The chairman of the Colorado Republican party wrote  a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, slamming President Barack Obama’s pick for the state’s top federal prosecuting job.

Dick Wadhams stopped short of calling on the panel to reject the nomination of Stephanie Villafuerte to be Colorado U.S. Attorney. But he wrote: “Colorado deserves better than a U.S. Attorney who apparently might have used her former employer, the Denver District Attorney’s Office, for blatant partisan political purposes.”

Stephanie Villafuerte (gov)

We reported yesterday that Wadhams and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) are questioning whether Villafuerte asked employees of the Denver DA’s office to access a restricted government database to help the 2006 campaign of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter.

Wadhams highlighted a Denver Post article and editorial that are turning up the heat on Villafuerte, who is currently Ritter’s deputy chief of staff.

Villafuerte had discussions with staffers in the Denver district attorney’s office about an illegal immigrant who was featured in an ad against Ritter produced by his opponent, Republican Bob Beauprez, according to The Post.

But she told the FBI in 2007 that she had “no conversations� with the DA employees about the undocumented immigrant, Carlos Estrada-Medina, who is also an alleged heroin dealer, the newspaper said. Villafuerte has declined to comment to the newspaper.

“It is clear from the Denver Post story that, to be charitable, Stephanie Villafuerte was not forthcoming in her conversations with the FBI,” Wadhams wrote in his letter.

Republicans charge that Villafuerte is being treated differently in the matter than a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent named Cory Voorhis, who lost his job after accessing the same database on behalf of the Beauprez campaign.

A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) told Main Justice today that the senator’s office hadn’t received the letter yet. A spokesperson for panel Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was unable to comment immediately.

President Barack Obama tapped Villafuerte for the post Sept. 30. She would replace acting U.S. Attorney for Colorado David Gaouette, who has been in the position since Bush appointee Troy Eid resigned in January. The Senate Judiciary Committee has yet to consider her nomination.

David Hoffman (Hoffman for Senate)

A former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago is asking prosecutors to open their (not very fat) wallets for his U.S. Senate campaign.

In a fundraising event flier, David H. Hoffman, who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago from 1998 to 2005, suggests that current Assistant U.S. Attorneys donate a “minimum” of $150, while friends, guests, co-hosts and sponsors are asked to donate more.

Hoffman, who was most recently the inspector general for the City of Chicago, is seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat currently occupied by Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.).

The flier wasn’t sent to current assistant U.S. attorneys, although it was sent to the homes of 352 former prosecutors, campaign spokesman Thom Karmik said, according to The Chicago Tribune’s Clout Street blog. The prosecutors have a lower “suggested minimum” donation,  Karmik said, because “They make less than attorneys in private practice.”

According to Randall Samborn, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Assistant U.S. Attorneys can make campaign contributions; attend political fundraisers and rallies; and campaign for or against candidates without violating civil service rules and the Hatch Act, The Tribune reported. However, AUSAs are not allowed to participate in politics on government time or solicit or raise campaign donations.

Along with the donation request, Hoffman distributed an open letter from Scott Lassar, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who is co-hosting the Nov. 3 event along with former Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean Berkowitz, John Gallo and Lori Lightfoot.

“One of the best decisions I made at the U.S. Attorneys Office was hiring David Hoffman. David was a brilliant AUSA who chose to devote himself to gang and gun cases because it made a difference in some of our neediest communities. He initiated successful innovations in the Project Safe Neighborhoods program, including addressing groups of people being released on probation.

David next transformed the City of Chicago’s Office of Inspector General into a model of integrity and competence.

Now David is running in the Democratic primary for United States Senate. As many of you know, David would be a terrific Senator. He is bright, pragmatic, hard working, and eloquent. Those of you who don’t know him will soon find out.”

Burris was appointed in December by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D)  to the seat previously held by Barack Obama, sparking a political uproar. Fitzgerald — who is also Hoffman’s former boss — was investigating Blagojevich in a pay-t0-play corruption probe and had accused the governor of  being on “political crime spree.” The Senate at first refused to seat Burris, but later relented. Burris has said he won’t seek election next year.

