As we wait for the Democratic players to take the field of the 110th Congress, we're going to take a closer look at the senior lawmakers whose positions put them at the forefront of investigations into the Bush administration.

They're trading cards of a sort. Collect them all! Today we start with two Democratic Senate lions, Carl Levin (MI) and Patrick Leahy (VT).

Player: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
Position: Chair, Armed Services; Chair, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

At hearings, Levin's reading glasses live on the very tip of his nose, and it's over those frames he looks at witnesses as he asks them question after withering question, in a style Congressional Quarterly has described as "both unfailingly polite and utterly relentless."

Despite nearly 30 years in office Levin's command of national security issues has not dulled, nor has his zeal for oversight. He's respected as a leading thinker among Democrats, and doesn't shy away from a fight, although he gets along well with both Democratic and Republican colleagues. During Bush's presidency he has taken issue with the Iraq war, the treatment of detainees, and the Pentagon's in-house intelligence operations.

Odds favor Levin taking an early and commanding role overseeing the execution of the Iraq war from his Armed Services chair.

In addition, Levin will be running the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations -- a modest workhorse that's technically under the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, but in practice operates on its own. For the most part, the panel eschews political probes in favor of deep investigations into financial crimes. It has the distinction of being the only panel which can issue subpoenas (at the order of the chair) without a committee vote, I'm told, although that doesn't have much impact on its activities.

Player: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Position: Chair, Judiciary
Leahy's white hair and soft voice belie the tenaciousness with which he latches onto an issue or a witness, and doesn't let go. (Remember, he's the only senator who has earned the distinction of having Dick Cheney tell him publicly to go fuck himself.)

A former prosecutor, Leahy approaches issues with an organized and commanding knowledge of the facts. And he keeps his staff roster stocked with sharp investigative counsel. During the Bush years, he has been a point man for Democrats in challenging the White House on the NSA domestic surveillance program, detainee treatment, the Patriot Act and national security letters, and presidential signing statements. He has also shown an interest in civil rights and voting rights enforcement issues.

Leahy has an active request with the administration for documents showing Bush's approval of torture and the CIA's "black sites" program. Expect Leahy to push on war profiteering, also.

What happens to a celebration deferred?

Last year, Congress had planned a triumphant national "day of celebration" upon the return of our armed services following their victories in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. A provision in the 2006 National Defense Authorization Bill set aside $20 million for our generation's V-I Day. (For those wondering, success would be determined by presidential proclamation.)

Alas, the ticker tape orders have been postponed. With our troops mired in mideast violence, Senate Republicans added a line to the 2007 defense authorization bill to extend the measure through next year. Because, you know, all our troops are coming home then.

(Note: We somehow missed this catch in The New York Times last month, but we owe the reminder to this month's Harper's Magazine.)

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's (R) presidential ambitions take a hit in The Boston Globe today:

Even as Romney travels the country, vowing to curb the flood of low-skilled illegal immigrants into the United States, some of those workers maintain his own yard, cutting grass, pruning shrubs, and mulching trees.

For "a decade," the paper found, "the governor has used a landscaping company that relies heavily on workers like these, illegal Guatemalan immigrants, to maintain the grounds surrounding his pink Colonial house on Marsh Street in Belmont."

Romney -- who speaks frequently on immigration -- never inquired about the workers' status, the Globe reports, only offering up the occasional "buenos dias" to the toiling workers. There's no direct evidence that Romney knew they were illegal.

Any comment, Mr. Romney?

Asked by a reporter yesterday about his use of Community Lawn Service with a Heart [the lawncare company], Romney, who was hosting the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, said, "Aw, geez," and walked away.

Several hours later, his spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, provided the Globe with a statement saying that the governor knows nothing about the immigration status of the landscaping workers, and that his dealings were with [Ricardo] Saenz [the owner of the company], who is a legal immigrant from Colombia.

Perhaps even worse is Saenz's reaction to the Globe's inquiries:

Saenz said he met Romney through the Mormon Church and said Romney has used his company's services for a decade. Saenz said Romney never asked him if his workers are legal immigrants.

"He doesn't have to ask," Saenz said. "I'm a company."

Saenz asserted that all the workers he used were in the United States legally. Told by reporters that his employees said they were in this country illegally, Saenz responded: "What you've heard is not my problem."

AP reports:

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has chosen a Border-Patrol-agent-turned-congressman to take over the House Intelligence Committee, according to congressional aides.

The two aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they considered it an internal party issue, confirmed that Democratic leaders are contacting congressional and other political officials to tell them Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, will be the new chairman of the committee when Democrats take control in January.

When the Justice Department's Inspector General decided recently to investigate his department's use of intelligence provided by the NSA's domestic eavesdropping program, some wondered if it will be an aggressive attempt to get answers or part of an administration whitewash.

There's no doubt the administration has tried to keep the program under wraps, even as calls for information about its operations mount. But the war over the NSA program is far from over, and demands for answers are only going to increase in the new year, from all sides: at least three other executive-branch reviews into the NSA program have already been attempted or completed, scores of federal lawsuits have been filed, over a dozen administrative attacks have been launched by public groups, and congressional investigators are priming their subpoena powers.

Which efforts will likely shed light on the dark recesses of the secret program? Here's how we handicap the many assaults on the NSA's domestic spying:

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Remember the dust-up in Las Vegas between then-Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) and a cocktail waitress who said he assaulted her drunkenly in a parking garage in the middle of the night?

Gibbons was elected governor of Nevada. And now the police say they've found no evidence to support the charges of battery made by Chrissy Mazzeo, the waitress.

Security of Electronic Voting Is Condemned
"Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country 'cannot be made secure,' according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

"The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency.

"In a report hailed by critics of electronic voting, NIST said that voting systems should allow election officials to recount ballots independently from a voting machine's software. The recommendations endorse 'optical-scan' systems in which voters mark paper ballots that are read by a computer and electronic systems that print a paper summary of each ballot, which voters review and elections officials save for recounts." (WaPo)

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We hear that the state's audit team has concluded their examination of Tuesday's mock vote, and attributed any discrepancies that cropped up during the exercise to human error.

On Tuesday, the state's "mock vote" -- its first run of tests on electronic voting machines in Florida's Sarasota County -- unexpectedly handed five extra votes to Democrat Christine Jennings, out of 251 ballots cast. At the time, Florida Division of Elections officials predicted they were the result of human error. After monitoring video of the votes they reaffirmed that belief, deciding that all five votes were the result of mistakes by election officials doing the voting.

On Friday, the audit moves on to its second phase, a similar run of tests on five machines that were actually used on Election Day.

Meanwhile, Jennings' legal contest of the election results is on hold pending the state's audit. If the process concludes without discovering any system errors, Jennings' camp would have to convince the state judge to allow them to run independent tests. Jennings' lawyer has strongly criticized the audit as insufficient.

More later.

Update: Jennings has added ES&S to their lawsuit challenging the election results, a step necessary to force the company to grant access to the machines' "source code," the company's software embedded in each machine.

It's one month before the Democrats take control of Congress. Do you know where your defense team is?

Evidence is mounting that corporate defense attorneys are expecting a billable-hour bonanza to result from congressional Democrats' investigative zeal. As we noted yesterday, Democratic subpoena power is good news for corporate counsel's earning power.

Law firm Dickstein Shapiro achieved quite a coup by snapping up the GOP's two top investigative lawyers from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (TPMm Reader MV uncharitably notes, "I don't see how being an investigative lawyer for this Congress looks good on a resume.") As the press release announces, the men "will focus their practices on government investigations."

And at Wilmer Hale, prospective corporate clients are being urged to start planning now: "For companies and industries that may find themselves in the spotlight some months down the road, it would be prudent to begin planning early so that they can be ready to make their cases most cogently and effectively should the time come."

Two senior Democrats have seen their leadership ambitions deep-sixed because of their murky ethics histories. Here's a third Democrat heading for a powerful post whom folks may want to keep an eye on.

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) is under investigation by the FBI. And he's set to assume a top post which would put him in control of the FBI's budget. Neat trick, eh?

The FBI's probing Mollohan for possible violations of the law arising from his sprawling network of favors and money which connects him to good friends via questionable charities, alarmingly successful real estate ventures, and hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked funds.

The investigation appears to be active and ongoing. We're told that the Feds continue to gather information on the guy. Yet the Democrats look poised to make Mollohan the chairman of the panel which controls the purse strings for the entire Justice Department -- including the FBI.

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It might not work as a campaign slogan, but it gets your attention.

Facing stiff competition in a runoff election just nine days away, Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) has begun running an ad in which he asserts, "I have never taken a bribe from anyone." Jefferson, under FBI investigation for taking bribes, is trying to hold onto his seat representing Louisiana's 2nd District. But Democratic state Rep. Karen Carter is giving him a run for his money. No pun intended.

In the ad, Jefferson disputes Carter's claim that he was videotaped by the FBI taking a bribe. "Her newspaper source got the facts wrong," he says. You can watch the ad here:



Though the laundry list of damning quotes captured by FBI wiretaps do include such gems as "I make a deal for my children" and "I'm gonna get your deal out of the way... and I probably won't last long after that," we do have some sympathy for Jefferson here.

On the videotape to which Jefferson is referring, the FBI informant actually is captured giving Jefferson the briefcase filled with $100,000 in cash as an intended bribe for the Vice President of Nigeria -- not Jefferson himself, so he does have a point.

Of course, despite the fact that Jefferson subsequently told the informant that he'd passed on the cash (which he cryptically referred to as "African art") to Nigerian VP Atiku Abubakar as discussed, a FBI raid of Jefferson's home found $90,000 of the intended bribe in Jefferson's freezer.

Call it a sign of the times. How to salvage a sweetheart contract for Republican lobbyists when control of Congress flips? Make it a sweetheart contract for Democratic lobbyists!

Down in Texas, Republican Governor Rick Perry caused an uproar last year when it was discovered that he'd gutted the state agency charged with lobbying the federal government and replaced it with Republican lobbyists. For $1.2 million over four years, the lobbyists, Drew Maloney (formerly an aide to Tom DeLay) and Todd Boulanger (formerly of Jack Abramoff's lobbying team), who showed their appreciation by cycling tens of thousands in contributions back to Republicans, were charged with convincing Texas' already immensely strong GOP delegation of the state's priorities. An analysis by The Houston Chronicle of the lobbyists' billing records showed that they'd only met with two House Democrats the whole time -- and those Democrats denied those contacts had occurred.

Well, now the Democrats are in charge -- so a couple of GOP lobbyists aren't of much use anymore. So the firms, who won the contracts based on their GOP bona fides, are preening as Democratic powerhouses.

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As we noted yesterday, the state's first run of tests on electronic voting machines in Florida's Sarasota County unexpectedly handed five extra votes to Democrat Christine Jennings.

Since then, the Division of Elections has been busily trying to figure out what went wrong. But despite a full day of analysis that did not explain the discrepancy, the department's spokesperson is still insisting that "human error" is to blame. They just need more time to figure out how.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that whatever problems caused electronic machines not to register a vote in the congressional race for more than 18,000 voters in the county on Election Day, the problem affected Democrats more than Republicans.

From The Orlando Sentinel:

...Tuesday, Stanford University professor David Dill said his examination of ballot data supported that conclusion.

Dill, an electronic-voting expert, found that 5,304 people whose ballots showed no selection in the congressional race voted a straight Democratic ticket on the five statewide races. He found that 3,290 voted straight Republican. [Republican Vern Buchanan won the official tally by fewer than 400 votes.]

"Something's going on there," Dill said. "But I'm not sure what yet."

FEMA Ordered to Resume Katrina Payments
"Condemning the bureaucracy at the Federal Emergency Management Agency as 'Kafkaesque,' a federal judge Wednesday ordered the government to immediately resume housing payments to Gulf Coast residents who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina.

"Barely six months after Katrina ravaged the region, FEMA began ending payments to several thousand families still in temporary housing and unable to return to their homes.

"U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the agency had violated the evacuees' rights by not adequately explaining why it was ending the benefits, making it difficult for storm victims to appeal the decisions....

"Leon ordered the agency to explain its actions, restore short-term benefits to evacuees who had been cut off and give them the two months of housing payments they would have received after payments finally stopped in August 2006. The ruling affects 11,000 families, mostly in Louisiana and Texas.

