Ah, the magic of the presidency. The Senate has refused to confirm former coal company executive Richard Stickler as the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). So, while they were out, Bush gave him a recess appointment to the post.

MSHA exists to protect miners' well-being. Once a miner himself, Stickler spent most of his career above ground, much of it as an executive for companies like coal giant Massey Energy. According to the Charleston Gazette, Stickler's mines had accident rates of twice the national average.

At a Senate hearing in March, Stickler explained that if U.S. mines were unsafe, it wasn't an "enforcement problem," merely a "compliance problem." His nomination was opposed by the United Mine Workers of America and the AFL-CIO, among others.

Failing to win Senate approval earlier this year, the administration made Stickler a senior contract employee to the Department of Labor, working with mine safety issues.

Bush first nominated Stickler after the Sago mine disaster in January. Family members of miners who died in the disaster wrote to President Bush, urging him not to appoint Stickler to the important safety post.

The U.S. government is rebuilding the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, and it's going to be better than ever!

Shane Harris at National Journal tells us today that despite efforts to kill TIA, it has lived on in a quiet corner of the NSA. Now, it's taking form as "Tangram," a program in which former TIA contractors build on existing TIA research to create a new, enhanced form of the program.

Like TIA, Tangram would compile vast databases of information on hundreds of millions of innocent people, including communications records, credit card transactions and travel information, and mine them for patterns of behavior which look suspiciously terroristical.

But check this out! The problem with the old method of data mining, according to Tangram's caretakers, is that they used a "guilt-by-association" model -- that is, it found terror suspects by seeing who was linked to known or suspected terrorists. Tangram tosses that outmoded concept. It can find terrorists even among innocent people with no ties to suspected terrorists!

We can finally catch people who spontaneously decide to hate the United States! Sweet!

Hey, only one problem, though: according to Tangram's keepers, terrorism researchers "cannot readily distinguish the absolute scale of normal behaviors" for innocent people or for terrorists. In other words, no one yet knows how terrorist activity differs from non-terrorist activity.

Cheezit, catching terrorists by monitoring their everyday transactions is going to totally rock -- as soon as we can figure out how a terrorist buys a toaster differently than an innocent person. (They pay cash, and don't buy any bread to go with it?)

The Daily Journal of Illinois reports:

Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Morris, through his election attorney, moved Thursday to inform the House that a former page or intern may have been the subject of inappropriate attention from another lawmaker, Weller's campaign manager said Thursday.

Steven Shearer said the congressman was not prepared to reveal the identity of the youth, the timing, nor the identity of the lawmaker, but felt confident that a former page or intern was "inappropriately invited to a social function by another congressman."

Kind of raises more questions than it answers, doesn't it?

It looks like the House ethics probe into the Foley scandal won't hear any new testimony today. A dedicated klatsch of journalists staked out the hearing room all morning, but no witnesses have entered or left, I'm told; the FOX News camera has since packed up.

The panel does not make its schedule publicly available, and requests for information are routed to its chief of staff. It's not clear how long the investigation will take, although a Democratic spokesman says the leadership still believes the matter will be resolved in "weeks, not months," as they promised two weeks ago when they announced the effort.

A Democratic spokesman for a member of the House Appropriations committee disagreed with comments from the Republican chairman, who said yesterday that the recent massive firing of the panel's fraud investigators was "bipartisan."

In a surprise move, House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) Monday fired all 60 of his panel's contract investigators. Sixteen permanent investigative staff were not affected by the action.

In a comment to Congressional Quarterly, Lewis spokesman John Scofield said the firings came because of a "bipartisan review" of the investigative unit. The review, he said, was supported by Rep. David Obey (D-WI), the top Democrat on the committee.

But an anonymous Democratic spokesman told ThinkProgress today that the firings were not okayed by Obey or other Democratic members of the committee. In fact, they weren't even consulted, he said.

Kirstin Brost, press secretary for David Obey, declined to comment for the record on the matter.

The effectiveness of the House Appropriations Committee's "I-Staff," as it is known, is unclear. Current and former staff from both sides of the aisle who are familiar with the group's reports say their quality was uneven. Lewis spokesman Scofield told CQ that "the work we’ve been getting as of late has not been that good."

"I never saw anything of value come out of them," Ronald Garant, a former contract investigator, said of the investigators working Katrina fraud claims. "I thought that was wasted time." Garant left the unit in March.

Update: An earlier version of the ThinkProgress post implied that the anonymous spokesman worked for Rep. Obey. A revised version identifies the commenter only as a "press spokesman," whose comments apply to all Democrats on the panel, not just Obey's office.

Was terror detainee Jose Padilla drugged by his U.S. government captors? His lawyers say yes.

Government officials have said they do no such thing, but reports on other detainees tell a different tale.

"Of course not," snapped Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in response to a reporter who asked him if the military ever used truth serums on high-value terror detainees, at an April 2002 news conference.