Other candidates for the Feb. 2 Democratic primary are state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, businessman Stan Jagla, Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Robinson Jackson, write-in candidate Robert Jones, frequent candidate Robert Marshall and attorney Jacob Meister.

Attorney David Hickton (Burns, White and Hickton)

The Department of Justice has begun “preliminary vetting” for a replacement for Bush holdover U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today.

David Hickton, co-founder of transportation law firm Burns, White and Hickton, is under consideration for the Western District of Pennsylvania job, the paper said. He believed to be the favorite of Democratic Sens. Bob Casey and Arlen Specter, the Post-Gazette said. His vetting means the tenure of Buchanan, one of the longest-serving and most controversial U.S. Attorneys appointed byGeorge W. Bush, is likely nearing an end.

While no formal announcement has been made, the DOJ interviewers have begun speaking with Hickton’s former colleagues, the Post-Gazette reported.

Mary Beth Buchanan (Steve Pope)

One of Hickton’s former bosses, senior U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond, for whom Hickton clerked in 1981 and 1982, said he was among those interviewed, the newspaper reported. Hickton is “highly qualified for the position,” Diamond told the Post-Gazette.

Hickton, a long-time donor to the Democratic party, was praised in the Post-Gazette by Allegheny County Democratic Party chair Jim Burn. Burn called Hickton an asset to the community who “shows an impeccable ability to call it like he sees it and do the right thing.”

Buchanan has been under fire for years from Democrats, who said she helped politicized the Justice Department under Bush. She served simultaneously as U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh and as a senior official in various positions at  Justice Department headquarters in Washington, and has been accused of targeting Democrats for prosecution, which she has denied.

Buchanan 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.

Michael P. Kortan and former FBI Director Louis Freeh (FBI)

FBI Agent Michael P. Kortan, who is currently the deputy director of public affairs at the Bureau, has been tapped to become the next chief FBI press spokesman, Tickle The Wire reports.

Current chief spokesman John Miller announced his resignation in August and recently left the FBI to become assistant deputy director of intelligence analysis for the Office of Director of National Intelligence. Kortan’s official title will be assistant director for the Office of Public Affairs.

Applying lessons from Barack Obama’s tech-savvy presidential campaign, the administration is working to revamp the federal government’s out-dated Web sites, with the Justice Department the latest to undergo a makeover.

DOJ Web Site

Last month the department unveiled a new logo, and new black-and-gold color theme, information organized in a more user-friendly manner and — in a major innovation for government — a big presence on social-networking sites.

In less than a month, the Justice Department has gained about 92,000 followers on the microblogging site Twitter, 1,400 Facebook fans, and 500 MySpace friends. The department was the fifth federal agency to join Twitter.

In 2008, Obama’s presidential campaign made novel use of social media — including texting, email, contests, videos, and blogs — to keep his supporters engaged, informed, connected and donating money.

Republicans have lagged in using social media in political campaigns. Now, as the Obama Justice Department applies some of these same techniques to its government communications strategy, conservative reaction ranges from grudging respect to conspiracy theories.

Mark Corallo

“Had we done something like this under Attorney General Ashcroft and President Bush, the howls would be deafening,” said Mark Corallo, who served as spokesman for Attorney General John Ashcroft and now works at his consulting firm, The Ashcroft Group. But as Corallo scanned the new site, he added: “This is truly professional. This is really well done.”

The brains behind the new design is Tracy Russo, who was in charge of blogger outreach for John Edwards‘ 2008 presidential campaign. In May, the department hired Russo to handle new media and oversee the site design. The position, in the Office of Public Affairs, is new. Russo, a former blogger for the Democratic National Committee, did not return calls and e-mails seeking comment.

The Web site is graphically driven and more intuitive than its predecessor. The new visual elements include professional photos of DOJ events and personnel, videos, and a new blog covers DOJ officials’ speeches and appearances.

Users can access videos of Holder, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden and Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli – on the site and on a DOJ YouTube channel – explaining their jobs and the department’s mission. Soaring music fills the background.  One video is aimed solely at highlighting the public service of department employees. “Everyday they come to work thinking, ‘How do I do the right thing for the government?’” Ogden tells an invisible interviewer.

“It’s a very slick public relations campaign, but if it the department can do this and show America a 21st Century approach to communicating the mission, I give them a standing ovation,” Corallo said.

