continues today, with a vote on holding the former White House Chief of Staff in contempt.

Rove has refused to answer to a subpoena to testify before Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) committee, answering only in writing to questions from the minority representation of the HJC.

The vote is the first thing on the committee's agenda for their meeting today which starts at 10:15 AM ET. Be sure to check back for updates on the outcome of the proceedings.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will get a chance to grill Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine today about the report he released Monday.

Fine's 140-page report detailed incidents of DOJ officials violating federal law by using political considerations in the hiring of some federal prosecutors and judges.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has harshly criticized the DOJ for the misconduct outlined in the report.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is due in federal court in Washington tomorrow for arraignment on seven counts of failing to disclose gifts from an Alaska oil firm.

The 84-year-old senator is scheduled to appear at 1 p.m. before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who was appointed by President Clinton in 1994.

Stevens was ordered to contact pretrial services for a preliminary interview before the arraignment.

The federal prosecutors expected to handle the case are Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke, court records show.

Democratic Senators from the Environment and Public Works Committee called for the resignation of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, in a press release published this afternoon.

Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was joined by committee members Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in charging that Johnson had given "misleading testimony before Congress," "refused to cooperate" with Oversight investigations and had politicized decisions before the EPA.

From the EPW press release:

The senators asked Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to investigate apparent contradictions between the sworn testimony of Administrator Johnson and the testimony of other sworn witnesses regarding the circumstances surrounding EPA's denial California's request for a waiver under the Clean Air Act to set strong standards for global warming emissions from vehicles.

Johnson has repeatedly refused to appear before Congressional committees, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, who canceled a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, July 30, after Johnson informed them he would not be coming.

When Johnson has testified, however, as he did in May before the House Oversight committee, he has often driven questioners to furious distraction in his refusal to answer questions, and his inability to recount events.

We've had a lot of coverage today at TPMmuckraker on the freshly indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R), but we've actually been following Uncle Ted and his son, Ben, here at TPMm for more than a year.

So for the benefit of our readers we thought we'd wrap it up into one neat little package so you can see how an 84 year-old U.S. Senator can go from free gas grills to federal indictment.

Ladies and gentleman, we present: The Ted Stevens' Road to Ruin, the ultimate in Ted Stevens' timelines.

So what did VECO get in return?

Federal prosecutors unveiled a narrowly focused indictment today for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), limiting the criminal charges to the senator's disclosure forms and what the Alaska-based energy services firm did for the lawmaker.

But there was, briefly, a small set of allegations about the longtime senator did for the company.

Among them, federal prosecutors say, Stevens provided: "funding requests and other assistance with certain international VECO projects and partnerships, including those in Pakistan and Russia."

We've heard allegations of favors related to Pakistan before.

In the late 1990s, VECO built a $70 million pipeline for Pakistan and the military dictatorship running the country was slow to pay its bill. That is until Pakistan needed help from Congress on a trade issue, and Stevens was positioned to block the legislation at issue. Pakistan paid its tab soon after concluding it might help them out on Capitol Hill, according to the Los Angeles Times.

As for Russia, it's unclear exactly what the prosecutors are referring to. VECO did a lot of business in Russia, often subcontracting work for large multinational oil companies. Also in 2005, VECO hired Steven's son, Ben Stevens, to lobby the World Bank to get money the company needed for a spill cleanup job in Russia.

It's hard to know precisely. And that's probably one reason the feds limited the prosecution of Stevens to false statements made on his financial disclosure forms. Proving quid pro quo in court is exceptionally hard.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) who was indicted today on seven counts of false statements, has released a statement through his Senate office:

I have proudly served this nation and Alaska for over 50 years. My public service began when I served in World War II. It saddens me to learn that these charges have been brought against me. I have never knowingly submitted a false disclosure form required by law as a U.S. Senator. In accordance with Senate Republican Conference rules, I have temporarily relinquished my vice-chairmanship and ranking positions until I am absolved of these charges. The impact of these charges on my family disturbs me greatly. I am innocent of these charges and intend to prove that.

From Roll Call:

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has been indicted on seven counts of making false statements on his financial disclosure forms, has stepped down from his post atop two committees, according to a senior GOP aide.

Republicans may vote as early as Wednesday afternoon to select replacements.

Consistent with GOP bylaws that require Members who are under felony indictment to relinquish their ranking posts on committees, Stevens, the longest-serving Republican Senator, has officially stepped down as ranking member of both the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

The recent indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is up in TPMmuckraker's document collection, but here's a quick and dirty summary of the seven counts of false statements which are based on his personal financial disclosure forms from 1999 to 2006.

According to the indictment, Stevens concealed "things of value," estimated at around $250,000, from his publicly filed personal financial disclosure forms over the past seven years. It is this concealment, and not the legality of accepting those "things of value," that is at issue.

We've reported extensively on those gifts from VECO and VECO's former CEO Bill Allen which are the primary exchanges named in the indictment.

While Allen pleaded guilty to bribery charges over these gifts in 2007, it's important to note that no bribery charges are being filed against Stevens.

