Gov. Jon Corzine

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) during a Thursday interview with The New York Times said he regrets having supported Chris Christie’s nomination for U.S. Attorney, saying he believed the former prosecutor politicized the position and used it as a launching pad for his political career. “New information, new conclusion,â€� Corzine told the NYT.

In a separate interview with the newspaper on Thursday, Christie was asked to name three things Corzine had done right. The governor “struggled for several moments” with the answer, The Times reports. “Let me think. Um … I would probably say I think over all his prosecutorial appointments have been good.â€�

Chris Christie (Christie for Governor)

Neither candidate apologized for the personal attacks on their opponent during the campaign, The Times reports. Polls have the two candidates virtually tied for the Nov. 3 election.

In related news, Christie during a Thursday interview on the Don Imus’s radio show said Corzine should “man up and say I’m fat.” Corzine produced an ad claiming Christie “threw his weight around” as a prosecutor. When asked by Imus how much he weighs, Christie replied, “550 pounds,” a response which got a lot of laughs from the Imus team. He added, “I’m going to be a big fat winner” on Election Day.

It might not have stirring videos or a Twitter page — yet. But the Department of Justice’s system for keeping in touch with victims of crime is getting an upgrade, Government Computer News reported today.

According to the magazine, AT&T Government Solutions just won a $12 million contract to beef up the Victims Notification System,  which sends electronic updates to crime victims about cases with which they’re involved.

The system was developed in 2000 by AT&T Government Solutions, the magazine reported. AT&T Government Solutions Vice President John Klebonis is quoted in the article as saying the new system, when it’s finished, will be more “plug and play.” He added:

“As one of the architects of the Victim Notification System for the Department of Justice, AT&T knows firsthand the intricacies of the complexity of the system, from coordinating activities across the respective government agencies to the user training.”

More than 300,000 notifications are sent out each month under the current system, the magazine said.

Liberal activists are putting more pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this week to move on President Obama’s Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel nominee.

Dawn Johnsen (Indiana University)

Dawn Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor, was nominated Feb. 11 and reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee March 19 along party lines. Several Senate Republicans and Democratic Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) have criticized Johnsen because of her vocal opposition to the Bush administration’s national security policies and her past work for the group formerly known as the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.

In a letter to Reid yesterday, leaders of almost 40 left-leaning organizations said the hold-up on Johnsen is “extraordinary and unacceptable.” The groups included the Human Rights Campaign, National Council of La Raza, People for the American Way and Alliance for Justice.

“Professor Johnsen has the experience, the integrity, and the intellect to head this critical office,” they wrote in the letter. “She should be confirmed without further delay. We understand the press of legislative business before the Senate. But further delay is untenable.”

Though Democrats have a 60 vote-majority, Reid may not have enough votes to end a Republican filibuster on Johnsen.

Specter and Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) have not said how they will vote on the procedural motion to end debate, known as cloture.

If Specter and Pryor balk at voting with his party on the procedural vote, Democrats only have 58 votes. But Reid might be able to lean on Maine Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who have not said how they would vote on cloture.

Mary Beth Buchanan (Steve Pope)

Pittsburgh U.S Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan will resign from her post on Nov. 16, The Associated Press reports. Buchanan has served as the district’s head prosecutor since September 2001. Although she did not announce her plans, Buchanan reportedly is considering a run for the Republican nomination to challenge  Rep. Jason Altmire (D), who represents Pennsylvania’s 4th congressional district.

Buchanan has been criticized by Democrats who claim she helped politicize the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. While serving as U.S Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, she simultaneously worked as a senior official in various positions at DOJ headquarters in Washington.

Buchanan also has been accused of targeting Democrats for prosecution, which she has denied, and recently came under fire from a federal public defender for her handling of privileged telephone conversations between inmates at the Allegheny County Jail and their lawyers that were inadvertently recorded.

Although “preliminary vetting” by DOJ has begun for Buchanan’s replacement, no nominee has been announced. David Hickton, co-founder of transportation law firm Burns, White and Hickton, is believed to be the favorite of Democratic Sens. Bob Casey and Arlen Specter, news reports have said.

Assistant Attorney General Tony West (Steve Bagley/Main Justice)

The Department of Justice and Congress are working together to beef up the government’s ability to fight health care fraud.

Assistant Attorney General Tony West told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday the DOJ needs Congress’s help. “We cannot combat this fraud alone,” said West, who has headed the DOJ’s Civil Division for eight months.

Good timing. Later Wednesday, Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) introduced the Health Care Fraud Enforcement Act to help the Justice Department out.

The act would make a few key reforms, Kaufman said, including changing sentencing guidelines for criminals convicted of health care fraud, make punishments “commensurate with costs” of the fraud, and increase whistleblower payments.

According to a news release from Kaufman’s office, the bill would increase the sentences for health care fraud convictions, redefine the definition of what constitutes a health care fraud offense to include drug marketing, kickback and ERISA crimes, increase whistleblower claims, create a mental state requirement for trying health care fraud offenses and devoting $20 million annually from 2011 to 2016 in federal funding to increase Medicare fraud investigations and prosecutions.

“We have seen an increasing number of sentences of fines for where there is really serious egregious conduct. Fines have just added to the cost of doing business,” Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) said at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, Kaufman spoke about the bill, the Health Care Fraud Enforcement Act of 2009. “We must also ensure law enforcement has the tools it needs,” Kaufman said.

West said that “fighting Medicare and Medicaid fraud has become a “Cabinet-level priority,” with the DOJ and HHS’s combined efforts.

The two agencies in May announced the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) to pursue Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  ”If we can put these people in prison, we will do that,” West said. “That’s a commitment the department has made.”

At the hearing, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he wanted to see the DOJ’s Civil and Criminal Divisions beef up their staff to deal with health care fraud. “The bad guys outnumber the good guys,” Cornyn said. “I don’t know how we can expect [The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] to do a better job, when out of the 4.4 million claims you get every day you can only review 3 percent of them. I’m not sure we are ever going to have enough good guys to outnumber the bad guys in this.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) questioned West on the 1,040 pending qui tam lawsuits waiting for the DOJ to sign on. “I find it troubling that some cases are lingering for 36 months,” Grassley said of the whistle blower suits. “Does the Justice Department have a plan to clear this backlog in a timely manner? And if so, what is it?”

Those cases, West said, are being “actively investigated.”

The House health care bill unveiled today would give the Federal Trade Commission new authority to investigate anti-competitive behavior in the insurance industry.

It’s the latest in a series of measures against insurers from congressional Democrats to subject health insurers to greater federal oversight.

On page 149 of the nearly 2,000-page bill, lawmakers propose giving the FTC the ability to “prepare reports� and “conduct studies� on the business of insurance without a request to do so from Congress.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement he was “pleased” with the provisions, which he said would “remove an anachronistic antitrust exemption and ensure that consumers are protected from anticompetitive behavior.”

The FTC has long examined pharmaceuticals, healthcare and other industries. But it has been barred from investigating certain parts of the insurance industry without a request from Congress for almost three decades.

The FTC both enforces competition laws and conducts studies of industries that are used to shape policy. Recent FTC reports have been cited at congressional hearings and in court opinions.

“These studies do carry significant weight,” said Mike Cowie, a former FTC director and current antitrust partner at Howrey in D.C. who represents a pharmaceutical firm that is a subject in an FTC study on the pricing of generic drugs.

The new authority would allow the FTC to gather data and documents from insurers in a lesser version of subpoena power, Cowie says.

Also in the House bill is a partial repeal of a 1940s law that exempts insurers from federal antitrust regulations. That provision would allow both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and punish antitrust violations in the health insurance industry.

The FTC and the Justice Department have overlapping authority in enforcing competition rules, and divide cases between them based on industry and expertise. The insurance industry has been the domain of the Justice Department, since the FTC has been barred from devoting resources to insurance investigations.

When the FTC issued a report on the health care industry a few years ago, for example, it was able to include information on health insurance only because the Justice Department was a co-sponsor of the study.

But even though insurance is generally an industry covered by the Justice Department, the new authority could lead to further action by the FTC.

If the agency discovers conduct on its own, there’s a good chance it would see the case through, said Kenneth Glazer, a former deputy director at the FTC  and current antitrust partner at K&L Gates. “If an agency takes the initiative,� he said, it’s not inconceivable that they could do it.�

Gregory Katsas (usdoj)

Gregory Katsas, former Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division in the Bush administration, will rejoin Jones Day next month as a partner in the issues and appeals practice, the firm announced on Thursday. He is scheduled to start on Nov. 9.

