The Abramoff investigation keeps on a-givin.

Horace Cooper (Princeton)

Horace Cooper, a well-known Republican commentator and one-time aide to former Majority Leader Dick Armey, was charged today with accepting thousands of dollars worth of tickets to sporting events and concerts in return for helping Jack Abramoff and his clients advance their interests.

Cooper, 44, is also accused of failing to disclose the gifts on his financial disclosure forms and lying to investigators about free meals he received from Abramoff, according to an indictment returned today by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.

Cooper worked for Armey from 1994 to 2001, and later served as the chief of staff for Voice of America, an executive branch agency, and chief of staff for the Labor Department’s Employment Standards Administration. The indictment outlines alleged acts that occurred during a a seven-year period, beginning in 1998.

From the Justice Department’s news release:

Specifically, the indictment alleges that during this time, Cooper solicited and received from Abramoff and his colleagues thousands of dollars worth of tickets to sporting events and concerts; that Cooper and his companions allegedly received free or discounted meals and drinks on dozens of occasions at a restaurant controlled by Abramoff; and that Cooper, at Abramoff’s invitation and expense, allegedly hosted a Super Bowl party for his friends at another restaurant Abramoff controlled.  The indictment also alleges that Cooper, rewarded and influenced by the tickets and meals solicited and received from Abramoff and his associates, agreed to use his official positions at VOA and the Department of Labor to advance Abramoff’s interests and those of his clients.  In addition, the indictment alleges that from approximately 1998 to 2000, Cooper received from Abramoff and his colleagues thousands of dollars worth of tickets to concerts and sporting events while Cooper was serving as a Congressional staffer.

To date, 20 individuals have been snared in the Abramoff probe. The former lobbyist was sentenced in September to four years in prison and is cooperating with authorities in the ongoing investigation.

Cooper’s case is being prosecuted by Public Integrity trial lawyers Matthew Stennes and Marc Levin. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiracy; five years in prison for fraudulent concealment; five years in prison for each of two false statement counts; and 20 years in prison for obstruction of justice. If convicted, Cooper also faces a maximum fine of $250,000.

A footnote: Armey resigned from DLA Piper last week. The former majority leader told The BLT his ties to a conservative nonprofit opposed to health care reform were hurting the firm.

B. Todd Jones (Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi)

Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones intends to name as his deputy a prosecutor who clashed with Rachel Paulose, the brash young Bush administration official who once ran the office, a person familiar with his plans told Main Justice today.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Marti, a line prosecutor in the office, also served as Paulose’s First Assistant. But she demoted him in April 2007 after he reported her for mishandling classified documents. Paulose’s 20-month tenure marked a period of intense turmoil in the Minneapolis-based office, and she became a symbol of the Bush Justice Department’s tendency to promote prosecutors based on ideology instead of competence.

Rachel Paulose (DOJ)

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an executive branch agency that deals with whistle-blower cases, determined last year that Paulose retaliated against Marti. ”Based on considerable evidence of intent, animus, and motive, OSC concluded that Ms. Paulose constructively demoted” Marti for reporting her conduct to Justice Department officials, according to a news release announcing the findings.

The Justice Department reached an agreement with Marti after the OSC investigation. He was given back pay and a lump-sum payment for damages. The department also agreed to remove any negative references from his personnel records.

Two other lawyers in the office resigned their management positions in protest of her policies and management style, and more threatened to defect if Paulose remained at her post. She resigned as U.S. Attorney in November 2007 after spending less than 20 months as Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor. Paulose was appointed by then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as an interim U.S. Attorney, at the age of 32. The Senate later confirmed her in December 2006.

Her predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger, was on a list of U.S. Attorneys slated for firing compiled by Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ chief of staff. Heffelfinger, however, resigned before the firings.

Paulose is now a senior trial counsel in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Miami regional office. Read Main Justice’s report about her new gig here.

Jones, a former Minnesota U.S. Attorney during the Clinton administration, is the first Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney for the office since Paulose. He was sworn into office last week.

U.S. Attorneys typically change some of the leaders in their offices after they are sworn in.

Marti did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Joe Palazzolo contributed to this report.

Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote a sharply worded opinion that rebuked the Hawaii U.S. Attorney’s Office for its conduct in a 2007 criminal case, The Honolulu Advertiser reported today.

