So, a senior Pentagon official is calling for a boycott of all law firms who aid Guantanamo prisoners. The call has been repeated by conservative talk show hosts.

Funny thing: among the practices working for accused terrorists is New York firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. The lead lawyer for former Cheney aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense team is a Paul Weiss man. Who knew? (Probably not Charles D. Stimson, the Pentagon official whose comments have now been officially disavowed by the Defense Department.)

Paul Weiss' lawyers weren't just on the sidelines of the Guantanamo issue; they achieved some notable victories in changing conditions at the prison, and have even traveled to the Middle East to meet with the detainees' families.

As it happens, Libby's case heads to trial on Monday. Who, pray tell, will be the Pentagon official to demand Libby give up his lead defender -- immediately? Who will be the first radio talk show host to denounce Cheney's former chief of staff as an aider and abettor of terrorism?

The head of the FBI's San Diego office and several former federal prosecutors are publicly questioning the politics behind the Bush administration's effort to force Carole Lam to resign as U.S. Attorney for San Diego.

Lam focused her office's efforts on public corruption, including the sprawling Duke Cunningham scandal. That investigation has touched several Republican lawmakers, leading some to speculate that Lam brought political heat down on herself with that probe, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The top FBI official for San Diego said that Lam's dismissal would jeopardize several ongoing investigations. "I guarantee politics is involved," special agent in charge Dan Dzwilewski told the paper. He did not speculate further.

“It will be a huge loss from my perspective,” Dzwilewski said.

Peter Nunez, who held Lam's post from 1982 to 1988, told the North County (Calif.) Times he was "in a state of shock" from hearing the news of Lam's forced ouster. "It's just like nothing I've ever seen before in 35-plus years. To be asked to resign and to be publicly humiliated by leaking this to the press is beyond any bounds of decency and behavior. It shocks me. It really is outrageous."

The question he had, according to the paper, was: "Why?"

Another former San Diego U.S. attorney expressed disbelief at the move. "In my years with the department, I never saw anything like this," Chris La Bella told the Times. La Bella served in Lam's post for a period in 1998. He said he didn't know whether Lam's focus on corruption was a factor, but he didn't rule it out. "The only people who know are in Washington," La Bella told the paper.

Remember Amir Taheri? He's the White House favorite who peddled the story that Iran was requiring its Jewish citizens to wear yellow stripes. Chilling story, if true -- which it wasn't. Well, Taheri -- who's prone to claiming non-existent sources and "[making] generalizations of breathtaking sweep and inaccuracy" -- is at it again.

Iraqis can't wait to have more U.S. troops running through their neighborhoods. And guess who's to blame for the internecine violence that's driving the American escalation? Cindy Sheehan! No kidding.

From his op-ed in today's New York Post:

". . . Baghdadis say the population of [war-torn Baghdad neighborhoods] will greet the American troops with sweets and flowers.

The fear that the United States, bedeviled by internecine feuds, might cut and run has been at the root of the violence since Iraq's liberation in 2003.

Jihadists have fought not because they hope to win on the battlefield, but to strengthen the antiwar lobbies in the United States and Britain."

After narrowly winning reelection in his very conservative district, Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) says he's reformed, but it sure doesn't look like he's really got religion.

He's firing his wife as his campaign fundraiser, he announced yesterday -- no longer will she, and by extension Doolittle himself, get a 15% cut of every contribution to his campaign. Not that there was ever anything wrong with this, no -- but for some reason the arrangement became a "concern and distraction to some of [his] constituents," as he wrote in an Op-Ed, revealing his reformation:

Because I believe it is proper for my wife to raise funds for my campaign, I encouraged her to step in at a critical time when her talents were desperately needed. I have appreciated her willingness to take time away from her other clients to provide a professional service to my campaign. However, because I recognize that this issue has been a concern and distraction to some of my constituents, I have retained an outside fundraiser to take over those duties.

Nope, no mea culpa there. And that "critical time when [his wife's] talents were desperately needed?" That was 2001 through the present. And during that critical, desperate time, he did not face a single credible election challenge prior to 2006. He outraised his opponent in 2004, for example, $935,907 to $2,300. Good thing his wife was there to share the pot.

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Senate votes to strip felon ex-lawmakers of their pensions. Better start socking away those bribes in 401(k)s, boys.

Win a few, lose a few.

