Jefferson on the stand

Rep. William Jefferson testified at a pre-trial hearing Thursday, attempting to get evidence from the FBI raid on his house thrown out.

But it didn't go well for him. He claimed the FBI intimidated him when they interviewed him during the raid -- even though he's a member of Congress and a Harvard-educated lawyer, both of which tend to make him unlikely to be intimidated.

He said the FBI agents yelled and swore at him -- even though they apparently weren't loud enough to wake up his sleeping wife and daughter.

The prosecution said the day before that he made a bunch of phone calls during the raid, which would indicate that he was hardly coerced or intimidated. Jefferson denied it. The prosecution responded by brandishing phone records showing various calls from his house that day. It's unclear from the story, however, if the calls were made during or after the interview, which began at around 7 a.m.; the main phone call is from 8:29 a.m.

In any case, what you have here is not a man vigorously defending his innocence, but a man trying to suppress damning evidence against him, notably the $90,000 they found in his freezer. That is an important legal right -- the police are not allowed to use illegally collected evidence -- but it hardly burnishes his claims of no wrongdoing.

Jefferson, politics, midtopia

Ex-Congressman charged with supporting Al Qaeda

Didn't see this one coming.

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

Without trying to assess the strength of the charges -- there's not enough information to do that -- let me just point out a couple of thoughts:

Thank goodness it was a Republican. Can you imagine all the apoplectic aneurysms among right-wing bloggers if it had been a Democrat? With Siljander, they'll of course explain that he's just one guy, doesn't represent all Republicans and was probably a RINO anyway. Had it been a Democrat, on the other hand, he would have been a representative poster child for the Democratic Party, damning evidence of the corruption and disloyalty inherent in the Democratic character, and something that all current Democratic officeholders must answer for. Ain't blind partisanship fun?

The charges aren't all that explosive. He's essentially accused of lobbying on behalf of a charity, a charity that we declared a terrorist supporter because some of its money ended up in the hands of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Hekmatyar's a bad guy now -- a declared supporter of Osama bin Laden -- but his is a common story in the region: we were a big supporter of his when he was fighting the Soviets, walked away when the Soviets left, and then found ourselves fighting against him when we invaded Afghanistan. Sending him cash may well constitute "terrorist support", but it's not a simple thing. And Siljander's guilt will rest largely on how much he knew about the charity's activities.

The most damning charges address how his lobbying was funded: it claims he conspired with the charity to illegally use money donated by USAID. He also denied doing any lobbying for the group. If true, that's enough to sink him for corruption, and cast doubt on on his truthfulness, which in turn would suggest greater involvement and culpability for money reaching Hekmatyar.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post notes that the problem might be Siljander's district, inasmuch as his predecessor was also a Republican, and is also in hot water:

It was a shocker when David A. Stockman, the one-time congressman from the Sixth (actually the 4th back then, before redistricting) who went on to become President Reagan's White House budget director in the early 1980s, was indicted last year on charges of conspiracy and securities fraud involving a Michigan auto parts company.

Now we learn that Stockman's successor in Congress, Mark Deli Siljander, was indicted today for his role in an alleged terrorist fundraising ring.

Such an observation requires taking two data points and calling it a trend, while ignoring that the current officeholder, Fred Upton, is also a Republican and has served since 1986. But it's still interesting.

All in all, more evidence that claiming one party is inherently more patriotic, loyal or honest than the other is dumb.

Hall of Shame updated.

Siljander, politics, midtopia

A lot less pork

I missed this while on hiatus, so forgive me for noting what may be old news to some of you. But after the federal government's fiscal year 2007 ended on September 30, Citizens Against Government Waste toted up the earmarks.

Their conclusion? After hitting a record high of $29 billion in FY 2006 -- the last year under Republican control -- earmarks fell to $13.2 billion, the lowest amount since 1999.

They credit the House Democratic leadership, as well as Republican senators Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint and Jeff Sessions. In other words, divided government. Division keeps costs down by pitting Congress against the president and giving formerly muzzled fiscal conservatives in the Republican ranks freedom to tie Congress in knots rather than allow excessive pork to pass through.

The victory might be temporary, however, inasmuch as it's largely because Congress failed to pass 9 of 11 appropriations bills. When those bills finally pass, they could end up being larded with pork. So we'll have to wait and see what the 2008 number looks like before crediting Democrats (and a handful of Republicans) with restoring some minor measure of fiscal discipline.

earmarks, politics, midtopia

A quick three

Three quick items of note in the presidential race.

DEMOCRATIC DIRTY TRICKS?
Push-polling in Iowan about Obama and Edwards -- with Hillary as the obvious suspect, though her campaign denies any connection. Considering her third-place finish, it didn't do her much good.

REPUBLICAN DIRTY TRICKS
A handful of ministers who support Huckabee got letters warning them that they could be sanctioned for violating church-state separation. This could just be a lone whackjob rather than an effort by someone's campaign, and again, it totally failed to intimidate anybody. But it's a pretty obnoxious attempt.

RON PAUL SUPPORTERS SLAUGHTERED
In World of Warcraft, that is -- after a political rally wherein they marched to the very gates of doom. Having to kill monsters en route to the rally must really get the blood pumping....

politics, midtopia

Another Hall of Shame candidate

Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, convicted Republican Gov. George Ryan, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, is at the center of a deepening federal probe.

Federal prosecutors for the first time brought their corruption investigation to the desk of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, making public Friday the allegations of two convicted insiders who say the governor offered them state business for their political backing.

In a 78-page court filing that identifies the governor only as "Public Official A," federal authorities detailed the accusations of the two former political operatives who have already pleaded guilty in a shakedown scheme and are cooperating with prosecutors.

