The top Republican on the House panel that has jurisdiction over the Justice Department told GOP members in Texas on Sunday that Attorney General Eric Holder asked him for a favor while they were at a football game near D.C. last week.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he was walking around the perimeter of FedEx Field before the Cowboys-Redskins games on Sept. 12 when he spotted Holder. They exchanged a few words, and then the Attorney General “grabs both of my arms,” the Republican congressman said, according to a video posted on YouTube by TexasGOPvote.com.

“Lamar, will you be nice to me after January?” Holder asked Smith.

Smith shared his encounter with the Attorney General after talking about the “better than 50-50 chance” that Republicans will take control of the House. The House member told the people gathered at the Republican Party of Bexar County Annual Chairman’s Barbecue and Rally in San Antonio that his story about Holder “speaks volumes.”

A DOJ spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Smith would likely become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if Republicans took control of the House in January. The congressman said probably the biggest benefit of a Republican controlled House would be the ability to “issue subpoenas and find out what this administration has been doing that the American people don’t know.”

Members of the House Judiciary Committee pressed Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday to outline how the administration will handle the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind and his alleged co-conspirators who were once destined to appear in a New York civilian court.

Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the House Judiciary Committee. (photo by Andrew Ramonas / Main Justice)

Republicans and Democrats have criticized Holder’s announced plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices in a Manhattan federal court. After the outcry from last year’s announcement, the Obama administration put the possibility of using military commissions back on the table and said they are considering other locations for a civilian trial.

“I, frankly, think that sooner or later you should stop the Kabuki dance and tell us where that trial is going to be held,” said Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)

Holder said the administration hasn’t reached a final decision on whether the alleged terrorists will be tried in a Manhattan civilian court. He said the DOJ is leaving all of its options open as it decides how to handle the terrorism suspects.

“We are not ruling anything in or ruling anything out at this point,” Holder said. “That review is still under way.”

Lamar Smith of Texas, the panel’s ranking Republican, said trying suspected terrorists in civilian court is a “dangerous proposal.”

“Once in the U.S., terrorists can argue for additional constitutional rights, making it harder for prosecutors to obtain convictions,” Smith said.

Panel members also pushed Holder on his interest in working with Congress on a bill that would establish a new exemption to Miranda for alleged terrorists. He said on Sunday he is interested in updating the public safety exception to Miranda to give federal law enforcement officials more flexibility about when to advise terrorism suspects of their right to remain silent.

The Miranda issue has come up in several recent terrorism cases. Federal agents questioned the suspect in the attempted Times Square car bombing for a few hours before reading him his Miranda rights. FBI officials interrogated Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for about 50 minutes after he allegedly tried to ignite explosives in his underwear on a Dec. 25 Detroit-bound airline flight.

Holder said there are a number of unanswered questions about how the public safety exception can be used in a suspected terrorist incident.

“Our view is that we would like to have a greater degree of clarity with regards to the public safety exception,” he said.

But Democrats expressed concern about changing the Miranda rule.

“Attempting to hastily alter an effective and constitutionally based system could actually undermine rather that enhance law enforcement measures,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said.

Republicans and Democrats who sit on the House Judiciary Committee reached a rare moment of agreement on Wednesday — members of both parties expressed outrage about violations of the law by the FBI described in a Justice Department report earlier this year.

FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni and Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

A Justice Department Inspector General report first released in January concluded that the FBI went around the requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and internal guidelines to obtain phone records for several years under the guise of emergencies, via the use of so-called “exigent letters.”

The FBI obtained so-called “toll-booth” phone records through requests by e-mail, post-it notes, by telephone and by what the FBI referred to as “sneak peeks” — all informal approaches that the inspector general found were improper.

According to the report (PDF), telephone companies stationed employees in FBI offices who felt they were part of the FBI team and were too comfortable with one another. Phone company employees stationed within the Communications Analysis Unit attended office happy hours, were given FBI e-mail accounts — and one phone company employee created a shared folder named “Team USA.”

FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni said Wednesday at a hearing before the Judiciary panel’s subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties that the report served as “a wake up call.”

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) was one of the primary authors of the original Patriot Act in 2001. (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said he was frustrated by the FBI’s actions, which he said showed the agency wanted to get around the restrictions that Congress put in place under the Patriot Act. Sensenbrenner said it was especially frustrating because as the author of the Patriot Act, he worked closely with the FBI to ensure the agency had all the tools it needed and has taken a lot of criticism from Democrats over the law.

“I came to this whole issue as your friends and I feel betrayed,” said Sensenbrenner. ”I don’t think you’re getting the message.”

Exigent letters were never approved by Congress, said both Republicans and Democrats, calling “exigent letters” a term that the FBI invented.