For the DOJ comments on the indictment, check out our video of the press conference.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was indicted today for accepting more than $250,000 in undisclosed renovations and repairs for his home in Girwood, Alaska, according to Stevens' indictment.

Stevens' friend William Allen, the head of VECO company, was providing most of the labor and some supplies for the projects, but never charged Stevens for the work, according to the indictment today.

In 2000, Stevens and Allen began discussing renovations for his home, putting together a plan that would eventually include a full basement, first-floor addition with multiple bedrooms and a bathroom, the indictment said.

It was a massive undertaking. Workers took the small home and jacked it up on stilts, then built a new first floor underneath with two bedrooms and a bathroom, the indictment said.

Then workers added a garage with a workshop and a second-story wraparound deck. VECO employees and contractors also installed electrical, plumbing, framing, heating, and flooring materials, the indictment said.

In 2001, Allen gave Stevens some furniture, a new Viking gas grill and a new tool shed full of tools, according to the indictment.

In 2002, VECO continued work on the outside of the house, installing a first-floor wraparound deck, a plastic roof between the first- and second-floor decks, and a lighting system worth a total of about $55,000, the indictment said.

In 2004, VECO installed some kitchen appliances in the house, the indictment said.

In 2005, the company did some repairs to the roof and gutters, the indictment said.

In 2006, Stevens called Allen and asked him to repair his boiler system. Allen instructed the contractor to divide the bill into two parts, supplies and labor. Allen told the contractor to send the bill for supplies to Stevens and the labor to Allen, the indictment said.

Stevens knew this, and at least once asked Allen to send him the invoice for the labor, but Allen never did and Stevens never reimbursed him, the indictment said.

The home renovations were not the first time Stevens had accepted favors from Allen.

Back in 1999, Stevens mentioned to Allen that he wanted to get a new car for his daughter. That led to a deal in which Allen gave Stevens a new 1999 Land Rover Discovery, worth $44,000. In exchange, Stevens gave Allen a 1964½ Ford Mustang and $5,000. Prosecutors say the Mustang was worth less than $20,000.

In September 2000, Stephens wrote Allen an email about the work:

"we've never worked with a man so easy to get along with as [a VECO employee], Plus, everyone who's seen the place wants to know who has done the things he's done. . . . You and [PERSON A] have been the spark plugs and we are really pleased with all you have done. hope to see you and the chalet soon. best teds."

From Reuters:

Sen. Ted Stevens from Alaska, the longest serving U.S. Republican senator ever, was indicted on seven counts related to his holding of public office, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday.

Late update: It's worth noting that this comes a few days before the one year anniversary of the date federal agents raided Stevens' Girdwood home.

Ted Stevens, 84, has been a frequent character on TPMmuckraker. For a good profile on the indicted Senator, see here.

No one answered at Stevens' Senate Office in D.C. and the answering machine recording said that the office was closed. In a call to his Anchorage campaign office, the staffer who answered responded, "What?" when asked for a comment on the indictment, followed by a long silence. The staffer would not give further comment on whether or not the office knew that the indictment was handed up today.

Late late update: From McClatchy:
The Justice Department will be making a statement at 1:20 to announce the indictment.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that the indictment comes from a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.

Late late late update: The AP is reporting the indictments are seven counts of false statements.

Our calls to Brendan Sullivan, Steven's attorney, were not immediately returned.

We have a copy of the Stevens indictment titled, United States of America v. Theodore F. Stevens, it can be viewed here.

The seven counts of false statements appear to be referencing seven years of false statements made on his financial disclosure forms relating to gifts he received from former VECO CEO Bill Allen for the renovations on his home in Girdwood, Alaska, among others.

Allen pleaded guilty to giving more than $400,000 worth of "illegal benefits" to politicians and their families in late 2007.

The DOJ Presser just started.

"As a member of the US Senate, Sen. Ted Stevens was required to file financial disclosure forms. . . to monitor or deter conflicts of interest within the US Senate and its membership."

Between 1999-2006 he accepted gifts from VECO, include substantial amounts of material and labor in his private residence. These allegations include addition of new first floor, new bedrooms and bathrooms.

The total amount of gifts is valued at over $250,000.

In a Q&A, it was revealed that Stevens will be turning himself in and will not be arrested. Stevens' attorney received a call earlier today informing him of his client's indictments.

Filing false financial disclosure statement can result in civil and criminal penalties, including up to 5 years in prison.

The DOJ is not alleging bribery or any kind of quid pro quo, and mentioned that the investigation is continuing.

Special Counsel Scott Bloch is under investigation by the FBI. His own employees can't stand him. And now pressure is mounting from Capitol Hill for one of Washington's top watchdogs to step down.

House oversight committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent Bloch a letter yesterday urging him to step down from the agency charged with investigating allegations of retaliation against whistle blowers.

The mission of the agency should be the paramount consideration. It is for this reason that I have concluded that OSC would be better served with new leadership and urge you to step down as the Special Counsel. Such a move would be in the best interest of the agency and the federal employees its charged to protect.