The CIA has also denied employing drugs in interrogations. "[T]he agency is closemouthed about such matters, other than denying that it uses truth serum," the Wall Street Journal reported in March 2003.

But evidence belies that. In March 2002 -- the same month Rumsfeld issued his denial -- author Gerald Posner says that U.S. interrogators used sodium pentothal, the most common form of "truth serum," against Abu Zubaydah, an alleged al Qaeda kingpin. Posner published his account in September 2003.

And in May 2005, the British Sunday Telegraph reported that Pakistani intelligence had used truth serum on alleged al Qaeda No. 3 Abu Faraj al-Libbi.

Read more »

Nev. Gov. Candidate Denies Wrongdoing
"'I did nothing wrong last Friday. I did not act inappropriately with anyone," [gubernatorial candidate and] U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons [R-NV] said, a day after police released reports detailing events that ended in three 911 calls and an assault allegation against him three weeks before Election Day....

"Chrissy Mazzeo, 32, told police that Gibbons, 61, grabbed her arms, pushed her up against a wall and propositioned her in a parking garage near a bar where the two had met earlier in the night." (AP)

Read more »

My goodness. As TPMm readers know well, House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is under federal investigation for possible improprieties in how he oversaw Congress' spending of $900 billion annually. Yesterday, we reported that Lewis had dropped nearly $800,000 in legal fees to defend himself against the probe.

This evening, Congressional Quarterly reports (sub. req.) that in a round of calls Monday evening, Lewis fired 60 investigators who had worked for his committee rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, effective immediately. As in, don't bother coming in on Tuesday.

The investigators were contract workers, brought on to handle the extraordinary level of fraud investigations facing the panel. Sixteen permanent investigative staff are staying on, according to CQ. More:

Lewis’ decision “has in fact stalled all of the investigations on the staff,” said one of the contractors, a former FBI agent, who asked not to be identified. “This eviscerates the investigatory function. There is little if any ability to do any oversight now.”

. . .

“In effect, no investigative function is going to be done,” said the contractor, who called the decision “misguided.”

“This staff has saved billions and billions of dollars, we’ve turned up malfeasance and misfeasance,” the contractor said. “It’s results justify the expense of the staff. I have no idea why the chairman would do this.”

Lewis' spokesman, John Scofield, told CQ that such complaints were "sour grapes," and assured the publication that "there is nothing sinister going on."

CNN adds to ABC's reporting on former House Clerk Jeff Trandahl's testimony before the House ethics committee today:

Former House Clerk Jeff Trandahl repeatedly raised red flags about former Rep. Mark Foley years before GOP leaders said they knew about Foley's inappropriate conduct with pages, sources said....

Two sources close to Trandahl told CNN that he had been monitoring Foley's interaction with pages after being told of troubling behavior by the congressman in the House cloakroom and elsewhere. Trandahl took his concerns to Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, many times, the sources said.

So Trandahl has corroborated a key point of Kirk Fordham's testimony. But did he also tell the committee, like Fordham did, that Speaker Hastert's chief of staff interceded way back in 2003 to warn Foley about his advances?

The prison door will close behind Jack Abramoff November 15th, starting an at least nine year sentence behind bars.

But that doesn't mean that prosecutors are done with him. Their sprawling investigation is far from over. So they've asked, and a judge has granted their motion, to have Abramoff placed in a Maryland prison. Prosecutors recommended a prison in Cumberland, Maryland, a medium security facility.

"Mr. Abramoff’s incarceration there will facilitate the government’s access to him and, therefore, the ongoing investigation," prosecutors wrote. Judge Paul C. Huck granted the motion Monday.

Abramoff's sentence relates to his forgery of a wire transfer related to his purchase of a Florida casino boat company. He has not yet been sentenced for charges relating to his corrupt lobbying practice.

ABC News has a taste of Trandahl's testimony:

The former clerk of the House of Representatives, Jeff Trandahl, who testified for more than four hours before the House Ethics Committee today, is believed to have testified that a top aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert was informed of "all issues dealing with the page program," according to a Republican familiar with the investigation.

The Republican source said Trandahl planned to name Ted Van Der Meid, the speaker's counsel and floor manager, as the person who was briefed on a regular basis about any issue that arose in the page program, including a "problem group of members and staff who spent too much time socializing with pages outside of official duties." One of whom was Mark Foley.

That brings to two the number of staffers in Hastert's office who allegedly knew about Foley's pursuit of House pages before last fall. According to Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, Trandahl also alerted Hastert's chief of staff Scott Palmer about Foley's behavior.

This morning, former House Clerk Jeff Trandahl testifed before the House ethics committee. What did he say?

In a statement, his lawyer would only say that Trandahl "has cooperated fully" with the investigation being conducted by the FBI and the House ethics committee, and that "he answered every question asked of him."

According to various accounts, Trandahl, a Republican, knew for several years that Foley had a problem of pursuing House pages.

