According to the Council of Europe's report into the secret CIA prisons, Romania jumped at the chance to host U.S. detention facilities. A week after 9/11, the Romanian parliament approved a measure granting "basing and overflight permissions for all U.S. and coalition partners," which investigator Dick Marty, citing a Romanian source, describes as "deliberately designed to cover aircraft operated by or on behalf of the CIA." Within a month, it expanded its troop garrisoning accord with the U.S. -- known as a Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA -- to include "anyone declared by the American authorities to be part of the U.S. armed forces, and can present a travel order signed by the U.S. military." In 2005, Romania went even further in accommodating U.S. military and intelligence personnel, signing yet another agreement.

The result, Marty writes, is that anyone "operating under the banner of the United States military have in practice operated on Romanian territory with complete freedom from scrutiny or interference by their (Romanian) counterparts ever since":

In terms of permissions, all U.S. government and aircraft and vehicles are "free from inspection." In addition, an apparently blanket authorization to "over-fly, conduct aerial refueling, land and takeoff on the territory of Romania" is granted to both U.S. Government aircraft and "civil aircraft... operating exclusively under contract to the United States Department of Defense." Indeed, an equally permissive approach is taken by almost every aspect of the agreement, from the "construction activities" undertaken by U.S. forces to the apparently unquestioning acceptance as "valid" of "all professional licenses."

An excellent stance for not knowing what took place at the "black sites."

Meet Peter Kirsanow. He is a commissioner at the US Commission on Civil Rights, a government commission charged with monitoring violations of civil rights with a special emphasis on voting rights.

The body acts as a “clearinghouse” for charges of voting rights and civil rights violations by holding hearings and keeping track of related information. Although it does not have enforcement powers, it sends reports to Congress and the White House.

Kirsanow has been at the civil rights commission since 2001 and became a controversial figure after President Bush appointed him to the National Labor Relations Board during a Senate recess in January 2006. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and other Democratic senators were outraged at Kirsanow’s appointment at the time. Kennedy called Kirsanow and “ardent foe of basic worker protections.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard Kirsanow testify yesterday on a bill under consideration that would make voter intimidation a federal crime. His suggestion: start focusing on falsified registrations rather than instances of intimidation and disenfranchisement.

Kirsanow’s testimony echoes changes seen in the Department of Justice under the Bush administration. While historically the Justice Department’s voting rights work has been aimed at preventing the disenfranchisement of minority voters, the emphasis has now shifted to preventing duplicate or illegitimate voting. A 2006 bipartisan report to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found little evidence of such fraud at the polls.

An example of this came up earlier in the week when former interim US Attorney Bradley Schlozman testified before the same Senate committee on how he pushed through criminal voter fraud charges in Missouri right before the 2006 midterm election. The charges were brought against four organizers who had falsified voter registration forms. The organizers worked for a grass-roots group called ACORN, which had cooperated with law enforcement. The charges were highly controversial because they broke from Justice Department's policy of not bringing voter-fraud cases right before an election. The rationale being that such cases can intimidate voters and affect the outcome of the election. Schlozman defended his actions saying he got approval from a respected career lawyer and head of the elections crime branch of the agency, Craig Donsanto. That testimony has been questioned.

Here is video from yesterday’s hearing of Kirsanow making his point:

Bloomberg is reporting that Bradley Schlozman may revise some of the testimony he gave to a Senate Judiciary Committee panel this week.

Schlozman testified that he brought voter-fraud charges in Missouri on the eve of the 2006 midterm election under the direction of the Justice Department's Office of Public Integrity:

The explanation, which Schlozman repeated at least nine times during the June 5 hearing, infuriated public integrity lawyers, who say it implied the section ordered him to prosecute, said two Justice Department officials. Public integrity attorneys handle sensitive cases involving politicians and judges and pride themselves on staying out of political disputes.

A clarification of Schlozman's testimony would stress that he consulted with the section and was given guidance, not direction, said the officials, who asked to remain anonymous because the matter is being deliberated internally. The clarification wouldn't say that Schlozman's Senate testimony was inaccurate, the officials added.

Schlozman's testimony angered Democratic senators during questioning. He eventually said named Craig Donsanto, the head of the election crimes branch at the agency as the official who gave him permission, despite Justice Department policy not to bring voter fraud cases right before an election. Donsanto literally wrote the manual outlining the policy, which has some people questioning Schlozman's account.

First Admiral William J. Fallon took over as head of U.S. Central Command, even though it's the Army and Marines that are most engaged in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Admiral Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations, has been nominated to become the next head of the joint chiefs of staff. If approved, that means a Naval officer will helm the joint chiefs, Central Command, Southern Command, Pacific Command (an understandably typical position for an admiral) and Special Operations Command. What's up with the Navy's commanding position?

One factor is obvious, says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute: The Navy "has not been tarred by the failure in Iraq." In other words, it's precisely because the Navy doesn't have the degree of skin in the game that the ground services have that admirals are making for attractive nominees for vacancies at key commands. That certainly tracks with Defense Secretary Gates's worry that General Peter Pace's prospective renomination hearing would have become a rancorous reexamination of the Iraq war. And it's doubly surprising, given how the Navy was the service most comfortable with ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the man most closely associated with Iraq other than President Bush. "The irony is that the Navy culture was always able to get along with Rumsfeld, but otherwise rolled rather quickly with the Rumsfeld reversal" underway thanks to Defense Secretary Gates. No one can say the Navy is anything but buoyant. "The Navy has an intellectual tradition stronger than that of the other services," Thompson adds, referencing the overrepresentation of Naval officers on the Joint Staff.

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Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) pled not guilty today to 16 federal charges related to 11 separate bribery schemes.

Video of Jefferson saying: "Im going to fight my heart out to clear my name," is on the way.

Jefferson's case became famous when federal investigators found nearly $100,000 in cash in his freezer. He allegedly took the money from an FBI informant in a scheme to bribe a Nigerian official.

The judge has set a trial date for Jan. 16, 2008.

Late Update: Here's Jefferson speaking for the first time following the indictments:

Breaking news: Marine General Peter Pace -- "Perfect Pete," as he's known inside the Pentagon -- is out as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after serving less than two years. Pace's announced departure comes just after the deputy joint chiefs chairman, Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, announced his own retirement last week.

ThinkProgress links to a report from defense expert Loren Thompson speculating that Pace's departure is "related more to the triggering of certain retirement benefits than his close association with the discredited former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld." Defense Secretary Bob Gates announced the nomination of Admiral Mike Mullen to replace Pace.

Update: Gates explained in a press conference that he feared Pace couldn't get through a nomination for another two-year term as chairman without it becoming a "contentious" forum on the administration's performance on Iraq and Afghanistan.

One intriguing portion of the Council of Europe's report into secret CIA prisons in Europe comes when trying to explain the opposition this inquiry has faced from the U.S. and from some European governments. In particular, early in the report, chief investigator Dick Marty cites Germany and Italy as key sources of obstruction. At paragraph 17, Marty offers an opaque explanation:

In the course of our investigations and through various specific circumstances, we have become aware of certain special mechanisms, many of them covert, employed by intelligence services in their counter-terrorist activities. It is no for us to judge these methods, although in this area, too, great liberties appear to be taken with lawfulness. Many of these methods give rise to chain reactions of blackmail and lies between different agencies and institutions in individual states, as well as between states. Therein may lie at least a partial explanation for certain governments' fierce opposition to revealing the truth. We cannot go into this phenomenon without putting human lives at risk...

