Federal Government

Judge Gives White House Three Days to Respond to E-Mail Proposal

Administration officials have three days to draft arguments opposing a federal magistrate’s suggestion that they should copy e-mails on the hard drives of executive office computers. Magistrate Judge John Facciola issued an order to show cause (PDF) yesterday asking officials why they should not have to make a copy of…

Mar 19, 2008 2:41 PM CDT

VP Differs with SG in Dueling Briefs Filed in Supreme Court Gun Case

Vice President Dick Cheney and more than 300 members of Congress have filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to find the handgun ban by the District of Columbia is “unconstitutional per se.” The congressional brief differs with the position taken by Solicitor General Paul Clement in his brief…

Mar 17, 2008 10:57 AM CDT

Bush Lags Clinton and Reagan in Judicial Confirmations

President Bush’s legal legacy is being stymied by a Democratic Senate that will probably approve few of his remaining nominees for federal judgeships. So far Bush has won confirmation of 294 district and appellate judges, and his final numbers are likely to be below that of presidents Clinton and Reagan,…

Mar 14, 2008 12:44 PM CDT

Dershowitz: Spitzer’s Sexual Peccadilloes Are Not the Feds’ Business

Updated: Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz contends that federal money laundering and sex-crime laws have been unfairly used to trap Eliot Spitzer in an unfortunate episode that shows the danger of these open-ended statutes. These laws “lie around like loaded guns waiting to be used against the enemies of…

Mar 13, 2008 2:14 PM CDT

Spitzer Resigns, Cites his ‘Private Failings’

Updated: After a day of speculation about whether he would remain in office, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has announced his resignation effective Monday. Spitzer apologized for his actions in a late-morning press conference and said he hopes to continue to work for the common good after he leaves office.…

Mar 12, 2008 3:49 PM CDT

Prosecution of Spitzer Would Stretch Statutes Beyond Usual Uses

Updated: Several charges are possible against New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, accused in news reports of hiring high-priced prostitutes and paying for them in four installments of $5,000 or less. But are the charges probable? The possibility of impeachment, apart from the legal charges, is weighing heavily on the governor’s…

Mar 12, 2008 12:05 PM CDT

Tax Probe Led to Spitzer Prostitution Allegations

Updated: The investigation that led to this week’s shocking revelations about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the respected former state attorney general who reportedly linked up with a high-priced prostitute, was all about taxes. The probe began when IRS agents were doing a routine investigation of suspicious transactions reported by…

Mar 11, 2008 10:50 AM CDT

House Legal Arm, Led by Veteran D.C. Firm Partner, Files Contempt Suit

Updated: A lawsuit (PDF) filed today by the House of Representatives seeks to enforce subpoenas against two Bush aides, the Washington Post reports. The complaint was drafted by Irvin Nathan, a former chairman of Arnold & Porter’s white-collar practice who jumped from the law firm to head the House General…

Mar 10, 2008 4:45 PM CDT

Law Prof’s Sarcastic Op-Ed Cites ‘Mukasey’s Paradox’

Law professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University is taking aim at recent decisions by the attorney general by giving a name to the legal reasoning that spurred them: Mukasey’s Paradox. Turley makes his points in an op-ed published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He says he once was troubled by…

Mar 10, 2008 2:07 PM CDT

Bush Vetoes Bill Banning CIA Waterboarding

President Bush has vetoed a bill that would have barred the CIA from using harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. The veto, Bush’s ninth, reinforces his legacy of backing strong executive powers, the New York Times reports. The bill would have allowed the CIA to use only 19 less aggressive…

Mar 10, 2008 12:05 PM CDT

Group Seeks Contempt Hearing on White House E-Mail Statements

An advocacy group claims the Bush administration apparently made false and misleading statements about e-mail backups in a lawsuit alleging violations of record-keeping laws. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the plaintiff in the suit, says there is a discrepancy between what the administration told a federal court and…

Mar 7, 2008 4:04 PM CST

Digital Crime Fight Moves Beyond Terrorism With Linked Data Warehouses

Law enforcement agencies across the country are spending millions of dollars to build data warehouses of domestic intelligence that can be used to fight crime and spot terrorist plots. The Washington Post reports that the warehouses will hold criminal and investigative information from several thousand police agencies. They will be…

Mar 6, 2008 5:30 PM CST

FBI Director: US Spied on Americans in 2006, Violating Privacy

National security letters were improperly used in 2006 to spy on Americans and obtain private financial and communications data, Federal FBI Director William Mueller testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said the privacy abuses, by FBI agents and lawyers, have since been corrected by unspecified new reforms, reports…

Mar 6, 2008 1:04 AM CST

U.S. Watch List Snags a European Travel Agent

An English travel agent who lives in Spain and sells Cuban trips to Europeans has been snagged by the long arm of the U.S. Treasury Department, which put his websites on a terrorist blacklist. That led the U.S. domain registrar that that gave the agent website names such as www.bonjourcuba.com…

Mar 4, 2008 2:22 PM CST

Mukasey Won’t Ask Grand Jury to Indict Bush Aides

Attorney General Michael Mukasey says the Justice Department won’t seek the prosecution of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. Mukasey sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying he won’t refer House contempt citations to a grand jury because the aides…

Mar 3, 2008 11:35 AM CST