In his eight years at the department, Katsas represented the government in every federal circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. He seemed to specialize in the controversial, arguing in cases concerning the detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, the use of national security letters in counterterrorism investigations, the applicability of the state secrets privilege, the closure of immigration hearings for suspected terrorists, and the constitutionality of federal statutes on topics ranging from the Pledge of Allegiance to partial-birth abortion.

Between 2001 and 2008, Katsas held numerous front office jobs at DOJ, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General and Acting Associate Attorney General. He was confirmed as Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division in June 2008 — shortly after the Supreme Court issued its landmark opinion in Boumediene v. Bush, which granted Guantanamo Bay detainees the right to challenge their confinement in federal court. (Katsas argued the case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a high point of his career, he said.)

The Court’s decision came down on June 12, the day Katsas returned from his honeymoon. At the time, he was leading the Civil Division in an acting capacity. Katsas was consumed with marshaling resources and assembling records to meet court deadlines in more than 200 habeas cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He and his team recruited dozens of lawyers from the Civil Division and various other corners of the Justice Department for the effort.

“In my eight years at DOJ, I don’t know of any other AAG who had to ask for a detail like that,” Katsas said in a telephone interview. “We had wonderful support from Attorney General Mukasey and Deputy Attorney General Filip, and we put together a great team very quickly.”

As of early September, federal district judges had ordered the release of 29 detainees and sided with the department seven times. About 50 government lawyers are defending the detentions in court.

Before joining the department, Katsas (Princeton, Harvard Law) was an issues and appeals partner at the firm, specialing in complex appellate and trial-court litigation. He was a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and to Justice Clarence Thomas.

“We are very pleased to have Greg back,” Mary Ellen Powers, partner-in-charge of Jones Day’s Washington office, said in a statement. “He was already a great lawyer, but the experience of running DOJ’s Civil Division obviously adds an extra dimension to his ability to help the firm’s clients in a wide variety of matters.”

Ron Machen (Wilmer Hale)

Ron Machen, a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, is nearing the finish line.

Two people familiar the situation tell Main Justice that the former federal prosecutor had his interview at the Justice Department earlier this week. If all went well, he is virtually guaranteed the nomination for the U.S. Attorney post in the District of Columbia. (For an inside look at the interview process, click here.)

Machen declined to comment.

Machen worked in the Fraud and Public Corruption and Homicide sections of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia from 1997 to 2001. At Wilmer, he has represented a slew of high-profile clients, including Boeing Co., CitiGroup Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the defense contractor who pleaded guilty to bribing then-Rep. Randy “Duke� Cunningham (R-Calif.).

In August, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton submitted a slate of three names to the White House. Nixon Peabody partner Anjali Chaturvedi and Fried Frank partner Michael Bromwich are also among the finalists, though news reports pegged Machen as the early favorite.

President Obama intends to tap a criminal justice professor as the next Bureau of Justice Statistics director, the White House announced today.

James P. Lynch (City University of New York)

James P. Lynch is a criminal justice professor at John Jay College at the City University of New York. He also serves as the American Society of Criminology vice president-elect. He has published numerous articles and books on criminal justice statistics. Read more about him here.

He would replace acting director Michael Sinclair. Lynch would be the first presidentially appointed bureau director since Jeffrey Sedgwick resigned in 2008 to lead the Office of Justice Programs. The statistics bureau is part of the Justice Department.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) (gov)

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) told a local radio station he is frustrated that President Obama has yet to nominate a for U.S. Attorney for North Dakota.

Dorgan said he knows who will be nominated but declined to identify the nominee, because that’s the White House’s job, WDAY Radio News reported.

“I think the White House is largely settled on who they want to nominate,” Dorgan told the radio station. “They are now in the process of doing what is called the vetting, and that is taking longer than one would expect. I assume they are doing that in a lot of cases, and we are not the only ones I think that are frustrated by that. There are many other areas around the country in which nominations are expected but not forthcoming.”

The North Dakota congressional delegation reportedly recommended several candidates to Obama,  including Jasper Schneider and Janice Morley. Schneider is a member of the North Dakota state legislature and a lawyer at Fargo’s Schneider Law Firm. Morley is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the North Dakota office.

Lynn Jordheim has been North Dakota’s acting U.S. Attorney Sept. 13 following the resignation of Drew Wrigley, who had been the district’s head prosecutor since November 2001, when he was nominated by President George W. Bush. He is currently the vice president of  the Fargo-based Noridian Administrative Services, which helps businesses with information management and customer service.