While re-reading Lewis Libby's discovery motions has been a worthwhile exercise, I've got wiretap motions due today. There's lots going on to talk about, so I'll leave it to you.

On a related Libby note, guess who's speaking at the annual All That Jazz seminar for criminal defense lawyers in New Orleans at the end of April? William Jeffress, one of Libby's lead lawyers. His topic: "Perjury, False Statements and Obstruction- If We Can't Get You For a Crime, We'll Get You For the Coverup" (pdf). It's Saturday, April 29 at 10:30 am.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown testified before Congress today, despite Bush's attempt to block his testimony by asserting executive privilege. He blamed Homeland Security. Crooks and Liars has some video.

Mr. Brown said that homeland security officials were being regularly updated by reports delivered through video conference calls, and that he personally contacted White House officials.

"My obligation was to the White House and to make sure the president knows what's going on," he said, "and I did that." Mr. Brown's testimony provided the first detailed look into communications between emergency management officials and the White House.

He said claims the White House didn't know of the levee failures until the next day are "baloney."

More Katrina-related disaster: The public defender's sytem in New Orleans is dead.

Check out the news reports from Washington Post AP, and Henry Weinstein of the LA Times. More than 4000 people without a lawyers spells disaster again.

One month after Katrina, the Orleans Indigent Defender Board laid off more than 30 of its public defenders, said Tessier. There are now only four part-time public defenders in New Orleans, he said.

"My guess is that we have 4,500 people who have been sitting in jail for up to six months and haven't seen a lawyer," Tessier said. "The issue is what do we do with those people if we don't have public defenders for them and don't have money for lawyers."

by TChris

As reported here, here, and here, the Air Force Academy took some well deserved heat for allowing religious extremists to proselytize while expressing intolerance of other religious views held by cadets. The controversy sprouted a lawsuit, and the Academy rescinded a code of ethics for chaplains that endorsed their right to evangelize those who weren't already affiliated with a religious body.

The evangelical right reacted with outrage to a perceived attack on Christianity. In response, the Air Force caved, "dropping a requirement for chaplains to respect others' rights to their own beliefs and no longer cautioning top officers about promoting their personal religious views." The new rules permit superior officers to lecture cadets about religion so long as it is "reasonably clear" that they are speaking personally, not officially. The new rules emphasize the vitality of the free exercise clause while undermining the protections afforded by the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press are both reporting on Murray Waas' National Journal article disclosing that Patrick Fitzerald mentioned in a January 26 letter to Libby's lawyers that Libby told the grand jury he had been authorized by his superiors to disclose classified information to reporters.

The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said in a letter to Mr. Libby's lawyers last month that Mr. Libby had testified before the grand jury that "he had contacts with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate ('NIE')," that discussed Iraq's nuclear weapons capability. "We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."

Fitz's full letter is available here. (pdf) An earlier letter from Fitz to Libby's lawyers regarding their discovery obligations is available here. Both letters were were filed by Libby's lawyers on January 31 as exhibits to his Motion to Compel Discovery of Rule 16 and Brady Material in the Possession of Other Agencies (pdf). Check out footnote 4 on pages 3-4.

Bump and Update: Libby's lawyers deny he would try to blame higher-ups as a defense strategy. [link fixed]

Sen. Kennedy comments on the Cheney aspect to the story:

"These charges, if true, represent a new low in the already sordid case of partisan interests being placed above national security," Kennedy said. "The vice president's vindictiveness in defending the misguided war in Iraq is obvious. If he used classified information to defend it, he should be prepared to take full responsibility."

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Original Post (11:00 a.m)

Murray Waas breaks new ground again in the Scooter Libby case: Cheney and other top Administration officials authorized Libby to release classified information in the summer of 2003 to counter Joseph Wilson's charge that Bush misrepesented intelligence information in order to make the case for going to war.

The White House is pulling another fast one, this time with the Patriot Act. The Republican senators who joined the filibuster of the renewal legislation in December, John Sununu (NH), Larry Craig (ID), Lisa Murkowski (AL) and Chuck Hagel (NE) have made a deal with the White House. They will now vote for the revised Patriot Act, based upon insignificant and insufficient revisions agreed to by the White House.

Sen. Russ Feingold and Rep. John Conyers are blasting the deal. From their press releases (no link yet, received by e-mail.)

by TChris

Following up on yesterday's post about the mayor and police chief of Lonoke, Arkansas, who (along with others) are accused of various crimes and corrupt activities, WREG reports that the city council has accepted the resignations of both men. KATV has links to charging documents describing the alleged misbehavior, including inmate accounts of their jail furloughs to repair the chief's property and to have sex with his wife.

by TChris

Bringing to a conclusion lawsuits filed by anti-war protestors who contended that the police used excessive force against them, the City of Oakland agreed to settle the suits for $393,000. Combined with earlier payments made to resolve related lawsuits, the City coughed up a total of $1.3 million to settle the claims of injured protesters.

Protesters said police fired wood bullets and bean-bag rounds at them without provocation and failed to allow them to disperse during the 2003 rally at the Port of Oakland. They said they were protesting the war in Iraq and targeted the port because at least one company there was handling war supplies.

Oakland also "agreed to stop the indiscriminate use of such tactics."

by TChris

Helen O'Donnell argues that a larger story underlying the Abramoff scandal has been overlooked:

Years after taking this country away from Native Americans and herding them onto reservations to live mostly in poverty and despair, it ought to bother us that we still think so little of them as human beings that further exploitation of American Indians is somehow "business as usual" in Washington without rising to meet the real challenges that still face our American Indian sisters and brothers.

by TChris

An elementary school in Brockton, MA suspended a 6 year old for sexually harassing another student. This is the "sexual harassment": "officials said he put two fingers inside a girl's waistband, touching her skin, during a class."

Bugging other students (of either gender) is normal 6 year old behavior. Is it sexual harassment? Not by any meaningful definition of the term.

"[W]hen we think of sexual harassment, we think of somebody who is approaching somebody inappropriately as a sexual threat, and a 6-year-old's probably not capable of that level of plotting," [Elizabeth] Englander said. ... Englander, [a] psychologist, said children are naturally curious and very physical, and almost any kind of touching may be considered "normal" unless it is sexualized or mimicking sexual acts.

The school's policy defines sexual harassment as "repeated, unwanted, or unwelcomed verbalisms or behaviors of a sexist nature related to a person's sex or sexual orientation." A single, innocent touch by a 6 year old doesn't come close to meeting that definition. The school should be ashamed of its overreaction to the incident.

by TChris

Two stories in the NY Times this morning highlight the administration's post-"mission accomplished" failures in Iraq. Despite claims that insurgent attacks in Iraq are declining, declassified statistics "portray a rebellion whose ability to mount attacks has steadily grown in the nearly three years since the invasion." Meanwhile:

Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq's oil, electricity, water and sewerage sectors has fallen below preinvasion values even though $16 billion of American taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the Iraq reconstruction program, several government witnesses said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday.