McCain Returns Donations from Former Foes
The Arizona senator refunded $20,000 to the Wyly brothers, who had previously bankrolled ads attacking the “maverick’s” environmental record. The Washington Post recalls:
[T]he two brothers bankrolled Republicans for Clean Air, a soft-money 527 group that attacked McCain for his environmental record during his 2000 presidential campaign — an attack that was widely interpreted as being motivated less by concern about pollution than an eagerness to help then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, for whom the Wylys have been key backers.
McCain had called the ads a “dirty trick.” (Roll Call, WPost)
Cheney May Be Called to Testify in Plame Case
The Vice President’s state of mind “is directly relevant to the issue of whether defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury” about the Plame leak, wrote special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in a new court filing. (AP, WPost, NYTimes)
Fannie Mae worked with Bond to undermine investigation, report says
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae enlisted the help of Sen. Kit Bond in an effort to undermine a federal probe of the company’s accounting practices, according to a report released by federal regulators this week. Though the report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight does not mention the Missouri Republican by name, it found that Fannie Mae lobbyists in 2004 succeeded in generating a Congressional request for a separate probe of the regulators investigating Fannie Mae. (AP)
Pushing Jefferson Out, Pelosi Sparks Opposition from Black Caucus
Members of the Democratic powerhouse Congressional Black Caucus expressed outrage that the party leadership was being “picked on” even though he had not been charged with a crime. (The Hill, Roll Call)
For FBI’s Probe of NSA Leaks, Bureau Knocks Again on Congressional Doors
Agents are seeking to interview several top Democratic and Republican lawmakers to determine who leaked information about the NSA’s secret domestic spying program to the New York Times. (Roll Call)
Reform Backers Left Out
With a number of ethics-related probes of lawmakers intensifying, Senate leaders moved this week to put new momentum behind an overhaul of lobbying rules by naming negotiators to work out differences in the long-stalled bills. The five negotiators are Republican Sens. Trent Lott (Miss.), Ted Stevens (Alaska) and Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Daniel Inouye (Hawaii). But the move cut out two lawmakers key to shaping the Senate measure â Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and ranking member Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) â drawing a fresh round of criticism from ethics watchdogs. (Roll Call)
State secrets privilege slams door on civil suits
A suit filed this week in Chicago by author Studs Terkel and others accusing AT&T of invading its customers’ privacy by sharing phone records with the National Security Agency could provide the next test of whether the Bush administration employs a once-rare tactic that essentially gives the government a blank check to kill civil suits. (Chicago Trib, ThinkProgress)
Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules
resident George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye. (Business Week)
Negroponte-Rumsfeld Battle Will Proceed
Steve Clemons: “While I have some issues with Hayden, I do believe that he is one of the last hopes in restoring some order at the CIA and rolling back Donald Rumsfeld’s colonization of the nation’s national security bureaucracy. Rumsfeld is my target, and those who see Negroponte, Hayden, and Rumsfeld on the same page are incorrect.” (Washington Note)
FBI Prepares for Election Fraud Season
The bureau added agents, improved training in anticipation of increasingly corrupt elections this fall. (The Hill)
Rights group requests wiretapping probe
The American Civil Liberties Union launched a 20-state campaign on Wednesday to stop warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency and prevent telecoms firms from providing it with phone records. The rights group was appealing directly to the states because it said the U.S. Congress had failed to exert its oversight role over the White House and because the Federal Communications Commission had chosen not to pursue complaints. (Reuters)
Priorities of Earmarks Are Disputed
n recent years, Congress has been on a spending binge worth tens of billions of dollars, and there has been talk on Capitol Hill of reining in earmarks. But the Senate version of the Iraq and Katrina emergency funding bill includes billions in such spending, covering an array of far-flung causes: New England shellfishermen affected by red tide, a program to fight an insect ravaging pine trees in the Rockies, and a road in Hawaii. (WaPo)
Policing The Capitol
Matt Yglesias argues that the separation of powers argument being advanced by Speaker Hastert and others regarding the Saturday raid of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-LA) deserve more attention than they’ve been getting. But on the hand, Congress only has itself to blame, since it’s proven incapable of policing itself. (Tapped)
DeLay Blasts FBI Raid
The search of Rep. Jefferson’s office was “incredibly outrageous,” said the legislator formerly known as the Hammer. (Houston Chronicle)
How the FBI Brought the Two Parties Together
Here’s Time’s rundown on the House’s reaction to the FBI’s raid. (Time)
The Washington friendship
At the first Abramoff trial, a Bush official’s lawyer asks, What’s the harm in helping a bud? (Salon – see our rundown of Day One of the Safavian trial here)