In 2000 or 2001, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) says he notified Trandahl after a page told him he'd received inappropriate messages from Foley.

According to Foley's former chief of staff Kirk Fordham, Trandahl warned him several times, starting in 2001, of Foley's worrying interest in the pages. Fordham says that in 2003, he and Trandahl agreed to go to the Speaker's office about the problem.

And then in 2005, Trandahl was again central when a page received emails from Foley. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) says that he and Trandahl sat down with Foley to talk about the problem.

So amidst all that back and forth, did Trandahl ever mention anything about the earlier run-ins to Speaker Hastert's staff or other members of the leadership? We'll have to wait to find out.

A California Republican House candidate is under investigation for attempting to suppress Latino turn out at the polls, The LA Times reports.

State investigators are trying to track down the source of a mailer that recently went out to approximately 14,000 Democratic voters:

The letter, which purports to be from a Huntington Beach-based group, warns that immigrants will not be permitted to vote in the election. It also warns that the state has developed a tracking system that will allow the names of Latino voters to be handed over to anti-immigrant groups.

"You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time," the letter, written in Spanish, says.

Investigators are focusing on Republican challenger Tan Nguyen, according to the Times. He's been running a distant second to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA). 35% of voters in the district are Latino.

Update: Nguyen has denied being behind the letter.

Associated Press reports:

The Homeland Security Department notified Shirlington Limousine in recent weeks that it intended to exercise an option to extend its contract for transporting department employees around the Washington area, department spokesman Russ Knocke said.

The $21 million contract went into effect Oct. 27, 2005, with annual options for five years. . . .

Shirlington, of Arlington, Va., is part of a federal investigation into whether a defense contractor provided disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California with prostitutes and limos. Cunningham is serving jail time for taking bribes from defense contractors. Shirlington's president, Christopher Baker, has appeared before a grand jury in San Diego as part of the ongoing investigation.

A House Homeland Security subcommittee held a hearing over the summer on how Shirlington got two Homeland Security contracts, including the one last year, despite a history of problems.

TPMm readers may recall that before he was caught and sent to jail, Duke Cunningham wrote a letter of recommendation to DHS on behalf of Shirlington.

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) is back, this time armed with hard evidence that his Democratic opponent is in cahoots with the Justice Department.

Weldon said yesterday that a retired FBI agent had "confirmed to me that a person who works on my opponent's campaign was bragging that the campaign knew three weeks ago" about the FBI's investigation into Weldon and his daughter's company. McClatchy Newspapers revealed the existence of the investigation last Friday, citing "sources with direct knowledge of the inquiry," one of them a law enforcement official.

So who's this retired agent? He's Gregory Auld, a Weldon supporter. Auld says that a man at a local gym, whom he calls "Grumpy," because he doesn't know his name, told him that three weeks ago, a guy in a Sestak T-shirt (Auld doesn't know this guy's name, either) said "something big" would happen to Weldon in three weeks. So Auld decided to check that out. He approached the Sestak-T-shirt-wearing-dude in the gym and asked if he was happy about what happened over the weekend. Auld says the guy shrugged his shoulders and replied, ""We sniffed this out two weeks ago."

The evidence could not be clearer or more damning. Or as Weldon says, "That is what it is."

And for all you doubters who think that a Republican controlled Justice Department wouldn't be involved in a liberal conspiracy to out Weldon, he's got an answer for that, too:

"You all know that bureaucrats don’t change with presidential leadership at the top. You know that, come on," he said. "Bureaucrats are in office from one administration to another, whether it’s in the CIA, or the DIA or the State Department or the Defense Department or the Justice Department, and this obviously did not start at the top. It obviously came from the bureaucracy."

via War & Piece.

Florida Republicans had been hoping that they could hang signs at polling places in Rep. Mark Foley's district pointing out that, even though Foley's name is on the ballot, all his votes go to the GOP's replacement candidate, Joe Negron. Democrats objected, saying that big signs explaining how to vote Republican amounted to state subsidized campaigning.

Yesterday, a judge ruled with the Dems.

Innocent Torture Victim Couldn't Accept Award Because He's Still on No-Fly List
"Syrian torturers could find nothing to implicate Canadian Maher Arar in al-Qaida or any other terrorist ties. An official Canadian government report agreed with that finding and recommended that Arar be compensated for his 10 months in a Syrian prison.

"Still, Arar remains on the U.S. government terror watch list. And the United States has not admitted fault for holding him incommunicado for a week, then, five days after his first telephone call, putting him on a private jet and flying him to the Syrian prison.

"Arar and his American lawyer, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, were invited to Washington on Wednesday to receive human rights awards from the rights advocates Institute for Policy Studies. Ratner came from his New York headquarters to accept for the center, a longtime campaigner against torture and other abuses.

"Because the watch list will not let Arar enter the United States, he had to stay in Canada and participate by telephone in a discussion of his case and of the U.S. law signed Tuesday by President Bush on treatment and prosecution of detainees." (AP)

Read more »

The stage is set for Rep. Katherine Harris' (R-FL) dramatic last minute comeback. She's down 20 points in the polls. Her campaign is way behind in fundraising ($1 million in the bank compared to Sen. Bill Nelson's $6.8 million). She's a national laughingstock. But she's not giving up. She won't ever give up. In fact, she's even going to sell her Washington D.C. house.

That's right. To prove that she's "committed," Harris has said that she's selling her home to generate campaign funds.

All she has to do is find the right buyer. But as The Orlando Sentinel notes, Pink Sugar seems to be taking her own sweet time:

Harris has talked about selling her Washington, D.C. home for months, but former staffers have said they saw no sign she was preparing to do so. On Tuesday, two Washington real-estate agents said there is no indication the four-bedroom house near Capitol Hill was ever placed in the multiple-listing service, a database of properties for sale.

Harris' spokeswoman tells the paper that Harris isn't going the realtor route, but that doesn't mean it's not for sale:

Harris spokeswoman Jennifer Marks said Harris is not using a multiple-listing service. She said Harris has already shown the home to potential buyers and has someone available to show the home when she is not in Washington.

"She's hopeful she'll be able to sell her Washington residence shortly," Marks said.

Hmm. A cynic would note that it's probably a good move for Harris to sell her Washington home regardless -- since she'll likely be out of office by January. But with only three weeks left in the campaign, she doesn't seem to be in much of a rush.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), in a conference call with reporters today, criticized Rep. John Sweeney's (R-NY) visit to the Northern Mariana Islands in 2001.

In response to questions from The Albany Times-Union, Sweeney said that he was not aware of the mistreatment of workers on the islands when he visited. He also claimed not to have witnessed anything worrying while he was there.

Miller, whose various attempts over the past decade to regulate the labor conditions and immigration laws on the islands were consistently foiled by Jack Abramoff, wanted to know how Sweeney had managed to tour the islands and not witness evidence of abuse. "Why did you take the trip? What did you do?" he asked. "It’s a very small island."

"If you didn't look into the human rights abuses... what were you doing there?"

Miller added that when he'd visited the islands, he'd visited with federal and state investigators, human rights advocates, local workers, and others to investigate reports of abuses. By contrast, Sweeney met with the local chamber of commerce and business leaders.

Sweeney's spokeswoman told the Times-Union that Sweeney was invited "because of his experience as state labor commissioner under Gov. George Pataki" in New York.

"If they were seeking his advice what happened? He never came back and said we’re going to correct this situation," Miller said.

ABC News reports:

After interviewing some 40 former congressional pages, FBI agents have yet to turn up any evidence of direct sexual contact between underage pages and former Congressman Mark Foley.

Instead, according to law enforcement officials and several former pages, a pattern is emerging of seduction by Foley that began when the boys were 16 and 17. In cases where actual sex followed, it was not until the boys were at the legal age of 18.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), who's been under federal investigation since May for his ties to his friend, lobbyist Bill Lowery, has spent nearly $800,000 on legal fees since his troubles began.

He dropped $200,000 on a legal retrainer for his high-powered team back in June. Since then, he's paid out approximately $569,000 more, according to his most recent FEC filing.

The amount puts Lewis in the big leagues in terms of legal spending. Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), for example, who pled guilty earlier this month to accepting bribes from Jack Abramoff, has reported spending less than half as much on his lawyer. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), by contrast, has run up legal bills exceeding $2 million.

Lewis, of course, can afford to spend his campaign's dollars. He's coasting to reelection despite the investigation, and reports having $1 million in the bank.

The candidacy of Carl Romanelli, the Green who made a run for the Senate in Pennsylvania, may not have succeeded. The Pennsylvania courts ended his bid last month; a disappointment for the Santorum campaign, since that means he won't be siphoning any votes from the Democrat Bob Casey. But at least we've learned about the surprisingly progressive views among his Republican supporters.

When we pored over the contributor list for Romanelli's campaign before, we found a lobbyist for Halliburton and a hotel mogul among the unlikely group. Now Will Bunch has discovered Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater Security, which has the biggest mercenary security force in Iraq, is another closet lefty. Prince dropped $10,000 for Romanelli's campaign in July. Apparently, when Prince isn't using his connections to get a secret, no-bid contracts from the CIA, he's doing what he can for people power. Who knew?

Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) joined the Abramoff party today. And his blithe remarks about the lack of apparent mistreatment in the Northern Mariana Islands could mean political trouble.

In 2001, The Albany Times-Union reports, he took a trip to the Northern Marianas (CNMI), Jack Abramoff's infamous client, but failed to disclose that the trip was privately-funded, as Congressional rules require. Sweeney says he thought the trip was paid for by the Marianas government; it was actually paid for by the island's chamber of commerce. Pretty small potatoes for an Abramoff story.

But it gets better. The paper quotes remarks that Sweeney made during his visit to the U.S. territory, which had become notorious stateside for its human rights abuses:

Sweeney was quoted in the Saipan Tribune on Jan. 15 as saying reports of poor working conditions in the CNMI were overblown, and that he had seen worse sweatshops back home in New York. Carlson said Sweeney was "absolutely not" aware of any severe mistreatment of workers or forced prostitution before he made these comments.

The mistreatment of CNMI workers, of course, was no secret. They had been the subject of numerous news stories, Congressional hearings, and federal investigations. And it seems that Sweeney was more aware of the CNMI's reputation than he's letting on:

On Jan. 15, 2001, the Tribune reported Sweeney had indicated in his speech that the CNMI needed to continue efforts to combat its poor image back in the states.

"The reputation of the commonwealth is not really what ought to be," Sweeney said. "I come (sic) here and found that the truth projected to me in Washington was not the truth at all."...

Abramoff viewed these Congressional trips as prime opportunities to raise the islands' profile. Over the years, he ferried dozens and dozens of lawmakers and staffers to see for himself that the so-called human rights abuses over there weren't so very bad. Somehow they never saw what human rights activitists had seen. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), who's worked for more than a decade to improve conditions there, said that "a blind pig could run into the human rights violations and the exploitation of workers on the islands." Abramoff's travellers, of course, ran anything but a blind course.

Some Seek 'Pink Purge' in the GOP
"In recent years, the Republican Party aimed to broaden its appeal with a "big-tent" strategy of reaching out to voters who might typically lean Democratic. But now a debate is growing within the GOP about whether the tent has become too big — by including gays whose political views may conflict with the goals of the party's powerful evangelical conservatives.

"Some Christians, who are pivotal to the GOP's get-out-the-vote effort, are charging that gay Republican staffers in Congress may have thwarted their legislative agenda. There even are calls for what some have dubbed a "pink purge" of high-ranking gay Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the administration....

"Some social conservatives deny they are interested in removing gay staffers from the party.

"'We're not calling for what I've heard referred to as a pink purge,' McClusky said. 'We're asking that members [of Congress] might want to reflect on who's serving them: Are they representing their boss' interest?'

"Mears of Concerned Women for America said purging gays from the GOP would not necessarily help the evangelical cause. 'If you get rid of all the homosexuals in Congress and on the staff, you'd still have Republicans like Chris Shays [the Connecticut congressman] and Susan Collins [the Maine senator] pushing the gay agenda.'

"This week, a list that is said to name gay Republican staffers has been circulated to several Christian and family values groups — presumably to encourage an outing and purge. McClusky acknowledged seeing the list but said his group did not produce it and had no intention of using it." (LAT)

Read more »

Dr. K.A. Paul, the evangelist who says he convinced House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to resign over Foleygate, is upset that Hastert's promise didn't stick. So he's calling a news conference:

Leading Evangelist Who Met with Hastert to Hold Major News Conference to Offer Details

Religious Leader Upset Speaker Hastert Broke 7 Day Commitment

News Advisory:

Dr. K. A. Paul, the evangelist who met and prayed with House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) at his home in Plano, Ill., will hold a news conference on Wednesday to outline what Speaker Hastert said to him about a 7-day commitment he made during the meeting.

The Sun-Times called the meeting a "serious security breach," but a spokeswoman for the Capitol Police, which is responsible for Speaker Hastert's security, said "this wasn't a security breach," according to the Capital Hill newspaper, Roll Call.

With the midterm elections next month, Paul has launched a crusade to save America from the wrath of God and Republicans abusing their power and mired in scandal. Paul has been supported and endorsed by major Republican and evangelical leaders across the country. He prayed with President Bush and mobilized thousands of voters in Florida to help him win the 2000 presidential election and has counseled more than 60 heads of state around the world.

DATE: Wednesday, Oct. 18

TIME: 10 a.m.

PLACE: Hilton Towers Joliet Room, 720 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.

PARTICIPANTS:

Dr. K. A. Paul, evangelist and president, Global Peace Initiative

Dorothy Brown, clerk, Cook County Circuit Court

Dr. Jacob Agepog, Archbishop-elect

The widespread assumption in the media has been that investigators probing Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) and his daughter's company are concentrating on three- or four year-old crimes, first reported in the Los Angeles Times in 2004. Weldon used that assumption yesterday to buttress his argument that the investigation was an October surprise engineered by conniving liberals.

But the revelation today in the Washington Post that investigators have been gathering evidence on Weldon over at least the past four months -- including wiretaps of "Washington area cellphone numbers" -- suggests that the suspected crimes have been ongoing. And if Karen Weldon's work for her clients over the past couple years has been under the radar, it's by design.

"The investigation focuses on Weldon's support of the Russian-managed Itera International Energy Corp., one of the world's largest oil and gas firms, while that company paid fees to Solutions North America, the company that Karen Weldon and [her partner, Charles Sexton] operate," The Washington Post reported today.

The LA Times broke the story of the 29 year-old Karen Weldon's booming little company back in February 2004. Since then, very little has been heard from her. Around the time that thestory came out, both Weldon and Sexton ceased to register as lobbyists for their clients.

Weldon told The Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this year that his daughter no longer lobbies. But that doesn't mean her company hasn't been busy. It may even have continued to do business with Itera, the Russian energy giant and focus of the probe, until recently. It's impossible to tell.

There's a glaring question that Weldon and his daughter have yet to answer: if Solutions North America (or Solutions Worldwide, as they seem to go by now) isn't a lobbying firm, what do they actually do? The Philadelphia Inquirer, in their piece today, refers to them as a PR firm. For a PR firm, they keep a remarkably low profile: they have no website.

From the AP:

Colorado authorities have opened a criminal investigation into whether an attack ad run by GOP Rep. Bob Beauprez against his opponent for governor illegally used confidential information from a federal law enforcement database.

Democrat Bill Ritter's campaign has suggested the information was taken from the computerized crime records.

But John Marshall, the congressman's spokesman, said Tuesday that the details came from an informant he refused to identify. He said the campaign is cooperating with investigators....

The governor has asked the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to expedite its investigation. Use of the federal criminal database for any purpose other than law enforcement is a crime punishable by fines and up to a year in prison.

Yesterday, Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI) revealed that the House Page Board had discussed allegations of improper behavior toward pages by a second lawmaker.

It's Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), the AP reports. More:

Overseers of the House page program this week discussed a camping trip that Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz. took with two former pages and others in 1996 — an outing now under review by the Justice Department, a congressional source said Tuesday.

The House Page Board, consisting of three lawmakers and two senior House officials, did not have any new information beyond recent news stories on the Kolbe trip. The source is familiar with the discussions but is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Last week, NBC reported that the FBI had started a "preliminary assessment" of the trip.

The top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a summary of the panel's probe into how Duke Cunningham used the panel's staff and resources to forward his corrupt ways.

You can read the summary here.

The probe, ordered last December, found what looks like new dirt on former CIA #3 Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who's been drawn into the Cunningham investigation. But the report concluded that the panel itself was clear of wrongdoing in Cunningham's case.

Indeed, one of Duke's main bribers, Mitchell Wade, even tried to cozy up to staffers, but he kind of weirded them out, according to the five-page executive summary released by Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), the panel's ranking member.

The report identified three troubling activities, and recommended they be referred to the Justice Department or national security agencies for further investigation:

Read more »

New details are popping up about the Feds' interest in Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) for his ties to Jack Abramoff. But Doolittle is doing his best to put as bright a face on that as possible.

In a statement yesterday, Doolittle said that he "has no reason to believe that he is the target of an investigation."

As we've noted here before, the "not a target" line is a beloved one for mucked-up pols (Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) used it just last month). It is, of course, a relatively meaningless statement that sounds exonerating. Subjects of an investigation typically only receive target letters from prosecutors as a prelude to indictment. So Doolittle might as well be bragging that he hasn't been indicted yet.

We've known that Doolittle was under investigation for approximately two years. In 2004, investigators subpoenaed the records for his wife's consulting company (Julie Doolittle worked for Abramoff for two years). And since last November, Doolittle has consistently made the short list of lawmakers reportedly under investigation for their ties to Abramoff (as to why, see here).

Doolittle, via his spokeswoman, also revealed to The Sacramento Bee Monday that his lawyer has spoken several times with the Justice Department.

Read more »

GOP-Connected Coin Dealer Goes on Trial in Ohio
"Less than a month before Election Day, a politically connected coin dealer accused of embezzling from a state investment in rare coins went on trial Monday in a scandal that has rocked Ohio's Republican Party.

"Tom Noe, 52, is accused of stealing more than $2 million from a fund for injured workers and spending it on his business and renovating his home in the Florida Keys....

"Noe, once a member of state boards that oversee the Ohio Turnpike and Ohio's public universities, was a top GOP fundraiser who gave more than $105,000 to Republicans, including
President Bush and Gov. Bob Taft during the 2004 campaign....

"Defense attorney William Wilkinson said Noe's contract with the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation allowed him to borrow money from the investment fund or loan it to others.

"'You can't steal something from the owner of property if they give you permission to use it,' Wilkinson said....

The trial is expected to last at least six weeks, through the Nov. 7 election." (AP, Toledo Blade)

Read more »

Reuters reporting:

A U.S. congressional board which oversees a Capitol Hill internship program rocked by a sex scandal, discussed allegations on Monday involving a second lawmaker, said Rep. Dale Kildee, a Michigan Democrat.

Kildee made the comment as he emerged from a closed-door meeting of a House ethics committee, which has been focused on the case of former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, who resigned last month following disclosure he sent inappropriate electronic messages to male teenage interns, known as pages.