Waxman's letter comes after Bloch's chief deputy resigned from the office citing "political agendas."

Up until now, Waxman has been uncharacteristically quiet regarding allegations of Bloch's misconduct, which includes retaliating against whistleblowers in his own office.

The committee's ranking member, Tom Davis (R-VA), called for Bloch's resignation weeks ago.

Among our coverage yesterday of the OIG report, was the specific case of an "experienced terrorism prosecutor" who was denied a DOJ promotion because Monica Goodling discovered that his wife was a longtime Democrat.

That man has now been identified by The Buffalo News as William J. Hochul Jr., a career federal prosecutor from Western New York, whose wife, Kathleen Hochul, was a longtime Democrat:

The report does not name that attorney, but sources told The Buffalo News that it was William J. Hochul Jr., a winner of the Attorney General's Award for Exceptional Service -- and the husband of Kathleen C. Hochul, a longtime Democratic activist and former Hamburg Town Board member who was elected Erie County clerk in 2007.

The Justice Department's liaison to the Bush White House, Monica M. Goodling, blocked Hochul's appointment to the counterterrorism post, sources said.

"As a result, a much less experienced, but politically acceptable, attorney was assigned this important responsibility," says the report, issued by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General.

The Buffalo News also identifies another Western New York federal prosecutor mentioned in the report, who was also nixed by Goodling for a promotion to Main Justice:

Similarly, although Michael A. Battle -- former U. S. attorney in Western New York -- headed the Executive Office of U. S. Attorneys from 2005 to 2007, Goodling blocked his choice for his own top assistant.

Goodling viewed Battle's pick as a "political infant" who had not proved himself to the Republican Party, Battle told investigators. Sources identified the failed nominee as John Kelly of the U. S. attorney's office in Rochester.

A former CIA-backed Haitian death squad leader was convicted Friday of carrying out a mortgage fraud scheme in the U.S. Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, former leader of FRAPH, was convicted of organizing millions of dollars in fraudulent financing in Brooklyn. (CNN)

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) may support the Justice Department' investigation into Maryland's State Police undercover surveillance of activists for over a year. The program, which targeted nonviolent groups such as death penalty opponents and peace activists, was in place in 2005 and 2006. (Washington Post)

The FBI and IRS searched Cuyahoga County offices in Cleveland yesterday in part of a public corruption investigation. In addition, both the county auditor and commissioner were greeted by FBI vehicles at their homes. (AP)

Read more »

Richard Perle has almost always gone along with the Bush administration's policies.

But now the longtime neoconservative policy wonk is trying to get in on an oil-drilling deal with Iraqi Kurds despite the administration's public opposition to such deals there.

Perle, one of the most influential proponents of 2003 invasion of Iraq, is in talks to join a consortium of investors with the Kurdish Regional Government, today's Wall Street Journal reports.

The Bush administration has publicly discouraged energy firms from making unilateral deals with Iraqi Kurds until after Iraq's federal government in Baghdad agrees to a law for sharing future revenues. Disagreements over oil money have inflamed sectarian tensions in Iraq and undermined political unity.

But investigators are looking into whether the Bush administration privately gave the go-ahead to energy firms seeking the lucrative deals with the Kurds.

The Journal reports that Perle is talking with a Turkish firm, AK Group International, and also a representative from the government of Kazakhstan. They are targeting the co-called "K18 concession" which is near the city of Erbil and is estimated to hold 150 million or more barrels of oil.

Houston-based Endeavour International would conduct the exploration and drilling, according to the Journal.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, Perle was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon. He is currently a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington.

Brent Wilkes' "Secret Benefactor" will have to make himself known if he wants to help the convicted former-defense contractor make bail, a federal judge said Monday.

You might remember that we posted a few weeks back about an anonymous ally's guarantee on the balance of the $1.4 million Wilkes needed to make bail pending appeal. But there was a catch-- the benefactor wouldn't post unless his identity could be kept a secret-- so Wilkes' attorneys went to court to try to hide the man's identity.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The man willing to make up the shortfall could lose his job if his name is linked to Wilkes, said lawyer Robert Rexrode, who is representing Wilkes for free.

"This is it," he said in court. "It's not going to happen if the name is public."

Rexrode wouldn't say what the man does for a living but said that the public attention that Wilkes has drawn "makes it difficult for past business associates to come forward."

Judge Larry Burns said he was willing to keep certain financial details private, but not the man's name.

"This person ... has to step up and stand here with Mr. Wilkes," Burns said.

It wasn't just Democrats who Monica Goodling was trying to rid the Justice Department of. If you were gay -- or even rumored to be gay -- your career was in jeopardy.

Today's IG report offers new details in the case of Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Hagen, whose tenure at Main Justice came to an end because Monica Goodling picked up on rumors that Hagen was gay and had an allegedly romantic relationship with her supervisor, the then-U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, Margaret Chiara.

Hagen, whose case was first reported by NPR in April, is not identified by name in the IG's report. However, her attorney confirmed to TPMmuckraker this afternoon that Hagen is the unnamed, allegedly lesbian, AUSA detailed in the report.

"I think the report vindicates what she has been saying all along," said Lisa Banks of Katz, Marshall and Banks LLP. "That she was the victim of pernicious discrimination from Monica Goodling."

Hagen had worked as a federal prosecutor for Chiara in Michigan before being detailed to DOJ headquarters in Washington, where she she worked in the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA). When it was time to renew Hagen's detail to the EOUSA, Goodling blocked it, and prevented her from obtaining other details within DOJ as well.
Calling Goodling's actions "wholly inappropriate," the report concluded that Goodling broke federal law in discriminating based on sexual orientation.

The ostensible reason for the actions taken against Hagen were rumors that she had improperly benefited financially from the purported relationship with Chiara, in the form of large bonuses and trips with Chiara at government expense. The report concludes, however, that Goodling never substantiated the allegations of financial improprieties and that Hagen's rumored sexual orientation was the reason she was not allowed to remain at Main Justice. One of the witnesses cited in the report is Mary Beth Buchanan, the former executive director of the EOUSA who remains the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh:

Buchanan said that Goodling told her that the AUSA and the U.S. Attorney were involved in a relationship, and that it would not be appropriate for the Department to do anything to further that relationship, such as employing them in the same geographic area. According to Buchanan, at that time the U.S. Attorney was trying to find a position in the Washington, D.C. area. Buchanan said she understood that Goodling was telling her not to select the AUSA because it would look like the Department was sanctioning the homosexual relationship.

As to the veracity of the rumors that surrounded Hagen and Chiara, Hagen's attorney described them as "completely false" in the interview with TPMmuckraker. "There was nothing to verify that my client was gay -- she never identified as such," Banks said. "The supposed relationship between her and the U.S. attorney was completely false, and nothing more than co-workers and friends. There was no improper relationship. No improper government trips. No improper bonuses."

Calls to Chiara's office were not immediately returned.

It's not clear what, if any, light the Hagen episode shines on the firing of Chiara as U.S. attorney. The professed reasons for the firings of the eight U.S. attorneys have never been very clear, but the circumstances surrounding Chiara's removal have been especially murky. Appointed U.S. attorney in 2001, she was asked to resign by Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, in November 2006. That was more than a month before the seven other U.S. attorneys were fired, in calls from Michael Battle, who had succeeded Buchanan as the executive director of the EOUSA. Chiara's resignation was effective March 16, 2007.

The official, albeit vague, reasons for Chiara's firing were "poor management issues" and a "loss of confidence by career individuals," according to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in testimony to the Senate. But there was scant documentation within DOJ of Chiara's alleged problems.

In the absence of a more substantial explanation from the justice Department for Chiara's firing, it's not unreasonable to wonder if the rumors of her lesbian relationship with Hagen led to Chiara's downfall, too.

As a Republican source told NPR, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat."

From the AP:

The Environmental Protection Agency is telling its pollution enforcement officials not to talk with congressional investigators, reporters and even the agency's own inspector general, according to an internal e-mail provided to The Associated Press.

The June 16 message instructs 11 managers in the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the branch of the agency charged with making sure environmental laws are followed, to remind their staff members to keep quiet.

"If you are contacted directly by the IG's office or GAO requesting information of any kind ... please do not respond to questions or make any statements," reads the e-mail sent by Robbi Farrell, the division's chief of staff. Instead, staff members should forward inquiries to a designated EPA representative, the memo says.

Private military contractor Blackwater and its affiliates may have wrongly received more than $100 million in contracts that were supposed to be set aside for small businesses, according to an inspector general's report released today.

At issue was a November 2006 determination by the Small Business Administration that a Blackwater affiliate, Presidential Airways, was a small business with less than 1,500 employees.

Blackwater contended, and the agency agreed, that its more than 1,000 workers providing security for the State Department overseas were not employees, but independent contractors. That made the company appear smaller on paper than it actually is.

The SBA Inspector General said that assessment was incorrect, based on SBA regulations.

How the agency made that determination regarding Blackwater is unclear, the report concluded.

"We're not sure how that happened," Glenn Harris, chief counsel for the SBA inspector general's office, said in an interview with TPMmuckraker. "We're not saying there was misrepresentation. ... It could be contracting-officer error."

Although Blackwater did provide some information indicating the size of the company, the SBA appears to have overlooked evidence that the company was too large to qualify as a small business.

SBA did not follow-up on or attempt to reconcile conflicting information in its files that the total number of Blackwater employees -- even excluding the security personnel hired under Federal contracts -- exceeded the applicable size standard.

The SBA IG forwarded its report to the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which together awarded Blackwater some 39 contracts that were set aside for small business. SBA only accesses whether a company is eligible for small-business contracts.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House oversight committee, questioned Blackwater's conduct.

"The SBA IG report raises serious concerns about whet her Blackwater made false statements about its small business status to the federal agencies that awarded these contracts," wrote in a memo to his committee today.

A spokeswoman for Blackwater denied any wrongdoing by the company.

