Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports:

White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials—including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.

Both Rove and Bartlett have already received trial subpoenas from Libby’s defense lawyers, according to lawyers close to the case who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters. While that is no guarantee they will be called, the odds increased this week after Libby’s lawyer, Ted Wells, laid out a defense resting on the idea that his client, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, had been made a “scapegoat” to protect Rove.

Since last March, nine top federal prosecutor positions have gone to conservative loyalists, according to a new story from McClatchy Newspapers:

Being named a U.S. attorney “has become a prize for doing the bidding of the White House or administration," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who's now a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "In the past, there had been a great deal of delegation to the local offices. Now, you have a consolidation of power in Washington."

. . . Since last March, the administration has named at least nine U.S. attorneys with administration ties. None of them would agree to an interview. They include:

- Tim Griffin, 37, a former aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove and a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, the U.S. attorney for Arkansas.

- Rachel Paulose, 33, who served briefly as a counselor to the deputy attorney general and who, according a former boss, has been a member of the secretive, ideologically conservative Federalist Society, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota.

- Jeff Taylor, 42, a former aide to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. Taylor worked as a counselor to Gonzales and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

- John Wood, the husband of assistant secretary of homeland security Julie Myers and an ex-deputy general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget, U.S. attorney in Kansas City.

- Deborah Rhodes, 47, a former Justice Department counselor, in Mobile, Ala.

- Alexander Acosta, 37, a former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division and a protege of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in Miami.

- John Richter, 43, chief of staff for the Justice Department’s criminal division and acting assistant attorney general, in Oklahoma City.

- Edward McNally, senior associate counsel to President Bush, in southern Illinois.

- Matt Dummermuth, a Justice Department civil rights lawyer, in Iowa.

Three makes a trend!

Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) -- who was defeated largely because of his ties to Jack Abramoff -- is heading to K Street, Roll Call reported Monday (sub. req.).

Put together with ex-Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), who's landed a lobbying gig with a lobbyist whose access to Burns when he was in office attracted the attention of the feds, and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who's signalled an interest in lobbying, Pombo makes the third GOPer we know of who voters tossed out of office for his ties to K Street, and who's now off to lobby.

Pombo, whose mutual animosity with evironmental groups was legendary, is in talks with Pac/West Communications, a lobby firm with "a roster of timber and energy clients," according to Roll Call, and one which enjoyed a particularly close relationship to Pombo.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) dressed down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last week over the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen whom the U.S. seized and sent to Syria where he was tortured.

Gonzales stumbled when trying to explain why he couldn't discuss the matter, finally promising Leahy a secret briefing on the matter. Leahy still hasn't gotten the briefing, although he says he expects to have one very soon.

"The question remains why, even if there were reasons to consider [Arar] suspicious, the U.S. Government shipped him to Syria where he was tortured, instead of to Canada for investigation or prosecution," Leahy said in a statement released today, echoing the sentiments he shared with Gonzales last Thursday. "I look forward to hearing the Justice Department's answer to that question next week."

From today's New York Times:

The Bush administration has employed extraordinary secrecy in defending the National Security Agency’s highly classified domestic surveillance program from civil lawsuits. Plaintiffs and judges’ clerks cannot see its secret filings. Judges have to make appointments to review them and are not allowed to keep copies.

Judges have even been instructed to use computers provided by the Justice Department to compose their decisions.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will give a formal apology to Maher Arar, the Canadian software engineer whom the United States detained and extradited to Syria, where he was brutally tortured.

The announcement, which appears to be a public rebuke of the official U.S. position that Arar may be a terrorist, is set for 12:15, according to Harper's office. Arar will hold a separate news conference at 2 p.m.

Arar's case has caused a deepening rift between Canada and the United States, which has to date refused to apologize for their treatment of Arar and will not remove him from its terrorist watch list. Yesterday, the National Post reported that the U.S. ambassador to Canada "scolded" a top Canadian offical for insisting Arar's name be removed from the U.S. watch list.

Bush Administration officials have delivered secret briefings to the Canadian government in the hopes of justifying Arar's presence on the watch list, but Canada continues to press the U.S. to clear Arar. "It simply does not alter our opinion that Mr. Arar is not a threat, nor is his family," Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said.

Update: CBC reports Canada will pay Arar $8 million plus legal fees to settle his case against them.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The Bar Association of San Francisco said Thursday that it wants state attorney discipline investigators to decide whether a Bush administration official, who is also a California lawyer, violated ethical standards by calling for a business boycott of law firms representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay....

