Bluejersey.com is asking their readers to call up the six Republican members of the New Jersey congressional delegation and ask whether any of them contacted US Attorney Chris Christie about the Menendez investigation, in the lead up to the November election. So far they’ve got one answer, from Rep. Michael Ferguson (R) who says he didn’t call Christie.

The House Dems extend their purged prosecutor investigation into the White House.

Judge threatens gag order for tell-all DC madam. With Video!

Okay, so we’ve made a little progress in solving today’s mystery.

We’ve managed to get just a little closer to figuring out what the deal is with this new group “Firefighters for Rudy.” But only a little.

Update: You won’t want to miss this one. The Associated Press got snookered so badly in its coverage of “Firefighters for Rudy” that it has to be seen to be believed.

A suddenly chastened Alberto Gonzales on his department’s firing of prosecutors: “it’s something that we’re looking at internally about how we got to where we are today.”

Fox-hosted debate is effectively dead as Richardson and Nevada Dems pull out.

I was going to summarize this report from Louisville television station WHAS-11. But I think it’s best just repeated in toto. Note the points emphasized with italics …

WHAS 11 NEWS HAS LEARNED THAT INFORMATION ABOUT POSSIBLE FEDERAL LAW VIOLATIONS BY STEVE HENRY HAVE BEEN REFERRED TO THE U-S ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN LOUISVILLE.

U.S. ATTORNEY DAVID HUBER CONFIMS HIS OFFICE HAS RECEIVED WHAT HE CALLS QUOTE “A MATTER” INVOLVING THE FORMER LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR AND CURRENT DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR.

HUBER WOULDN’T SAY WHAT INFORMATION HIS OFFICE HAS RECEIVED ABOUT HENRY — BUT TELLS US IT’S BEEN REFERRED TO THE U-S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IN WASHINGTON.

WHAS ELEVEN NEWS HAS OBTAINED THESE DOCUMENTS, WHICH SHOW HENRY GOT CORPORATE CONTRIBUTIONS FOR WHAT HE SAYS WAS N EXPLORATORY CAMPAIGN FOR U-S SENATE.
CORPORATE CONTRIBUTIONS TO POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS ARE ILLEGAL AND ARE USUALLY INVESTIGATED BY THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION.

Henry’s campaign manager C.D. Marshall says this is old news. He says Henry followed the law when he was collecting donations for his exploratory committee. Henry earlier told WHAS11 News that he was returning those contributions.

More info for you blog readers: Huber says a “matter” does not imply that there’s any sort of investigation going on, only that his office has received information it has agreed to look into. Also, Huber says he’s in the process of personally recusing himself from any matter involving Henry because he doesn’t want to be accused of playing politics. Huber used to work for Sen. Mitch McConnell.

I guess this doesn’t need a lot of explanation.

Did he get a call?

And it’s quaint, isn’t it, how Huber chooses to recuse himself from the case after discussing it with a local tv news reporter and possibly giving him xeroxes of the documents in question.

I just got this press release from the Committee to Protect Journalists …

New York, March 9, 2007— The Committee to Protect Journalists is disappointed that a freelance video blogger will remain in jail after a court-appointed arbitrator was unable to mediate a settlement that could have led to the journalist’s release. Joshua Wolf has spent 198 days in jail, the longest incarceration of a journalist in U.S. history, for refusing to provide the court with a videotape of a 2005 protest.

“We’re disappointed these talks have thus far failed to lead to the release of Joshua Wolf,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “There is no useful purpose in continuing to imprison this journalist.”

Wolf’s tape documents clashes between demonstrators and San Francisco police during a June 2005 protest by anarchists over a Group of 8 economic conference. One police officer was injured, and some protestors allegedly tried to set a police cruiser on fire. A federal grand jury is investigating the alleged crimes. U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup held Wolf in contempt of court and ordered him jailed on August 1. Wolf was briefly released on bail pending appeal but was ordered back to jail in September.

Last month, a federal judge appointed U.S. Magistrate Joseph Spero to arbitrate the dispute. Wolf’s attorney, Martin Garbus, had asked the judge to consider privately viewing the videotape to determine whether the contempt charges against Wolf could be dismissed.

Spero said in a court filing that four hours of negotiations on Thursday had failed to reach a settlement, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. He said he would consult with lawyers in the case as to whether to schedule another meeting. Wolf could remain in jail until July when the grand jury’s term expires.