It sounds a lot like Marty is accusing the European intelligence services, the CIA, the U.S. and various member-states with potentially threatening one another for cooperating with his investigation. A former senior CIA official tells Muckraker this is "complete bullshit," smacking of European politicians' paranoia over the supposedly limitless power of intelligence agencies. "They're always worried about mystical things -- for a long time, they thought the U.S. was manipulating their economies," says the ex-official, who emphasizes that he doesn't have first-hand knowledge about the inquiry. But partner intelligence services would "never, ever expose each other."

The ex-official's alternative explanation: the Council, lacking formal investigating authority into member states' national-security apparatus, "ran into some kind of block" -- evidently from Germany and Italy -- and "to fill in the gap, they relied on an ongoing tendency to blame intelligence agencies." And Marty does write that "The resources at our disposal to address the issues presented to us are completely inadequate to the task." But if Marty isn't simply blowing smoke, his inquiry may underscore how acrimonious an issue the secret prisons were between officials in the U.S. and Europe, as well as among European security officials.

Today the Council of Europe makes it official: Poland and Romania hosted secret detention facilities on behalf of the CIA.

In a just-released inquiry approved by the Council, investigator Dick Marty of Switzerland confirms Dana Priest's Pulitzer Prize-winning report for the Washington Post that unnamed Eastern European countries allowed the CIA to hold suspected al-Qaeda detainees on their territory, without access to legal protections or the International Committee of the Red Cross. For the first time, the Council on Europe's report names some of the detainees in the secret facilities: they include 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and former al-Qaeda military committee chief Abu Zubaydah. Both, Marty writes, "were questioned using 'enhanced interrogation techniques,'" making his report the first documentation by any public official to state definitively that such techniques have in fact been employed. In 2005, ABC News reported that such techniques include waterboarding, in which a detainee is forced to believe he is drowning.

Previous inquests by the European Parliament, most recently in February, stopped short of reporting definitively that the prisons existed, thanks mainly to lack of cooperation by U.S. and European intelligence officials, allowing the U.S., Poland and other suspected countries to maintain deniability over the prisons. In April, CIA Director Michael Hayden chastised the Parliament for what he called its "unbounded criticism" of CIA detentions, renditions and interrogations, which he and the CIA have consistently defended as both legal and necessary to combat al-Qaeda.

You can read Marty's report here at the TPM Document Collection. We'll bring you updates on its most significant revelations.

Following the recent indictment of Re. Jefferson (D-LA), as well as pesky scandals involving Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff, the Democratic House leadership is planning to take a bold new step in ethics reform: allowing outsiders to file ethics complaints. (Congressional Quarterly)

The lead prosecutor in the case of former Gov. Seigelman released a letter saying that he has never met with Karl Rove, disputing allegations in a recent affidavit that Bush’s architect played a role in ousting the former governor. (Montgomery Adviser)

The House heard complaints about NASA’s Inspector General Robert “Moose” Cobb yesterday. Cobb denies being the world’s meanest boss. (Washington Post)

James Holsinger, the Presdient’s recent nominee for surgeon general, is drawing protests from critics who say Holsinger has a strong bias against gays and lesbians. (Associated Press)

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There is nothing unusual about a congressman from Alaska secretly allocating $10 million for a Florida interchange or helping secure $81 million for a related project.

That’s what Rep. Don Young (R-AK) told the Anchorage Daily News in response to a New York Times story about his involvement in slipping Coconut Road in Fort Myers, Florida about $81 million. The extension of the road and the creation of an interchange is a boon for real estate developers in the area, several of whom are big Republican donors. One in particular, Daniel J. Aronoff, said he helped raise $40,000 for Young days before the $10 million earmark appeared because, as an Aronoff consultant explained: “We were looking for a lot of money.” Young was the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee at the time.

When a Times reporter approached Young near the House floor about the Coconut Road story the congressman gave the journalist an obscene gesture, apparently declining to comment. But yesterday Young sent a statement to the Anchorage Daily News saying this is all “old news:”

"Every story that comes out is the same, with different players and different projects," he said. "When you are the chairman of the largest committee in the House, and a senior member, and in charge of writing a $290-odd billion bill, it's a guarantee that you are going to be raising more money than other less senior members. ... It's also a guarantee that there will be a plethora of projects for people to look at and pick apart. This is a recycled story."

According to the local Alaska paper, Young recycles this defense. In April he gave the same explanation when asked about campaign contributions from a Wisconsin trucking executive alleged to have improperly benefited from road legislation originating in Young's committee.

The anti-American Iraqi cleric that the surge was supposed to marginalize is back in a big way.

Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army twice fought the U.S. in 2004 and who has emerged as a premier power broker among Iraq's majority Shiites, went into hiding at the beginning of the surge in February. As U.S. and Iraqi forces pushed into his Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, the Bush administration pointed to Sadr's disappearance as an early victory for the escalation. But after months of behind-the-scenes rancor with the government of Nouri al-Maliki -- whose rise to power Sadr effectively sponsored -- Sadr emerged two weeks ago in the Shiite city of Kufa to again demand a U.S. withdrawal. And now, McClatchy's Leila Fadel reports, Sadr isn't shying away from his public, giving a rare interview to Iraqi state TV.

Perhaps most troublesome for the U.S. and the Maliki government, Sadr is increasingly portraying himself as a nationalist solution to the sectarian crisis in Iraq. As his interview reveals, his argument depends on a distressing conflation -- that the true enemies of both Sunni and Shiite Iraqis are the twin menaces of the U.S. and al-Qaeda. Maliki, he further argues, is powerless against the threat.

In the interview, al-Sadr said that "the layers of government and parties are turning their backs on the people." He added that the government is only half-hearted in its efforts to serve the people.

He said that Sunnis and Shiites have a common enemy - Sunni extremists, known in Iraqi Arabic as takfir. In Islam, takfir is the act of declaring someone an infidel.

"The enemy of all Islam has become the takfir," al-Sadr said. "Before they were killing Shiites with their car bombs. Now they are killing Sunnis with their car bombs. They have become a common enemy."

Al-Sadr, believed to be in his early 30s, sat before an Iraqi flag and the green Mahdi Army flag for the interview.

He ticked off a laundry list of Iraq's problems - sectarianism, lack of services, lack of security, the Mahdi Army's reputation as a brutal killer of Sunnis. But the culprit was always the same - "the occupation."

If that wasn't enough, Sadr has shown success in recent weeks reaching out to the very Sunnis the U.S. relies on to fight al-Qaeda: the tribal alliance in Anbar Province known as the Anbar Salvation Front. The TV appearance suggests that despite the surge's objective of suppressing the anti-American cleric, Sadr appears to be gaining strength at the expense of the U.S. and the Maliki government.

