The wages of obscuring a wide-ranging surveillance program are severe, and they force White House spokesmen to enter into absurdity.

Yesterday, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that former Deputy Attorney General James Comey had legal objections to the "much discussed" NSA program known, as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) pointed out, as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Mueller's admission contradicted the sworn testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has now staked his reputation -- and the results of a possible perjury investigation -- on the proposition that Comey objected to "other intelligence activities." You might say this is a bit of a problem for Gonzales.

Not so, says Tony Snow. During Snow's press briefing today, Snow employed the restricted definition of TSP-post-Comey ("that acknowledged program -- the program that the president disclosed to the American people") in order to say that, as Gonzales testified, "that program was not something that was legally controversial." But didn't Mueller's disclosure refute that argument, by conceding that Comey objected to the TSP? Nah, says Snow, because Mueller said "National Security Agency programs" instead of "TSP":

Read more »

Not to worry, America. The continued menace of voter fraud will remain a focus of your Justice Department.

It went overlooked amid the other problems with Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) questioned the attorney general about changes recently made to the Justice Department's election crimes manual. The new version (pdf), which replaced the 1995 manual, lowers the bar in terms of voter fraud prosecutions -- no longer cautioning against pursuing isolated, individual cases of fraud and softening language that had all but prohibited pursuing such cases before an election. "Two and possibly three of the fired U.S. attorneys were fired because they didn't bring those small cases that might affect an election," she observed. "Something's rotten in Denmark."

Feinstein, was referring, of course, to former U.S. attorneys David Iglesias of New Mexico and John McKay of Seattle -- both of whom investigated alleged Democratic instances of voter fraud and chose not to prosecute. Todd Graves of Kansas City, who was replaced by Bradley Schlozman, would be the possible third addition.

You can watch the clip below (a transcript is appended). Gonzales, characteristically, didn't know anything about the change.

There are a couple things to be said about this.

Read more »

Only in the Bush administration.

President Bush's nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was the subject of "at least one complaint of employee abuse," as McClatchy reported Monday. The nominee, David Palmer, was the subject of the complaint when he was (again, prepare yourself for the irony) the chief of the employment litigation section in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Palmer was a career lawyer at the Department, but according to a letter from eight veterans of the section, he became indistinguishable from the political appointees in the way that he led the section:

The Section has failed in its core mission to secure the rights of African-Americans, Hispanics, women, and other protected groups, as the number of cases has declined precipitously. On the other hand, the Section filed two reverse discrimination pattern or practice lawsuits under Mr. Palmer’s tenure. In addition, it immersed itself in defending the rights of employers to discriminate based on religion.

You can read the letter here. It was sent Monday to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which will handle Palmer's nomination.

In a sign that the heat may be building against Palmer's nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) wrote Kennedy and ranking member Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) yesterday to express his "serious concerns" about Palmer's nomination. The letter is posted below.

The reasons for opposing Palmer's nomination, as outlined in the former Department employees' letter, are not limited to his enforcement of discrimination laws. The letter describes a mediocre, plodding lawyer who was arbitrarily promoted over his colleagues to a senior position, and who, once in power, was just plain mean.

Marian Thompson, formerly a statistician in the section, put it plainly to me. Palmer, she said, was just interested in the "trappings of power" and had "no interest, no knowledge, and no interest in knowing of anything of substance in the section."

It's unclear when the committee will hear Palmer's nomination.

Read more »

Let's say -- just, you know, as a hypothetical -- that the U.S. has a difficult time restoring electricity for residents of Baghdad. As Tony Snow famously observed, it's getting up to 130 degrees in the Iraqi capitol right now, and there's not more than an hour or two of power available a day for, say, a refrigerator or an air conditioner. Knowing that's the sort of thing that doesn't incline an Iraqi very well to either the U.S. presence or the Iraqi government, how does the State Department react? According to the Los Angeles Times, the first thing to do is to stop updating Congress about how bad the problem is:

(T)he department now reports on the electricity generated nationwide, a measurement that does not indicate how much power Iraqis in Baghdad or elsewhere actually receive.

The change, a State Department spokesman said, reflects a technical decision by reconstruction officials in Baghdad who are scaling back efforts to estimate electricity consumption as they wind down U.S. involvement in rebuilding Iraq's power grid.

Department officials said the new approach was more accurate than the previous estimates, which they said had been very rough and had failed to reflect wide variations across Baghdad and the country.

"Nothing is being hidden. There is no ulterior motive," said David Foley, the department's Middle East spokesman. "We are continuing to provide detailed information and have been completely transparent."

The State Department's new method shows that the national electricity supply is 4% lower than a year ago, according to the July 11 report.

Add "Baghdad electricity" to the Great List of disappeared information over the last six and a half years. Last one out, please turn on the lights.

Via ex-Justice Department lawyer Marty Lederman, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse released a statement yesterday to reconcile the obvious inconsistencies between Alberto Gonzales's testimony and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey's on warrantless surveillance. Roehrkasse blames Gonzales's woes on the difficulty of publicly discussing classified programs. In other words, no one should expect Gonzales to be candid, but we should nevertheless trust him that Comey wasn't dissenting from the surveillance program that everyone understands as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program."

We humbly recommend that you read our post from last night laying out the probable source of all this "confusion," as Roehrkasse puts it (Democrats would call it dishonesty). In any case, watch Roehrkasse walk the line:

Confusion is inevitable when complicated classified activities are discussed in a public forum, where the greatest care must be used not to compromise sensitive intelligence operations. The Administration first used the term “Terrorist Surveillance Program” in early 2006 to refer publicly to a particular intelligence activity that the President publicly acknowledged and described in December 2005 -- that is, the NSA’s targeting for interception international communications coming into or going out of the United States where the NSA has reasonable grounds to believe that a party to the communication is an agent or member of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization. That is the only intelligence activity that the Attorney General meant when he used the phrase “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”

Read more »

Former employees of the contractor hired to build the American embassy in Iraq testified to observing abuse of foreign employees in construction of the enormous project. The individuals told lawmakers that construction workers were crammed into trailers, paid pittances for their labor, made to work without safety equipment and denied the right to time off for prayers. (McClatchy Newspapers)

The Law Council of Australia, the country's bar association, has released a scathing review of the trial of David Hicks, concluding in their report that, "The 'trial' of David Hicks, which took place in March 2007, was a charade." (Harper's)

We know it's tough keeping track of all of the outstanding investigations against members of Congress; we have a tough time staying on top of all of them as well. Here's a handy list of investigated lawmakers from coast to coast. (NY Times)

The White House has likely come to expect dissent from Sen. Specter (R-PA) when it comes to the capabilities of the Attorney General. But apparently Specter didn't mind rehashing his thoughts on Gonzales to members of the press corps, even if they were on Air Force One. While waiting for the President to ride, the senator (who was hitching a ride back to Washington) broke the unwritten rules of the Presidential plane by criticizing a member of the President's cabinet to onboard reporters. (NY Times)

Read more »

Was Pat Tillman murdered?

Stunning as it is to contemplate, the Associated Press obtained Pentagon documents through the Freedom of Information Act showing that investigators looked into whether the athlete-turned-soldier might have been deliberately killed in 2004 by members of his Special Forces unit in Afghanistan. Nothing the AP obtained is definitive, and ultimately the friendly-fire ruling withstood a criminal investigation.

But, according to the AP, medical examiners questioned the close proximity of three bullet holes in Tillman's forehead, fired from ten yards away. There are questions -- which will be difficult to hear, considering Tillman's heroism -- that Tillman was not well-liked within his unit. Other elements of the circumstances surrounding Tillman's death appear difficult to reconcile with the friendly-fire ruling -- which came after the Army announced that Tillman died in combat:

In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling."

_ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.

_ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions.

_ No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene _ no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.

Almost every aspect of Tillman's death has been surrounded by official obfuscation. The head of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, General William Wallace, is in charge of issuing reprisals to Tillman's commanders. His recommendations, according to Julian Barnes of the Los Angeles Times, are for administrative punishments and not criminal ones. The general who told investigators 70 times of his faulty memory, now-retired Lieutenant General Philip R. Kensinger Jr., will be stripped of one of his stars and lose approximately $900 a month from his retirement package.

On Wednesday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) will hold a hearing about what and when the Pentagon leadership knew about Tillman's death. Kensinger has been invited to testify, as has former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Central Command chief General John Abizaid, and former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers. They're not likely to appear, but the AP's revelations will surely figure prominently in the committee's exploration of what exactly happened to a national hero.

Sure enough, the revelation that FBI Director Bob Mueller kept notes on the March 2004 clash in John Ashcroft's hospital room has made House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) very interested in seeing what those notes reveal. Just out from Conyers:

The Honorable Robert S. Mueller, III

Director

Federal Bureau of Investigation

935 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20535

Dear Director Mueller:

During today’s Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, you testified in response to questions from Rep. Artur Davis that you had taken or made notes regarding conversations that you had with former Deputy Attorney General James Comey (who at the time was Acting Attorney General) and former Attorney General John Ashcroft (who at the time had transferred his Attorney General duties to Mr. Comey) regarding a March 10, 2004, hospital visit involving former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and former Chief of Staff to the President Andrew Card. You also testified that you still were in possession of those notes, which from your testimony appear to memorialize facts regarding the issues discussed during and after the important events of March 10, 2004.

During the hearing, Representative Davis requested that you provide the Committee with copies of those notes. I write now to formalize that request, and ask that you provide the Committee with copies of the notes to which you referred in your testimony. To the extent that the notes may contain classified information, we are fully prepared to accommodate any such concerns by controlling or limiting storage of, access to, or publication of information contained in the notes.

I would appreciate receiving the notes from you by the close of business on Wednesday, August 1. Your response should be directed to the Judiciary Committee office, 2138 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515 (tel: 202-225-3951; fax: 202-225-7680). Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

Chairman

cc: The Honorable Lamar S. Smith

The Honorable Artur Davis

Interesting fact: If Mueller delivers his notes by August 1 as Conyers asks, the committee will have them just as Alberto Gonzales runs into Sen. Pat Leahy's deadline for the attorney general to revise his much-disputed Tuesday Senate testimony. What a coincidence!

Alberto Gonzales' testimony that there was "no serious disagreement" within the Bush Administration about the NSA warrantless surveillance program has left senators sputtering and fulminating about the attorney general's apparent prevarications. But a closer examination of Gonzales' testimony and other public statements from the Administration suggest that there may be a method to the madness.

There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Gonzales's careful, repeated phrasing to the Senate that he will only discuss the program that "the president described" was deliberate, part of a concerted administration-wide strategy to conceal from the public the very broad scope of that initial program. When, for the first time, Program X (as we'll call it, for convenience's sake) became known to senior Justice Department officials who were not its original architects, those officials -- James Comey and Jack Goldsmith, principally -- balked at its continuation. They did not back down until the program had undergone as-yet-unspecified but apparently significant revisions. But when President Bush announced what he would call the "Terrorist Surveillance Program' in December 2005, he left the clear impression that the program had always functioned the same way since its 2001 inception.

The administration's consistent refusal to discuss any aspect of the program -- current or former -- aside from what President Bush disclosed in December 2005 appears to be intended, specifically, to gloss over Comey and Goldsmith's objections. If that's the case, it could mean that the public has been presented with an inaccurate picture of the origins and scope of Program X. The Bush administration is currently contesting a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documentation establishing Program X's history -- in essence, trying to ensure that the public never learns more about the program and the internal deliberations over it than what President Bush chooses to reveal.

Alberto Gonzales, on this theory, has found himself enmeshed in the administration's attempt to distinguish the less-troublesome Terrorism Surveillance Program from Program X. And it may mean he perjured himself in doing so. Today, Senate Democrats responded to Gonzales's dubious testimony on Tuesday by calling for a perjury investigation. At issue is whether Gonzales' assertions that there was "no serious disagreement" within the government about the TSP was so misleading as to amount to perjury, or whether his distinction between TSP and Program X was merely a careful parsing -- perhaps misleading but not, to use Sen. Arlen Specter's word, actionable.

Read more »

It gets worse and worse for Alberto Gonzales. Today, the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, dealt a serious blow to Gonzales's sworn Senate testimony on Tuesday, just hours after Senate Democrats called for a perjury investigation into the attorney general.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, under questioning from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), conceded that he and James Comey had concerns about the "much discussed" National Security Agency surveillance program. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that Comey had legal objections to "other intelligence activities" than the "much-discussed" Terrorist Surveillance Program. For Gonzales to beat a perjury rap, he must maintain the distinction he created on Tuesday between the TSP and whatever it is Comey is alleged to have dissented from. In the span of a few short seconds, Mueller went a long way toward collapsing the difference.

It's true that Mueller doesn't come out and say the words "Terrorist Surveillance Program," but Lee's questioning left no doubt that Mueller was referring to precisely that program.

Lee: Did you have an understanding that the discussion was on TSP?

Mueller: I had an understanding that the discussion was on a, uh, a, uh -- an NSA program, yes.

Lee: I guess we use "TSP," we use "warrantless wiretapping," so would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?

Mueller: The discussion was on a National -- uh, NSA program that has been much discussed, yes.

Mueller was smiling when he finished saying that. You can bet Gonzales wasn't.

Now here's where it gets good. Under questioning from Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), Mueller admitted that he took and kept notes after speaking with John Ashcroft following the hospital-room showdown between Comey, Gonzales and Card.

Mueller sought legal review over the notes he took, he told Davis:

Davis: Who have you shared them with, prior to today?

Mueller: My counsel.

Davis: Counsel...?

Mueller: Office of the General Counsel.

Davis: OK. Is that the only individual, the Office of the General Counsel?

Mueller: Well, there may have been people in my immediate staff.

Davis wants the House Judiciary Committee to have access to Mueller's notes, but Mueller seemed to resist turning them over. Without specifying much, Mueller said he kept notes on the incident because it was "out of the ordinary." Davis recommended that Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), and the committee's Senate counterpart, "make a formal inquiry to obtain those notes."

FBI Director Mueller tried to remain discreet during today's hearing at the House Judiciary Committee when it came to the Comey-Gonzales showdown in 2004. Mueller confirmed that he had "serious concerns" about "an NSA program," as he termed it. Fears within the Justice Department that the program was illegal, he said,

affected the FBI in the sense that we received pieces of information from the NSA. ... My concern was to assure that whatever activity we undertook as the result of the information we received was done appropriately and legally. At some point in time, (Comey) expressed concern about the legality of it.

This legal doctrine is known as the "fruit of the poisoned tree." That is, Mueller's fear is that if the information he gets from NSA to launch investigations was collected illegally, then any resulting prosecution of potentially dangerous figures will be thrown out of court.

But one thing he wouldn't corroborate is his alleged threat to resign -- a big part of Comey's testimony.

"I would resist getting into that conversation," Mueller told Rep. Steve Cohen (D-NC).

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey started a firestorm in May when he revealed his 2004 standoff in John Ashcroft's hospital room. Comey was positioned opposite former White House officials Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card.

Comey was backed in the encounter by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who allegedly ordered his agents guarding Ashcroft's room not to evict Comey if Gonzales or Card asked them to. Later, he would tell the two White House aides that he was prepared to resign if the President overruled Comey on the wiretapping program.

Responding to questions this afternoon to the House Judiciary Committee's Rep. Melvin Watt (D-NC), Mueller for the first time spoke about the Ashcroft hospital visit -- and backed Comey to the hilt:

Watt: Can you confirm that you had some serious reservations about the warrantless wiretapping program that kind of led up to this?

Mueller: Yes.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said this morning that she and her husband intend to sell back their Kenai riverfront property to Anchorage businessman Bob Penney....

Murkowski told reporters in her Capitol office this morning that Penney, a real estate developer who does business in Alaska and Outside, has agreed to buy back the property for the $179,400 purchase price she and husband Verne Martell paid Dec. 22, 2006.

“While Verne and I intended to make this our family home and we paid a fair price for this land, no property is worth compromising the trust of the Alaska people,” Murkowski said in a written statement. “I cannot allow this to become a distraction from the major challenges faced in representing Alaska. So we have decided to sell this property back to Bob Penney at the same price for which it was purchased.”

Read the post that started Murkowski's headache here.

FBI Director Robert Mueller is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee right now. In one of the more contentious exchanges of an otherwise rather congenial hearing, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) grilled Mueller on the FBI's mishandling of National Security Letter authorities, in which FBI agents obtain data without warrants about individuals "relevant" to terrorism investigations. Mueller emphasized the need for speed in terrorism cases, but Scott had a hard time understanding one thing: Why does the FBI need NSLs if the bureau can obtain warrants after the fact for records under FISA?

Mueller's response? If not for the NSLs, the post-facto warrants mean agents will get bogged down in "paperwork" up to "a quarter-inch thick":

Later in the hearing, Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) helpfully reminded Mueller that NSL-acquired information helps formulate warrant requests under FISA.

Finally, the big one.

The Senate Judiciary Committee issued two more subpoenas as part of the U.S. attorney firings investigation today: one for Karl Rove and the other for his deputy, Scott Jennings. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced the subpoenas on the Senate floor.

The question for Rove and Jennings, of course, is whether to take the same course taken by Rove's former aide, Sara Taylor, who appeared before the committee to answer questions that were not covered by executive privilege -- or to take the approach taken by Harriet Miers, who refused to show up at all.

The subpoenas call for Rove and Jennings to show up on August 2nd and also produce documents by that date.

Update: Leahy's statement is below.

Read more »

Here's some video from this morning's press conference, where Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) announced that they have called for a special prosecutor to investigate Alberto Gonzales' testimony to Congress. Since, as Schumer put it, "the attorney general cannot investigate himself," the four signed a letter to the Solicitor General Paul Clement, who is serving as the acting attorney general in matters where Gonzales is implicated. You can see that letter here.

Schumer, as usual, did not mince words where it comes to Gonzales' credibility ("he tells the half truth, the partial truth and everything but the truth"):

Senate Democrats are calling for a special counsel to investigate whether Alberto Gonzales perjured himself in testimony before Congress, MSNBC is reporting.

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) will be holding a press conference shortly. We'll bring you more soon.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

A government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint Wednesday against U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, charging that her 2006 purchase of an exclusive Kenai riverfront lot was a “sweetheart deal” from Anchorage businessman Bob Penney.

The complaint, brought by Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative-leaning National Law and Policy Center of Falls Church, Va., also charged that Murkowski filed false information about the land deal on her annual financial disclosure and obtained special treatment on a mortgage from the Ketchikan bank where her sister serves as a director....

Boehm said the difference between the price paid and the true value amounted to an illegal gift to Murkowski of between $70,000 and $170,000, based on the estimates of the real estate agents....

Boehm’s 15-page complaint says, “The facts in this case are so strong that it is hard to imagine a more compelling case for violation of the Senate Gift Rule.”

Here's Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaking this morning on CNN about Alberto Gonzales' slippery testimony. Schumer has seen enough:

Rep. Henry Waxman still wants emails. This time, he's asking Fred Fielding for RNC emails from current and former White House officials. He's asking specifically for email regarding Cheney's energy task force, but also for any email related to any investigation prior to March of this year. The deadline is August 17th. (Politico)

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who championed the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, said Tuesday that he will personally review Senate testimony of the two justices in order to see if their recent Supreme Court decisions conflict with promises and opinions they made in the Senate. Specter’s inquiry comes after the court has reversed long-standing precedents. (Politico)

Bechtel, an independent contractor with $1.8 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts, has failed to meet its goals on over half of the projects it agreed to in contract, while several other projects have been canceled or reduced in scope. Guess that's what happens when USAID assigns only two overseers to a contract with 24 projects and over 150 subcontractors. (NY Times)

Read more »

Was it or wasn't it a briefing on the Terrorist Surveillance Program? The answer may determine Alberto Gonzales's fate.

As the world knows, Gonzales testified on Tuesday that James Comey, the former deputy attorney general, may have had legal objections to ... to... well, to some "intelligence activities" by the Bush administration, but not to the surveillance program announced by President Bush in December 2005, known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Stunned lawmakers immediately began talking about perjury charges: the previously-unknown "program" came as very convenient for Gonzales, who had told the Senate on February 6, 2006 that no one within the Justice Department had dissented from the program the "president described."

The crux of the distinction is now a White House meeting with Congressional leaders on the mysterious program that occurred on March 10, 2004. Gonzales told the Senate about the meeting in order to add "context" to his controversial bedside visit that day to recused Attorney General John Ashcroft to "inform" him about Comey's refusal to reauthorize Program X. If Gonzales is telling the truth, then the March 10, 2004 meeting wasn't about the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Unfortunately for him, as the AP first reported, in 2006, then-intelligence chief John Negroponte, wrote to then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to inform him of the dates of the congressional/White House meetings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program. And sure enough, the March 10, 2004 meeting is on Negroponte's list. You can read Negroponte's letter here.

Read more »

The revelation in last week's National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda was that its senior leadership has established a "safe haven" in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. At today's joint House intelligence-armed services committee hearing, five defense and intelligence officials stated that the crucial factor for the development of the safe haven -- which allowed al-Qaeda to rebuild its capabilities -- was a ceasefire accord signed last year between President Pervez Musharraf and tribal leaders in northern Waziristan. Yet even as the ceasefire collapsed earlier this month, following Musharraf's raid on the Red Mosque, members of his government have tried to resurrect it.

Toward the end of the hearing, the acting assistant secretary of defense for international security, Mary Beth Long, conceded to Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) that Musharraf's government is still exploring "small agreements" with the same entities that allowed al-Qaeda to develop its safe haven.

Long didn't seem too exercised about a return to what practically everyone at the hearing acknowledged was a failed policy resulting in a stronger al-Qaeda. She described the approach as a possible "effort to change tribal minds" reminiscent of Anbar tribal shift against al-Qaeda in Iraq. And that wasn't very far out of tune with what the officials testified should be done in Pakistan anyway: while reserving the right to use force if the opportunity presents itself, most, like Defense intelligence chief James Clapper, said that the U.S. ultimately needs to "continue what we're already doing," which consists of helping train and equip Pakistani troops and giving $110 million in aid to the tribal areas. After all, it's an approach that's worked well so far -- at least if your name is Usama bin Laden.

There's been no shortage of controversy and confusion -- to say nothing of manipulation -- over what the relationship is between al-Qaeda in Iraq and the al-Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan's north Waziristan tribal region. Judging from testimony given by intelligence and Pentagon officials this afternoon at a joint House intelligence and armed services committee hearing, it might be best to think of al-Qaeda in Iraq as loosely connected to the main entity, but nevertheless a part of it.

Edward Gistaro, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats -- a principal author of last week's National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda -- called AQI an "al-Qaeda affiliate," which is as good a term as any. al-Qaeda exists around the world as a series of franchise organizations united by a shared ideology, not as an organization with a clear command structure between franchisees and the senior leadership. In response to a question from Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL), Gistaro clarified that he didn't want to portray al-Qaeda as a "monolithical" entity, in which the al-Qaeda senior leadership calls all the shots over its franchisees. That was probably the furthest Gistaro went to contradict President Bush's contention that al-Qaeda in Iraq is essentially the same organization that attacked the U.S. on September 11.

Read more »

The Justice Department sent a letter yesterday to the House Judiciary Committee that made the administration's position official: a U.S. attorney will not enforce a citation of contempt, should it pass the House.

Or as the letter (you can read it here), sent to the committee yesterday by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski, put it:

"As it considers the contempt resolutions, we think it is important that the Committee appreciate fully the longstanding Department of Justice position, articulated during Administrations of both parties, that "the criminal contempt of Congress statute does not apply to the President or presidential subordinates who assert executive privilege."

That last quote is indeed from a 1995 opinion from Clinton's Justice Department, which The Washington Post reported on this weekend. As the Clinton-era DoJ officials behind that memo told the Post, they didn't think that Congress could force the U.S. attorney to prosecute, but did think that the president's assertion of executive privilege should be heard in court.

Of course, the committee chose to press on with the contempt citation anyway, forcing the issue, and the clash will likely nevertheless land in court.

Note: As we've noted earlier, whatever the DoJ has said about it, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeffrey Taylor (or someone in his office if he's forced to recuse himself), will still have to make the ultimate determination as to whether to enforce the contempt citation.

Read more »

Last night The Wall Street Journal reported that Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) annual pig roast fundraiser has snagged him in the widening probe into political corruption in Alaska.

The yearly event for Young has been hosted for the last decade by Bill Allen, former CEO of oil services company Veco. Former Gov. Bill Sheffield (D-AK) is taking over the event this year, probably because Allen just pleaded guilty to federal bribery and conspiracy charges.

The invitation (available here) is less theme-appropriate than years past. It notes that special guests Sens. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) will attend, though it doesn't mention the suggested donations of $250 to $1,000 for individuals and $500 to $5,000 for PACs, which is posted on the Alaska Republican Party's site.

I called the RSVP number, which took me to the Alaskans for Don Young office, to make sure the event is still on for next month. The receptionist there said as far as she knows it is still on.

From the Speaker on this morning's vote:

“The contempt proceedings in the House Judiciary Committee today are part of a broader effort by House Democrats to restore our nation’s fundamental system of checks and balances.

"The Constitution gives the Congress a crucial role in overseeing the Executive Branch in order to protect the American people against overreaching, incompetence, and corruption. I am hopeful that today’s vote will help the Administration see the light and release the information to which the Judiciary Committee is entitled.

"For the last six years, under Republican leadership, Congress failed to conduct its proper oversight role, resulting in fiascos such as the mismanagement of our Iraq policy, widespread corruption by contractors such as Halliburton, and the failed response to Hurricane Katrina.

“Congress will act to preserve and protect our criminal justice system and to ensure appropriate Congressional oversight in all areas essential to the well-being of the American people.”

As we noted earlier, the word is that a vote on this in the full House is unlikely before the August recess, pushing it back to September.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) followed up the House vote this morning with a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, saying that he still hoped the two sides could come to an agreement. That letter is below.

Read more »

The Democrats' case is simple. Former and current White House officials have "absolute immunity" from Congressional subpoenas, according to this administration. And not only can they ignore a subpoena, but if Congress were to try and enforce that subpoena through a citation of criminal contempt, the administration would prohibit the District of Columbia's U.S. attorney from moving forward. That's a contemptible display of executive power, Democrats argue.

But the threat you fear may be worse than the threat you know. Or at least that's what Republicans argued during this morning's debate on whether the House Judiciary Committee ought to cite Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten with contempt. You can see our highlight reel of the back and forth here (Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) lays out the Dems' case towards the end):

Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) laid it all out. There is "no evidence" of wrongdoing by the White House in the U.S. attorney firings, he says. And since there's no wrongdoing, it's likely that Congress will lose its battle with the White House in court. And if they lost, he says, future claims of executive privilege by the White House would be much stronger, since they'd be resting on the Supreme Court's decision. And that would "make the presidency in America, a much stronger, imperial office." Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) agreed, saying that Congress was in danger of handing the White House "a blank check."

A bemused John Conyers (D-MI) responded that he was glad that both sides of the aisle agreed on opposing an imperial presidency. "It's a concern that we share," he said, citing Cannon's concern of creating an imperial presidency. "Please, that's the last thing I want to do."

The citation, of course, passed along party lines.

As expected the House Judiciary Committee approved citations of contempt against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten in a vote just a few minutes ago. The vote was along party lines, 22-17. We'll have more from the committee's meeting shortly.

The AP reports, citing "a senior Democratic official," that "a vote by the full House would most likely happen after Congress' August recess."

The House Judiciary Committee is meeting now to vote on whether to cite former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten with contempt. The result of the vote isn't cause for much suspense, and neither is the probable Republican reaction, given that committee GOPers have consistently backed the White House in the dispute.

In preparation for the hearing, the committee has produced a 52-page memo (pdf) on the U.S. attorney firings in support of the resolution of contempt. The report lays out the numerous ways that administration officials might have broken the law in carrying out and then covering up the firings. The report goes a long way toward meeting the main quibble from Republicans on the committee, that Congress would be likely to lose a court battle over the assertion of executive privilege if they could not show criminal wrongdoing.

We'll have highlights from the hearing up soon after.

It was all going so well for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. After months of withering revelations about his mismanagement of the Justice Department on issues great and small, he appeared secure in his job, thanks to the unflagging confidence of President Bush. But yesterday, he tripped himself up repeatedly during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee -- quite possibly entering perjury territory.

Gonzales's big problem is that he told the Senate on February 6, 2006 that no one within the Justice Department dissented from President Bush's warrantless surveillance program, a contention made dubious by James Comey's testimony in May that, as acting attorney general in March 2004, Comey refused to reauthorize a program he considered illegal. In 2006, Gonzales told the Senate that he was testifying about "what the president has confirmed" exists -- meaning the warrantless surveillance program known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Gonzales yesterday attempted to reconcile his testimony with Comey's by saying that Comey raised objections to a different program than the one Gonzales told the Senate was uncontroversial.

In today's New York Times, Jane Harman -- who until last year was the chief Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and part of the "Gang of Eight" briefed on the surveillance program -- deals a very serious blow to Gonzales' "multiple-program" line.

“The program had different parts, but there was only one program,” Ms. Harman said, adding that Mr. Gonzales was “selectively declassifying information to defend his own conduct,” which she called improper.

If Harman is telling the truth, then there are only two understandings of Gonzales' testimony. The attorney general could be describing "different parts" of the program to mean different surveillance programs. That's the generous reading. The alternative is that Gonzales misled the Senate in his 2006 testimony, and yesterday issued an outright lie in order to contain the damage. (Some might say the two interpretations aren't really very different.)

Read more »

The House is set to vote on contempt citations for Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten after both declined their congressional subpoenas. In preparation for the vote, Rep. Conyers (D-MI) has pulled together a fifty-page memo that might be considered the first official allegation that several members of the administration broke the law carrying out and then covering up the U.S. attorney firings. The vote is scheduled for 10:15 AM (EST). (Washington Post)

The House Oversight Committee informed the White House yesterday that they will be questioning former White House officials on the death of Corporal Pat Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004. The White House waited weeks to make Tillman’s death public and Congressional investigators want to know what officials knew prior to the public announcement. (Associated Press)

The FBI is moving forward with its plan to pay telecom firms to store information on citizens that the FBI cannot legally preserve itself. Yesterday, the FBI requested a budget of $5 million a year from Congress to fund such a program. Under its current formulation, the FBI would not be allowed direct access to the records without a subpoena or national security letter. (Washington Post)

Read more »

The Wall Street Journal reports that 18-term Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is under criminal investigation for his dealings with Alaska oil services company Veco Corp.

While the investigation into Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) ties to Veco, including the remodeling of his Girdwood home, has been widely reported, this is the first time Young has been implicated in the scandal.

It looks like an annual pig-roast fundraiser snared the congressman known for huge pork projects, including the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere."

From The Journal:

For a decade, former VECO Chief Executive Bill Allen has held fund-raisers for Mr. Young in Anchorage every August, known as "The Pig Roast," participants said. Public records show contributions to Mr. Young of at least $157,000 from VECO employees and its political-action committee between 1996 and 2006, the last year the event was held.

Mr. Young amended his campaign-finance filings in January to reflect $38,000 in payments to Mr. Allen, the former VECO chief. The refunds, which haven't previously been reported, were labeled "fund-raising costs" in documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Veco has been the recipient of a variety of federal contracts, but it's still not clear what the company would have received in exchange for all of its alleged bribes.

Tom Daschle. Jay Rockefeller. And now Nancy Pelosi.

That makes three members of the Gang of Eight -- the bipartisan congressional leadership briefed about President Bush's warrantless surveillance -- to dispute Alberto Gonzales's testimony that the Gang demanded the surveillance continue after a March 2004 briefing telling them that acting Attorney General James Comey refused to reauthorize the program.

"She made clear her disagreement with the program continuing despite Comey's objection," Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly tells TPMmuckraker. Pelosi was part of the Gang of Eight in her capacity as House Democratic leader in 2004.

So far we're waiting to hear back from GOP members of the Gang of Eight, as well as Jane Harman, then the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee.

Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader who received briefings on the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance programs, says Alberto Gonzales isn't telling the truth about what Senate and House leaders were told in March 2004 about the program's utility and legality.

In testimony today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales attempted to give "context" for his infamous hospital trip to a convalescent John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004, after acting attorney general James Comey refused to authorize the surveillance program. It was only after a briefing for the so-called "Gang of Eight" bipartisan congressional leaders demanded that the program continue, Gonzales said, that he and then-White House chief of staff went to "inform" Ashcroft of the Gang's wishes.

Daschle was one of that Gang of Eight. In a statement e-mailed to TPMmuckraker, he all but calls Gonzales a liar.

"I have no recollection of such a meeting and believe that it didn't occur. I am quite certain that at no time did we encourage the AG or anyone else to take such actions. This appears to be another attempt to rewrite history just as they have attempted to do with the war resolution."

Daschle's statement bolsters one that his former Gang of Eight colleague, Senate intelligence committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), gave to Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: Gonzales is "once again is making something up to protect himself," Rockefeller said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ak) has amended her Senate financial disclosure forms to add information about a riverfront land deal since TPMmuckraker first made inquiries about the transaction.

When I called Murkowski's office in June, a spokeswoman said a clerical error was the reason they had left off the value of the senator's mortgage and written the fragment "11/0" for the date of purchase. The office has since checked off the appropriate column for the $136,000 mortgage and updated the date to read "11/06.

Local government filings show that Murkowski bought the land from developer Bob Penney in December 2006, not November. I called her spokesman Kevin Sweeney just now who said "she went and filled out the paperwork in November."

Note: Our document collection is under repair. We'll get you her disclosure form soon.
Late Update: Here is the disclosure.