John Boehner

White House Wants DOJ Action On Ohio Voting Case

Zachary Roth | October 25, 2008, 5:23PM

Looks like the White House is having trouble getting out of the habit of using the Department of Justice for political purposes.

The Washington Post reports that President Bush has asked DOJ to look into a request by House Republican leader John Boehner that would force Ohio's Secretary of State to provide local election officials with information on 200,000 newly registered voters who have mismatched registration data. That could make it possible for Republicans to issue challenges to many of these voters, perhaps forcing them to cast provisional ballots.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ohio Republicans, who were seeking to force the Secretary of State, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, to provide the information on mismatches to local officials, did not have standing to bring the case.

Boehner announced yesterday in a press release that he had sent a letter earlier this week to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking him to take action, but received no response. He then turned to the White House for help -- warning in a letter to President Bush that if no action were taken, "there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino characterized the move as "a routine step that would be taken for any such request from a congressional leader," according to the Post.

But it's worth remembering that much of the politicization of the Department of Justice that was exposed in the U.S. Attorneys scandal centered on voting issues, and specifically on an effort by the White House and DOJ to prioritize voter fraud prosecutions despite scant evidence that such fraud was occurring.

As voting rights groups point out, the mismatches at issue in this case are often nothing more than that the name on a voter's drivers license includes a middle initial, while that on his voter registration form does not.

Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Post: "This is taking the politicization of this to a new level."

We'll be watching this closely.

Voting

Story Not Over On Indiana Early Voting

Zachary Roth | October 24, 2008, 6:59PM

Not so fast.

We reported earlier that the Indiana Supreme Court had declined to approve a Republican bid to halt early voting in three heavily Democratic cities in Lake County.

Based on the view of Rick Hasen, a noted expert on election law, we concluded: "Since the appeals court is unlikely to get involved before November 4th, today's ruling effectively ensures that voting will continue up until election day."

But it now looks like that's not a certainty. The Indiana Law Blog has just posted an order from the Court of Appeals, calling for an expedited briefing schedule and setting oral arguments from October 30th.

Based on that, Hasen now believes it's a "possibility" that the court could step in before election day.

Looks like this bears keeping an eye on.

Voting

Voting-Rights Group Calls For Federal Probe Of New Mexico Voter Intimidation

Zachary Roth | October 24, 2008, 5:11PM

A major voting-rights group has sent a letter to New Mexico U.S. Attorney Gregory Fouratt, calling on him to investigate claims of voter intimidation and suppression.

The letter, from the group Project Vote, comes in the wake of reporting by TPMmuckraker and others about a private investigator -- who said he was working for Pat Rogers, a lawyer connected to the state GOP -- appearing at the homes of Hispanic voters in Albuquerque, and questioning them about their right to vote. In a press release announcing the letter, Project Vote refers directly to these reports.

In its letter, Project Vote -- a non-profit voting-rights group that works to increase voting in low-income and minority communities -- writes:

This form of intimidation and suppression is in direct violation of Section 12 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as Section 2. We feel that the right of all Americans to vote is of the utmost importance, and if there is credible evidence of voter intimidation and suppression of a particular class of voters it should be addressed and promptly persecuted.

Fouratt was appointed U.S. Attorney for the district after the 2006 firing of David Iglesias. According to a recent DOJ report, Iglesias was removed for his failure to prosecute voter fraud cases he believed to be bogus.

Voting

Indiana Supreme Court Won't Stop Early Voting

Zachary Roth | October 24, 2008, 4:20PM

The Indiana Supreme Court has declined to approve a bid by the GOP to shut down early voting centers in Democratic strongholds of a key county.

A lower court had similarly rejected the effort earlier this week. The Supreme Court ruled today that the case had to first be heard by an appeals court, rather than going straight to the state's high court as the Republican plaintiffs wanted.

Since the appeals court is unlikely to get involved before November 4th, today's ruling effectively ensures that voting will continue up until election day.

Voting

PI's Actions May Have Violated Federal Voting Laws, Say Experts

Zachary Roth | October 24, 2008, 1:49PM

Four separate experts on voting rights have confirmed to TPMmuckraker that the behavior of a private investigator apparently hired by a New Mexico Republican party lawyer, that we reported this morning, potentially violates federal voting laws.

Gerry Hebert, a former acting head of the voting rights section of the Department of Justice, told TPMmuckraker that the P.I.'s actions appear to violate the criminal section of the federal Voting Rights Act, which makes it a crime to willfully injure, intimidate, or interfere with a person attempting to vote. Hebert added that a separate statute makes it a crime to conspire to intimidate someone in exercising their right to vote -- a provision that could apply to GOP lawyer Pat Rogers or others in the state party who may have been involved in the scheme.

"A matter like that ought to be reported to the DOJ immediately," said Hebert, adding that he planned to do so.

Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights agreed, and added that the activities detailed in TPMmuckraker's report could violate both criminal and civil voting rights statutes. Greenbaum pointed to a civil provision of the Voting Rights Act which says that it violates the law to intimidate, threaten or coerce someone from voting or not voting.

Greenbaum too said he planned to pass on to the Department of Justice the claims made in our report.

Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a noted expert on election law, also said that the behavior potentially violated the Voting Rights Act or other federal civil-rights statutes.

And Wendy Weiser, a voting-rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, further confirmed that take.

An Albuquerque woman told TPMmuckraker yesterday that a man identifying himself as a private investigator hired by Rogers came to her mother's house Wednesday asking her mother for personal information and warning her not to vote if she wasn't properly registered. A second woman in the same city provided a simlar report to TPMmuckraker. The voters' names had been publicly released last week by Rogers and others affiliated with the state party, who claimed that 28 mostly Hispanic people had voted fraudulently in June. It was later determined that many of the people whose names had been released were valid voters.

The New Mexico Independent first reported the news of the intimidating visits last night.

Tim Mahoney

Details on Mahoney Affair Get Seedier

Kate Klonick | October 24, 2008, 11:20AM

The Tim Mahoney story just keeps getting worse and worse.

First it was a settlement over an alleged affair; then it was a second alleged affair; then it was admitting to multiple affairs and now it's seedy details behind the settlement with Mahoney's former mistress.

ABCNews.com reports that documents show Mahoney asked Patricia Allen, his former mistress and staffer to engage in phone sex and perform as a "tease c-ck" for big donors.

From ABCNews.com:

The settlement was reached after Allen hired a lawyer who sent the Congressman a "demand" letter, listing specific examples of Mahoney's alleged "gross misconduct" and "stalking" including:

a) Calling Allen late in the evenings and demanding "phone sex;"
b) Demanding that Allen answer his calls or face termination;
c) Demanding that Allen attend fundraisers and "tease c-ck" to bring in more donations from the male members of the public;
d) Demanding that Allen engage in sexual conduct with another woman for his enjoyment.

Current and former staffers told ABC News the allegations contained in the "demand letter" sent to Mahoney were backed up by tape recordings of phone calls between the Congressman and Allen.

Alaska

Stevens' Jury Gets Friday Off For Juror's Family Emergency

Kate Klonick | October 24, 2008, 10:16AM

The deliberations in the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens have been suspended for Friday after a juror had a family emergency, the AP reports.

Jurors will be excused from deliberations today and possibly Monday, so that Juror No. 4 can travel home to attend to the death of her father in California.

Today would be the third day of deliberations for the jury, which has already experienced a number of issues. On Wednesday, jurors asked to be excused early after things became "stressful." Yesterday, the foreman wrote a note to the judge requesting the removal of a juror who had become 'rude, disrespectful and unreasonable" and had "violent outbursts."

ACORN

Did New Mexico GOP Lawyer Hire P.I. To Intimidate Minority Voters?

Zachary Roth | October 24, 2008, 9:20AM

Minority voters in New Mexico report to TPMmuckraker that a private investigator working with Republican party lawyer Pat Rogers has appeared in person at the homes of their family members, intimidating and confusing them about their right to vote in the general election.

Earlier this week, we reported that Rogers -- a lawyer and state committeeman for the GOP, who in previous elections worked closely with the party in pressuring New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to pursue bogus voter fraud cases -- is involved with a new effort to gin up concerns about the issue. Last week the state party falsely claimed that 28 people had voted fraudulently in a local Democratic primary race in June. Rogers, described in an Associated Press report on the allegations as "an attorney who advises the state GOP," told the news wire that the party planned to turn the suspect forms over to law enforcement authorities.

The visits to minority voters by the P.I. appear to be connected to last week's effort.

The story starts last week, when several representatives of the New Mexico Republican party, including Rogers, held a press conference to announce that 28 people had voted fraudulently in a Democratic primary in June in Bernalillo county, which contains Albuquerque. The party released the names of ten of these people -- almost all of whom are Hispanic.

The allegations quickly fell apart. ACORN announced that it had contacted the county clerk's office, who had verified that all of the voters were in fact legitimate. The group now says it has independently contacted 8 of these 10 voters to separately verify their validity.

At that point, the national GOP, which had at first jumped on the story as rare evidence of genuine voter fraud, seemed to quietly back off.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

Guadalupe Bojorquez, who works in law enforcement in Albuquerque, told TPMmuckraker today that her mother, Dora Escobedo, was one of the ten voters whose names were released by the GOP. After this happened, said Bojorquez, her mother had been contacted by the voter registration group ACORN. Bojorquez, with ACORN's help, confirmed with the county clerk that her mother, who does not speak English, is indeed eligible to vote, and had been when she voted in June.

Nonetheless, Bojorquez said that her mother yesterday received a visit from a man who asked for her personal information, including an ID, in reference to her eligibility to vote. Bojorquez told TPMmuckraker that according to her mother, at one point the man asked what she would do if immigration authorities contacted her.

After Bojorquez's mother, frightened, refused to let him in the door, the man waited outside her house. Eventually, Bojorquez's brother arrived at the house, emboldening Bojorquez's mother to go outside, call Bojorquez, and put her on the phone with the man.

Bojorquez said the man told her he wanted to make sure her mother knew that she shouldn't be voting, and continued to ask for her mother's personal information. When Bojorquez said that no information would be handed over unless the man revealed who he was employed by, he said he was a private investigator hired by Pat Rogers. He told Bojorquez his name was Al Romero, and left a number at which Bojorquez could contact him.

Bojorquez added that in fact, her mother has already voted in the general election, by absentee ballot -- which she is eligible for because she has trouble walking -- so Romero's efforts on that front were in vain.

Another Albuquerque woman had a similar experience.

Jenais Griego told TPMmuckraker that yesterday, as she arrived home with her kids, a man in a beige Chevy Silverado pulled up, removed a notebook from his pocket, and said he was looking for Emily Garcia. Garcia is Griego's grandmother -- Griego said Garcia, who works as a home care-giver, lists Griego's address for her mail -- and, like Escobedo, was one of the voters named by the GOP last week as having voted fraudulently in June.

Griego said she allowed the man in, and when she asked him for identification, he pulled out a card that gave his name as Al Romero. She said the man had a redacted copy of Garcia's voter registration form, and asked whether Garcia intended to vote. He said if she intended to do so, she needed to make sure she was properly registered.

As with Bojorquez and Escobedo, Griego said that Garcia had already confirmed after the GOP press conference that she was indeed a valid voter. An ACORN worker had come to her house to explain that the GOP had questioned her registration, and, along with Griego, they had contacted the county clerk to ensure that she could legitimately vote, and had done so in June.

So when Romero asked Griego whether Garcia intended to vote, Griego replied that she did. At that point, said Griego, Romero became "angry" and "upset," and left abruptly.

Rogers did not return several calls from TPMmuckraker seeking comment. But last week he said that the state party had hired a private investigator in connection with vote fraud.

Reached by TPMmuckraker at the phone number he provided to Bojorquez, Romero said he didn't have time to talk about the matter. He did not respond to repeated follow-up calls.

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Matt Berman and Natalie Sherman | October 24, 2008, 9:18AM

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) may be in some trouble with the age-old bipartisan House Franking Commission. The commission, which oversees congressional mailing standards, is investigating whether Roskam violated franking rules by sending out official mail within 90 days of an election. (Roll Call)

Lawyers for six Bosnian detainees at Guantanamo are battling it out with the Justice Department in front of a federal judge over who can be considered an enemy combatant. Once given the enemy combatant label, detainees can be held indefinitely without charges. The judge overseeing the case said Thursday that the debate "should have been resolved a long time ago." (AP/Boston Globe)

Despite a bumpy start, it was all smiles after day two of jury deliberations in the federal corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) according to the judge overseeing the case. After a dramatic second day, the jurors left just before 4 p.m. after coming together to announce that they were "unanimous in requesting a break." (Roll Call)

Read more »

Scott Bloch

Congress Daily: White House Fires Scott Bloch

Kate Klonick | October 23, 2008, 4:18PM

Apparently there's more to Scott Bloch's resignation as head of U.S. Special Counsel that meets the eye. According to the National Journal's Congress Daily, Bloch was fired today in a meeting with White House officials.

