Ethics: Wrong And Potentially Illegal

Under the Radar

ADMINISTRATION — NO PRECEDENT EXISTS BARRING WHITE HOUSE AIDES FROM TESTIFYING TO CONGRESS: Last week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) called on Karl Rove and other top White House aides to testify under oath on their roles in the U.S. attorney purge. In response, the White House and its allies have put up a fight, arguing that presidential advisers have historically not testified in front of Congress. In reality, there is no such precedent. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), under President Clinton, 31 of his top aides testified on 47 different occasions. The aides who testified included some of Clinton’s closest advisers such as George Stephanopoulos (Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy) and John Podesta (Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary). In contrast, between 2000 and 2004, Bush allowed only one of his closest advisers, then-Assistant to the President for Homeland Security Tom Ridge, to appear in front of Congress. He has also refused three invitations from Congress for his aides to testify; Clinton did not refuse any. CRS also notes that although “White House aides do not testify before congressional committees in a regular basis…under certain conditions they do. First, intense and escalating political embarrassment may convince the White House that it is in the interest of the President to have these aides testify and ventilate the issue fully. Second, initial White House resistance may give way in the face of concerted congressional and public pressure.”

IRAQ — STAYING THE COURSE FOUR YEARS LATER: President Bush’s schedule yesterday “originally called for no observation whatsoever of the four-year-anniversary of the war.” Before altering his plans, Bush’s only public event called for playing host to the 2006 college football champion Florida Gators. He proceeded with those plans in the afternoon, shaking hands and celebrating the occasion. (Video HERE.) But at the last minute, he added a brief public statement, which recycled past Iraq-anniversary speeches and advocated a stay the course approach.  The media quickly echoed the President’s talking points, arguing that his escalation is showing “progress” in Iraq. Fox News’s Brit Hume said the escalation “does seem to be making a difference so far,” even though a senior administration official admitted “right now there is no trend” showing the new strategy is working. Fox News’s Neil Cavuto did a segment on “something you are not hearing” — how many Iraqis are “thanking” the United States for “liberating” Iraq. In reality, a new poll shows that just 18 percent of Iraqis now have confidence in the U.S.-led coalition troops and nearly 90 percent “say they live in fear that the violence ravaging their country will strike themselves and the people with whom they live.” Similarly, Kadhim al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifter who was enlisted to help bring down the statue of Saddam Hussein in 2003, said, “I really regret bringing down the statue. … The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day.” Vice President Cheney marked the Iraq anniversary by attending the Hudson Institute Board Dinner at the swanky Union League Club in New York. Yesterday, The Progress Report contacted the Vice President’s office to request details about what Cheney would be talking about. “No one in the office can answer that question,” said a Cheney staffer. The Hudson Institute — a proponent of war against Iran — is home to Cheney’s former chief of staff Scooter Libby.

NATIONAL SECURITY — FBI REWRITES RULES ON PHONE RECORDS: Earlier this month, the Justice Department Inspector General (IG) issued a report detailing the FBI’s repeated improper use of so-called “national security letters.” The IG found that the FBI “had ignored its own rules when demanding telephone and financial records about private citizens.” FBI investigators issued these “secret requests” to several large telecom companies including AT&T and Verizon beginning in 2001. The letters often referenced “exigent circumstances” and promised that subpoenas for the requested information had been submitted to the U.S. Attorney’s office and would be served promptly. The IG found that such statements were often false and that “there sometimes were no open or pending national security investigations tied to the request.” Further, it was found that in many cases “no subpoenas had actually been requested before the letters were sent.” It was later revealed that the FBI had been aware of such “legal lapses” as early as 2005 and, according to one FBI official, had taken steps to “clean up” the problems in 2006 by submitting seven more national security letters to “provide legal backing for all the telephone record requests that still needed it.” Today the Washington Post is reporting that the FBI has issued a new set of rules governing requests for phone company records in which the use of national security letters or subpeaons is no longer required. While the rules require that requests be limited to “dire emergencies,” such requests can now be made “verbally,” relieving agents of “a paperwork burden that was the heart of past problems.” FBI Assistant Director John Miller assured the Post that the new rules include “an audit trail to ensure we are doing it the right way.” Congress has promised a full inquiry and IG Glenn Fine and FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni will appear before House Judiciary Committee today.

Think Fast

McCain backslides on immigration. Despite previously favoring legislation that would allow most illegal immigrants to become citizens without leaving the country, he now says he is “open to legislation that would require people who came to the U.S. illegally to return home before applying for citizenship.”

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald “was ranked among prosecutors who had ‘not distinguished themselves’ on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation.” The chart “was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed.”

1,525: Number of roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan last year. Suicide “attacks rose by six times — from 25 two years ago to 150 in 2006.”

Large crowds are expected at Al Gore’s testimony today before the House and Senate environment committees. Last night, The Drudge Report posted questions that “are circulating behind-the-scenes” that would supposedly leave “Gore scrambling for answers.” Climate Progress’s Joseph Romm takes the Drudge challenge and makes quick work of the questions.

At a hearing on the Bush administration’s suppression of global warming science, congressional Democrats revealed a paper trail illustrating “how officials with no scientific training shaped the administration’s climate change message and edited global warming reports.” Defending the administration, Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) explained, “Free speech is not a simple thing and is subject to and directed by policy.” 

Because of a “computer glitch,” the Department of Education has “overcharged millions of Americans with student loans during the past decade despite repeated warnings that it was breaking the law, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday.”

“Pentagon officials worry that among the just over 20 Army brigades left in the United States or at Army bases in Europe and Asia, none has enough equipment and manpower to be sent quickly into combat, except for an armored unit stationed permanently in South Korea.”

The world”s major rivers are reaching a “crisis point because of dams, shipping, pollution and climate change,” according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “The world is facing a massive freshwater crisis, which has the potential to be every bit as devastating as climate change,” said WWF’s Dr. David Tickner.

Defense spending has reached the highest levels since World War II. “Even with past spending adjusted upward for inflation, the $630 billion provided for the military this year exceeds the highest annual amounts during the Reagan-era defense buildup, the Vietnam War and the Korean War.”

And finally: Tom DeLay still refuses to admit any impropriety in his dealings with fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff. “So yes, I took a trip to Scotland. Yes, I played golf. Yes, it was privately funded. And yes, it was both legal and informative. If I had the opportunity, I would do it again.”