The investigation of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is now focusing on the defense contractor Mountaintop Technologies.  The company had been selected by Murtha in a series of earmarks to issue grants and monitor them.  Oftentimes, the company would give $10 million dollars in Justice Department grants to small police departments in southwestern Pennsylvania, just before fall elections.  The firm has received $36 million over the last eight years in military contracts and earmarks.  Mountaintop also hired a lobbying firm that, coincidentally, was the employer of Murtha’s brother.  You can read the detailed Washington Post story here.

Controversy is swirling around two Bush-era officials in an obscure Justice Department office, The Washington Post reported today.

The U.S. Parole Commission — which handles people convicted under D.C. law and under the old federal system — is under scrutiny for  then-Commissioner Deborah Spagnoli’s decision to contact then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about an inmate set to be released, and the apparent efforts of outgoing Chairman Edward F. Reilly Jr. to secure funds to improve a Missouri highway through his hometown.

Spagnoli, who resigned in 2007, lobbied Justice Department members to intercede in the case of Ver0nza Bowers Jr., who was convicted in the 1973 murder of a San Francisco park ranger, The Post said. Bowers has maintained his innocence, and in 2005, he was set to be released.

The then-commissioner, who has called Bowers “an unrepentant murderer,” tried to contact the infamous Office of Legal Counsel lawyer Steven G. Bradbury and Gonzales Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson about the case, The Post said.

In an unprecedented move, Gonzales asked the Parole Commission to “clarify” its “initial decision,” according to The Post. The commission then voted to keep Bowers behind bars, The Post said. Following the vote, she wrote an e-mail to a DOJ official that simply said: “victory,” according to The Post.

“I never campaigned to deny parole to Veronza Bowers,” she said in a statement to The Post. “I do not believe there was any impropriety in reviewing the case and the applicable law and providing a summary to the Attorney General who has a statutory right to appeal certain parole commission decisions.”

As for Reilly, he is being investigated by the inspector general’s office for his repeated attempts to have government officials improve Missouri Highway 92, which runs through his hometown of Leavenworth, Kan. This came to light through the work of Spagnoli’s husband, D.C. Assistant U.S. Attorney, William Woodruff, to made letters surrounding the lobbying effort public.

“I never really thought about it until you brought it to my attention,” Reilly told The Post. “I’m very sorry it occurred.”

Spagnoli maintained to The Post that she’s not involved with what her husband is doing, but has complained about Reilly turning the commission into his “personal little fiefdom,” according to The Post.

And another twist: there was someone who visited Reilly’s office on a Sunday in 2006 and copied 68 pages of his personal papers, The Post said. Of the four people who visited the office that day, one was Spagnoli. She declined to comment to The Post on her weekend visit.

Former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie opened up his 23-point lead in the race for the Republican nomination for governor by deploying a $3 million campaign war chest and attacking his conservative opponent’s proposal for a flat tax, CQ Politics reports.  Christie is now heavily favored to win the June 4 primary over Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan. The winnner of the GOP primary faces embattled Gov. Jon Corzine (D) in the general election.

Tim Griffin, the long-time Republican party operative and former aide to Karl Rove in the White House, announced Sunday he will not run for the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. 

 

Tim Griffin

Griffin played a starring role in the controversy over the Bush White House’s politically motivated firings of eight U.S. Attorneys in 2006. A Senate Judiciary Committee investigation found that then-White House counsel Harriet Miers put Little Rock-based U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins on a list of prosecutors to be fired so she could install Griffin in the post to pad his resume in preparation for a future run for office. The irony, of course, is that the sneaky attempt to boost Griffin’s political fortunes helped doom them.

 

Cummins, a former counsel to Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee, was appointed by Bush in 2001 to lead Arkansas’ Eastern District office. His ouster — and the  subsequent appointment of Griffin under a provision of the Patriot Act that bypassed the Senate confirmation process – caused outrage in Arkansas. Both Lincoln and Arkansas’s other Democratic senator, Mark Pryor, raised objections at the time.

At a recent state Republican party fund-raiser, Griffin said it would be difficult for any Republican to win state-wide office in blue dog Arkansas. But he said he thought Arkansans were generally conservative and thus open to GOP office-seekers. Click here to read our report.

The current governor of Arkansas, Mike Bebee, is a Democrat, as are five of the state’s six congressional delegations members. Democrats also control both chambers in the state legislature.

Griffin told Arkansas News columnist David J. Sanders he wants to concentrate on his job as a military prosecutor. He overseas a group of Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers at an Army Reserve unit in Nashville, Tenn. He also said he wants to spend time with his young daughter and hopes to grow his family soon. Read Sanders’ interview with Griffin here. 

Cummins recently applied to be president of the University of Central Arkansas. But he did not make the list of finalists for the job.

Laurie Magid unexpectedly stepped down as interim U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia on Friday amid fallout from a Justice Department Inspector General probe of fundraising events she hosted for Republican office-seekers, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Laurie Magid (usdoj)

Magid, 48, was appointed interim U.S. Attorney in Februrary to succeed Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan, a potential GOP candidate for governor who’d resigned last year. Although Magid is a Republican who once served under then-Gov. Tom Ridge (R) on a state sentencing commission, she had expressed interest in remaining the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s top prosecutor under President Obama.

Her aspirations seemed wildly unlikely, given the following:

• She is a partisan Republican.
• A Justice Department evaluation gave her low marks as a manager.
• Main Justice last year overruled her attempt to merge the Organized Crime Strike Force, which brought cases against the mafia, into a more general unit focusing on gang and drug violence.
• She held a $250-a-person fund-raiser earlier this year in her home for gubernatorial hopeful Meehan. The event was technically hosted by Magid’s husband, Jeff Miller, a catererer, and Magid had “ethics guidance” from the Office of Special Counsel in Washington saying it was all cool.  But 20 prosecutors that Magid supervises were “invited.” (Okay, that’s not fair, maybe Magid’s underlines wanted to come. But it still raises an obvious Hatch Act question).
• The DOJ IG was also reportedly looking at another fundraising event Magid arranged for then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who– doh! — is now a Democrat.

According to Shannon P. Duffy of The Legal Intelligencer, Magid’s 120-day interim appointment by Attorney General Eric Holder was set to exprie next month, but a majority of judges in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania weren’t prepared to approve an extension, given the controversies.

 Magid “is remaining with the office in the appeals division,” a DOJ statement said, as Duffy reported.

Career DOJ lawyer Michael Levy, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, was hastily appointed as the new interim U.S. Attorney, pending confirmation of President Obama’s choice. Levy also held down the fort at the end of the Clinton administration, after Clinton-appointed Michael Stiles stepped down and before Bush-appointed Meehan took over.

If you can help us fill in the blanks in this story, please email us at tips@mainjustice.com.

A CQ report raising the possibility President Obama will make a recess appointment of controversial Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen over the Memorial Day break appears to be pure speculation.

Dawn Johnsen

In the story, CQ reporter Kathleen Hunter asks various Senate Republicans and Democrats to respond to the possibility of a recess appointment. Newsflash: Republicans hated the idea. But Democrats either had no comment or said they hadn’t heard any such talk.

We checked and feel confident the White House has no plan to appoint Johnsen during the Memorial Day break. The Indiana University law professor’s confirmation has been delayed by conservative Democrats and Republicans uneasy over her past abortion-rights advocacy and legal work.

The Constitution gives presidents the right to appoint executive branch officials who can’t win Senate approval during a recess of the chamber. President Bush did it a lot over the last eight years, stirring resentment among Democrats. Recess appointees can only serve until the end of the two-year Congress in which they were appointed.

Barbados honored Attorney General Eric Holder with his own building, The Associated Press reported this afternoon.

A St. Joseph Parish government complex with a court, police station, post office and library was renamed from Tamarind Hall to the Eric H. Holder Jr. Municipal Complex, according to The AP.

The building isn’t Holder’s only connection to the island. His father is a Barbados native, and his mother also has ties to the country, The AP said.

The attorney general is on day two of his three day trip to the Caribbean nation. So far, he has met with Prime Minister David Thompson and other Barbados officials to discuss ways to combat drug trafficking and other crime. Tomorrow, he will meet with other Caribbean attorneys general.

 

James Santelle

The Wisconsin Law Journal reports that assistant U.S. attorneys Richard Frohling and James Santelle have been recommended to be U.S. Attorney for Wisconsin’s Eastern District.  Sens. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold’s recommended the prosecutors to President Obama to fill the office previously occupied by Steve Biskupic. Obama will ultimately decide whom to nominate.

The attorney for a long-time New York state legislator wrote Attorney General Eric Holder today asking him to halt the prosecution of his client and seek civil settlement.  Newsday reports that Roger Corbin, serving his seventh term representing a Nassau County district,  faces charges of:

evading income tax on $226,000 prosecutors say he received from a developer working on government projects in his district, and then lying to federal agents about the situation. He has pleaded not guilty but conceded he may have made “mistakes” in the matter.

Corbin’s attorney, Thomas Liotti, writes that his client’s situation is very similar to those of former Sen. Tom Daschle and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.  Daschle withdrew his nomination for secretary of Health and Human Services after  failing to declare income from consulting and a car and driver provided by a political supporter. Geithner’s troubles stemmed from late payment of approximately $40,000 in payroll taxes.  The U.S. Attorney in New York’s Eastern District is prosecuting Corbin.  If convicted, according to the Long Island Press, 

Corbin faces up to five years in prison on the false statement charge and up to three years in prison for each of the false tax returns filed. He also faces a fine of up to $250,000 on each count. 

Corbin remains in office.

As the Obama administration figures out where it can place Guantanamo Bay detainees before the military brig closes next year, there is one place they might have to scratch from their list of viable options: the supermax prison in Florence, Colo.

The facility — which already holds nearly three dozen terrorists, some with ties to al-Qaeda like September 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui — doesn’t have enough beds, The Denver Post reported today. There is only one bed open, U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Tracy Billingsley told The Post.

The jail would have to transfer some of its prisoners from the prison or increase its capacity in order to accommodate the detainees, which would mean hiring more staff, according to The Post.

“There’s a whole contingent of issues that have to be well thought out before we ever agreed to bring inmates of that caliber into our system,” said Bryan Lowry, president of the National Council of Prison Locals, which represents federal correctional officers, told The Post. “These inmates that are in there now are some of the most dangerous inmates in the nation. I don’t know how you move them out just to move inmates from Guantanamo in.â€�

We previously reported that Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) supported moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the Colorado facility.

Florence Town Manager Tom Piltingsrud told The Post that locals probably wouldn’t mind the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the prison. But he added that his town’s residents are prepared if there are any problems with the suspected terrorists.

“Most of us own guns,” he told The Post.

If Colorado doesn’t work out, some government officials are open to accepting detainees in their cities. We previously reported that Hardin, Mont. wouldn’t have a problem with hosting the detainees. Same goes for Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who would support housing the detainees in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and Rep. James Moran (D-Va.), who would accept Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Alexandria, Va.