The San Francisco lawyers' group said its directors voted Wednesday to authorize the filing of a request for investigation with the State Bar of California. If the bar found that Stimson broke rules governing attorney conduct, it could impose penalties ranging from a reprimand to disbarment.

Apparently deputy defense secretary for detainee affairs Charles Stimson's apology just wasn't enough.

Fleischer Received Immunity in Plame Leak
The muck continues to thicken in the Valerie Plame leak case. Three years ago, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was approached by former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who offered him information in exchange for immunity from prosecution. "Once the deal was struck in February 2004, Fleischer revealed that he had discussed Plame with reporters in July 2003, days before leaving his job at the White House." Fleischer is expected on the stand early next week. (AP)

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Last summer, the administration decided to make an aggressive shift against Iran in Iraq, The Washington Post reveals this morning. Commanders, the paper reports, are now under orders to "kill or capture" Iranian operatives in Iraq, a strategy calculated to make Iran "back down" by "[hitting them] hard."

The change came because the administration decided that their policy of "catch and release" of Iranian agents in Iraq wasn't aggressive enough. The U.S. has detained and then released "dozens of suspected Iranian agents" in the past year, the Post reports.

But the policy is meant to reach beyond Iraq:

Advocates of the new policy -- some of whom are in the NSC, the vice president's office, the Pentagon and the State Department -- said that only direct and aggressive efforts can shatter Iran's growing influence. A less confident Iran, with fewer cards, may be more willing to cut the kind of deal the Bush administration is hoping for on its nuclear program. "The Iranians respond to the international community only when they are under pressure, not when they are feeling strong," one official said.

It's a policy with a long list of potential consequences, especially "if Iran responds with escalation," putting "U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere."

But perhaps that's the point?

A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy.

"This has little to do with Iraq. It's all about pushing Iran's buttons. It is purely political," the official said. The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States' increasing inability to stanch the violence there.

Note: In a second must read today, The New York Times provides yet another unflattering portrait of the Iraqi parliament, this one featuring the parliament's speaker yelling "shut up" to quiet the din caused by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's (a Shiite) accusation that a Sunni leader in parliament had been involved in Shiite kidnappings.

At the Federal Communications Commission reports were altered, and studies were blocked from release that showed local ownership was beneficial for local news coverage. The panel is still withholding hundreds of pages on media ownership research from release to the public. So says the Associated Press:

When the government decided to take a hard look at how well broadcasters were serving their communities, two economists at the Federal Communications Commission got a research idea: They would look at whether locally owned TV stations produced more local news than stations owned by companies based outside the area.

They found that local ownership resulted in more local news coverage. They also realized they had turned up what one of the researchers, economist Keith Brown, called "inconvenient facts." The findings were at odds with what their agency, under heavy lobbying from the broadcast industry, had endorsed.

The months-long study was spiked by the agency with "no plausible explanation," Brown says. He suspects it was because the conclusions were at odds with the shared position of the FCC and the broadcast industry: that media ownership rules were too restrictive and should be loosened.

An Arkansas lawyer has risen to challenge the law which allows the administration to circumvent Senate approval when installing new U.S. Attorneys.

On behalf of his client, an alleged crack cocaine dealer who's accused of killing a man he'd robbed to prevent him from talking to the police, Little Rock lawyer John Hall has challenged the appointment of Timothy Griffin, the recently-appointed U.S. Attorney for eastern Arkansas with close ties to the White House.

Griffin's resume is long on Republican bona fides and short on the sort of law experience usually expected of U.S. Attorneys. He was installed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and thanks to a measure slipped into the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act last year, may never face Senate confirmation.

Hall's motion argues that because Griffin's appointment circumvented Senate confirmation, it was unconstitutional -- thus rendering the prosecution of his client invalid. "Contrary to the [Justice Department], I've actually read the Constitution a few times," Hall told us. You can read his entire motion here.

We've excerpted the best part below the fold.

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The Federal Election Commission has ruled that former GOP Rep. Jim Kolbe (AZ) can spend his leftover campaign funds to pay his lawyers.

Kolbe has faced inquiries from Congress and federal prosecutors over separate but related flaps: first, a 1996 camping trip he took with two teenaged former House pages, several staffers and his sister; and second, how he learned of inappropriate communications between disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) and former pages, and how he responded to the discovery.

