Hot off the presses: Alberto Gonzales clarifies his controversial July 26 testimony. Read the clarification here. Amazingly, Gonzales doesn't think he misled Congress on National Security Letter slip-ups. Nor did he know anything about a briefing for the Peace Corps on GOP electoral priorities. In fact, Alberto Gonzales is a paragon of truth and candor, at least in his own eyes.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) just issued a curt reply to Gonzales's clarification:

“It is a deeply regrettable that it takes so much work and effort for this Attorney General to try to justify answers that appear to remain far short of the full truth the American people should expect from the Nation’s top law enforcement officer. Sadly, this is becoming a familiar exercise. Testifying with full candor under oath would be so much easier and better.”

Today, while standing with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, President Bush lamented the inability of Congressional Democrats to give McConnell the tools he needed to capture the communications of terrorists:

When Congress sends me their version, when Congress listens to all the data and facts and they send me a version of how to close those gaps, I'll ask one question, and I'm going to ask the DNI: Does this legislation give you what you need to prevent an attack on the country? Is this what you need to do your job, Mr. DNI? That's the question I'm going to ask. And if the answer is yes, I'll sign the bill. And if the answer is no, I'm going to veto the bill.

And so far the Democrats in Congress have not drafted a bill I can sign. We've worked hard and in good faith with the Democrats to find a solution, but we are not going to put our national security at risk.

There's only one problem with Bush's statement: it isn't true.

A key Democrat in the negotiations, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), says that a deal had in fact been reached with McConnell, who has been busy lobbying Congress on a FISA update all week. "We had an agreement with DNI McConnell," Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards tells TPMmuckraker, "and then the White House quashed the agreement."

A bill that House Democrats put forward today does not require the National Security Agency to seek warrants for surveillance of persons inside the United States -- only that the Attorney General will issue "guidelines" as to how collecting the communications of U.S. persons should operate.

A spokesperson for McConnell, Ross Feinstein, says he is "not going to comment" on "what agreements have been or haven't been reached." He adds that McConnell has been "up front as to what the intelligence community needs, obviously what he proposed on April 13 and put in his statement at 11:35 last night," and that McConnell "continues to work closely with members on the Hill." We have a call out to the White House for comment.

Update: White House representatives haven't responded to our request for comment. We'll let you know what they say if and when they do.

Late Update: I'd be remiss not to mention that earlier this afternoon, Marty Lederman heard the same state of play between Bush, McConnell and the House Dems that this post confirmed.

From the Bush administration's perspective, the House proposal to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act goes way too far to restrict the intelligence community from collecting crucial information on terrorists. Yet looking at the bill, it's hard to see what the White House's objections could be.

For one thing, as TPMmuckraker reported earlier today, under the bill, the primary role for the FISA Court is in issuing generalized surveillance warrants for "persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Those warrants don't have to name their targets, nor locate where the surveillance will take place if the attorney general shows that the surveillance methods used will mostly exclude U.S. citizens and residents. Such warrants will be approved, according to section 105(c)(1)(C), if the FISA judge determines that collecting "foreign intelligence information" is merely a "significant purpose" of the AG's request.

What happens to U.S. persons who may be tapped? There isn't any requirement for a probable-cause-derived warrant to continue surveillance on them. Instead, the attorney general would only have to create "guidelines" for surveillance on people in the U.S. as the result of one of the aforementioned warrants. Every 60 days the Justice Department's inspector general would have to report to the FISA Court and to the Congressional intelligence committees on compliance -- including handing over a list of names of those U.S. citizens and residents under surveillance during that time period. Nothing in the bill indicates any power for either the court or Congress to do anything about any American caught in the surveillance web.

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Congress is moving forward with legislation updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act despite President Bush's objections. We've got the text of the House bill here.

More soon.

Just out from Congressional Quarterly:

Congressional Democrats and the White House have broken off negotiations over a legislative fix to an intelligence gap without a deal, but Democrats threatened to press forward with a bill regardless.

House Democratic leaders were taking procedural steps at midday Friday to allow them to call up a bill to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA — PL 95-511) to address problems that have been identified by intelligence community leaders.