Matt Miller, director of the department’s Office of Public Affairs, said that updating the site and venturing into new media were priorities early on, and that they had “nothing to do with public relations.”

“This is a question of being open and transparent,” he said.

But some conservatives have condemned the changes. “The Obama Justice Department’s Secret Blogging Team — Is It Illegal?” was the headline on a recent post by blogger Warner Todd Huston, who added: “Eric Holder has created his own little propaganda unit.”

DOJ's Twitter Page

The site bears resemblance to whitehouse.gov or any modern Web site, really — uncluttered and dynamic, with a blog prominently displayed on the main page. Miller said the department looked for best practices but did not consult with other agencies or the White House.

The department did not provide Main Justice with figures related to costs; Miller said the efforts drew on existing contracts and in-house staff. Pragmatics, Inc., an IT company based in McLean, Va., had five employees working on the blog, which runs on the WordPress platform, according to this privacy impact study.

DOJ Public Affairs maintains the social-networking accounts. As Larry Magid at CNET pointed out here, the Justice Department’s decision to join MySpace was particularly significant.

With Obama in the White House, it’s no longer unusual for government agencies to communicate via social media services, but today’s announcement that the Justice Department is now on MySpace is something of a milestone. For years, MySpace was under intense pressure from law enforcement officials from all levels of government to clean up what some considered to be a breeding ground for dangerous and criminal activity.

On both Facebook and MySpace, users can post comments on the department’s pages. On MySpace, there is an open forum. People have posted solicitations, requests for criminal investigations, aspersions, messages of gratitude and cat pictures.

“How sad it is that a government organization is on myspace… propaganda is becoming easier every day….,” wrote one user.

Another enthused: “I think it’s a great idea to set up a MySpace page for this kind of content. I wish everyone at the DoJ a wonderful day; thanks for everything you do!”

DOJ's MySpace Page

The department’s Web site was last updated in the middle of the Bush administration. But it lacked horsepower and offered little aesthetically. Other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, were years ahead.

A working group was formed to explore legal and privacy issues related to new media, laying the foundation for DOJ 2.0. But the department under Bush had less of an appetite for a major overhaul, said former Justice officials. One concern was that the efforts would be perceived as political, said a former DOJ communications official.

“DOJ was clearly antiquated in its ability to communicate,” said the former official. “But these are the kind of changes that make a lot of noise. They can appear political, and therein lies the challenge.”

Pete Snyder, the CEO of New Media Strategies, suggested a formula: “About 80 percent of the time, you should be informing the public. Twenty percent of the time, it should be about pushing your message.”

Snyder, a former GOP pollster and media consultant, said it was too early to tell how the department was deploying its new media.

Still, he offered measured praise.

“[The department] can communicate with millions now versus what it used to be 15 or 20 years ago when you had community liasons going out there and having coffee,” Snyder said. “With the right leadership, this could be a great thing.”

Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of communication at George Mason University said concerns about the Justice Department’s efforts were misplaced. The new site reflects the evolution of technology and “somewhat different message delivery” used by the Democratic and Republican parties, said Farnsworth, author of ”Spinner in Chief: How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves.”

There’s a huge difference between the [Democratic National Committee's] Web site and the Justice Department’s — as there should be,” he said.

Three Drug Enforcement Administration officials were killed when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan Monday, USA Today reported.

The DEA agents died with ten soldiers and one civilian in a firefight that broke out as the American soldiers were leaving a raid on poppy fields in the Western part of Afghanistan, The Times of London reported. In addition to the 10 deaths, 14 Afghan service members, 11 U.S. service members and one U.S. civilian were injured in the crash, USA Today reported.

Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement Monday about the deaths of the DEA agents. “While the circumstances of this crash are still being investigated, I want to express my deepest condolences to the families of these heroic agents,” Holder said.

According to the Times of London, the helicopter was shot down among heavy fire during an extraction mission to retrieve soldiers engaged in a midnight raid on the compound of a prominent Afghan drug suggler.

The DEA has been working in Afghanistan to combat the country’s booming opium trade, which funds the fundamentalist Taliban. In 2007,  its Special Operations Division was given an almost $9 million boost funding boost to fight the opium trade in the country’s southern and western provinces, ABC News reported.