"Over the past several years, expert accounting and outside legal counsel have determined that Blackwater's classification of security personnel as independent contractors is reasonable, correct and legally protected," said Anne Tyrell, the spokeswoman.

She said the IG's report "draws no conclusions" and was "unnecessarily speculative."

The Small Business Administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Late Update: The SBA issued a statement noting that the the IG report questions its reasoning in the size determination but did not declare it incorrect.

The lack of clarity, the report says, depends on various interpretations of whether nearly 1,000 security personnel hired for a Department of State contract were employees and should have been counted against the 1,500-employee limit, or whether they were contractors and should not have been counted.

"As a legal matter, some factors suggested Blackwater's security personnel were employees; other factors suggested they were independent contractors. The company also represented that those staff were considered independent contractors for IRS purposes," the statement said.

When a reporter last year asked about political litmus tests for Department of Justice officials, a guy in the press office said that's "crap."

But he was lying.

That amounts to "misconduct," according to the DOJ Inspector General's report today.

The press flack was John Nowacki, who is now the deputy director for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys' Staffs. He's one of the only DOJ officials named in today's report who is still working for the department.

Nowacki was a staunch defender for Monica Goodling. She helped hire him at DOJ and both are graduates of Regent University, the evangelical school in Virginia founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Nowicki is reportedly on assignment in Iraq and was unable to be reached for comment.

In March of last year, Nowacki received an email inquiry from Legal Times reporter Ted Goldman, who wrote:

Several longtime ausa's are telling me that the detaillee [sic] program at the [Executive Office of the U.S. Attorneys] has become far more politicized than ever before. ... if you'd like to give me a response, i'd very much appreciate it:

Nowacki knew at the time that Goodling was considering party affiliation and other political criteria when selecting people for DOJ positions. That's what he told the IG during its investigation.

Nevertheless, he set gears in motion to spin the reporter with a false denial.

Shortly after receiving this e-mail, Nowacki forwarded it to Acting EOUSA Director Steven Parent. In his e-mail, Nowacki commented, "Steve - Let's talk about this tomorrow. It's crap."

Nowacki began to circulate a draft statement in response to the reporter's inquiry that would go out under Parent's name.

In my tenure with EOUSA, I am not aware of any attempt to screen candidates on the basis of party affiliation by anyone, including Monica Goodling; that issue simply has never come up in any interviews in which I have participated. To suggest that those career employees who have been selected to serve details to EOUSA is based on anything but professional experience unfairly detracts from those career employees and is simply wrong.

The DOJ ultimately never sent the response, partly because "Parent said he did not want the statement to be attributed to him since he was not sure of the facts," according to the report.

The IG suggested DOJ should take disciplinary action against Nowacki.

We concluded that EOUSA Deputy Director John Nowacki committed misconduct by drafting a proposed Department response to a media inquiry which he knew was inaccurate. ... Nowacki is still employed by the Department. Therefore, we recommend that the Department consider appropriate discipline for him based upon the evidence in this report.

A spokesman for the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

Here at TPMmuckraker, we recall a lot of dubious statements coming out of the DOJ's Office of Public Affairs. If providing false statements to reporters amounts to misconduct, then the DOJ may have more people to deal with than just Kowacki.

Over the weekend, The New York Times noted that some of John McCain's foreign policy advisers from the "realist" camp are uneasy with the amount of influence enjoyed by neoconservatives like Randy Scheunemann, who's been serving as McCain's chief foreign policy aide and spokesman.

But it isn't only his internal rivals who have reason to worry about Scheunemann. Not only does he have McCain's ear, he also has a track record of being consistently wrong on the major foreign policy question of the day -- Iraq. Of all the hawkish Washington foreign-policy types pushing both before and after 9/11 for war with Iraq -- a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans now considers a mistake -- Scheunemann, though not a marquee name, was among the most energetic and influential. And in the invasion's aftermath, he consistently opposed steps that might have helped stabilize the country.

And yet, the political press has largely given McCain a pass on the fact that his top foreign policy adviser was at the center of perhaps the biggest strategic folly in our history.

Here, to refresh reporters' memories, is the rundown on Scheunemann's Iraq record:

• As a top aide to then-Senate GOP leader Trent Lott, Scheunemann helped draft -- and acted as a driving force behind -- the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (ILA), which essentially made "regime change" the official Iraq policy of the US. The Act was cited as a key basis of support in the fateful 2002 Congressional resolution authorizing military force, and directly paved the way for President Bush's invasion.

• Scheunemann was a board member of Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century, which played a major role in agitating for the war. Scheunemann signed Kristol's influential letter to President Bush, sent nine days after 9/11, which asserted that failing to respond to the Al Qaeda attack by going after Saddam would "constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." Scheunemann also served as a "consultant" to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon while it was planning the war. And in late 2002, Scheunemann, with administration approval, founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), an advocacy group with the explicit goal of whipping up pro-war sentiment across the country.