In the Senate, Democrats remained divided over the legislation. Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont, a liberal who aligns with Democrats, was voicing concerns about privacy implications of the bill. “Everything’s still under discussion,” he said.

Bush puts the squeeze on:

President Bush said Friday that Congress must stay in session until it approves legislation modernizing a U.S. law governing eavesdropping on foreigners.

"So far the Democrats in Congress have not drafted a bill I can sign," Bush said at FBI headquarters, where he was meeting with counterterror and homeland security officials. "We've worked hard and in good faith with the Democrats to find a solution, but we are not going to put our national security at risk. Time is short."

The president said that lawmakers must not leave for their August recess this weekend as planned unless they "pass a bill that will give our intelligence community the tools they need to protect the United States."

This just in, from a knowledgeable source on the FISA-update negotiations:

I understand that the bills they are considering dropped the second requirement of the Rockefeller bill -- that the government must determine whether they're picking up a significant number of calls into the US and get a FISA probable cause warrant if they are.

If so, that would be a big setback for the civil liberties side of the debate. According to the source, further surveillance of communications in the U.S. wouldn’t require a probable cause warrant at all. Instead, the attorney general would have to certify to either FISA, Congress, or both – it’s not clear right now – that the initial surveillance authority granted by the FISA court isn’t being abused. And if that's the case, then the program would allow for massive domestic surveillance with practically no FISA Court review.

The Senate Dems entered into a caucus meeting an hour ago that I understand will lead to some news on the FISA-negotiation front. More soon.

Well, here's a clear verdict on this morning's appeals court opinion on the FBI's raid of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA). It's a great day for corrupt lawmakers, says Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. CREW filed an amicus brief in the case arguing for the search's constitutionality.

It's a "devastating opinion," Sloan says. "If I were Ted Stevens, and I had some evidence of wrongdoing, I'd be putting it in my Congressional office, because the court basically just issued a blanket cover against searches.... It's such a help to any corrupt members of Congress, since it offers so much more protection than was previously offered."

In a previous circuit opinion ruling against Jefferson, a judge had called this sort of protection "a taxpayer-subsidized sanctuary for crime."

"I cannot believe that the Justice Department won't appeal this to the Supreme Court," Sloan said. "It's a very expansive readings of the Speech or Debate Clause [of the Constitution]."

The opinion said that FBI agents were wrong to have taken privileged (i.e. legislative) documents, the ones protected by the Speech or Debate Clause, from Jefferson's office. But by saying that, the court effectively prohibits the FBI from entering a Congressional office without the say-so of the lawmaker. Doing that creates a "fox guarding the henhouse problem," says Sloan.

From the AP:

The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The court ordered the Justice Department to return any privileged documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid.

The raid last May of Jefferson's office, remember, caused a furor on Capitol Hill, provoking the rare alliance of then-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who demanded that the FBI return the documents seized from Jefferson's office.

It seems clear that Jefferson didn't quite get what he wanted here, which was return of all documents seized in the raid. Our legal eagle readers are invited to write in or comment with their reactions or interpretations of the ruling's impact. Are Congressional offices now safe from the FBI's prying fingers?

The introduction to the ruling (pdf) is posted below.

Note: This decision dealt exclusively with the raid of Jefferson's Congressional office. So it shouldn't substantially affect the government's case against him.

Update: Here's some interpretation from CREW, who filed an amicus brief in the case.

Update: Here's the Justice Department's reaction to the ruling, from spokesman Brian Roehrekasse:

“The Department of Justice is pleased that the D.C. Circuit opinion does not find that the search of a congressional office is unconstitutional. We are disappointed with the ruling that requires that a member of Congress be provided advance notice and the right to review materials before the execution of a search warrant. Because of the procedures that were put in place for the execution of the search warrant, the indictment and prosecution of Congressman Jefferson will not be negatively impacted by this decision. The Court of Appeals notes that there is no indication the Executive Branch did not act based on a good-faith interpretation of the law, as reflected in the District Court’s prior approval. The Department of Justice will continue to prepare for trial, scheduled for January 2008, and we are pleased that the D.C. Circuit opinion allows the prosecutors to retain non-Speech or Debate clause documents. The Department will review the decision and evaluate further action.”