Freelance writer Vanessa Leggett, who was jailed in 2001, had been the longest incarcerated U.S. journalist. Leggett spent 168 days behind bars in Texas for refusing to disclose to a federal grand jury her research and sources for a book she was writing on a murder trial.

Here’s a letter we received here at TPM on July 19th of last year from Wolf …

Tomorrow about this time, I will be in front of Judge William Alsup facing contempt in Federal Court. I am an independent video journalist who asserted my constitutional rights when commanded by the Federal Grand Jury to turn over the unedited tape of a protest that I shot on July 8th of last year.

The Federal Government is attempt to circumvent the California State Shield law through this grand jury proceeding, and their only claim to juridiction on this case is that an SFPD patrol vehicle was allegedly vandalized, and as the City gets some of it’s money from the Federal Government, the US feels that they have a legal and fiscal interest in this possible vandalism.

Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly introduced a resolution yesterday to the Board of Supervisors that would establish that the City of SF opposes these actions of the US Government.

Please help publicize this issue for me, as I may be in jail tommorow afternoon and unable to continue speaking publicly about my case.

Thanks.

I have set-up a resource page with all the documents and media associated with my case at http://joshwolf.net/grandjury/

If you have any questions feel free to contact me via e-mail at mail@joshwolf.net or give me a call at (415)794-2401

Josh

Here’s the letter Harry Reid sent to Fox News saying that Dems are pulling out of the debate.

When Republicans eat their own, from Legal Times:

It was an uncomfortable — and perhaps unprecedented — airing of private personnel matters. Granted, U.S. Attorneys are “at-will” employees who serve at the pleasure of the president and can be fired without cause, yet even some of the administration’s staunchest supporters were embarrassed at the breach of decorum.

“They have the right to fire them; they do not have the right to smear them,” says Joseph DiGenova, a conservative commentator who was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia during the Reagan administration. “Everybody involved in it at the Justice Department and White House should be taken to the woodshed. This is really a pathetic way of running government.”

Other former U.S. Attorneys, all Republicans, said they were “stunned” or “flummoxed” or found the way the firings were handled “insulting.”

“It is unfortunate that the department felt the need to attack the performance of these people,” says Thomas Heffelfinger, who served as U.S. Attorney in Minnesota from 2001 until last year. “It wasn’t necessary and it wasn’t warranted.”

Of course, the U.S. Attorney’s job is inherently political; in the past, however, departures were handled with considerably more tact.

“It was handled discreetly, it was handled professionally, and people were given every opportunity to have a soft landing,” says Mark Corallo, who was Justice Department spokesman under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. “These are people who worked hard in the pursuit of justice. To go out and trash their reputations — it’s galling.”

By the end of last week, some of the most conservative Republican senators were publicly assailing the department’s handling of the matter. Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, a moderate, even suggested that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales might have to step down. And in an about-face, Gonzales said on March 8 that he would support a change in the law that would limit the attorney general’s ability to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys.

“Regardless of the substance of the dismissals, it was so poorly handled that one has to question the leadership at the department,” Corallo says. “Was anybody awake? Was anyone paying attention?”

Legal Times asked Republican superlawyer and former Solicitor General Ted Olson if this past week’s hearings were like a circular firing squad: “That’s a good way to put it,” Olson said.

Update: I was bemused by the Republican infighting and the spectacle of GOP talking head Joe DiGenova suddenly becoming a champion of civility in politics. But be careful, some readers have warned me: this is faux GOP outrage designed to diminish the scandal. Writes TPM Reader GC:

Note that the Republican criticism of the Justice Department centers on the wrong issue. (They have no right to smear good people etc). All that may be true-but it’s a minor/trivial issue compared with whether or not these new appointments were made because the agenda of the replaced US-As was not sufficiently political. i.e. The Republican crit/outrage is centered on an issue of personal dignity & not the administration malfeasance. In my view some of this Republican criticism may be designed to deflect attention from a far more significant issue.

That’s true, as far as it goes. But there is both a substantive legal aspect and a political aspect to this scandal. Right now, as is usually the case when a scandal is breaking hot and heavy, each aspect feeds the other in what, for the targets of the scandal, is a vicious cycle. GOP senators began abandoning the White House on the purges on Thursday, and now big-wig Republicans are scampering away, too. With fewer defenders, the White House is in a weaker position to fend off congressional Democrats’ efforts to get at the substance of what happened here. That is to say that the legal and political are inextricably linked.