"It's only been allegations made," Kildee told reporters of the House page board's discussion about a second lawmaker, who he declined to identify.

The FBI investigation into Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) is growing -- but so is the left-wing conspiracy against him, according to the blustery, theory-prone lawmaker.

In a two-and-a-half minute interview with the Daily Pennsylvanian's blog, The Spin, Weldon fleshed out earlier charges that the Democrats are behind the federal probe into his dealings. Agents raided six locations today in connection to the investigation, including his daughter's home.

In addition to blaming the D.C.-based watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and its head, Melanie Sloan (who filed a complaint against Weldon with the FBI -- in 2004), the cabal (according to Weldon) now includes: former President Bill Clinton; former CIA official Mary McCarthy; former senior Justice Department official/9-11 Commission panelist Jamie Gorelick; former national security adviser Sandy Berger ("I know what he stole -- I know why he stole it!"); and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

He has the documents to prove it! They're in a secret file, right next to his proof of Iraqi WMD.

Rep. Curt Weldon's (R-PA) daughter had her house raided today by FBI agents, who raided five other locations, all connected to her lobbying activities. The players involved, the favors they won from Weldon, the money changing hands -- it's not a simple story, of course.

But that doesn't explain why, in covering the fiasco, CNN apparently took their cue from Rep. Curt Weldon's (R-PA) trademark bluster and hyperbole. Rather than explain why Weldon's in so much trouble, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash devoted most of their coverage on the unfolding FBI probe to ask the burning question of whether the investigation is a massive liberal conspiracy against Weldon, as he has charged. (Absent evidence, as is his wont.)

Enjoy:

For more on the source of Weldon's paranoia, see our earlier post.

The special subcommittee of the House ethics panel that's looking into the Foley scandal met again today, hearing testimony from two key witnesses.

Danielle Savoy, a former aide to Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) -- who sponsored one of the pages who received inappropriate emails from Foley -- spoke with the panel this morning. Savoy was the first Alexander staffer the page told of the emails.

In the afternoon, Alexander's chief of staff, Royal Alexander (no relation), took the witness chair.

Also slated for appearance before the panel today: Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-MI), a member of the page board who says he was never told of Foley's behavior.

Tomorrow, the panel is expected to hear from House Sergeant at Arms Wilson Livingood, according to CQ (sub. req.). House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), is is scheduled to appear Thursday.

New questions are being raised over the credibility of the panel's probe, however. Existing political ties -- including donations from House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), whose behavior is under investigation, to panel members -- have already cast doubt on the panel's trustworthiness.

Congressional Quarterly's Alan Ota takes a look at some of the ambitions held by GOP members of the panel -- ambitions that only Dennis Hastert has the power to fulfill:

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Bloomberg reports:

Lester Crawford, the former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner who resigned after two months on the job, was charged in federal court for conflict of interest and making false statements related to his investments.

Crawford, 68, falsely stated in a 2004 government filing that shares of Sysco Corp. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. had been sold when he and his wife continued to hold them, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said in the charging documents. Crawford also failed to disclose income from exercising stock options in Embrex Inc., the documents said.

Crawford was chairman of the FDA's Obesity Working Group, formed to study the link between weight and health in the U.S., while owning shares of Sysco, a distributor of snack foods, and Pepsico Inc., the world's No. 2 soft drink maker, Taylor said.

Update: It looks like Crawford is likely to plead guilty.

We’ve added the charging documents against Crawford to the TPM Document Collection. The charges are laid out in an “Information” – such a filing (which prosecutors use in lieu of an indictment) is usually a prelude to a guilty plea. An arraignment has been scheduled tomorrow for Crawford. Our call to his lawyer was not immediately returned.

Update: Yep, he's pleading guilty.

It's official: the nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington is the new bogeyman for conservatives.

With a small but crucial role in the Foley page scandal earlier this month, the group's visibility skyrocketed. When conservatives discovered CREW had taken $100,000 from billionaire liberal financier George Soros' Open Society Institute, they became a favorite target for anyone seeking to spin a "vast left-wing conspiracy" tale behind the GOP damage from the fiasco. Suddenly, their early possession of the Foley e-mails wasn't just evidence of good investigating; it was proof of a partisan hatchet job.

Now Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), whose daughter's home was raided by federal agents this morning, is charging his woes were engineered by CREW, too. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

At an event earlier today at Philadelphia International Airport to discuss airport noise, Weldon said the investigation is politically motivated - blaming a complaint filed by Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

"She is the only one I know of who went to the Justice Department and asked for an investigation," Weldon said. "I know that because I have her letter."

Sloan did indeed request that the Justice Department investigate Weldon in April*. But as the group's run-in with the FBI on the Foley matter demonstrated, CREW's hardly calling the shots for FBI investigators.

Update*: Actually, that's April, 2004. So apparently it took approximately two and a half years for the liberal conspiracy to take hold.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is amending his disclosure reports in response to the recent AP report on a 2004 land deal -- and straightening up a few other "minor" details.

