Cue That Law & Order Pizzicato!

No, really. Cue it!

Listen To The Law & Order Pizzicato Refrain

DeLay Will Likely Be Booked This Week

DeLay's arraignment is set for Friday before state district Judge Bob Perkins in Travis County, Texas.

"Perkins believes that if God was charged with a felony, he would have to go through the booking process, too," said D'Ann Underwood, court coordinator for the judge.

Before Friday, DeLay, a Republican from Sugar Land, Texas, will likely spend about an hour being fingerprinted and photographed, she said. He'll also be required to state his attorneys for the record. LINK

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Officials unaware of reporter's special status
NY Times' Miller wrote she had 'security clearance' for Iraq WMD reporting
Related Stories

By Jim Miklaszewski

WASHINGTON — Officials from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon say they have no idea what New York Times reporter Judith Miller was talking about when she claimed to have been given a "security clearance" while she was embedded with a U.S. Army unit in Iraq in 2003. LINK

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Journalism community turns on Times, Miller
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK -- With a ferociousness usually reserved for presidents caught lying to the public, the journalism world has turned on The New York Times and its reporter Judith Miller, who only weeks ago was being lauded for her willingness to go to jail to protect a source.

A few media critics and academics suggested Monday that the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter should be fired. Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a memo to staff, expressed the hope that the public brouhaha would subside but did not disclose what further action, if any, the paper would take. LINK

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CIA leak prosecutor asked about any Cheney role

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal prosecutor questioned New York Times reporter Judith Miller about whether Vice President Dick Cheney himself was aware or authorized her discussions with his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, about a covert CIA operative, Miller said on Saturday. LINK

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Is It The Beginning Of The End?
(CBS) Weekly commentary by CBS Evening News anchor and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.

Nixon and his people had been thinking of little but Watergate and how to cover their tracks.

Which is why White House press secretary Scott McClellan's words about the current investigation into who blew the cover of that secret agent for the CIA had such a familiar ring. "The White House doesn't have time to let these things distract us from the important work at hand," he said.

Oh, sure. A special prosecutor is bearing down, the president's top people are being called before a federal grand jury on a regular basis — four times so far for Karl Rove — the investigation has revealed a vicious secret war between the White House and the CIA over who should take the blame for the wrong intelligence that took us to war, and it's just another day in the office? LINK

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CIA leak probe 'widening to include use of intelligence'

By Caroline Daniel and Edward Alden in Washington

According to the Democratic National Committee, a majority of the nine members of the White House Iraq Group have been questioned by Mr Fitzgerald. The team, which included senior national security officials, was created in August 2002 to “educate the public” about the risk posed by weapons of mass destruction on Iraq.

Mr Fitzgerald, who has been applauded for conducting a leak-free inquiry, has said little publicly about his 22-month probe, other than that it is about the “potential retaliation against a whistleblower”, Joseph Wilson. After Mr Wilson, a former ambassador, went public with doubts about the evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons, the name of his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA official, was leaked to reporters.

The prosecutor has given no indication whether he will charge anyone in the case. At the weekend Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter jailed for 85 days after refusing to testify, provided new details about the scope of Mr Fitzgerald's investigation. She was asked “repeatedly” how Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, “handled classified information”. LINK

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Abramoff Scandal Links GOP to Islamic Banks and Tyco Scandals

The other shoe is about to drop on the Republican leadership, now reeling from the indictment of House Republican Leader Tom DeLay and the imminent indictments coming down from the Plame Grand Jury.

Abramoff's influence-peddling operation out of the Greenberg & Traurig law firm are connected to multiple Washington scandals, the nexus of which is lobbying that either illegally benefited Republicans or which alledgedly cheated that law firm's clients.

What is less well understood is that Ambramoff also served as the registered Washington lobbyist for the Government of Pakistan and is a fixer for Saudi moneymen tied to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Abramoff is further implicated in the financial looting of giant Tyco International, a case that has ties to the Bush Justice Department. LINK

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Reed: Candidate denies seeking ouster of 10 House gambling foes

By JIM GALLOWAY

Using money from a gambling services company, Republican strategist (and candidate for office) Ralph Reed helped wage a direct-mail campaign against 10 GOP members of Congress who voted in favor of a ban on Internet gambling in 2000, according to The Washington Post.--snip--

ELottery was a client of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close friend of Reed's who is the subject of several federal investigations.--snip--

Robin Vanderwall, head of the organization, told the Post he got a call from Century Strategies and was told he would receive a check from (Grover) Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. He was to deposit the check and write one for an identical amount and send it to Century Strategies.

"I was operating as a shell," Vanderwall was quoted as saying. "I regret having had anything to do with it."

Vanderwall was later convicted of soliciting sex with minors over the Internet and is now serving a seven-year sentence. LINK

Play it again... for good measure.

Cheney May Be Entangled in CIA Leak Investigation (Correct)

Actually, the headline should read...

Bush, Cheney, et al may face civil suit

In an interview yesterday, Wilson said that once the criminal questions are settled, he and his wife may file a civil lawsuit against Bush, Cheney and others seeking damages for the alleged harm done to Plame's career.

If they do so, the current state of the law makes it likely that the suit will be allowed to proceed -- and Bush and Cheney will face questioning under oath -- while they are in office. The reason for that is a unanimous 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit against then- President Bill Clinton could go forward immediately, a decision that was hailed by conservatives at the time. LINK

Whew!


File this under: Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.