Republicans returning from their week-long recess are trying to turn up the heat on the Obama administration over efforts by White House operatives to discuss the possibility of  jobs with two Democratic primary candidates if they dropped out of their races.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement on Friday that he wanted hearings to investigate the issue.

“I am concerned that the Obama administration has engaged in a habit of attempting to manipulate the democratic election process to benefit the Democratic Party. Such actions are certainly unethical and may very well be criminal,” Smith said.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has previously said the Justice Department should appoint a special prosecutor to look into the allegations.

The swirl of accusations involving the White House, including back-room deal-making and promises of  jobs in exchange for political favors, has led some Republicans to suspect a juicy potential scandal. But as the facts are known, so far anyway, not many lawyers, not even Republican stalwarts, think anybody broke the law.

Steven G. Bradbury, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, told Politico that the president can fill advisory positions in whatever method he wishes, including to “reward political loyalty.” His remarks followed those of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey who has said that finding criminality was “really a stretch.”

Bradbury offered a fuller legal analysis. ”Under the Constitution,” he said, “ it’s the president’s prerogative to fill advisory positions in the White House and to decide who will occupy senior policy offices across the administration,” said Bradbury, who suggested that Congress should not attempt to criminalize the appointment process.

“The president may make those appointment decisions for any reason he deems appropriate,” Bradbury said, “ including to reward political loyalty, and it would raise serious constitutional issues if Congress tried to prohibit the president, or anyone acting on his behalf, from offering appointments in particular circumstances.”

“For that reason,” Bradbury continued, “any statute that purports to criminalize an offer of appointment must be construed, if at all possible, not to interfere with the president’s constitutional authority, and if the statute cannot be read to avoid that result, there’s a strong argument it would be unconstitutional as so applied.”

Justice Department officials have expressed no interest in opening an inquiry. The White House has defended its actions. In one case, according to a report issued last week by White House counsel Robert Bauer, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asked former President Bill Clinton to raise the possibility of an unpaid presidential appointment to Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), who was challenging and defeated Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.

This week another episode emerged. Colorado senatorial candidate Andrew Romanoff said that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina brought up three positions that he might be interested in as an alternative to running against the administration’s preferred candidate, incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.

Peter Zeidenberg, a former Justice Department prosecutor who worked in the Public Integrity Section and now works at DLA Piper, had earlier said that the Sestak offer wasn’t a crime.

“It sounds like political horsetrading and I don’t think a prosecutor would have any interest in prosecuting such a case. It doesn’t sound to me anything like a bribe,� Zeidenberg said. “You’d be laughed out of the courtroom.�

In two speeches Tuesday commemorating Black History Month, Attorney General Eric Holder promised that the Justice Department would continue to fight for racial equality, offering a much tamer statement than in his remarks last year, when he called the U.S. a “nation of cowards” when it comes to race.

Attorney General Eric Holder presents an award to Freeman A. Hrabowski (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

“There was a time when this very department undermined the rights and privileges it was established to preserve,” Holder said Tuesday, speaking in the Great Hall of the Justice Department’s Robert F. Kennedy Building. “There was a time when it was accepted, almost universally across our country, that the American principles of justice, liberty and equality did not have to be applied equally to blacks and whites, or to women and men. For much of the last century, our justice system did not do enough to help our nation fulfill its promise of equal opportunity,” Holder said.

“Time after time, the American people have proven that we will not become victims of, chained to, a sometimes painful history,” he said. “We cannot allow our past to haunt us. Instead, we must use it to hasten our work and press us further toward justice and through new doorways of economic opportunity.”

That speech, along with another one he delivered Tuesday at the Legal Services Corporation, were originally scheduled for February — when Black History Month is observed — but were postponed after a massive snowstorm shut down the federal government for several days.

During Holder’s speech on Black History Month last year, his comment on racial relations set off a political outcry. Cable news shows and commentators focused on Holder’s “nation of cowards” statement and for the most part ignored the larger context of the speech, which ironically called for “frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.”

The Great Hall of Main Justice during Tuesday's Black History Month Celebration (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

President Obama later said that if he had been advising Holder on the speech, he would have recommended different language.

According to The New York Times, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff, “proposed installing a minder alongside Mr. Holder to prevent further gaffes — someone with better ‘political antennae,’ as one administration official put it.” Holder fumed and fought off the proposal, according to The Times, signaling that his job was about the law, not political messaging.