Kozinski wrote that Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Gabriel Colwell inappropriately questioned defendant Rex Harrison during cross examination, according to the newspaper. Colwell was detailed to the office from the military as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney to the Hawaii office, the paper reported.

Harrison, a civilian contractor who installed secure computer networks on military bases, was convicted on two counts of assaulting military officers and sentenced to two years in prison. The judge overturned one of the counts, vacated Harrison’s prison sentence and sent the case back to the U.S. district court, according to The Advertiser.

“It’s black letter law that a prosecutor may not ask a defendant to comment on the truthfulness of another witness … but the prosecutors here did just that,” Kozinski wrote, adding that the questions were not “isolated incidents.”

Ninth U.S. Circuit Court Judge Jay Bybee was even more critical. In a dissenting opinion, the former Bush Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel chief — who’s been under his own ethics cloud for his role in authorizing brutal interrogation techniques — wrote that the entire case should be overturned.

The “outrageous behavior of the lead prosecutor” in the case was “so extensive that summarizing it all is no easy task,” Bybee wrote, the Advertiser reported.

“We do not permit attorneys to support or undermine witnesses by either vouching for their veracity (“Brutus is an honorable man”) or branding them unreliable (“All Cretans are liars”),” Bybee’s opinion said.

The office of U.S. Attorney Edward Kubo “conceded the impropriety” of the prosecutor’s questions in the appeal, Kozinski wrote but noted that Colwell and his co-prosecutor were on loan from the military, the opinion said.

“That’s no excuse at all,” Kozinski wrote. “When the United States Attorney endows lawyers with the powers of federal prosecutors, he has a responsibility to properly train and supervise them so as to avoid trampling defendants’ rights.”

The Justice Department will roll out the welcome mat next month at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building for the first five Obama U.S. Attorneys, a DOJ spokesperson told Main Justice today.

Newly minted U.S. Attorneys Preet Bharara (Southern District of New York), Tristram Coffin (Vermont), B. Todd Jones (Minnesota), John Kacavas (New Hampshire) and Joyce Vance (Northern District of Alabama) will be in D.C. for an orientation meeting that incoming U.S. Attorneys typically go through, DOJ spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said. DOJ has yet to finalize an exact date for the September gathering, she said.

At the meeting, the new U.S. Attorneys will have the opportunity to discuss their initiatives and meet DOJ leaders, according to Schwartz. They will also receive briefings on DOJ procedures, ethics and media relations, she said.

“It’s a good opportunity to have a refresher,” Schwartz said.

The five U.S. Attorneys were confirmed by the Senate Aug. 7 and four were sworn into office Aug. 13. Vance, who is currently an interim U.S. Attorney, will be sworn in at a Aug. 27 ceremony that Attorney General Eric Holder is slated to attend.

Michael Chertoff (Gov)

Former Bush official Michael Chertoff, an ex-New Jersey U.S. Attorney, told The Record’s Herb Jackson today that it was “a stretchâ€� to say that New Jersey acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra made unethical comments that could have aided former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie’s campaign for governor.

The Justice Department is probing Marra over the public remarks he made after his office netted 44 individuals –  including 29 elected or public officials — in a corruption investigation last month, The Associated Press reported yesterday. Christie, Marra’s former boss, has used the arrests to argue he would be better at preventing public corruption than Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine.

Here’s what Marra reportedly said:

“There are easily reforms that could be made within this state that would make our job easier, or even take some of the load off our job. There are too many people that profit off the system the way it is and so they have no incentive to change it. The few people that want to change it seem to get shouted down. So how long that cycle’s going to continue I just don’t know.�

Here’s what Chertoff told Jackson in an interview:

Q: Did Marra cross a line with his comments?

A: I’m not going to comment on something somebody said that I didn’t see or hear.  Generally there are a set of rules, you’re not supposed to comment, give a personal opinion about someone’s guilt or innocence, you’re not supposed to talk about evidence that hasn’t actually been made public in court.  So those are pretty clear rules.  I think every U.S. attorney always has a little rhetorical flourish. I don’t ever remember seeing a U.S. attorney, including myself, get out and say we’ve arrested people for horrendous acts of terrorism, we don’t want to comment about whether we think it’s good or bad. That’s obviously a little foolish. So I think the key’s generally to avoid saying anything that would prejudice the defendant in the case.

Q: Does the fact Mr. Marra’s former supervisor is a candidate for governor running on the a reform platform–

A: [Interrupting]I think it’s a stretch to try to fit this is into a political discussion. The rules are – Obviously a US attorney won’t come out and say I support a political candidate, but you know there’s always an election in this country, and if the rule is you can’t say anything that might be a topic of public interest then you wouldn’t be able to have a press conference.  So I think generally the rule is not to comment on guilt or innocence, not to talk about evidence that’s not in the case. But I think general comments about the significance of the case, whether it’s a corruption case or a bank fraud case or a securities fraud case, a mortgage fraud case, that’s kind of common frankly.

A federal judge in Ohio has rejected one the government’s key tactics in prosecuting charities suspected of supporting terrorists, The New York Times reports.

In a ruling issued late Tuesday, James G. Carr, the chief federal judge in northern Ohio, said the Treasury Department acted unconstitutionally three years ago when it froze $1 million in assets of KindHearts, a Toledo-based charity that was part of a terrorism investigation.

Under an executive order signed by President Bush two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government has used the tactic — without warrants and court approval — to freeze tens of millions of dollars in assets held by eight charities within the United States. The method also has been used to hamper the activities of hundreds of groups and individuals outside the United States.

If upheld, Carr’s ruling “could severely undercut the government’s authority and ultimately require it to get a warrant and submit to court review in moving against charities,” according to the Times.

The Treasury has alleged that KindHearts provided financial aid to Hamas and coordinated with its leaders in support of terrorist activities. Carr, a Clinton appointee, said the government “has effectively shut KindHearts downâ€� by freezing its assets and criminalizing its contacts.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control refused to free up money for the charity to pay its own lawyers, a move Carr deemed “arbitrary and capricious.” The judge also ruled that the government violated the charity’s right to due process and to challenge evidence, rejecting the Justice Department’s contention that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to groups suspected of aiding terrorists because of the president’s national security authority.

The charity’s lawyer, Lynne Bernabei of Washington-based Bernabei & Wachtel, told the Times, “The government has been taking action unilaterally and basically destroying these charities on the flimsiest of evidence. We see this as the beginning of the effort to rein in executive authority.â€�

Karl Rove (Gov)

The former Bush adviser-turned-pundit has this editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, bemoaning his treatment by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the editorial boards of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

“For more than two years,” he begins, “ House Judiciary Committee Democrats and the New York Times editorial board have argued that I personally arranged for Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to be prosecuted in 2004 for corruption and ordered the removal of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 for failing to investigate Democrats.” (The WaPo chimed in on the latter charge.)

By Rove’s count, the newspapers published a combined 18 editorials attacking him. The poor thing.

After his 12 hour interview with House investigators, the committee made public some 500 pages of transcripts, emails and notes. They were released least week, along with thousands more related to the firings. Every major newspaper in the country ran with a headlines suggesting Rove’s involvement in the firings was greater than previously known, and the documents show he did in fact influence the process, significantly — but Rove says it was all on the level.

I did not conceive of the idea of removing certain U.S. attorneys, did not select those to be removed, and did not see the lists of U.S. attorneys Justice was considering to replace. I had no idea who was on the final list until Justice sent it to the White House in November 2006. No fair-minded person can review the thousands of pages of documents and testimony and conclude that I drove the process.

Rove says he took seriously accusations that David Iglesias, then U.S. attorney for New Mexico, was shying away from voter fraud cases, interfered with career prosecutors in a high-profile corruption case, and froze an indictment involving corruption in the construction of the Bernalillo County Courthouse for months.

These were serious allegations. I didn’t know if they were true, but I had a responsibility to pass them to the appropriate officials. The Justice Department needed to determine if they were accurate and, if so, weigh them appropriately. The allegations about Mr. Iglesias were similar to those Judiciary Democrats and their media allies raised against me—that the judicial process had been manipulated for political reasons.

And what about Tim Griffin, whom Rove recommended to Replace Bud Cummins as U.S. attorney in Arkansas? Griffin was well-qualified, Rove says, and he only recommended him after learning that Cummins was “likely” to relinquish his post.

Rove also writes that  Judiciary Democrats asked him very little about Siegelman’s bribery conviction, and that committee staff confided to him that they considered Jill Simpson, “the eccentric Alabama lawyer who drew attention by publicly supporting the allegations,” to be an unreliable witness. Rove says Siegelman and Simpson “refused to cooperate with the Justice Department’s review of his claim of political persecution, while I willingly gave sworn testimony.”