"The judge cited letters from FEMA that gave contradictory explanations for decisions. He also described FEMA's practice of conveying its decisions 'cryptically … by a code or phrase' decipherable only after evacuees obtained a separate pamphlet explaining the codes." (LAT, AP)

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Remember Brandon Mayfield? He's the guy the FBI arrested in 2004 and held for two weeks for allegedly aiding a terrorist bombings of Spanish commuter trains. Except, he didn't do it.

Mayfield just won a $2 million settlement from the U.S. government for its rather egregious error, along with a written apology for its mistakes.

Based on a faulty fingerprint match, the FBI arrested Mayfield, raided his house and office, and held him for two weeks. They finally admitted their error and released him.

The kicker to the story: a March 2006 report from the Justice Department's Inspector General examined the Mayfield case and the Patriot Act, and concluded that for the most part, the new law had no impact on the way the FBI investigated the case. But, the report found, the Patriot Act did allow the FBI to share information about the innocent Mayfield more broadly within the intelligence community.

One sector of big-money Washington is eager for a reinvigorated Congress: White-collar defense lawyers.

In a recent memo to its clients, the white shoe firm Covington and Burling warned of the increased investigative activity soon to come from the Dem-controlled Hill -- and touted its credentials for representing corporations and individuals who may find themselves under scrutiny.

"Nearly every committee of Congress likely will participate in oversight on a broad array of issues," the memo predicts, "including those that are well anticipated, like Iraq redevelopment fraud, and those that are sometimes overlooked by the press, such as hedge fund oversight. Importantly, while the popular press will focus on high-profile actions like subpoenaing senior government officials or investigating Bush Administration failures, a broad range of private sector companies also will face scrutiny."

The new Congress will be busy ferretting out "sweetheart contracts, administrative cost overruns, waste and fraud, and narrow appropriations earmarks," the slick marketing piece predicted. Also at risk are "[c]ompanies that played a role in what are perceived as Bush Administration failures or abuses" like Katrina and the president's warrantless wiretapping program. And even though Enron was a long time ago, Covington also sees "corporate abuses" as a target area.

Are you an executive at a telecom involved in the NSA's wiretapping program? Did your company get a sweet no-bid contract in Iraq? Well, Covington's soon-to-be booming "congressional investigations practice" boasts such luminaries as Lanny Breuer, who was President Clinton's Special Counsel during impeachment proceedings, and Robert Kelner, who has represented the RNC in the New Hampshire phone jamming case.

Gentlemen, start your retainers.

Yesterday, Florida's Division of Elections began its audit of the election results in Florida's Sarasota County. The results? "Intriguing," according to Democrat Christine Jennings' lawyer Kendall Coffey.

All day yesterday, election workers sat in glass booths and voted accorded to a predetermined script designed to mimic the voting on Election Day. The entire process was videotaped and monitored by the campaigns and the press.

The tests, performed on backup machines, didn't really turn out the way anyone expected. "Of the 251 ballots cast" in the audit, "five additional votes were counted for Jennings, including three extra votes in one precinct," according to The Herald Tribune.

Jennings has contested the official election results, of course, because the electronic machines didn't register votes in the congressional race for more than 18,000 Sarasota County voters, about fifteen percent, an abnormally high rate. But yesterday's results didn't register an unexpectedly high "undervote" rate. Instead, the tests seemed to give a few extra votes to Jennings.

But an incorrect result is an incorrect result, and so Coffey, who has denounced the audit for being insufficiently rigorous, said in a prepared statement that "the discrepancies are intriguing."

The spokesperson for the Division of Elections, meanwhile, was quick to attribute the discrepancies to "human error." Today, the audit team will doublecheck their math and monitor the video of yesterday's mock election to see if that's the case.

On Friday, the second round of the audit will involve similar tests on machines actually used on Election Day.

Judge Strikes Down Parts of Executive Order on Terrorism
"A Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that key portions of a presidential order blocking financial assistance to terrorist groups are unconstitutional, further complicating the Bush administration's attempts to defend its aggressive anti-terrorism tactics in federal courts.

"U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins, in a ruling released late Monday, found that two provisions of an executive order signed Sept. 23, 2001, are impermissibly vague because they allow the president to unilaterally designate organizations as terrorist groups and broadly prohibit association with such groups." (WaPo)

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Once favored to be the House intelligence committee chairman, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) has given up his bid for the spot, as CQ predicted.

Upon emerging from his meeting with soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hastings released the following statement:

"I have been informed by the Speaker-elect that I will not serve as the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 110th Congress. I am obviously disappointed with this decision. As we learn in Ecclesiastes, however, for everything there is a season.

"I have been honored to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives for the past 14 years and look forward to having this privilege for many, many more years to come.

More -- including the "hater" quip -- after the jump.

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Congressional Quarterly's Tim Starks has the scoop:

House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi was to meet with Rep. Alcee L. Hastings late Tuesday to close the door on his bid to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a congressional aide said.

But Pelosi, D-Calif., has not yet decided who will get the job, according to the aide. . . .

Pelosi met with Harman two weeks ago to discuss the House Intelligence Committee chair job. There is little to suggest Pelosi will reverse her intention to replace Harman atop the panel.

And the medal for most imaginative ethics ruling goes to... Texas! From The Houston Chronicle:

A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as "currency," without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday.

The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who unabashedly accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws.

"What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the "currency" interpretation would render it "perfectly legal to report the gift of 'a wheelbarrow' without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash."

Presumably that trick would also work with a bathtub, a pinata, or any other vessel that you'd care to give your lawmaker or state official.

Earlier this year, the commission ruled that a gift of a check, no matter the amount, could simply be disclosed as "checks."

The ruling stems from a case last year, when Houston millionaire and GOP attack group funder Bob Perry gave Bill Ceverha, a member of the State Employees Retirement System board, a $50,000 check, which was disclosed only as "check." According to the Chronicle, "[b]oth men have said the check for $50,000 was supposed to help cover legal fees Ceverha incurred defending himself against a civil lawsuit related to his role as treasurer of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay's Texas fundraising operation."

"Several members of a government board appointed to guard privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror say they're impressed with the protections built into the Bush administration's electronic eavesdropping program," the Associated Press assures us today.

Not so fast.

The panel in question, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, is a largely toothless effort. It has no real powers of investigation, such as subpoena power; its members are appointed by the President; and it's not clear Congress has any control over what the group does or to whom they deliver their findings.

This is how the White House-selected panel executes oversight: They sit in a room. An expert (also chosen by the administration) gives a presentation on a given program's constitutional protections. I would hope he entertains a few questions. Then he leaves.

The board can't demand documents; it can't force bureaucrats who actually implement the program -- and who might be aware of malfeasance -- to speak with them under oath. Instead, its sole and complete authority is to take the administration at its word.

How was it handed the power to pretend, rather than the power to probe?

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When the White House nominated Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) to succeed Ken Mehlman as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, some wondered why they'd exchanged one man with a Jack Abramoff problem for another.

The RNC won't vote to approve Martinez until January. But we hear that new revelations about Martinez's ties to the now-imprisoned Abramoff are due to be released before that happens. If that happens, and it jeopardizes Martinez's bid to lead the GOP, the party could face some serious questions about why it can't seem to find a qualified, muck-free leader.

As we've noted before, Abramoff had aggressively courted Martinez when he was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of his tribal clients. In his guilty plea, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) admitted to lobbying Martinez on Abramoff's behalf. And when Martinez launched his Senate bid in 2004, Abramoff co-chaired a fundraiser that netted him $250,000. Martinez has said that he never met Abramoff when he was Secretary of HUD. But it seems there's more to that tale.

Ken Mehlman, of course, despite his protestations to the contrary, was close to Abramoff -- so close that Abramoff's associates referred to him as their "rock star" for his many favors on their behalf.

Yesterday, we noted that the Justice Department's Inspector General had announced in a letter to Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) that his office was probing the National Security Agency's warantless wiretapping program.

You can read the letter announcing the investigation, in all its four-paragraph glory here (click to enlarge):

ABC's now reporting that First Daughter Barbara Bush has left Argentina, while her sister Jenna will stay behind for ten days.

The dynamic duo was recently asked to leave the country by the U.S. embassy, which had concerns for their safety, ABC reported. (The embassy has since denied this.) The two have been in Buenos Aires since last week for what what was planned to be a two-week trip in celebration of their 25th birthday. As one reader pointed out, the sisters apparently skipped the Bush Thanksgiving dinner in favor of drunken carousing in the antipodes. So much for family values?

Court Rejects N.Y. Times on Leak Probe
"The Supreme Court ruled against The New York Times on Monday, refusing to block the government from reviewing telephone records of two Times reporters in a leak investigation concerning a terrorism-funding probe.

"The one-sentence order came in a First Amendment battle that involves stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon. The stories revealed the government's plans to freeze the assets of two Islamic charities, the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation.

"U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to track down the reporters' confidential sources for the stories. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment on the Supreme Court's order." (AP, WSJ)

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Over at the New Republic's Plank blog, Michael Crowley raised eyebrows with a couple striking pre-invasion quotes from could-be House intel chair Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). Glenn Greenwald added a couple more, detailing Harman's for-it-but-against-it take on the NSA's domestic wiretapping program.

If Democrats are looking for a chief intelligence overseer who will be strong on constitutional protections and intel analysis that "gets it right," these quotes indicate they may want to look beyond "the best Republican in the Democratic party," as Harman has called herself.

Harman on-the-record quotes are legion, likely owing in no small part to her love of the spotlight (and the microphone). We've put a few we dug up together with those already unearthed. Heard a good Harman quote? Send it along.

On Colin Powell's U.N. speech: "I happen to know that our intelligence agencies made absolutely certain that it was totally accurate, and that anything put out there had been reviewed 100 times to make sure it was accurate." (Fox News, Big Story with John Gibson, 2/6/03)

On Saddam Hussein's WMDs: "There's a strong intelligence case that Iraq has not destroyed its weapons of mass destruction and is building the capability to use them." (Washington Post, 1/30/03)

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The election battle continues in Florida's 13th District this week, as the state begins its audit of electronic voting machines. At issue is why Sarasota County's electronic voting machines failed to register a vote in Florida's 13th District congressional race for more than 18,000 voters, an "undervote" rate far higher than the 13th's other counties. Analyses of those undervotes show that they cost Jennings (who lost the official tally to Republican Vern Buchanan by fewer than 400 votes) the race.

But that audit, conducted by the state's Division of Elections, has drawn criticism for a number of reasons. As we noted last week, the state's lead computer expert is a die-hard Republican. The conditions of the audit have also drawn fire from Democrat Christine Jennings camp.

Speaking earlier today, Jennings lawyer Kendall Coffey pointed to what he saw as key deficiencies in the audit, which might undermine Jennings' efforts to contest the election results. Jennings' lawsuit is on hold until the state completes its audit this Friday.

Above all, Coffey said that the state's process went against "the basic notion of an audit that it's supposed to be independent." Instead, "the same state agency that is responsible for the reliability of voting systems and software are now conducting an audit to find out where that agency created problems."

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AP reports:

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee leaders and obtained by The Associated Press, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his investigators would focus on the Justice Department's role in carrying out the spying program run by the National Security Agency.

Fine wrote that he wants to ensure that prosecutors are following laws governing the handling of information NSA gathers when spying on suspected terrorists in the United States.

"After conducting initial inquiries into the program, we have decided to open a program review that will examine the department's controls and use of information related to the program," Fine wrote in the four-paragraph letter.

President Bush earlier stonewalled a similar inquiry, you might recall. In July, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress that the president had personally prohibited investigators from DoJ's Office of Professional Responsibility from obtaining the security clearances they needed to determine whether senior Justice officials had broken the law when they approved and monitored the secret NSA domestic surveillance program.

Curiously, when Fine asked for clearances from the White House he got them, according to his letter. It's not immediately clear how -- or if -- Fine's probe differs from OPR's thwarted effort.

Update: You can read Fine's letter here.

Despite growing pressure to leave the region, Bush's daughters insist upon staying in Argentina. Where did they learn that kind of stubbornness?

Reports ABC's Blotter:

Amid a growing barrage of front-page headlines, U.S. embassy officials "strongly suggested" President Bush's twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush, cut short their trip to Buenos Aires because of security issues, U.S. diplomatic and security sources tell ABC News.