Sensenbrenner said he was concerned about this type of evasion and insisted on requiring, by law, annual Inspector General reports because he ”was afraid of having the fox guard the chicken coop down the street was going to end up with activities that were going to end up embarrassing the government.”

“Every time we tried to patch up a hole in what the FBI was doing you figured out how to put another hole in the dike, and this little Dutch boy has only got 10 fingers to put in the dike,” said Sensenbrenner.

Caproni noted that the FBI’s informal access to telephone records ended three and a half years ago. She said the FBI has implemented procedures to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

“I’ve gotten the message and I’ve gotten the message for several years,” said Caproni. ”This was a massive failure beyond our control.”

“I am outraged that somebody in the FBI would invent the term [exigent] letters,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). “It’s not in the Patriot Act.” He called for further investigation, and said there may be grounds for the removal of Caproni.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said he believed that the FBI was taking his recommendations seriously. He said that he had no indication that FBI Director Robert Mueller knew about the violations until the Inspector General investigation surfaced.

Caproni said that her office was aware of the problem but said nothing was done because the attorney in charge of oversight for that section wasn’t aware of scope of the problem.

“This is actually a much more complicated issue than I think some would like to recognize,” said Caproni.

Placing phone company employees within FBI offices, said Caproni, “had huge benefits in terms of the speed, had an extreme downside in that it broke own our controls.”

UPDATED:

“It has become painfully clear that unchecked Patriot Act power will inevitably lead to abuse, and National Security Letters are a poignant example,” Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Washington Legislative Office, said in a statement. To ensure that our privacy and free speech rights are protected, there must be clear oversight and strict guidelines tied to their use. Innocent Americans have been swept into investigations and recipients have been barred from speaking about it publicly.”

“Not only that, report after report from the FBI’s own Inspector General illustrates the blatant and systemic abuse of national security letters,” she continued. “Congress has less than a year before it must address the Patriot Act again. NSL reform must be made a priority this year instead of being kicked further down the road.”

House and Senate Judiciary committee leaders are generally supportive of the fiscal 2011 Justice Department budget request, but expressed some concern over funding for state, local and tribal law enforcement grant programs, according to annual letters outlining the panels’ views on the president’s budget.

The letter from the House Judiciary Committee to the House Budget Committee was endorsed by Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and ranking member Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The Senate Judiciary Committee’s letter to the Senate Budget panel was signed only by Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) A spokesman for Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the panel, couldn’t immediately ascertain whether the senator drafted his own letter.

Congressional committees are required by law to submit a letter to the Budget Committee in their chamber detailing their “views and estimates” of how president’s annual budget request deals with the spending needs for federal government programs under their jurisdiction. The letters from the committees are supposed to be used to help the budget panels draw up their annual congressional spending and taxing blueprint — the congressional budget resolution. The letters are advisory, but they do provide information about the priorities of the committees that authorize the programs.

Here are DOJ funding requests that drew some concern from the committees:

• John R. Justice Loan Repayment Program
  • The House Judiciary Committee wants the student loan repayment program for prosecutors and public defenders to be funded at an “appropriate level.” The DOJ didn’t request any money for the program, which received $10 million in fiscal 2010.
• Office on Violence Against Women
  • The House Judiciary Committee wants $683 million for the office. The DOJ request calls for $461 million.
  • Leahy wants $225 million for the Services. Training. Officers. Prosecutors. grant program to combat violence against women. The DOJ requests $187.5 million for STOP.
  • Leahy wants $75 million for Grants to Encourage Arrest and Enforce Protection Orders. The DOJ request calls for $47.5 million.
  • Leahy wants $50 million for the Sexual Assault Services Program for domestic violence survivors. The DOJ request calls for $30 million.
  • Leahy wants $40 million for the Transitional Housing Program for domestic violence survivors. The DOJ request calls for $25 million.
  • Leahy wants $55 million for Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Grants. The DOJ request calls for $41 million.
• Juvenile Justice
  • The House Judiciary Committee and Leahy want $350 million for Juvenile Justice Accountability Block Grants to help states to build up their juvenile justice programs. The DOJ requested $40 million.
  • Leahy wants $120 million for Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Block Grants. The DOJ requested $62 million.
  • Leahy wants $100 million for Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Formula Grants. The DOJ requested $72 million.
• Project ChildSafe
  • The House Judiciary Committee wants the national firearm safety education program to be funded at an “appropriate level.” The DOJ didn’t request any money for the program for fiscal 2011.
• State Criminal Alien Assistance Program
  • The House Judiciary Committee wants $950 million for the program, which gives money to state and local governments that incarcerate criminal aliens. The DOJ request calls for $330 million.
• DNA Initiatives
  • The House Judiciary Committee and Leahy want more than $300 million for programs to eliminate the backlog of DNA evidence awaiting lab tests. The DOJ request calls for $150 million.
• Community Oriented Policing Services
  • Leahy wants $1.047 billion for the COPS grant program to help state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies. The DOJ request calls for $730.3 million.
• Bulletproof Vest Partnership
  • Leahy wants $50 million for the bulletproof vest grant program. The DOJ request calls for $30 million.
• Second Chance Act programs
  • Leahy wants $165 million for the program that helps prisoners  become successful members of their communities. The DOJ request calls for $100 million.
• Drug Courts
  • Leahy wants $70 million for the program that helps communities provide incentives for low-level drug offenders to obtain treatment. The DOJ request calls for $45 million.
• Mental Health Courts
  • The House Judiciary Committee and Leahy want $50 million for the program that helps mentally ill people obtain treatment. The DOJ request calls for $12 million.
• National Instant Criminal Check System
  • Leahy wants $250 million for the program, which identifies people who are prohibited from receiving firearms under federal law. The DOJ request calls for $10 million.
• Regional Information Sharing System
  • Leahy wants $45 million for the program which facilitates information sharing and communication between law enforcement agencies. The DOJ request calls for $9 million.

Read more detailed information from the DOJ about its budget request for the Office on Violence Against Women here, COPS here and other grant programs here.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has expressed concern about being left out of some congressional oversight of Justice Department intelligence matters.

Patrick Leahy (Getty Images)

In a written follow-up question to Attorney General Eric Holder following his Nov. 18, 2009, appearance before the Senate panel, Leahy said that over the last few years certain intelligence matters, particularly activities dealing with the FBI, have seemed to have fallen into the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The chairman said he wants to make sure the Judiciary Committees are not being left out of the complete Justice Department oversight process.

“While I am happy to share oversight jurisdiction as appropriate, I believe strongly that the Judiciary Committees, with their long tradition of oversight of all aspects of Department work and their considerable expertise in these matters, should not be shut out of important Justice Department activities,” Leahy said. (His question can be found on page 7 of the document, which was released Monday.)

Leahy asked Holder to comment on whether the Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the entire department.

The Attorney General said in his response that he generally agrees that the Judiciary Committees have oversight jurisdiction over the Justice Department.

“[W]e note that certain activities of the FBI are scored to the National Intelligence Program, which we understand falls under the purview of the Intelligence Committees,” Holder said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a Senate Judiciary Committee member, told Main Justice she’s never had a conflict with Leahy over DOJ oversight jurisdiction and said that intelligence matters can be handled in both committees.

“There’s no question that Judiciary has oversight over Holder. So if I want to ask an intelligence related question I can do it in Judiciary or I can have Holder up before … the Intelligence Committee,” Feinstein said.

A House subcommittee Tuesday heard arguments for and against legislation that would assure that felons regain the right to vote once they have been released from prison.

Under the bill, the Democracy Restoration Act, states would have to permit felons to participate in federal elections once they have left prison.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties heard testimony from an academic, a Florida election official and representatives of a number of groups, including the NAACP, the Heritage Foundation and the American Probation and Parole Association.

Witnesses testify about the "Democracy Restoration Act of 2009" on Tuesday (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

The measure is sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and 29 cosponsors — most of them members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The findings section of the bill notes that “state disenfranchisement laws disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities” and that, “given current rates of incarceration, approximately one in three of the next generation of African-American men will be disenfranchised at some point during their lifetime.” Hispanics are also disproportionately disenfranchised, according to the findings section of the bill based upon their disproportionate representation in the criminal justice system.

No one representing the Justice Department testified. A DOJ spokesman did not immediately return an e-mail inquiring if the Justice Department supported the proposed legislation. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez has previously said that the Civil Rights Division would fight for disparate impact theory, which he said had been proven in court.

The bill would give the Attorney General the enforcement authority to remedy a violation of the act through civil action. The Bureau of Prisons would be required to notify any individual convicted of a crime under federal law upon their release from jail that they had the right to vote.

The bill faces opposition from conservatives.

Hans A. von Spakovsky, the controversial former counselor to the Civil Rights Division during the Bush administration, argued that the bill “represents an unconstitutional intrusion into the rights of the states. Congress simply does not have the constitutional authority to force states to restore the voting rights of convicted felons,” he said.

Van Spakovsky, now a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, acknowledged that some Southern states had tried to use felony voting laws to disenfranchise blacks, “those laws have all been changed and amended.” Spakovsky, a critic of disparate impact theory, said that “criminals lose their right to vote because of their own conscious actions in violating the law, not because of their race.”

In his prepared testimony, Spakovsky implied that Democrats supported the bill because convicted felons would vote for them and it would help them win elections.

Also voicing opposition to the bill was Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity.

The other witnesses, including one convicted felon now enrolled at Yale Law School, testified in support of the measure.

“Today, we have created a society that excludes some five million people from the ballot,” said Andres Idarraga. “This exclusion is at the end of a complicated chain that often begins with poverty and a lack of education, involves the criminal justice system and penal institutions, and often ends in isolation, bitterness and disfranchisement,” he said.

Testimony of other witnesses is available on the committee’s Web site.

Monica Conyers (U.S. Marshals)

The wife of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) cannot afford an attorney and will get a public defender to handle her appeal of a 37-month prison sentence stemming from a bribery charge, The Associated Press reported.

Last week, former Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers was sentenced to three years and one month in prison for her part in the bribery scandal. She pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy for accepting at least $6,000 in exchange for her support of a $1.2 billion waste disposal contract for Houston-based Synagro Technologies. The ex-council member tried to withdraw her guilty plea last week saying she was “badgered” into making the deal. But U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said her plea was made voluntarily.

Monica Conyers, who signed an affidavit declaring she can’t afford a lawyer, has no money, according to Steve Fishman, the attorney who negotiated her guilty plea, according to AP. A federal judge on Tuesday declared Monica Conyers indigent based on “a detailed description of her financial resources in the presentence investigation report and [the information] that Mrs. Conyers was on her own — so to speak — as to such resources.”

John Conyers (gov)

That means her husband — the second-longest serving current member of the House who earns an annual salary of $174,000 — will not help pay for a private attorney, according to The National Law Journal. A spokeswoman for Conyers did not have an immediate response as to whether the Judiciary Committee chairman was unwilling to pay for an attorney, Politico reported.

According to federal guidelines, a family member’s wealth, in this case the congressman, cannot be considered when determining a defendant’s ability to pay, “unless the family indicates willingness and financial ability to retain counsel promptly.”

Douglas Mullkoff of Ann Arbor has been assigned to represent Monica Conyers.

Former Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), was sentenced to three years and one month in prison Wednesday for her part in a bribery scandal.

Monica Conyers (U.S. Marshals)

She pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy for accepting at least $6,000 in exchange for her support of a $1.2 billion waste disposal contract for Synagro Technologies. The ex-council member tried to withdraw her plea Wednesday saying she was “badgered” into making the deal, according to the Associated Press. But, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said her plea was made voluntarily, according to the AP.

“If I have to, I’ll go to jail for what I’ve done, but I won’t go for what I didn’t do,” Conyers told the judge, according to Detroit’s WXYZ-TV.

Monica Conyers is slated to begin her prison sentence on July 1 but has 10 days to appeal her sentence. She will also serve two years of probation.

According to Roll Call, it is unclear whether John Conyers attended the sentencing, but he was not present for any of the  House roll call votes Wednesday afternoon. A representative for John Conyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Main Justice.

John and Monica Conyers have been married for 20 years.

John Conyers, who sits on the House panel that conducts Justice Department oversight, was not involved the bribery scandal, Roll Call said.

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Greg Andres testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on March 4, 2010.

Greg Andres Testimony – 03/04/2010

The new U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan is getting ready to crack the whip in her Detroit-based office, the Detroit Free Press reported yesterday.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, who was sworn into office early last month, told the newspaper that improving the efficiency of her 108-employee office is one of her top priorities.

“We have a number of seasoned, experienced lawyers in the office, but many of them have been around for a very long time, and we get into sort of complacent habits,” McQuade told the Free Press. The “we” applies to her as well: She has worked in the office since 1998.

Barbara McQuade (DOJ)

The Detroit-based U.S. Attorney said she is considering dividing up office divisions that have “grown too big” and giving more staffers managerial responsibilities, according to the newspaper. Last week, she shook up the office by making several changes to her office’s leadership.

“We’ve sort of promoted people for life, and then they sort of sit there, and although they have a lot to offer, we haven’t tried new ideas because people have been occupying the same places for a long time,” McQuade told the Free Press. “I think giving people different opportunities to lead and share their ideas is very important.”

McQuade told the newspaper that she made up her mind that she wanted to be U.S. Attorney when she wasn’t promoted to criminal division chief for the Eastern District office in 2008. She then met with local lawyers, judges and politicians to gather their opinions on the office, according to the newspaper. They told her that Eastern District of Michigan U.S. Attorney’s Office was having a productivity problem, the Free Press said.

Then-U.S. Attorney candidate McQuade presented a plan to address office output to a U.S. Attorney screening panel, according to the newspaper. A member of the committee told the Free Press that’s McQuade’s decision to make a plan was “virtually unheard of.”

Although addressing office productivity is important, McQuade also told the newspaper that fighting violent crime, terrorism and public corruption are priorities.

Her office is handling the case against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly hid explosives in his underwear in a failed attempt to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. The office also is prosecuting a public corruption case involving former Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, who is married to Democratic House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan.