Thanks to all those who wrote in regarding the sale of Katherine Harris' home. The general consensus -- and I'm inclined to agree -- is that while she did well for herself, her profits weren't far outside the norm for her neighborhood in that time period. The fact that the home could be used as a B&B may have also contributed to the high sale price.

My math is a little shaky -- after all, I'm a journalist -- but the sale price seem to reflects an appreciation of around 20 percent a year, and looking at the information readers sent in, that seems to be on the high side for her neighborhood, but within the boundaries of expectation. (Although it makes me wish I'd bought a house six years ago.)

Former White House domestic policy adviser Claude A. Allen was picked up today for falsely claiming refunds for $5,000 worth of retail goods, mostly from Target and Hecht's. It was a somewhat clever, if petty, one-man crime ring. ABC reports:

Police believe Allen would buy items, take them to his car, then return to the store with his receipt. He would select the same items, then take them to the store return desk and show the receipt from the first purchase. Using that method, he would receive credit for the second items on his credit cards, Burnett said.

Appointed to his White House post in early 2005, Allen resigned from the $161,000-a-year job last month "[to] focus on my family, my wife and my children."

Funny, the things you come across on a Friday afternoon. Here's an article we stumbled across from the Tallahassee (FL) Democrat, dated May 8, 2005:

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris made a bit of a killing in the local real estate market recently.

Her Myers Park home, a stately 1936 mansion that Harris lived in when she was secretary of state, was sold last month to a retired British educator and his wife for nearly $500,000 more than she paid for it in 1999. Public records at the Leon County Courthouse indicate Harris bought the former bed-and-breakfast, known as the Riedel House, for $269,000 when she joined the Cabinet six years ago.

Buyer Michael Reiser, who is moving from West Palm Beach, said the home at 1412 Fairway Drive needs some interior and grounds work but that he hopes to have it reopened as a B&B next spring. Reiser said he wasn't surprised by the near tripling of the price.

"Most people who have had property in Florida for five years have made a bundle off of it," he said. "It's a very good appreciation, I agree, but I'd imagine it's par for the course."

Reiser said he and his wife, Nafiseh, have been in the country about six months. He said they're not political people but he knew who Florida's most famous member of Congress was.

"Obviously, her fame had spread to England," he said.

Clearing half a million dollars in six years isn't unusual for some markets. But a 200 percent appreciation in six years is quite a killing. And the tone of the article implies it was steep for the area.

Perhaps Rep. Harris (R-FL), now running for Senate in Florida (we think), simply did well with a wise investment in real estate. It does have a subtle rhyme, though, with the shady real estate deal that eventually brought down former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA). Anybody know what comps for her neighborhood have been?

EPA chief Stephen L. Johnson speaks at $300-a-plate GOP fundraiser in Colorado (hosted by former Abramoff employer Greenberg Traurig, natch). Flees out back door before reporter, photographer can catch him.

Federal laws prohibit officials' names from appearing in invitations for political events. But an emailed invite for the event read "Subject: Fundraiser with Administrator of EPA Stephen L. Johnson for Rick O'Donnell this Thursday."

Gumshoes in the EPA ethics office said to be investigating. . .

As Josh noted over at TPM, Gale Norton has resigned her post as head up the Department of the Interior. Before he fell from grace, Jack Abramoff worked to influence Norton by funneling half a million dollars from his clients into a group Norton co-founded called Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy. Abramoff called CREA "our access to Norton."

Norton has said she cannot recall "any particular influence" Abramoff had on decisionmaking at Interior.

As we noted, a woman who's central figure in most of the current GOP fundraising scandals disappeared from her D.C. lobby firm earlier this week.

High-powered campaign finance specialist Barbara Bonfiglio was treasurer or adviser to a broad range of Republican money operations, from campaign funds to political action committees. An unfortunate number of them seem to be turning up in headlines.