• Scheunemann was a crucial Washington backer of Ahmad Chalabi, the now-disgraced Iraqi exile who helped feed the CIA false intelligence on Saddam's WMD program and has since been accused of giving US state secrets to Iran. In the years leading up to the invasion, the two were so tight that the spokesman for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress shared a Washington address with both CLI and Scheunemann's private lobbying firm and Scheunemann was mentioned in press reports as a candidate for the job of formal envoy to the Iraqi opposition. During this period, Scheunemann, who acted as a crucial link between Chalabi and John McCain, was a go-to guy for reporters seeking pro-Chalabi quotes. He told The New York Times that Chalabi possessed "tremendous attributes that would be of immeasurable benefit to an Iraq in transition to democracy" and separately called him "an Iraqi patriot."

• Like other war supporters, Scheunemann threw caution to the wind in declaring, wrongly, that Saddam had WMD. "There is no doubt Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction," he assured Americans a month before the invasion.

• Scheunemann also played a key role in lining up support for the invasion from the "Vilnius Ten," a group of former Soviet bloc countries seeking to gain entry to NATO, some of whom Scheunemann has worked as a paid lobbyist on behalf of. With his partner Bruce Jackson, a Lockheed Martin executive, Scheunemann reportedly gave assurances to the Ten that backing the invasion would help their chances for NATO membership. Ultimately, seven of the ten countries gained entry to NATO, and two of those, Romania and Latvia, employed Scheunemann as a paid lobbyist to promote their applications.

• In the invasion's aftermath, Scheunemann's judgment proved no more effective. He argued vociferously against giving the UN a significant role in stabilizing Iraq. And he also opposed leaving any members of Saddam's Baath party in government positions, declaring: "It is very difficult for me to conceive of democratic institutions being established in Iraq with the Baathist power structure mostly intact." Both of these positions, of course, proved to be disastrous policy blunders, which badly damaged our ability to stabilize Iraq in the crucial early months.

It's kind of astonishing that McCain continues to be taken seriously on Iraq when his closest adviser has a track record on the issue as atrocious as Scheunemann's. At the very least, when reporters hang up from their frequent conference calls, arranged by the McCain campaign, in which Scheunemann attacks Barack Obama's judgment on Iraq, they might want to keep Scheunemann's own history on the subject in mind.

Late Update: We wrote above, based on a 2004 report in The Los Angeles Times, that the spokesman for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress shared a Washington address with both CLI and Scheunemann's private lobbying firm. But Entifadh Qanbar, who worked for the INC at the time, told TPM that Scheunemann took over the office space from the INC when the INC moved into new digs.

For an example of the stellar candidates that Monica Goodling's predecessor, Jan Williams was tapping for Immigration Judge positions, one needs to look no further than the bottom of page 94 of today's OIG report.

According to the report, the White House reached out to a Republican Congressman for a recommendation on an open IJ position in New York. The Congressman's office responded with a "great Republican" and added that "the candidate was a 'long time donor to the local GOP.' His name was forwarded to the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) by Jan Williams.

But apparently EOIR wasn't so happy with the Office of the Attorney General's pick.

In an e-mail dated December 7, 2005, [EOIR Deputy Director Kevin] Ohlson advised Williams that the candidate's conduct during his EOIR interview "causes us to question whether he possesses the appropriate judicial temperament and demeanor to serve as an immigration judge." Ohlson related that the candidate used profanity during the interview, acted abrasively, and when asked what his greatest weakness was, responded "Blondes." [emphasis ours]

The highest-ranking official flagged for breaking federal law in today's Department of Justice Inspector General's report was Kyle Sampson, a former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Sampson routinely violated DOJ policy and federal law by using overt political and ideological considerations when filling key DOJ jobs such as immigration judges, according to the report today from the DOJ's Inspector General. Federal law and Justice Department policy require career officials to be hired on merit and prohibit discrimination based on political affiliations.

Federal immigration judgeships were especially targeted for politicization. In October 2003, shortly after Sampson started working at DOJ, then as Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft, he began to overhaul the selection process for immigration judges. "[We] were only considering essentially Republican lawyers for appointment," Sampson said, according to the IG's report. (It was not clear from the report whether Sampson said that to IG investigators or in another setting)

Prior to 2004, immigration judges were appointed in an essentially non-political bureaucratic process handled by the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge. Vacancies were posted, resumes sorted, interviews conducted and decisions made by lower-level DOJ officials, according to the report.

Sampson's new process involved "coordination" with White House and an extra effort to get friends of the Bush administration into the judgeships when possible. Sampson circulated a document outlining the new process.

"Many lawyers seeking positions within the Administration, including judgeships, become known to the White House offices of Political Affairs, Presidential Personnel, and Counsel to the President." The document stated that some lawyers might qualify to be IJs, and that "coordination" was needed to ensure that such lawyers were "informed of the opportunity" to become IJs.

Also, Sampson often called over to the White House personnel office seeking "ideas for immigration judge postings." Sampson told a staffer to "contact the White House to get any candidate ideas that they had for immigration judges".