Yesterday, Paul reported on the fireworks erupting in the Senate over ethics reform. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) went to the wall for a watered-down reform proposal, which would have kept the public from knowing which lawmakers inserted billions of dollars worth of earmarked expenditures. Republicans, with the help of nine Democrats (and Joe Lieberman), kept him at bay by pushing an amendment that would force nearly all earmarks to be identified by their sponsors.

Today, Reid appears to have accepted defeat. From CQ (sub. req.):

After losing a critical floor vote Thursday and scrambling in vain to reverse the decision, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., found the spirit of bipartisan compromise more to his liking Friday morning.

Reid offered an olive branch to Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., agreeing to embrace his amendment to a pending ethics and lobbying overhaul (S 1) with some modifications. DeMint’s amendment, which Democratic leaders tried but failed to kill on Thursday, would expand the definition of member earmarks that would be subject to new disclosure rules. . . .

Friday morning, a chastened Reid said, “Yesterday was a rather difficult day, as some days are. We tend to get in a hurry around here sometimes when we shouldn’t be. Personally, for the majority, we probably could have done a little better job.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like his infamously inconstant predecessor, still won't admit that Iraq is in a state of civil war, but that non-civil war is apparently, one of four ongoing wars in Iraq.

From today's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

There are four wars going on in Iraq right now, simultaneously: Shia on Shia conflict in the south; sectarian violence, particularly in Baghdad, but also in Diyala and a couple of other provinces; an insurgency; and Al Qaeda.

The epic Duke Cunningham scandal gets weirder: Carole Lam, the San Diego U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the corrupt former lawmaker, is being quietly pushed out by the Bush administration. Lam's office has recently been troubling the CIA and Capitol Hill by pushing for documents related to the Cunningham investigation.

According to this morning's San Deigo Union-Tribune, the White House's reason for giving her the axe is that she "failed to make smuggling and gun cases a top priority." But most folks the paper talked to -- supporters and detractors -- said that sounded like a load of hooey.

A belated attempt at a cover-up? That doesn't quite fit. It's not like the Cunningham investigation has earned a place in the Great Scandal Prosecutions Hall of Fame. There have been signs of trouble all along. There was the strange decision to throw him in jail before ensuring he told everything he knew, as well as evidence of poor coordination between the numerous federal agencies involved in investigating the fiasco. If the administration for some reason didn't want the truth to come out about what the Cunningham scandal touched -- well, many folks thought all they had to do was sit back and let the probes tangle themselves in knots.

The paper raises the possibility that Lam isn't the only U.S. Attorney who's being pushed out. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told the paper in a statement, “We don't know how many U.S. Attorneys have been asked to resign – it could be two, it could be ten, it could be more. No one knows."

Lieberman Punts on Katrina Oversight
Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is about to get a little lonelier. Lieberman "has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans." During his campaign last year, Lieberman had vocally criticized Bush's handling of Katrina, and had complained about the administration's failure to turn over related documents. (Newsweek)

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Despite its incompetence and failures, there was one thing that the administration was always good at: the staged event. But, in a sign of how far their fortunes have sunk, they can't even do that right any more.

From The Washington Post:

There are few places the president could go for an unreservedly enthusiastic reception the day after unveiling his decision to order 21,500 more troops to Iraq. A military base has usually been a reliable backdrop for the White House, and so Bush aides chose this venerable Army installation in western Georgia to promote his revised strategy to the nation while his Cabinet secretaries tried to sell it on Capitol Hill.

The president's handlers did all they could to make it go well. Soldiers were prevented from speaking to reporters in order "to ensure that there would be no discordant notes," as the Post puts it. Bush even made an effort to appear low-key, a tactic, according to his aides, designed "to reflect the serious situation." But, still, it didn't go well.

Soldiers being soldiers, those who met the commander in chief Thursday saluted smartly and applauded politely. But it was hardly the boisterous, rock-star reception Bush typically gets at military bases. During his lunchtime speech, the soldiers were attentive but quiet. Not counting the introduction of dignitaries, Bush was interrupted by applause just three times in 30 minutes -- once when he talked about a previous Medal of Honor winner from Fort Benning, again when he pledged to win in Iraq and finally when he repeated his intention to expand the Army.

Note: Despite the fact that The New York Times and LA Times observed the same restrained reaction, the AP went with the headline: "Bush cheered at Fort Benning."

Showing he can be every bit as bullying to advance a bad idea, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) held open a vote on his watered down earmark reform legislation today in order to round up enough votes to push it through.