The FEC allows a current or former lawmaker to use funds raised for campaign expenses to pay for legal defense costs if the need arises in the course of a lawmaker's official duties.

Senate Democrats aren't dropping the issue of whether the administration is pushing out federal prosecutors in order to replace them with handpicked successors.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is slated to lead a hearing before the Judiciary Committee on Feb. 7 on the topic of "Preserving Prosecutorial Independence: Is the Department of Justice Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys?" No witnesses have been announced.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) bill to fix the loophole allowing administration appointees to U.S. attorney spots to serve indefinitely could see some action. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee panel, expressed "qualified support" for the measure and asked to work with Feinstein on it, according to his spokeswoman, Courtney Boone.

Last year, Specter was responsible for changing the law to allow indefinite U.S. Attorney appointments by the Attorney General, a power Democrats believe the White House is abusing. Asked if Specter was changing his position on the matter, Boone declined to characterize his stance. "It's just how legislation moves forward," she said.

The Judiciary Committee could vote on the bill as early as next week, sources say.

Federal prosecutors dropped a disturbing revelation in the Scooter Libby trial yesterday: the vice president's former chief of staff has a thing for Scientologists.

According to government lawyers, Libby took time out of a his busy Saturday on June 14, 2003, to meet with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz, who were concerned that Scientologists in Germany were being persecuted. He mentioned the meeting to a CIA official, who made a note of it. You can see here:

(The religion may or may not believe in human-enslaving aliens, but it nonetheless puts them in its movies.)

Skeptics of human-enslaving aliens' role in the outing of Plame may note that anyone -- man, woman, gay, straight -- would probably clear a space on their calendar to meet with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz. Indeed, former Deputy Secretary of State "Dick" Armitage met with Cruise and two other Scientologists the day before. But consider this: Almost exactly one month after those meetings, Joe Wilson published his infamous op-ed, leading the White House to launch a smear campaign against him and his wife that has since led to the trial. Not enough? Try this: Scooter Libby was Cheney's chief of staff, frequently abbreviated as "CoS" -- an acronym that's also used for the Church of Scientology.

Also, we hear Tom Cruise owns a scooter. And Libby had a secretary named Dianetics. Or something like that.

Libby Was Eager to Reveal CIA's Role in Niger Trip
Robert L. Grenier, former CIA Iraq mission manager, testified yesterday in the perjury and obstructiontrial of former Dick Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Grenier said on the stand that Libby "was eager to make public that the CIA, not Vice President Dick Cheney, sent a former ambassador to check on Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear material." (AP)

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He was scapegoated! The powers that be were protecting the president's right hand!

David Johnston and Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times take a look at the arguments coming from Scooter Libby's lawyers (that Libby was hung out to dry to protect Karl Rove), and, well, color them unconvinced.

First, despite the fact that reporters (and Patrick Fitzgerald) have been swarming all over Plamegate for almost four years, this supposed White House cabal against Libby escaped detection. And they still can't find anyone to support that idea. In fact, Libby and Rove seemed to have worked pretty closely together. “They didn’t show any ankle — it was always a team effort,” as Lawrence Wilkerson, a former State Department official, puts it.

Second, it's not clear that Libby was really hung out to dry. The only evidence seems to be that it took White House spokesman Scott McClellan a week longer in September of 2003 to lie to the press about whether Libby had been involved in the leak of Valerie Wilson's identity than it did for him to deny Rove's involvement.

And third, "[e]ven if the assertion is shown to be true, it is not clear how it would help refute the charges that Mr. Libby had perjured himself."

Do Libby's lawyers have anything more than smoke up their sleeves?

From the AP:

Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.

We've just received the transcript for Vice President Cheney's interview with Wolf Blitzer this morning. It's posted in full below the fold.

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A federal jury has ruled that the Kerr-McGee oil company cheated the United States out of millions in royalty payments for pumping oil from public lands, the New York Times reports.

The suit against Kerr-McGee was brought by a former Interior Department auditor who sued on behalf of the U.S. government. The agency blocked his efforts to rectify the misdeed while he was employed there; he was later fired as part of a "reorganization." Even after he filed the suit as a private citizen, the department sided with Kerr-McGee, insisting the case had no merit.

The company was bought by Anadarko Petroleum last year. Kerr-McGee has given over $260,000 to political organizations during the Bush administration, nearly all of it to Republicans; Anadarko has given over $200,000, all to GOP groups, according to opensecrets.org.

The Justice Department, the FBI, the Interior Department's own Inspector General and Congress have launched a barrage of investigations into how the agency has mismanaged the nation's oil and gas resources in ways that appear to have benefited the energy industry to the tune of several billion dollars.

Thanks to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) for following this closely; visit their blog for more information.

Here's Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) barnburner of a speech this morning during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on the resolution against the president's troop increase in Iraq.

An excerpt:

I don't think we've ever had a coherent strategy. In fact, I would even challenge the administration today to show us the plan that the president talked about the other night. There is no plan. I happen to know that Pentagon planners were on their way to Central Com over the weekend -- they haven't even Team B'ed this plan.... There is no strategy. This is a ping-pong game with American lives.... We'd better be damned sure what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more lives into that grinder.... and I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don't hide any more, none of us."

Update: We've added a complete transcript of this portion of his remarks below.

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I had a chance this morning to check in with Murray Waas, the National Journal scribe who's done a lot of the most illuminating reporting on the Plame leak investigation and the White House's machinations in response.

Waas sat in on the trial yesterday, and watched as lawyers for former Cheney aide Scooter Libby unfurled their argument that their client was set up as a fall guy for Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove. Readers will recall that we thought that was both the most interesting and most perplexing part of the defense's opening argument.

"Some observers think that they're trying to send a message to the White House" with the references to Rove, Waas told me, "saying that they hope their guy is pardoned."

The defense never spelled out Rove's alleged role, or how they believe aides to President Bush had tried to "sacrifice" Libby to protect the man known as "Bush's Brain." Will they be more explicit? Who knows. Perhaps it depends on what assurances they get from the Oval Office.

From a legal standpoint, the blame-it-on-Rove defense is hardly solid. "The prosecutor would say it's a smokescreen," said Waas.

"There are two cases being presented," Waas observed. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's case "is very narrow, focused, and hews to the indictment.

"On the other side you have this amorphous, all-over-the-map, everything-and-anything-in-the-kitchen sink [case]. That's what the defense is doing. Fitzgerald is trying to stay on script, and [Libby lawyer Ted] Wells is doing what a good defense attorney does, which is make the prosecution's case as murky as possible."

Last week, two senior Democratic senators had plenty to say about the attorney general's dissembling over how many U.S. attorneys he had pushed out of office in recent months.

"How many U.S. Attorneys have been asked to resign in the past year?" Sen. Dianne Feinstein pressed attorney general Alberto Gonzales at a Judiciary Committee hearing last Thursday. "I 'm asking you to give me a number."

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) also asked Gonzales how many he'd ousted. When the former White House counsel averred it was a confidential personnel matter, Leahy wouldn't have it. "I don't care about the people," Leahy retorted. "Just get us the numbers."

But that was then; now, appetite for further public discussion of the matter appears to have waned.

"I'm not going to get into that," said Scott Gerber, spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), when I asked him what kind of follow-up there has been on the matter since the hearing. I asked Gerber if he could explain his reticence; he declined.

Leahy's office declined comment, instead referring all questions on the matter to Feinstein.

Both offices pointed to legislation co-sponsored by Feinstein, Leahy and Rep. Mark Pryor (D-AR) that would fix the loophole which allows the administration to replace ousted U.S. attorneys with appointed successors for indefinite terms. The bill is scheduled for discussion at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing tomorrow.

Pakistan, not Iraq, is Al-Qaeda's Location of Choice
President Bush continues to claim that an Iraq free of U.S. forces would quickly become a haven for al-Qaeda. But according to an intelligence estimate given to Congress last week, Pakistan's lawless border with Afghanistan is currently a much more hospitable place to al-Qaeda's forces, and therefore a much graver threat – but our presence in Iraq is hampering our ability to respond to it. (McClatchy Newspapers)

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The New York Times checks in on democracy in Iraq, where "nearly every session" of the parliament has been adjourned since November... because as few as 65 of the 275 members there showed up.

Why? It's irrelevant: "Deals on important legislation, most recently the oil law, now take place largely out of public view, with Parliament — when it meets — rubber-stamping the final decisions." Also, the country is very dangerous, and despite the $120,000 salary, the members say they can't afford adequate protection -- one member says that he uses 40 guards when he's in Iraq, and the salary only buys 20. And, well, there's the fact that the job has inevitably disappointed members who "were here for the game, for prestige, for the money,” as one puts it.