Afghanistan is the source of 90 percent of the world’s heroin, and much of the farms producing the poppies needed for heroin production are believed to be under control of the Taliban or Al Qaeda, ABC News reported.

The opium trade in Afghanistan is currently based in five provinces in the south, bordering Pakistan, and two provinces in the west, bordering Iran.

The DEA declined to comment on the specifics of the crash.

In addition to the helicopter crash that killed the DEA agents, two American helicopters collided on Monday in southern Afghanistan, killing four. Monday was the deadliest day for American troops in Afghanistan in four years, USA Today said.

The New York Times reported that the U.S. military was “98 percent sure that insurgent activity was not involved.”

UPDATE: The names of the DEA agents were released early Tuesday morning. Tickle the Wire posted a DEA news release identifying the agents killed:

“Special Agent Forrest N. Leamon. SA Leamon became a Special Agent in 2002. He served at the Washington Field Division and in the El Paso Field Division until 2007, when he joined the FAST team in Afghanistan. He lived in Woodbridge, VA and was 37 years old. He is survived by his wife and their unborn child.�

“Special Agent Chad L. Michael. SA Michael graduated from basic training in March 2004. He began his career with DEA in the Miami Field Division, and left there to join the FAST team in Afghanistan in August of this year. He lived in Quantico, VA and was 30 years old.�

“Special Agent Michael E. Weston. SA Weston has been a Special Agent with DEA since 2003. He was assigned to the Richmond, Virginia District Office until joining the Kabul Country Office in August of this year. He lived in Washington, DC and was 37 years old. He is survived by his wife.�

In a statement posted on the DEA Web site, Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart said the DEA’s “extremely tight family” was devastated by the loss of the agents. “No expressions of grief can adequately convey the depth of the collective sorrow that we feel for their loved ones,” Leonhart said.

The criminal chief in the Colorado U.S. Attorney’s Office was inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers, The Denver Post reported today.

Jim Allison will become a fellow at the nation’s leading trial lawyer organization, according to the newspaper. The society has more than 5,700 fellows, who are invited to join after a rigorous investigation into their professional careers as prosecutors, civil lawyers or criminal defense attorneys, according to the group’s Web site.

“The American College of Trial Lawyers has just confirmed what we in the U.S. attorney’s Office have known for a long time,” said acting U.S. Attorney Dave Gaouette in a statement to The Post. “Jim Allison is one of the best trial lawyers in the United States.”

Allison said he was grateful. ”It is an honor to be selected as a fellow,” Allison said in the statement to The Post. “I will continue to represent the United States, being an advocate for the fair and impartial administration of justice.”

A former federal prosecutor in Puerto Rico filed a lawsuit against his ex-boss for allegedly treating him differently than women at the commonwealth’s U.S. Attorney office, the Suits & Sentences blog reported last week.

Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez (DOJ)

Ex-Assistant U.S. Attorney Juan E. Milanes alleges that acting U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez, a Bush holdover, retaliated against him when he complained about a “hostile work environment,” according to a court filing. Rodriguez-Velez allegedly treated Milanes differently than members of the “Girls Club,” an informal group of the U.S. Attorney’s office friends, the court document said.

D.C. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler summarized the allegations in an opinion below on her decision to transfer the case from the D.C. U.S. District Court to the Puerto Rico U.S. District Court. Milanes filed the lawsuit in D.C.

Plaintiff was assigned to the Narcotics Unit while in Puerto Rico, where his superior was the Unit’s Deputy Chief, Jeanette Mercado. Plaintiff alleges that Mercado created a hostile work environment. When Plaintiff complained about his work environment, Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, allegedly retaliated by denying Plaintiff’s children the benefit of having the Department pay for them to attend an English-language school in Puerto Rico, while still giving that benefit to her friends in a ‘Girls Club’ at the office. Plaintiff allegedly was further retaliated against when Mercado assigned him the oldest and weakest narcotics cases, threatened him with disciplinary action, and attempted to sabotage his trial work.