Yesterday we received the latest documents the Department of Justice handed over to Congress in the ongoing investigation into the agency.

Readers flagged two interesting pieces in our document dump thread. One email highlights the prominence of the conservative Federalist Society in the Justice Department and another raises more questions about how official processes have been carried out in the agency.

In one of the email messages flagged by readers -- and by McClatchy -- Leonard Leo the executive vice president of the Federalist Society offers then director of the Executive Office of the US Attorney his two cents in who would make a nice replacement for the US Attorney in San Diego. His suggestion was Mary Walker, who as McClatchy points out, has ties to the White House:

Walker led a Pentagon working group in 2003, which critics said helped provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions banning torture in the interrogations of terrorism suspects.

Leo’s recommendation is dated March 7, 2005, almost two years before Lam was fired, but just days before her name appeared on one of the firings lists.

The role of the Federalist Society has come up repeatedly during the investigation into the US attorney firings scandal. Most recently, Bradley Schlozman named the group in his testimony before a Senate panel as one approached when looking for new Justice Department hires while the head of the Civil Rights Division. (He couldn’t recall the names of liberal organizations he contacted.)

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Looks like General Petraeus is getting in on the act of Hadley-bashing. CNN just asked Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, for comment on Lieutenant General Doug Lute's likely confirmation as war czar. Petraeus lavishly praised Lute -- and then threw a bit of an elbow at Hadley's National Security Council: "I think [Lute will] probably have authorities, as I understand it, that individuals in the past that position not have had."

To be fair, Petraeus may have been referring to Meghan O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan until recently was deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, the position superceded by the war czar. But it's still a reflection on Hadley if he couldn't get his deputy for Iraq the needed bureaucratic heft.

Lieutenant General Doug Lute's hearing will probably be most memorable for how it raised doubt as to Steve Hadley's job as national security adviser. Just before the hearing ended, however, Lute offered a new iteration of the administration's line on the most controversial issue of all: permanent military bases. Lute said that "we don't seek this," but desire instead "a more normalized nation-to-nation relationship" with Iraq:

But a "more normalized" relationship with Iraq may not be inconsistent to the Bush administration with an open-ended presence. During a March reporting trip I took to Iraq, U.S. diplomats and military officers explained to me how we're likely to stay in Iraq for some unspecified-but-long period of time by using some variation of the line Lute used in the hearing. And with the president offering South Korea -- where the U.S. has garrisoned forces for half a century -- as a model for the future of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, it's clear that the administration envisions keeping at least some troops there. Lute didn't specify what a "more normalized" relationship will entail in terms of a troop commitment, but he may have introduced an open-ended war's new euphemism.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) wants to make sure an earmark left over from 2005 gets to the right oil company – the one that employs his son, former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens.

Roll Call (sub. req.) has the story today on the $2 million that is supposed to help a subsidiary of SEMCO Energy to study the feasibility of a pipeline in Alaska.

When the earmark appeared in the Senate version of the SAFETEA-LU bill where Stevens chaired the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, it was left a little unclear where the money should go:

“That earmark came to us as an orphan,” said Mike Chambers, spokesman for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. “When an earmark comes in, and if it is general enough, several people will stand up and claim it ... sort of like a custody battle.”

Stevens, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are making it clear who should win custody:
ENSTAR Natural Gas and ASRC Energy Service. The companies are working to see if a pipeline can be built between Fairbanks and Anchorage.

ENSTAR Natural Gas is a subsidiary of SEMCO Energy, a Michigan-based energy company. Ben Stevens has served on the board of SEMCO since 2004 and was paid $77,810 for his service in 2006, according to the company’s most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This latest news does not appear to have come out of the FBI's ongoing probe into Alaska politics.

Lute is sure to be confirmed as war czar. But the testimony the Senate Armed Services Committee clearly wishes it had is that of National Security Adviser Steve Hadley. Under questioning from Sen. John Warner (R-VA) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Lieutenant General Doug Lute furiously backpedaled from his earlier statement that Hadley won't be the president's principal adviser on Iraq:

Apparently unconvinced, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) got Lute to explain that he'll be the one who prepares President Bush's daily brief on Iraq -- but, he added, he'll "coordinate" that effort with Hadley. Since Bush famously prefers to be briefed in person, that's at least one area where Hadley loses out. Someone should hire a coordinator. Oh, wait...

So what's the point of the surge, anyway?

From the inception, and constantly reiterated by President Bush, Defense Secretary Bob Gates, General David Petraeus and others, escalating the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is supposed to give Iraqi politicians the "breathing room" necessary to foster sectarian reconciliation. There's just one problem: no reconciliation has materialized despite the surge. Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki's coterie doesn't expect reconciliation efforts in parliament to move forward in the foreseeable future.

Lieutenant General Doug Lute has peppered his responses to senators' questions with skepticism over the pace of reconciliation. But when Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) asked directly whether he thinks sectarian reconciliation is still in the cards, he defined the problem as a "capacity" issue, not one of will.

So Lute is "concerned but not yet convinced" that reconciliation won't happen. He didn't specify what he thought should happen if the Iraqi political and social scene remains as violently fractious by, say, General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's September report to Congress as it is today. Judging by President Bush's belief that reconciliation progress is in fact unfolding right now, probably not much, even if undermines the entire purpose of the current strategy. The hearing is in recess now, so we'll see if Lute is pressed on this in the afternoon.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has admitted he is involved in the FBI’s probe into Alaska lawmakers' dealings with oil services company Veco Corp. In an interview with the Washington Post, tight-lipped Stevens said he is getting ready to hand over documents to investigators.

"They put me on notice to preserve some records," Stevens said in a brief interview about his legal team's discussions with the FBI. He declined to say what kinds of records were involved but confirmed that he had hired lawyers and that his son, former state Senate president Ben Stevens, "is also under investigation."

It’s no surprise that the FBI has asked Stevens for records now that his home remodeling job overseen by Veco has caught investigators’ eye. But this does appear to be Stevens’ first official public comment about the federal probe. Stevens’ acknowledgment that his son in under investigation firms up what the press pieced together in May. Former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens was identified by the press as “state senator B” described in the guilty pleas of two former Veco executives. The Veco executives admitted to giving Stevens about $240,000 in “consulting fees” that required no work in exchange for political favors. Stevens was the only lawmaker to fit the description.

OK, now we have some clarity about what exactly Steve Hadley, the national security adviser, will do on Iraq and Afghanistan once Lieutenant General Doug Lute becomes war czar: Nothing.

Many have wondered whether Lute's prospective position as war czar effectively overlaps with Hadley's portfolio. While it's not a position with any real history behind it, the war czar is supposed to facilitate interagency coordination and policy review on Iraq and Afghanistan, which is, at least on paper, the job of the national security adviser. But, apparently, not anymore. In his confirmation hearing, Lute dropped a bombshell: Hadley will no longer have any formal role on the wars.

