Justice Official Says He Was Directed To Call Fired Prosecutors; Rove, Still In the Mix

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Rove, Still In the Mix

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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, May 3, 2007

Justice Department Probe Previous coverage from National Journal: • Gonzales Order Gave Aides Extraordinary Powers (4/30/07) • Aborted Probe Probably Would Have Targeted Gonzales (3/15/07) • Bush Blocked DOJ Probe (7/18/06) • What Ashcroft Was Told (6/8/06) More stories from Murray Waas

The chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty has told congressional investigators that phone calls he placed to four fired U.S. attorneys -- calls that three of the prosecutors say involved threats about testifying before Congress -- were made at McNulty's direction.

Michael Elston, the chief of staff, told congressional investigators in a closed-door session on March 30 that McNulty specifically instructed him to make the phone calls after the Justice Department's No. 2 official learned that the fired prosecutors might testify before Congress about their dismissals.

A transcript of Elston's confidential interview with the congressional investigators was made available to National Journal.

The U.S. attorneys have said that Elston, in effect, told them that if they kept quiet about their dismissals, the Justice Department would not suggest that they had been forced to resign because of poor performance.

At least one member of Congress has questioned whether the phone calls might constitute obstruction of justice.

In his interview with congressional investigators, Elston adamantly denied that he ever tried to discourage the prosecutors from testifying before Congress. He said that he was directed by McNulty to tell the fired U.S. attorneys that the Department of Justice did not have a formal position as to whether they should testify.

At least one member of Congress has questioned whether the phone calls might constitute obstruction of justice.

Elston said that McNulty directed him to place calls to fired U.S. attorneys Paul Charlton of Arizona, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, and John McKay of Seattle, all of whom said they felt pressured to keep quiet. Elston also placed a call to federal prosecutor Kevin Ryan of San Francisco, as directed, but did not speak to him. The calls were placed between January and March of this year -- before details about the political motivations for the firings became public.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee made public formal correspondence from three fired prosecutors who said they thought that Elston was trying to intimidate them into keeping quiet.

In an interview with National Journal, McKay, reacting to Elston's disclosure that McNulty directed him to make the calls, said, "Because [Elston] was the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, I always assumed that the phone call was authorized and directed by the DAG. If Elston is telling the truth, it is all the more troubling."

McKay, who was the first of the prosecutors whom Elston called, described Elston's message to him: "The attorney general was not going to disclose that I or the other U.S. attorneys were fired or forced to resign.… 'We have no intention of naming people.'"

McKay said that Elston never specifically suggested an explicit quid pro quo whereby Justice officials would not say that McKay had been fired for cause or poor performance if McKay did not talk to the media or Congress about his firing. However, McKay said, "a reasonable person would have felt both offended and threatened" by Elston's call.

McKay said that the message he took away from the conversation was, "If you remain silent, we will not out you as someone who was forced to resign."

McKay said that he made contemporaneous notes of his conversation with Elston, and dated them -- something, he said, that was not his ordinary practice. He did so because of his concerns about what Elston was telling him, according to McKay.

Charlton said he got a similar phone call from Elston on the same day. In formal response to written questions posed to him by the House Judiciary Committee, Charlton said, "I believe that Elston was offering me a quid pro quo agreement: my silence in exchange for the attorney general's."

Cummins testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 6, at which time a contemporaneous e-mail he wrote within an hour of his phone call with Elston was released. In the e-mail, which he sent to five of his fellow prosecutors, Cummins said that the "essence of [Elston's] message" was that if any of the fired U.S. attorneys had pressed their case in the media or before Congress, senior aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales might "feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off" and accuse the prosecutors of ineptitude or poor management.

Cummins also wrote in his e-mail that Elston had called him because he was upset about comments Cummins had made in the press about his firing. "[Justice officials] feel like they are taking unnecessary flak to avoid trashing each of us," Cummins said in the e-mail to his fellow prosecutors. "I also made it a point to tell him that all of us have turned down multiple invitations to testify. He reacted quite a bit to the idea of anyone voluntarily testifying, and it seemed clear that they would see this as a major escalation of the conflict meriting some kind of unspecified form of retaliation."

McKay, one of the prosecutors who got the e-mail, said: "[Cummins] wanted to send a message to all of us. We got that message, loud and clear: If you talk to the press or go to Congress, the Department of Justice will not consider you a friend. I considered it an act of intimidation."

In his interview with congressional investigators, Elston said that he called Cummins and the other U.S. attorneys "at the deputy attorney general's direction" and "to reassure them that the attorney general was not going to name names."

Elston said that McNulty only wanted him to tell Cummins that the department had no position on whether he should testify: "[McNulty] also told me to be very careful when I called Bud back and to make it very clear to him the Department of Justice had no position on whether he testified or not. And that he could testify if he wanted to, or not testify. It was entirely up to him.

"And that conversation sticks in my mind because the deputy attorney general was very earnest and being very careful. And having no experience on Capitol Hill... I followed his instruction."

Congressional investigators asked Elston about an e-mail in which Gonzales's then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, wrote to other Justice Department officials that he did not think it was a good idea for Cummins to testify. Elston also told investigators, "The deputy attorney general [McNulty], I think, concurred with that."

During the interview with investigators, Elston also said that in his February 20 phone call to Cummins it was the prosecutor who expressed a desire to remain loyal to the department and to not testify. "[Cummins] said a number of things, but one of them was, 'I still want to be on the team, and I don't have any hard feelings,' " Elston testified. " 'I would like to be a federal judge someday, and I didn't think the Democrats are going to nominate me.'"

In an interview, Robert Driscoll, Elston's attorney, said that the U.S. attorneys might have been mistaken in their accounts of their phone calls with his client. "From the information I have seen, none of the fired U.S. attorneys quote Mike as making any type of explicit threats, and each one focuses more on their interpretation of the conversation than [on] what Mike actually said. Their interpretations appear in some instances to be unjustified, based on their own descriptions."

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse disputed the notion that Elston’s phone calls to the fired prosecutors could have been viewed as an attempt to keep them from testifying before Congress. At the time the first phone calls were made in January, Roehrkasse said, the issue of the prosecutors' dismissals had attracted so little attention that it would have been highly unlikely that any of prosecutors would have thought that they might be called upon to appear before Congress.

The stakes are high for McNulty if key members of Congress or investigators believe that he directed Elston to discourage any of the U.S. attorneys from testifying.

At the March 6 Senate Judiciary hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Cummins and three others U.S. attorneys what they would have done in their capacity as federal prosecutors had they learned that an interested party in one of their investigations had tried to discourage a witness from providing information or testifying. All four said that they would have investigated the matter to determine a possible obstruction of justice.

"Mr. Cummins, let me ask you first. I'd like to ask you to put your U.S. attorney hat back on," Whitehouse said. "You're still in office, and think of a significant grand jury investigation that you led as United States attorney in your district. And consider that a significant witness in that grand jury investigation has just come into your office to relate to you that prior to his grand jury testimony he was approached about his testimony and [told]... essentially exactly the words that Mr. Elston approached you. What would your next step be as United States attorney?"

Cummins responded: "We take intimidation of witnesses very seriously in the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney's office, so we would be very proactive in that situation."