Here's a partial list of groups she's worked for: Rep. Tom DeLay's (R-TX) ARMPAC; Sen. Conrad Burns' (R-MT) leadership PAC; Rep. Richard Pombo's (R-CA) RichPAC; Santorum's senate re-election campaign and leadership PAC; Rep. Jerry Lewis' (R-CA) Future Leaders PAC; and former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's (R-CA)American Prosperity PAC. DeLay, Burns, Pombo and Lewis all had ties to Abramoff, mainly by taking his and his clients' money. Cunningham, he's his own kettle of rotting fish.

A managing partner at Williams & Jensen now tells Will Bunch she's got a new job - as senior compliance officer with a Fortune 500 company. (Thanks to reader BK for the tip.)

Bonfiglio was recently nicked by stories coming out of the Pennsylvania media about Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) so-called charity, Operation Good Neighbor, for which she was treasurer. The group raised hundreds of thousands of dollars promising to "break the cycle of poverty," but spent most of it on things unrelated to its mission, particularly travel and meetings.

In an old Public Citizen report, she's listed as working for 31 PACs from 1998 to 2001, more than anyone else. She's put her expertise, writing a book on the topic: How to Cross the Potomac Without Falling In, a guide on how politicians can take money and gifts and get away with it -- er, not run afoul of the law.

She's been subpoenaed at least once, in 2004, in connection with DeLay. What does she know? Who is she telling?

Has anyone read her book? Is it any good? It doesn't seem to show up on Amazon.

The Bush administration continues its fight for the rights of the inexperienced by appointing them to important positions in DHS. The most recent example is Douglas Hoelscher, a 29-year-old former White House staffer with no management experience who was recently tapped to run the Homeland Security Advisory Council. AT HSAC, he'll be managing 20 different panels, comprised of senior industry officials and other mucky-mucks, which advise the administration on homeland security issues.

Shane Harris, who broke the story for National Journal magazine, noted that Hoelscher had a Friendster profile. Readers tell us it has since been taken down. But someone slipped us a hard copy, and -- surprise -- despite being a White House appointee, Hoelscher's surprisingly with-it!

He likes "reading in coffeeshops," "wine tasting," "watching college football" and "sleeping in on Saturdays," among other things. His favorite movies are Moulin Rouge and Best in Show (a TPMmuckraker favorite). He likes the Simpsons, along with Law & Order, Sex in the City and Will and Grace. Strangely, he doesn't mention 24.

He listens to Eminem and Offspring, but also Dolly Parton. (She was great at the Oscars.) And as Harris noted in his article, Doug says "I'm usually fairly quiet in a group setting -- I am not a talker but a pretty good listener."

Santorum: When Is a Lobbyist Not a Lobbyist?

Answer: When he's running Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) charity. At least three lobbyists are involved in running Santorum's non-profit Operation Good Neighbor, a local Pittsburgh TV station reports. The charity has been dinged recently for spending as much as 60 percent of its money on non-charitable expenses, including over $200,000 in travel and meetings.

One Gucci Gulcher among the charity's top brass is Barbara Bonfiglio, the GOP campaign finance specialist connected to groups run by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) and former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA). As we noted yesterday, it appears Bonfiglio abruptly resigned from her job at Williams & Jensen, and also left her post as treasurer of Rep. Richard Pombo's poorly named RichPAC.

Another is lobbyist Rob Bickhart, whose Philadelphia offices are also home to Santorum's PAC -- and his re-election campaign.

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The future of lobbying reform in doubt, thanks to continued brouhaha over ownership of U.S. port operations, Roll Call reports.

Senators from both parties were unsure Thursday afternoon how and when they could resume work on a lobbying overhaul package. . . .

"Frankly, we've got the other side talking out of both sides of their mouth," said Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho). "They're all onto this lobbying reform, pointing fingers and blaming people, but they're now the obstructionists blocking it. Harry Reid and the boys can't have it both ways."