As a result of the rampant truancy, the Speaker is contemplating "fining members $400 for every missed session" and replacing absentees. But... there's a problem. "For the proposals to be put in place, a majority of members in Parliament have to be present to pass them."

Note: Another Must Read from today is The Washington Post's damning breakdown of the president's portrayal of "the enemy."

Want to try your hand at spinmeistering? We've been forwarded what appears to be an authentic set of White House talking points about tonight's State of the Union address.

Repeat after Karl: The President is exuberant and determined. The President is exuberant and determined. The President is exuberant and determined.

Enjoy:

• Tonight, the President will go in front of Congress and the American people to talk about a series of domestic issues and the War on Terror.

• The President is exuberant and determined. The President will tackle the big topics in an innovative and bold way that will capture people's imagination.

• The President is also going to address another question many Americans have – whether their leaders in Washington can work together. The President realizes there's an outcry to get things done, and believes both parties can find common ground without either party compromising its principles. The Democrats' reaction will be a test of their imagination, determination, and political courage.

More after the jump. (Or see the document here.)

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How's this for protecting corruption in your ranks?

A new article in the Hill newspaper suggests that House Republicans hid for weeks subpoenas from investigators probing the Cunningham scandal, and in the process may have allowed evidence to be destroyed.

To you and me that's criminal obstruction; to Congress it's creative use of policies and procedures.

Federal investigators had asked nicely last spring for documents from the House Committees on Intelligence, Armed Services and Appropriations, but got nowhere. House officials moaned they might have to shut down entirely to dig up everything prosecutors wanted.

Months went by, no documents surfaced, so prosecutors sent subpoenas to the chairs of the three committees, demanding the documents.

What happened next is unclear, because those who know won't tell. But as The Hill's Susan Crabtree painstakingly details, it appears that GOP leaders delayed reporting the subpoenas until the House had closed up for the year, assuring that they would not become public until the new year.

Congress switched hands, and as the new Democratic majority gained many staff positions to support their leadership roles, Republicans lost many staff slots. As a result, many Republican committee aides either lost their jobs or were shuffled out to other Hill gigs.

What happens to their electronic files -- even if they've been subpoenaed by prosecutors? It appears they are either destroyed, or given to the staffer to keep for themselves.

So the House Republican majority's parting gift to the nation may have been to help obstruct one of the largest corruption investigations in congressional history. Thanks, fellas.

Scooter Libby's lead defense attorney has sent the media into full-throated scandal mode with his opening statement this morning, alleging that Libby was "sacrificed" by top White House officials in order to protect Karl Rove. Here's MSNBC's coverage from a little earlier:

Most of the sizzle comes from the disclosure of a note written by Vice President Cheney that he was “Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.”

OK, so the "staffer" was Rove and the poor meat-ground guy was Libby, who was Cheney's point man for hitting back against Joseph Wilson's allegations that the administration had knowingly lied about Saddam Hussein's alleged attempts to procure nuclear materials.

But here's what we don't get yet about the defense's theory of the case, as TPM Reader LG puts it: "while it may be true that the [White House] was trying to hang Libby out to protect Rove, this in no way absolves Libby from charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. How is that a defense? Seems like just a smokescreen to me."

During Gen. David Petraeus' hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) took time out to "make a plea to [his] colleagues in the Senate" to "put the brakes" on the gathering bipartisan momentum for a nonbinding resolution condemning the president's plan to increase troops in Iraq.

The Senate should "step back for a moment and give you [Gen. Petraeus] a chance…. Perhaps a last chance, to succeeed in Iraq," Lieberman said. "If God forbid, you are unable to succeed, then there will be plenty of time for the resolutions of disapproval or the other alternatives that have been contemplated."

Does The Washington Post have a statute of limitations on crooked behavior by its sources?

Little more than a year after the Post reported on hypocritical behavior by a conservative activist, the newspaper is quoting him as an expert -- on whether such behavior is wrong.

In October of 2005, the Post's Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi told the story of how Jack Abramoff had used conservatives Ralph Reed and Rev. Louis Sheldon (whom Abramoff and his colleagues called "Lucky Louie") to kill an online anti-gambling bill on behalf of his client eLottery, a company that sold lottery tickets online. eLottery footed the bill, paying thousands to Reed and Sheldon. To secure Sheldon's help, Abramoff had eLottery cut a $25,000 check directly to the Sheldon's group, the Traditional Values Coalition.