Attempting to moderate his statement, he added: "I would qualify that by saying that at the time this discussion was had, we weren't under a subpoena; the idea of testifying was just kind of a theoretical idea out there. And I would say … to the extent we talked about testimony at all, it was the idea that running out and volunteering to be part of this would not be viewed charitably by the people that it would affect."

Whitehouse pressed Cummins: "But if that sort of approach had been made to a witness in an active proceeding that you were leading, and you were extremely proactive about it, that would lead you where?"

"Well, we'd certainly investigate it and see if a crime had occurred."

"And the crime would be?"

Cummins responded: "Obstruction of justice. I think there are several statutes that might be implicated -- but obstruction of justice."

Whitehouse posed the same question to John McKay, the fired U.S. attorney from Washington state.

McKay responded: "I would be discussing it with the assigned prosecutor and federal agents."

"With regard to?"

"With regard to possible obstruction of justice."

Whitehouse next put the question to David Iglesias, the fired U.S. attorney from New Mexico:

Iglesias replied: "Same answer, sir. I would contact the career [assistant U.S. attorney] and probably the FBI and talk about what's the evidence we have to maybe move forward on an obstruction investigation.

Finally, Whitehouse looked toward Carol Lam, the fired U.S. attorney from San Diego.

She answered without hesitation: "Fundamentally the same answer: witness intimidation."

By Murray Waas

DOJ Document Sets Released on 4-27-2007

Document dump - PDF

Critics Say Official Investigating Rove is Wrong Man for the Job

Critics knock special counsel for administration ties

Spokesman disagrees, says probe already underway.

By Tom Hamburger

Times Staff Writer

April 25, 2007

WASHINGTON — Even as Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch moved forward with plans for a sweeping probe of the Bush administration, several advocacy groups complained that his ties to the administration and to conservative groups, as well as his record on gay rights and whistle-blowers, made him the wrong man for the job.

"There is a serious question as to whether Bloch will just provide cover for an administration that is covering for him," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a Democratic-leaning group.

A spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel, communications director James Mitchell, waved away the complaints, saying agency staffers have already begun to form an internal task force, led in part by career staff, to probe three broad areas of activity involving the White House and senior advisor Karl Rove.

The agency will use its subpoena power if necessary, Mitchell said. It will focus on whether White House political concerns improperly intruded on the decision to fire at least one U.S. attorney; whether Rove's office staff or others violated the Hatch Act in briefing Cabinet agency managers on political developments and Republican campaign goals; and whether the White House improperly used Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business.

Many of those e-mails are now missing, and Bloch has said his agency will probably join the effort to find them.

The advocacy groups charge, among other things, that Bloch initiated a policy that made it more difficult for gay employees to allege discrimination.

A whistle-blower group said Bloch had a poor record of protecting those reporting wrongdoing. And, these critics pointed out, the Office of Personnel Management is investigating alleged improper employment practices including intimidation of workers at the Special Counsel agency.

"This is a job where you don't have a lot of friends," Mitchell said. "You don't make people happy when you zap them for violations or reject their whistle-blower complaints." At Bloch's confirmation hearing, Mitchell said, the incoming director was urged to reduce the large backlog of whistle-blower and other complaints. Bloch disposed of a great many of them — so many that an advocate for environmental whistle-blowers said they had received no satisfaction from the agency.

"He just ignored them," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Mitchell said office procedures on whistle-blower and other cases were reviewed by a bipartisan congressional staff in 2005 that later provided a positive report.

While Bloch has alienated advocacy groups on the left, he has also lost support from White House insiders, according to one report. The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, reported last year that Bloch was ostracized by the White House and might even be urged to step down.

Mitchell said such attacks are expected by investigators like Bloch. "He is a watchdog," Mitchell said. "That's what he likes to do."

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tom.hamburger@latimes.com

House Panel Votes to Subpoena Condoleezza Rice

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:21 p.m. EDT

In rapid succession, congressional committees Wednesday ramped up their investigations of the Bush administration by approving a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and granting immunity to a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration's claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

Moments earlier in the committee chamber next door, the House Judiciary Committee voted 32-6 to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, Gonzales' White House liaison, for her testimony on why the administration fired eight federal prosecutors. The panel also unanimously approved - but did not issue - a subpoena to compel her to appear.

Simultaneously across Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved - but did not issue - a subpoena on the prosecutors' matter to Sara Taylor, deputy to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

And in case Gonzales thought the worst had passed with his punishing testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman and top Republican issued a new demand: Refresh the memory that Gonzales claimed had failed him 71 times during the seven-hour session.

"Provide the answers to the questions you could not recall last Thursday," Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote to Gonzales on Wednesday.

© 2007 Associated Press.

House panel approves subpoena for Rice

House panel gives Gonzales aide immunity

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the 2/3 majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote.

Democrats said the votes were necessary tools to force into the open the story of why the prosecutors were fired and whether they were singled out to influence corruption cases.

The votes instruct a House lawyer to seek an immunity grant from a federal court. The grant would not take effect unless Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., chooses to issue Goodling a subpoena compelling her to testify, Conyers said.

Goodling and her lawyer have invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, saying they believe Democrats have set a perjury trap for her. Conyers said Wednesday he hopes Goodling changes her mind and voluntarily tells the committee her story.

"I do not propose this step lightly," Conyers told the panel. "If we learn something new in the course of our investigation ... we can always stop the process s before the court issues an order."

Congressional Democrats investigating the Bush administration set rapid-fire votes in three committees Wednesday on subpoenas.

"If we are stonewalled then we can't hesitate to call on the powers available to us," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Those powers include the threat of subpoenas to prod the administration into answering questions on a raft of issues, including the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and President Bush's suggestion, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

Chief among the targets is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose aides have insisted she has answered questions repeatedly before Congress and in the media about Bush's statement on uranium.

"We have hit a brick wall with the secretary of state," Waxman announced Wednesday. Rice, he said, "is giving us no choice but to proceed with a subpoena."

He postponed a vote on issuing a subpoena to former White House chief of staff Andrew Card on the same issue, saying White House Counsel Fred Fielding had make a compromise proposal worth pursuing.

Still, Republicans dismissed the subpoenas as political fishing expeditions by zealous majority Democrats eager to assert their newly won oversight power.

Rep. Tom Davis of Virgina, top Republican on Waxman's committee, called the Rice subpoena duplicative and evidence of a witchhunt. Though the uranium claim was false, Rice already has explained that she believed it to be true at the time.

Waxman's questions to her "have been asked and answered," Davis said.

"Subpoenaing Secretary Rice has more to do with political theater than legitimate oversight goals," said House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The barrage of subpoenas is an example of the Democrats' newfound power and the plethora of White House business from which they have to choose after six years of a Republican majority that did virtually no executive branch oversight.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Delays in Renzi Case Raise More Gonzales Questions

By JOHN R. WILKE and EVAN PEREZ

April 25, 2007; Page A2

WASHINGTON -- As midterm elections approached last November, federal investigators in Arizona faced unexpected obstacles in getting needed Justice Department approvals to advance a corruption investigation of Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, people close to the case said.