There isn't any precedent for a national security adviser during wartime to leave the war out of his or her responsibilities. There's also reason to believe that Hadley will have more than just Iraq and Afghanistan taken off his plate. Responding to questions from Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Lute emphasized keeping the wars in "regional perspective," weighing in on events in Turkey and Pakistan (the latter will be "very high on my priority list," Lute said) that influence the wars. Lute's understanding of his duties are understandably expansive: "I would advise the president of the United States on execution and policy development matters," he told Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA). Even though Lute described his position as "limited," it still raises a big question about what Hadley will do on the Middle East and South Asia for the last year and a half of the Bush administration.

Sen. Jack Reed called for Hadley to be fired.

Update: Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) insisted that Hadley isn't diminished at all. He just needs help on these matters -- otherwise he'd never get anything done.

Pressed by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lieutenant General Doug Lute turned a question on his areas of dissent on Iraq into a riff on his "personal lessons" from the war. Of particular significance: There is "no purely military" solution in Iraq, Lute said, nor is there an "American-only" solution.

Lieutenant General Doug Lute is before the Senate Armed Services Committee right now to become the president's "war czar," coordinating interagency efforts to support the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Lute, famously, dissented from the surge. But in his written statement addressing the committee's advance policy questions he gives a rather diplomatic answer about the surge's progress (pdf).

I participated in the policy review prior to the President's decision to adjust course in January 2007. During the review I registered concerns that a military "surge" would likely have only temporary and localized effects unless it were accompanied by counterpart "surges" by the Iraqi Government and other, non-military, agencies of the US Government. I also noted that our enemies in Iraq have, in effect, "a vote" and should be expected to take specific steps to counter our efforts. The new policy took such concerns into account. It is too soon to tell the outcome.

Everyone likes wiretaps! And by everyone, we of course mean the vice president, who disagreed with objections to the warantless surveillance program in a 2004 White House meeting. The meeting took place only one day before Gonzales made a midnight hospital run to convince John Ashcroft to approve the program, according to new written testimony by James Comey. (Washington Post)

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the hiring practices of the firm building the U.S. embassy in Iraq, amid allegations of human trafficking and slave labor. (Wall Street Journal)

Six human rights groups have called for the release of 39 detainees who they maintain are being held in secret at Guantanamo Bay. At the same time, the administration is pushing ahead with military tribunals of Guantanamo detainees, arguing that prosecuting high-level suspects would be nearly impossible to accomplish in a standard criminal justice system. (NY Times, LA Times)

Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute is headed to the Senate today for confirmation of his fourth star. Expect questions to be asked about his early skepticism towards Bush’s Baghdad surge. (Associate Press)

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Remember when slipping your district millions of federal dollars for a pet project was brazen? Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has raised the bar. Take a look at the story of Coconut Road in today’s New York Times.

The Florida road mysteriously received a $10 million earmark in 2006 that would connect it to a major interstate. Local congressman Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) says he isn’t responsible for it.

Just days before the earmark appeared, real estate developer Daniel J. Aronoff helped raise $40,000 for Young at the Hyatt Coconut Point Hotel in Florida:

A consultant who helped push for the project spelled out why its supporters held the fund-raiser.

“We were looking for a lot of money,” said the consultant, Joe Mazurkiewicz. “We evidently made a very good impression on Congressman Young, and thanks to a lot of great work from Congressman Young, we got $81 million to expand Interstate 75 and $10 million for the Coconut Road interchange.”

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The Department of Justice released more documents this evening. We are raking through them now. As has worked well before, we set up a thread here for readers to help us spot interesting pieces. When you post, please identify what you find by document dump set number and then page number. We have two sets, so an item from the first set on page 4 would read "1:4". The first set is here . The second set is here. Happy hunting!

The Hill has the story on former aide to the Interior Secretary Gale Norton:

The Hill has learned that Italia Federici, a one-time political aide to former Interior Secretary Gale Norton, has agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion and obstruction of Congress as part of the investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff.

The Republican activist will be the second person with ties to Norton to plead guilty in the Abramoff investigation. Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his relationship to Abramoff and Federici. He is to be sentenced later this month.

Earlier today we flagged an item in the Los Angeles Times suggesting that Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki wasn't going to meet certain political "benchmarks" that President Bush said he would "hold the Iraqi government" to meeting. I spoke with a White House official -- who declined to be named -- for reaction, and I was referred to a statement Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, made to Fox News this past Sunday:

Prime Minister Maliki has been reaching out to other communities represented within the government -- a meeting with the presidential council, with the Political Council for National Security, for example. Right now, the Iraqis are engaged in some intensive negotiations on the hydrocarbon laws. They've made a lot of progress over the last week. Clearly, they have a great distance to go, but I've been encouraged by the fact that all parties, all communities, are willing to engage in the process to sit down around a table and try to work through issues to a successful conclusion and compromise.

The White House official -- who declined to be quoted by named -- added:

"The Iraqi leadership understands the need for their government to meet certain benchmarks and is dedicated to achieving those benchmarks. There are challenges, and we are working with Iraqis on the ground and consulting regularly from Washington to make progress. The President just today talked about the fact that Iraq's political leaders are working hard and have made progress on certain fronts."

Yet not a single deadline for the Iraqi government spelled out by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her January letterto Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has been met. If this is "progress," what would stagnation look like?

Asked for further comment about the status of Iraqi benchmarks, a Levin aide reaffirmed that the annual defense authorization bill, approved on May 24, will include an amendment when it reaches the Senate floor mandating withdrawal from Iraq beginning 120 days after passage. A similar measure, included in the Iraq supplemental, failed last month after President Bush vetoed the bill. The defense bill is expected to be debated by the full Senate at the end of June.

Blame it all on DEBKAfile.

Today the rumor-intelligence website ran with a story alleging that the Turkish military buildup in southeastern Turkey boiled over into a 50,000-troop invasion of northern Iraq -- designed not only to crush the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists across the Turkish-Iraqi border but to send the distinct message that Kurdish independence is a pipe dream. DEBKA's story promised that "this is only the first wave of Turkish invaders, with more to come." From there, the AP and Reuters went to their sources in Ankara, Erbil (the capitol of Iraqi Kurdistan) and Baghdad, and ran with pieces suggesting that Turkish troops were engaged in what one anonymous Turkish official called "hot pursuit," but not an actual invasion. All of a sudden, it looked like the sum of all fears -- a full-fledged Turkish intervention in Iraq due to Kurdish ambitions -- was manifesting.

It wasn't. A White House official deferred comment to the State Department, which began this morning to put out the line that there was no indication of a cross-border operation by the Turks. A State Department spokeswoman, Janelle Hironimus, explained to Muckraker that the department was unaware of "any Turkish incursion into Iraqi territory," calling the story "false." (Efforts to contact Defense Department officials on the question were unsuccessful.) Nevertheless, Hironimus added that "Turkish forces are active in southeastern Turkey" due to a military build-up described as "part of the war on terrorism," referring to the PKK, which the State Department classifiesas a terrorist group.

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Former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias said he finds Bradley Schlozman's testimony about Craig Donsanto unbelievable.

Schlozman told a Senate Judiciary panel yesterday that while he was the interim U.S. Attorney in Missouri he brought four criminal voter fraud prosecutions on the eve of the 2006 midterm election after getting the go-ahead from Donsanto, the director of the election crimes branch at the department.

Donsanto is a career attorney at the Justice Department who literally wrote the book on Justice Department policy. One of the policies he outlines bars US attorneys from bringing election fraud cases before an election to prevent a chilling effect on voters.

Iglesias oversaw a voter fraud task force from 2004 until the summer of 2006 in New Mexico. He said during that time he consulted Donsanto on numerous occasions, including just before the 2004 election because the elections crime director was known as a "wise old owl when it came to voter fraud cases."

I asked Iglesias about an email we flagged yesterday that he had sent to a Justice Department aide saying there would be no indictments before the 2004 election because Donsanto would never approve it.

"I actually saw the email that I sent on TPMmuckraker and I know exactly what you’re talking about,” he said. “I had numerous conversations with [Donsanto] over the course of two years, I can’t believe that he’d have gone 180 degrees on that policy," Iglesias said. "I just don’t believe it."

Iglesias was in touch with Donsanto up until the summer of 2006, just before Schlozman would have received approval to bring the indictments. Iglesias said he can’t imagine a scenario where Donsanto would have changed his mind on the department’s voter fraud policy.

“Giving Brad Schlozman the benefit of the doubt, he must have completely misunderstood what Donsanto told him,” Iglesias said.

The Justice Department did not respond to calls requesting comment. Donsanto did not reply to an email message, though Iglesias guesses he is not allowed to speak to the press.

It gets weirder. The Kurdistan Regional Government's representative in Washington, Qubad Talabany -- son of Iraqi President Jalal -- just released a statement denying that the Turkish military crossed the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, though he warns about a Turkish "troop build-up":

"I wanted to clarify that as of today no Turkish forces have entered Iraq's Kurdistan region. We are closely monitoring the troop build-up on the Turkish side of the border, and we are receiving up-to-date information from our security posts inside Iraqi Kurdistan. The troop build-up does cause us some concern, especially as Iraqi Kurdistan stands as Iraq's only true stable region, however, as of today, no forces have crossed that border."

The rest of the statement carries an implicit warning to the Turks:

"The Kurdistan Regional Government remains committed to a peaceful and strategic relationship with Turkey and feels that any unilateral cross-border raid into Kurdistan would not only violate Iraq's territorial integrity, but would negatively impact our efforts to promote better political and economic ties between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey."

That bit about "unilateral" Turkish action is very reminiscent of Sec. Gates's recent comment about a potential Turkish push into Kurdistan. That's surely no accident.

Reports are extremely murky right now, but it appears that the Turkish Army has crossed the Iraqi border into the autonomous region of Kurdistan. While the AP reports that "thousands" of Turkish troops deployed into Kurdistan, an anonymous Turkish official insisted to Reuters that the move "cannot be called a cross-border operation, it is a limited operation."

Whatever's happening, tensions have been at a boil for the last week, as the Turks have made noises about taking military action after a June 1 incident in which Kurdish forces in the city of Sulaymaniya allegedly harassed plainclothes Turkish soldiers. The next day, however, the U.S. military command turned over formal control of security to the Kurdistan Regional Government. The KRG was largely responsible for security before -- as I learned on a 2006 trip to Kurdistan, there were very few U.S. troops in the comparatively placed region even before Saturday's formal handover -- but the handover put U.S. forces firmly in a supporting role:

Coalition forces will resume their role in the region as support when needed.

“It is important to understand that Coalition forces will always be here to support the Government of Iraq,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Kurt A. Cichowski, deputy chief of staff, strategy, plans and assessment for MNF-I.

While Coalition forces support the KRG, they have also contributed $436 million during the war for reconstruction efforts in the area.

“Today’s event is symbolic because the people of these provinces have been taking the lead and demonstrating progress for quite some time,” said [Major General Benjamin] Mixon.

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In the middle of a Los Angeles Times profile of Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, comes news that the Maliki government almost certainly won't meet any of the political "benchmarks" that President Bush said he would hold Iraq to in his January 10 speech announcing the surge:

Maliki is the man U.S. officials are counting on to bring Iraq's civil war under control, yet he seems unable to break the government's deadlock.

Even Maliki's top political advisor, Sadiq Rikabi, says he doubts the prime minister will be able to win passage of key legislation ardently sought by U.S. officials, including a law governing the oil industry and one that would allow more Sunni Arabs to gain government jobs.

"We hope to achieve some of them, but solving the Iraqi problems and resolving the different challenges in the [next] three months would need a miracle," Rikabi said.

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Republicans in the House offered a resolution to investigate Rep. William Jefferson following his indictment this week. Not to be outdone, the House Democrats offered a proposal that would require the ethics committee to investigate automatically any lawmaker within thirty days of an indictment or report. Both proposals were approved. (NY Times)

Yesterday Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confirmed that a controversial warantless wiretapping program was the reason for his late-night run to John Ashcroft's hospital bed. The disclosure conflicts with Gonzales' 2006 testimony that the program had not been met with objections by members of the Justice Department. (Think Progress)

Bradley Schlozman’s testimony yesterday left Senators with plenty of information to grapple with. Schlozman admitted that he boasted about hiring Republican lawyers, though denied that he took political affiliation into account when filling career positions. He also left the Democratic panel deeply suspicious of the timing of voter fraud indictments he brought just before the midterm election in Missouri. Sen. Leahy (D-VT) was particularly irate during the testimony, accusing the Justice Department and the White House of stonewalling the committee's investigation. (Boston Globe, LA Times, McClatchy Newspapers)

Republicans looking for a place to relax and pad their resume need look no further than the Department of Homeland Security. (ABC’s The Blotter)

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An FBI official who declined to be named tells TPMmuckraker that the JFK bomb plotters aren't connected to any international terrorist organizations or other foreign powers. "They were not associated with anyone else," the official says.

Over the weekend, reports out of Trinidad -- where Abdul Nur, the fourth suspect in the plot, surrendered to authorities yesterday -- suggested that the FBI had told Trinidad's Police Special Branch to look at the plotters' connections to Shiite terrorist groups, including those based in Iran and southern Iraq. The Trinidad & Tobago Express quoted sources in the Police Special Branch saying they were looking at whether alleged conspirator Kareem Ibrahim "has links to radical Shia groups in the Middle East" based on information provided to them by the FBI. That's not the case, according to the official.

While the FBI official wouldn't comment on the bureau's "partnerships with a variety of law enforcement and intelligence agencies," he added, "I think they were stretching," referring to the paper's sources in the Special Police Branch. If Trinidadian officials are in fact looking for Middle East connections to the JFK plot, they may be digging a dry hole. The plotters "may have been looking for help, and people to talk to, but I don't think they had much success," the official says.

Don't tell Foggy Bottom that the Bush administration's post-9/11 foreign policy has made the country safer. The State Department is in the midst of a staffing crisis thanks to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to a new report by an advisory council.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Foreign Affairs Council, an association of nonprofit organizations, finds that the need to fill diplomatic positions in the war zones has left the foreign service understaffed by about 1,000 positions. The Council anticipates "a very, very serious situation a year from now" unless the administration and congress takes immediate action.