Yet today, the Post seems to have forgotten Sheldon's hypocritical fundraising.

Post reporter John Solomon's story revealed that Newt Gingrich's conservative political group was jump-started by a $1 million contribution from a Las Vegas casino executive. To prove that this would raise hackles among the values set, he quoted Sheldon saying that accepting "income" from "a vice" was an "issue," and that "I certainly could never have done that and I certainly can't encourage it."

Except, well, he did, of course. Oddly, the piece references the Post's reporting on Reed's acceptance of gambling money, but is silent on Sheldon.

Senators angry over the recent six-state "identity theft" raids by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently held a closed-door meeting with the agency's chief, according to AP.

Their concerns appear to center not around the arrest and detainment of the thousand or so workers who were never charged with crimes, but how DHS treated their employer, a large meat-packing company who had participated in a DHS-sponsored worker identity program, the news service reports today.

The identity program, known as "Basic Pilot," screens for workers using fake Social Security numbers. It does not verify that a valid Social Security number is being used by its rightful owner.

"I can't think of a system that would be better designed to fail," Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told a reporter.

"[W]e need to have a clear understanding with the business community," said Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN). "I think it's very unclear now."

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged problems with the program, AP says.

Gingrich Cashes In With Casino Check
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a possible presidential candidate, just started a new political group, and its most generous initial funding comes from a source that conservative Americans may not appreciate. “Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future reported to the Internal Revenue Service that it collected a $1 million check from Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon G. Adelson shortly after the November elections.” (The Washington Post)

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The Washington Post this morning offers an excellent overview of Democratic prospects for legislation on global warming.

House Speaker Pelosi is pushing hard on the issue, creating a special committee to handle it. Trouble is, that committee tramples on Rep. John Dingell's (D-MI) turf, who heads up the Energy and Commerce Committee, a strong-arm move that even has Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) comparing her tactics to "the way the Republicans did it."

But Pelosi wants to get out front of the issue, something the slow-moving Dingell (the Post points out that "environmentalists dubbed him 'Tailpipe Johnny' during the acid-rain debate" in the late 80's) won't do. Dingell favors a more slow roll approach, holding hearings to "investigate the problem, if in fact it is a problem, and what it might cost to try to address it." And Waxman, who favors very tough emission restrictions, but doesn't think such a bill would have a prayer of passing in this Congress, will spend his time holding hearings on his oversight committee to "expose GOP intransigence" on the issue.

But there's a third camp -- the middle of the road camp that wants something that Bush might actually sign. Trouble is, legislators like Waxman who want strong action aren't likely to support legislation they view as weak.

Meanwhile, big coal, big oil, and other industry power players, aren't too worried:

Industry lobbyists say they expect to endure a lot of unpleasant climate hearings during this Congress, but they are not too worried about draconian legislation. They do not think the House or the Senate can pass anything too stringent, much less override a Bush veto. And they say their focus groups show that the public's eagerness to do something about global warming droops after hearing warnings of serious economic consequences.

With trillions of dollars at stake, it is reasonable to expect industry-funded ads to raise those alarms, in the vein of the "Harry and Louise" spots that helped sink President Bill Clinton's health-care plans.

"If you're a Democrat in a moderate district, this is not the kind of vote you want to take," said Myron Ebell, director of global-warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded think tank. "I think Democrats are really going to disappoint the enviros over the next two years, because all they're going to do is talk."

The plight of former terror detainee Maher Arar led Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) to erupt at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a hearing last week, calling it a "black mark on us."

But despite the fact that a Canadian investigation cleared Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian whom U.S. officials deported to Syria, four months ago, the administration says he should stay on a U.S. terrorism watch list. And they say they have the information to prove it. Trouble is, the Canadians, even after a senior official was briefed again last week, aren't convinced.

In a letter written last Tuesday (and released today), Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff assured the Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day that the U.S. had "reexamined" Arar's case, and he really does belong on that watch list. To prove it, they offered to brief Canadian officials on their findings.

Well, they did. And here's what Minister Day had to say about what he was told late last week: ""He should not be on the watch list... We have seen some recent information that has not altered our opinion at all."

So does the administration have still more information up its sleeve? It's not clear. After getting raked over the coals by a furious Leahy during a hearing last week, Gonzales promised to provide the committee with more information about Arar. In a statement today, Leahy said that he remained "hopeful" that Gonzales would follow through with that promise.