From Congress Daily:

Scott Bloch, the embattled head of the U.S. Special Counsel, was fired today in a meeting with White House officials, according to several sources. Bloch is under federal investigation for possible obstruction of justice for destroying computer files sought by investigators in prior probe into whether he retaliated illegally against whistleblowers in his office. On Monday Bloch announced plans to resign on Jan. 5. OSC employees said Federal Protective Service employees barred Bloch from his office today. The agency has an all-hands meeting at 4 p.m.

Election 2008

FEC Complaint Filed Against Palin and RNC's Shopping Spree

Kate Klonick | October 23, 2008, 3:20PM

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an FEC complaint today against Sarah Palin and the Republican National Committee for violating federal election law in spending $150,000 outfitting the Alaska governor.

The group claims the excessive spending is a violation of campaign finance law which specifically prohibits candidates from using campaign funds for personal use.

"It is ridiculous that RNC would spend $150,000 to outfit a vice presidential nominee and her family at any time, but it is more outrageous given the dire financial straights of so many Americans and the state of our economy," CREW director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. "If the RNC had an extra $150,000 to throw around, there were better alternatives than pricey designer clothes."

Earlier this week, the RNC responded to possible violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act by stating that all of Palin's clothes would be donated to charity after the election.

Alaska

Attorneys in Stevens' Trial Called Back to Court Over Jury Questions

Kate Klonick | October 23, 2008, 1:32PM

The jury in the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens sent three more notes to Judge Emmet Sullivan today, one of which specifically asked the judge to "please clarify the liability cost as it is not readily clear in Senate regulations," The Hill reports.

After receiving the notes, Sullivan sent the jurors to lunch early and asked attorneys from the case to return to court this afternoon for a bench conference to discuss how to instruct the jury.

From The Hill:

Sullivan proposed telling the jurors that the financial disclosure forms require "the filer to disclose the amount of liabilities in excess of $10,000 that were owed by the filer in any point in time during the calendar year." But Robert Cary, Stevens's defense lawyer, called the statement an "oversimplification" and asked to give the jurors a more elaborate explanation.

Today is only the first full day of deliberations for the jury, who were given instructions yesterday morning.

Late update: It looks like one of the jurors may be dismissed for "disruptive, rude and violent" behavior, the AP reports. We'll keep you updated as we hear more.

Late update. . . 2:33 pm: More details are emerging on the "violent" juror. The Hill describes her as a "middle-aged. . bookkeeper for the D.C. National Guard." According to Politico, one of the jury's notes to Sullivan says the woman "has had violent outbursts with other jurors and that's not helping anyone. She is not following the laws and rules that were stipulated."

Late update. . . 2:56pm: After discussing with attorneys from both sides, it doesn't look like the "violent" juror won't be going anywhere.

From the AP:

Worried about disrupting the process, Sullivan opted not to remove the woman. He spoke with jurors, told them how important their job was, urged them to be civil and sent them back to continue deliberating.

Late update. . .6:29pm: The Washington Post has a copy of the note sent from the jury to Sullivan requestion that juror #9 be removed. Read it here.

Voting

Court Throws Out WI AG Voting Suit

Kate Klonick | October 23, 2008, 12:30PM

It looks like some of the state and local efforts led by Republicans to stymie voters, aren't panning out.

The latest loss for the GOP comes in Wisconsin. Where the suit filed by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen requesting confirmation on thousands of voter registrations, has been thrown out by a county circuit judge.

From Wisconisn State Journal:

Judge Maryann Sumi said Van Hollen failed to state an adequate claim for bringing the lawsuit and noted that state law has consistently favored protecting citizens' right to vote. Sumi also said that Van Hollen did not have standing to bring the lawsuit.

. . .DOJ spokesman Kevin St. John said the Department of Justice plans to appeal, possibly directly to the state Supreme Court.

Just yesterday, the Nevada Secretary of State rejected a GOP argument that people who corrected incomplete registration information at the polls should be forced to cast provisional ballots. And in Indiana, a judge ruled against Republican efforts to shut down early polling places in Democratic-heavy areas of a key county.

Last week, the Supreme Court sided with Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State, ruling against ruling against a Republican effort to require her to provide infomration on voters with mismatched registration information to county election officials, which could have led to GOP challenges.

Late update: TPMmuckraker caught up with Joe Wineke, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, who called the ruling "very strongly worded."

"It's great to know that the circuit court in Wisconsin understood that the rule of law is more important than partisan political campaigns," Wineke told us. "The really amazing thing to me right now is that the attorney general plans to appeal with 12 day to go till the election."

We should have a copy of the court's decision shortly, so check back soon.

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Natalie Sherman | October 23, 2008, 9:51AM

Though war crimes charges against five Guantanamo Bay prisoners were dismissed Tuesday, Mohamed Jawad, the detainee whose case prompted the resignation of a military prosecutor last month, is still being held. The former prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, has accused the government of withholding evidence from the defense that might clear Jawad, who was picked up in Afghanistan as a teenager. (ProPublica/Salon)

The Justice Department has declined to pursue the prosecution of two former Interior Department officials accused of corruption, citing inadequate evidence. In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, John Conyers (D-MI), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, expressed suggested the decision was motivated by a desire to "run out the clock on the many controversies surrounding this administration." (Washington Post/Press Release)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture inadequately handles discrimination cases, according to a government report out yesterday. The study, issued by the Government Accountability Office, pointed to inaccurate data and a large backlog of complaints, and suggested the creation of an oversight board for the agency. (Washington Post)

Read more »

Voting

Nevada Secretary of State Rebuffs Latest GOP Effort To Suppress Vote

Zachary Roth | October 22, 2008, 11:17PM

Yesterday we told you about the latest GOP effort to make voting more difficult -- a letter sent by Nevada GOP chair Sue Lowden to Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller, arguing that people should not be able to correct incomplete registrations on the spot when going to vote. Lowden claimed that Nevada law requires voter registration to be closed three weeks before election day, and that in such cases, people should be forced to cast provisional ballots.

Now Miller's office has responded with an interpretation of the law at issue, rejecting Lowden's argument. The key excerpt:

Question: If a county clerk/registrar of voters determines that an application to register to vote is incomplete or incorrect, does Nevada law provide an opportunity for the applicant to submit a corrected application after the close of registration?