In one case, Sampson pushed a prospective judicial candidate who was supported by White House political director Karl Rove.

Regarding that candidate, whose name was not disclosed, Kevin Ohlson, then deputy director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, told the IG's investigators that he was "fully aware of the fact" that Sampson was pushing Rove's pick and that was affecting the formal evaluation.

"The finger was on the scale," Ohlson said.

That candidate was ultimately appointed to be an immigration judge in October 2005, the report said.

When questioned, Sampson said he thought the Immigration judges were political appointees, not career positions, and therefore not subject to civil service rules. He said Ohlson and the Office of Legal Counsel told him that. But Ohlson said he never said anything to that effect and investigators from the IG's office found no evidence that OLC provided any guidance to Sampson on the matter.

Sampson's lawyer, Brad Berenson, said today the hiring decisions were an honest mistake and that Sampson "immediately agreed with the recommendation to put a stop to this process" when he first learned he may have been wrong.

Here's a clip of Sampson's testimony on Capitol Hill in March 2007.

From the WSJ.com's Law Blog:

White & Cases's George Terwilliger, who's repping Gonzo, said in a statement: "The report makes two important points regarding former Attorney General Gonzales. First, the investigation found that former Attorney General Gonzales was not involved in or aware of the politicized hiring practices of staffers. Second, when he became aware of the problems he moved to correct them. It's simply not possible for any cabinet officer to be completely aware of and micromanage the activities of staffers, particularly where they don't inform him of what's going on."

. . . For his part, Gonzo said in a statement: "Political considerations should play no part in the hiring of career officials at the Department of Justice. I am gratified that the efforts I initiated to address this issue have now been affirmed and augmented by this report. I agree with the report's recommendations."

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are talking about a criminal investigation for DOJ officials -- Alberto Gonzales included.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said today's report about politicization in at the DOJ suggests that former AG Alberto Gonzales and other Justice officials may have given false statements under oath before Congress.

Conyers said in a statement this morning:

The Report also indicates that Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and Alberto Gonzales may have lied to the Congress about these matters. I have directed my staff to closely review this matter and to consider whether a criminal referral for perjury is needed."

A spokesman for the committee said the committee's lawyers are currently looking over the report and past testimony on the Hill.

That's probably not as dramatic as it sounds. Any criminal referral would be passed on to DOJ, which has so far refused to appoint a special prosecutor for the matter. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has said he's not going to pursue contempt referrals from Congress.

The OIG report released today on the politicized hiring at the Justice Department, details a number of the candidates that were de-selected for positions under Monica Goodling's watch. One of them, was an "experienced terrorism prosecutor. . [who] had successfully prosecuted a high-profile terrorism case for which he received the Attorney General's Award for Exceptional Service."

Unfortunately for him, he had a wife who was a Democrat:

Battle stated that Voris told him that the candidate was head and shoulders above the other candidates who had applied for the counterterrorism detail. Battle agreed with that assessment, stating that the candidate was the best applicant for the detail. John Kelly, the EOUSA Deputy Director and Chief of Staff, stated that he and Battle wanted to hire the candidate because he was one of the leading terrorism prosecutors in the country and a very talented attorney.

The candidate's wife was a prominent local Democrat elected official and vice-chairman of a local Democratic Party. She also ran several Democratic congressional campaigns. The candidate was at times a registered Independent and at other times a registered Democrat. Notwithstanding the candidate's outstanding qualifications and EOUSA senior management's desire to hire him, Goodling refused to approve the detail.

. . . Battle, Kelly, and EOUSA Deputy Director Nowacki all told us that Goodling refused to allow the candidate to be detailed to EOUSA solely on the basis of his wife's political party affiliation. [emphasis ours]

According to the OIG report released today, Angela Williamson, a deputy to Monica Goodling at the DOJ, was intimately involved in her bosses scurrilous hiring practices, attending interviews and often conducting interviews herself. Here's a sampling of the same questions that Goodling asked those being considered for political positions:

After Goodling resigned, Williamson typed from memory the list of questions Goodling asked as a guide for future interviews. Among other questions, the list included the following:

Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.

[W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

Aside from the President, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.

We found that this last question often took the form of asking the candidate to identify his or her most admired President, Supreme Court Justice, or legislator. Some candidates were asked to identify a person for all three categories. Williamson told us that sometimes Goodling asked candidates: "Why are you a Republican?" [emphasis ours]

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the politicization in the Bush Administration's Department of Justice posed a threat to national security.

Responding to today's report from the DOJ Inspector General, Leahy said in a statement:

"The report reveals decisions to reject qualified, experienced applicants to work on counterterrorism issues in favor of a less experienced attorney on the basis of political ideology. Rather than strengthening our national security, the Department of Justice appears to have bent to the political will of the administration. Further, the report reveals that the 'principal source' for politically vetted candidates considered for important positions as immigration judges was the White House- a clear indication of the untoward political influence of the Bush administration on traditionally non-political appointments."

Leahy went on to criticize former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for not acknowledging the systemic problems in the DOJ.

"Like some in the administration who would place blame for the actions at Abu Ghraib solely onto the shoulders of a few bad apples, the Attorney General has tried to dismiss the Inspector General's first report on politicization issued last month as documenting the actions of just a few bad apples. But it was obvious from that first report, and becomes more so with this second joint IG/OPR report, that the problems of politicization at the Department are rooted deeper than that.

In this report, we once again see that the Bush administration has allowed politics to affect and infect the nation's chief law enforcement agency's priorities.

Leahy said he looks forward to the Inspector General Glenn Fine's testimony before his committee on Wednesday.

Read Leahy's entire statement here.

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility released another part of their investigation into the politicization of the DOJ. The full report, "An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General," can be found here (pdf).

We'll be reading through and posting on this all day. But at first glance here's a quite relevant section:

In sum, we concluded that the evidence showed that Goodling violated both federal law and Department policy, and therefore committed misconduct, when she considered political or ideological affiliations in hiring decisions for candidates for career positions within the Department. In particular, the evidence showed that she considered political or ideological affiliations in deciding several waiver requests from interim U.S. Attorneys, in promoting several candidates for career positions, and in disapproving a candidate for an EOUSA career SES position.

Late update: Here are the names of other implicated in the report:
former Chief of Staff to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson; Goodling's predecessor, former White House Liason Jan Williams, and EOUSA (Executive Office for United States Attorneys) Director John Nowacki-- who is still at the department. The report states that Nowacki knew of the politicization of the DOJ but drafted a press statement saying otherwise. Of Sampson, Williams and Goodling the report states:

In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs [immigration judges], which are career positions protected by the civil service laws.

Late late update: Attorney General Michael Mukasey released a statement saying he is "of course disturbed" by the findings of the OIG report:

I have said many times, both to members of the public and to Department employees, it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career Department employees. And I have acted, and will continue to act, to ensure that my words are translated into reality so that the conduct described in this report does not occur again at the Department.

Over the course of the last year and a half, the Justice Department has made many institutional changes to remedy the problems discussed in today's report, and the report itself commends these changes. The report includes one new recommendation for institutional change, and I have directed the prompt implementation of that recommendation. It is crucial that the American people have confidence in the propriety of what we do and how we do it, and I will continue my efforts to make certain they can have such confidence.

Late late late update: The report also investigates whether officials (namely Williams, Goodling and Nowacki) gave "inaccurate or misleading" information to investigators, attorneys in civil-suits, and higher-ups at the DOJ.

Late late late late update: We think it's important to note that the former Attorney Generals Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft, who presided over the DOJ through all of this, were not implicated in the report.

The report also details some of the questions Goodling used for her interviews, here's a pithy little excerpt:

Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.

[W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

Aside from the President, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.

And our personal favorite:

Why are you a Republican?

Of the Goodling and Angela Williamson (the Deputy White House Liason) interviewees, 34 persons said they discussed abortion, and 21 said they discussed gay marriage.

In this week's Sunday paper, the Times of London doled out another interesting detail from their secretly recorded conversation with former Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Payne.

This week's story was not as explosive as the one two weeks ago, when the Houston energy consultant offered to arrange meetings with White House officials in exchange for big donations to the future George W. Bush presidential library fund.

The latest story said Payne talked about obtaining travel documents from the United Nations in exchange for money. That's a remarkable offer from a guy who sat on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory Committee. (Until he was told to resign a couple weeks ago).

On video, Payne was in a London hotel restaurant talking to a Kazakh politician known as Eric Dos. Dos made a reference to a previous business deal with Payne when Payne allegedly obtained a United Nations "passport" for a Kazakh billionaire who used to head the state oil and gas company, KazMunaiGas, or KMG.

Dos introduced the subject of Payne having helped Kulibayev obtain a UN "passport". Payne appeared to confirm his involvement, saying "Yeah yeah yeah, yeah." Asked if this was possible Payne answered: "It can be done. It's a question of money, always. Everything is." A source close to Payne said: "He didn't do this, but he knows who did. Kulibayev's firm paid for him to sit on a UN advisory commission and a friend of his on it got the document for him."

The "commission" referred to is the Energy Security Forum, a now defunct offshoot of the UN Economic Commission for Europe. Kulibayev was given a seat, courtesy of his position at KMG, from its inception in 2003, but never turned up to any of its meetings, said a spokesman.

The document referred to is not a formal passport but allows holders to travel internationally, according to the Times.

John McCain has received a significant up-tick in contributions from the oil industry after he decided to reverse his position on offshore drilling. Since McCain's decision to support offshore drilling in June, McCain has received over $1 million in donations compared to only having received $208,000 in June. (Washington Post)

The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction plans to release a report today detailing the problems at a prison in Khan Bani Saad which has become a symbol of government waste. The report also faults Parsons construction group for poorly managing millions of dollars in contracts. (AP)

In more bad news for Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), the New York Times reveals today that he has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Harlem's biggest real estate companies. This news comes after Rangel has decided to give up a highly criticized rent-stabilized apartment in Harlem. (New York Times)

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