The council said Rice has required diplomats to carry out a more aggressive mission of "transformational diplomacy" to prod other countries to adhere to democratic principles.

But at the same time, envoys have had to cope with wartime strains, inadequate language and skills training and more overtime work.

In addition, about 750 have been required to take one-year stints in sometimes dangerous postings where they are not allowed to bring their families, the group said.

It's understandable that Iraq and Afghanistan require an outsized share of diplomatic resources, hard as it is to get many at State to go to the war zones, particularly Iraq. Muckraker reported in February how and why some Foreign Service Officers balk at Iraq assignments. But the Foreign Affairs Council's report suggests that unless the Foreign Service expands significantly -- the service only has about 9,000 people -- will barely be able to play catch-up when new crises emerge.

Bradley Schlozman pointed to Craig Donsanto in his testimony today when he was asked who gave him the go ahead to press criminal voter fraud charges days before the 2006 midterm election, in an apparent violation of agency policy.

Donsanto, though, is the director of the Election Crimes branch of the Justice Department and author of the manual outlining that policy. It seems a bit surprising that he'd be the one to approve skirting that election policy, when he'd literally written the manual.

Schlozman's account also conflicts with an email former U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, David Iglesias sent to a Department of Justice legislative aide in 2004, just before an election. The email, contained in a DOJ document dump in April, shows Donsanto's stance was on bringing charges just before an election:

There will be another meeting of the EFTF (Election Fraud Task Force) on Wed, Oct. 6. Craig Donsanto has not authorized the FBI to open any case.

...

The federal members of the EFTF should be aware of the DoJ policy of not attempting to influence the outcome of an election through investigation or prosecution. I am not aware of any prosecution which will commence before November 2, 2004. I know Donsanto would not authorize such action because he has stated the same.

Note that last line again: " I am not aware of any prosecution which will commence before November 2, 2004. I know Donsanto would not authorize such action because he has stated the same."

Perhaps Donsanto changed his mind on these matters between 2004 and 2006. But on its face Iglesias' account of Donsanto's view of this question seems starkly different from the account Schlozman provided today in his testimony.

Here's video of Schlozman testifying:

In his testimony today, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri Todd Graves reiterated what he has maintained for the last few weeks in the press: he was pushed out to make room for someone else, not for performance reasons.

That someone, of course, was Bradley Schlozman who testified first today. Schlozman asserted that he knew nothing about Graves' dismissal and never discussed it with anyone.

Graves also recounted how he refused to sign a letter outlining a civil case against the state of Missouri for failing to purge its voter rolls.

One of the most interesting parts of Graves' testimony was his response to former Justice Department White House liaison, Monica Goodling's testimony from two weeks ago. Goodling implied in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that Graves was under investigation by the Office of the Inspector General and that factored into his dismissal. Graves told the Kansas City Star that, in fact, he brought the case himself to squelch a complaint from a fired employee. Here is video of Graves explaining this to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI):

As it turns out, Bradley Schlozman, who brought criminal charges against four ACORN workers on the eve of an election in Missouri does not know if the group has a political bent, or, apparently, what the acronym means.

ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a grass roots group that runs voter registration drives for poor and minority voters. Not surprisingly, the group has a history of left-leaning work.

Schlozman claims in the video below he is not aware of where ACORN falls on the political spectrum. (Listen closely to hear the press table chuckle.)

When asked who signed off on the ACORN indictments despite Justice Department guidelines that suggest U.S. attorneys should hold off on bringing such cases before an election, Schlozman named Craig Donsanto, the head of the Elections Crimes Division. Donsanto actually authored the manual that outlines the guideline, which Schlozman does not mention. Here is video of Schlozman naming him. The red book Whitehouse holds is the maual:

I wonder when we'll get to meet Donsanto.

Former head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice Bradley Schlozman doesn't remember an alert from the U.S. attorney in Minnesota that Native American voters might be the target of voter discrimination.
Los Angeles Times profiled the U.S. attorney from Minnesota, Thomas Heffelfinger, last week who was named on one of the firings lists. Schlozman tried to discredit the story today in his testimony, but also said he never spoke about the case with anyone and does not remember any details. (This was just after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) pointed out that he remembers less than U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales did during his testimony.)

The Los Angeles Times pointed out similarities between Heffelfinger and other U.S. Attorneys that were fired or on a list for possible firing. Heffelfinger appeared on a list after raising a concern that Native Americans might be disenfranchised:

Citing requirements in a new state election law, Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer directed that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. Heffelfinger and his staff feared that the ruling could result in discrimination against Indian voters. Many do not have driver's licenses or forms of identification other than the tribes' photo IDs.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) confronted Schlozman today over what she painted as a contradiction between rushing four voter-fraud indictments just before an election in Missouri and the Justice Department's decision to ignore Heffelfinger's complaint:

Bradley Schlozman has been criticized for bringing voter fraud charges against several ACORN registration organizers just days before a close election in 2006. The decision appears to be in conflict with Department of Justice policy. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pointed out the apparent conflict to Schlozman today during his testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on the politicization of the agency.

Leahy became openly angered during his questioning of Schlozman when the witness tried to skirt the topic. Schlozman claimed he had clearance from his superiors at the Department of Justice to bring the charges. He also said that he did not think the charges would have an affect on the pending election. Leahy raised his voice and sharpened his tone, not his typical persona.

Here is video of the Leahy-Schlozman tussle:

Feinstein also pressed Schlozman on his decision to bring the criminal indictments right before the election. She was not thrilled with his answer either. Her video is on the way.

Late Update: Here's Feinstein.

We're reporting live from the Senate Judiciary's latest hearing on the politicization of the Department of Justice. The first witness will be Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' first appointed U.S. Attorney, Bradley Schlozman, of the Western District of Missouri. The second witness we'll hear from is Todd Graves, the U.S. Attorney that was ousted to make room for Schlozman.

Schlozman is being sworn in. More coverage is on the way. You can also follow along with video here.

Several readers have alerted us to a piece in the San Diego Union Tribune about a 13-page document written by former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam. We think the document refers to a 13 page document Lam sent to Congress responding to written questions in May. Her full response is available here. (pdf)

We covered Lam's response last month, which included additional dubious details about her firing. In one passage, Lam explains that she was not immediately told why she was being let go:

Following the call from Michael Battle informing me I was to resign effective January 21, 2007, I called DAG McNulty to inquire why I was being asked to resign. He responded that he wanted some time to think about how to answer that question because he didn’t want to give me an answer “that would lead” me down the wrong route. He added that he knew I had personally taken on a long trial and he had great respect for me. Mr. McNulty never responded to my question.

After a follow-up call with Mike Battle a few days later, I requested additional time to ensure and orderly transition in the office, especially regarding pending investigations and several significant cases that were set to begin trial in the next few months.

