So who actually secured that $3.6 million earmark for the National Alternative Fuels Foundation back in 2000 -- the one that a federal jury in Denver this week concluded was part of a fraud?

The foundation collected more than $2 million in federal funds after promising to create a new, clean-energy fuel for automobiles and turning in bogus science to the EPA to back it up.

Keith Ashdown, the chief investigator for a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense, said he's been looking into the NAFF earmark for a few days and can't find any record of who wedged that $3.6 million into a massive appropriations bill.

"We need to know who got this money because this is a serious case of fraud. They basically gave the money to a bunch of crooks who ripped off the federal taxpayers," Ashdown said.

Once again, Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's campaign office didn't return our phone call today.

He's the one we really want to ask. Schaffer was in Congress when the earmark was awarded to the little-known not-for-profit founded by Bill Orr, who was convicted this week. And when Schaffer left Congress, he went on to become a director for the NAFF, where his political buddy Scott Shires was treasurer. Shires pleaded guilty and testified against Orr.

When asked by a local reporter, Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, denied the then-Congressman played any part in securing the earmark. But Schaffer hasn't responded to any of these questions and we'd prefer to hear it from him directly.

An unnamed source told the Denver Post that a Congressional staffer slipped the money into the bill.

Since we didn't hear from Schaffer, we called up the other Colorado legislators from those days and asked if they recalled anything about the earmark or Orr. So far, five of the eight members of the 2000 delegation have denied any role in securing the earmark. We haven't been able to reach two former members of the delegation. And then there's Schaffer, who isn't talking.

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In the legal standoff between Congress and the White House, a group of 24 former federal prosecutors is siding with Congress.

The attorneys joined in a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that Congress should be allowed to issue subpoenas to White House aides to investigate political influence at the Department of Justice.

AP reports:

The list of former U.S. attorneys who filed the documents in U.S. District Court includes David C. Iglesias, who says he was fired as New Mexico's top prosecutor for political reasons. The prosecutors said that, without congressional oversight, presidents would be free to meddle in prosecutorial decisions.

"If permitted to enforce its subpoenas for documents and testimony, Congress has a unique ability to address improper partisan influence in the prosecutorial process," the former prosecutors wrote. "No other institution will fill the vacuum if Congress is unable to investigate and respond to this evil."

Top military officials provided no explanation for why they dismissed the judge presiding over a key case at Guantanamo Bay.

The Miami Herald reports that the colonel presiding over the case had issued some rulings in favor of the defendant, Canadian national Omar Khadr.

Khadr's case has been on track to be one of the first to trial at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. Khadr, the son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, is accused of throwing a grenade that fatally wounded a U.S. Special Forces soldier.

Military prosecutors had been pressing Brownback to set a trial date, but he has repeatedly directed them first to satisfy defense requests for access to potential evidence. At a hearing earlier this month, he threatened to suspend the proceedings altogether unless the detention center provided records of Khadr's confinement.

Kuebler said he believed the U.S. military is anxious for the trial to start before political pressure leads Canada to demand Khadr's repatriation.

Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement describing the abrupt change without explanation as evidence that the war court, created by Congress in 2006, is ``fundamentally flawed.''

Before Rick Davis began serving as John McCain's campaign manager, his lobbying firm had a pretty cosmopolitan set of clients.

For example, Ukranian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who has several business links to Iran.

To be sure, there's a good crowd of lobbyists in Washington who work for international firms with ties to Iran.

But Davis isn't just any lobbyist. He's a lobbyist-turn-presidential campaign manager who just a couple weeks ago was drawing up rules on how to build a wall between lobbyists and McCain's political operatives. And McCain has been more hawkish than most of his colleagues about confronting Iran.

And, interestingly, Davis' lobbying shop, Davis Manafort, was doing work for the Ukranian oligarch about the same time that Davis was serving as the president of McCain's Reform Institute.

Davis Manafort was helping Akhmetov's conglomerate, System Capital Management Holdings, to develop a "corporate communications strategy" between the beginging of 2005 through the end of summer 2005, the company said.

The company's subsidiary, Metinvest, a steel company, has one of its 11 offices in Tehran. And another subsidiary, Khartsyzsk Pipe Plant, sells large pipes to Iran.

Those business ties go back to at least 2005, when Davis Manafort was working for the company, according to a handful of stories in business publications like the Russia & CIS Metals and Mining Weekly and the Mining and the Metals report, which we found on Nexis.

A McCain aide told us Davis did not work on that account while he was heading up the firm. And he was unaware of the company's ties to Iran.

Former Bush administration deputy secretary of state and current adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign Richard Armitage has parlayed his years of Washington experience into winning cherry contracts with private spy agencies profiting off America's ongoing wars in the Middle East. Former administration officials George Tenet and Cofer Black are cashing in as well, according to Tim Shorrock's book, "Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing." (Salon)

Sen. John McCain's position on granting immunity to telecom companies that willingly participated in the Bush administration's wiretapping surveillance seems to have morphed over the course of his campaign for president. He voted for full immunity earlier this year, then his adviser Chuck Fish hinted at a need for a hearing before such immunity. Then last night at a campaign stop in Wisconsin, McCain described the need for a "careful balance" in protecting the companies and protecting Americans' rights. (Wall St. Journal)

Alleged political motivations of the firing of some U.S. attorneys have prompted 20 former federal attorneys to file a brief in support of forcing members of the Bush administration to testify in the ongoing case. The White House has claimed executive privilege in refusing to allow the president's close aide, Harriet Miers, and chief of staff Josh Bolten to speak to the court. (Associated Press)

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Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons' still has two years left in office.

But Gibbons' divorce is getting nastier by the day, and many GOP operatives are getting more concerned about saving their party than his marriage.

The Las Vegas Sun reports on the latest in the court battle:

Wednesday's filing by Dawn Gibbons' attorney Cal Dunlap, a former district attorney who is said to love a public fight, is ostensibly an argument to open the now-sealed divorce filing. In fact, however, it's clearly part of an aggressive media strategy to paint the governor as a cold, philandering liar.

"Despite his disingenuous, shallow, and transparent protestations that his relationship with another man's wife is a mere friendship, his infatuation and involvement with the other woman is the real, concealed and undisclosed reason for his voluntary departure from the marriage," the court filing states.

Gibbons has been refusing to comment about the divorce proceedings. A judge has sealed the case, but Dawn Gibbon's attorney released her filings because of the "importance of the First Amendment and the public's right to have open access to the courts and court proceedings."

The court documents did not identify the woman Gibbons is accused of having an affair with. But local reporters in Nevada did. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports:

The woman is Kathy Karrasch, said several sources who requested anonymity, the wife of Reno podiatrist C. Craig Karrasch.

Recent phone records obtained by the Review-Journal show a single call placed from the governor's cell phone to Kathy Karrasch's cell phone on Jan. 10.

A family member who answered the cell phone Wednesday said Kathy Karrasch and her husband have separated for reasons unrelated to the governor.

The Reno Gazette-Journal offers more details about the relationship.

Karrasch lives a few blocks away from the Gibbonses' Reno home. ... Jim Gibbons was seen having dinner with Karrasch and three other people May 10 at the Atlantis Sky Terrace Oyster and Sushi Bar. He also attended the Galena High School play on May 1 to see Karrasch's daughter perform.

Although he attended the play alone, he spent the second half standing with Karrasch in the back of the room while she filmed her daughter, according to video footage provided to the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Gibbons' spokesman Ben Kieckhefer said the governor attended the play at the invitation of an unnamed neighbor.

In previous interviews, Gibbons has maintained he and Karrasch are "friends."

We've been reporting Gibbons' run of embarrassing political moves in recent months. The investigation of his ties to a defense contractor still lingers. But the locals in Nevada say the final straw was when Gibbons tried to get his wife evicted from the governors' mansion.

The Sun reports:

Republicans say serious discussions are taking place around the state among political and business leaders about how to extricate the party from the increasingly messy divorce proceeding between Dawn and Jim Gibbons. They say Jim Gibbons has handled the matter poorly by attempting to evict the first lady from the mansion and not settling the matter quickly and quietly.

And the implications could reach far beyond Nevada, one Republican tells the New York Times

"This absolutely could depress Republicans who are already depressed," said Chuck Muth, a Republican political consultant and blogger. "This could hurt McCain's ability to hold on to Nevada. It could also affect the chances of (Rep.) Jon Porter (R-Nev.) to get re-elected."

[Late Update: The previous version of this post referring to Gibbons as a practicing Mormon has been corrected. Gibbons was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but has described himself as a non-observant Mormon.]

Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's business buddy was convicted on 22 counts in federal court last night.

That doesn't bode well for the Republican's campaign, since Schaffer served on the board of directors while prosecutors said the National Alternative Fuels Foundation was scamming money from the government.

Bill Orr, the former president of the NAFF, could face federal prison time for claiming to develop a clean alternative automobile fuel and then using junk science to get federal money.

Local TV in Colorado reports some testimony:

"The more we measured it, the more we found his fuel was just like any other fuel," said Dr. Tom Reed. ...

Orr admitted he paid himself more than $500,000 of the federal funds during two years of research and development work at a small laboratory in Golden. He said he obtained the grant with the help of Congressional aides whom he met while working on other fuel and environmental issues.

Congressional aides?

Schaffer was in the House at the time. We called his campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, a couple times this week to ask specifically whether then-Congressman Schaffer had any role in securing that $3.6 million earmark in late 2000. He hasn't returned the calls.

A longtime Colorado political operative, Scott Shires, has already pleaded guilty in the case and will be sentenced later this month. Shires is listed as a key player in a couple of Schaffer's campaigns from recent years.

Democrats in Colorado are stepping up the pressure. Although the case hasn't gotten much attention, a local group called ProgressNowAction is trying to make the link:

"Schaffer may have helped lobby the EPA for these fraudulent grants and the public needs to know the truth," Michael Huttner, Executive Director of ProgressNowAction, wrote in a press release today. "We believe that Schaffer either knew or should have known that the President of his organization was violating the law when he lobbied Congress and received millions of dollars based on false documents."

Can you inherit political donors from your father?

Duncan D. Hunter, a 31-year-old Marine reservist running for his dad's California congressional seat, may prove you can.

The son of Rep. Duncan Hunter, the San Diego-area lawmaker who is the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, is getting a lot of cash from defense contractors his dad helped out.

The San Diego Union-Tribune took a look at firms that got earmarks through the elder Hunter and found they're giving money to the younger one:

Records show connections between companies Rep. Hunter has worked with and some individuals who are contributing to his son's campaign.

Rep. Hunter added language to the 2008 Defense Appropriations bill awarding $19 million to L-3 Communications, which has an office in San Diego, for the development and testing of a missile system, according to data compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense. Executives from that company contributed $2,750 to Duncan D. Hunter's campaign.

Rep. Hunter also earmarked San Diego-based Trex Enterprises Corp. $1.5 million for the development of a device that will help helicopter pilots navigate with limited visibility. Campaign finance records show Trex employees, including a scientist, donated $4,800 to Duncan D. Hunter's campaign.

Lobbyists working for the companies have also supported Hunter's campaign. Patrick McSwain and Frank Collins, who were listed as principals at the lobbying firm Northpoint Strategies, collectively donated $2,500. Northpoint worked on behalf of L-3. McSwain and Collins were both former [Rep. Duke] Cunningham chiefs of staff.

The younger Hunter has a strong fundraising lead over the three other Republicans vying for the nomination in the district, a GOP stronghold.

The trial is underway in Italy of 26 Americans, mostly CIA operatives, accused of abducting a radical Egyptian cleric in Italy and whisking him off to Egypt for torture.

They're on trial in absentia, but there's an Los Angles Times reporter there, telling a great story of "spies spying on spies"

Italy's top counterterrorism official, Bruno Megale, took the stand in Milan yesterday to tell how tapping phones helped to blow the lid off the Bush Administration's practice of "extraordinary rendition."

Megale obtained records of all cellphone traffic from the transmission tower nearest the spot where Abu Omar was abducted, for a 2 1/2 -hour period around the time he disappeared. There were 2,000 calls.

Then, using a computer program, Megale was able to narrow down the pool by tracing the phones that had called each other, in other words, an indication of a group of people working together. Seventeen phone numbers, which showed intensifying use around the time of the abduction, were pinpointed. By following all other calls made from those phones, the investigators ultimately identified 60 numbers, including that of a CIA officer working undercover at the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

In his testimony, Megale revealed that one telephone number he recognized was that of Robert Seldon Lady, then-CIA station chief in Milan. Lady and Megale had worked together in counter-terrorism investigations. It was a number, Megale said somberly, that he and his team knew.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has repeatedly voted to back the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping program, allowing immunity for telecom companies that willingly comply with the government surveillance. He is now changing his mind on the issue just in time for his run for the Oval Office. (Washington Post)

Amnesty International has released their annual report on global human rights. Singled out for their human rights infractions are the likes of China, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and the United States for the continued employment of torture at Guantanamo Bay. (New York Times)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to close and move the last of the Hurricane Katrina-trailer parks in Louisiana. FEMA is closing the parks due to the start of the new hurricane season, as well as the toxic fumes in the trailers and their desire for residents to find housing elsewhere. (USA Today)

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John McCain's go-to economics adviser isn't holding up very well under close scrutiny.

Phil Gramm, the former Texas senator and economist, is taking a lot of heat after reports that up until April 18 he was a registered lobbyist for UBS, the Swiss bank that is the world's largest manager of private wealth.

A former economics professor at Texas A&M, Gramm has long advocated for tax cuts, supply-side economics and less government regulation. But as David Corn over at Mother Jones reports in "Foreclosure Phil?" Gramm also played an integral role in the financial scandal commonly known as the "subprime meltdown."

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Federal prosecutors questioned staffers of Sen. John McCain as part of their corruption investigation of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ).

U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Diane J. Humetewa and fellow prosecutors disclosed the interviews with aides for McCain and fellow Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl in a written response to Renzi's attorneys, who asked for the contents of the interview to help prepare for Renzi's upcoming trial, which is scheduled for October.

The aides were interviewed about land exchanges, according to an April letter from Humetewa filed with the U.S. District Court of Arizona late last week. The letter did not indicate when the interviews occurred.

A federal land swap critical to developing a $3 billion copper mine southeast of Phoenix is at the heart of the case against Renzi, who is facing 35 public corruption charges, including conspiracy, money-laundering, extortion and insurance fraud. Renzi is retiring at the end of this session.

The feds have also requested some documents from McCain, which as of April 14 they had not received.

Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA) has been defaulting on her mortgage payments, but that hasn't stopped her from loaning her campaign cash.

She had three homes in default and has been renegotiating at least one loan with her lender, Washington Mutual, to stop foreclosure.

A spokesman for the freshman lawmaker said it was unclear whether she used money from the mortgages to fund her Congressional campaign. But she did use precisely that tactic last year to obtain $100,000 to loan to her campaign for the California General Assembly, the spokesman told The Hill.

A third home that Richardson borrowed heavily to move into in Sacramento was sold at auction earlier this month -- at a $150,000 loss to the bank that issued her the $535,000 loan. ...

Even as that was happening, ethics watchdogs were crying foul over Richardson's personal finances and questioning how she was able to lend her campaign to Congress $77,500 in the midst of multiple home loan defaults. ...

Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports show that Richardson loaned her campaign a total of $77,500 -- in three installments -- between June and July of 2007.

Richardson's year-end FEC filing showed that her campaign still had $331,000 worth of debt but $116,000 cash-on-hand. ...

Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, said it would be reasonable for the FEC to look into the timing of the loan against the timeline of Richardson's home loan defaults.

"In situations like this it's very important for whoever loaned her the money to demonstrate that they treated her equitably, not favorably," McGehee said. "Otherwise, you're getting into a situation of a corporate underwriting of a campaign."

The Defense Department wants more manpower to police itself.

The Defense Department's Inspector General says the massive growth in military spending during the past six years has far outpaced its ability to keep track of the money. A new report made public by the Project on Government Oversight outlines how the IG's office plans to grow -- by about 30 percent -- in the next seven years.

The rapid growth of the DoD budget since FY 2000 leaves the Department increasingly more vulnerable to the fraud, waste and abuse that undermines the Department's mission.

and

Furthermore, the demand for IG services to support the [Global War on Terror] and the ongoing operations in southwest Asia has forced us to adjust our priorities, resulting in gaps in coverage in important areas, such as major weapons acquisition, health care fraud, product substitution and defense intelligence agencies.

"Weapons acquisitions" is a pretty broad catagory and probably includes $531 million war ships, like the one the New York Times wrote about a few weeks ago. The Navy has been notoriously bad about cost overruns and runaway spending.

For years, the Pentagon's accounting procedures have been so shoddy that the Defense Department cannot even properly fail an audit. Trillions -- with a T -- of dollars are improperly accounted for. In fact, the Pentagon says there is no way it'll be able to handle a real audit until at least 2016.

Part of the problem may be that many retired military officials go on to work for defense contractors in later life.

The GAO has also been harping on the military's use of money

So it's no wonder that we've been hearing about absurd contracts like a 25-year-old Miami club goer who wins a $300 million contract to arm our allies in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department consumes about 19 percent of all federal spending.

Criticisms leveled in former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's new memoir are sure to get a lot of attention over the next few days.

What separates McClellan's account from other tell-all books from former Bush Administration officials is the personal tone. McClellan followed Bush from Texas and left the White House on good terms. But he's obviously not pleased with some decisions that were made -- and the way he was treated at times.

To some degree, McClellan's book tells us a lot of things we already know.

From today's Washington Post:

Bush is depicted as an out-of-touch leader, operating in a political bubble, who has stubbornly refused to admit mistakes.

But he also takes a swipe at the Bush public persona that exudes confidence.

"A more self-confident executive would be willing to acknowledge failure, to trust people's ability to forgive those who seek redemption for mistakes and show a readiness to change," he writes.

Among the most interesting stories McClellan recounts is his role in the CIA leak investigation that led to Scotter Libby's conviction for obstruction of justice last year. Here is where McClellan seems to get personal.

"I could feel something fall out of me into the abyss as each reporter took a turn whacking me," he writes of the withering criticism he received as the story played out. "It was my reputation crumbling away, bit by bit."

Intriguingly, he recounts his suspicions about a previously undisclosed West Wing meeting between Rove and Libby:

"There is only one moment during the leak episode that I am reluctant to discuss," he writes. "It was in 2005, during a time when attention was focusing on Rove and Libby, and it sticks vividly in my mind. ... Following [a meeting in Chief of Staff Andy Card's office], ... Scooter Libby was walking to the entryway as he prepared to depart when Karl turned to get his attention. 'You have time to visit?' Karl asked. 'Yeah,' replied Libby.

"I have no idea what they discussed, but it seemed suspicious for these two, whom I had never noticed spending any one-on-one time together, to go behind closed doors and visit privately. ... At least one of them, Rove, it was publicly known at the time, had at best misled me by not sharing relevant information, and credible rumors were spreading that the other, Libby, had done at least as much. ...

"The confidential meeting also occurred at a moment when I was being battered by the press for publicly vouching for the two by claiming they were not involved in leaking Plame's identity, when recently revealed information was now indicating otherwise. ... I don't know what they discussed, but what would any knowledgeable person reasonably and logically conclude was the topic? Like the whole truth of people's involvement, we will likely never know with any degree of confidence."

McClellan writes in a way suggesting he really didn't see this at the time. Really?

Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, a top Army medical officer, says mental care for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder is inadequate, as more than 28,000 troops have been diagnosed with PTSD in recent years. The Army is attempting to fill 120 more mental health professional positions, Schoomaker says. Between 12 and 15 percent of soldiers deployed Iraq and Afghanistan are taking some kind of medication to combat stress. (Baltimore Sun)

The U.S. investigation into whether guards working for Blackwater maliciously fired onto a crowd of Iraqis in Baghdad on Sept. 16, killing 17, continued Tuesday. Family members of the slain Iraqis testified before a federal grand jury. Witnesses of the shootings claim the guards fired into a crowd unprovoked. The convoy was responding to a car bombing in Baghdad's bustling Nisoor Square. (Associated Press)

Long-running investigations of Muck All-Stars Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, both Alaskan Republicans, may unfold before this fall's election, resulting in indictments of the two politicians. Those two of three Alaskan congressional seats are already highly contentious, as both Stevens and Young have been scrutinized for their connections to disgraced Veco CEO Bill Allen; Young also faces allegations of misconduct regarding a shady earmark in Florida and the ongoing Jack Abramoff probes. (Anchorage Daily News)

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A federal judge has rejected Rep. William Jefferson's latest effort to have the case against him dismissed:

But U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III said that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that bribery charges can be brought even if the acts don't fit into the "responsibilities explicitly assigned by law."

He said it will be up to a jury to determine whether the actions alleged by the government relate to the performance of official duties or "settled customary duty or practice" and relates to a government decision or action."

"Whether or not the government is able to prove each of these elements ... is a question properly addressed at trial, not on a motion to dismiss an indictment," Judge Ellis wrote.

Jefferson's trial has been delayed indefinitely while the Louisiana Democrat appeals other pre-trial motions.

Last we checked in with Bob Schaffer, the GOP's Senate candidate in Colorado was fending off news reports about parasailing in the Mariana Islands on Jack Abramoff's dime while supposedly personally investigating the plight of foreign workers there.

Now we learn about a federal criminal case in Colorado against former business and political associates of Schaffer's involving government contracts with a nonprofit foundation where Schaffer was a member of the board of directors.

Schaffer, a former House member who is battling with Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) to replace the retiring Sen. Wayne Allard, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the federal prosecutor handling the case told TPMmuckraker in a telephone interview that Schaffer was added to a witness list in the federal fraud trial of Bill Orr, a Denver businessman accused of bilking the government out of more than $2 million.

Orr's trial is currently underway, and the jury has been deliberating since last week. Schaffer could still be called to testify in Orr's sentencing if Orr is convicted.

Orr successfully lobbied Congress in 2000 for a $3.6 million earmark, which he said he would use to develop a new clean-energy fuel that would emit less pollution. It's not yet known which member of Congress inserted Orr's earmark. Prosecutors say he "falsely represented" the scientific tests that convinced the EPA to turn over more than $2 million of the earmark money. Orr had created a separate not-for-profit group called the National Alternative Fuels Foundation to utilize the federal money.

And that's where Schaffer comes in. After leaving Congress, Schaffer was a "director" at the NAFF from October 2004 to March 2005, according to his Senate financial disclosure form. That's not a very long time, but it overlaps with the time frame when prosecutors say the NAFF was wrongfully accepting government cash -- from December 2001 through December 2004.

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Brig. Gen. David L. Grange doesn't wear a star on his shoulder much since his retirement in 1999. But he's on the list of retired officers the Pentagon has cultivated in an effort to influence domestic news coverage of military matters.

In fact, Grange, a CNN analyst, was tagged as the most visible shill for the Pentagon since 2002.

The Pentagon suspended the analysts' program and its weekly briefings shortly after the Times published its story in April revealing the extent of the Pentagon's message massaging.

When Grange appeared again on CNN late last week, host Lou Dobbs made no mention of Grange's previous participation in the Pentagon program. But he did ask him about Iran:

[Special Thanks to TPM Reader LB for the tip.]

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Looks like the 'crackdown' against illegal immigrants crossing over the Mexican border has been a boon for corrupt border guards.

Federal officials say their decision to dissolve the Internal Affairs unit at Customs and Border Protection unit a few years ago was a bad idea (go figure), and now the Department of Homeland Security is reconstituting it. Reborn with a whopping five investigators last year, the unit is projected to grow to 200 by the end of this year.

The New York Times reports this morning that a growing number of border patrol guards are under investigation for taking bribes from smugglers and letting vehicles packed with drugs and people pass into the U.S. unchecked.

There's a lot of money out there for border agents on the take:

In another recent case, Margarita Crispin, a customs inspector in El Paso, Tex., began helping smugglers just a few months after she was hired in 2003, according to prosecutors. She helped the smugglers for four years before she was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to forfeit up to $5 million.

The number of border patrol agents has almost doubled since 2001, swelling the force to nearly 20,000. But the smugglers are savvy.

The smugglers use any ruse available to lure border workers but seem to favor deploying attractive women as bait. They flirt and charm and beg the officers, often middle-aged men, to "just this once" let an unauthorized relative through. And then another and another.

In recent years, Texas has seen the most corruption investigations, with California a close second.

One law enforcement expert describes "policing the border as 'potentially one of the most corruptible tasks in law enforcement' because of the solitary nature of much of the work and the desperation of people seeking to cross."

National Republican Congressional Committee staffer Christopher J. Ward was the golden boy of the Right's fundraising efforts. He handled more than $360 million at the committee since 2003. Now he is the subject of an FBI embezzlement inquiry. (New York Times)

Legislation spearheaded by the Senate Armed Services Committee will attempt to shift the influence defense contractors like Blackwater have acquired overseas. Yet news of these efforts has caused the defense companies to counteract, deploying a massive lobbying effort to sway legislators to reconsider shutting the private contractors down. (Politico)

Rep. Ron Paul's campaign for president is still going ... in case you weren't aware. The fully functional campaign staff is at the forefront of his continued push. And as FEC reports show, he's literally keeping the family together. (Washington Post)

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Karl Rove is getting more creative -- and less convincing -- with his non-denial denials about the politicization of prosecutions over at the Justice Department.

Asked directly by ABC's George Stephanopolus on Sunday whether he spoke at all with the DOJ officials about the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman for corruption, Rove stammered and repeated the phrase: "I found out about Don Siegelman's indictment by reading about it in the newspaper."

The question's been nagging Rove for a year now, and will probably continue to since the House issued a subpoena last week ordering him to testify on Capitol Hill. House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) rejected Rove's proposal to submit a written statement to the committee. The White House asserts that executive privilege bars Rove from having to testify.

The question from Stephanopolus was more direct than he's faced in the past. But Rove has issued vague, strangely worded, lawyerly specific answers to essentially the same question before.

About one year ago, when he was first accused of pushing for Siegelman's prosecution, he could only refute the specific detail of an individual conversation he allegedly had with Alabama officials.

"I know nothing about any phone call," Rove told reporters in Alabama in June 2007, before a White House press aide intervened and said, "What he meant to say was that he has no comment."

Sen. John McCain has seen a flood of lobbyists leave his campaign for president due to conflicts of interests, yet the staff continues to straddle its self-imposed ethical lines by keeping the likes of Charlie Black around. (New York Times and Huffington Post)

Further restrictions on photojournalists at Guantanamo Bay are being put into place in the name of "operational security." (Miami Herald)

Elsewhere at Gitmo, an report by an official there that detainee Ibrahim al Qosi had called his family in Sudan in order to find legal counsel outside of the U.S. military lawyer offered him turned out to be untrue. A later notification by a spokeswoman retracted the earlier report; Qosi's call is still in the works. (Reuters)

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Maybe we'll eventually get to the bottom of just what the Pentagon was up to when it cultivated the TV networks' supposedly independent military analysts as part of a massive PR push to support Bush Administration policy in Iraq. Well, it's pretty obvious what it was up to. But maybe we can better learn the full scope of the domestic PR effort undertaken.

The New York Times' April expose on the massaging of public opinion through "message force multipliers" (a term only the Pentagon could come up with) has now prompted at least two investigations. The program was suspended following the initial NYT report.

The Department of Defense inspector general announced last Friday that it was undertaking a investigation of the program, and the Congress' own General Accountability Office has "already begun looking into the program and would give a legal opinion on whether it violated longstanding prohibitions against spending government money to spread propaganda to audiences in the United States."

The investigations come after the House last Thursday passed an amendment to this year's military authorization bill mandating investigations by the DOD IG and the GAO. Democrats argued that the program amounted to illegal domestic propaganda. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) called the program part of "a military-industrial-media complex" (with apologies to Eisenhower).

Meanwhile, the TV networks have remained largely silent, as their credibility and transparency have been tarnished by the revelations about the program. As Media Matters has documented, the military analysts named in the Times piece appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast networks, cable news channels, and NPR. One minute they were giving ostensibly objective analysis, the next they were fawning over Rummy in private as "the leader."