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If the Senate aide who has been accused of handling Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) personal finances while on the government clock received separate payments from the Alaska senator, she didn't list them on her public financial disclosure in 2006, the AP reports.

Roll Call reported yesterday that the aide, Barbara Flanders, didn't disclose any additional personal income in 2007 either.

Flanders' involvement in the ethics scandal aired Tuesday when press reports said she testified before a grand jury about Stevens' finances and provided documents. Flanders is a former personal aide to Stevens and now is supposed to work full time for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. It appears she also handles Stevens' bills. If she wasn't paid for this work, Stevens should have listed her services as a gift on his own disclosure forms, which he has not done. If accurate, this kind of an arrangement is a violation of federal law.

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Congratulations to Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)! He is this year's winner of the Daily Muck's coveted "Most Pork" award. Murtha has requested or co-requested a cool $150 million in earmarked funds. (The Hill)

The House Rules Committee struck down three of Rep. Allan Mollohan’s (D-WV) earmark requests after Mollohan himself asked to remove the earmarks. The lawmaker, who anticipated that Republicans would move to strike the earmarks anyway, is currently under investigation by the FBI for his close ties to nonprofit groups and the earmarks he has directed to these organizations. (The Hill)

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has requested a Pentagon investigation of 21st Century Systems, Inc., a defense contracting company, for alleged misuse of government earmarks. Coburn has set his sights on the company as part of a wider effort to crack down on earmark spending. Sen Nelson (D-NE), who sponsored the earmark, defended his request despite questions raised by the fact that the Senator's son is an employee of the firm. (The Hill)

After two years of listening to complaints that the post-Katrina "disaster trailers" contained dangerously high levels of formaldehyde, FEMA is springing into action. They have finally decided to suspend the sale and donation of these trailers while they review the reports that the trailers are causing respiratory problems for residents. It's a stunning reversal, considering that only a few weeks ago Congress saw documents showing that FEMA lawyers had discouraged the agency from looking into the problem. (USA TODAY)

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How about post-facto FISA review, guys? Interested?

That's the message from Admiral Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence. After a week of grueling briefings on Capitol Hill lobbying for an overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, McConnell last night released a statement reluctantly endorsing putting terrorist surveillance back under FISA Court supervision -- with certain restrictions. The key passage:

However, to acknowledge the interests of all, I could agree to a procedure that provides for court review—after needed collection has begun—of our procedures for gathering foreign intelligence through classified methods directed at foreigners located overseas. While I would strongly prefer not to engage in such a process, I am prepared to take these additional steps to keep the confidence of Members of Congress and the American people that our processes have been subject to court review and approval.

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The scheme was simple: dispatch political aides from the White House to agencies throughout the government and make sure political appointees there knew which Republican members of Congress were faltering. There was a line, however, that ought not to be (openly) crossed. Political appointees got a "not-so-subtle message about helping endangered Republicans," but they were not given explicit directions. That would be a blatant Hatch Act violation.

Karl Rove's aide Scott Jennings understood the game. That's why when he briefed (pdf) employees at the General Services Administration early this year (see a sample slide above), he knew to keep things at the not-so-subtle level -- but no more. From The Washington Post:

At [the briefing's] completion, GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan asked how GSA projects could be used to help "our candidates," according to half a dozen witnesses. The briefer, J. Scott Jennings, said that topic should be discussed "off-line," the witnesses said. Doan then replied, "Oh, good, at least as long as we are going to follow up...."

Today, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) took advantage of Jennings appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee to question him about the briefings. And Jennings, like Rove's former aide Sara Taylor, was right on message.

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Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) called the tactics used by FBI and IRS agents who raided Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) home "Gestapo-like" today, the Crypt reports.

Craig's main objection seems to be that the agents could have parked a large white truck in front of Stevens' Girdwood home, photographed it and the neighboring property and carried out black trash bags (presumably filled with evidence) much more discreetly than they did. Maybe Craig's never been to Girdwood, because I just consulted our handy Girdwood map and it looks like it might have been tough for a dozen federal agents to have shown up at the most famous Alaskan's house without any of the neighbors noticing:

From the Crypt:

"I think some people say, 'Ah, but for the grace of God go I.' Especially when you have the allegatiatons, you have the judicial segment of our government, the executive branch, out raiding the homes of senators, that is a very frightening proposition. It is a bit Gestapo-like in its style and tactics," Craig said on Wednesday. "When the FBI was offered a key and invited into the home, they chose publicize it to make sure the media was there first, and they broke in. That is gamesmanship. That makes senators very, very angry when they attempt to cooperate when for reason they are caught in these webs and yet they are denied that for the sake of the judciary’s publicity. That is wrong.’’

There's irresponsibility. There's demagoguery. And then there's Trent Lott.

It turns out the Capitol Police have bolstered security around the U.S. Capitol after a recent al-Qaeda communique threatened an attack on Washington. Lott, according to Roll Call (sub.req.), responded with characteristic gravitas. In light of the heightened threat, Congress can either amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or all of us can run screaming into the inferno.

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) ominously advised Thursday that Congress needed to pass changes to terrorist surveillance laws before leaving for the August recess and warned that otherwise “the disaster could be on our doorstep.”

Further demonstrating his counterterrorism sagacity, when asked if people should leave Washington, D.C., during the month of August, Lott replied that "I think it would be good to leave town in August, and it would probably be good to stay out until September the 12th." By contrast, a former Capitol Hill chief had the temerity to note that, according to U.S. intelligence analysis he'd been privvy to, "Americans tend to be much more oriented toward anniversaries and the jihadists seem to be less so. I've seen over the years where we concentrate on dates and the analysts say, 'Don’t get wrapped up in dates because our terrorist jihadist enemies bide their time.'"

Negotiations continue between the White House and Senate Democrats to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and a deal might be done as early as this evening. But Sen. Russell Feingold tells Roll Call (sub.req.) that he'd rather scrap the summer congressional recess than scrap civil liberties in the name of getting a deal done by Monday, when Congress takes a holiday:

Saying Congressional Democrats and Republicans were moving “awfully quickly” on a White House proposal to make it easier to eavesdrop on suspected overseas terrorists, Feingold said he is in “no hurry” to leave town for the August recess.

“I don’t feel the need to get out of here. I would much rather stay here than have us make a terrible mistake,” said Feingold, who has made a name for himself as a champion on civil liberties in the Senate. “This is not the kind of thing that should be done on the fly, and I am prepared to stay here as long as it takes to fix it. Or, if they need force this through, I’m not going to make it easy, if they don’t make it better.”

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It's hard to keep track of every distinct controversy sparked by Alberto Gonzales's testimony last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is trying to make sure one particular element of scandal doesn't fall by the wayside.

In response to questioning by Durbin and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Gonzales said it was "not so clear" that five interrogration techniques -- painful stress positions, use of dogs in interrogation, nudity, mock execution, and the infamous waterboarding -- were ruled out by President Bush's recent executive order on CIA interrogations. Today, Durbin sent a letter to Gonzales asking him to make sure that's really what he meant to say. The letter uses a somewhat confusing formulation about whether the administration thinks the use of such techniques on U.S. personnel is legal, but that's simply a way of drawing out whether the Bush administration has created a loophole in its interpretation of the Geneva Conventions.

Full text below the fold.

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Very, very few people know the extent of the NSA surveillance program, part of which is called the Terrorist Surveillance Program and the rest of which we call Program X. We'd be dishonest if we suggested to you we knew how it works. But take a look at an interview Julian Sanchez did with former NSA analyst Russell Tice for Reason magazine in January 2006.

A brief recap: the NSA fired Tice in 2005 after he alleged that a colleague was a spy for the Chinese. (A DOD inspector general's report found "no evidence" to support the charge.) He outed himself in December of that year as a source for James Risen, one of the New York Times reporters who broke the NSA surveillance scandal, and alleged that the program as acknowledged publicly by the president was, he told me last year, "just the tip of the iceberg." That would certainly fit in with Alberto Gonzales and Mike McConnell's recent revelations. While he won't tell reporters what the iceberg exactly is -- he'd risk jail time for that -- Tice did tell me last year that NSA officials weren't particularly concerned about the risk of abuse after the administration told it in 2001 not to bother with FISA warrants. "When I brought up problems, [NSA employees] said, 'Who's gonna stop us? Keep your mouth shut.'"