House Democrats have referred their findings to a special prosecutor, Nora Dannehy, who is looking into the U.S. attorneys removals. But Rove seems unfazed.

I am confident her findings will confirm that my actions were limited and proper. Perhaps then Judiciary Democrats will focus on more important issues and the Times and Post will admit their mistakes.

Don’t count on it, Mr. Rove.

Yes, it’s pathetic. But we’re still chewing over the 5,000 or so pages of e-mails, testimony and other documents released by the House Judiciary Committee last week relating to the Bush administration’s 2006 firings of U.S. Attorneys.

Among the items: handwritten notes by an unidentified staffer in the Bush White House that appear to document discussions with Justice Department political appointees about why the administration fired the prosecutors. From the dates on the notes and other references, the discussions appeared to be in preparation for House and Senate Judiciary Committee hearings that were held on March 6, 2007 to investigate the firings. They appeared to be the Bush staffers’ candid assessments of the fired U.S. Attorneys, not talking points being prepared for the press and Congress.

Most of the gripes about the other U.S. Attorneys centered on politics (“[Former Sen. Pete] Domenici [R-N.M.] said he bad U.S. Aty,” one note said of fired New Mexico prosecutor David Iglesias) or policy disagreements (“never sought death penalty,” notes about fired Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton read.)

But here’s what we found interesting: The apparently low opinion everyone had of Nevada U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden.

In one set of notes that appear to reflect a conversation with then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Paul McNulty, the White House note-taker wrote that Bogden was so “low key – so low key that (he) shows no initiative/leadership.”

Daniel Bogden (Getty Images)

Bogden and eight other U.S. Attorneys were part of the 2006 purge. President Obama nominated Bogden last month for his old post after he was recommended by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in March.

While the Bush DOJ tried to portray the prosecutor firings as rooted in performance issues and not politics, management problems actually might have been the case with Bogden. The views apparently expressed by McNulty were not too different from complaints of  prosecutors who Bogden supervised in the Nevada U.S. Attorney’s office. We previously reported that many of the office’s 50 prosecutors  were dismayed by Reid’s decision to recommend Bogden. They told the Las Vegas Sun that Bogden was aloof and had poor management skills.

Bogden does have the support of Reid, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Las Vegas FBI chief Ellen Knowlton, U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben and attorney Craig Denney, who worked in the Nevada U.S. Attorney office.

The White House notes that apparently came from a conversation with McNulty added that Bogden was a “less severe” problem for the Bush administration than the other soon-to-be dismissed U.S. Attorneys and he we was not “defiant or insubordinate.”

McNulty was not immediately able to comment on the White House notes.

The Justice Department Criminal Division’s Office of Special Investigations was created 30 years ago to investigate and prosecute individuals who live in the United States and took part in Nazi war crimes committed during World War II. More than 60 years after WWII, there are few people with Nazi ties still alive which has forced the office to take a new direction, The Washington Post reported today.

The roughly 30 person office has turned its attention towards Africa and the Balkans as it enters the next chapter of its existence, according to The Post. The unit has filed charges for about six new war crimes cases including one that involves Lazare Kabaya Kobagaya, 82, of Topeka, Kan., who allegedly took part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, The Post said. The office is also investigating 80 other war crime cases, according to the newspaper.

But perpetrators of Nazi war crimes are still being pursued. Earlier this summer, the office paved the way for the deportation of former Nazi concentration-camp guard John Demjanjuk, 89, to Germany where he faces a war crimes trial.

Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer told The Post that there is a possibility that OSI and the domestic security section, which investigates torture, could merge in the future.

“There are certain acts and obviously the Nazi prosecutions are an example, where we have a moral and ethical imperative to bring them to justice,” Breuer told The Post. “There has to be a component of the criminal division that deals with human rights violations, no matter how much time passes.”

Brendan Johnson (from South Dakota Watch blog via Facebook)

Martin Jackley

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has named U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota Martin Jackley as the state’s next attorney general, The Associated Press reported today. Jackley, who has been the district’s U.S. Attorney since 2006, will be sworn in at noon on Sept. 4, when current state attorney general Larry Long is sworn in as a circuit judge.

President Obama on July 14 nominated Brendan Johnson, a former partner at Johnson, Heidepriem, Abdallah and Johnson, LLP in Sioux Falls and the son of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), to be the next U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota. Read the Sioux Falls Argus Leader article here.