Officials lied to reporters when they said the FBI suspected a nonprofit group held for months inappropriate emails between Mark Foley and a former teenage page, before turning them over to investigators, according to a new report.

At the height of the Foley scandal this summer, quotes from anonymous "law enforcement" officials surfaced in news accounts alleging that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) had first received copies of the infamous Foley emails in April 2006, but did not turn them over to the FBI until July.

But a new report from the Justice Department's internal watchdog confirms that was not the case. In fact, "the e-mails were provided to CREW in July 2006, not April, and CREW sent them to the FBI within days of receiving them," the office of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reported.

Unfortunately, "we do not know who may have supplied the media with this inaccurate information," Fine's report stated. (You can find the full report here.)

CREW had disputed the allegation from the day it was made. "They're making it up. There's no question about it," CREW spokeswoman Naomi Seligman-Steiner told TPMmuckraker October 6, the day the Washington Post's Dan Eggen reported that the FBI believed CREW had sat on the emails for months, according to a "law enforcement official -- speaking on condition of anonymity."

Fine's office concluded that the FBI's decision not to investigate the emails was not "misconduct," but "should have raised enough concerns to warrant some action." At the very least, the report concludes, agents should have notified the House Page program.

Politics were not an issue in the FBI's decisionmaking process, Fine's report said.

Jose Padilla insists that he's sane , despite three and a half years of abuse, interrogation and isolation at the hands of his government, and at least one doctor seems to side with him:

He is a bit paranoid and believes the government is persecuting him, "but this does not appear to be delusional," wrote one of doctors who examined the alleged al Qaeda operative in a Miami prison cell at his lawyers' request.

In other words, just because he's paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get him.

When Duke Cunningham went down in one of the largest congressional bribery scandals in history, he tried to take his main bribers with him: Mitchell Wade, who quickly confessed to the charge and has been cooperating with authorities; and Brent Wilkes, who's rebuffed Duke's accusation and maintained a stony silence to the Feds.

Now, the Wall Street Journal says that federal prosecutors are under orders to deliver a grand jury indictment against Wilkes by Feb. 15.

A note of caution: a Wilkes indictment has been rumored for months. But this has a ring of truth to it. Why? Because according to WSJ the order comes directly from just-ousted U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who's been overseeing the case -- and who gave the order to take Wilkes down before she leaves on -- you guessed it -- February 15.

Wilkes is involved -- some say centrally -- in more than the Duke Cunningham scandal: prosecutors chasing Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) also think he holds secrets that would help make a case against the former House Approprations Committee chairman, WSJ says. One of his companies was also the recipient of a questionable earmark courtesy of Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), who is also under scrutiny by federal investigators.

Lobbyists Find New Congress is Open for Business
"Surprising as it might seem in view of the Democrats' public rhetoric, business groups are getting their telephone calls returned. And they're getting plenty of face time with the new House and Senate leaders....

"'There was a lot more anxiety initially because of not knowing what was going to transpire,' said Stuart Roy, a member of the prominent Washington lobby shop DCI Group and once an aide to Tom DeLay when DeLay (R-Texas) was House majority leader. Now, Roy said, 'the anxiety level is down.'" (LA Times)

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Unlike the old one, he doesn't ask and answer his own questions or speak in abstract riddles -- yet, at least. But who is the new Secretary of Defense?

"A hawk," answers The New York Times. Behold, Robert Gates' philosophy:

His favorite quotation from history, he told reporters traveling with him this week for meetings with allies and commanders in Europe and the Middle East, is from Frederick the Great, the 18th century Prussian monarch and gifted musician: “Negotiations without arms are like music books without instruments.”

Or, put another way, it takes military power to create the leverage necessary to make negotiations fruitful.

In application, that means more troops in Iraq, more troops in Afghanistan, and, to make the Iranians come around, more troops and aircraft carriers in the region (until that time, Gates has mused, it's just not worth talking to them).

Here's how that would work in Iraq: the troop buildup is designed as "a source of leverage over the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki" -- the buildup will halt "if Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government does not deliver on promises to send its own troops to Baghdad and not to interfere with operations against Shiite death squads in Baghdad."

But what if it doesn't work? The real test of Gates' influence in the administration -- one that's been fond of tough talk -- "will be whether the United States follows through on this threat if Mr. Maliki does not comply with those promises."