But this year, the speech seemed well vetted, and as one person observed, contained “no news.” In contrast to the sharp rhetoric he previously offered, Holder’s speech this year concentrated in broad terms on the DOJ’s role in fighting inequality and highlighted the progress that has been made.

“It may be tempting — when you look at the diversity of people walking the halls of Congress or at the man sitting in the Oval Office — to think that equal justice has been achieved for all Americans. We have made tremendous progress as a nation. But it will take more than the election of the first African-American President to fully secure the promises of equality and justice and conform our present reality with our founding idealism. And it will certainly take more than the appointment of the first African-American Attorney General to ensure that the American justice system reflects our highest principles and the rights our Founders intended,” said Holder.

Before beginning his speech, Holder recognized Vontell D. Frost-Tucker, who is retiring as Director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Staff for DOJ’s Justice Management Division.

Keynote speaker Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, focused his speech on his experience growing up in Alabama, relating a story about how his grandmother was unable to vote because she could not pass polling tests. Hrabowski even quizzed the Attorney General Tuesday to see if he could have passed one of the voting tests that were used to prevent African-Americans from voting in Southern states.

Hrabowski asked a question from the Alabama poll test: If a person charged with treason denies his guilt, how many persons must testify against him before he can be convicted? Holder answered correctly — two.

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder (White House photo).

We recently wrote about the Attorney General’s communication strategy over the past several weeks, as Republican criticisms of his national security decisions intensified. Holder’s approach had been very low-key — to a fault, his supporters told us — until about two weeks ago, when the Attorney General wrote a pointed letter to Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) defending  his decision to charge the alleged Christmas Day bomber in the criminal justice system.

The New York Times today has a story that sheds more light on Holder’s messaging since his November announcement that the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other alleged conspirators would be tried in federal court in Manhattan. The plan crumbled in the face of intense criticism, but Holder never reemerged to explain himself — by White House design.

The Times reports:

The White House, wanting to move on quickly, overruled Mr. Holder’s request for more public appearances to explain the decision, administration officials said. In the resulting vacuum, critics denounced the civilian trial plan as a soft-on-terror capitulation to liberals.

Two weeks ago, probably just before the Feb. 3 letter to McConnell, Holder met with White House advisers “to discuss how to unite against common foes,” as the Times describes the meeting. The advisers agreed to let Holder speak out more — as we noted, he has not appeared on a Sunday talk show since his confirmation and has given few extended interviews, until this point — and Holder agreed to allow the White House to help sharpen his message.

Holder told the Times in an interview last week that the political attacks were “starting to constrain my ability to function as attorney general.”

“I have to do a better job in explaining the decisions that I have made,” he said, adding, “I have to be more forceful in advocating for why I believe these are trials that should be held on the civilian side.â€�

The Times story begins with an anecdote that highlights Holder’s shifting views of his role as department spokesman. (It also touches on his strained relationship with David Ogden, who stepped down as Holder’s deputy this month.)

After Holder gave a speech last year calling the United States a “nation of cowards” for avoiding discussions on race, President Obama distanced himself the remark. But his advisers went much further. According to the Times:

Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina, the White House chief and deputy chief of staff, proposed installing a minder alongside Mr. Holder to prevent further gaffes — someone with better “political antennae,� as one administration official put it.

When he heard of the proposal at a White House meeting, Mr. Holder fumed; soon after, he confronted his deputy, David W. Ogden, who knew of the plan but had not alerted his boss, according to several officials. Mr. Holder fought off the proposal, signaling that his job was about the law, not political messaging.

His most important plan — to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, in federal court in Manhattan — collapsed before it even began, after support from the public and local officials withered.

A year later, he is no longer so certain.

It appears we’ll be seeing a lot more of the Attorney General.

The Missoulian newspaper today disclosed that Sen. Max Baucus’s future girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, was involved in discussions with the senator’s divorce lawyer in 2007 while serving on the Montana Democrat’s Senate staff. The Montana newspaper quoted from billing records submitted by Baucus’s lawyer, Ronald F. Waterman, in Helena.

Melodee Hanes (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice)

Main Justice obtained a copy of the billing records. Click here to see them.

The records show that Hanes – whom Baucus later recommended to the White House as a finalist for Montana’s U.S. Attorney – consulted with the divorce lawyer on such delicate matters as how to determine the value of the home Baucus shared with his then-wife, Wanda, in Washington’s exclusive Georgetown section.

Baucus and Hanes, who now live together in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, were not yet in a relationship in the summer of 2007, Baucus spokesperson Ty Matsdorf told the Missoulian. That relationship began about a year later, in the summer of 2008, the senator’s office has said.

“Melodee Hanes’ interactions were in her official role as state director and focused on scheduling and logistics, including how a potential separation between Sen. Baucus and (his ex-wife) Wanda could impact the senator’s travel and work,” Matsdorf said in a statement to the Montana newspaper.

Although no Senate ethics rules appeared to have been violated by then-staffer Hanes working on her boss’s divorce agreement, the billing records add a new layer of questions to the story.

For instance, there’s a reference in the billing records, not mentioned by the Missoulian, to unnamed “advisors� on an e-mail from the lawyer about the draft separation agreement that Hanes had discussed.

Was one of those advisers Baucus’s then-chief of chief, Jim Messina?

Baucus once told The Washington Post that Messina is “like a son to me.â€� The senator and his former aide — who is now a White House deputy chief of staff — reportedly remain close friends.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that nobody at the White House, including Messina, knew of the relationship. The White House vets all U.S. Attorney recommendations.

As the relationship intensified in early 2009, Hanes and Baucus mutually concluded that she should withdraw her name from consideration for U.S. Attorney to avoid an appearance of impropriety, the senator’s office has said.

There has been some skepticism among Washington wags that Messina really didn’t know of the relationship. According to The Post profile of Messina, Baucus said his then-chief of staff was “very touched” by a rehearsal-dinner speech Baucus had delivered before his son Zeno Baucus’s wedding in the summer of 2008. The senator said Messina’s departure to the White House meant he was losing two sons, The Post reported.

It was at Zeno’s wedding reception that a person familiar with the Max Baucus family told Main Justice that the senator and Hanes were dancing in a manner that suggested a relationship beyond the professional.

It was also reported today in Politico that the Montana senator gave Hanes a $14,000 raise in 2008, making her one of the Baucus’s highest paid staffers.

Baucus’s office said most Baucus staff members received a raise at that time.

“In fact, during that period, Ms. Hanes’s salary increased by the exact same amount as our legislative director and less than our chief of staff,� said a statement from a Baucus spokesman to Politico.

Hanes also accompanied the Montana senator on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East later that year, according to Politico. Hanes does not have a background in foreign policy.

The trip to Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates cost more than $14,000 per person, according to Politico. It was the only overseas trip Hanes took with Baucus in an official capacity, Politico said.

The Baucus office told Politico that there was nothing inappropriate about Hanes accompanying Baucus on the trip, adding that former state directors had also gone on overseas trips.

Hanes declined to comment to Main Justice about the role she played in the senator’s divorce proceedings following a ceremony at the Justice Department today.

Ryan J. Reilly contributed to this report.

Robert Gibbs (White House)

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters today that “nobody” at the White House knew that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) was in a personal relationship with one of the candidates he recommended for Montana U.S. Attorney.

We were the first to report Friday that Melodee Hanes was one of three finalists whose names Baucus submitted to the White House as potential nominees for U.S. Attorney for Montana. Hanes withdrew earlier this year to live with the senator in Washington. President Barack Obama ultimately nominated Michael Cotter for Montana U.S. Attorney.

We reported earlier today that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who was Baucus’ former chief of staff, had emerged as someone who may have known about the relationship at the time of the U.S. Attorney vetting. Messina has not responded to requests for comment from Main Justice.

Here’s the exchange between Gibbs and a reporter at the daily White House press briefing:

Q    One last thing — I’m sorry — on Max Baucus.  Melodee Hanes we know was one of three names Senator Baucus sent to the White House to be U.S. Attorney.  Did Jim Messina, who’s very close to Senator Baucus, did he play any role for the White House?  Did he recuse himself from any of those discussions?

MR. GIBBS:  I don’t know what Jim’s involvement was on those discussions, but I think as the senator told the media over the weekend and as we told you and others that asked, Senator Baucus did not give us any information about those three names.  Nobody here was involved in that.

Q    But Jim is very close to Max Baucus.

MR. GIBBS:  But, Ed, when I say nobody was involved in it, I don’t mean “everybody but people that know Senator Baucus” — I mean nobody.

Q    And he didn’t play any role in getting a Justice Department job for her either?

MR. GIBBS:  Those are obviously jobs that are based on who’s best for the job.

The press briefing then moved on to another topic.