Milanes said he tried to leave the office to work on an assignment in Kosovo. But Rodriguez-Velez stopped him from leaving when she submitted a written reprimand on the day he was scheduled to leave, according to the court document. His overseas assignment was then retracted when Rodriguez-Velez accused Milanes of threatening her, the records said. The former Assistant U.S. Attorney was subsequently put on administrative leave and forced to resign in June 2008, according to the court filing.

Rodriguez-Velez was nominated by President Bush to be the U.S. Attorney for Puerto Rico in January 2007. She was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but was never voted on by the full Senate. She was criticized at the time for spearheading a politically-charged investigation into former Puerto Rico Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, a Democrat.

Steven Dettelbach (ohio.gov)

Steven Dettelbach, who was sworn in Monday as Northern Ohio’s new U.S. attorney, says he will put a renewed focus on civil rights enforcement and financial fraud.

“After 9/11, we had to divert a lot of resources to anti-terrorism activities and we need to continue to do that,” Dettelbach said in an interview with WKYC-TV. ”We need to re-focus our efforts on things like fighting economic crime, because people in the community need to understand that a free market also has to be a fair market.”

Dettelbach was one of six U.S. attorneys confirmed by unanimous consent on Sept. 15.  He was sworn in at the Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Cleveland today. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) administered the oath of office.

Dettelbach jointed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in 1992 as a trial lawyer. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Cleveland assigned to the Organized Crime and Corruption Task Force from 2003 until he left for private practice in 2006. Before his selection as U.S. Attorney, Dettelbach was a partner at Baker & Hostetler, splitting time between the firm’s Washington and Cleveland offices.

In another interview, Dettelbach said that that fighting terrorism would remain his top focus, but he would devote resources to other problems as well.

“We have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time…we have to keep the level of protection against terrorism at the same place it’s been and, at the same time, we have to get back to the bread-and-butter work of federal investigators because threats don’t just come from terrorists,” said Dettelbach.

Dettelbach’s office is currently prosescuting a huge corruption scandal in Cuyahoga County and a civil rights case involving a white supremacist who mailed a noose to an Ohio chapter of the NAACP.

Another Colorado Republican is expressing concern about whether the state’s U.S. Attorney nominee inappropriately used state resources to help her boss during his successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign, The Denver Post reported Saturday.

State GOP chairman Dick Wadhams has joined former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) in questioning whether Stephanie Villafuerte used a restricted government database for political purposes, which could be a crime, according to the newspaper.

Stephanie Villafuerte (gov)

Villafuerte, who is the deputy chief of staff to Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, has declined to comment to The Post.

The issue centers on discussions she had with staffers in the Denver district attorney’s office about an illegal immigrant who was featured in an ad against Ritter produced by Republican Bob Beauprez’s gubernatorial campaign. She told the FBI in 2007 that she had “no conversations” with the DA employees about Carlos Estrada-Medina, who is also an alleged heroin dealer. Estrada-Median had once obtained a plea deal under the allias of Walter Ramo when Ritter was Denver’s district attorney, according to The Post.

Republicans charge that Villafuerte is being treated differently in the matter than a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent named Cory Voorhis, who lost his job after accessing the same database on behalf of the Beauprez campaign.

“It is time for Stephanie Villafuerte and her boss, Bill Ritter, to finally come clean on possible inappropriate behavior during their efforts to smear ICE agent Cory Voorhis,” Wadhams told The Post.

Voorhis was charged in 2007 with using the National Crime Information Center database to look into Estrada-Medina/Ramo on behalf of the Beauprez campaign for its ad, according to the newspaper. Voorhis said he was authorized to use the database by his supervisor, The Post said. He was later acquitted by a federal jury.

“As the U.S. Attorney, will Stephanie Villafuerte offer help in investigating the corruption, perjury and malfeasance rampant in the Denver regional office of ICE?,â€� Tancredo, a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, said earlier this month. “Will she be an advocate for the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws after participating in the disgusting vendetta against ICE agent Cory Voorhis? The answer to those questions is probably … no se puede.”

The Post said the Obama White House continues to stand behind its nominee, who was tapped Sept. 30. Villafuerte would replace acting U.S. Attorney for Colorado David Gaouette, who has been in the position since Bush appointee Troy Eid resigned in January.