From Charlie Savage at The Boston Globe:

President Bush's plan to forge a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could commit the US military to defending Iraq's security would be the first time such a sweeping mutual defense compact has been enacted without congressional approval, according to legal specialists.

Read the whole thing. This is bound to be the big inter-branch brawl of the summer.

Freedom's Watch, the billionaire-fueled and highly-connected conservative attack machine, has begun its promised push to recruit membership -- to become "a conservative answer to MoveOn." But they're doing it in a funny way.

In a mailing that the group has sent to an unknown number of people, a four-page fundraising pitch (which is addressed, "Dear Fellow Patriot") is packaged with a two-page "Citizens Census." The "CONFIDENTIAL CENSUS DOCUMENT," as it's described in the letter, is actually a list of questions about core conservative issues, such as "Should we give our troops everything they need to fight our enemies?" with "Yes," "No," or "Undecided" as the offered responses. The questions are under the heading "FREEDOM'S WATCH CITIZENS CENSUS QUESTIONS."

When I asked Freedom's Watch spokesman Jake Suski whether the mailing was misleading, he strongly disagreed. "It doesn't even have the qualities of an official document," he argued, adding that the survey itself has multiple references to Freedom's Watch (true), that the fundraising pitch is written on Freedom's Watch letterhead (also true), and that the envelope itself says "Freedom's Watch" on it (true, on the back - see above for the front). "There's just no confusion about it. I think it's all in your head."

Well, here's the letter and "census" and here's the envelope it came in. Decide for yourself. It certainly reminds me of another fundraising pitch with an official aura: the "voter audit" letter from the Republican National Committee we reported on last August.

Suski, who was until last summer John McCain's Western finance director, wouldn't disclose how many such letters the group sent out or to whom it had been targeted. He would only say that "the response has been tremendous."

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From The Hill:

The Department of Justice has subpoenaed six current and former House aides to testify in next month’s trial of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), who faces a wide array of public corruption and bribery charges, according to a knowledgeable source.

Congratulations to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) lawyers! They've surpassed $1 million in legal fees from the lawmaker.

Lewis, long-time TPMmers will remember, has been under federal investigation since the spring of 2006 for his ties to defense contractor and convicted criminal Brent Wilkes and lobbyist buddy Bill Lowery.

Since June of 2006, Lewis has paid just over $1 million in campaign funds to some heavy-hitters at the law firm Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, according to campaign disclosures. A $62,000 payment on December 12th last year put him over the top.

The Lewis probe has reportedly slowed in the last year, and his fees reflect that -- Lewis spent $900,000 in 2006 and only about $100,000 this year. Maybe with the Wilkes conviction, things will heat up again?

Boy, times are bad for Rudy's crew. Just as Giuliani is hunkering down for his electoral Alamo in Florida, Bernie Kerik got knocked down yesterday before even getting a chance to get his gloves on.

The judge disqualified his lawyer from the case because he'd been present when Kerik had given several false statements to his lawyers, which were then transmitted to the Bronx district attorney's office. This was a "severe" conflict of interest, the judge ruled.

So now Kerik has to get himself a new lawyer. The only good news for him is that, with Giuliani's candidacy annihilated, there's sure to be less media scrutiny when he does finally go to trial.

From the AP:

A federal judge said Thursday that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to his court case, and he gave the Bush administration three weeks to explain why they were destroyed in 2005 and say whether other evidence was destroyed.

Several judges are considering wading into the dispute over the videos, but U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts was the first to order the administration to provide a written report on the matter. The decision is a legal setback for the Bush administration, which has urged courts not to get involved.

The AP also has a helpful rundown on where things stand with the other courts that have looked into the matter:

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Rather than wait for litigation to reach its preordained conclusion, Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has introduced a bill that would overrule EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and instruct him to grant California's waiver.

Right out of the gate, it's got bipartisan support. Cosponsors include Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joseph Lieberman (ID, CT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), John Kerry (D-MA), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bill Nelson (D-FL.) Barack Obama (D, IL), and Roberts Menendez (D-NJ). We'll keep you updated.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) reacting to yesterday's goings-on:

"The conduct of Senate Republicans yesterday was shameless. After weeks of insisting that it is absolutely critical to finish the FISA legislation by February 1, even going so far as to object to a one-month extension of the Protect America Act, they obstructed all efforts to actually work on the bill. Now they want to simply ram the deeply flawed Intelligence Committee bill through the Senate.

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Today's New York Times editorial page puts some nails in the coffin of Giuliani's campaign by introducing readers to the "real Mr. Giuliani" - "a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power." The paper asserts that Giuliani, "whom many New Yorkers" have already come "to know and mistrust," should be known for his "breathtaking" "arrogance and bad judgment" and the manner in which he "shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign." Just yesterday, one of the paper's blogs ("City Room") ran a scathing indictment of Rudy's improper use of public office, as documented by 25 former prosecutors from the N.Y. region. (New York Times)

Presidential hopeful John McCain has a Rick Davis problem. McCain's top political aide, who has worked on and off with the Senator since 1999, was once part of a lobbying firm that provided political advice to anti-democratic, pro-oligarch candidates in the Ukraine. Davis, who some McCain advisers have concerns about, even arranged a meeting between McCain and the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripsaka, whose alleged ties to organized crime and anti-democracy movements are so serious that the U.S. has revoked his visa. (Washington Post)

The Bush administration, which believes in third chances, has appointed Paul Wolfowitz, the disgraced former president of the World Bank and Under Secretary of Defense, as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a high-level advisory panel on arms control that reports to the secretary of state. Wolfowitz will, once again, be providing the government with his wisdom on disarmament, WMD, and nonproliferation. (New York Times)

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The squeeze is on.

You remember how it went last time: with time running out before the end of the congressional summer recess, the administration, with the help of some key Democrats, managed to push through a far-reaching surveillance bill.

And once again, five months later, some of the same conditions have been created. The administration's bill, the Protect America Act, is set to expire February 1st. Republicans and the administration have consistently opposed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's attempts to push that deadline back.

And yesterday they managed to vote down the Senate Judiciary Committee's surveillance bill (which does not have retroactive telecom immunity) and block votes on any amendments to the intelligence committee's version, which does contain such immunity. As the Republicans have demonstrated, the Senate's rules make it easy for the minority to make trouble.

The table is set for Monday, when the Senate will vote on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) attempt to end debate on the intel committee's bill. That motion to invoke cloture will need 60 votes to pass. If it does pass, then the Senate would immediately vote on the bill, which civil libertarians dislike for a number of reasons beyond its measure granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms.

The major papers took a look at what happened on the floor yesterday -- particularly the defeat of the SJC bill -- and declare that it was a great day for the telecoms.

Yes, the SJC bill, which contained no retroactive immunity, did get voted down 60-36 with the help of twelve Dems. But it's far from clear that those same twelve Dems would vote to invoke cloture and prevent votes on the various other amendments. One of those Dems, for instance, is Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) who is co-sponsoring an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that would throw the immunity question to the secret FISA court. Will he vote to prevent a vote on his own amendment? That seems unlikely. The Republicans need all twelve of those votes in order to invoke cloture.

So it will become a question of who's getting squeezed. Monday's vote is sure to be in the spotlight. It will be right before the President's State of the Union speech, making it likely the presidential candidates will show. And if that vote for cloture fails (my timid prediction), Sen. Reid has signaled that he'll try to shift the emphasis to the Republicans' obstructionism. Yesterday on the floor he declared: "It appears that the minority, the President, and the Republicans want failure. They don't want a bill. So that's why they're jamming this forward." (You can read a longer transcript of his remarks here.) Whether a media narrative of Republican obstructionism can take hold -- something that certainly hasn't happened so far -- is another question.

OK, here's where things stand with the surveillance bill. There was just a flurry of activity on the Senate floor.

After this morning's vote, where the judiciary committee's bill was killed by Republicans and a handful of Dems, a number of amendments were to be offered -- among them, the Dodd/Feingold bill that would strip retroactive immunity. But the Republicans objected to any of these from coming up for a vote under simple majority rules.

Finally, about twenty minutes ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) moved for a vote on cloture -- that would force an end to debate and trigger a simple majority vote on the underlying Senate intelligence committee version of the bill (which has retroactive immunity). To do that, he'll need 60 votes.

Reid objected to this, said that he would vote against it, and then postponed the vote until Monday. We'll get you Reid's remarks as soon as we have them.

Update: A rough transcript of Reid's remarks are below.

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Here's House intelligence committee Chair Silvestre Reyes' entire statement on the White House's sudden decision to allow them access to documents concerning the warrantless surveillance program:

“I have pushed for eight months to review this material... I don't know why the White House refused to give us access. Now we will be able to view documents used to set up the President's warrantless wiretapping program.”

With the battle over retroactive immunity in the Senate looking pretty good for the administration, they're no doubt looking to the House as the next battleground. And they apparently decided that it would help if they shared a little. They certainly haven't suddenly been struck with a love of inter-branch comity.

As for House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI), he decided that this was an offer he couldn't refuse -- ten Dems on his committee and nine Republicans will get to see the docs, an apparently arbitrarily limitation -- but he remains "disappointed," he said, that the administration is still withholding some documents from this and other programs.

WARNING: Readers with an impatience for administration evasiveness should not watch this video.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson appears to be a student of the Alberto Gonzales School of Congressional Testimony, the main teaching of which is to never answer a question "yes" or "no." And at the first sign of trouble, you'd better spiral into minutiae and hope the Senator's time runs out.

The first time around, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) didn't know quite what he was up against. But as someone who went toe to toe with the Dean of Evasion himself, and as a former prosecutor, he was ready for round two.

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After more than two years of review and delay, the EPA finally shot down California's attempt to crack down on greenhouse gases with a state law. And when EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson finally issued that decree, it was not accompanied by the usual bulk of agency legal and technical analysis. Rather, it came in the form of a press release on December 19th, which just happened to be the same day that the President signed the new energy bill.

In case the connection was lost on anyone, the EPA's press release proclaimed the decision to deny California's waiver with the title, "America Receives a National Solution for Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions." Johnson was quoted as saying "The Bush Administration is moving forward with a clear national solution – not a confusing patchwork of state rules – to reduce America’s climate footprint from vehicles." We've posted the press release in full below.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) wanted to know if just maybe there was a connection. Johnson, of course, did not oblige with a direct answer. And as the questioning proceeded, Sanders' patience thinned and his voice raised:

Oddly enough, Johnson's first explanation for the timing indicated a coup to curb a staff revolt. EPA internal documents had been leaked to the press, he said, and they were misrepresenting "what actually was true." So he made the judgment call to announce the decision rather than "having inaccurate information" out there.

Two observations on this.

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Well, one down. The Senate just voted to kill (table) the Senate Judiciary Committee's surveillance bill, which did not contain retroactive immunity for the telecoms. The vote was 60-36 to table, with a number of Dems crossing over. As we said earlier, a number of other amendments will also go up for votes this afternoon.

Among the Democrats voting to kill the SJC bill were Sens. Mark Pryor (AK), Daniel Inouye (HI), Claire McCaskill (MO), Mary Landrieu (LA), Ken Salazar (CO) and Tim Johnson (SD).

Update: The final tally was actually 60-36, not 60-34, and the full list of Dems voting to kill were: Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Tom Carper (D-DE), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and Ken Salazar (D-CO).

From the AP:

Ending months of resistance, the White House has agreed to give House members access to secret documents about its warrantless wiretapping program, a congressional official said Thursday.

The Bush administration is trying to convince the House to protect from civil lawsuits the telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without the approval of a court. Congress created the court 30 years ago to oversee such activities.

House Intelligence and Judiciary committee members and staff will begin reading the documents at the White House Thursday, said an aide to Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

They asked for the documents last May and finally got them now as the debate over the surveillance rages and will probably culminate this weekend. Nice.

Remember that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asked for the full Senate to have access to such documents last year, a request that seems to have been ignored.

For most of the hearing this morning, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has been doing his bureaucratic best to descend into minute discussions of the law ("Section 209" of the Clean Air Act is a favorite hobby horse), extended discussions of process, and the like. But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) didn't have time for that.

Every time Sanders asked a question and Johnson made his monotone parry, Sanders struck back to the heart of the issue.

Is global warming a major crisis facing the planet? he wanted to know.

"I don't know what you mean by major crisis," Johnson responded.

"The usual definition of the term "major crisis" would be fine." The reason Sanders wanted to know, he said, is that Johnson's decision to deny the waiver would make sense if the Bush administration didn't think global warming was something worth getting worked up about.

Johnson chose "serious issue" as his preferred term, and then returned to discuss Section 209 again.

Sanders wanted to know if Johnson thought that global warming was due to human activity. It took Johnson a paragraph and another exchange to say yes.

Then do you believe that "bold action" is needed to reverse it? Sanders wanted to know.

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So here is where the FISA debate, which kicked off in earnest this morning, stands.

The first vote today will be on the Senate Judiciary Committee's version of the surveillance legislation, which contains no retroactive immunity for the telecoms who collaborated with the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. That will be at two o'clock this afternoon. There is no agreement that such a vote meet a 60-vote threshold, so when the Republicans move to block that bill, the vote will be held on a 50-vote threshold. If they win that vote, then the bill will revert back to the Senate intelligence committee's bill, which has a retroactive immunity provision.

After that will come a number of amendments, among them Sens. Chris Dodd's (D-CT) and Russ Feingold's (D-WI), which contains a provision to strip the immunity from the bill. Reid says that he supports such a bill. And he said today that Republicans will have to actually filibuster if they want to stop any of the amendments from getting a simple majority vote:

"As I have said before, if there are Senators who don't like these amendments and think they should be subjected to 60-vote thresholds, these Senators are going to have to engage in an old-fashioned filibuster. These amendments are by and large germane, and I believe they should be adopted if a majority of the Senate supports them."

You can Reid's entire statement here.

When Reid said something similar yesterday, a number of people interpreted it as in reference to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) who has said that he would filibuster any bill that contained retroactive immunity. Now it seems as if that remark was meant for everyone.

As for what happens next, I think we'll just have to wait and see. We'll keep you updated.

The EPA's catch-us-if-you-can game with Congress is not the norm, Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said in kicking off this morning's hearing (airing on C-Span), declaring, "In all my years in the House and the Senate, I've never seen such disregard and disrespect.... I've never seen anything like it."

She went on to describe what her staff had to do to actually take notes on the EPA staff's recommendation on California's greenhouse gas waiver, even producing a visual aid. The documents with "sensitive" information on them had been covered with white tape, she said, and her staff had to pull it off to see -- a task which took 5 1/2 hours to review 46 pages (read what they said here). She produced a visual aid, a heap of the tape; saying "this is what they did to us."

Update: Here's the transcript:

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Though the CIA recently asserted that Bhutto was assassinated by al-Qaida, Dell Dailey, the State Department's counterterrorism chief admits that "there's gaps in intelligence," because "we don't have enough information about what's going on there. Not on al-Qaida. Not on foreign fighters. Not on the Taliban." Dailey said this makes him "uncomfortable," especially since more than 40% of Pakistanis support or feel sympathetic to al-Qaida. (ABC's "The Blotter")

Already facing a variety of legal problems, Blackwater may soon be facing financial ones as well. The security company's contract with the State Department runs out in May and with the ongoing investigations into the company's activities in Iraq - and the possibility of indictments in the future - it's possible that the contract will not be renewed. (Time)

Though one might consider suicide to be the ultimate bad side effect of any drug, for decades the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has paid scant attention to the psychiatric impact of medicines. The FDA has changed course and set new rules - perhaps the "most profound changes of the past 16 years" - but the agency's new policies remain hidden from the public because FDA oversight of experimental drugs is conducted in secrecy. (New York Times)

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Finally, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson gets to show what stuff he's made of. Is he your garden variety Bush appointee who shoots off arbitrary and lawless decrees from behind his desk? Or is he the type who'll go before Congress, lead with his chin, and declare his loyalty from the rooftops?

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate environmental committee, rolled out the red carpet for Johnson yesterday, when she released notes that her staff had taken on internal EPA briefing documents (you can see them below). They showed, as has been reported, that Johnson's staff recommended granting California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. But Johnson ignored that and denied it anyway.

It was a battle for Boxer's committee just to see these documents. The EPA sent over heavily redacted versions, arguing that they were protected by executive privilege -- specifically that cherished privilege against "needless public confusion" over the staff advising one thing and the political appointees declaring another.

Since the EPA leadership refused to release the offending documents, Boxer's staffers had to go over and copy them themselves. Reports the AP, "EPA officials asked that the information be kept private, but Boxer's staff told EPA they wouldn't agree to that condition, and they released the excerpts to reporters Wednesday."

So what was Johnson's rationale? He said in his two-page letter that global warming is "fundamentally global in nature" and so California didn't meet the "compelling and extraordinary conditions" necessary to pass such a law. But his staff had said just the opposite: "California continues to have compelling and extraordinary conditions in general (geography, climatic, human and motor vehicle populations - many such conditions are vulnerable to climate change conditions) as confirmed by several recent EPA decisions." And if Johnson went ahead and denied the waiver anyway, his staff told him, California would sue, and as one briefing slide told him, "EPA likely to lose suit."

That suit, led by California and joined by 15 other states (Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut,
Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington) is pressing on.

You can expect Johnson to stick to his guns, even as he tips his hat to his staff for a job well done (though ignored). ("What it shows is quality staff work," Jonathan Shradar, acting EPA press secretary, said of the excerpts.) He's also sure to be grilled about whether he decided to buck his staff on his own:

Among the questions Boxer is expected to ask Johnson is what discussions he had with the White House before reaching his waiver decision. Records show that auto executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney and dropped off documents at the White House arguing against the waiver request.

The notes Boxer released yesterday are below:

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And ... into Florida. The Mike Huckabee-supporting push poll group Common Sense Issues has stormed further south. The group's executive director Patrick Davis tells me that they planned to call "over 2.5 million homes" in Florida before the weekend. They'll also be calling "close to 200,000" homes in Missouri in anticipation of Super Tuesday. That will put the group's total calls this election so far at nearly 8.5 million.

When I asked Davis if he thought that the calls had helped Huckabee in South Carolina, considering the outcome and the negative press about the calls, he said "absolutely." Though "we would have liked to come out on top," he said, the calls "helped to define the issues for the voters making the decisions and differentiating between each candidate."

To refresh your memory, the calls are done in a poll format. Davis let me listen to the Florida call.

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A couple of days ago, a group called Citizens United Not Timid filed papers with the IRS as a "527" organization. Then we saw that Roger Stone had signed on as the group's "assistant treasurer." Uh oh.

Stone, regular TPM readers know, is a Republican operative who prides himself as something of an elder statesman of GOP dirty tricks. He went to work for Richard Nixon at age nineteen, making him the "youngest Watergate dirty trickster." He continues to idolize the man, even sporting a tattoo of Nixon's face between his shoulder blades. On his website, the StoneZone, he proudly touts Nixon's endorsement of him as "one of the very few excellent political professionals."

His career with the GOP took off from there, leading to spots with Ronald Reagan's campaigns, Bob Dole's presidential campaign, two of Sen. Arlen Specter's (R-PA) campaigns (Specter reportedly counts him as a friend), among others. James Baker tapped him to lead street protests in Florida to shut down the recount in 2000. Most recently, he was hired by New York Republicans for their battle with Gov. Elliot Spitzer (D), a gig that exploded when he was accused of making a threatening phone call to Spitzer's 83 year-old father (Stone denied it).

So what's Stone up to? Fortunately, he laid the whole scheme out to The Weekly Standard.

It's this simple: it's all about the group's acronym, which, used in conjunction with Hillary Clinton, is supposed to be irresistibly humorous. That is the beginning and the end of it. The group will not be running ads in any form and will not be making any robocalls. They'll be making T-shirts. That's it. You can buy them for $25 on their website:

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Speaking to reporters today, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) said that he would again filibuster any bill that a provision in it granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms -- or as he put it, "use every tool at my disposal as a Senator" to stop it. So if you were wondering whether anything has changed since Dodd dropped out of the presidential race, nothing has.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) sent a letter to President Bush today to ask that he support an extension to the existing surveillance bill -- which seems very unlikely to happen. That letter's below.

Update: Sure enough, Cheney said at the Heritage Foundation today that "We're reminding Congress that they must act now."

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Congress is busy with some pretty weighty issues these days: the faltering economy, Iraq and government surveillance just to name a few. And it seems that no one's got the time to respond when the administration tells Congress to stick their subpoenas where the sun don't shine.

Last summer, former White House counsel Harriet Miers didn't even show up in response to a House Judiciary Committee subpoena for testimony related to the U.S. attorney firings. They got an empty chair (see above). The same went for Karl Rove in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both argued that executive privilege protected them from even appearing to invoke that privilege. The two committees also subpoenaed White House chief of staff Josh Bolten for documents and got nothing in return.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) promptly got a contempt citation passed in his committee for both Miers and Bolten in late July, shortly before the summer recess. But it's not official until passed by the full House. When Congress returned, though, nothing happened. Then a vote was supposedly imminent in November -- Conyers even issued a final warning to the White House. But then the vote didn't come (Iraq and FISA got in the way, top Dems said). Then it was supposed to come shortly after the winter recess. Now, well, you know:

Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks....

“Right now, we’re focused on working in a bipartisan fashion on [the] stimulus,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), indicating that the contempt vote is not expected for weeks, depending on how quickly the stimulus package moves....

“When we have the votes, we’ll go ahead with this. Right now, the votes are just not there,” said one top House Democratic insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

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As a preview of Attorney General Michael Mukasey's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday, all ten Democrats on the committee signed a letter to him today from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asking whether he can finally tell them whether he thinks waterboarding is torture or not.

During his confirmation hearing, Mukasey made his infamous "massive hedge" about whether the technique was torture. He promised to institute a review and has apparently followed through. "It has been over two months since then, ample time for you to study this issue and reach a conclusion," the Dems write.

They want answers to two different questions:

1. Is the use of waterboading as an interrogation technique illegal under U.S. law, including treaty obligations?

2. Based on your review of other coercive interrogation techniques and the legal analysis authorizing their use, what is your assessment of whether such techniques comply with the law?

The full letter is below.

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With Republicans blocking any attempts for an extension to the administration's surveillance bill, the pressure is on (last time that didn't go so well).

The Senate will have two choices when debate begins this Thursday: the Senate intelligence committee's version, which would grant retroactive immunity for the telecoms that participated in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, or the Senate Judiciary Committee's version, which would not. Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) himself opposes retroactive immunity, he struck a deal with the two committee chairmen to hold a vote first on the intelligence committee's version, and then have a vote on Leahy's version as an amendment. Civil liberty advocates say that move slants the debate in favor of a bill with immunity.

The New York Times takes the lay of the land:

“In the end, I think something like the Intelligence Committee bill would pass — with the immunity,” said a senior Democratic official who opposes the immunity plan and insisted on anonymity. “I don’t know that it’s possible to get anything through the Senate that doesn’t grant the telecom companies immunity.”

Meanwhile, the White House seems primed to force the issue. And what PR push would be complete without a Dick Cheney speech at the Heritage Foundation? He's scheduled to give one today.

Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) ties with indicted Chicago developer Antoin Rezko are back in the news after Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) brought them up in last Monday's Democratic presidential debate. Obama has "been accused of no wrongdoing" in the case against Rezko - who is scheduled to begin trial next month - but his relationship with the businessman dates back to before the beginning of his political career in the early 1990s. (Chicago Tribune)

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt (R-MO) announced yesterday that he will not be seeking re-election. In a statement Blunt, whose administration has been caught up in scandal, said that he was retiring "with the knowledge that we have achieved virtually everything I set out to accomplish." (Kansas City Star)

Representative William Jefferson (D-LA) recently appeared in court papers of a diamond executive in Botswana because he accepted four funded trips there beginning in 2001. Jefferson violated House ethics rules because he failed to report three of the trips which were designed convince Jefferson to oppose bans on "blood diamonds." In 2001, Jefferson had co-sponsored the "Clean Diamonds Act" but he withdrew his support just before taking his first trip to Botswana. (The Hill)

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Somebody had to do it. And hooray to the Center for Public Integrity and Fund for Independence in Journalism for doing it.

The groups counted and documented every Bush administration false statement made in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Every one. It was a bit like counting snowflakes, to be sure, but here's what they came up with:

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

Or there's this, if you'd like a visualization:

You can relive every moment of the war hype on the site by watching videos, going over every false statement, and more. Remember Dick Cheney's "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."? And President Bush's "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."? The project even comes replete with a search function.

(Unfortunately, CPI's site seems to be groaning under the pressure of interest in the project, so you'll have to be patient. It's been loading slowly this morning.)

And the White House's response to the study was as expected:

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

So much for that 30-day extension. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shot that down for the second time just now, setting the stage for what's sure to be an engaged debate later this week -- which Sen. Reid said will occur "maybe Thursday."

In March of last year, the Justice Department launched an internal probe of the U.S. attorney firings to be led by its inspector general, the widely-respected Glenn Fine, and the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Ever since then, things have been pretty quiet, except when Fine would confirm to Congress that he'd widened his probe to include the general politicization of the Justice Department, whether Alberto Gonzales tried to coach his former aide Monica Goodling on her testimony to Congress, and other outgrowths of the scandal. He's still not done. And given the scope of his probe that's understandable. The report could serve as a comprehensive indictment of Gonzales' Justice Department. Fine has the option of referring his findings for a criminal investigation or investigations.

The Hill reported this morning that all indications are that the investigators have been following through, interviewing all nine of the fired U.S. attorneys and "scores of staffers." And although Fine has never said when the probe will wrap-up, the Hill cites "one source close to the investigation" who "expects the offices to issue a scathing report within the next three months." We'll see.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has a busy week ahead of him. And near the top of the list is somehow getting a surveillance bill through the Senate in the next week. On February 1st, the administration's Protect America Act expires.

When he tried to get a thirty-day extension to that date last month, Republicans blocked it. So this morning he said on the Senate floor that he'd try again. The time pressures are real, he said, and suggested that even if the Senate were to somehow pass a bill, it would be mighty difficult to get it through the House and to the president's desk before February 1st. The Senate itself will be a high hurdle, with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) filibustering over a retroactive immunity provision on the one hand and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) saying that the authority for warrantless wiretapping stems from the Constitution on the other.

"Failure to extend the present law for one month could lead to the laws no longer being something that guides what happens in this country," Reid said, adding "some may want that."

Stay tuned.

More about those calls. I spoke to Robert Morrow by phone just now, and he confirmed to me that he'd been making automated phone calls into South Carolina. "Absolutely," he said. But when I asked how many South Carolinians he'd called, he wouldn't say.

He also said that he himself was responsible for the calls, not any group that he'd formed. "I'm a grassroots activist. My efforts come from Robert Morrow." He also wouldn't tell me how much the calls had cost or who had done them for him, because he didn't "want the opposition to know." When I asked if he could do them from home, he only said "you can if you want to."

I also asked if he planned to make more calls in South Carolina or other states, and he said he "might."

He helpfully forwarded the call script, which he read on the calls himself, and I've pasted it below. "It's very important to understand that everything I say and email you I back up with facts," he told me.

So far, we've been contacted by four TPM readers who received the calls, and a commenter to my last post, "Jerry," also got one. We'll be posting the audio of the call sent in by TPM Reader RW momentarily.

Update: Here it is:

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From the Sun-Sentinel:

In a significant departure from federal sentencing guidelines and prosecutors wishes, Jose Padilla, the man government officials once accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb on U.S. soil, will spend 17 years and 4 months in a maximum security prison for his role in a South Florida terror support cell, a Miami federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Padilla's recruiter Adham Hassoun was given 15 years and 8 months and co-defendant Kifah Jayyousi received 12 years, 8 months. The three men faced possible life sentences.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke announced her decisions after taking the long weekend to consider legal arguments and emotional testimony from friends and relatives of the men.

Referring to Padilla, the judge said: "He was held in hard conditions. The government argued that I could not take that into consideration…I disagree."

We've gotten reports from two TPM readers in South Carolina that they received a negative robo call this morning about Hillary Clinton. Here's TPM reader RB's description:

I am listening to a robocall smear against Hillary Clinton repeating all kinds of rumors from the Bill Clinton years, like an FBI agent said on inauguration day that Hillary Clinton was in a fury--screaming and ranting because she couldn’t have Al Gore’s office, “when Bill dropped his pants” with Monica Lewisky and his “harem in the White House,” she had “affairs with Vince Foster,” etc. The call repeats “Can you trust her?” over and over. Says things like Hillary treats women like they are “invisible.”

Caller ID said the number was “unavailable,” but at the end of the call, the voice says, “Robert Morrow on behalf of everybody who has been violated by Hillary and Bill…Hillary sure says a lot of things, but can you trust her…”

TPM Reader SB also got a call from a Robert Morrow this morning, which he described this way: "This morning we got a robocall -- recorded message -- about Hillary Clinton. It talked about Vincent Foster and about cats." The caller ID said "out of area," he says.

So who is Robert Morrow? And how many calls should South Carolinians expect from him?

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The Washington Post gives a thorough rundown here.

A shorter rundown would go something like this: the Clinton administration, after getting into trouble over losing some White House emails, had a perfectly good system in place by the end of its term. But the Bushies threw that out the window for no apparent reason when they came in and didn't put anything in its place. Whether deviousness or incompetence is to blame is unclear.

Ouch. Federal probation officers have taken a look at Brent Wilkes' case and decided that he deserves a 60 year sentence. And that's not even the prosecutors' recommendation. It's hard to believe they could ask for more. It would be far and away the most severe sentence to be handed down in the recent spate of bribery prosecutions. Come to think of it, can any readers think of a more severe sentence ever handed down for government corruption?

Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos knows this is bad news, and so has asked for extra time to prepare a counter-argument. Among the things he objects to: the recommendation was based on the assumption that all $90 million of Wilkes' federal contracts were the result of bribing Duke Cunningham. Not so, says he (even though the jury convicted him on all thirteen counts). At least some of that he got fair and square. We look forward to him fighting that out.

Last week Defense Secretary Robert Gates toured the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston, S.C. where the military is producing 1,200 “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected” (MRAP) trucks every month and boasted that the military has not suffered a single casualty with the trucks during 12 roadside attacks. But just yesterday, the military suffered a fatality and three injuries when a MRAP truck ran over a roadside bomb. Though the crew compartment remained intact, hopes for the new vehicle have been questioned. (UPI, New York Times)

Though President Bush is under pressure from fiscal conservatives in Congress and budget watchdog groups, it is unlikely that he will challenge Congress’ billions of dollars in earmarks. Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) has suggested that any challenges to Congress’ pork business could jeopardize Bush’s relationship with Congress. The 2008 spending bills signed by Bush contain at least 11,700 earmarks worth $16.9 billion. These figures mark a decline since Republican control of Congress. (New York Times)

The ethics committees of the House and Senate disagree on how to interpret new rules covering tickets to events sponsored by charities. Previously, lobbyists were allowed to request event sponsors to invite (and provide free tickets to) elected officials who would then be seated at the lobbyists' tables. The House ethics committee has interpreted the new rules to allow lobbyists to continue the practice, while the Senate committee argues that it is now prohibited. (The Hill)

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As Rudy's improvised lose - every - early - primary - but - then - somehow - win - Florida strategy unravels to its thrilling conclusion, it's worth stepping back and pondering what could have been. A Giuliani White House. An administration that would have made the Bush Administration seem a marvel of technocracy and moderation by comparison.

The New York Times, with perhaps a touch of nostalgia, gives a taste this morning by looking back on Rudy's years as mayor.

The irrefutable thesis of the short history is that Rudy led an administration that would go to any means to punish any critic for any transgression no matter how petty. Loyalty was the watchword and pretty much the only thing that mattered. It certainly didn't matter that certain tactics might stretch the law; the Times reports that "New York City spent at least $7 million in settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years."

You can pick your own favorite example from the piece (maybe the guy who blew the whistle on an NYPD traffic trap to the New York Daily News, and then was subsequently arrested by the NYPD on a 13 year-old traffic charge and falsely branded a convicted sodomite by the NYPD spokeswoman?). There are certainly plenty to choose from. For my money, though, I've got to go with this one:

Mr. Giuliani’s war with the nonprofit group Housing Works was more operatic. Housing Works runs nationally respected programs for the homeless, the mentally ill and people who are infected with H.I.V. But it weds that service to a 1960s straight-from-the-rice-paddies guerrilla ethos.

The group’s members marched on City Hall, staged sit-ins, and delighted in singling out city officials for opprobrium. Mr. Giuliani, who considered doing away with the Division of AIDS Services, became their favorite mayor in effigy.

Mr. Giuliani responded in kind. His police commanders stationed snipers atop City Hall and sent helicopters whirling overhead when 100 or so unarmed Housing Works protesters marched nearby in 1998. A year earlier, his officials systematically killed $6 million worth of contracts with the group, saying it had mismanaged funds.

Housing Works sued the city and discovered that officials had rescored a federal evaluation form to ensure that the group lost a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Martin Oesterreich, the city’s homeless commissioner, denied wrongdoing but acknowledged that his job might have been forfeited if Housing Works had obtained that contract.

“That possibility could have happened,” Mr. Oesterreich told a federal judge.

The mayor’s fingerprints could not be found on every decision. But his enemies were widely known.

“The culture of retaliation was really quite remarkable,” said Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, the lawyer who represented Housing Works. “Up and down the food chain, everyone knew what this guy demanded.”

In the culture of retaliation, even humor had its price:

“There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, who served as environmental commissioner under Mr. Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.”

But a Giuliani Administration is not to be. Oh, well. This muckraker's loss is the country's gain.

From The New York Times:

Lawyers for Majid Khan, a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have challenged the Central Intelligence Agency’s assertion that videotaping of interrogations stopped in 2002, saying that Mr. Khan’s interrogations after that time were recorded on videotape.

This isn't the first time there's been a hint of this. As we noted here, another detainee has claimed to have seen cameras in the interrogation rooms, and prosecutors have indicated in a filing that there are two currently existing videotapes of interrogations.

Also, here's our rundown of Khan's case.

Just part of the Bush administration economic stimulus plan: big business for companies insuring federal workers. From The New York Times:

When Al Qaeda attacked the United States in 2001, Wright & Company was insuring about 17,000 federal employees against the legal hazards of their work. Today, that total has nearly doubled to 32,000, Wright executives say, spurred in part by a spate of lawsuits, investigations and criminal prosecutions related to mistreatment of detainees from Iraq to Guantánamo Bay, an immigration crackdown and other aftershocks of 9/11. The insurance is popular with F.B.I. agents, Secret Service officers, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers as well as C.I.A. officers.

“The things that help us are any negative events related to the federal government, and there have been plenty,” said Bryan B. Lewis, Wright’s president and chief executive, who holds a security clearance that allows him to discuss his clients’ secret business.

Yes, times are good.

One of the latest to draw on his policy is Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who ordered the destruction of the torture tapes. He's used it to pay for heavy-hitter Bob Bennett, the Times reports, though how long that's going to last him, nobody knows (Bennett charges up to $900 per hour). He's covered for up to $200,000 in fees to represent him against Congress' probe, and $100,000 in fees for the criminal probe.

We know what President Bush thinks of the National Intelligence Estimate which inconveniently concluded "with high confidence" that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. As he put it, the intelligence community sometimes comes to conclusions "separate from what I may or may not want."

But John Bolton has a way of striking to the heart of the issue. From The Jerusalem Post:

The 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate, as well as the skewed reporting around it, is a sign of the "illegitimate politicization" of the American intelligence establishment, according to former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton....

"I know the people who wrote this intelligence estimate," Bolton continued. "They are not from our intelligence community. They're from our State Department. It was a highly politicized document written by people who had a very clear policy objective."

Hypocritical as it might seem for a former Bush administration official to decry "politicization" of the government, Bolton is actually quite canny in his phrasing here. His problem is with "illegitimate" politicization, not politicization in general. That's because, as he explains, "in our system, constitutional legitimacy flows from the president, who was elected, through his officials."

It's official! The EPA-California greenhouse gas affair has matured into the promised knock-down-drag-out fight it showed promise to become. That's right, barely a month into it, and we've already got an assertion of executive privilege.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, we know, is no shrinking violet. He has chutzpah in deep reserve. He showed that by denying California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks over the reportedly universal objection of his staff and with sure knowledge that his move would ultimately be reversed in court. His explanation? The Bush administration already has a comprehensive policy. So California's meddling is not welcome.

Immediately after his decision, Johnson was set upon by two Californians with subpoena power: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the Senate environmental committee, and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House oversight committee. They demanded documents -- documents that will reportedly show EPA staff advising Johnson he had to grant the waiver. But those documents have been a long time coming.

On Friday, Boxer's committee got their first batch. But... many of the pages were completely blank. The AP reports that "everything except the titles was omitted from 16 pages of a 43-page Power Point presentation" included in the documents (one of the slides reportedly reads "EPA likely to lose suit" -- I'm guessing that's one of the whited-out ones).

The reason, EPA associate administrator Christopher P. Bliley wrote, was that the "EPA has identified an important Executive Branch confidentiality interest in a number of these documents" -- code for executive privilege. Or executive privilege of a sort. Boxer and her staff could visit the EPA and see the complete unredacted documents, but they couldn't keep copies of them.