Blagojevich told one of the men he "could award contracts, legal work and investment banking to help with fundraising," according to the filing.

The other insider, Stuart Levine, described a flight home from a New York trip during which he thanked Blagojevich for reappointing him to an influential and allegedly corrupt state hospital board.

"You stick with us and you will do very well for yourself," Blagojevich replied, according to the court document.

This is Illinois, of course, where corruption is a bipartisan endeavor. But that hardly excuses it.

For now, all we have is unsealed accusations -- no charges, much less a trial or conviction. But it doesn't look good, so Blagojevich goes on our Hall of Shame watch list.

(h/t: The Glittering Eye)

Blagojevich, politics, midtopia

A mixed ethics bag

Somedays, you get a clear picture that there's a Good Congress and a Bad Congress, and they are in a constant tug-of-war for control of legislators' souls -- sort of like the struggle between Barnes and Elias in the movie "Platoon."

Barnes (above, holding a gun to the head of the House ethics manual) popped his head up the other day, when the House ethics committee published its interpretation of the new ethics rules regarding convention parties -- in which they interpreted a section that bars lobbyists from sponsoring parties honoring members of Congress as only applying if members are mentioned by name. So it's just fine to attend lobbyist parties if they keep it vague -- honoring a state delegation, for instance, or a specific congressional committee.

Watchdog groups, naturally, are outraged. Me, I'll add in "bemused by the lengths the House will go to ensure they can attend parties."

But a couple of days later, Elias emerged from the jungle, running after the departing helicopter.

A "bipartisan" task force appointed to fix flaws in the House ethics system issued recommendations Wednesday without a hint of bipartisanship.

Only Democrats signed off on the plan. Republicans kept silent.

The proposal would change the way ethics complaints are initiated and handled. A six-person Office of Congressional Ethics, with no lawmakers as members, would be authorized to file complaints and start investigations of lawmakers and staff.

At least Republicans didn't actively block it. But the idea of a nonpartisan ethics panel is a good one, and long overdue.

Of course, any recommendations from that panel would still be sent to the ethics committee, which would have the final say over whether to pursue a complaint. And the panel lacks subpoena power. But it would be a little more sunlight into the process, and it would be a little more difficult for the committee to simply ignore a recommendation from such a panel.

So who will win, Barnes or Elias? In the movie, Elias loses the battle (Barnes kills him) but wins the war. A similar outcome seems possible here, where constant and successful efforts by House members to undermine the ethics rules effectively kill them, prompting such a harsh outcry from the public that even harsher rules end up getting installed. I'd prefer it not get quite so Oliver Stoneish, but if that's what happens, okay.

ethics, politics, midtopia

Political justice

People concerned about the politicization of prosecutions in the Bush Justice Department now have this feel-good story to look at:

The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

They're referring to this case, which led to the near bankruptcy of the New Hampshire GOP.

There's more:

The official said that department officials rejected prosecutor Todd Hinnen's push to bring criminal charges against the New Hampshire Republican Party.

Weeks before the 2004 election, Hinnen's supervisors directed him to ask a judge to halt action temporarily in a Democratic Party civil suit against the GOP so that it wouldn't hurt the investigation, although Hinnen had expressed no concerns that it would, the official said.

Excellent.

Bad as that looks, there's a legitimate conundrum: How to handle election-related charges on the eve of an election? I appreciate not wanting to drop last-minute indictment bombshells, which could influence an election even though the underlying facts don't ultimately support conviction. Ignoring that reality could lead to sham indictments of opposition party members.

In this case, the underlying facts seemed pretty clear. But considering that Tobin's conviction was overturned on appeal this year and he now awaits a retrial, perhaps some caution was called for -- even though the verdict was overturned on a technicality, not because the court thinks Tobin didn't do anything wrong.

It'd be tempting to adopt one of two objective positions: prosecute without regard to the calendar, or don't file politically-related indictments within 30 days of an election. Either would remove the second-guessing about motive that this case engenders; but both have their flaws -- either the risk of politically-motivated indictments, or the risk of justice delayed and voters kept from having relevant information.

There are no real good answers here. Only the observation that when someone on your team screws up, it's probably better to err on the side of prosecuting too early than it is to delay and risk allegations of a cover-up.

Justice Department, Tobin, politics, midtopia

Torture is in the eye of the beholder

President Bush declares "we don't torture." But that's only true if you accept his definition of the term -- which apparently doesn't include several techniques that most other people consider torture. Dan Froomkin writes:

The bill would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow interrogation rules adopted by the armed forces last year....

Those rules explicitly prohibit "forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees' heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding."

Okay, I'll side with Bush on the forcing to be naked and sexual posing. That's humiliating, and shouldn't be allowed, but it's not torture.

But the rest?

Bush relies on the sophistry of "not telling our enemies what methods we use" as his excuse for opposing such clear bills. But that makes little sense. Yes, you don't publish a manual of interrogation methods. But if you can't label a given technique torture, then you can't meaningfully apply a law that outlaws torture -- and thus any claims that "we don't torture" are meaningless and unenforceable.

Froomkin also covers the contempt of Congress citations issued to Karl Rove and Josh Bolten for refusing to turn over documents related to the U.S. attorney firings. Interestingly, Republican senators Arlen Specter and Charles Grassley voted in favor of the citations -- deflating to some extent accusation that the charges are purely politically motivated.

For its part, the White House repeated its meaningless offer to let Rove and Bolten be interviewed without oaths or transcripts. And it vowed that the Justice Department would not enforce the contempt citations, preventing the issue -- which, questions of right or wrong aside, boils down to a separation-of-powers spat -- from being heard in the courts.

As Froomkin writes:

The White House position, of course, exposes an amazing conundrum: That the same Justice Department whose politicization is being investigated is also in a position to hand out get-out-of-testifying-free cards.