The delays, which postponed key approvals in the case until after the election, raise new questions about whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or other officials may have weighed political issues in some investigations. The Arizona U.S. attorney then overseeing the case, Paul Charlton, was told he was being fired in December, one of eight federal prosecutors dismissed in the past year. The dismissals have triggered a wave of criticism and calls from Congress for Mr. Gonzales to resign.

Investigators pursuing the Renzi case had been seeking clearance from senior Justice Department officials on search warrants, subpoenas and other legal tools for a year before the election, people close to the case said.

The Justice Department denied any foot-dragging in the Renzi case. "There was no such delay," said Bryan Sierra, a spokesman. Mr. Gonzales has said none of the firings of U.S. attorneys was related to corruption cases, and that the department is committed to pursuing such cases. Public-corruption staffing and prosecutions nationwide have increased during his tenure.

IN SUMMARY

• The Issue: Whether a congressional corruption case was delayed last year before the November election.

• The Background: Since 2005, Arizona Rep. Renzi has been under federal investigation for land deals linked to legislation.

• The Outlook: The case could raise new questions about whether Bush administration officials weighed political concerns in their pursuit of politically sensitive cases.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), a Judiciary Committee member who has called for Mr. Gonzales's resignation, said his panel is planning to pursue whether the Renzi case was a factor in Mr. Charlton's firing. "I'm not saying there's evidence and I'm not making allegations," Mr. Schumer told reporters Monday. "But it's something we should look into."

Complex investigations commonly take a year or more, and it isn't known what issues figured in the Renzi case. Many details remain shrouded in the secrecy of a Tucson grand jury that has been at work since last year. Court filings remain under seal. The precise sequence of events likely won't become public unless formal charges are filed.

But the investigation clearly moved slowly: Federal agents opened the case no later than June 2005, yet key witnesses didn't get subpoenas until early this year, those close to the case said. The first publicly known search -- a raid of a Renzi family business by the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- was carried out just last week.

Mr. Renzi is the subject of a criminal inquiry into land deals, among other things. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that federal agents are focusing on a $200,000 cash payment Mr. Renzi received from a former business partner in 2005 following a land sale that was to be part of a proposed government land-exchange bill.

A lawyer for Mr. Renzi, Grant Woods, has denied any impropriety and said that the money was repayment of a debt, not a kickback. In a statement last night, Mr. Renzi denied wrongdoing, calling recent stories about the investigation "conjecture and false attacks" and saying that "none of them bear any resemblance to the truth." But he said he intends to "take a leave of absence" from all of his committee posts, including the natural-resources committee and House intelligence panel.

Normally, local U.S. attorneys may seek court approval for warrants and wiretaps without Washington's approval. But the Renzi case -- like many that involve members of Congress -- is being handled jointly by the local U.S. attorney and the department's public-integrity section. In such cases, a senior department official must approve requests for wiretaps and warrants and other formal legal steps.

People briefed on the case said investigators in Arizona asked Washington for clearance -- among other tools -- for a wiretap of Mr. Renzi's telephones, a highly unusual step against a sitting member of Congress, months before Election Day. The wiretap eventually was approved, and was in place by late October, these people said.

On Oct. 26, just days before the election, two political Web sites carried the first public word of the probe. In subsequent news accounts, an unidentified Washington law-enforcement official described the matter as "preliminary." Few details emerged, but the leak disrupted prosecutors' wiretap.

Meanwhile, Mr. Renzi, first elected to Congress in 2002, was fighting to hold on to his seat. In September, President Bush hosted a fund-raiser in Scottsdale on his behalf. About the same time Mr. Charlton was added to a list of prosecutors "we should now consider pushing out," wrote Mr. Gonzales's then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, in a Sept. 13, 2006, email to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers. The email is among thousands that the Justice Department has released in response to congressional inquiries into the dismissal of the U.S. attorneys.

In November, Mr. Renzi won re-election to a third term, beating his challenger by 51% to 44%. A month later, on Dec. 7, Mr. Charlton was told he was being dismissed. Two weeks later, he emailed William Mercer, a senior Justice Department official: "Media now asking if I was asked to resign over leak in Congressman Renzi investigation." He asked for advice, but never got a response, according to the emails released by the Justice Department.

Mr. Sierra, the department spokesman, said it would be inappropriate to comment on any ongoing case. Generally, though, cases move along on their own pace, he said. "We don't operate under artificial deadlines," he said. "To artificially put deadlines or to rush the time could damage the integrity of the investigation."

Brian Roehrkasse, another Justice Department official, said the department under Mr. Gonzales "has never retaliated against a United States attorney for conducting or failing to pursue a public corruption investigation."

Mr. Charlton, a Republican with 16 years as a federal prosecutor, was named by President Bush in 2001 to lead the Phoenix office. Now in private practice in Phoenix, he has refused to discuss any details of the Renzi investigation -- even when asked about it at a March 6 hearing of the House judiciary committee.

Write to Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com

New Evidence of Security Problems at the White House

Monday, April 23, 2007
Disclosure of CIA Agent Identity

Current and former employees of the White House Security Office have reported to Chairman Waxman that there was a systemic failure at the White House to follow procedures for protecting classified information. According to the security officers, the White House regularly ignored security breaches, prevented security inspections of the West Wing, and condoned mismanagement of the White House Security Office.

Documents and Links

• Letter to Former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card Regarding New Evidence of Security Problems at the White House

Key Initiative Of 'No Child' Under Federal Investigation

Officials Profited From Reading First Program

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 21, 2007; A01

The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.

The disclosure came as a congressional hearing revealed how people implementing the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program made at least $1 million off textbooks and tests toward which the federal government steered states.

"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee, which held a five-hour investigative hearing. "You don't get to override the law," he angrily told a panel of Reading First officials. "But the fact of the matter is that you did."

The Education Department's inspector general, John P. Higgins Jr., said he has made several referrals to the Justice Department about the five-year-old program, which provides grants to improve reading for children in kindergarten through third grade.

Higgins declined to offer more specifics, but Christopher J. Doherty, former director of Reading First, said in an interview that he was questioned by Justice officials in November. The civil division of the U.S. attorney's office for the District, which can bring criminal charges, is reviewing the matter.

Doherty, one of the two Education Department employees who oversaw the initiative, acknowledged yesterday that his wife had worked for a decade as a paid consultant for a reading program, Direct Instruction, that investigators said he improperly tried to force schools to use. He repeatedly failed to disclose the conflict on financial disclosure forms.

"I'm very proud of this program and my role in this program," Doherty said in the interview. "I think it's been implemented in accordance with the law."

The management of Reading First has come under attacks from members of both parties. Federal investigators say program officials improperly forced states to use certain tests and textbooks created by those officials.

One official, Roland H. Good III, said his company made $1.3 million off a reading test, known as DIBELS, that was endorsed by a Reading First evaluation panel he sat on. Good, who owns half the company, Dynamic Measurement Group, told the committee that he donated royalties from the product to the University of Oregon, where he is an associate professor.

Two former University of Oregon researchers on the panel, Edward J. Kame'enui and Deborah C. Simmons, said they received about $150,000 in royalties last year for a program that is now packaged with DIBELS. They testified that they received smaller royalties in previous years for the program, Scott Foresman Early Reading Intervention, and did not know it was being sold with DIBELS.