A sleeper of a story came out a week or so ago that nonetheless caught our eye: The Government Accountability Office found the Department of Education was bending its own rules in awarding certain grants. There were three cases they singled out; two of those benefited folks with ties to the Bush administration.

The third case was largely ignored, even though it was the worst example of political manipulation the GAO found. In essence, a top appointed official turned a grant review process upside down on behalf of one company, America's Charter School Finance Corporation - literally reached in and made ACSFC a grantee even though experts agreed it wasn't deserved. Here's a taste:

[T]he deputy secretary asked his staff -- a senior political appointee -- to re-review the fifth and sixth ranked competitors. . . Program officials said that they had never before experienced a case where a senior political appointee selectively re-reviewed and rescored particular applicants[.]

Strong stuff, particularly from the normally snoozy GAO.

The report doesn't mention how much money was given to ACSFC, but a few calls around yielded the figure of $5 million.

What gives? Who were the political appointees involved? And why was it so important to them that ACSFC get so much money? Does anybody know anything more about this?

Barbara Bonfiglio, who was once treasurer to political action committees and other organizations for ethically challenged lawmakers Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) and others, just quit D.C. superfirm Williams & Jensen. She also stepped down from her post as treasurer of Rep. Richard Pombo's (R-CA) RichPAC.

Bonfiglio's got a colorful past: She was subpoenaed in 2004 by Texas DA Ronnie Earle as part of his investigation into Tom DeLay. She may have been involved in the effort by DeLay crony Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) in sic'ing the IRS on the Texas watchdog group Texans for Public Justice. And she was listed as treasurer for Santorum's Operation Good Neighbor "charity," which used less than half of its money to do actual good deeds.

Or, as her bio -- still posted on the Williams & Jensen Web site -- puts it:

Her clients include the Leadership PACs and campaign committees of several prominent Members of Congress. She also advises the firm's clients on matters involving House and Senate ethics rules, as well as compliance with the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Needless to say, we will probably hear more about her sooner rather than later. (Thanks to reader LR.)

The Florida press are having trouble believing Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL), recipient of admitted felon Mitchell Wade's dirty money, is actually going to stay in her Florida Senate race. For good reason, I think.

She stated emphatically yesterday she was staying in -- although, reading her statement closely, she doesn't commit much further than the present: "I am out there. We are running hard. We think we have great momentum." (Her press secretary, however, said she was staying in until November.)

The Boca Raton News says this morning that "reliable sources" say Harris will be out in a week.

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Sen. Santorum's (R-PA) Operation Good Neighbor has been the subject of unwelcome publicity lately, and rather than stand and fight, he's decided to cut and run. Says he: "I do not have a personal charity." He just founded the thing - but he's had nothing to do with it since. Will Bunch, the reporter who's been the force behind Santorum's recent woes, has some pictures to counter Santorum's claim. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Attytood)

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Jeez, if Travis County DA Ronnie Earle insists on dredging up every bit of muck on Tom DeLay, his investigation will never end.

His investigation has just issued a new subpoena to Carolyn Malenick. Who's Carolyn Malenick? A "close friend of the Falwell family," for one. But this excerpt from "The Hammer" by Lou Dubose and Jan Reid explains why she's coming up now.

Hold on, we're going ten years back, to 1996, when a man named Brian Babin was running for East Texas' 2nd Congressional District's seat. The other key player here is Peter Cloeren, a Texas businessman who was supporting Babin's campaign. As Cloeren told it to investigators on the House Committee on Government Reform in 1998, he found himself next to Tom DeLay at a private lunch after a Babin campaign event, and DeLay turned to him and...

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David Margolick's forthcoming Vanity Fair piece has a number of choice nuggets in addition to those quoted below. Pull up a chair.

It's true that Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) gets a drubbing. But Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) comes out looking even worse.

Margolick writes: "In their heydey, he and Abramoff played golf together, traveled together, philosophized together. Ney was one of the few elected officials Abramoff invited to the Bar Mitzvah of one of his three sons." Like Burns, Ney frequented Signatures - "Ney was a 'sushiholic,' one eyewitness recalls."

And here's where it gets sad. Monty Warner, a Republican media strategist says, "I can remember Ney coming up and groveling [at Abramoff's table at Signatures], saying how much he enjoyed a golf outing or skybox or ball game, and really appreciated Jack's support."

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Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) is sticking with her Senate race, despite rumors -- and polls, and troubling news -- to the contrary. "'We've had some negative hits but we've had an overwhelming response from grass roots and leadership around the state that are saying 'Go for it' and that's what we're doing," she tells AP. I guess that Democratic call-in campaign worked.

"That is definitely a DeLay Foundation Golf Tournament picture," notes sharp-eyed TPMmuckraker.com reader BK of the hug-and-mug photo serving as Vanity Fair's April celebrity centerfold.

Why is he so sure? "The early tournaments benefited CASA [the Court Appointed Special Advocates program], the same program whose logo appears on DeLay and Abramoff's golf shirts."

If he's right, it's a subtle dollop of irony atop VF's delicious sundae of scandalous details.

You see, CASA was an offshoot of the DeLay Foundation for Kids, a charity set up nearly 20 years ago by Tom and Christine DeLay.

Depending on whom you ask, the foundation is a) one more example of DeLay's benevolent nature, particularly towards America's youth, or b) a "rotten" charity that's just "another way for the donors to get their hooks into politicians." DeLay supporters say (a); Fred Lewis of Texas watchdog Campaigns for People says (b). Most good-government groups side with Lewis.

Abramoff pushed his clients to give big checks to the organization, because it was a good way to get in tight with DeLay, the National Journal reported last year. "[He] knew that if they kept Christine happy, and, by extension, Tom happy, they could continue to have unfettered access to DeLay's office," a source told NJ. "The charity was a key avenue for their clients to put financial resources into DeLay Inc."

"[Abramoff] is a pathological liar who has no credibility and belongs in jail," a Burns spokesman tells AP. Burns' statement comes in response to Abramoff's comments to Vanity Fair, mentioned earlier today, that his clients got "every appropriation we wanted" from Burns' committee, and that Burns' staffers used Abramoff's restaurant, Signatures, "as their cafeteria."

Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) has managed to steer clear of any Abramoff taint so far, and as far as we can tell he never received a dollar from Abramoff or his tribal clients. But his staff at least, was tied in to the Abramoff favor machine.

Longtime TPM readers know that we have a stack of unpublished Abramoff emails, many of which show various staffers angling for coveted seats in Abramoff's MCI Center skybox.

One staffer who came up again and again was one Anthony Miccolis of Lincoln Chafee's office.

On February 29th, 2000, Team Abramoff member Jennifer Calvert wrote Abramoff's assistant Susan Ralston to reserve two tickets for Miccolis for the "WWF Backlash" event.

And then May 2nd, 2000, she wrote to reserve seats for "WWF Attitude."

He signed up twice more for tickets for "WWF Raw is War" and "WCW Starcade."

You can see the emails here. Calls to Chafee's office and Miccolis, who's now a Councilman in North Kingston, RI, were not returned.

Anyone up in Rhode Island want to get Miccolis on the record on this? Maybe he'll have a savvier PR strategy than Mark Graul.

A source close to Rep. Katherine Harris' (R-FL) campaign for Senate told TPMmuckraker.com that her top advisers are gathering in Washington to convince her to drop out of the race.

And it looks like the Hotline is hearing similar rumblings.

Calls to the offices of her pollster and another outside adviser revealed they were in meetings all afternoon. At Harris' Florida campaign office, a receptionist said Harris' spokeswoman, Morgan Dobbs, wasn't available because she was in Washington, D.C. for a meeting.

We emailed Dobbs to confirm the whispers. "[A]bsolutely false," she replied, via BlackBerry. "AP will release a story soon with KH's comments. She is in the race until November."

A piece of potentially bad news for the Scooter Libby defense team: online traders are betting in favor of the former White House aide receiving a guilty verdict.

Futures contracts on a guilty verdict for Libby have soared to 57 percent in recent days on the web-based trading site intrade.com. The higher the figure, the more "certain" the market is of an event coming to pass.

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We've been following up on Monday's story about a possible connection between the White House and Mitchell Wade's curious Iranian democracy non-profit.

If you recall, Wade -- who's facing several years in the big house for bribery, fraud, tax evasion and more -- registered the "Iranian Democratization Foundation" in April 2004. Two months later, the White House signed the first of three contracts with Wade's company MZM for "intelligence services." In all, Wade's contracts with the Executive Office of the President were worth $250,000. His foundation has since been dissolved.

We've called the White House three times asking for more information about the contracts, but they have yet to call us back. Meanwhile, a cursory check has turned up no other filings for Wade's nonprofit: no employer ID number, 990 filing, or anything else. Nexis shows no mention of the group in any news coverage.

What was Wade doing for the White House?

Opening with a double-page bleed-to-the-edge photo of a smiling Jack Abramoff golfing with Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), the April issue of Vanity Fair (hitting next week) devotes nine pages to the disgraced lobbyist and his attempts to set the record straight. Paticularly on all those who have forsaken him:

President Bush, who claims not to remember meeting Abramoff - the lobbyist says Bush once joked with him, "What are you benching, buff guy?"

RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, who said he didn't really know Abramoff - it turns out he had Sabbath dinner at Abramoff's house, did him political favors, and even offered to pay Abramoff's tab at Signatures, the lobbyist's restaurant.

Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), who says Abramoff never influenced him - "Every appropriation we wanted [from Burns' committee] we got. Our staffs were as close as they could be. They practically used Signatures as their cafeteria."

Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose spokesman says Newt wouldn't have known Abramoff "if he fell across him" - "I have more pictures of [Newt] than I have of my wife."

You wouldn't know it from his folksy manner, but Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) is in deep with the telecom lobby, where a whole stable of his ex-aides have gone on to thrive, with good return:

For nearly a decade, a group of former top aides to Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) have successfully used personal and professional connections to Burns, Montana State University's Burns Technology Center and other institutions associated with him to secure more than $20 million in lobbying fees for themselves, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research contracts, tax breaks and subsidies for their clients.

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How times change. How votes change.

As I mentioned in the Daily Muck, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is rolling out his Internet Gambling Prohibition Act again, and prospects are bright, now that Jack Abramoff isn't around.

Back in October, the Washington Post had a gruesome blow-by-blow account of Abramoff's victory in 2000, when he narrowly defeated the bill. It would have put his client, eLottery, Inc. out of business. He rounded up some holy soldiers, Ralph Reed and Rev. Louis Sheldon, and had them attack, armed with his brilliant spin that the anti-gambling bill was actually soft on gambling because it made an exception for horse racing and jai-alai.

Then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) played a key role in killing the bill. And there were a number of other Republicans who crossed over to oppose it, bringing Abramoff's team great glee.

But things are different this time around. Goodlatte's bill now boasts a whopping 118 co-sponsors.

And remember, this is the same bill. According to Goodlatte's office, the current version is the same piece of legislation that failed in 2000 with only a few minor changes.

So - same bill. And as I noted before, Tom DeLay is a co-sponsor this go-around. We wondered who else had changed their mind, so we compared the roll call for the vote in 2000 with the list of co-sponsors. We found that eight members, seven Republicans and one Democrat, have changed their mind. They are:

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH)
Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX)
Rep. Gene Green (D-TX)
Rep. William Jenkins (R-TN)
Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-MN)
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA)

Now, there might be a perfectly legitimate explanation for changing one's vote. But whatever it is, it's not because the substance of the bill has changed. So inquiring minds want to know: is there any other explanation than that this time, Abramoff wasn't against it? What is it?