This may be within the executive's power, but it's not right. Both sides should agree to have the matter reviewed by the judiciary, which can rule on whether Congress has the power of oversight in this matter. If so, the documents must be turned over; if not, they don't.

But the scorched earth stonewalling by the White House serves no legitimate purpose.

torture, Bolten, Rove, politics, midtopia

Backfill

Geez, I leave town for a week and everyone goes nuts! What's up with that?

BUH-BYE, GONZO
The big news, of course, was that Alberto Gonzales finally resigned -- with little or no explanation, though various administration officials applied various spins to the decision.

Not that it really matters. I don't care if he wants to "pursue other options" or "spend more time with his family" or simply "make more money in the private sector." I don't care if he was forced out or jumped or fell. All I can say is, "at last." It was too long in coming.

His resignation won't bring an end to the myriad Congressional inquiries into his actions and those of his subordinates. But it might take some of the bite and energy out of them.

His temporary replacement will be Solicitor General Paul Clement. A permanent replacement will be hard to find, for several reasons: Bush's diminished influence, the mess Gonzales leaves behind, and the fact that "permanent" means a little more than a year at the end of a dying presidency. It would essentially be a caretaker role, not a platform for grand initiatives.

If Bush is smart, he'll find someone of impeccable integrity who can spend the year cleaning up the department and restoring its morale and reputation -- an endeavor that, if successful, might erase the memory of Gonzales in time for the 2008 elections. But it could take quite a sales job to persuade the right person to take on that task.


CRAIG'S RAP SHEET
Meanwhile, reporters discovered that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in an airport bathroom here in Minnesota, and pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from an undercover cop.

(Tangentially, it must be just loads of fun to be an undercover vice cop, sitting in toilet stalls and waiting for someone to proposition you. I wonder if they get a lot of reading done.)

Craig, pressured by Republican leaders, said he would resign -- but is now reconsidering that decision.

Craig denies being gay or soliciting sex, saying he pleaded guilty in hopes of making an embarassing situation go away. And the evidence against him is circumstantial -- essentially, a series of actions that are traditionally used by gay men seeking sex. No direct request, no words spoken.

Still, the sequence of events is odd to say the least -- looking into the neighboring stall, placing his bag against the front of his own stall, tapping his foot, touching the undercover officer's foot and "swiping his hand under the stall divider."

Any one of those actions could be explained away -- though the last is somewhat difficult. But all of it in sequence makes little sense except as a come-on. He might claim police entrapment -- but the officer in question has a good reputation.

On the other hand, the transcript of his discussion with the officer shows sharp disagreement about what occurred. So there's room for doubt. Nothing Craig said in the transcript conflicts with his public claims. It comes down to who you believe -- and what weight you place on the unreliability of eyewitnesses, even trained eyewitnesses like undercover officers. Craig could well be telling the truth, and he might well have prevailed had he been willing to endure a public trial.

Still, for the sake of argument, let's assume Craig is guilty. What should be our reaction?

My basic take is that, in a perfect world, this should be a nonstory. Who cares about his sexual orientation or private sexual habits, as long as they're not illegal? But the hypocrisy -- of Republicans in general, and the strongly anti-gay Craig in particular -- is what drives these sort of things. Republicans have made an issue of homosexuality, and poking their nose in people's bedrooms; this is the flip side of that coming home to roost.

Which is why a Republican strategist, Michelle Laxalt, said the following about the Craig case on Larry King:

"I happened to have come into the Republican Party during the more civil libertarian era of Barry Goldwater, Bill Buckley, Paul Laxalt, Ronald Reagan. And in their philosophy, the view about judging people regarding their personal lives was a live and let live philosophy. And somehow during the ensuing years, there has been a faction who call themselves the Moral Majority. We all remember the bumper stickers many years ago floating around Washington, which read 'The Moral Majority is neither.' And here we find ourselves virtually every single time getting whacked because of what is perceived to be a hypocrisy factor. The Republican Party needs to have some very serious introspection and return to the values that started us out, and that is individual liberty and a live and let live policy when it comes to people's private lives."

Amen. The Dems figured that out years ago, which is why nobody cares if a Dem is gay. There's no hypocrisy. In cases like this, Republicans are merely reaping what they have sown in their embrace of the religious right and "family values" issues.


THEY'RE BAAACCKKK!!
Congress returns from their summer recess, and that means more hearings on Iraq. Today we got a look at a GAO report on the Iraqi benchmarks, which notes that the Iraqi government has met only three of the 18 goals it set for itself, and partially met four others. And the ones that were met were the small, easy ones. (click here for the full report (pdf))

Wednesday and Thursday we'll get Congressional reports on the Iraqi security forces and the administration's own assessment of progress on benchmarks. And next week we'll get the big surge update from Gen. Petraeus. Both sides are already jockeying for position, with the White House downplaying the importance of political benchmarks and Congressional Democrats downplaying the importance of military benchmarks. It appears that many minds are already made up, and won't be changed by anything as mundane as facts on the ground.

This is a bit depressing, though I must admit that it's funny to see the White House criticizing the GAO report as "lacking nuance" when back in 2004 President Bush famously said he "doesn't do nuance." Oh what a difference three years of plummeting popularity makes.

Me, I accept the argument that the political benchmarks are more important than the military ones. But both are important, because progress (or backsliding) in one sphere can foreshadow progress (or backsliding) in the other. And it won't be as simple as "have they been met yet?" Indeed, that is only one of two important questions to be answered about the benchmarks.

1. Have they been met yet? This question is important both as an assessment of where we stand and as a way to judge the credibility of the claimants on both sides of the war, which should have some bearing on whom we believe going forward.