Members of the panel said they recused themselves from voting on their own products but did assess their competitors. Of 24 tests approved by the committee, seven were tied to members of the panel.

"I regret the perception of conflicts of interest," said Kame'enui, former chairman of the committee, who now works at the department as commissioner of the National Center for Special Education Research. "But there was no real conflict of interest being engaged in."

The intricate financial connections between Reading First products and program officials extend beyond issues the committee explored yesterday.

Another researcher, Sharon Vaughn, worked with Kame'enui, Simmons and Good to design Voyager Universal Literacy, a program that Reading First officials urged states to use. Vaughn was director of a center at the University of Texas that was hired to provide states advice on selecting Reading First tests and books.

The publisher of that product, Voyager Expanded Learning, was founded and run by Randy Best, a major Bush campaign contributor, who sold the company in 2005 for more than $350 million. Now Best runs Higher Ed Holdings, a company that develops colleges of education, where former education secretary Roderick R. Paige is a senior adviser and G. Reid Lyon, Bush's former reading adviser, is an executive vice president.

"I'm very disappointed and saddened by the information that was provided at the hearing today," said Lyon, who had been a strong defender of Reading First, which he said had nothing to do with his new job. "The issues appear much more serious than I had been led to understand."

Despite the controversy surrounding Reading First's management, the percentage of students in the program who are proficient on fluency tests has risen about 15 percent, Education Department officials said. School districts across the country praise the program.

Members of both parties continue to support the goals of Reading First even as they attack its management. Miller and Senate education committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) joined Republicans yesterday in pledging to tighten restrictions on conflicts of interest in No Child Left Behind.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who declined to comment yesterday, has said management problems with Reading First "reflect individual mistakes." But Doherty said nearly every aspect of the program was carefully monitored by the department and the White House, where Spelling was Bush's top education adviser.

"This program was always firmly under the watch and control of the highest levels of the government," Doherty said.

Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

CRIMINAL Probe Opened in Pet Food Scare: YOUR Food Affected

Friday, 20 April 2007

Keep An Eye on Pet Food Recall Stories

UPDATE: "Criminal Probe Opened in Pet Food Scare: FDA Says Charges Possible; Tainted Pork Confirmed in Calif.," Washington Post, April 22: "The Food and Drug Administration has opened a criminal investigation in the widening pet food contamination scandal, officials said yesterday, as it was confirmed that tainted pork might have made its way onto human dinner plates in California." (I'm feeling prescient. This is just the TIP of the iceberg since labs still haven't gotten to the bottom of what's sickening pets and could sicken people. I suspect the Chinese add melamine (and more?) to cheaply boost protein numbers in glutens, and also that their factories are filthy cesspools of cross-contamination.)

ORIGINAL: Even if you don't have a pet, you'll be concerned by growing evidence that human foods could be contaminated. Further, the FDA is being barred by the Chinese government from investigating the Chinese plants that produced the tainted wheat gluten. This is KEY because the same Chinese plant that sold tainted wheat gluten (an additive in countless processed foods) also exports "carrots, garlic, ginger, corn protein powder, vegetables and feed." And now we've learned that rice and corn glutens are contaminated. Here's more new information:

• "Humans at risk from tainted pet food?," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Federal officials confirmed Thursday they are investigating whether pork products intended for humans are contaminated with the same industrial chemical that prompted a massive pet food recall and sickened cats and dogs nationwide. Researchers also have identified three other contaminants in the urine and kidneys of animals sickened or killed after eating the recalled foods, including cyanuric acid, a chemical commonly used in pool chlorination, three researchers told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Cyanuric acid is what most likely sickened pets, one researcher said.

Melamine previously was found in the recalled pet food and two ingredients -- wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate -- as well as in the urine, blood, kidneys and tissues of infected animals. [...]

The Trib learned yesterday that melamine-contaminated feed was fed to hogs.The FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture are investigating. [...]

[Some hogs] were slaughtered and sold as food before authorities learned their feed had been contaminated. ...

[T]he urine of some pigs at the 1,500-animal American Hog Farm in Ceres, Calif., tested positive for melamine, ...

The contaminated feed was bought April 3 and 13 as salvage pet food from Diamond Pet Foods Inc., which received contaminated rice protein concentrate. ...

Diamond Pet Foods Inc. is a large mass-producer of pet foods like Menu Foods. Diamond makes the Kirkland family of pet foods sold to Costco.

Melamine has been "found in South African Royal Canin products containing corn gluten from Chinese source." Via Itchmo blog, from SouthAfrica.com about the 30 pet deaths reported so far in South Africa:

An independent pathologist, Professor Fred Reyers said the outbreak may not be an isolated incident. He believed there was sufficient evidence to suggest a link between this outbreak and a similar one in Cape Town as well as one in the United States.

Itchmo blog's Ben adds:

We were tracking cases of the South African pet deaths before and have heard rumors of corn gluten contamination.

At this point, we believe that all corn gluten should be considered at risk for contamination and should be tested by every pet food manufacturer and the FDA.

The FDA "has yet to test corn gluten after South Africa’s findings of melamine in corn gluten from China," agency representatives conceded at yesterday's press conference.

The specific product recalls -- with more daily -- are too numerous to list here. The best thing to do is check Itchmo's site frequently because Ben has reliably and quickly posted all significant news. You can also sign up for Ben's safety alerts.

Howl911 is also doing a great job tracking recall news, and its staff has created a list of recalled products that is more accurate, and easier to follow, than the FDA's.

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review also has this report on the recalcitrance of the Chinese, "Chinese criticized in pet food probe."

The Chinese government and the company that supplied a contaminated ingredient are slowing the federal investigation into the nationwide recall of pet food, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said Tuesday.

[...]

Michael Rogers, director of the FDA's field investigations division, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review the agency has asked the Chinese government for help investigating the gluten and the supplier, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd., based in Jiangsu province.

The FDA is disappointed with slow and incomplete Chinese responses, Rogers said.

"I usually don't speak in terms of cooperative or not cooperative," he said.

Federal investigators haven't determined whether Xuzhou Anying shipped other food products to the United States, or what other Chinese companies it sold wheat gluten to that, in turn, might have been shipped here, Rogers said.

Xuzhou Anying's Web site said it also exports carrots, garlic, ginger, corn protein powder, vegetables and feed. Rogers said Chinese officials have not responded to the U.S. government's question about whether any products other than wheat gluten were shipped here.

"We're certainly reviewing all products from this source," he said. Since the recall, the company has shipped only wheat gluten to the United States, but U.S. officials still are unsure what might have been shipped prior to the recall, Rogers said.

"From an operational standpoint, we still have questions about this company," he said.

The FDA is screening all wheat gluten imported from China and the Netherlands at U.S. ports and seizing all wheat gluten from Xuzhou Anying.

[...]

The FDA, Cornell and other researchers found melamine in high concentrations in the gluten -- up to 6.6 percent of the product.

Even so, they do not believe the melamine made the animals sick, although they said it is a marker for tracking the outbreak, because the crystal found in the melamine and in animals' urine and tissue is distinctive to this outbreak.

In other words, nobody knows yet what is killing cats and dogs, or may be harming humans.

The best advice I've seen, from reading many articles and blog posts, is to buy locally and organically.

Even reading labels isn't a guarantee because there is little oversight over what companies list in their labels.

Sen. Dick Durbin has been a leader in calling for greater oversight by the FDA over imported foods. From his Web site:

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) met with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 in Durbin's Capitol office to discuss the latest recall of pet food, this time caused by contaminated rice protein imported from China.

In his press release on the meeting, Durbin says:

In the meeting, Durbin and DeLauro learned that the Chinese Government has blocked requests from the FDA to send personnel to China to inspect the facilities suspected of producing the contaminated products. The FDA first contacted the Chinese Government on April 4, 2007, but have not been granted permission to send food inspectors into the country. In response, Durbin and DeLauro sent a letter to the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Zhou Wenzong, urging the Chinese Government to issue visas to U.S. food inspectors as quickly as possible.

"It is unacceptable that the Chinese government is blocking our food safety inspectors from entering their country and examining facilities that are suspected of providing contaminated pet food to American consumers," said Durbin. "We have asked for two things in our letter today -- that the Chinese government allow our inspectors in and that the Chinese ambassador to the United States meet with Congresswoman DeLauro and me to discuss the larger issue of contaminated food being sent to the U.S. These are reasonable requests and we hope that we can find a level of cooperation with the Chinese."

"At time when China is exporting more foods into the U.S., the Chinese are refusing to allow our inspectors in to the country to investigate the source of the pet food contamination. The FDA needs to be allowed to investigate this so we can better protect our pets and identify the source of the source of the problem. While we have a significant trade relationship with the Chinese, the investigation of the contaminated product comes first," said DeLauro.

Durbin calls for a single agency to oversee food safety:

Durbin and DeLauro have been actively engaged on food safety issues for over a decade. This Congress they introduced legislation that calls for the development of a single food safety agency and the implementation of a food safety program to standardize American food safety activities (The Safe Food Act - S. 654 and H.R. 1148 in the Senate and House respectively). The Illinois senator said legislation he has introduced to consolidate all federal food safety responsibilities into a single, independent agency has taken on new urgency because of a possibly heightened need to respond quickly and effectively to any acts of bioterrorism or agroterrorism. Currently, there are at least 12 different federal agencies and 35 different laws governing food safety. With overlapping jurisdictions, federal agencies often lack accountability on food safety-related issues.

The non-partisan U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has been unequivocal in its recommendation for consolidation of federal food safety programs. In February of this year, the GAO deemed federal oversight of food safety as "high risk" to the economy and public health and safety. Over the past two decades, GAO has also issued numerous reports on topics such as food recalls, food safety inspections and the transport of animal feeds. Each of these reports highlights the current fragmentation and inconsistent organization of the various agencies involved in food safety oversight.

Posted by SusanUnPC, SusanUnPC@gmail.com, on Friday, 20 April 2007 at 13:16 | Permalink

Mr. Renzi Offers Field To Mining Companies; Grand Jury Is Active

US Congressman under FBI investigation
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JOHN R. WILKE
April 21, 2007; Page A1

SUPERIOR, Ariz. -- As they dig for nickel, copper and other commodities in the far corners of the earth, the world's largest mining companies, Rio Tinto PLC and BHP Billiton Ltd., are used to solving geological problems. Here, though, the problems they encountered were political.

North America's largest copper lode is believed to be buried more than a mile beneath Apache Leap, the stark red cliffs that loom above this storied Old West town about an hour east of Phoenix. Resolution Copper Co., a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, wants to mine it. But first it needs Congress to approve a federal land exchange, under which Resolution would swap 5,000 acres of private land for 3,000 acres of public land near its planned mine.

In exchange for supporting the bill, the local congressman, Rick Renzi, a Republican, insisted on something in return: He wanted Resolution to buy, as part of the land swap, a 480-acre alfalfa field near his hometown of Sierra Vista, according to documents and people involved in the deal.

Resolution executives refused. For starters, they thought the land was overpriced, people close to the deal say. More troubling, they discovered it was owned by Mr. Renzi's former business partner, these people say.

Resolution wasn't the only party troubled by the congressman's demands. His chief of staff resigned and began cooperating secretly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to witnesses and others close to the case. The FBI began a preliminary inquiry that was first reported in October, just before Mr. Renzi was elected to a third term.

That investigation has now become a formal public-corruption probe by a federal grand jury in Tucson. On Thursday, the grand jury authorized a search warrant of a Renzi family business. Investigators have uncovered evidence that Mr. Renzi received a cash payment from his former business partner, funneled through a family wine company, after a second investor group pursuing an unrelated land swap agreed to pay $4 million for the alfalfa field, according to people contacted in the course of the two-year investigation.

Mr. Renzi denies any wrongdoing and says that he intends to cooperate with the investigation. The search of the family business, he said in a statement Friday, is "the first step toward getting the truth out." His lawyer says the cash payment he received was to settle an unrelated debt.

The case could add fuel to the firestorm over the Bush administration's firing of federal prosecutors late last year. Paul Charlton, the U.S. Attorney who had been overseeing the case, was among those dismissed at the behest of the White House. A spokesman for Mr. Renzi dismissed as "a political hatchet job" the suggestion that Mr. Charlton's firing was connected to the probe of Mr. Renzi. On Thursday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress that none of the dismissals were politically motivated, and said the Justice Department is committed to battling corruption.

The Renzi case is the latest in a wave of public-corruption investigations of local and federal officials. At least five members of Congress -- three Republicans and two Democrats -- are now under federal criminal scrutiny. Two former members, both Republicans, have gone to prison in the past year. Voter polls have suggested that the investigations were one reason Republicans lost control of Congress last November.

The Renzi case spotlights the potential for abuse in the murky world of legislated land swaps, which have become more common in recent years. Thousands of acres of public land worth hundreds of millions of dollars change hands each year through narrow special-interest bills. There is little public scrutiny, and often no vote is recorded in Congress. Some swaps serve public goals, such as protecting wild habitat. Others enrich private interests at taxpayers' expense, sometimes sidestepping federal rules in the process.

The proposed Arizona land exchange would sweep aside a 1954 order by President Eisenhower protecting national forest in the area, including Oak Flats, a campground located above the proposed mine. "Yet another piece of land that was being 'permanently' protected is being put on the block because a private interest has use for it," Janine Blaeloch, director of the nonprofit Western Lands Project, complained to Congress last year.

Resolution, which declined to comment about its contacts with Mr. Renzi, has said it hopes to sink 7,000-foot shafts into the ground to reach the rich vein of copper ore. It has worked for years to win support for the mine, reaching out to local officials, environmentalists and rock-climbing groups. Arizona's governor and most members of its congressional delegation are backers. The governor told a Senate hearing last year the project could bring 1,000 jobs and $1 billion or more to the state's economy.

Although Superior has long been a mining town, it has escaped some of the ravages of open-pit mining that have scarred nearby towns. It is rich in natural beauty, including otherworldly rock formations and steep cliffs that draw thousands of climbers each year. Mayor Michael Hing sees the new mine as a way to escape the boom-and-bust cycles that have whipsawed the town for more than a century, ever since silver was discovered in 1875 at the Silver Queen mine and hundreds flocked to town, including famed gunslingers Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp.

In order to secure the use of the government land for mining, Resolution has proposed buying a number of parcels elsewhere and transferring them to government entities for uses completely unrelated to mining. The town of Superior, for example, would get title to the town graveyard, now on federal land. Climbers would get another place to explore. Resolution says the vast Apache Leap rock escarpment -- so named because Apache warriors on horseback are said to have jumped to their deaths to evade capture -- would be protected. The San Carlos Apache tribe opposes the mine, citing concerns that culturally significant areas would be disturbed.

Mr. Renzi told Resolution in 2005 that his support for the land swap would hinge in part on whether it helped fulfill a goal to cut water consumption along the San Carlos River, which slices through the desert far from the mining area, in southern Arizona, participants in the deal say. Fort Huachuca, a big U.S. Army base nearby, was under court order to cut water consumption, and it had been seeking help to retire farmland near the river. Mr. Renzi has longstanding ties to the base, the economic engine of the area. He grew up near it, and his father, retired U.S. Army Gen. Eugene Renzi, is its former commandant, now employed by one of its largest contractors, ManTech Corp.

Resolution proposed buying and handing over to the government thousands of acres of bird and wildlife habitat along the banks of the San Carlos, which would further the water-conservation goal.

In early 2005, however, Resolution balked at buying the 480-acre alfalfa field owned by Mr. Renzi's business partner, James Sandlin. Mr. Renzi then turned to another investment group, called the Petrified Forest group, that was looking to put together a unrelated land swap. That group, which included Bruce Babbitt, the former governor, agreed that April to buy the patch of farmland for nearly $4 million, says Philip Aries, a land-swap expert that was part of the group.

"Congressman Renzi told me that the purchase of the Sandlin parcel was a matter of national security, and that it was key to ensuring the viability of Fort Huachuca," Mr. Aries says. "He said that if we were to buy it before" upcoming hearings about the possible closure of the base, "he would give our swap priority -- a 'free pass,' he said, would be sure to get through the Natural Resources Committee," thereby ensuring its approval.

Mr. Aries says that after his group's purchase of the alfalfa field went through in 2005, Resolution complained that the Petrified Forest group had gotten priority treatment, and Mr. Renzi dropped his support for that group's land swap.

Mr. Aries, Resolution executives and others involved in the proposed transactions have been interviewed about the matter by the FBI, people close to the case say. Mr. Aries declines to discuss those conversations, or other details of his group's dealings with Mr. Renzi. Mr. Sandlin, the former owner of the alfalfa field, declines to comment.

Public records show that Mr. Sandlin and Mr. Renzi became business partners in 2001, when Mr. Sandlin bought shares of Fountain Realty & Development, one of Mr. Renzi's companies. In 2002 and 2003, Mr. Sandlin paid his partner between $1 million and $5 million for Mr. Renzi's stake in that business, according to House financial-disclosure records.

In 2004, a Federal Election Commission audit found that Mr. Renzi had received a total of $369,000 in illegal corporate funds from Fountain in the 2002 election cycle. It found that Fountain had shifted $131,000 of this through Mr. Renzi's personal accounts to the Renzi for Congress campaign account -- and that at least $70,000 of it was put back into Mr. Renzi's personal account.

Mr. Sandlin bought the alfalfa field in 2003 for about $1 million, land records show. The farmland, more than a mile wide, with mountains rising on two sides, lies fallow today.

One focus of the FBI's current investigation is whether Mr. Renzi profited from the sale of Mr. Sandlin's land to the Petrified Forest group, people close to the case say. Federal investigators have been asking questions about a May 2005 payment of $200,000 from Mr. Sandlin to Mr. Renzi, which was sent the same day that Mr. Sandlin received the first payment from the Petrified Forest group, these people say. The payment went to a wine company owned by Mr. Renzi, which was sold to his father days later, public records show.

Phoenix lawyer Grant Woods, one of Mr. Renzi's attorneys, said Friday that Mr. Sandlin sent Mr. Renzi the $200,000 to settle a debt stemming from a previous business transaction involving land in northeast Arizona. "The note was due, and he had to pay it off," Mr. Wood said. He said Mr. Renzi was not pushing the sale of the Sandlin property to help his former business partner. "He was working to solve the water problems of the San Pedro River and help save Fort Huachuca," Mr. Woods said. When Mr. Renzi was pressing Resolution and then the Petrified Forest group to buy the land, "he did not know Mr. Sandlin had an interest in that land," Mr. Wood said.

Executives of Resolution and participants in the Petrified Forest group are cooperating with the FBI in its investigation, people close to the case said. The Petrified Forest group is not being investigated for any possible wrongdoing.

The FBI is also looking into the congressman's dealings with Fort Huachuca, these people say.

Mr. Renzi said Friday he would take a leave of absence from the House intelligence committee "until the matter is resolved." John Boehner, the House Republican leader, had warned colleagues in a letter earlier this year that "clear likelihood of serious transgressions will lead to suspension from important committee positions; guilt will lead to immediate and severe consequences," according to Congressional Quarterly.

Mr. Renzi continues to serve on the House Natural Resources Committee, which handles land-swap legislation.

Resolution is pressing ahead with its effort to line up congressional support for a land swap. Bruno Hegner, who was Resolution's president when Mr. Renzi proposed that the company buy the alfalfa field, was so troubled by the incident that he wrote a letter detailing what happened and mailed it to himself, people close to the case said. He wanted a postmarked record of what occurred, these people say. That letter is now in the hands of the FBI, they say.

Write to John R. Wilke at john.wilke@wsj.com

Bank investigates contracts linked to Wolfowitz

Richard Adams in Washington
Saturday April 21, 2007
The Guardian

Paul Wolfowitz's grip on his job as president of the World Bank was shaken yesterday after the bank's governing council declared it had "great concern" and ordered an investigation into the contracts of staff connected to him.

After an emergency meeting, the bank's executive directors set up a wide-ranging inquiry into alleged breaches of the bank's code of conduct and ethical rules, and into statements about the controversy made by Mr Wolfowitz's office.

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The decision increases the pressure on Mr Wolfowitz, since the board's move widens the investigation to include the employment contracts of two of Mr Wolfowitz's advisers. Robin Kellems and Robin Cleveland moved from working for the Bush administration to the World Bank alongside Mr Wolfowitz in 2005, and have formed part of his inner circle, leading to accusations by bank staff members of special treatment.

The investigation will also look into the revelations that Shaha Riza, a bank employee and Mr Wolfowitz's girlfriend, was given a large pay rise and promotion on his orders when she was seconded outside the bank to avoid rules barring employees in a relationship from working together.

Mr Kellems and Ms Cleveland are also thought to have received open-ended contracts with salaries substantially above their level of experience. They are said to have started on $250,000 (about £125,000) net of tax.

The bank's board said it would establish a working party "to consider immediately the arrangements made for the secondment of the staff member closely associated with the president" - a reference to Ms Riza. "In addition, the executive directors identified other issues that will need to be addressed, including the various public communications made by the bank on the matter and issues around employment contracts made in the office of the president," the statement concluded.

White House support for Mr Wolfowitz has been ebbing in recent days.

Video: Gonzales Hearing

The Chairman Committee Information Committee Rules Online Library Document Request

HEARINGS > APRIL 19, 2007

"Department of Justice Oversight "
Senate Judiciary Committee
Full Committee


DATE: April 19, 2007
TIME: 09:30 AM
ROOM: Hart-216
OFFICIAL HEARING NOTICE / WITNESS LIST:


Live video streaming courtesy of C-Span

April 18, 2007

NOTICE OF FULL COMMITTEE ROOM FOR RESCHEDULED OVERSIGHT HEARING HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING ROOM 216 THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2007 at 9:30 a.m.

The hearing on “Department of Justice Oversight” which was rescheduled by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for Thursday, April 19, 2007, will take place in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building at 9:30 a.m.

By order of the Chairman.

Witness List

Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on “Department of Justice Oversight” Tuesday, April 19, 2007 Hart Senate Office Building Room 216 10:00 a.m.

The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
Washington, DC

WEBCAST - CLICK HERE

One Prosecutor’s Ouster Central to Inquiry

April 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 18 — When Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales takes the witness chair on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the dismissal of the United States attorney from New Mexico will be a topic of particular scrutiny, committee members and their staff said.

That case, perhaps more than any of the other ousters, demonstrates the interaction of the Republican Party, the White House, a prominent Republican senator and Mr. Gonzales that led up to the firings.

Investigators have already determined that Mr. Gonzales spoke directly three times with Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, about his complaints regarding David C. Iglesias, the state’s former top federal prosecutor.

Administration officials have confirmed that Mr. Gonzales also spoke with President Bush and Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, about the perceived lack of enthusiasm in Mr. Iglesias’s office, among others, for prosecuting voting fraud cases, a top Republican Party priority. And investigators know that Mr. Iglesias’s name was among the last to be added to the ouster list.

“On what precise date, why and by whom was Mr. Iglesias placed on the list of U.S. attorneys to be fired?” asked Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, in a list of questions he has presented to Mr. Gonzales.

Judiciary Committee staff members said Wednesday that given the repeated instances in which Mr. Gonzales was directly involved in discussions related to Mr. Iglesias, it might be hard for the attorney general to refuse to testify about these discussions or any follow-up conversations or to deny any recollection of them.

The attorney general’s appearance is regarded by lawmakers in both parties, by White House officials and by his own aides as the most important of his public life, with his job as the country’s chief legal officer hanging in the balance.

“His credibility is going to be an issue which is very much front and center,” Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said Wednesday.

By ERIC LIPTON

--MORE--

Gonzales: Firings Were Justified

Thursday April 19, 2007 3:01 PM

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - His job in jeopardy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Thursday his decision to fire eight federal prosecutors was ``justified and should stand.''

In remarks prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales also said that ``reasonable people might disagree'' with the decision. He said the process by which the eight were dismissed was ``nowhere near as rigorous or structured as it should have been.''

Gonzales began his turn as a witness after Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's chairman, delivered a tongue-lashing in the opening moments of the widely anticipated hearing.

``Today the Department of Justice is experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled during its 137-year history,'' said the Vermont Democrat. ``There's a growing scandal swirling around the dismissal'' of prosecutors, he added.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's senior Republican, offered the attorney general no more comfort in his opening remarks.

He said the purpose of the hearing was to determine whether the committee believes that Gonzales should remain in office. ``As I see it, you come to this hearing with a very heavy burden of proof,'' Specter said as Gonzales listened intently, lips pursed, a few feet away in the crowded hearing room.

``This is not a game of gotcha,'' said Specter. In a reflection of the stakes, he told the attorney general he faces the equivalent of a ``reconfirmation hearing.''

Gonzales himself has provided differing versions of the events, first saying he had almost no involvement in them and then later acknowledging that his role was larger - but only after e-mails about meetings he attended were released by the Justice Department to House and Senate committees.

FBI searches Republican lawmaker’s home

FBI Ups Heat on Doolittle

Attorney: Wife Target of Raid By Rachel Van Dongen and Susan Davis

Roll Call Staff
April 19, 2007

The FBI raided the Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle and his wife on Friday, though the Congressman’s lawyer contended the raid was focused on Julie Doolittle’s fundraising records rather than any of the California Republican lawmaker’s own activities.
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FBI searches Republican lawmaker’s home

By Mike Soraghan and Susan Crabtree

April 18, 2007

The FBI searched the Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) last Friday in its investigation into ties between the congressman and his wife, Julie, and disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to law enforcement and other Congressional and K Street sources.

The search took place on the same day that his former chief of staff, Kevin Ring, abruptly resigned from his lobbying firm. Ring left Doolittle’s office to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig and may have played a role in Abramoff’s decision to hire Julie Doolittle’s consulting firm. After the Abramoff scandal broke, Ring went to work for the lobbying firm, Barnes and Thornburg.


Doolittle came within three percentage points of losing his election in November after facing months of scrutiny over his relationship with Abramoff, who is in jail for an array of fraud, bribery and money-laundering charges. The lawmaker has denied any wrongdoing.

Throughout his campaign, Doolittle refused to return an estimated $50,000 he received from Abramoff clients, mostly tribes, between 1999 and 2004. Abramoff also personally donated $14,000 between 1999 and 2004 to Doolittle’s congressional campaigns.

Doolittle used Abramoff’s luxury sports box for a fundraiser without initially reporting it to the Federal Election Commission.

Doolittle also has been under fire for paying his wife’s company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, a 15 percent commission on all contributions that the company raised for Doolittle’s campaign committee and leadership PAC. Her only other clients were Abramoff’s former firm, Greenberg Traurig; Abramoff’s former restaurant Signatures; and the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, which Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to ex-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), created.

The Justice Department previously subpoenaed Julie Doolittle’s files.

Doolittle also received contributions from indicted defense contractor Brent Wilkes and his associates, and investigators are probing whether those contributions are linked to any official action Doolittle took to help Wilkes’ company obtain millions of dollars in government earmarks.

Wilkes recently was indicted in connection with his investigation stemming from former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s (R-Calif.) bribery conviction and jailing.

Attempts to obtain a copy of the search warrant at the U.S. District Courthouse in Alexandria were unsuccessful. Of the 126 search warrants logged there since the beginning of February, 90 (or 71 percent) are “under seal.”

DOJ Fails to Comply with House Judiciary Subpoena

April 16th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

From the Judiciary Committee:

Justice Department Fails to Comply with House Judiciary Subpoena

(Washington, DC)- Today, U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) issued the following statement in response to the Justice Department’s failure to comply with the Committee’s subpoena response deadline of 2 p.m. today. The subpoena seeks information the Department has continued to refuse to provide or has provided only in redacted form.

“We are disappointed that the Justice Department failed to produce the documents and other materials for which we issued a subpoena last week. While we understand that the Department considers this effort a priority and we plan to continue working with them, we will review all available legal options to secure compliance with the subpoena.”

Nevada governor faces string of scandals, criminal investigation

Nevada governor faces string of scandals

By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 18 minutes ago

Ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt, it has become customary to take stock of a politician's first 100 days in office. Here's what Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons' 100 days include: Four scandals or more. One criminal investigation. One $10,000 dress. And a possible $137 million budget shortfall.

No charges have been brought against the Republican governor. But the tumult has made the dawn of his administration a dreary one.