On January 5, 2007, I received a call from Michael Elston informing me that my request for more time base on case-related considerations was “not being received positively,” and that I should “stop thinking in terms of the cases in the office.” He insisted that I had to depart in a matter of weeks, not months, and that these instructions were “coming from the very highest levels of the government.” In this and subsequent calls, Mike Elston told me that (1) he ‘suspected” and “had a feeling” that the interim U.S. Attorney who would succeed me would not be someone from within my office, but rather would be someone who was a DOJ employee not currently working in my office, (2) there would be “no overlap” between my departure and the start date of the interim U.S. Attorney, and (3) the person picked to serve as interim U.S. Attorney would not have to be vetted by the committee process used in California for the selection of U.S. Attorneys.

Former U.S. Attorney from Missouri, Todd Graves, is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon. Graves is the most recent U.S. attorney to say he was asked to resign suddenly. The questionable layer to his case hinges on whether his decision not to force a voter-fraud lawsuit on the state led to his dismissal. It will be interesting to see if there are any similarities in his testimony.

Will I. "Scooter" Libby remain free during a possibly lengthy appeals process? Judge Reggie B. Walton who just handed down the 30 month sentence "saw no reason to let Libby remain free pending appeal, Walton said he would accept written arguments on the issue and rule later," the Associated Press reports.

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I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will go to prison for 30 months and will pay a $250,000 fine, in line with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's suggestion. He will also face two years' probation. It's not clear yet whether Libby will skirt imprisonment during the appeals process. We'll bring you more as it comes out.

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Alaska state lawmakers have had it with one of their own.

Two Republican leaders in the Alaska legislature confronted Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK) in his home to push him to resign instead of dragging them all down. Kohring has been indicted as part of the wide federal probe into Alaska politicians dealings with oil services company Veco Corp. The Anchorage Daily News reports:

Prosecutors have accused Kohring, a Republican, of selling his vote on the state petroleum tax last year to the Anchorage oil field services company Veco Corp. Kohring and two former legislators also under indictment have pleaded not guilty. Veco executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith pleaded guilty to conspiracy, bribery and tax charges. Allen and Smith have since resigned from Veco.

The probe has brushed Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), whose house got a makeover seven years ago under Veco's direction. The senator's son, former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens, has also been tied to the investigation by local press who concluded he was one of the lawmakers to take cash from Veco executives who recently pled guilty to federal bribery and conspiracy charges.

Scooter Libby faces sentencing this morning. Just in time, here is a timeline of the CIA leak to refresh you before today’s sentencing. (Associated Press)

As Bradley Schlozman prepares to testify this afternoon, the Justice Department is girding for further congressional insight into allegations that election laws have been systematically ignored in recent history. (McClatchy Newspapers)

A memo sent to the White House warns that the U.S. is set to dramatically hinder its ability to monitor global warming. The Department of Defense is scaling back a program that has been crucial for American scientists who monitored climate change. The new program will refocus its resources on weather prediction. (Associated Press)

A recent document handed to the House Judiciary Committee demonstrates how aggressively Carol Lam was forced out of the Justice Department following her firing in December last year. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Rep. Bill Jefferson (D-LA) was indicted on sixteen counts yesterday, following on an investigation that has continued for two years. (Chicago Tribune)

In a blow to jurisdiction precedent crucial to future Guantanamo trials, a military judge tossed the charges brought against Omar Khadr. Khadr’s case had raised concerns worldwide, as he was fifteen when first taken into custody by American soldiers. (McClatchy Newspapers)

It's the day of truth for Dick Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby who is scheduled to be sentenced today after being convicted of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in the CIA leak case.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald submitted a sentencing memo last week asking the judge to give Libby two and a half to three years behind bars. Meanshile, Libby's lawyers have asked for a wrist slap.

We'll also find out whether Libby will get to pass go. Some of his friends worried last week that he would not.

If ever there was an awful epitaph for the Iraq war, it's surely this: "Staying here is like committing suicide." That's a quote from a 25-year old Iraqi medical student, summing up the way many of his college-educated peers feel about their country. According to a harrowing story in today's New York Times, many college graduates are fleeing the country, joining the four million Iraqis estimated to have either abandoned the country or become internally displaced. (pdf.) As the Times explains, it's a decision that further hollows out the educated middle class necessary for a nation's ultimate prosperity:

The class of 2007 came of age during a transformation that according to students has harvested tragedy from seeds of hope. They are the last remnants of a middle class that has already fled by the tens of thousands. As such they embody the country’s progression from innocence to bitter wisdom amid dashed expectations and growing animosity toward the Americans.

They said would leave their country feeling betrayed, by the debilitating violence that has killed scores of professors and friends, by the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalism and by the Americans, who they say cracked open their country, releasing spasms of violence without protecting the moderate institutions that could have been a bulwark against extremism.

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) still wants to know where the Department of Justice sets the bar for "wrongdoing" or "improper" conduct.

Today, Whitehouse asked the Justice Department's oversight arm, the Office of the Inspector General, to look into how the agency defines improper behavior. When U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April, Gonzales explained that actions become improper when they have an adverse affect on a particular case. Whitehouse was and is appalled.

“The notion that the definition of impropriety for DOJ employees should be set so low as to more or less mirror the definition of criminal obstruction of justice is disturbing,” Whitehouse wrote in a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine. “Indeed, it implies that it would be perfectly appropriate to dismiss a U.S. Attorney because he or she did not, for example, act in a sufficiently partisan manner, although without regard to a particular case.”

Check out the volleying during Gonzales' Senate testimony:

This week is the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War between Israel and much of the Arab world, which forever reconfigured Middle Eastern geopolitics. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians seems as far away as ever. But a poll (pdf) released today of Arabs and Jews in the United States, commissioned jointly by the Arab-American Institute and the left-leaning Americans for Peace Now, shows a surprising consensus here on a negotiated two-state solution.

Wide majorities of American Jews and Arabs -- 98 percent of Jews, 88 percent of Arabs -- believe Israelis have the right to exist in "a secure, independent state of their own." Similarly, 90 percent of Jewish-Americans and 96 percent of Arab-Americans believe the same thing about the Palestinians. It's unfortunate that 12 percent of U.S. Arabs don't believe Israelis have the right to their own state and that 10 percent of U.S. Jews don't believe that Palestinians do either, but clearly, wide and reciprocal majorities of each community in the U.S. supports a two-state solution to the conflict.

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If there's one thing the JFK terror plot doesn't need, it's more obfuscation from senior officials. Take a look at what Michael Balboni, head of public safety for New York State, just told Contessa Brewer of MSNBC.

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Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) was officially indicted this afternoon on corruption charges carrying a potential sentence of 200 years in prison. You can view the indictment here.

Among other lurid details, the document alleges Jefferson had nefarious dealings with businesses in West African countries including Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana, where he took cash, fees or retainers worth at least $478,000 and 3 million shares of stock in exchange for political services.

Former number two at the Department of Justice, Bradley Schlozman, faces off with the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow. We’ll be watching his testimony closely. In the meantime, here’s a preview:

Schlozman is known for cherry picking hard-line Republicans for career positions at the Justice Department as part of the Bush administration’s aggressive reshaping of the Civil Rights Division.

Some of his testimony will likely be similar to what we heard Monica Goodling recount before the House Judiciary Committee two weeks ago. The former White House liaison to the Justice Department admitted to “crossing the line” in using political criteria to select career lawyers in the department. An internal Justice Department probe is now looking at the issue of political hiring.

Schlozman is also expected to testify to his involvement in the firing of the nine U.S. Attorneys. The firings testimony should be particularly interesting because, as you may recall, Schlozman took over as the U.S. Attorney in Kansas City when Todd Graves was pushed out in January. Graves had been uncooperative in bringing a voter-fraud lawsuit against the state just before he was asked to leave. A little-known piece of the Patriot Act allowed Schlozman to take over as an indefinite interim U.S. attorney without facing the scrutiny of the confirmation process. Once in place, just days before an election, Schlozman filed highly questionable voter-fraud charges against four voter registration organizers. The decision was in direct conflict with Justice Department policy not to bring such prosecutions before an election as to avoid a chilling effect on voting.

Schlozman initially put off the committee’s request for his testimony, due to a planned vacation. Hopefully he’s well-rested and ready to talk.

Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) has officially been indicted on racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering according to the Associated Press.

The indictment handed up Monday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, is more than an inch thick and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 200 years.

Almost two years ago, in August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson's home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed into a box in his freezer.

Jefferson, 63, whose Louisiana district includes New Orleans, has said little about the case publicly but has maintained his innocence. He was re-elected last year despite the looming investigation.

Jefferson's case has become best known for the nearly $100,000 in cash found in his freezer that he took from a videotaped encounter with an FBI informant.

His House office was searched by the FBI in 2006, which raised bipartisan outrage amongst Congressional leadership who called the raide unconstitutional on the grounds of the "speech and debate" clause.

Does the FBI think there's a connection between the JFK plot and international Shiite terrorist groups?

Trinidad and Tobago, where two of the conspirators in the plot were arrested over the weekend, is swarming with foreign press today, and much of the information coming out of the Caribbean country is murky, reflecting how unexpected it is that a terror plot could have emerged from such an unlikely place. But just when it appeared that the JFK bombing plot couldn't get much weirder -- the fuel tanks that the conspirators sought to detonate would most likely fail to detonate the underground fuel pipeline running from Pennsylvania to the airport, for instance -- word comes from the local press that the FBI has told law enforcement officials to look for connections between the plotters and... Iran and Iraq. Reports the Trinidad & Tobago Express:

Police intelligence in Trinidad and Tobago and the US say the group that planned to blow up fuel depots at JFK airport might be linked to radical Shia groups based in southern Iraq or Iran....

Sources from the Police Special Branch say they are in the "process of trying to determine whether [alleged conspirator Kareem] Ibrahim has links to radical Shia groups in the Middle East based on information passed on to us the FBI." [sic]

FBI agents are in Trinidad investigating this and other aspects of the case involving Ibrahim and [Abdul] Kadir. ...

The Shia community is very "close knit and well organised" one leading Muslim told the Sunday Express.

"Shias all over the world are linked and the communities live close together and are well known for their extremism especially self-flagellation."

We'll check back in shortly on whether the FBI is really looking to Iran and Iraq for connections to the plot. Given that it doesn't appear from the criminal complaint (pdf) released over the weekend that the conspirators were actually able to secure the assistance of Jamaat al-Muslimeen, the Trinidadian criminal gang, it's hard to credit the idea that any Shiite terrorist group -- let alone Shiite state -- would consider the four conspirators a credible vehicle for attacking the United States.

There's no shortage of questions surrounding the disrupted plot to blow up fuel pipelines at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Among the most pressing: what sort of jihadist organization would operate in the Carribean, where radicalized Muslims are comparatively few? According to a 2005 analysis by the Jamestown Foundation, not the most advanced.

Press accounts have Russell Defreitas, the laid-off JFK employee and key figure in the plot, seeking aid from Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a Muslim organization in Trinidad and Tobago. The JAM, which engineered a failed coup in 1990, apparently declined to assist Defreitas and his alleged co-conspirators. Jamestown's profile makes that choice more understandable, suggesting that JAM is more of a criminal enterprise than a source of jihadist legitimation:

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House members have already begun finding ways around recently passed ethics reforms on earmarking. With respect to the upcoming budget bill, Democrats are holding off on funding pet projects until it is too late to challenge their addition. (USA TODAY)

With a no-confidence vote impending for Gonzales, it is not clear which way critics in the GOP will vote(sub. req.). Meanwhile, the Republican leadership is looking to avoid the vote altogether. (Roll Call)

Machine politics henchmen handing out cold George Washingtons for votes is what we should picture when we hear voter fraud, or is it? (The New Republic)

Staff members of the House Oversight Committee appear to be close to an agreement (sub. req.) with the RNC that will allow limited access to past emails from White House staff. (Roll Call)

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One of the few heroes in the U.S.'s shameful adoption of torture over the last few years is Tony Lagouranis. Lagouranis, a former military interrogator, returned from Iraq -- where, unlike Guantanamo Bay, the Bush administration has never contended that the Geneva Conventions don't apply -- and blew the whistle to Human Rights Watch about how deeply coercive interrogations have taken root in Iraq. Along with Captain Ian Fishback, who wrote to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2005 about the coercive techniques his superiors recommended he use in interrogation, Lagouranis put his reputation at risk by his disclosure. But according to today's Washington Post, Lagouranis won't let himself off the hook for what he did in Iraq.

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An Alaska contractor, Augie Paone, painted most of the picture we have of how a major state oil services company oversaw the renovation of Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) house. After giving a few interviews last week, Paone has hired a lawyer and will no longer comment publicly. I spoke with Paone’s wife on the phone yesterday who said the family would not release the lawyer’s name. The lawyer has advised them to stay quiet, she said. It's too bad the Paones felt the need to lawyer up, though it’s probably not that surprising. In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, Paone said he was “uncomfortable” with taking the renovation contract initially because he had not provided an estimate to Veco Corp., the company that handled the job for Stevens while the senator was in Washington:

"I didn't suspect anything, but I just wanted to make sure," he said. "When you work with a house of a legislator or a senator, you make sure you hold on to all the billings, just in case something happens."

That was a good move. The job has piqued federal investigators' interest as part of a broad investigation into public corruption in Alaska. Six months ago the FBI asked Paone for records and invoices from the job. He also testified before a grand jury. Paone said he had done work for Veco Corp.’s offices and for a company executive before they offered him the work on Stevens’ home seven years ago. He charged normal rates, but saw the job as a favor – a favor he couldn’t decline to offer – rather than a typical contract:

"Bill Allen (Veco CEO) and some of the Veco boys, some of the Veco guys, were the ones that approached me and wanted to know if I could give them a hand," Paone said. "I did it more as a favor, you know. It's one of those things when somebody is the head, and packs that much power and asks you for a favor, it's kind of hard to say no."

Allen pled guilty to bribing five state legislators last month in a classic cash-for-votes scheme. One of the charges stems from a meet-up between State Rep. Pete Kott in a hotel suite where Kott complained about having “to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie,” to ensure government-backing of a pipeline valuable to Veco. In response to the legislator’s complaints, Allen said: “I own your ass.” Sounds like Allen would take a “no thank you” well.