In a statement, Reid said that his disclosure forms will now reflect that he transferred the title of the land to an LLC in 2001. Reid had disclosed his ownership of the land in reports, but not the transfer of the land to an LLC. He eventually sold the land in 2004 for a $700,000 profit.

I criticized the AP's original piece on the deal, written by John Solomon, for mischaracterizing the LLC transfer as a sale (for more on that, read my earlier post). In its follow-up piece today on Reid's statement, the service continues to describe the transfer as a sale.

In addition to clarifying the land deal reported by AP, Reid disclosed two other "minor" real estate assets. The top-ranking Senate Democrat also reimbursed his political campaign for $3,300, "to fully reimburse the campaign for donations it made over several years to the employee holiday fund in my apartment building."

Reid's full statement is below...

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Shortly after the Mark Foley scandal blew up, Speaker Dennis Hastert boasted to Rush Limbaugh that there was no knocking him off stride -- he was planning to campaign in thirty different districts in the month preceding the election.

It's not happening.

The cancellations are frequent but quiet, so it's been nearly impossible to keep track of them all. The Washington Post last week put at 12 the growing tally of scrubbed events that were to feature Hastert or another scandal-tarnished figure, NRCC chair Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY).

By far the most popular explanation has been "scheduling conflicts." Here's a sampling of excuses:

Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA): a spokesman for explained that a Hastert fundraiser was "cancelled mostly because Sherwood had another major event the next day." A Reynolds spokesman said that he'd dropped out of a Sherwood event because of "events in his own district." But then The Washington Post went and ruined all that hard work by straigtforwardly reporting that Sherwood had "told both men not to come to his district, forgoing crucial campaign dollars to minimize additional negative news coverage."

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Just this weekend we learned that the FBI was investigating the relationships between Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) and his daughter's lobbying clients.

Today, federal agents have raided the home of Karen Weldon, who launched her successful lobbying career at 28, and whose clients reportedly enjoy remarkable attention from her father's office.

Weldon sought to cast doubt on the reports' veracity that there was an investigation. There can be no more doubt.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Federal agents raided the home of the daughter of U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.) this morning.

The agents departed Karen Weldon's three-story brick home on Queen Street in Philadelphia with arms loaded with boxes.

A government car pulled into the alley to the back door of the house and loaded boxes into it. Three agents standing in an alley declined to identify themselves.

Over the weekend, a number of papers (McClatchy first among them) reported that the FBI had opened an investigation of Rep. Curt Weldon's relationship to her daughter's lobbying clients -- Karen, who was 28 when she started up her small practice, seemed to trade on her father's position.

Update: In an update of their earlier story, the Inquirer reports that Charlie Sexton, Karen Weldon's lobby partner, was also raided.

Former White House special assistant David Kuo rolled out his kiss-and-tell book, "Tempting Faith," on 60 Minutes last night. In the book, Kuo -- who handled the thankless task of pushing for Bush's "compassionate conservative" agenda within the White House -- details how cynically the administration used those issues to its advantage.

I've just had a chance to flip through the book myself, which is larded with some fun tidbits (news flash: John Ashcroft cheats in basketball!). But one story in particular of White House hard-heartedness sets Kuo's allegations in stark relief.

Kuo recounts the fallout in the White House from a January 2003 Esquire article by Ron Suskind. In it, former White House "Faith-Based Initiatives" director John DiIulio blasted the Bush administration for "a complete lack of a policy apparatus." The entire Bush agenda, DiIulio said, was developed and pushed by Karl Rove's political shop. As a result, Bush's "compassionate" social policy promises were ignored, in favor of driving wedge issues and making unfulfilled promises.

The article enraged President Bush, Kuo writes. The rest, as they say, is parody:

"Well," [Bush] yelled. . . "is [DiIulio] right or isn't he? Have we done compassion or haven't we? I wanna know."

An hour later we got the first and only call from the deputy chief of staff Josh Bolten's office requesting an urgent "compassion meeting." . . .

[Bush] wanted to know how much we had spent on compassion programs in his first two years of office. We made some calls and did some calculations. . . [and found] we were actually spending about $20 million a year less than before he had taken office.

"That number never actually made it to the president," Kuo says.

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E-Mails Reveal Deeper Links Between Mehlman and Abramoff
"Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell [on State Department Official Allen Stayman] after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff....

"Besides the Stayman matter, the e-mails reveal Mehlman's role in helping an Abramoff client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, secure $16.3 million for a new jail that government analysts concluded was not necessary. Mehlman also helped Abramoff obtain a White House endorsement in 2002 of the Republican gubernatorial ticket in the U.S. territory of Guam....

"The senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, points to e-mails suggesting that in June 2001, amid negotiations over whether to fire Stayman, Mehlman requested and might have been given two U2 concert tickets in Abramoff's suite at what was then the MCI Center (now the Verizon Center)." (LA Times)

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