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Even though Rove's aide Scott Jennings said less than nothing today about the U.S. attorney firings (he wouldn't even testify about emails which had already been turned over to the committee), he did testify about two other areas of interest. One of those concerns the White House's use of Republican National Committee-issued email accounts. A number of aides, including Jennings, violated the Presidential Records Act by using those accounts for official business. The underlying allegation, of course, is that Karl Rove's shop used a kind of off-the-record email system on purpose. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who's investigating, has called it "the most serious breach of the Presidential Records Act in the 30-year history of the law."

The White House's fig leaf for that has been the Hatch Act, which prohibits using government resources for political activities. Staffers in the White House Office of Political Affairs have both a White House address and computer and a RNC email address and devices. And as Jennings testified today, he frequently used his RNC address for official business (including matters related to the U.S. attorney firings) for "convenience and efficiency." (That's also what Jennings' boss Sara Taylor testified. Rove also found using his RNC blackberry incredibly convenient.) In fact, it sounds like he hardly used his White House address, since he carried an RNC-issued blackberry with him. The problem was not lost on Jennings, apparently, who testified, in response to a question from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), that he had actually asked for a blackberry for his White House email once.

It was "very early in my employment," he testified, "the President was doing a lot traveling in my region [the South]... I was receiving a lot of email on my official account and I requested [a blackberry for White House email] at that moment, and I was told that it wasn't the custom to give the political affairs staffers those devices."

So even though Jennings was aware that this was a problem and apparently raised the issue with a supervisor, he was told to ignore it. That doesn't quite square with the White House explanation for the illegal use of the RNC accounts, which is "oops."

Congressional negotiators are busy working out a compromise with the Bush administration over reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As a result, the specifics of any prospective legislation are currently unknown. But leading civil liberties and national security experts certainly know what they want the bill to contain -- and some, at least, are inclining favorably to a fix that Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, is proposing. Here's a guide to what to look for.

Carve-Outs vs. Safeguards. What the Bush administration wants -- and probably has done over the past six years -- is to remove FISA protections from a broad swath of people in the U.S. in order to look for terrorism connections. That has had, and will have, broad implications for what the U.S. intelligence community can collect in terms of domestic communications. "Everything that they've proposed to redefine the term 'electronic surveillance' under FISA, the effect is to put millions of communications outside the protection of FISA. It's a carve-out," says Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies. The person the administration wants to supervise that carve-out for U.S. persons able to be targeted is... the attorney-general.

Rockefeller's proposal, as it stands so far, doesn't change any existing term under FISA. Instead, pursuant to FISA as it stands, the National Security Agency can collect intelligence unimpeded on foreign-to-foreign communications. The administration would be required to go to the FISA Court for a blanket authorization targeting foreign suspected terrorists, in order to make a case that its methods are likely to net foreign communications primarily. All of what follows is a temporary fix -- set to expire after six months so the administration and Congress can work out a permanent solution -- but after 60 days of surveillance, the administration would have to inform Congress and the FISA Court exactly who has had their communications intercepted. And if the administration believes there's a "significant" pattern of communication between someone in the U.S. and a foreign-based surveillance target, it has to acquire a specific warrant from the FISA Court or end the surveillance.

"That preserves the basic framework of FISA," says Martin, "that to listen in to people in the U.S., you need a probable-cause warrant." No carve-out there, but a lot can change in deadline negotiation.

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Here's a little taste of how Scott Jennings answered any questions that had anything remotely to do with the firing of U.S. attorneys this morning.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) couldn't even get Jennings to answer the question "what role you have in the selection of nominees to be U.S. attorneys." When Jennings refused to answer based on the President's assertion of executive privilege, Leahy cautioned, "now, let's not be too contemptuous of this committee, I'm just asking you what you do."

Other lines of questioning were (slightly) more fruitful. We'll have more on that later.

Note: Jennings' former boss in the White House, Sara Taylor, began her hearing last month with a similar tack, but then ended up answering a number of questions that Jennings has refused to answer.

So here's Sen. Arlen Specter's (R-PA) verdict on Alberto Gonzales' testimony, delivered during this morning's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Karl Rove's aide Scott Jennings.

Gonzales, he says, sought to mislead the committee, but should not be investigated for perjury, because his testimony, while misleading, doesn't rise to that standard.

Reading from a Supreme Court opinion on the statute of perjury, which said that a witness cannot be convicted of perjury simply because he is a "wily witness" who "shrewdly" evades the questioner by speaking "the literal truth," Specter said that that's what we have here. Gonzales is certainly "wily" and sought to mislead -- but he spoke, in Specter's judgment, "the literal truth." (Here's how that might be.)

But "just because it's not perjury," Specter said, "doesn't mean it's the way that the highest ranking legal officer in the United States ought to respond to a Senate inquiry." Specter went on to say that he thought that the conclusion of the committee's investigation of the U.S. attorney firings would be to "end the tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales." When that conclusion will come, however, no one knows.

The White House, as expected, claimed executive privilege with regard to testimony by Karl Rove and Rove's aide Scott Jennings about the U.S. attorney firings. You can see that letter here.

But while the White House found that Rove, as an "immediate presidential advisor" was "immune" from Congressional subpoena, they did not make that claim for Jennings. And so he's up this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. We'll bring you a little from that hearing, which is going on now, shortly.

Even as Congress seeks to determine whether Alberto Gonzales lied under oath about the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, the Democrats have been negotiating with the administration to update the surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

As The Los Angeles Times reports this morning, the alleged need for such a fix was precipitated by a FISA court judge's ruling, which restricted the ability of the National Security Agency to collect information on multiple surveillance targets under a single warrant. Additionally, the FISA Court apparently balked at allowing the NSA to collect intelligence on persons whose location inside or outside the U.S. is unknown. Indeed, there's a lot that isn't clear about the ruling -- the FISA Court meets in secret -- but the Bush administration has apparently persuaded congressional leaders that it creates a cumbersome standard for surveillance, given the extent of the threat from terrorism.

Back in January, remember, the administration brought its warrantless wiretapping program -- known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which monitors communications between persons in the U.S. and "known" terrorists abroad -- under the auspices of FISA, making it no longer warrantless.

The administration's first proposal, apparently, was to take the power to authorize NSA surveillance of foreign targets away from the FISA court and give it to the attorney general . The Democrats, unsurprisingly, said no -- noting that it's generally a bad idea, but especially a bad idea with this attorney general. The administration came back late yesterday with a proposal that the director of national intelligence would have to sign off too. Again, the Democrats said no.

And here's the Dem proposal, as described by The Washington Post this morning:

Congressional Democrats outlined a temporary plan yesterday that would expand the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance of overseas communications in search of terrorists.

The proposal, according to House and Senate Democrats, would permit a secret court to issue broad orders approving eavesdropping of communications involving suspects overseas and other people, who may be in the United States. To issue an order, the court would not need to identify a particular target overseas, but it would have to determine that those being targeted are "likely," in fact, overseas.

If a foreign target's communications to a person inside the United States reaches a "significant" number, then an court order based on probable cause would be required. It is unclear how "significant" would be defined.

This would seem to lower the bar in terms of the evidence needed to initiate surveillance. The FISA court has a probable cause standard to initiate surveillance of a member of Al Qaeda or some affiliated group. Apparently the Democrats' plan would initially lower that bar -- allowing the targeting of "suspects" -- but then require probable cause once the number of wiretaps became "significant," whatever that means.

Hopefully clarity will enter into whatever ultimate compromise bill emerges. Negotiators are racing to finish and vote on a proposal before the congressional August recess begins Monday. Unless the bill defines critical terms like "significant" and specifies what standard the government will have to meet to begin surveillance on a given target, the compromise will either snarl in congress, depriving the NSA of a tool it says it urgently needs, or protections on Americans' civil liberties will erode even further. Pick your poison.

Next stop, the Senate. The Senate leadership is expected to bring a vote on ethics reform this afternoon, which, if passed, would leave only a Presidential signature to make reform official. (USA TODAY)

Chiquita Banana has been in trouble recently for hiring a Columbian paramilitary group -identified by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization - to provide protection for the company. Chiquita has argued that, though they knew their actions were illegal, they would be unable to operate in Columbia without local protection. They are now justifying the decision by pointing to a series of meetings with government officials, including Michael Chertoff, that led Chiquita executives to believe the government would allow them to continue paying the paramilitaries. Chertoff allegedly sympathized with the position of Chiquita execs and told them he would inquire on the issue and get back to them, but never did, which the company took as de facto approval. (Washington Post)

Executive privilege! Are there two sweeter words in the English language? Not for Karl Rove, who got the OK from President Bush not to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today over last year's firing of U.S. Attorneys. (McClatchy Newspapers)

Despite the administration's pledge to increase the number of contracts awarded to small business for Katrina-related projects, a new congressional analysis finds that percentage of such firms represented in contracting has dropped from 12% to 7% of all those awarded. In addition, the report found that $95 million in contracts that the government claimed were awarded to small businesses were actually awarded to large companies or were ineligible receipts. (USA TODAY)

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Well, that long awaited clarification from Alberto Gonzales about his testimony last week has arrived. And as you'd expect, it follows the same line that Gonzales and the administration have been touting, most recently in the letter yesterday from Michael McConnell. We'll have more on Gonzales' parsing of the parsing tomorrow.

Here's what Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had to say after taking a gander:

“The Attorney General’s legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States. It is time for full candor to enforce the law and promote justice, rather than word parsing.

“The Attorney General has until the end of this week to correct and supplement his testimony. I hope he will take that opportunity to clarify the many issues on which he appears not to have been forthcoming and to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American people the whole truth.”

Planning to eat at Uncle Ted's tonight? If you are, plan on canceling.

A former aide to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) filed papers in 2004 to create a restaurant company called Uncle Ted's Alaska LLC. But, unfortunately, it looks like the aide got cold feet last year, right around the time his boss' criminal investigation came to light. A few weeks following The Anchorage Daily News' initial coverage of the scandal, the aide, Trevor McCabe, dissolved the company. "Decision not to pursue original business idea," is the only explanation.

According to documents McCabe filed with the state, he was registered to run eating and drinking places, food stores and miscellaneous retail stores. Perhaps he had a vision for a chain restaurant devoted to foods loved by Stevens, who is known as "Uncle Ted" up in his home state. Alas, we'll never know (we can only offer our suggestion of "Big Boy" inspired icon). I can imagine a mean salmon sandwich, you could even call it a "Murkowski" for fun. Certainly pork (ribs? chop? roast?) would have been in generous supply.

This wouldn't have been the first time that McCabe used his relationship with Stevens for his benefit -- a connection that's become clearer due to the federal investigation of Stevens. He served on a marketing board with Stevens' son, Ben Stevens, that provided federal grants to the seafood industry, while they were paid "consulting fees" by the same companies receiving the money. He also benefited from a string of the elder Stevens' earmarks that have come under FBI scrutiny.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) cited his and his wife's health problems as reasons for his bizarre outburst on the House floor two weeks ago, where he threatened to bite Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) like an Alaskan mink "that kill their own." (Video here.)

Young lost his temper when Garrett tried to yank money Young wanted for native Alaskan students. He told the Republican Study Committee today that he regrets his aggressive response: “I come to you as a weakened man whose weaknesses are greater than my strengths at times,” he said.

It's just like old times. The Justice Department turned over an additional 40 pages of documents related to the U.S. attorney purge to Congress today. You can see them here. Please let us know in the comments what you find.

Here's our favorite of the lot.

In late December of last year, Sen. Pete Domenici's (R-NM) chief of staff Steve Bell called to speak with William Moschella, a senior Justice Department official, and made a follow-up call to the White House. Domenici, remember, had been frustrated that U.S. Attorney David Iglesias failed to indict a prominent state Democrat before the 2006 election on corruption charges. And after Iglesias was fired, Domenici apparently wanted to make sure that he wasn't canned in vain.

Here's what a White House aide wrote to Moschella about her conversation with Bell two weeks after Iglesias was fired:

[Bell] mentioned he had chatted with you today about his request for a non-partisan team that specializes in corruption to be sent down to NM.

I just wanted to circle up with you and see if you had any thoughts about it.

You might think that it goes without saying that a team of Justice Department prosecutors would be "non-partisan," but apparently in this administration, it needs saying.

There hasn't been much ambiguity that Domenici wanted Iglesias fired because he failed to speedily indict and convict key Democrats. Both Gonzales and Domenici have tried to cast the issue as a broader preoccupation with public corruption cases or white-collar cases -- but of course no other cases besides two prosecutions of state Democrats seem to have been at issue. So it shouldn't be surprising that Domenici moved shortly after Iglesias' firing to request that the White House ensure the U.S. attorney's office in New Mexico be beefed up with a "non-partisan team" (ahem) that "specializes in corruption."

You might say that Nancy Pelosi's toe is in the water:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) welcomed a resolution by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) to begin an impeachment inquiry of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

"Of course it's merited," Pelosi said. "I've called for the resignation of the attorney general. But right now, we're focusing on health care for America's children, a strong energy bill for energy independence, lobby reform. ... If that's something he wants to introduce, I think there are certainly grounds."

But Pelosi fell short of committing to move the resolution through the House.

Here's our rundown of Inslee's resolution from yesterday.

One of the companies involved in the widening federal probe into Alaska political corruption is positioned to benefit handsomely from a $3.5 million earmark tucked into a 2008 Senate spending bill by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), CQ reports.

The company, Trident Seafoods Corp., was one of several that received federal money via a local board headed by Stevens' son, Ben Stevens. While the younger Stevens dolled out federal grants supplied by his father, he received "consulting fees" from an association formed by the same companies winning the grants. Trident CEO Charles Bundrant contributed $6,700 to the elder Stevens' campaign and affiliated PACs since 2004. He also gave the National Republican Senatorial Committee $35,000 between 2005 and 2007.

The earmark CQ notes is for an airstrip that would service seafood giant Trident, and the 100 Alaskans who live in Akutan.

Trident and Stevens are no strangers. For years, company founder and Chief Executive Charles Bundrant has been a generous contributor to the Alaska Republican’s campaigns. And in December, according to the Seattle Times, a federal grand jury investigating political corruption in Alaska ordered Trident and other seafood companies to produce documents detailing financial ties to the senator’s son, former Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board Chairman Ben Stevens.

I'd never thought I'd say this, but... somebody get Dick Cheney on message!

Alberto Gonzales and the administration have gone to great pains to say that the March 2004 hospital showdown was not about the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- no, it was about "other intelligence activities." And the Terrorist Surveillance Program is a phrase, they've said, that refers very narrowly to the surveillance activities confirmed by the President in December of 2005.

But Cheney got a little sloppy during his interview with Larry King:

Q In that regard, The New York Times -- which, as you said, is not your favorite -- reports it was you who dispatched Gonzales and Andy Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital in 2004 to push Ashcroft to certify the President's intelligence-gathering program. Was it you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall -- first of all, I haven't seen the story. And I don't recall that I gave instructions to that effect.

Q That would be something you would recall.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I would think so. But certainly I was involved because I was a big advocate of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and had been responsible and working with General Hayden and George Tenet to get it to the President for approval. By the time this occurred, it had already been approved about 12 times by the Department of Justice. There was nothing new about it.

Q So you didn't send them to get permission.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall that I was the one who sent them to the hospital.

D'oh! So according to Cheney, the dispute was about the TSP. Too bad Cheney doesn't understand that the dispute was really about certain intelligence activities authorized by the president of which the Terrorist Surveillance Program (i.e. the program publicly described by the president) was only an uncontroversial part. Why can't he keep that straight? It's so simple.

So lump Cheney in with FBI Director Bob Mueller, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and others who've been briefed on the NSA surveillance program and refer to a single program, called the TSP for a shorthand, which dates back to October, 2001 and is comprised of more than the limited facet acknowledged by the President.

I posted this excerpt yesterday, but missed this implicit admission that the dispute was about the TSP. So thanks to TPM Reader JS and commenter barney for the catch.

Note: Marty Lederman points to another revealing admission in this excerpt -- Cheney's implication that he could give "directions" to White House officials who work, of course, for the President.

Members of the Senate leadership told The Hill that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) should be allowed to keep his committee seats.

Two watchdog groups have pushed to have Stevens temporarily re