Bliley gave three reasons for invoking that privilege (you can read his letter in full here). The first is a familiar one: a supposed "chilling effect" that would result from disclosing internal deliberations "in a broad setting." But the second reason is one I haven't seen before. It deserves to be quoted in full:

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The U.S. military asserts that attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq that involve Iranian bombs have sharply declined (sub. req.) and that the influx of Iranian weapons has also waned. Rear Adm. Gregory Smith asserted that "the number of signature weapons that had come from Iran and had been used against coalition and Iraqi forces are down dramatically except for this short uptick in the EFPs in the early part of January," yet these remarks were preceded by allegations from Gen. David Petraeus last week that EFP attacks had risen by a factor of two or three recently. (Wall Street Journal)

For approximately one week, Canada placed the U.S. on a “torture watch list.” But as a result of complaints from the U.S., Canada’s foreign minister has conceded that his nation “wrongly” included “some of our closest allies.” The U.S. Ambassador to Canada argued that it was “offensive for us to be on the same list with countries like Iran and China,” but Amnesty International noted that Canada’s primary concern should “should not be” whether it is “embarrassing allies.” (Think Progress, BBC News)

For the fourth time in fewer than three years, the highest ranking editor or the publisher of the Los Angeles Times has been forced out for taking a stand against newsroom job and budget cuts. The paper’s top editor, James O’Shea, resisted calls by publisher, David Hiller to cut the news budget by $4 million. (New York Times)

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We spent a good deal of time in the 2006 elections tracking the activity of third party groups on the right, groups with anonymous names like the Economic Freedom Fund. Funded by the most part by millionaire home-builder (and former Swift Boat patron) Bob Perry, the groups swooped in to attack Dem candidates throughout the country, airing radio, TV, and print ads and calling hundreds of thousands of voters with push polls.

But Perry only gave about $9 million to such groups that year. Freedom's Watch, with its close White House connections and network of Bob Perrys, is a whole new breed.

The group aims to raise and spend approximately $250 million for the 2008 cycle, a vast amount of money they apparently plan to use not only on the presidential election, but to greater effect in numerous House and Senate races throughout the country, where six figures can go a long way.

To review the White House connections: the group is headed by Bradley Blakeman, a former Bush White House official, Mel Sembler, a millionaire former Bush admbassador to Italy, and Ari Fleischer, who serves as the group's spokesman. Much of its support so far has come from Sembler and casino magnate and billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the sixth richest person in the world. (The group intends to "broaden its base" as time goes on, Fleischer says.) The group got off the ground with a $15 million effort to support the president's surge strategy in August, but it's sticking around for the long haul.

The Washington Post headlines its takeout on the group "A Conservative Answer to MoveOn." To which the founder responds:

Wes Boyd, who co-founded MoveOn.org with his wife in their home in Berkeley, Calif., said the two groups are fundamentally different because his liberal organization was set up outside the influence of Democratic Party operatives and is funded primarily by small-dollar donors around the country.

Freedom's Watch, on the other hand, is "doing attack ads by Beltway operatives, financed by billionaires, at the request of the White House," Boyd said by e-mail. "MoveOn helps millions of real people get engaged and be heard and is solely funded by these same people."

Whether Freedom's Watch is the right's MoveOn or not -- and at least for now the comparison is silly -- they're sure to be a major factor in the elections this year. A special election in December showed how:

Adelson personally wrote an $80,000 check to Freedom's Watch on Dec. 7... just four days before the election that gave Republican Robert Latta the House seat representing the district around Bowling Green. Behind a blood-red foreground, the group's ad showed Latinos hurrying under fences and being frisked by police as a narrator accused Democratic candidate Robin Weirauch and "liberals in Congress" of supporting free health care for illegal immigrants....

After Latta won, the DCCC chairman, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), issued a memo warning fellow Democrats about the new independent group gunning for them. Van Hollen's campaign committee has $31 million, compared with $2.3 million for the Republicans' committee, but he is deeply concerned that independent groups on the right are now engaged in congressional races while liberal groups are focused on the presidential race.

When it comes to political money, "there's a whole other universe out there," Van Hollen said he told Democrats. "Don't get lulled into a false sense of security."

They say everything is bigger in Texas. And sure enough, if you've ever seen a bigger legal mess than the case of Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina, we'd love to hear about it.

Last June, the Medinas' house burned down in a fire that spread to two other houses, causing a total of about $900,000 in damages. Investigators suspected arson when they found an accelerant in the Medinas’ garage where the fire started. And the discovery that the house had been in foreclosure a year earlier deepened their suspicion. Medina and his wife gave conflicting accounts of the judge’s whereabouts at the time of the fire.

So Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal (R) duly convened a grand jury to examine the evidence. After deliberating three months past the scheduled end of its term, the jurors told prosecutor Vic Wisner on Thursday to prepare the indictments.

Wisner refused.

According to jury foreman Bob Ryan, “He slammed the door and left.” Later, Wisner thought better of that and agreed to prepare the indictments.

Medina was charged with tampering with or falsifying evidence, and his wife with arson, both felonies. Arson carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; tampering with an investigation, a maximum of 10 years. They were set free on bail—$20,000 for Mrs. Medina and $5,000 for the judge.

The next day, Rosenthal dismissed the charges.

Ryan, who’s served as foreman on grand juries at least four times, was not happy: “This is ludicrous.... Mr. Rosenthal never put his head in the door and heard one word of testimony.”

Both Ryan and the assistant foreman, Jeffrey Dorrell, alleged that the jury was given to understand, before hearing any evidence, that the case had no merit.

“It was theater of the absurd,” observed Dorrell. "We knew before we handed the indictment down that the district attorney was going to refuse to prosecute, but we did it anyway.”

Ryan is considering reconvening the grand jury next week.

To add to the mess, the two have risked breaking a law that mandates the secrecy of grand jury proceedings; both say they haven't actually crossed the line.

But late Friday, Medina’s attorney, Terry Yates, filed a motion asking for a hearing to determine whether Ryan and Dorrell acted illegally. (If held in contempt, the pair could be fined $500 and given 30 days in jail.)

Yates accused them of indicting Medina in order to embarrass Rosenthal: “They've made a mockery of the entire process... This is crazy. This is mind-boggling, what this grand jury has done. This is more than a runaway grand jury. This is a grand jury speeding away in a Lamborghini.”

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