Part of the Senate's ethics reform bill deals with earmarks -- lawmakers' often abused practice of inserting items in legislation to direct funds to special interests (a la Duke Cunningham). According to current rules, lawmakers can attach earmarks anonymously, a state of affairs inviting abuse. Reform efforts have sought to change that. Republicans and good government types have criticized Reid's version of earmark reform legislation, which is weaker than the version passed by House Democrats, saying that it doesn't go near far enough in terms of disclosure.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered an amendment today that mirrored the tougher legislation passed by House Democrats.

According to Craig Holman of Public Citizen, Reid's version, if it had been applied to earmarks as part of legislation passed last year, would have disclosed the sponsor of only approximately 500 earmarks. DeMint's amendment would have forced sponsors to be known of roughly 12,000.

"DeMint's version is considerably tougher," Holman told me, noting that both Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who co-sponsored the bill, are "on the appropriations committee and haven't really believed in strong earmark reform propoals in the first place."

But Democrats sought to block DeMint's amendment, with an effort led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). They failed, due mostly to nine Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and freshmen Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA), who crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Here's the roll call tally.

But instead of then passing DeMint's amendment, as would normally occur in the Senate, the Democratic leadership held the vote open, a move that Senate Republicans called unprecedented, and reminiscent of tactics used by the GOP-controlled House that voters just booted.

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Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), who accepted a host of bribes from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has said before that drink made him do it.

Now his lawyer, in a request to the judge for lenience, repeated that again yesterday, and requested that "the Court specifically find that Mr. Ney’s alcohol addiction contributed to the conduct he has admitted." His lawyer added that "Mr. Ney would benefit from participation in the Residential Drug Abuse Program offered by the Bureau of Prisons during any term of imprisonment." (You can read the entire filing here.)

As Justin pointed out before, the residential program would remove Ney from the general inmate population and may ultimately reduce his sentence by up to a year. Prosecutors have recommended 29 months in prison for Ney. His sentencing will take place January 19th.

They're still at it.

Nearly a month ago, we reported that the Defense Department was refusing a routine request from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to declassify statistics on enemy attacks in Iraq. As long as GAO has produced periodic reports on the war for members of Congress -- GAO's boss -- the Pentagon had provided those numbers. But despite repeated requests, DoD wouldn't budge on making public the figures for September, October and November 2006.

They still won't. On Tuesday the GAO released a new report on Iraq, but its data on attacks is incomplete. Why? The Pentagon has continued to keep the attack numbers an official secret, GAO official Joseph A. Christoff told me. "They did not officially declassify the information," he said.

Undaunted, Christoff said his staff reviewed testimony of Defense officials before Congress. Lo and behold, at a recent open hearing, a Defense Intelligence Agency official mentioned attack statistics for part of the missing period. The GAO inserted those numbers, covering September and part of October, in the report. November is still missing. Here's the chart (click to enlarge):

Despite that, and the DIA official's testimony, and its history of declassifying the data, the Pentagon still insists to the GAO the information for October, November and December is classified. Christoff maintains he's perplexed by the situation. "I'm still a bit confused why it was done routinely in the past, but there's some difficult in reaching a decision now."

That's far from the only once-public data which has been removed from view by the Bush administration. To see our growing list of examples, click here.

What happens when Democrats seek to block funding for a troop increase that's already under way?

We're gonna find out. The Washington Post reports that House Democrats, led by the hard-charging Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), have settled on a strategy of "legislative language that could stop an escalation of troops." Or as House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) put it, "Twenty-one thousand five hundred troops ought to have 21,500 strings attached to them." It's not yet clear when they'd make their move.

As we said earlier this week, with a White House that's accustomed to ignoring limits to its power, things are liable to get very, very interesting.

Most "New" Troops to Come from Forces Already Scheduled to be in Iraq
Of the 21,500 troops called for in President Bush's speech last night, all but one major combat unit are either already in Iraq, or were scheduled to go there anyway. Most of the surge will come from "sending a few brigades earlier than planned and extending the tours of others." And the highest troop level to come -- 153,500, though the Pentagon hasn't revealed when this number will be realized -- will still be smaller than the 160,000 that were in Iraq after last year's elections. (AP)

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Is Iraqi sovereignty an oxymoron?

The New York Times reports that the president's plan to embed American troops with Iraqi units will provide the twin benefit of providing support to the Iraqis while keeping them on a short leash:

American generals have acknowledged that the twinning of American and Iraqi units, and the sharp increase in American advisers, will serve the dual purpose of stiffening Iraqi combat performance and providing American commanders with early warning of any Iraqi operations that run counter to American objectives. In effect, the advisers will serve as canaries in Mr. Maliki’s mine, ensuring the American command will get early notice if Iraqi operations threaten to abandon the equal pursuit of Sunni and Shiite extremists in favor of a more sectarian emphasis on going after Sunnis alone.

There's a similar tension with regard to Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who, since he's being given more authority, can't be left without babysitters:

The arrangements appeared to suggest that Mr. Maliki would have the power to halt any push into Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold that American commanders have been saying for months will have to be swept of extremist militia elements if there is to be any lasting turn toward stability in Baghdad. But along with more authority for Mr. Maliki, the American plan appeared to have countervailing safeguards to prevent sectarian agendas from gaining the upper hand. Bush administration officials said that Americans would be present in the commander in chief’s office and that an American Army battalion — 400 to 600 soldiers — would be stationed in each of the nine Baghdad military districts.

Evangelical conservative William Boykin is set to be bounced from his Pentagon gig as a senior intelligence official, Newsweek reports.

Boykin became known for his violent Christian rhetoric, like when he asserted America’s enemy is “a spiritual enemy ... called Satan” who could only be defeated “if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”

His detractors have noted that his position should have required him to oversee the conduct of military interrogators, including those who have been found to abuse their subjects.

In 2004, Boykin was ordered to investigate claims of prisoner abuse by "Task Force 6-26," a military intelligence unit trying to track and capture one of Iraq's most notorious terrorists, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a 2006 New York Times report.

Boykin said he found no pattern of misconduct. It was later revealed that the group (motto: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it") had taken over a Saddam-era torture chamber and used it to "beat prisoners with rifle butts, yell. . . and spit in their faces," according to the New York Times.

Yet another senator who lost re-election because of his ties to lobbyists is heading to K Street:

Former Sen. Conrad Burns, whose ties to lobbyists helped sink his re-election bid, has landed at a new workplace: a Washington lobbying firm.

Burns will work for his former chief of staff, Leo Giacometto, at the firm Gage, which has lobbied for Montana interests and several national technology companies, often making headlines for its connections to Burns and his staff.

Well, at least there Burns will be able to earn more than enough to pay his lawyers as prosecutors investigating the Abramoff scandal bear down... although he's still got plenty left over in his campaign fund.

Update: As anonymontucky comments below, Burns and Giacometto are under investigation by the FBI for Burns' earmarking shenanigans, as first reported by Roll Call (sub. req.).

From The Washington Post:

Federal prosecutors have notified a former deputy secretary of the interior, J. Steven Griles, that he is a target in the public corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff's lobbying activities, sources knowledgeable about the probe said.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that among the possible criminal charges being investigated is whether Griles made false statements to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005 about job discussions Abramoff initiated while Griles was deputy secretary.

So Griles, the former #2 at the Interior Department, is on the hook for being Jack Abramoff's inside man at the Interior Department, and then lying about it to Senate investigators.

Even though Griles' colleagues testified to the Indian Affairs Committee that Griles was oddly interested in Abramoff's clients while at Interior, and that he turned "purple" when challenged as to why, Griles told Senate investigators that he didn't have any particular involvement with Abramoff's clients. And even though Abramoff boasted to his fellow lobbyists in a 2003 email that Griles was cashing in and leaving Interior to join Abramoff's team, Griles told the committee that there had never been any such understanding. (For whatever reason, Griles ultimately did not join Abramoff, although he did land a lobbying gig elsewhere).

Griles is the most senior agency official known to be a target of the investigation so far. Other senior officials, like White House aides including Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, and Susan Ralston, have come under scrutiny, but Griles is the first to be in real danger of indictment. Of course, he wouldn't be the first administration official to go down in the Abramoff scandal for lying to investigators.

The Post adds another tantalizing tidbit: Griles' girlfriend, who used to be former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton's chief of staff, has abruptly resigned from her new post at the Justice Department.

Despite chairing the House panel which oversees the Justice Department budget, Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) has sworn he won't meddle with the Feds' money, Congressional Quarterly reports (sub. req.) today.

Since Mollohan is the subject of an FBI investigation, that's probably a smart move.

Concerns were raised last November when it was noticed that Mollohan was poised to take the chairmanship of the Commerce Justice State Appropriations Subcommittee, from which he would hold of the purse strings for Justice and its law enforcement arm.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't see the big deal. "I think the Justice Department is looking into every member of Congress," she told a news crew last week. Mollohan, thankfully, was a little less myopic. “To make certain that there is no basis for criticism of my service on the CJS Subcommittee, I have decided to recuse myself from any related Justice Department accounts,” he wrote to colleagues in a letter obtained by CQ.