Answer: Yes. Nevada law provides the manner in which an in-person and mail-in applicant may update or correct the voter information, and may do so without losing his right to vote.

Miller has already been in the news for voting issues this cycle. Last month, he engineered a high-profile raid on an ACORN office in Las Vegas after fraudulent registration forms were submitted, despite the fact that ACORN claimed it was cooperating with investigators.

ACORN

US Attorney's Office Involved In Voter-Fraud Probe in NM

Zachary Roth | October 22, 2008, 7:20PM

We've got a bit more information on the FBI's investigation into voter fraud that's taking place in New Mexico.

Last Friday, the Associated Press reported that FBI agents had met with Bernalillo County clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, "after she notified authorities about an estimated 1,500 possibly fraudulent voter registration cards."

And speaking today to TPMmuckraker, Toulouse Oliver added a bit of detail to that picture. She said she had passed on redacted copies of the suspicious forms (many of which had badly mismatched information, or listed addresses that did not exist) to the offices of the District Attorney and the US Attorney in the area. When the FBI contacted her, it said it had been asked to follow up by the US Attorney' office. And the meeting between Toulouse Oliver and an FBI agent was also attended by an Assistant US Attorney.

The US Attorney's office didn't return a call seeking comment. But it appears that the office is taking a lead role in the investigation.

It's worth noting that David Iglesias was fired from that very US Attorney's office largely for his reluctance to pursue bogus voter fraud claims.

What's still unclear is how closely the probe is tied to the nationwide investigation into ACORN's voter registration activities that we learned about last week. ACORN is active in Bernalillo County.

Alaska

Stressed Out Stevens' Jury Heads Home Early

Kate Klonick | October 22, 2008, 5:05PM

The jurors in the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens have just sent a note to the judge asking to go home early, after just four hours of deliberations.

"It's kind of stressful right now, can we leave a little early? We need a moment of clarity," the juror's note read according to MSNBC.

As we reported earlier, today is the first day of deliberations in the historic trial of Stevens, who is the first sitting senator to ever be indicted.

Judge Emmet Sullivan acquiesced, letting the jurors leave early, the AP reports.

Voting

Early Voting To Proceed in Minority-Heavy Indiana Cities

Zachary Roth | October 22, 2008, 2:58PM

It looks like one of the numerous tricks pulled by Republicans to make it harder for black people to vote isn't going to work.

A judge in Lake County, Indiana ruled today against a GOP effort to shut down early voting centers set up in predominantly low-income African-American areas of the county.

As we reported earlier this month, county Republicans had sued to have the centers shut down, on the grounds that the law required a unanimous vote of the county election board to set up early voting centers. (The Lake County board had voted 3-2 to open them.)

Without the early voting centers, which were set up in the northern Lake County cities of Hammond, Gary, and East Chicago, residents of those cities would have had to travel over an hour to vote early in the county seat of Crown Point, which is in the southern part of the county. Barack Obama needs a strong turnout in northern Lake County if he's to have a chance of winning Indiana, a state where he's been running almost even with John McCain.

The centers have already been open for several weeks, and the court ruled that valid votes already cast will count.

From the ruling by Judge Diane Kavadias Schneider, which was obtained by TPMmuckraker from the Lake County Superior Court:

The Lake County Board of Elections and Registration is hereby enjoined from terminating the operation of in person absentee voting currently being conducted in the offices of the Clerk of the Lake Circuit Court in the courthouse buildings in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago and the offices of the Lake County Board of Elections and Registration in Crown Point.

It is further ordered that all ballots that have already been cast at the early voting locations in Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, and Crown Point shall not be invalidated except for instances of voter fraud.

The GOP may yet appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court. But for now, early voting continues in the Democratic stronghold of a key county in a key state.

Ted Stevens

Stevens' Fight For Political Life Rests in Hands of Jury

Kate Klonick | October 22, 2008, 11:42AM

With closing arguments finished, all that's left in the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens, is jury instructions and deliberation. Those will start this morning, and depending on how long the jury deliberates, we could have a decision in the historic trial of the only sitting senator ever indicted as early as this afternoon.

So let's take this time to look back at some of the highs and lows from the four week long trial.

One of the biggest lows, for the prosecution anyway, was Judge Emmet Sullivan's exclusion of key evidence after the government failed to provide the defense with copies of evidence and never provided promised testimony.

The prosecution semi-recovered from the ruling, calling a late witness, Dave Anderson -- who worked for VECO and on Stevens' renovations -- to testify in order to compensate for some of the excluded evidence.

While it looked like this blow against the government's case seemed devastating, that was before Stevens took the stand. The seven-term senator's two days of testimony (which we blogged here and here) added a new variable to the trial and it's difficult to tell if Stevens' curmudgeonly answers on cross-examination helped or hindered his cause.

An un-related moment in the trial, but a favorite at TPM, was the possibility of Martha Stewart's attorney being called as a witness. The judge excluded his testimony, but gave this wonderful quote, captured by the Blog of Legal Times:

"The words 'Martha Stewart' mean different things to different people," Judge Sullivan said. "There is no universal meaning of 'Martha Stewart.'"

Yesterday's closing arguments, were predictably theatrical especially from the defense -- sometimes too theatrical. Stevens' attorney Brendan Sullivan was apparently modulating his voice so widely between shouts and whispers that the jury had to stop Sullivan's closing to ask him to repeat words he intimately breathed to the jurors, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The prosecution spent much of the time incredulously recalling Stevens' testimony and "growling" answers on cross-examination.

"Maybe since the defendant lives so close to the North Pole, maybe Santa and his elves came down and did this work and completed it. He had no idea," said prosecutor Brenda Morris.

And with that, we wait -- like expectant children on Christmas Eve -- for the jury to reach a decision on the fate of Sen. Stevens

ACORN

Report: ACORN May Have Used Charitable Money For Political Work

Zachary Roth | October 22, 2008, 11:26AM

Here's something sure to provide grist for a thousand new Republican attacks.

ACORN -- the community organizing group that the McCain campaign and the RNC have been working to turn into a short-hand for (unfounded) fears of voter fraud -- may have broken federal laws covering how it can spend money and resources among its many affiliates, according to a story in the New York Times.

The Grey Lady reveals that an internal report written by an ACORN lawyer spells out "concerns about potentially improper use of charitable dollars for political purposes; money transfers among the affiliates; and potential conflicts created by employees working for multiple affiliates, among other things."