2. Has there been progress? And if so, how much? If the strategy can be shown to be working -- if there is reasonable reason to believe that it will deliver the necessary results -- then it deserves more time. But if the political benchmarks remain out of reach despite battlefield successes, or the battlefield is not successful enough to sustain the political achievements, then it's time to pull the plug.

Time to pull out my crystal ball.

Assuming the predictions are correct, what we'll get is a report that shows modest battlefield advances but political paralysis. So the debate will move on to two subordinate questions: what are the prospects for political progress, and are the battlefield gains both real and sustainable?

For that, we must await the reports.

gonzales, Craig, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Spitzer hearing reveals little

The New York state Senate hearing into what is being dubbed "Troopergate" or "Choppergate" (there seems to be a war of coinage going on) was apparently riveting political theater, but didn't turn up much in the end.

The most notable bit of information to emerge was details of two investigations, one conducted by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the other by Inspector General Kristine Harmann. The former was hampered by the AG's inability to subpoena two key aides in the scandal, Richard Baum and Darren Dopp, because Harmann was investigating and never formally turned over control of the probe to Cuomo. But Harmann's probe was halted after it led to Baum, to whom the IG reports. Instead, the IG's information was folded into the AG's report, which relied on voluntary statements from the pair.

That's inadequate. While Cuomo was comfortable drawing a conclusion that no criminality was involved (and an aide testified that subpoenas would not have changed the verdict), it's important in a case like this to avoid even the appearance of a coverup or a whitewash. Any investigation should be full, complete and public.

It's probably not necessary to have Cuomo or Harmann reinvestigate, however, given that there are currently two other probes in the works: one by the local DA, the other by the state Commission on Investigation, which handles inquiries into corruption, fraud and the conduct of government officials. Both probes will have subpoena power. Assuming they are conducted properly, they should provide the answers the first two investigations have not.

Meanwhile, we wait. And so should senate Republicans.

Spitzer, politics, midtopia

Spitzer hearing tomorrow

The Republican-controlled New York state Senate will hold a hearing on Spitzergate tomorrow -- while the Albany district attorney has launched an inquiry to see if he should begin a criminal investigation of Spitzer's aides.

In an op-ed piece last week, the victim in the scandal -- state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno -- called for a special counsel to investigate the matter. The article was full of non sequiturs, and a good half of it was simply a list of Bruno's political grievances against Spitzer. In the end, the best argument he could come up with for a special counsel was that the case called into question Spitzer's "temperament" -- hardly a compelling case.

Nonetheless, the hearings may be the first step toward such an eventuality. Spitzer deserves a certain amount of raking over the coals, but it'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow. If they don't uncover something that goes beyond what Spitzer has already copped to, it'll be hard to justify further investigation.

At which point one of two things will happen: they'll wait for the DA's inquiry to wrap up, or they'll point to "serious unanswered questions" as justification for continuing to flog the case. The question will be whether those questions are truly "serious" or not. We shall see.

Spitzer, politics, midtopia

Ethics bill awaits Bush's signature

The Senate passed the ethics bill 83-14 last night, sending it to President Bush's desk for his signature, completing the end run around Sen. Jim DeMint.

Bush has indicated he might veto it. This makes little sense for two reasons. First, the bills passed with overwhelming majorities (the House vote was 411-8), so a veto would be symbolic, not substantive. Second, even if Bush thinks the bill is worthless, it only affects Congress and candidates (well, and executive branch officials who want to become lobbyists but don't want to have to wait two years to do so). So why does he care?

Never mind that his specific comments echo the "perfect or nothing" attitude of other critics, who attack the bill because it is weaker than the initial Senate version passed in January. Yes, it is; but it is also an improvement over the current rules. Should we throw out those improvements simply because they do not go far enough? Or should we instead view this bill as one step on a longer road?

But the funniest quote is from Mitch McConnell:

"This bill isn't nearly as tough as it would have been on earmarks if Republicans had been involved in writing it," McConnell said.

Uh-huh. Except that when Republicans were in power, they passed nothing. And while one might be tempted to blame Democrats for blocking those efforts, the fact is that Republican opposition was very, very steep as well. And Democratic actions aside, the proposed bill (HR 4975 of the 109th Congress) was weaker than the current bill.

For instance:

1. The ethics rules would only apply to the 11 big spending bills, and they would have sunsetted at the end of the year.

2. Instead of banning gifts from lobbyists, it simply required that such gifts be reported.

3. It didn't increase the wait time before members could become lobbyists.

4. It allowed members to accept privately funded travel.

5. Earmarks needed only be identified, including the sponsoring Congressmember. It didn't include, for instance, the requirement that the list be available 48 hours before the bill is voted on, or that members certify they have no financial interest in the earmark.

So claiming Republicans would have done it better rings just a little hollow.

McConnell does, however, get it right in the end:

"But weighing the good and the bad, many provisions are stronger than current law."

Exactly.

There are plenty of legitimate veto targets out there, notably the bloated water bill -- which, indeed, Bush has promised to veto. But the ethics bill isn't one of them.

ethics, politics, midtopia

Congress passes ethics reform

The House finally joined the Senate in passing its ethics reform bill. Because objections from Republican Sen. Jim DeMint prevented the bill from going through conference committee, we have two curious effects: The law features different rules for the House and Senate, and the Senate will now have to vote on the new version before a unified bill becomes law.

The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a sweeping lobbying and ethics reform bill on a 411-8 vote.

“We have kept our promise to drain the swamp that is Washington, D.C.,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, adding that the legislation is “historic.”

Among the few dissenters was (of course) John Murtha. And for pure ironic humor, you can't beat this: over in the Senate, Ted Stevens has threatened to place a hold on the legislation.

Pelosi's grandiose words aside, this is a work in progress, not a finished product. For one thing, at least some of DeMint's fears appear justified: the House version appears to be less stringent than the Senate version in a few respects. (Here's the text (pdf) of the revised bill that the above link is working from.)

Are they key respects, however? Not really. Let's go through their objections:

The old version (passed by the Senate) required conference / committee reports to list all earmarks and required the chairman of the relevant committee to distribute the earmark list. But the new version of the bill allows the Majority Leader (as opposed to the Senate parliamentarian, a more objective judge) to determine whether or not a conference report complies with the disclosure requirements.

True, but minor. Somebody has to certify it. The Senate parliamentarian is by tradition nonpartisan and accorded a fair bit of deference, but s/he serves at the pleasure of the majority leader, so the distinction is less material than it might seem. That said, I'd support changing it back to the original.

The new version removes the requirement for earmark lists posted online to be in searchable format.

This appears to be simply wrong. For example, Page 68, line 6 and Page 69, line 3 expressly require a searchable format. The exception seems to be when a bill emerges from conference committee. The earmark data is still required to be publicly available 48 hours prior to vote, but the "searchable" requirement is missing (page 69, lines 22-24). Whether that's deliberate or simply a mistake, I don't know. But again it's a minor, easily fixed problem that doesn't change the underlying reporting requirement.

The new version removes the provision that prevented any bill from being considered at all prior to the disclosure of earmarks; now the text only prohibits a formal motion to proceed, which leaves open a procedural loophole that would allow bills to slip through without disclosure.

I'm no parliamentarian, but I'm not sure what loophole the writer envisions here. In the Senate, procedure is everything. Can someone tell me how a bill could reach the Senate floor for debate without a motion to proceed?

The old version prohibited earmarks which benefit a Member, their staff, or their family/their staff’s family. The new version waters that down and only prohibits earmarks that would “only” affect those parties --- which means so long as you can make a case that your shiny new project affects at least one person other than you positively, you’re all set.

This again appears to be wrong. Page 73, lines 8-11 require senators to certify that their relatives do not have a monetary interest in the item. That prohibition is fleshed out (and weakened somewhat) on Page 76, lines 3-12. But it does not go as far as the writer suggests.

It says no member may knowingly request an earmark if "a principle purpose" of the earmark is to benefit "only" the member, or members of his family, or (and this is the biggie) a "limited class of persons or enterprises" of which the member or his family is a member.

That language seems pretty reasonably drawn to prohibit narrowly directed self-benefit. It wouldn't, for instance, outlaw the kind of earmarks I wrote about a year ago, in which a project in a member's district benefits the member. Which only makes sense. Lawmakers live in their districts; a rule that banned earmarks that benefited lawmakers even indirectly or in a small way would be unworkable.

So this list appears to be a collection of mostly minor complaints, the strongest of which is the issue with the parliamentarian.

Now that we know what the bill doesn't do, here's what it does do:

1. Lawmakers must disclose "bundled" contributions of $15,000 or more from lobbyists.

2. Earmarks must be disclosed 48 hours in advance of a bill's consideration, along with the name of the Congressmember that requested it, the cost and a description of the project and the beneficiaries.

3. Senators and candidates would have to pay full charter fare to fly private jets. House members cannot fly in private planes.

4. Legislators and their staff may not accept gifts from lobbyists.

5. Senators must wait two years after leaving office to become lobbyists; House members must wait one year.

6. Lawmakers may not attempt to influence hiring decisions at lobbying firms -- a direct blow at the K Street Project idea.

Those are real reforms. Could Congress do more? Of course. Severe statutory restrictions on the number and value of earmarks would be a great idea, for instance, as well as some basic rules for justifying them. But Democrats can honestly say they've enacted more reforms than any Congress in recent memory. And Republican criticisms ring pretty hollow considering it was their misbehavior that led to Democrats promising such reform. Anything this Congress does will be more than the previous Republican Congresses did.

The next step -- after passage of the final bill -- is to watch and see how and if members try to get around the rules. There will almost certainly be some unintended consequences that will need to be fixed, which could be an opening for weakening some of the rules. Democrats have talked the talk and walked the walk as far as passing the legislation goes; now we have to see if they'll walk the walk as far as following it.

But it's a good start, and deserving of praise.

ethics, politics, midtopia

Gonzales update

The White House has sent Congress a letter that apparently backs up Alberto Gonzales' contention that when he said there was "no serious dispute" about NSA eavesdropping, he may have been technically correct -- the dispute was, as I discussed yesterday, over the NSA's data-mining program.

Also, thanks to PatHMV for pointing out the transcript (pdf) of James Comey's testimony before Congress, in which Comey repeatedly refuses to identify the program that prompted a nighttime visit to John Ashcroft's hospital room. That means that in order to believe Gonzales you don't have to call Comey a liar, and vice versa, restoring the possibility that they're both telling the truth. If that bears out then it will end this particular sideshow to the prosecutor scandal, returning attention to the main question of who fired the prosecutors, and why.

Meanwhile, a few Democratic hotheads in the House, led by Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington, want introduce a resolution calling for an impeachment investigation of Gonzales.

Even allowing for the fact that the resolution calls for an investigation, not impeachment itself, such a call is breathtakingly premature, and it has drawn scant support even among Democrats. Most importantly, there's no indication that the resolution, once submitted, would ever reemerge from committee. So chalk it up as simply one more piece of evidence pointing to Gonzales lack of support outside the Oval Office -- though Dick Cheney thinks he's doing a good job, too.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Et cetera

Finishing off the day, a roundup of outrage, humor and the merely interesting:

IRAQI PARLIAMENT ADJOURNS FOR AUGUST
Ignoring pleas from the United States, legislators took their month-long recess. They won't be back until Sept. 4, making it that much harder to make progress on the various "benchmark" laws we are asking them to pass. The report on the military surge in the Baghdad area will be due in September, and now it's highly unlikely that we will be able to point to any legislative successes to accompany it. Which makes it that much more unlikely that voters will support our continued presence. Even worse is that the main culprit is the government of Prime Minister Nouri al_Maliki, not rebellious members of Parliament.

HE IS DEAD TO US
After Newt Gingrich declined to defend Alberto Gonzales during his appearance this weekend on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace dropped this little bomb: "By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales. We had no takers."

SURGEON GENERAL REPORT 'NOT POLITICAL ENOUGH'
A 2006 report commissioned by former Surgeon General Richard Carmona -- on the link between poverty and poor health -- was held up by a political appointee with no background in medicine or public health because the report wasn't political enough. That's according to several current and former health officials. The appointee, Will Steiger, acknowledged he told Carmona the report needed to promote administration policies, but he denied that that dispute held up its release; he said the report was delayed because of "sloppy work, poor analysis and lack of scientific rigor." Steiger is the scion of a well-connected Republican family; his expertise is in education and Latin American history. And a "former administration official" said the report is just one of several that the administration has bottled up because they didn't like the conclusions.

Gonzales, Iraq, Carmona, politics, midtopia

Gonzales the truthteller?

The New York Times (alert, "liberal media" claimants) has a go at absolving Alberto Gonzales of lying to Congress.

The question, you may recall (primer here), involves whether Gonzales lied to Congress about the amount of internal dissent over the NSA eavesdropping program. There were three possible answers:

1. Yes.

2. No, because being a misleading weasel he was referring to the later, modified version of the program rather than the earlier, controversial one.

3. No, because he was referring to a totally separate program.

Earlier stories suggested the answer was #2, but the Times story suggests that it's #3, and that Gonzales was referring to the NSA data-mining program, not the warrantless eavesdropping program.

There's some self-congratulation at work here, inasmuch as the Times first broke the story of the data-mining effort. But it's a plausible explanation.

The only problem is, if the Times is right, why did James Comey -- the man whose testimony set off this whole controversy -- suggest that the whole thing was about the eavesdropping program, not the data-mining effort? Both of them can't be right, can they?

They can -- if we accept the premise that both Comey and Gonzales were punctilious about details to the point of silliness.

Take this scenario out for a spin:

The "eavesdropping program", broadly defined, includes both data-mining and wiretapping.

When it came time to reauthorize it, the data-mining provision was far more controversial than the wiretapping provision.

So the confrontation at the hospital was mostly about the data-mining provision, but it was all part of the decision whether to reauthorize the overall eavesdropping program.

Thus Comey is right when he describes the confrontation in the context of the eavesdropping program. And Gonzales is right when he splits the program into parts in order to make a distinction between the publicly admitted wiretapping effort and the still-unadmitted data-mining effort.

But neither Comey nor Gonzales bothers to clarify their testimony -- despite it being abundantly clear that their comments have caused confusion -- because doing so would require admitting the existence of the data-mining effort.

That's a pretty tortuous path of speculation and assumption in order to show that neither man lied. And it doesn't explain why they couldn't simply explain the distinction in private briefings. So to adopt this scenario, you must further believe that the Congressmembers have been so briefed, and are posing knowingly misleading and false questions to Gonzales in public simply to embarrass him.

Even if you believe that about Democrats, why would you believe it about the Republicans on the panel? And what would keep Gonzales from making a pointed rebuttal, along the lines of "I've explained all that in private, as you well know, Senator"? So that, too, seems unlikely.

All in all, it seems difficult to reconcile Gonzales' and Comey's testimony in a way that results in outcome #3. Might the Times story be correct? Yes. But if it is, then Comey either lied or misled. Of the two, though, Gonzales is less trustworthy and had more incentive to lie. So the answer seems more likely to be #2, with #1 as a possibility.

Update: Tully over at Stubborn Facts does, indeed, assume the worst about the members of Congress. He doesn't address the inconsistencies with that theory, though.

NSA, Comey, Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Spitzer's apology

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer had an op-ed piece in Sunday's New York Times, discussing -- and apologizing for -- his office's misuse of state troopers in an attempt to dig dirt on Republican Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno.

He starts out by stating categorically that "what members of my administration did was wrong -- no ifs, ands or buts."

He then goes into a short summary of what happened, followed by his response: suspending one advisor and transferring another.

The piece represents an interesting strategy. In my earlier post I called this "Spitzer's Plamegate" because of the similarities between the two cases. But there's a key difference here.

In the Plame case, the Bush administration denied any impropriety at all, prompting investigations, a special prosecutor and a years-long scandal.

Spitzer, on the other hand, essentially admits to the charges against his administration. That more or less makes moot Bruno's threats of investigations and hearings, because Spitzer has already pleaded guilty to what such an investigation might hope to prove: impropriety, not illegality.

Spitzer appears to hope that derailing those investigations will make the scandal blow over quickly and not linger on to impede his policy agenda -- though there will be lingering problems thanks to his sour relationship with Bruno.

It's worth a shot, but it's probably a forlorn hope. Setting aside Bruno's personal pique and the political hay to be made by dragging out this embarassing episode, state Senate Republicans will note that one unanswered question is "who knew what when" -- in other words, was Spitzer part of the effort, or unaware as he claims?

That's a legitimate question, though the apparent lack of any possible illegality puts a limit on how aggressively and intrusively the Senate can pursue it. If Spitzer really wants to kill this scandal, he's going to have to give them an answer -- with documentation, if possible. Otherwise he gives them a premise to continue to flog the issue for months.