Meanwhile, the top Republican on the Appropriations committee is also under federal investigation, but he hasn't made any noises about recusing himself from meddling with the Justice Department budget. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), the committee's ranking member, has blown over $800,000 in legal bills defending himself against aggressive investigators.

Remember the Bush appointee who ran a racehorse operation from his office? The guy who was forced off the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for secretly hiring consultants to hunt for liberal bias in public media programming? Ken Tomlinson, that's the guy.

Despite his hijinks, the White House put him up for a reappointment to the Broadcasting Board of Governors -- the perch from which he oversaw his equine endeavor.

He's had his fill of this rotten town, it seems. Tomlinson "[has] asked the White House to withdraw his nomination for another term as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors," the New York Times reports this morning. No reason was cited; we assume it's so he can spend more time with his horses. Er, family.

Update: Tomlinson's decision was reported yesterday by Human Events, as well as the news that Tomlinson hopes to write a tell-all book about his experiences.

Late Update: Here's a copy of Tomlinson's letter to President Bush asking to be un-nominated.

Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) Son Gets Fined
The Alaska Public Offices Commission recommended that outgoing state Senate President Ben Stevens be fined $10,170 -- the maximum penalty -- for "failing for three years to disclose the names and payments of six clients of one of his consulting firms." But with a federal bribery investigation bearing down on him, that's the least of his problems. (Anchorage Daily News)

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Yes, we will surge, but surge grudgingly.

The Washington Post goes front page with the president's grand bargain with top generals:

Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq.

The Post details the many reasons why military commanders doubt a troop increase will work ("no backup options," concern the Iraqis won't deliver, concern over "fighting in a political vacuum"), but then, you really can't argue with the reasoning for pushing it through: "In the end, the White House favored the idea of more troops as one visible and dramatic step the administration could take."

What's more, the president's plan also comes with a catchy slogan, the successor to the administration's "As they stand up, we will stand down":

Tonight, this [senior White House official] said, the president will explain "that we have to go up before we go down."

Note: The Must Read is a new daily feature here at TPMm, where we'll scan the day's stories to bring you what we think is today's essential reading.

We all knew this was supposed to be a new era of government with the Democratic majority blah blah blah. But public financing for elections? Really?

On the Senate floor today, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), while speaking about the Dems' ethics package, said that the next logical step is public financing, and that he would be introducing such a bill in a matter of weeks. (We're still trying to get a record of Durbin's exact remarks.)

Although the details of the legislation are still being pounded out, David Donnelly of the Public Campaign Action Fund said that Durbin's bill would probably be modeled on the Arizona and Maine laws "which are working very well." In Maine, candidates who participate in the program have to begin by demonstrating community support by "collecting a minimum number of $5 checks or money orders payable to the Maine Clean Election Fund (qualifying contributions). After a candidate begins to receive MCEA funds from the State, he or she cannot accept private contributions," according to the Maine Ethics Commission.

This the sort of thing that often gets laughed off as pie-in-the-sky legislating. But with the Senate's #2 pushing for it, might the story be different this time around?

The issue of whether Congress has the power to use the purse to direct Bush's handling of the war is pretty much settled: it does, and it has, several times in the past, as the Center for American Progress demonstrates here.

The question becomes, will Bush respect the limits Congress sets? Or will he push to escalate a war that the Congress and the American people don't want, and setting up a constitutional crisis?

The Bush White House, after all, has often claimed unprecedented executive power. This issue is no exception. "Until the Bush admininistration, no president had ever argued in writing to the Supreme Court that a statutory restriction on his war powers was unconstitutional," Georgetown Law Professor Marty Lederman told me (he expounded further on this question here and here).

“All of our understandings and practices are based on a White House that’s more compromising and accommodating than some people feel this White House will be,” Scott Lilly, a former House Appropriations staffer, told me. So what happens if Congress makes its move and Bush ignores it? Good question.

The White House is ending its push to make a federal judge out of the senior Pentagon lawyer who crafted his department's controversial interrogation policies -- and allegedly coerced other senior officials to support the measures.

William J. Haynes II won't get to be a federal appeals court judge after all, according to anonymous Republican sources for USA Today. Facing a Democratic-controlled Senate approval process, the White House appears to be picking its battles.