The finding in the report with perhaps the most immediate significance to ACORN's prominent role in the campaign concerns the relationship between the group and Project Vote, an affiliated charity that does voter-registration work with ACORN. ACORN, a non-profit corporation, can legally do partisan political work, but Project Vote, a tax-exempt charity, can't.

The report found:

[T]he tight relationship between Project Vote and Acorn made it impossible to document that Project Vote's money had been used in a strictly nonpartisan manner. Until the embezzlement scandal broke last summer, Project Vote's board was made up entirely of Acorn staff members and Acorn members.

Here's the argument Republicans will likely use to tie this news to their ongoing attacks on ACORN's voter-registration activities: if the non-partisan group that ACORN partners with on voter registration work is in practice controlled by ACORN proper, which can legally conduct partisan political activities, it's more plausible that the fraudulent registration forms submitted by Project Vote are part of a politically motivated scheme to sway the election -- as the GOP has been claiming, without evidence, all along -- rather than honest mistakes.

The other thing to note is that when Republicans talk about Obama's ties to ACORN, they're often talking about a short period in 1992 when he worked for Project Vote, though the relationship between the two groups appears to have been less close at the time.

So today's news will add fuel to both of those fires. But the crucial point on ACORN as it relates to this election -- that there's still essentially no evidence whatsoever of voter registration fraud actually leading to voter fraud -- is as true today as it was yesterday.

Election 2008

Women's Voices Women Vote Fined for Robocalls in North Carolina

Kate Klonick | October 22, 2008, 10:36AM

You might remember the puzzling robo-calls coming from a group called Women's Voices Women Vote, earlier this year during the Democratic primary. Back then, our conclusion was, they were more incompetent than malicious -- breaking the laws on robo-calls because of ignorance rather than dirty tricks.

Well, as lawyers are fond of saying, ignorance of the law is no excuse. The AP reports that Women's Voices Women Vote was forced to pay a $100,000 fine in North Carolina for breaking the state law in May that says robocall groups must provide information on the group or a way to contact the organization.

The group also was ordered to stay out of politics until after Election Day.

"It was not our intention that the robocalls or our mailings cause any confusion as to whether any individual was already registered to vote,'' Page Gardner, the group's president said in a statement. "To the contrary, our effort was squarely aimed at encouraging registration of underrepresented voters in North Carolina for the upcoming general election.''

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Natalie Sherman | October 22, 2008, 10:00AM

Last month, Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld quit his post as Guantanamo prosecutor, saying that the military was not sharing exculpatory evidence with the defense. Yesterday, the Pentagon dropped war-crimes charges against five of the detainees being tried by Vandeveld, saying it would appoint a new team to review the cases. (AP)

An internal United Nations report has found five more instances of corruption, fraud, or mismanagement related to the way the organization awards contracts. This adds $20 million to the group's misused funds, with eight cases still under investigation. (Washington Post)

The FBI arrested a former Chicago police commander, Jon Burge, yesterday on charges of false testimony and obstruction of justice in a 2003 trial meant to determine whether he and others in the department had tortured suspects. In 2007, the Chicago Police Department paid out nearly $20 million in settlements to men who had been sentenced to death, but were freed after they said the department had used torture and prompted false confessions. (Chicago Sun Times)

Read more »

ACORN

Nevada GOP Cracking Down On Urban Voters

Zachary Roth | October 21, 2008, 5:53PM

The GOP effort to suppress the vote has reared its head in Nevada.

Yesterday, Sue Lowden, the state Republican chair, sent a letter to Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller, asking him to prevent some from voting, because their registrations are incomplete.

How may peope are we talking about? Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun reports: "I understand that 2,300 forms have been identified in urban counties."

Lowden argues that allowing these people to vote on the spot after fixing the errors violates a law that requires voter registration be closed three weeks before election day. She wants these voters to be made to cast provisional ballots -- which are often tied in legal challenges before being counted.

Miller's office has said it is working on an interpretation of the law.

Last month, Miller engineered a high-profile raid on an ACORN office in Las Vegas after fraudulent registration forms were submitted, despite the fact that ACORN claimed it was cooperating with investigators.

Senate Judiciary Committee

SJC Subpoenas Mukasey for Testimony and OLC Docs

Kate Klonick | October 21, 2008, 3:11PM

After the Washington Post beat the Senate Judiciary Committee to memos from the White House to the CIA endorsing interrogation practices, Chairman Patrick Leahy hasn't been pulling punches.

Today, Leahy issued a subpoena to Attorney Gen. Michael Mukasey demanding that he provide testimony and related documents to the committee about "legal analysis and advice from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) related to the Bush administration's terrorism policies, including detention and interrogation policies and practices." The deadline for the testimony and documents is November 18. The committee voted on issuing the subpoena in a September 25 business meeting.

"This administration's stonewalling leaves this Committee without basic facts that are essential to carrying out its oversight responsibilities," Leahy said in his letter to Mukasey.

"There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this Committee. The Executive Branch should not obstruct Congress from conducting its constitutional oversight and lawmaking duties by making sweeping assertions of secrecy and privilege."

Leahy and the Bush administration have been embroiled in an ongoing tussle over access to administration documents. As Leahy explains in today's letter, in August he wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding requesting the documents, and was rebuffed. Fielding referred Leahy to DOJ, which continued to stonewall. As a result, the committee voted to authorize the subpoena, which was issued to Mukasey today.

Voting

NM GOP Lawyer Pushing Voter Fraud: It's "Single Greatest Wedge Issue Ever."

Zachary Roth | October 21, 2008, 3:05PM

Yesterday we told you about Pat Rogers, the New Mexico Republican lawyer who, according to reports, is deeply involved in the state party's effort to make an issue out of voter fraud -- despite essentially no evidence that such fraud is occurring. As we noted, Rogers also played a central role a few years ago in pressuring former U.S. attorney David Iglesias to bring politically motivated voter-fraud cases. Iglesias' reluctance to bring such cases led to his firing in 2006.

But it's worth paying a bit more attention to Rogers, to see how the Justice Department's new nationwide investigation into ACORN, in which New Mexico seems to be a crucial focus -- appears to represent the very same politicization of DOJ that was exposed in the scandal over the US attorney firings.

As we noted yesterday, Rogers' role in pressing Iglesias to pursue voter fraud prosecutions was extensive. According to the OIG report on the firings, Rogers set up a lunch meeting with Iglesias, and met with an FBI agent -- among many other activities -- to push the issue.

Perhaps most damagingly, the report contains a September 2004 email sent to Iglesias and several staffers for New Mexico's GOP congressional delegation, in which Rogers admitted that he was interested in the issue in large part for its potential to help the GOP:

I believe the [voter] ID issue should be used (now) at all levels - federal, state legislative races and Heather [Wilson]'s race ... You are not going to find a better wedge issue ... I've got to believe the [voter] ID issue would do Heather more good than another ad talking about how much federal taxpayer money she has put into the (state) education system and social security ... This is the single best wedge issue, ever in NM. We will not have this opportunity again ... Today, we expect to file a new Public Records lawsuit, by 3 Republican legislators, demanding the Bernalillo county clerk locate and produce (before Oct 15) ALL of the registrations signed by the ACORN employee.

But Rogers is no mere local player on the Republican voter fraud team. He was on the board of the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), a fake think-tank which was little more than an effort by GOP operatives to offer an intellectual gloss to politically motivated claims of voter fraud -- and which abruptly closed down operations in 2007.

ACVR was run by Mark "Thor" Hearne, who served as national election counsel to President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. Jim Dyke -- who was the communications director of the Republican National Committee during the 2004 election, and went on to work for both the White House and for Vice President Cheney -- was also involved.

Writing in Slate last year, election-law expert Rick Hasen described ACVR's modus operandi:

Consisting of little more than a post-office box and some staffers who wrote reports and gave helpful quotes about the pervasive problems of voter fraud to the press, the group identified Democratic cities as hot spots for voter fraud, then pushed the line that "election integrity" required making it harder for people to vote. The group issued reports (PDF) on areas in the country of special concern, areas that coincidentally tended to be presidential battleground states. In many of these places, it now appears the White House was pressuring U.S. attorneys to bring more voter-fraud prosecutions.

Here's Rogers, on behalf of ACVR, telling CNN back in 2004 about the need for "safeguards to make sure that citizens only are voting."

And now this is the guy who's involved in pushing voter fraud claims in connection with an investigation in which the FBI is already involved.

Rogers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It's also worth keeping in mind that New Mexico -- which went for Al Gore in 2000 by just 365 votes, and President Bush in 2004 by around 6000 -- is crucial for John McCain's chances. Today, MSNBC.com quotes an RNC official saying: "[T]he numbers -- public and private -- in the [south west] have swung wildly. We believe the possibility of NV or NM breaking at the last minute is likely and we have our dominos lined up to knock down the win at the last minute."

It looks like one of those dominoes is Rogers' effort to use bogus claims of voter fraud as "the single best wedge issue ever."

Scott Bloch

Bloch Out: U.S. Special Counsel To Resign

Zachary Roth | October 21, 2008, 10:05AM

Scott Bloch, a TPMmuckraker favorite who in July had said publicly that he had no plans to resign as U.S. special counsel, will in January do exactly that, reports the Associated Press.

It adds:

In 2004, Bloch was put in charge of the [Office of Special Counsel], whose mission is to protect the rights of federal workers and ensure that government whistle-blowers are not subjected to reprisals. But almost from the start, Bloch himself was a subject of investigations, including for closing hundreds of cases allegedly without investigating them and for allegedly retaliating against employees.

Bloch did investigate General Service Chief (and another TPMmuckraker fave) Lurita Doan, a probe which led to a wider invesitgation into whether administration employees were illegally working to support Republican political candidates.

But an investigation was launched by the Office of Personnel Management into Bloch's own conduct, after OSC staffers complained that Bloch intimidated and transferred employees who opposed his policies. Bloch was also accused of not protecting gay federal employees from discrimination. In April 2007, the FBI raided Bloch's office and home, after he had been accused of destroying evidence and lying to Congress during the probe.

Bloch told congressional investigators that in December 2006, he used $1,149 in federal money to have a tech company scrub his government laptop computer. He said it was dne to protect government and personal information.

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Natalie Sherman | October 21, 2008, 8:44AM

The NSA will investigate reports that intelligence operators recorded calls from American journalists, military personnel, and humanitarian workers based in the Middle East, the agency said yesterday. The whistleblowers have said they confided their worries to superiors, but Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence, said yesterday that the NSA did not know about the problems until an ABC News investigation was published last week. Among the claims are allegations that NSA operators listened in on phone sex and then passed around the details. (ABC News)

A U.S. Court of appeals yesterday ruled 2-1 against the immediate release of 17 Uighur Muslims who are being held in Guantanamo despite being declared good for release more than three years ago. A U.S. court had ordered their immediate release earlier this month, despite objections by the Justice Department that the men posed a security threat to the U.S. but could not be returned to China, their home, because they might be tortured. The judges' decisions broke down along party lines, with two Bush appointees siding with the Justice Department. (AP)

American International Group, the insurance firm that has received more than $122 billion in federal funds this fall, announced yesterday that it will halt its lobbying activities. The move is the latest effort to appease critics, who have faulted the company for its lavish retreats and held it up as an example of Wall Street greed and corruption. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that AIG was spending millions of dollars to prevent tougher regulation of the mortgage market. (Wall Street Journal)

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ACORN

NM GOP Lawyer Cited In Iglesias Firing Is Back Pushing Bogus Voter Fraud Claims

Zachary Roth | October 20, 2008, 6:41PM

The evidence is growing that the FBI's investigation into ACORN is just the latest iteration of the unprecedented politicization of the Department of Justice that was exposed in the US attorney firings scandal.

Rep. John Conyers, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, today released a second letter about the FBI probe to Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Conyers
noted that the New Mexico GOP last week held a press conference where it publicly named people it said had voted fraudulently in a Democratic primary in June, as part of an ongoing FBI investigation into voter fraud. (ACORN appears to have subsequently shown that those voters were in fact valid.)

And Conyers goes on to make a great catch. He notes that "New Mexico lawyer Pat Rogers -- described in the local press as 'an attorney who advises the state GOP' -- is apparently playing a key role in pressing these current claims." (Conyers is referring to this Associated Press report.)

Conyers continues:

Mr. Rogers, however, appears repeatedly in the report on the U.S. Attorney firings, prepared by the Department's Office of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility, which documented his actions making flawed claims of voter fraud and bringing unwarranted pressure to bear on law enforcement officials, including Mr. Iglesias, in 2006.

In other words, one of the very same New Mexico GOP activists who was found in the OIG report to have tried to pressure David Iglesias to bring bogus voter-fraud prosecutions is still on the case, and has now helped to get a new federal investigation launched just weeks before the election.

And remember: the OIG report definitively concluded that Iglesias was fired as New Mexico's US attorney for his reluctance to follow up on politically motivated voter-fraud claims, made by local Republicans including Rogers.

There's a broader point worth making too: It's looking more and more like New Mexico is ground zero for the FBI's new investigation. (Remember that the Wall Streeet Journal had reported back on October 9 -- a good week before the news of a nationwide FBI probe broke -- that the bureau was looking into voter fraud in New Mexico.) And given what we saw happen to Iglesias, the FBI's focus on the state, apparently in response to GOP complaints, is further evidence that what's happening in 2008 has as a lot in common with what happened in 2006.

Tim Mahoney

Mahoney's Wife Files for Divorce

Kate Klonick | October 20, 2008, 6:37PM

The admissions of "multiple affairs" by Congressman Tim Mahoney, must have been an affair or two too many for his wife who filed for divorce today. The two had been married for almost 24 years.

From the the Palm Beach Post:

Terry Mahoney filed papers at the North County Courthouse in Palm Beach Gardens, which said the marriage is "irretrievably broken".

She appeared with her husband, but did not speak last Tuesday when Mahoney made a 2-minute appearance before reporters. In that appearance, the congressman acknowledged causing "pain" in his marriage.

ACORN

Right-Wing Pundit On Voter Fraud Claim: Never Mind

Zachary Roth | October 20, 2008, 5:37PM

Here's a funny example of how "voter-fraud" hysteria is starting to make some conservatives look kind of foolish.

In a post Friday on the website of the conservative magazine National Review, Jim Geraghty touted the New Mexico GOP's no-longer-operative claim that 28 people had voted fraudulently in a Democratic primary in June.

Then, attacking Adam Serwer of The American Prospect, who in an earlier post had questioned Geraghty's obsession with vote fraud, Geraghty wrote:

Now, unless A. Serwer thinks that there is actually a registered voter named "Duran Duran" in New Mexico, he ought to refrain from sputtering that those who disagree with him are 'racist' and 'paranoid.'

The person who is "Duran Duran" almost certainly voted under their real name, and thus got two votes in the primary. God knows how many of those 27 others exist; for all we know, one person might have cast all of them. Anybody who voted once had their vote diluted by the guy who cheated to vote two to twenty-seven times.

Geraghty sourced the Duran Duran claim, via link, to a column on the conservative web site Townhall.com, which described an Associated Press report that we weren't able to find. (What appears to be the original AP story on the GOP's claims contained no such detail.)

But it looks like what Geraghty and Townhall thought was a cut-and-dried example of fraudulent voting was no such thing. Some time later, Geraghty, was forced to correct the record, crossing out the quote above and adding the following update below his post:

I am floored by the fact that the white pages for Albuquereque, New Mexico has a listing for "Duran Duran." Mea culpa.

And sure enough.

The larger point is that, as we noted earlier, since Friday, ACORN has produced election officials to confirm that the "fraudulent" voters cited by the GOP were in fact valid.

Looks like both Republicans and conservative pundits might want to be a little more careful before throwing around claims of voter fraud. Not that we're holding our breath.

ACORN

RNC On New Mexico "Voter Fraud": Never Mind

Zachary Roth | October 20, 2008, 4:10PM

As if you needed any more evidence that the Republican effort to tout voter fraud is less about legitimate claims and more about a political agenda, consider this sequence of events:

Last week, as we noted at the time, the New Mexico GOP had publicly claimed that 28 people voted fraudulently in the Democratic primary, held in June, for a local race.

Then this morning, the RNC sent out a press release announcing a 3pm conference call with reporters "on the recent developments in New Mexico regarding ACORN."

But at 11am, ACORN -- the community organizing group that Republicans have been trying lately to turn into a voter fraud boogeyman -- held a conference call of its own, asserting that local election officials had confirmed that the 28 people in question, mostly low-income Latinos, were valid voters.

So here at TPMmuckraker, we wondered what the RNC's response to this would be. And on the 3pm call, we asked party spokesman Danny Diaz.

Diaz dodged the question. He talked about an incident with ACORN in Washington state, then referred us to an October 9th Wall Street Journal story, which did not address the allegation made last week by the state GOP about fraudulent voting in the Democratic primary. (Instead, it reported that the FBI had opened a preliminary investigation into thousands of fraudulent registration forms submitted in an area near an ACORN office.)

When we tried to follow up, Diaz cut us off and shifted the discussion toward a general attack on ACORN for submitting fraudulent registrations.

In other words, it looks like the RNC had scheduled a call to tout evidence of voter fraud -- not voter registration fraud, mind you, but actual voter fraud -- being perpetrated by ACORN in New Mexico. But when ACORN appeared to come up with compelling evidence that no such fraud had occurred, the RNC held the call anyway, simply shifting the focus to other vague allegations against ACORN -- then refused to address the New Mexico situation when asked.

Voting

MI GOP and Obama Camp. Settle Lawsuit

Kate Klonick | October 20, 2008, 1:40PM

The Michigan Messenger, whose article on the Michigan GOP's plans to challenge voters on foreclosure lists sparked a lawsuit from Democrats, reports that the two parties have now reached a settlement.

A judge was supposed to hear arguments from the Obama campaign's lawsuit against the RNC, MI GOP and Macomb County Republican party. At the last minute, parties settled the lawsuit and issued the following statement:

"Obama for America, the Democratic National Committee and individual Macomb County residents have alleged that the Republican National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party and the Macomb County Republican Party were planning to use foreclosure lists to challenge certain voters on Election Day. The Republicans have denied the allegations and have stated that they never intended to challenge voters based on any such list. To clarify the matter for all voters, all parties are pleased that they agree that the existence of a person's address on a foreclosure list does not provide a reasonable basis for challenging the person's eligibility to vote and that none of these parties will challenge any voter's eligibility on that basis."

We'll have more on this as it develops.

Voting

Ex-DOJ Voting Rights Chief On Bogus Voter Fraud Probe: "There Is No Shame."

Zachary Roth | October 20, 2008, 12:33PM

Since the news was reported last week that the FBI, less than three weeks before the election, is launching a voter-registration-fraud investigation into ACORN, we've seen a number of former top DOJ voting-rights officials --as well as former US attorney David Iglesias -- denounce the probe as an inappropriate politicization of the department.

Add Joe Rich to the list. Rich, who from 1999 until 2005 ran the voting section in the department's civil rights division, and is now at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, told TPMmuckraker this morning that the ACORN investigation is "much worse than what happened in 2006."

Rich was referring to an indictment for voter fraud against four ACORN voter-registration workers, filed by Bradley Schlozman, an interim US attorney in Kansas City, just five days before a close Missouri Senate election. Schlozman later was investigated for possible perjury after testifying to Congress that he was "directed" by main DOJ to pursue the indictment, then filing a "clarification" in which he took "full responsibility" for the prosecution.

Noting that the Bush administration appears to be using the Department of Justice to pursue politically motivated voter-fraud investigations, even after getting caught red-handed doing so in the scandal over the US attorney firings, Rich added: "There is no shame."

Voting

Irony Alert: GOP Political Consultant Arrested For Voter Registration Fraud

Zachary Roth | October 20, 2008, 10:59AM

For all the outraged Republican claims of rampant voter fraud we've seen in the last few weeks, it's worth noting that authorities have had enough evidence to arrest only a tiny number of people in connection with the problem, almost all of whom were street-level canvassers suspected of duping their supervisors with phony registration cards in order to boost their bonuses.

But over the weekend, a professional political consultant, who owns a firm that's been registering hundreds of thousands of voters and gathering petition signatures, was added to the list. The only problem: it's a Republican firm that had contracted with the California GOP.

The LA Times reports:

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.

This is the second black eye for Jacoby and his firm, Young Political Majors (YPM) in the last few days. Last week, the same paper reported claims by dozens of Californians that they were asked by YPM canvassers to sign a petition to toughen laws against child molesters, then later found they had been duped into registering as Republicans. YPM, which was paid $7-12 for every Californian it signed up for the Republican party, denied the allegations.

The paper adds:

YPM has been accused of using bait-and-switch tactics across the country. Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit.

Ironic that, for all the GOP-generated sturm und drang over ACORN in the last few weeks, it looks like it's in fact a Republican firm against whom there's actual evidence of systemic fraud.

Alaska

Blogging Sen. Stevens Testimony: Part II

Kate Klonick | October 20, 2008, 10:31AM

Picking up from where we left off on Friday, Sen. Ted Stevens is back on the stand this morning, in the midst of cross-examination.

The AP reports that Stevens is "dour" and "sparring curtly" with the prosecutor, in what is expected to be the last day of testimony in the historic trial.

We'll be bringing you more throughout the day, so stayed tuned as we continue our round up.

Trying to fire up the Senator Edition . . . 11:30am: The AP expands their story with some direct quotes from the cross. Perhaps most notably, he's outright denied that VECO had any involvement at all in the renovation of his house.

Morris pressed Stevens to acknowledge that he knew the foreman and other workers were VECO employees. But Stevens said that's not how he viewed it.

"He did work for VECO, yes, but when working at my house, he's working for me," Stevens said. "VECO was not involved in renovating my house."

The Politico reports that Stevens is less "combative" than he was on Friday, though the prosecutor keeps trying to bring out the Senator's famed temper.

Re-Gifting Edition. . . 12:23pm: We wonder what exactly Sen. Ted Stevens thinks he's on trial for, if it's not for his failure to disclose things on his financial disclosure forms. Roll Call has the exchange:

[Stevens] argued that there is a distinction between Allen as the personal friend who provided laborers for the house and Allen as the CEO of VECO.

That led Morris to ask, "You don't have to disclose gifts from a human?"

Stevens replied, "This has nothing to do with disclosure."

And back when Stevens' wife, Catherine, was on the stand, she spent a great deal of time lamenting the $250,00 worth of free upgrades that Bill Allen made to the house, especially furniture that he replaced. The prosecution brought the furniture back up, reading from an e-mail that Stevens had sent to Allen, saying that he was planning to re-gift the furniture to his son, The Hill reports. Stevens didn't respond well to this line of questioning:

Morris questioned why the senator kept that leather furniture set for more than seven years. She pulled out a Sept. 2005 e-mail where Stevens indicated to Allen that he would give the gift to his son.

Stevens grew agitated and tried to dodge the question.

"Just answer her question, sir," directed Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia.

"You are actually trying to re-gift the furniture that is so hideous to your son. Is that correct?" Morris asked.

"No," Stevens shot back.

There's no universal meaning of gift Edition . . . 1:07pm: Was it a gift? Was it a loan? In the Stevens' trial, it all depends on who you talk to.

Stevens talked his way around the fancy massage chair he received from Allen, reported the AP:

He said he considered that chair a loan.

"And the chair is still at your house?" prosecutor Brenda Morris asked.

"Yes," Stevens said.

"How is that not a gift?"

"He bought that chair as a gift, but I refused it as a gift," Stevens said. "He put it there and said it was my chair. I told him I would not accept it as a gift. We have lots of things in our house that don't belong to us."

Playing to the jury, Morris appeared confused.

"So, if you say it's not a gift, it's not a gift?" she said.

"I refused it as a gift," Stevens replied. "I let him put it in our basement at his request."

And that was it for the Stevens' testimony. The defense rested and closing arguments are scheduled for tomorrow.

Food for thought Edition . . . 4:15pm: TPM Reader BK points out that under the Senate Disclosure Rules, claiming something was just "a loan" isn't much of an excuse:

Uh, someone should remind Senator Stevens that the Senate Rules define the term "gift" to mean "any gratuity, favor, discount, entertainment, hospitality, loan, forbearance or other item having monetary value."

Senate Rule 35, Paragraph 2(b)(1).
Or, to put it another way, Senator Stevens just incriminated himself.

The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

Natalie Sherman | October 20, 2008, 9:58AM

The questions surrounding Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, already the subject of an FBI probe, now extend to his wife, Patti Blagojevich, whose real estate dealings some say could represent the kind of quid pro quo politics that has brought her husband scrutiny in the past. Patti Blagojevich's firm, River Realty, received $100,000 in commissions from a developer, whose family's company witnessed a spike in state payments after Blagojevich was elected governor. The reports surfaced in the course of the FBI's investigation of Tony Rezko, an Illinois fundraiser connected to the governor and convicted in June of fraud. (Chicago Sun Times)

The House Ethics Committee is considering an investigation of Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL), whose affairs with two women--both connected to his congressional work--became public last week. Mahoney inherited his Florida district from Republican Mark Foley, whose political career was also felled by a sex scandal. (Press Release)

The corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is set to close today, after lawyers wrap up examination of the man known as "Uncle Ted" to his constituents and as a "mean, miserable S.O.B." to his colleagues. Meanwhile, defense attorneys made a last ditch effort to have the case dismissed, filing another motion that claims the prosecution has mishandled evidence. (Roll Call)

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