Some of you wrote in with questions -- and observations -- about Katherine Harris' new lawyer, Ben Ginsberg. Is he that Ben Ginsberg, of Florida Recount fame? Oh, and how.

Ginsberg was chief outside counsel to both Bush-Cheney campaigns, and a key player in the Florida Fiasco. Players of Trivial Pursuit: TPM Edition may recall that in 2004, he was caught representing the "independent" Anti-Kerry Swift Boat campaign, while holding on to his Bush-Cheney gig, creating the impression that the two groups may have illegally coordinated their efforts. Ginsberg resigned from the president's campaign.

He's a player's player, by DC standards: a $500-an-hour lawyer and a friend of Karl Rove, with a pedigree of GOP assignments to turn any red-stater green with envy.

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Here's the kind of lede you never want to see as a candidate, particularly if you're a makeup-happy Republican running for Senate in Florida: "Katherine Harris has seen better days."

Or try this one: "If you heard a big implosion during the weekend, it may have been the sound of Katherine Harris' campaign."

Or, my favorite: "A yet-to-be-identified Hawaiian has almost as much of a chance of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate as Longboat Key Republican Katherine Harris[.]"

A yet-to-be-identified Hawaiian? Ouch. It was just a few checks, and dinner with a dirty contractor! And an attempted earmark. . . and. . .

Whatever words they use, it seems the press corps have spoken: Get a fork out, Mabel. I think she's just about done.

If you want more evidence Harris is on the ropes -- or if you ever wondered if politics is like junior high -- here's this: the latest blow to the Harris campaign is that Dick Cheney didn't say her name at a recent Florida event.

In the Randy "Duke" Cunningham scandal, the Duke-Stir himself was the first to fall. One crooked contractor, Mitchell Wade, has already pled guilty and will head to the pokey soon.

But with a scandal as complex and far-reaching as Cunningham's, there will be others to go we don't yet know about. Who could they be?

Defense contractors are one possible target: Time Magazine reported in January that the "big chinchilla" wore a wire, and while his lawyers insisted he never used it to tape other public officials, they said nothing about his conversations with businesspeople. There's speculation the Feds are on to bribes from other companies we haven't heard about yet.

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Here's one arm of the supposedly wrecked DeLay machine that seems to be humming along quite well.

Three years ago, Gov. Perry gutted the state's lobbying office, the Office of State-Federal Relations, and replaced it with private Republican lobbyists. Drew Maloney, a former DeLay aide, and Jim Hyland, a former aide to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), got the contract. When Hyland was dropped in 2004, Todd Boulanger, formerly of Team Abramoff, got the call. The contracts will run to $1.2 million in total by August of next year.

At least $75,000 of that was effectively cycled back to Republican congressional committees by Drew Maloney, who was suddenly infected by the urge to donate after receiving the contract.

As the Houston Chronicle reports today, Perry is still standing by his contract. Democrats there have been understandably skeptical, pointing out that Texas had the Presidency, the Majority Leader, a sizeable delegation in the House, in addition to their Senators to plead for Texas' needs.

Skeptical with good reason, it turns out.

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Yesterday at TPM we noted the fact that in April 2004 Mitchell Wade -- the guy who paid off Duke Cunningham for help bagging contracts -- registered as the 'registered agent' for an outfit called the "Iranian Democratization Foundation."

That was on April 5th, 2004.

Now, during 2004, the Federal Procurement Data System lists 444 procurement contracts for the Executive Office of the President (that's the official name for what we colloquially refer to as 'the White House'). Most of those contracts are what you'd expect for a large office complex -- computer services, shipping, office supplies, etc.

But three stand out: three contracts, for a total of $254,437, for unspecified "intelligence services."

Those three contracts were awarded to Mitchell Wade's MZM, Inc.

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One key cog in Brent Wilkes' appropriations machine was a corporate jet that he used to fly around key members of Congress - Duke Cunningham, then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, among them.

Well, Laura Rozen reports that Wilkes might have been trying to move from flying Congressmen to flying CIA detainees. Wilkes had several large contracts coming to him through the CIA, much larger than he'd had before...

...what were the forthcoming contracts for? According to a source, they were to create and run a secret plane network, for whatever needs the CIA has for secret fleets of planes. Presumably, that might include "extraordinary renditions," e.g. to fly terror suspects off the radar to locations for interrogation.

The CIA has launched an investigation into the connection between the CIA's No. 3 Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and Brent Wilkes, who were very, very close (best-man-at-each-other's-weddings close). No doubt this will be part of it.

Life after Jack...

Six years ago, a bill that sought to ban Internet gambling went down in flames due to Jack Abramoff's (and by extension Ralph Reed's) efforts. Now that Jack's safely restrained in handcuffs, the bill is back.

Tom DeLay, who opposed the bill last time around, has remarkably flipped this time. Anyone want to ask Ralph Reed what he thinks now? The excuse for opposing the measure last time around was that there was an exception to horse racing in the bill, and thus it was "soft on gambling." The exemption is still there. What's he think now?

According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill has a lot of momentum, with 100 co-sponsors. But that's not all. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) is planning to again push legislation to improve working conditions in the Mariana Islands. His efforts were thwarted for nearly a decade by Abramoff and the House leadership. Now seems like the perfect time to try again. Oh, when the cat's away...(WSJ)

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Call off the dogs!

Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) -- "Representative A" in Mitchell Wade's plea agreement -- issued a statement today saying he has done nothing wrong and is not hiring a lawyer. He also said neither he nor his staff have ever been contacted by the Feds.

In Wade's plea two weeks ago, the crooked contractor idenified Goode as a recipient of illegal campaign contributions from his company, MZM. Wade also pegged Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) -- "Representative B" -- for the same.

Unlike Goode, Harris lawyered up last week, as fans will recall, hiring ace campaign finance shark Ben Ginsberg. (More on Ginsberg's colorful history later.)

Mark your calendars...

The judge for Jack Abramoff's SunCruz fraud case in Florida has pushed back his sentencing there to Wednesday, March 29th. His business partner Adam Kidan will be sentenced the same day. It's earlier than the two had wanted, because they're busily talking to prosecutors and worried that doing some of that talking in public might hurt their plea deal. Or as Abramoff's lawyer put it:

"We will name names. We will provide the public with evidence of what is going on out there."

Can't wait.

Katherine Harris abruptly canceled five campaign stops, the Lakeland (FL) Ledger reports.

The paper says her campaign is in "full crisis mode," as questions mount over her involvement with crooked contractor Mitchell Wade.

They're not calling the game yet - but no one's saying those skies don't look like rain.

Our intelligence czar living the czar's life. From CQ:

On many a workday lunchtime, the nominal boss of U.S. intelligence, John D. Negroponte, can be found at a private club in downtown Washington, getting a massage, taking a swim, and having lunch, followed by a good cigar and a perusal of the daily papers in the club's library.

"He spends three hours there [every] Monday through Friday," gripes a
senior counterterrorism official, noting that the former ambassador has a security detail sitting outside all that time in chase cars. Others say they've seen the Director of National Intelligence at the University Club, a 100-year-old mansion-like redoubt of dark oak panels and high ceilings a few blocks from the White House, only "several" times a week....

...there seems to be a new, relaxed John Negroponte. And some close
observers think they know why.

He's figured out the job. Which is to say, he really doesn't have much control over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

So Duke Cunningham got 8 years, 4 months. (SDUT) Where does it go from here?

The Washington Post reported Friday that the investigation has spread into the Department of Defense, particularly into an intelligence agency called CIFA (Counterintelligence Field Activity). (Daily Muck)

And as Josh mentioned, the CIA has opened an investigation into Kyle "Dusty" Foggo's ties to Brent Wilkes. Wilkes bribed Duke Cunningham to get contracts - we know that. But Wilkes was much closer to Foggo. How close? From the San Diego Union Tribune:

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