Haynes wrote the Pentagon's infamous 2002 policies endorsing physical and mental duress on terror prisoners, and reportedly cut top military lawyers out of the loop if they were likely to object.

When the Senate undertook pre-election legislation to authorize torture and endorse those policies last fall, Haynes allegedly coerced several senior military law officials into signing a letter which appeared to express support for the measure.

Ah, there's been an explosion of irony in aisle four. Muckrakers, your assistance is needed.

The National Review, as part of a profile of former Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) new gig at a right-wing think tank heading up their "America’s Enemies" program, reveals that "The former senator also plans to join a law firm in D.C.," as a lobbyist, we presume.

“I’m talking to a few firms right now," Santorum told the magazine.

Now, Pennsylvania voters tossed him out of office in part because of his role heading up the GOP effort to plug Republican lobbyists up with serious corporate cash, a chunk of which went to Republican campaign coffers. The "K Street Project," it was called. Named after the street on which it appears Santorum will soon be working.

Note: Thanks to TPM Reader BK.

How plugged-in is incoming White House counsel Fred Fielding? His daughter has enjoyed a career in the vice president's office. Though we doubt she's the one who got him the job.

In 2002, UPI reported that Fielding's daughter Alexandra became staff assistant to Second Lady Lynne Cheney. I'm told Alexandra now works under the vice president himself, although my call to his office has so far failed to yield a confirmation.

The New York Times reported today that the onetime counsel to Richard Nixon "maintained close ties to Mr. Cheney, whom he has known for decades, and had occasionally been an informal adviser to him."

Washington Life magazine has on its site a picture (here, with caption) of Alexandra, taken at a 2004 bash for author Ronald Kessler's lily-gilding portrait of the Bush White House, "A Matter of Character." Not that it bears pointing out, but she's the one on the left, smiling next to OMB chief Clay Johnson III.

That's some serious company: Johnson, Kessler reported in a 2006 article, is "the only person to have spanked Barney," the presidential dog.

From the AP:

A former Interior Department employee was sentenced to two years probation and fined $1,000 Tuesday for failing to report gifts he received from influence-peddler Jack Abramoff.

Roger Stillwell accepted hundreds of dollars worth of football and concert tickets from Abramoff, who at the time was lobbying for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Stillwell was with the Interior Department's insular affairs office, which handles issues involving the island government.

"It was never my intention to deliberately violate the law, but clearly I did so, and I extend my sincerest apologies to this court," Stillwell said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay handed down a relatively stiff penalty for the misdemeanor offense. Defense attorneys asked for six months probation and prosecutors did not oppose it because Stillwell cooperated in the Abramoff investigation....

Stillwell received four tickets to a Washington Redskins game and two tickets to a Simon and Garfunkel concert in 2003. The tickets had a face value of about $485 but prosecutors said they were worth about $2,300.

So what did Stillwell tell prosecutors? We'll have to wait to find out. Long live the Abramoff scandal!

Tell them everything they want to know. Even if I don't.

CIA director Michael V. Hayden is said to be pushing his subordinates facing congressional inquiries to come clean on all activities, according to an agency-wide email obtained by Congressional Quarterly's Tim Starks (sub. req.):

In a Jan. 5 e-mail, Gen. Michael V. Hayden said the intelligence agency “must be as responsive as possible to all members of Congress and as proactive as possible in our dealings with congressional leaders and oversight committees.”

. . . The day before, Hayden told a “town meeting” of CIA employees to expect an aggressive oversight effort in the 110th Congress from Democrats on both the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

“Frankly, I welcome it,” Hayden said, according to one attendee. “I actually think the more they know about us, the better it is for our agency.”

It's a refreshing new policy, if Hayden is at all serious. One could be forgiven for doubting his sincerity, however. Hayden himself may have broken the law by misleading Congress about the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, as former NSC staffer Mort Halperin pointed out a year ago.

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President Bush won't announce his plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq until tomorrow night, but Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has already introduced legislation that would require Bush to get Congress' approval for his plan.

Via Georgetown Law's Marty Lederman, the relevant section of the bill reads:

Prohibition.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds may be obligated or expended by the United States government to increase the number of United States forces in Iraq above the number for such forces which existed as of January 9, 2007, without a specific authorization from Congress by law for such an increase.

Lederman also has the full text of the bill, which mostly just provides justification for the sought prohibition.

Sen. Kennedy's remarks upon introducing the bill are below.

Update: Kennedy will actually be making the following remarks at 1:00 PM today at the National Press Club. And the bill has not yet been introduced, but will be later today.

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The CIA is refusing to cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating the Duke Cunningham scandal, the Wall Street Journal's Scott Paltrow reports today.

Before getting caught in 2005, Cunningham was involved in a sprawling corruption ring between Congress and the national security community. The scandal allegedly enjoyed the participation of current and former CIA officials, including Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the executive director of the agency. Foggo would be the highest-ranking CIA official to be prosecuted in the agency's history, according to Paltrow.

Prosecutors had expected to indict Foggo several months ago, but the Agency's refusal to declassify important documents has hampered their efforts, Paltrow reports.

Of course, prosecutors haven't received much help from Congress with their investigation, either. Last month they were forced to serve subpoenas to several powerful committees in an effort to force them to turn over documents.

Foggo's indictment -- and possible plea bargain -- would be a notable triumph for the Feds. For many months the case has stagnated, and observers have wondered if the investigation was hopelessly compromised. Nailing Foggo would also be important for prosecutors, as it would give them leverage to go after alleged Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes. Wilkes, who ran a government contracting business, was close with Foggo and is said to have worked closely with him. Despite being identified by Cunningham as a major briber, Wilkes has refused to plead guilty or cooperate with prosecutors.

So Long, K St. Project
"Business advocates — who are taking their cues from [Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)] and from Members in both chambers who are negotiating new laws that will govern the relationship between Congress and their industry — say they expect fewer large-scale meetings with Senate GOP leaders. And when they do meet, lobbyists say such confabs likely will be held off the Capitol campus, be more policy-centric and less publicized, with attendees more tight-lipped.

"'Everyone in the Senate [Republican] leadership is cautioning each other to stay away from anything that even remotely sounds like or looks like the K Street Project,' said one longtime lobbyist with ties to Senate GOP leaders. 'They don’t want anything that could potentially be branded as a new K Street Project.'

"Lobbyists say they already have been put on notice that Kyl will be the “un-Santorum,” focusing less on strategy with hired-gun (or contract) lobbyists and spending more time developing coalitions of corporations and big trade associations. Santorum was defeated for re-election in November, and many attribute his loss partly to the coverage he attracted for his dealings with lobbyists and the K Street Project.

“Everybody’s more sensitive,” said one contract lobbyist, who said he worries that he will have a harder time getting a seat at some decision-making meetings. “They are not going to sit in a room with a bunch of contract lobbyists.” (Roll Call)

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... together at last.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), appearing just now on Hardball and gifted as always with the ability to speak plainly, couldn't have been clearer on the controversial issue as to whether Democrats have the ability to restrict the Bush administration's funding of a troop increase in Iraq.

Yesterday, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) confused the issue by claiming that it was "constitutionally questionable" whether Congress could preempt funding of Bush's desired "surge."

"No, that's not true at all," Murtha said, adding "we have every ability."

On the question of why certain Democrats were shirking from this option, he offered, "I'll tell you, it's all political."

Of course, since Murtha is the Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, it's in his power to push such a limitation on funding. We'll have more on this later on.

Here's a piece of incoming White House counsel Fred Fielding's background that Mike Allen didn't mention -- for the past several years, he's headed up the lobbying practice at the law firm, Wiley, Rein, and Fielding.

As the Chair of Government Relations there, Fielding has overseen the lobbying of Congress and sometimes the White House on behalf of a long list of clients as diverse as the Colorado Gaming Association, Motorola, the Newspaper Association of America, and Verizon. "From our inception," according to WRF's website, "the firm has been successfully shaping public policy in Washington on behalf of our clients."

As TPM Reader BK writes in, "The possibility for conflicts of interest abound."

Update: The WSJ blog Washington Wire adds:

News from Time that Washington uber-lawyer Fred Fielding has been tapped to replace Harriet Miers as White House counsel was also something of a coup for his firm, Wiley Rein & Fielding. It’s not the biggest firm in DC, but it is well-known for its telecom practice, which is led by FCC Chairman for Life Dick Wiley. One of his many protégés, current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, has stocked the independent agency with former Wiley Rein lawyers and the two men remain close.

Time's Mike Allen has the scoop:

President Bush plans to name the widely respected Republican lawyer Fred F. Fielding as White House counsel this week, party sources tell TIME....

Fielding was Counsel to President Reagan from 1981 to 1986, deputy White House counsel from 1972 to 1974 and associate White House counsel from 1970 to 1972. He was Clearance Counsel for the Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition in 2000 and 2001, and has degrees from Gettysburg College and University of Virginia School of Law....

"The key for the Administration is going to be drawing the lines on these boundaries of executive privilege and access to documents and congressional oversight — drawing the lines around the really important issues and trying to be a little more flexible on the others," said a former colleague of Fielding. "They're not going to fold, because Fielding is a very serious, hard-nosed person, and he's a tough negotiator. But they're also going not to take a totally stonewall position. That doesn't meant they're going to cave in. What it means is they're going to negotiate and focus on the things that they're truly protecting and that are truly important."

Well, given that he was John Dean's deputy during Watergate, he's no stranger to scandal.

Who'll receive the first grilling of the new era of oversight? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the lucky winner, who'll be the first administration official to run the Democratic gauntlet.

On Thursday, she'll start the day with a 10 A.M. hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq, and then, after a short lunch, make her way over to the House to spend some time with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs at 2 P.M on the same topic.

For an encore, the Senate Armed Services Committee will follow up by questioning SecDef Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Peter Pace Friday morning.

Ready the popcorn!

Justin wrote last week about the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, where a melange of incompetence and corruption will have investigators sorting things out for a long time.

Two investigative reports are apparently coming which will provide more details on how the department managed to give billions away to Big Oil via a gaping loophole:

Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office is preparing a report that, some lawmakers say, will blame the service's "culture" for widespread laxity in conducting royalty audits and collecting underpayments from industry. And by mid-month, the Interior Department's Inspector General will release a report showing that different units at the service working on leases didn't talk to each other and that some officials apparently signed leases without reading them.

More to come, I'm sure.

If there was any doubts as to whether Democrats would take a hands-on approach to the election dispute in Florida's 13th District, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA) resolved them late last week.

Millender-McDonald, the Chairwoman of the committee in charge of handling Democrat Christine Jennings' challenge of the election results, sent a pointed letter last Thursday to the Florida appeals court hearing the case, warning that if the courts did not adequately investigate the case, then Congress would be forced to get involved.

In February, the appeals court will decide whether to uphold a lower court's ruling preventing Jennings from examining the voting machines' source code as part of her election contest. Jennings' lawyers, who've offered testimony from dozens of voters about problems with the machines and say they could offer hundreds more, say they need access to the source code in order to adequately investigate the cause of the problems.

In the letter, Millender-McDonald wrote that her "Committee is closely following the course of the litigation now underway in Florida" and that it was "of concern" that Jennings hadn't received access "to the hardware and software (including the source code) needed to test the contestant's central claim: voting machine malfunction."

"[R]esolution of these issues may obviate the need for the House to address them," the Chairwoman noted.

Much has been made of the Republicans' gambit of passing the responsibility of several huge spending bills to the Democratic Congress, hoping to gum up the legislative works, but what of all those scandals they're passing along?

At the House Appropriations Committee, the new chairman, Rep. David Obey (D-WI), had no sooner sat down and given his gavel a couple of test whacks before he was handed a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego demanding thousands of documents by January 11th. Even though prosecutors nailed Duke Cunningham, they continue to pursue the hanging threads of the investigation -- namely whether the defense contractors who bribed him had their hooks into other lawmakers and/or staffers. Since Duke's bad acts stretch back to at least 2000, it's a giant headache.

Obey is grumpy about it:

“To ask us to produce that stuff by [Jan. 11] is ridiculous given the fact that we haven’t taken over yet and every record that we’re talking about is a Republican record so I have no idea what the documents are and it’s a Republican problem.... We will try to cooperate, but it’s a Republican problem.”

As Roll Call notes (sub. req.), the subpoenas will likely ignite another legal battle (round one was over the FBI's raid of Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) office, a battle that's still raging) between Congress and the Justice Department, as they wrangle over which documents are constitutionally protected.

Homeland Security Funds To Go To High-Risk Areas
"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, seeking to avert a repeat of last year's furor over counter-terrorism grants to U.S. cities, announced Friday that New York, Washington and four other 'highest-risk' metro areas will receive $411 million to subsidize their efforts to guard against terrorist attacks.

"Thirty-nine other metro areas will compete for another $336 million this year. In all, the funding for the 45 cities is a $36 million increase over 2006. The 50 states will get an additional $919 million in federal grants, $41 million less than they received last year.

"Last year, Chertoff's agency faced vocal protests after it cut funding by 40 percent to the two cities considered al-Qaida's top targets: New York lost $80 million and Washington lost $31 million after Congress slashed the Department of Homeland Security's grant money by $700 million." (McClatchy)

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