Withdraw in the face of mounting security problems? A ludicrous notion.

Last week ABC reported that Barbara had her purse stolen. Even worse, their shenanigans are creating headlines in the country. One tabloid featured a story about the two running naked, Borat-style, down the hallway of their hotel, according to ABC.

Security problems continue, according to the network:

Thursday night, an ABC News producer was able to walk into their hotel unchecked and engage Barbara Bush in conversation while she checked her e-mail on a computer in the lobby. Jenna sat talking with friends on a sofa nearby. No Secret Service agents were anywhere to be seen in the lobby, according to ABC News' Joe Goldman.

But no, Barbara and Jenna aren't cut-and-runners. "Sources tell ABC News the twins plan to stick to their original itinerary and stay in Buenos Aires until Thursday." That's the spirit.

In a little less than two weeks, we'll learn if the growing cloud of corruption allegations surrounding Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) will motivate his constituents to end his career before the Justice Department gets its shot to do the same.

On Saturday, December 9th, Jefferson's fate will be decided by a runoff election in which he faces Democratic state Rep. Karen Carter. Will voters be content to wait around for Jefferson's promised "honorable explanation" for why federal agents found $90,000 cash in his freezer?

No polls seem to be available, only a wide expectation that the race will be close. Jefferson led Carter 30%-22% in the general election, where there were a host of other Dem challengers.

To make matters even more interesting, the muck hasn't stopped coming on Jefferson, despite the fact that the DoJ's mammoth bribery investigation has gotten tied up in the courts over the FBI's raid of Jefferson's congressional office.

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Rumors are flying that Katherine "Pink Sugar" Harris may try to re-take her House seat in 2008, Roll Call's "Heard on the Hill" column reports (sub. req.).

Harris gave up the seat, which represents Florida's 13th District, in order to mount her disastrous Senate bid. That district is now the scene of a hotly contested election. Republicans say their candidate, Vern Buchanan, won the seat by a few hundred votes; Democrats charge voting machine glitches illegally prevented thousands of Democratic votes from being counted.

Needless to say, Buchanan would need to lose this fight so Harris could run in '08. And the federal investigation into Harris would need to conclude without indictment. So for now, us rakers can only wait. .. and hope.

In 1980s, Defense Nominee Pushed to Bomb Nicaragua
"Robert M. Gates, President Bush's nominee to lead the Pentagon, advocated a bombing campaign against Nicaragua in 1984 in order to 'bring down' the leftist government, according to a declassified memo released by a nonprofit research group. . . .

"In the memo, Gates, who was deputy director of the CIA, argued that the Soviet Union was turning Nicaragua into an armed camp and that the country could become a second Cuba. The rise of the communist-leaning Sandinista government threatened the stability of Central America, Gates asserted.

"Gates' memo echoed the view of many foreign policy hard-liners at the time; however, the feared communist takeover of the region never materialized. . . .

"'It sounds like Donald Rumsfeld,' said National Security Archive Director Thomas S. Blanton. 'It shows the same kind of arrogance and hubris that got us into Iraq.'" (LATimes)

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Is the Duke Cunningham scandal about to re-emerge in the public eye?

Accused Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes has hired celebrity defense lawyer Mark Geragos, the North County (Calif.) Times reported yesterday. The move may hint that Wilkes expects an indictment -- and a cascade of media attention -- to come down soon.

Duke accused Wilkes, who ran Poway, Calif.-based defense/intelligence contracting company ADCS, Inc., of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the congressman's pocket in exchange for secret government contracts.

Reports the North County Times:

Geragos, whose former clients include pop star Michael Jackson, former first brother Roger Clinton and former Congressman Gary Condit, said Wednesday that he recently began representing Poway businessman Brent Wilkes. . . .

It was unclear last week exactly what role Geragos will play on Wilkes' legal team.

Asked if he would be defending Wilkes in the event he is indicted, Geragos would only say that he is prepared to help the man in any way he can.

"I met Brent and certainly was impressed by him and also the situation he finds himself in," Geragos said. "He could use my help."

Wilkes is already represented by Washington, D.C. lawyer Nancy Luque, who represented Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.