Senate Republicans, for their part, need to avoid overreaching and accept a reasonable solution if one is offered. That's not just simple fairness: Spitzer is a lot more popular than Bush, and an aggressively political investigation will backfire on them, especially now that Spitzer has donned a hairshirt over it.

Spitzer, New York, politics, midtopia

Spitzer's Plamegate

A man I like a lot -- Democratic New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer -- is in the middle of his own version of Plamegate, complete with accusations that he sought to discredit a political rival by misusing government resources, and Spitzer's vow to claim a state version of executive privilege in the burgeoning confrontation with Republican state senators.

A scathing report issued on Monday by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo concluded that the governor’s staff had broken no laws but had misused the State Police to gather information about Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, in an effort to plant a negative story about him.

Basically the governor's staff had Bruno's state police escorts document Bruno's whereabouts when they accompanied him on "official" trips, apparently hoping to show that he was engaging in personal travel or junkets on the taxpayer's dime. The report specifically cleared Bruno (right) of that charge, saying each of his trips had at least some legitimate legislative business attached to it.

Cuomo, by the way, is another Democrat -- the son of former New York Gov. Mario "Hamlet" Cuomo. And the report was endorsed by Spitzer's Inspector General, Kristine Hamann.

Spitzer says he was unaware of the activity, and his response to it was a lesson in the proper way to handle such things:

The governor said he accepted the findings, saying his administration had “grossly mishandled” the situation.

“As governor, I am accountable for what goes on in the executive branch and I accept responsibility for the actions of my office,” he said at a press conference this morning, with many of his staff members looking on somber and staggered.

“I apologized to Senator Bruno and I did so personally this morning,” he added. “In addition, I apologized to the men and women of the State Police, and to acting Superintendent Preston Felton personally for allowing this esteemed institution to be drawn into this matter.”

“They should never have been put into this situation. Finally, I apologize to the people of the State of New York for having allowed this matter to have become a distraction from the vital work at hand.”

Darren Dopp, Mr. Spitzer’s communications director and one of his closest aides, was put on indefinite unpaid leave of at least 30 days. William Howard, the Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security, will be reassigned to a post outside the governor’s office.

All well and good, but two of Spitzer's aides refused to cooperate with the Cuomo investigation, and Republicans in the state Senate -- led by an incensed Bruno -- are pushing an investigation to find out if Spitzer was, indeed, unaware of what his staff was up to. They're talking about subpoenaing everyone, including Spitzer.

Spitzer, for his part, has vowed to resist any effort to compel his aides to testify.

Much as I like Spitzer, he's in the wrong here. Legally he's got the same legitimate point as Bush does on executive privilege, with similar strengths and weaknesses (although New York law has generally been hostile to executive privilege claims). But as in the Plame and prosecutor inquiries a legitimate question has been raised, and it deserves to be answered.

Spitzer can point to one difference: unlike with Plame and the prosecutors, Cuomo made a concrete determination that no laws were broken. That's not enough to get off the hook, however. As in the prosecutor case this is less an investigation of illegality than an investigation of impropriety, which falls into the legislative branch's oversight capacity. Spitzer should order his aides to talk. If doing so violates their Fifth Amendment rights, they should invoke the Fifth and let the Senate grant them immunity in exchange for their testimony.

Republicans, for their part, are overreaching, moving to subpoenas as a first resort and casting an overly broad net. Subpoenas should be narrowly tailored and a last resort, or else they risk giving Spitzer a legitimate executive privilege defense.

I'm disappointed in Spitzer, and hope he truly was uninvolved. I also hope this doesn't derail his policy initiatives. But regardless of the political cost, Spitzer needs to come clean. Doing the right thing aside, if he doesn't put this to rest quickly it will turn into a drawn-out battle with the legislature, which surely will derail his initiatives just as the Gonzales scandals have harmed Bush and the Justice Department.

Cuomo, Bruno, Spitzer, New York, politics, midtopia

House ups the ante on Gonzales

Congress is rushing headlong into its confrontation with the executive branch.

The House Judiciary Committee has voted to issue contempt citations for Joshua Bolton and Harriet Miers. If the full House approves the citations -- and it could be weeks before that occurs, thanks to Congress' upcoming summer break -- they will be referred to a U.S. attorney for possible prosecution. That will trigger a court battle when the president cites executive privilege as reason for the attorney to ignore the citations.

Although the committee vote was along party lines, that doesn't mean Republicans weren't up for a fight with Bush. James Sensenbrenner, the former chairman of the committee, said Congress instead should have filed a suit challenging Bush's executive privilege claim.

The text (pdf) of the committee memo (all 70 pages of it) outlines not only the reasons for the citations but also the Democratic case for the investigation into the prosecutor firings.

According to the WaPo summary, it's mostly a compilation of everything that has come up in this whole flap, as well as a lot of fingerpointing at Rove and a rebuttal of Bush's most recent assertion that federal prosecutors cannot undermine an executive privilege claim.

Here are a few key excerpts from the report:

Although the Supreme Court has held that even a sitting president is not immune from subpoena or from participation in civil litigation, the White House and Ms. Miers nevertheless assert that a former White House Counsel, who currently occupies no position in the federal government, is absolutely immune from compulsion even to appear before [Congress]. The White House relies on the presidential communications executive privilege, even though the White House has specifically stated that the President did not receive advice on or participate in the ... firings. [They] have also refused even to provide a log identifying the withheld documents and providing the basic facts necessary to support the claim of privilege, even though such logs are routinely required by the courts....

Further on, the memo lists what it deems improper interference in the activities of six of the fired prosecutors. And then it lists what it considers false or misleading statements by senior Justice officials, including Alberto Gonzales, Paul McNulty, Kyle Sampson, Mike Elston and others. Finally it mentions the improper political test applied to new career prosecutors by Monica Goodling.

