World of her own making? via Brandon Warren.

Every single time the name Alice Fisher appears in a potential DOJ corruption story? My spidey sense goes off.

In this particular case, with the intersection of Alice Fisher, Jack Abramoff, Robert Coughlin and the DOJ’s vaunted criminal division?  That’s where it starts getting interesting:

In a filing (PDF) Sunday, the government said Robert Coughlin II, the only Justice Department official to face charges in the Abramoff probe, would not be called as a witness at trial. Coughlin is a former lawyer in the Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison and was deputy chief of staff in the Criminal Division under then-AAG Alice Fisher.

He was also Ring’s prized contact in Main Justice, helping the lobbyist with the Choctaw matter, among others, in return for free concert tickets, luxury seats at sporting events, meals and golf outings. Coughlin pleaded guilty to a conflict of interest charge.

But Coughlin told prosecutors during a mock cross-examination last week that he was unfairly targeted for prosecution and that “the things of value Mr. Ring gave him did not influence his official actions,” according to a government letter to Ring’s lawyers.

Now, I have no way of knowing whether Coughlin is trying to sandbag the DOJ’s case against Ring.

But it’s awfully odd for a former deputy chief of staff at DOJ’s Criminal Division to disregard the contents of his criminal plea so blatantly (PDF): (more…)

Pillars at SCOTUS via David Paul Ohmer.

The full transcript from yesterday’s Citizens United arguments has been released by SCOTUS.  SCOTUSblog has links to both the transcript and the tape of oral argument, made available from PBS Newshour.

Depending on the outcome of the case, there could be a reversal of laws which sought to balance speech rights against a compelling interest to prevent public corruption that go all the way back to Taft-Hartley and beyond.

Nina Totenberg hit the nugget of the day squarely in her NPR reporting: "When Olson argued that Congress must have a compelling reason to limit corporate speech, Justice Stephen Breyer said the compelling argument is that "people think representatives are being bought."

Lyle Denniston has some excellent analysis as well, including:

Kennedy was less aggressive in his questioning, but openly voiced concern that government arguments for leaving intact the two precedents against corporate political spending would undercut the Court’s 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, finding constitutional free speech rights in political spending by all sources, corporations included. And he said those precedents meant that corporations would be “silenced” when they had contributions to make to public policy by speaking out during campaigns.

The core problem with those prior rulings, Kennedy said, was that they “chill expression” based on the speaker. “There is no place where an ongoing chill is more dangerous than in the election context,” he commented.

As in every case the last few years that has had a close divide, satisfying Kennedy’s concerns will likely be the path to the majority.

Reading through the transcript, several things jumped out at me including the gulf between core beliefs of the Justices, and the weighing of the public’s interest in curbing corruption versus the corporate interests. It’s fascinating stuff.

See if you can guess which justices said each of the following from the SCOTUS bench: (more…)

Pile o’ moolah via AMagill.

The Citizens United case will be re-argued today before SCOTUS.  As Robert Barnes put it, this is yet another test of stare decisis in a period where that hallowed doctrine has been repeatedly tested since Justice Roberts took the helm.

And, more precisely, it "raises new ones about the boldness of a court that has moved to the right with the addition of Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr."

The case itself is fascinating on a theoretical level, pitting individual rights, free speech and corporate definitions against one another. When you begin to mix in the real world implications of potential decision on this?

It gets even more interesting:

There are two other layers of disagreement in that background. One is over whether it makes constitutional sense to treat the spending of money as “speech,” and the spending of money on election campaigns as “political speech.” But that is a disagreement outside the Court; it is clear that the Court regards such spending to be speech that has at least some protection under the First Amendment. The Citizens United case may determine how much.

And the other layer of disagreement is whether corporations are entitled to some of the same protection, under the Constitution, as real people: in other words, should they be treated as “persons” who actually have constitutional rights? Once again, that appears not to be open to doubt within the Court. The origins of the notion that corporations are “persons” with constitutional rights are somewhat obscure (often traced, perhaps erroneously, to an 1886 Supreme Court decision, in Santa Clara County v. Union Pacific Railroad), but the Court does not question that they are persons in a legal sense. The coming decision in Citizens United will accept that as a premise for whatever rights corporations are found to have as political financiers.

Doug Kendall of CAC penned an op-ed for the LATimes on why there ought to be some debate:

The line between corporations and individuals when it comes to constitutional protections is as old as the United States. The framers wrote the Constitution to protect citizens and the people and never once used the word "corporations."

Early Supreme Court rulings embraced this distinction, holding that the legal rights of a corporation derive from its corporate charter, not the Constitution. . . .

The court’s ruling in Austin, in other words, is fully consistent with the Constitution’s text and history. If conservative justices on the Supreme Court overrule Austin, they will be guilty not only of unleashing corporate influence on elections — in blatant disregard of the will of Congress and of the American people — but of violating their own purported allegiance to upholding our founding document.

The Austin case is Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a seminal case which prohibited corporate funds from being directly used to support state candidates.

As an interesting historical note, Justices Kennedy and Scalia joined the dissent against Thurgood Marshall’s majority opinion in Austin. You have to wonder where Kennedy’s leaning at this point, don’t you? (more…)

Violation of the bovine restrictions in the Geneva Conventions by using a minotaur for “enhanced interrogation” in an unnavigable labyrinth? Say it ain’t so. Apparently Dick Cheney really wanted a griffin for the interrogator job, but he was too flighty.

Oh goodness. Guess who has his soiled knickers in a twist? . . . the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly. President George W. Bush’s appointees had discouraged such tactics, preferring to focus on individual cases in which there is evidence of intentional discrimination.

Yesterday, Gregg highlighted some prime interview inanity from RNC chairman Michael Steele. The President himself has said he doesn’t want to look backwards, but now he’s allowing his Attorney General to do just that.

Leaving aside the disturbing Pre-Crime connotations straight out of Phillip K. Dick’s Minority Report, Steele’s utter ignorance of how DOJ is supposed to properly function is stunning.

The DOJ appointment of a special prosecutor has the Beltway press all aflutter. Why? Because it’s that thing they do:The art of the hissy fit lies in your ability to bring the entire media over to the fainting couch over even the most absurd allegations of impropriety and insensitivity.

Today, it’s another inane installment of the continuing saga of the GOP’s longest-running program wherein the buck stops anywhere but here. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the overwrought and not-so-dulcet tones of Kit Bond and friends, in Accountability For Thee, But Not For Me…