The Justice Department in a Monday court filing said it can’t find 10 documents that are supposed to be released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Al Kamen reported in The Washington Post.

The ACLU’s five-year FOIA battle seeks to illuminate the process that led to a policy of harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration. One of the 10 missing documents is a 59-page exchange in 2002 between the  Office of Legal Counsel and the Pentagon on the eve of a decision to increase the intensity of the interrogations, Kamen reported.

The Justice Department was able to find an additional 224 documents relevant to the ACLU’s 2005 request, Kamen said. They were found in three safes and in “the back of a third drawer” inside OLC’s room for highly classified documents. The documents were located by two visiting Assistant U.S. Attorneys from New York and one DOJ attorney.

Acting Assistant Attorney General for the OLC David J. Barron had to explain the loss to a federal judge in New York. He wrote: “Due to their extreme sensitivity at the time,” the relevant document set was not copied and its contents were “intermingled” with other files in the room. The documents then took the scenic tour of Washington, D.C., first going to another special room at DOJ, then to the CIA in 2007 and stopping at the Office of Professional Responsibility until March.

Kamen reported there is no word on if or when the documents might be made public.

With the announcement that Michael Cotter was nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for Montana today, a former candidate for the post has turned his attention to an open spot on the state Supreme Court.

Mike Wheat

Attorney Mike Wheat, of Cok Wheat and Kinzler PLLP, said he decided to pursue the Supreme Court spot a week and a half before Cotter’s nomination was announced, sending a letter to Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and John Tester.

“It’s pretty stimulating, actually,” Wheat said. “You can have a real impact on your state, from a legal point of view.”

“I had some friends of mine who said that might be  a better fit for me,” Wheat said. He has been a plaintiff’s attorney for more than 30 years, and specializes in litigating allegations of unsafe products, personal injury, bad faith insurance claims, nursing home neglect and medical negligence.

A spot on the Montana Supreme Court opened up at the beginning of September, when 66-year-old Justice John Warner resigned after six years on the bench. Warner was appointed in 2003, re-elected twice, and was serving out a term that would have lasted until 2012. According to the Missoulian, Warner resigned for health reasons. He is battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Hassan Nemazee

The brother-in-law of prominent Democratic fundraiser Hassan Nemazee has been charged as an accomplice in an alleged scheme to defraud three banks of more than $290 million, according to a Southern District of New York news release.

Nemazee, the national finance co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, is accused of using loan proceeds from one bank to pay off another over an 11-year period, from 1998 to 2009. The banks he allegedly defrauded in the Ponzi scheme are Bank of America, Citibank and HSBC Bank USA, according to SDNY .

According to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court and other documents, Shahin Kashanchi fabricated  documents submitted by Nemazee to obtain the fraudulent loans.”Kashanchi would simply create phony account statements designed to look like real account statements, but bearing account numbers for accounts that did not exist and reflecting balances that purported to establish Nemazee’s great wealth,” the SDNY news release said.

Kashanchi also allegedly created counterfeit statements indicating Nemazee held more than $125 million in U.S. Treasury securities. According to the complaint, Kashanchi also falsified documents from Pershing LLC to help Nemazee obtain the loans.

Kashanchi, who resides in Telluride, Colo.,  is charged with two counts of bank fraud. Each charge carries a maximum prison term of 30 years and a maximum fine of $1 million, or twice the gain or loss resulting from the crime.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John M. Hillebrecht and Daniel W. Levy.

Brenda Morris, who is under criminal investigation for her role as lead prosecutor in the dismissed case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, has left Washington and her position as Principal Deputy Chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, according to department officials.

Brenda Morris is under investigation for her role in the dismissed Sen. Ted Stevens case. (Getty Images)

Morris, who remains a senior trial lawyer in the section, moved to Atlanta earlier this week for personal reasons, according to a person familiar with the situation. She began working out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia on Sept. 21 and will be based there indefinitely.

“The department asked us to give her some space. We had an office, and we said, ‘Fine,’” said Gentry Shelnutt, the Atlanta office’s criminal chief.

The move represented a mutual decision by Morris and department leadership, one person familiar with the situation said. The parties agreed that Morris, who has been a Public Integrity prosecutor since 1991, and Principal Deputy Chief since 2006, could not carry out her managerial responsibilities from afar, so she shed her leadership role, this person said. The Principal Deputy position has not been filled.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Morris would continue to handle a full caseload. ”Brenda is a valued senior trial attorney in the Criminal Division, and she continues to work on complex litigation matters across the country for the division,” said Laura Sweeney.

Morris came to the Stevens case late. The Criminal Division’s top brass assigned her as lead prosecutor days before the Alaska Republican was indicted in July 2008  on charges he’d failed to reveal on his Senate financial disclosure forms more than a quarter million dollars worth of gifts and home improvements from a political supporter.

Although Morris is widely admired for her trial skills, her last-minute appointment to the prosecution team grated on Public Integrity Section Chief William Welch II and the prosecutors who built the case, including then-Public Integrity trial attorneys Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan, people familiar with the case have said. But their objections were overruled. Matthew Friedrich, the head of the Criminal Division at the time, and Rita Glavin, his principal deputy, wanted a veteran prosecutor first-chairing the trial, people familiar with their thinking have said.

In June, Marsh and Sullivan were transferred from Public Integrity to the Office of International Affairs, an assignment that keeps them out of the courtroom while Schuelke conducts his probe.

The longest-serving Republican in the Senate and a powerful member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens denied the charges. With a re-election battle looming, he moved for a speedy trial in hopes of clearing his name before voters went to the polls.

But last October, a jury in the District of Columbia convicted Stevens, then 85 years old, on seven counts. He  lost re-election last November to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) by fewer than 4,000 votes, or a 1.24% margin.

What appeared to be a major victory for the department soon turned into a high-profile embarrassment. A whistle blower, FBI Agent Chad Joy, accused the prosecution of mishandling evidence in this complaint. The trial judge, Emmet Sullivan, blasted Morris and other members of the prosecution team in a series of post-trial hearings and orders. In April, Attorney General Eric Holder moved to dismiss the case, concluding that prosecutors improperly withheld evidence favorable to Stevens.

After granting Holder’s request and voiding Stevens’s conviction, Sullivan appointed an outside counsel, Henry Shuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler, to investigate Morris and her team for possible criminal contempt of court. PIN Chief Welch is also under investigation in the criminal contempt case. A parallel probe by the DOJ’s internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility, is also underway.

Critics have said the team lost valuable time acquainting Morris with a case that sped from indictment to trial in about two months. But supporters say Morris added ballast  – despite the outcome — and Judge Sullivan publicly hailed her performance during closing arguments as among the best he’s ever seen.

Eric Holder

In a gala held at the Galleria on 21st Street, Attorney General Eric Holder was honored at the 11th annual Thurgood Marshall College Fund Community Leadership Awards Ceremony, held during the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Week.

The attendees greeted Holder with thunderous applause as he walked the green marble steps to a podium set up in the Galleria’s ballroom. “I am really humbled,” Holder said.

Holder delivered brief remarks on the importance of education to D.C.’s African American community. He said fulfilling Thurgood Marshall’s legacy meant students pushing themselves and becoming socially engaged. “Thurgood Marshall saw what
our world could become.  So he pushed to build it,” Holder said.

“Now it’s our turn to make the world what it can become,” Holder said. ” Now it’s our turn to push.”

The best way to push for change, Holder said, would be to ensure students have the opportunity to go to college. For that, Holder thanked the Thurgood Marshall fund, for providing scholarships to students attending the nation’s historically African American public colleges and universities.

Before he was presented with the first Community Leadership Award of the night, Holder was introduced by former Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Peter C. Harvey, currently a partner at New Jersey law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. “No one in the history of the Department of Justice has come to [the position of Attorney General] better than General Holder,” Harvey said.

President Obama nominated U.S. Attorneys for Missouri, Montana and Iowa today.

They are:

Richard Callahan (Gov)

-Richard G. Callahan (Eastern District of Missouri): The Cole County, Mo., Circuit Court judge would replace Michael Reap, who has been acting U.S. Attorney since Catherine Hanaway resigned in April to join former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s law firm.

-Michael W. Cotter (Montana): The Helena, Mont. lawyer would succeed controversial Bush holdover Bill Mercer, who has been U.S. Attorney since 2001. Mercer was criticized for being the Justice Department’s Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and Associate Attorney General in Washington, D.C., for almost two years, while simultaneously serving as Montana U.S. Attorney. He has also come under fire for his role in the politicized firings of U.S. Attorneys in 2006.

Nick Klinefeldt (Ahlers & Cooney)

-Nick Klinefeldt (Southern District of Iowa): The Des Moines, Iowa lawyer would replace Matthew G. Whitaker, who has served as U.S. Attorney since 2004. We reported earlier this month that the lawyer has been able to rise above the past of his father, Michael Arthur Klinefeldt, who is serving a 10-year sentence on a methamphetamine conviction.