"He has very little political currency to work with" in dealing with Legislature, where the Republicans control the Senate and the Democrats the Assembly, said GOP operative Steve Wark.

In what may be the most serious threat yet, the FBI has opened a corruption investigation into the former five-term congressman's relationship with a defense contractor. A former partner at the company has alleged that Gibbons received money, travel, poker chips and other favors to help it win government contracts.

Also, recent disclosures that Gibbons' wife, a former state assemblywoman and wedding chapel owner, was a paid consultant for another defense contractor have raised more questions about her husband's time on the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

Despite the series of "Gibbons denies ... " headlines, the 62-year-old governor said he is unfazed.

"I think, first of all, the first 100 days have been, you know, terrific for me, I've been able to do a lot," he said, citing progress on bills dealing with schools, sex offenders and tax relief for homeowners. He vowed: "I will not let these claims knock me off course."

Gibbons has hired Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell, who represented disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to handle the federal investigation.

The troubles have given Gibbons no time to gain his footing from other scandals that broke during his campaign: a Las Vegas cocktail waitress' assertion that he assaulted her in a parking garage after she rebuffed his advances, and a Peruvian housekeeper's claim that she worked for Gibbons while in this country illegally.

In December, weeks after Gibbons was elected, police said they found insufficient evidence to support the waitress' claims. And the housekeeper issue has all but disappeared — mostly because of the governor's more recent troubles.

Gibbons, a former fighter pilot particularly popular in conservative rural Nevada, got elected with 48 percent of the vote in a state where none-of-the-above is an option. But his approval rating stood at a miserable 29 percent in March.

By his seventh week in office, boos echoed louder than cheers when Gibbons was introduced at a college basketball game in his hometown of Reno.

Some bloggers are talking recall. Republicans are tiptoeing.

"There are a lot of people out here who normally would come out and defend Jim Gibbons," said GOP consultant Chuck Muth. But he said "a lot of Republicans are hedging their bets" because of the parallels to former California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who went to prison for taking bribes from military contractors.

The governor had largely stayed mum on the allegations until earlier this week. After The Wall Street Journal reported that he was under investigation for his ties to Warren Trepp, a longtime friend who owns a Reno military software company, the governor suggested he may be the subject of a conspiracy.

"I have heard that actually the Democrat Party paid to have these Wall Street Journal articles written," Gibbons told the Reno Gazette Journal.

The Journal and state Democrats denied any collusion. When pressed, Gibbons later said he didn't believe the rumors.

State Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, a Democrat who lost to Gibbons in November, suggested the governor was "losing touch with reality."

The administration also has been troubled by smaller dustups.

Gibbons got off to a bad start right away when he secretly called for a midnight swearing-in on Jan. 1. He cited homeland security concerns — the need to have someone in charge at all times, without interruption — but it was widely viewed as a maneuver to undo a key appointment made by his GOP predecessor.

The governor was mocked by Democrats when he acknowledged he had only a "peripheral knowledge" of a $60 million education program he had made a key part of his State of the State speech.

And a press release from the first lady's office describing a $10,000 velvet Giorgio Armani ensemble purchased for the inaugural balls elicited jeers for the fiscal conservative. (The dress was paid for with contributions, not tax dollars.)

Gibbons also angered conservatives when he submitted a budget raising fees, after pledging not to do so. He later removed the increases.

Last month, after a furor over the $194,000 defense fund that Gibbons set up to deal with the various allegations against him, the Nevada secretary of state concluded that the fund did not violate the state's campaign finance laws.

Muth, like Gibbons himself, is not writing the governor off yet.

"Politics for both parties is a roller coaster. We're down right now," Muth said, "but the good news is you only go up from here."

White House tries to hide ease of tax scam?

Bush may really be trying to block Congress' compelling a federal prisoner to testify. The White House does not want Gitmo prisoners telling all to Congress.
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Politics

Prisoner to Testify on Ease of Tax Scam

Morning Edition, April 12, 2007 · The White House doesn't want a federal prisoner to testify at a Senate Finance Committee oversight hearing Thursday. The prisoner is supposed to tell senators how he made thousands of dollars using false tax rebates. The Justice Department had cited security as the reason to block the testimony, but recently gave up on its efforts to do so.

HERE:

by Nina Totenberg

Gonzales Crams for a Senate Grilling; Can't Keep His Story Straight

Gonzales Crams for a Senate Grilling

By Michael Isikoff

Newsweek

April 16, 2007 issue - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has virtually wiped his public schedule clean to bone up for his long-awaited April 17 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee—a session widely seen as a crucial test as to whether he will survive the U.S. attorney mess. But even his own closest advisers are nervous about whether he is up to the task. At a recent "prep" for a prospective Sunday talk-show interview, Gonzales's performance was so poor that top aides scrapped any live appearances. During the March 23 session in the A.G.'s conference room, Gonzales was grilled by a team of top aides and advisers—including former Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie and former White House lawyer Tim Flanigan—about what he knew about the plan to fire seven U.S. attorneys last fall. But Gonzales kept contradicting himself and "getting his timeline confused," said one participant who asked not to be identified talking about a private meeting. His advisers finally got "exasperated" with him, the source added. "He's not ready," Tasia Scolinos, Gonzales's public-affairs chief, told the A.G.'s top aides after the session was over, said the source. Asked for comment, Scolinos told NEWSWEEK: "This was the first session of this kind that we'd done."

One problem is that Gonzales is increasingly isolated. Top DOJ lawyers have decreed he can't talk about the U.S. attorney firings with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and his staff, who are key witnesses in an internal Justice inquiry into whether DOJ officials misled Congress. (Any consultation could be viewed as an attempt to "coordinate" their stories.) With his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, forced to resign, Gonzales has no trusted aide who both knows the facts about the firings and has political skills, according to a top DOJ official who asked not to be named talking about internal matters. Courtney Elwood, a former deputy to Dick Cheney's chief counsel David Addington, who is now working for Gonzales, has taken on a bigger role, shutting down responses to most inquiries from Congress and the news media because she views the firings flap as a purely "legal" issue. "There's nobody quarterbacking this," said another frustrated administration official, who asked not to be identified for the same reasons. "The department is in a state of paralysis." But Gonzales remains determined to make his case. He is spending hours alone in his office, poring over documents and calling members of Congress; his staff is planning "murder board" sessions later this week where outsiders may be brought in to play the roles of Judiciary chair Sen. Patrick Leahy or Sen. Chuck Schumer. Gonzales is likely to start out next week's hearing with a more expansive mea culpa. "The attorney general definitely regrets how this situation has been handled," said Scolinos. "But he firmly believes that nothing improper was done."

Gonzales spends days practicing BS for hearing

Gonzales Prepares to Fight for His Job in Testimony

By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 5, 2007; Page A01

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has retreated from public view this week in an intensive effort to save his job, spending hours practicing testimony and phoning lawmakers for support in preparation for pivotal appearances in the Senate this month, according to administration officials.

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Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman, and Timothy E. Flanigan, who worked for Gonzales at the White House, have met with the attorney general to plot strategy. The department has scheduled three days of rigorous mock testimony sessions next week and Gonzales has placed phone calls to more than a dozen GOP lawmakers seeking support, officials said.