Seven batches of new documents were released today in the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. They are available here at the House Judiciary Committee.

Analysis is taking place in the comments at TPM Muckraker.

Here are Paul Wolfowitz' remarks at the World Bank Forum yesterday. He eats some crow and admits making a mistake in pushing the promotion and giving of a huge pay raise to his girlfriend.

In hindsight, I wish I had trusted my original instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations. I made a mistake for which I am sorry.

But let me also ask for some understanding. Not only was this a painful personal dilemma, but I had to deal with it when I was new to this institution, and I was trying to navigate in uncharted waters. The situation was unprecedented and exceptional. This was an involuntary reassignment, and I believed there was a legal risk to the institution if it was not solved by mutual agreement. I take full responsibility for the details of the agreement, and I did not attempt to hide my actions or to make anyone else responsible.

He may be fired, forced to resign or just severely rebuked.

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Send good thoughts to New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. He was critically injured (but expected to live) following a car accident tonight while his motorcade was en route to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers' womens basketball team.

Corzine had a broken sternum, a broken collarbone, a slight fracture of his lower vertebrae, a broken left leg and six broken ribs on each side, Ross said. He also had a laceration on his head, Ross said.

State Senate President Richard Codey will take over as acting Governor while Gov. Corzine is in the hospital.

In a new memo, James Carville and Stan Greenberg acknowledge that The Politics of Contrast is working:

The competing narratives of the parties is . . . the most important new Democratic advantage. . . . [T]here is room for growth as Democrats crystallize the choice before the country

And what is the most important issue for crystallizing that choice? Iraq. I think it can be our realigning issue:

we may be achieving the best possible political program - our Presidential candidates will run against the GOP's Iraq Debacle. Now, if we can just get Obama to hold a strong partisan tone - adopt the Politics of Contrast Senator, and we can stride with great confidence into 2008 knowing that we may achieve the permanent political realignment we all dream of - Obama, Edwards or even Hillary, can then be our FDR.

I think all good Democrats should be demanding that our politicians seize the moment and oppose Bush's Iraq Debacle as fiercely as possible. To me that means supporting the Reid-Feingold bill.

It's been a busy day in PurgeGate. The House, frustrated with Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Departments pussy-footing over document turnover, has issued a subpoena for more of them.

The department has released more than 3,000 pages of e-mail messages and other files. But, the senators wrote in a letter to Mr. Gonzales, “We are concerned that additional documents relevant to the committee’s investigations are missing or have been withheld.”

What's missing?

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Neocon Paul Wolfowitz, former Deputy Defense Secretary who is now President of the World Bank, has responded to charges he improperly granted a promotion and raise to his girlfriend. (Background here.)

Too funny is Wonkette's photo of Wolfowitz with holes in his socks "at a mosque in Turkey, where he was meeting with extremists to plan new attacks on America."

Newsweek reports on the apparent looming indictment against Bernie Kerik, using non-public, law enforcement records of his phone calls, showing that around the time he withdrew his nomination as Homeland Security chief, he spoke several times with his one-time girlfriend, former prison guard Jeanette Pinero, and with New Jersey businessman Frank DiTommaso.

Kerik was in the midst of a civil lawsuit by another prison guard who alleged Bernie passed him over for promotion because of the guard's disputes with Pinero. That suit was later recently tossed by the judge. Some details about the connection between Kerik and diTommaso are here.

Who would leak the phone records, which I assume are matters before the grand jury and secret under Rule 6(e)? I doubt it's Bernie's side. It's possible grand jury witnesses were shown the records during their testimony ....but I doubt they would have received a copy to take home and then turn over to Newsweek.

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We all know that Rudy Giuliani was behind Bernie Kerik's failed nomination for Homeland Security Chief.

Why is it coming out now that Alberto Gonzales personally was the one who vetted him....and failed to quash the nomination? The Washington Post devotes 4 online pages to the Gonzales-Kerik connection.

Alarmed about the raft of allegations, several White House aides tried to raise red flags. But the normal investigation process was short-circuited, the sources said. Bush's top lawyer, Alberto R. Gonzales, took charge of the vetting, repeatedly grilling Kerik about the issues that had been raised. In the end, despite the concerns, the White House moved forward with his nomination -- only to have it collapse a week later.

How is it that Rudy thinks he can pass this off onto Alberto Gonzales? It gives new meaning to "kick him while he's down."

The Bernie Kerik fiasco would not have happened but for Rudy. The blame is his. He knew more about Bernie than anyone else.

I've been following the curious developments in the U.S. Attorneys office in Minneapolis for a few days, but until today, there was too little available information from which to decide if it was newsworthy.

What was known: U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger resigned in February, 2006. Rachel Paulose, age 34, a former aide to Alberto Gonzales whose last job was serving as senior counsel to U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty was immediately named as his successor and made Acting U.S. Attorney. She was confirmed by the Senate in December, 2006 and sworn in in March, 2007, by which time she had already been in the job for a year.

Earlier this week there were rumblings about three career prosecutors in the office submitting resignations. DOJ sent out a mediator. Late yesterday it was announced that the three were remaining with the office, but were accepting demotions from managerial positions to rank and file prosecutors. Another top administrative official, not a prosecutor, also submitted his resignation.

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There's no love between Californians and George W. Bush. On war and the economy, his approval ratings in the state have tanked to Nixon-like numbers.

Just 26 percent of California voters surveyed by the Field Poll approved of the president's performance in office -- nearly reaching the record low 24 percent approval rating of former President Richard Nixon in August 1974, just before his resignation over the Watergate scandal.

The poll showed that just 24 percent of the state's voters saw the president's performance in Iraq in a positive light, compared with 72 percent who viewed it negatively.

There are two indicators of what the numbers mean.

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Paul Wolfowitz, President Bush's former Deputy Secretary of Defense, is now President of the World Bank. Murray Waas reports a scandal is brewing over whether his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, was promoted in contravention of bank guidelines and given a raise to more than double the amount the bank's rules allowed.

Bank regulations disallow bank employees from supervising spouses or romantic partners, but Wolfowitz reportedly attempted to circumvent the rules so he would be able to continue to work with Riza. Informed by the bank's ethics officers that that would not be allowable, the problem appeared solved when Riza was detailed to work at the State Department's public diplomacy office in September 2005--even though her salary was still to be paid by the World Bank.

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Our imperial president is up to his usual tricks.

President Bush today made three controversial recess appointments, bypassing the need for Senate confirmation.

The president used recess appointments to install Sam Fox, a major Republican donor from Missouri, to be ambassador to Belgium; Andrew G. Biggs of New York to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, and Susan E. Dudley of Virginia to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the office of Management and Budget.

One, Sam Fox, was a financier of the Swift Boat circus against John Kerry. The Administration had withdrawn his nomination in March.

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