Stephanie Rose

-Stephanie Rose (Northern District of Iowa): The Northern District of Iowa Assistant U.S. Attorney would succeed Matt Dummermuth, a Bush U.S. Attorney who never won Senate confirmation. Immigration lawyers and immigrant rights advocates have questioned Rose’s role in a controversial round-up of 300 undocumented immigrants working at a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa last year. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said in May that Rose didn’t take part in the decision to prosecute the immigrant workers.

Read more about the nominees here.

Obama has now made a total of 27 U.S. Attorney nominations. The full Senate has considered 11 of those nominees and they were all confirmed by unanimous consent.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) was on the Daily Show last night to promote his new book “The Governor.”  Blago, of course, is the foul-mouthed pol awaiting trial on public corruption charges, including allegations he tried to sell for campaign contributions an appointment to fill President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat.

Northern District of Illinois U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald described Blago as being on a “political crime spree” in a news conference last year.

Blago insisted he’s been wrongly accused and said if the government tapes of his wiretapped conversations were released, he’d be exonerated. But mean old Pat Fitzgerald won’t do it, the former governor said.

Stewart’s reaction?

“I want to believe you! You are a charming dude with the best head of hair I’ve ever f—— seen! So I want this to be real! I want Pat Fitzgerald and the entire city of Chicago’s political structure and and the entire state of Illinois to somehow be conspiring to [explicit phrase deleted] as hard as they can! I want that!” But Stewart added: “[I]t’s hard to believe.”

Check out the entire interview:

Attorney General Eric Holder stressed the importance of academics and community outreach to members of The George Washington University men’s basketball team yesterday at Main Justice in Washington, The GW Hatchet reported.

Eric Holder (DOJ)

Holder, a former high school and college athlete, was asked to speak to the basketball players as part of a team mentoring program, according to the student newspaper. The Attorney General told the players to get involved in their local communities and not neglect their studies at GW. He added that playing NCAA Division I basketball is a rare honor.

“This is an opportunity that you’re never going to have again,” Holder said, according to The Hatchet. “Enjoy it. Have fun with it. Don’t take it for granted.”

The Attorney General played basketball as a freshman at Columbia University and as a student at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. The Hatchet reported that the meeting was arranged by Leroy R. Charles, an assistant vice president for the GW Medical Center, who grew up with Holder in Queens.

Charles said Holder “had a nice 15-foot jump shot off the backboard” when the Attorney General played basketball in New York, according to The Hatchet.

“Twenty,” Holder reportedly rebutted.

The Attorney General also told the basketball players that like good lawyers, good athletes should always be prepared to handle whatever may come at them.

“The reality is it’s about discipline at the end of the day,” he said, according to The Hatchet.

Two government lawyers  received high honors yesterday for their work in the Justice Department.

Walter Benjamin Fisherow, Deputy Section Chief in the environmental enforcement section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division, received the Justice and Law Enforcement Medal from the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that promotes federal jobs. Philip H. Lynch, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Washington, was awarded the Justice Department’s Distinguished Service Award by Attorney General Eric Holder.

Walter Benjamin Fisherow (Partnership for Public Service)

Fisherow received one of the nine Service to America Medals that are awarded annually for outstanding public service. The nonprofit organization said in a news release that he directed the “largest Clean Air Act enforcement actions ever.” His work will reduce air pollutants by almost 2 million tons each year, according to the Partnership for Public Service.

Lynch was honored with the Justice Department’s highest award for his efforts to establish the military and civil legal system in Iraq, The Associated Press reported. He oversaw 1,500 U.S. personnel as the rule of law coordinator for a year finishing in January and aided Iraqi lawyers in the 2oo6 Saddam Hussein trial, The AP said.

A former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California was confirmed as a member of the Los Angeles Police Commission Wednesday, the Southern California Public Radio Web site reports.

Debra Wong Yang

Debra Wong Yang is a partner at Los Angeles-based Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where she is co-chair of the firm’s crisis management practice group and the white collar defense and investigations practice group. She was appointed U.S. Attorney in 2002 by President Bush.

Yang’s confirmation to the five-member commission comes at an important time in Los Angeles law enforcement, the public radio site reports. According to the site, the committee will be interviewing candidates to replace Police Chief Bill Bratton, who announced his resignation on Aug. 6, ending a seven-year tenure effective Oct. 31 this year.

Yang will also be involved in improving Los Angeles’s financial situation, hoping to keep departmental budget cuts to a minimum despite a $400 million budget shortfall citywide, the site reported.