That evidence, coupled with the failure of anyone in the administration to take responsibility for developing the list of attorneys to be fired, is Congress' justification for further investigation. Bush's response: "executive privilege." To which Congress responds:

Even if executive privilege were properly asserted, the privilege is not absolute, but rather is subject to a "balancing of interests" based on the needs of the President and the Congress. In the present case, where there is clear evidence of wrongdoing leading to the White House, where the information is important for considering possible legislative changes, where the Committee has sought to obtain the information elsewhere and has sought to obtain a reasonable accommodation, and where there is no overriding issue of national security, it is clear the Committee's oversight and legislative interests should prevail.

It's a powerfully stated case, although it overreaches a bit (such as the claim of "clear evidence of wrongdoing" and a too-forceful assertion of Karl Rove's role in the firings).

The rest of the memo goes into great detail about who knew and did what, and when, along with supporting arguments and lots and lots of footnoted citations. The key questions:

If no one at the Justice Department identified [the attorneys] for firing, who did? If the reasons given to Congress and the public to support the firings are false, what were the real reasons? If the White House role was innocent and routine, why was a concerted effort made to hide it?

Put that way, doesn't this sound like it has Dick "obsessive secrecy" Cheney's fingerprints all over it?

Okay, let's no go there.

Much of the memo stresses the argument that Congress has exhausted other sources of information and now needs White House documents in order to exercise its oversight function or properly consider potential legislation. This cames into stark play on page 32, when it addresses the president's strongest defense: attorneys are political appointees that can be fired for any reason or no reason at all.

While U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, it is widely accepted that they should not be dismissed for improper reasons, such as to influence prosecutions or to retaliate for the exercise of prosecutorial judgment in a manner that was not beneficial to a particular political party. Based on the ongoing investigation, Congress may wish to consider some limitation on removal of U.S. Attorneys ... in the middle of a presidential term.

Note the angle of attack. Yes, U.S. Attorneys are political appointees. But they're supposed to be relatively independent, and the only reason they're political appointees is because Congress allows it. Further, Congress sets the rules for such appointments. If the hiring or firing process is being abused, Congress needs to know so it can change the rules if necessary. Their appointee status and current law may shield the administration from criminal charges, but it does not protect the administration from oversight.

That strikes me as a pretty powerful argument.

I invite our resident Bush supporter to rebut the case, with one request: focus on materially significant matters, not minor quibbles such as those I've already outlined, like the as-yet-unproven assertion that the whole thing originated with Rove.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Gonzales testifies

I didn't get to watch even a part of Gonzales' testimony on Capitol Hill today, but I gather I didn't miss much. He still has no idea who decided to fire the U.S. attorneys in the agency he supposedly runs, and he still has problems making claims that turn out to be misleading.

For instance, he claimed that top Congressional leaders were fully briefed on the warrantless eavesdropping program and urged the administration to continue it. Five lawmakers who attended the briefing disputed his claim. One of them, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said: "He once again is making something up to protect himself." Another, former Sen. Tom Daschle, said "this appears to be another attempt to rewrite history."

Senators, who gave Gonzales some deference during his last appearance, simply were not in a forgiving mood, with many of them telling him pointblank that he should resign.

"I do not find your testimony credible, candidly," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who became visibly angry at several points during his exchanges with Gonzales. "The committee's going to review your testimony very carefully to see if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) told Gonzales bluntly: "I don't trust you."

Specter also suggested that Gonzales might need to appoint a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the prosecutor firings. The fact that a Republican would suggest such a thing is a sign of how deep the mistrust of Gonzales runs.

And in this exchange, Gonzales appears to admit he misled Congress.

"It's hard to see anything but a pattern of intentionally misleading Congress again and again," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told Gonzales during the often-bitter Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. "Shouldn't the attorney general of the United States meet a higher standard?"

"Obviously, there have been instances where I have not met that standard, and I've tried to correct that," Gonzales answered.

Senators took turns raking him over the coals. Specter, again, had the most devastating things to say about Gonzales' misleading 2006 testimony about the eavesdropping program.

Specter said that it was obvious that, as Gonzales initially confirmed last month, Comey was testifying about the Terrorist Surveillance Program -- meaning that Gonzales was not only lying to the Senate in his 2006 testimony, but lying today about "other intelligence activities" to cover up the lie. His advice to Gonzales was "to review your testimony carefully" and that the committee should see "if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

Ouch.

If you follow the link immediately above, you'll see that Gonzales maintains he told the truth back then, about there not being "significant" disagreement about the eavesdropping program "as confirmed" by the president. But that's only because the disagreement preceded modifications that led to the "confirmed" version of the program.

In that May 2007 post, I concluded the testimony wasn't particularly relevant, because he didn't actually lie and it's not that important whether there was disagreement or not. Further, he was already in so much hot water that it was hard for it to get any hotter. Turns out I might have been wrong: Congress doesn't like to be misled for any reason, artfully worded or not. Many senators simply believe he lied, or at least deliberately misled, and are focusing much of their anger on that.

At the end of the day, the senators made it very plain that they have lost all confidence in Gonzales. The question now is whether that makes any difference. Answer: probably not. But it means the Justice Department will limp along for the rest of Bush's term, with a discredited Attorney General who has lost nearly all of his senior staff to resignations and who is having difficulty finding replacements.

Most members of Gonzales's senior staff have resigned or are on the way out. Several outside candidates turned down chances to be considered for the job of his deputy, and more than a half-dozen other top positions remain filled by temporary appointees. Some of the department's key legislative priorities — including intelligence law revisions and anti-crime proposals — have also bogged down because of the fight with Democrats over the prosecutor firings.

And it's only going to get worse.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia