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Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the House Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill on April 18, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Original post is Holder vs. Wolf: Furlough-Free, not Fight-Free by Political Capital.

Photograph by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Attorney General Eric Holder in Washington, DC.

Attorney General Eric Holder looks like he’s ready to follow President Barack Obama’s lead on sequestration.

Holder, in an interview today on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, said the president did the right thing when he announced yesterday that he would return 5 percent of his salary to the U.S. Treasury in a show of solidarity with furloughed government workers.

If furloughs occur “in the Justice Department that is certainly something that I will consider,” Holder said when asked if he would follow Obama’s lead. “But we’re working to try to make sure that our workforce does not have to be furloughed.”

If Holder does have to furlough employees, he will deduct from his pay the maximum number of days any employee may be furloughed, which would likely be 14, according to a Justice Department official.

In a memo to department employees last week, Holder said he would put off any furlough decisions until mid-April as the department works through the final funding levels established by Congress.

“I fully understand you may be anxious about the possibility of furloughs in your component; however, the Department needs more time to determine if we can avoid furloughs this fiscal year,” Holder said in the March 28 memo to the department’s employees.

Original post is Holder Willing to Hold Pay, if Needed by Political Capital.

Attorney General Eric Holder did just that today, using the 50th anniversary of Gideon Vs. Wainwright, the 1963 Supreme Court ruling that state courts are required to provide attorneys for defendants who cannot afford them in criminal cases, as a way to underline the devastation of the budget cuts that went into effect on March 1.

“Put simply, this department cannot afford to lose such a significant portion of its budget – particularly in a time of uncommon challenges, when many legal assistance organizations are facing shortfalls, and state and local officials have been asked to do more with less,” Holder said.

Holder’s remarks came as a rare panel of top officials — the attorney general, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and former Vice President Walter Mondale — gathered in front of a standing-room only crowd in the Justice Department’s Great Hall to commemorate the ruling.

Sitting three floors above the event was the original handwritten letter that Clarence Earl Gideon, in pencil and on Florida prison stationery, personally mailed to the Supreme Court challenging his conviction for robbery — a guilty charge that came after Gideon was forced to defend himself because he lacked the money to hire a lawyer.

The event included a preview of a documentary about the case that premieres March 18, a film that prominently features Mondale, who as the young attorney general of Minnesota helped lead a group of his counterparts in other states in supporting Gideon in an amicus brief. The film is narrated by actor Martin Sheen.

All three participants said the case marked the beginning, not the end, of the ongoing fight to secure adequate legal services for the poor in the U.S. Each pressed for lawyers on both sides of the table — prosecutors and defenders — to donate time and money to increase access to legal counsel.

“We must never stop fighting to realize the principle that we have come to know by his name – by guaranteeing that every person in this country can access quality legal representation any time they come before the criminal justice system,” Holder said.

Original post is Landmark Ruling: Venue for Budget Talk by Political Capital.

Photograph by Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

A tour guide leads tourists in front of the White House.

With the decision to halt White House tours in the wake of the across-the-board budget cuts drawing criticism from all sides, one Republican senator is eyeing a solution to the problem.

Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, has proposed taking $2.5 million from the Transportation Security Administration to provide the Secret Service with the funds to resume the tours, which are a popular stop for tourists visiting the U.S. capital during school spring breaks.

Moran will try to attach the amendment, which would take money from the TSA’s “civil aviation security services,” to the government funding bill currently being considered in the Senate. The lawmaker is specifically seeking to take funds that finance the agency’s uniform allowance for its employees and shift it to the Secret Service.

His effort comes as the White House faces continuing questions over the decision to cut off the tours, which are staffed by the Secret Service.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters today the decision was made by the Secret Service as the agency sought to comply with budget cuts. The White House then cancelled the tours.

President Barack Obama said yesterday in an interview with ABC News that he has asked the Secret Service to consider ways to provide limited tours to school groups. While Carney said that option is being reviewed, a broad resolution to the issue appears unlikely in the near future.

Carney told reporters today that reopening the tours to all is “not an option because of the sequester cuts.”

Original post is White House Tours: Senator’s Solution, Raid TSA Uniform Fund by Political Capital.

Photography by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Michael Martinez, airframe and power plant mechanic with General Atomics
Aeronautical Systems Inc., inspects an MQ-9 Reaper during a pre-flight check at
Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada. Photography by Ethan Miller / Getty Images

The targeted killing program that has become a staple of U.S. action abroad has never crossed inside U.S. borders, according to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Could there conceivably be a time where drones are ordered to attack U.S. citizens inside the country? Well, maybe, Holder told Sen. Rand Paul in a March 4 letter.

Holder, in a response to queries from the Kentucky Republican, said the question of whether the president could order drone strikes against an American citizen inside the U.S. is “entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur and one we hope no president will ever have to confront.”

Still, Holder would not rule out that it could happen in the future.

“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder said, citing the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington.

That response was enough to unsettle Paul, a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

“The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront to the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,” Paul said today in a statement.

Original post is Holder: U.S. Drone Strikes Possible by Political Capital.

Photograph by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Attorney General Eric Holder during a news conference at the Justice Department in this file photo.

Attorney General Eric Holder has a message for the Republicans and Democrats who voted to hold him in contempt in 2012: You get no respect.

Holder, who has never made a secret of his displeasure with the 255 lawmakers who made him the first Cabinet member ever held in contempt by a chamber of Congress, said this week that the event actually didn’t faze him.

“I have to tell you that for me to really be affected by what happened, I’d have to have respect for the people who voted in that way,” Holder said in an interview with ABC News. “And I didn’t, so it didn’t have that huge an impact on me.”

It didn’t take long for some on Capitol Hill to take offense to the broadside.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who led the investigation into the botched federal gun probe known as “Fast and Furious”  that got Holder into hot water, said the attorney general is among the “highly partisan figures” in Washington “who are arrogantly dismissive of those who question them and demand transparency.”

“Attorney General Holder’s admission that he does not respect the Democratic and Republican Members of Congress who voted to hold him in contempt offers a window into why Washington is so dysfunctional,” Issa, whose committee has sued Holder for access to documents related to Fast and Furious, said in a statement.

Holder, who was cleared of any involvement in the bungled gun operation, probably could have timed his comments a little better. He testifies on Capitol Hill next week.

Original post is Holder to Congress: No Respect by Political Capital.

Photograph by Matt Nager/Bloomberg

Law enforcement capture marijuana being smuggled into the United States from Mexico in Tucson, Arizona, in this file photo.

This is the art, in Washington, of cutting an agency that doesn’t exist:

In all the warnings of the consequences of looming budget cuts, the White House budget office  has noted one program targeted for cuts — an office that already is history.

The Office of Management and Budget, in a September 2012 report to Congress required by law, laid out “an estimate of the funding reductions that would be required across non-exempt accounts.” Included was an estimated 8.2 percent reduction to the $20 million budget of the National Drug Intelligence Center, a Justice Department agency based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

The NDIC was created to provide strategic drug-related intelligence and training assistance “in order to reduce the adverse effects of drug trafficking, drug abuse, and other drug-related criminal activity,” according to an archived Justice Department Web-site — archived because Justice shuttered the drug intelligence center in June 2012.

The magazine “Reason” first reported the closed agency’s inclusion in the report.

And there’s a reason, of course:

As required by law, an administration official says, the Sequestration Transparency Act report assumes that discretionary appropriations are funded at the level that would be provided under a continuing resolution (CR) at the same rate of operations as in fiscal year 2012. The president’s 2013 fiscal year budget did not request funding for the National Drug Intelligence Center, however, since the STA report assumes the government is operating under a CR, the STA report included the Center in its calculations.

Consider that $20 million already saved.

Original post is White House Budget-Cutting Lesson: Try Cutting 8.2 Percent from Zero by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Eric Holder, U.S. attorney general, listens to a question during a news conference in Washington on Feb. 5, 2013.

A top aide to Attorney Eric Holder will depart next month to join the public relations firm co-founded by one of President Barack Obama’s closest advisors, political strategist David Axelrod.

Tracy Schmaler, head of the Justice Department’s public affairs operation, will leave on March 8 and join ASGK Public Strategies as a managing director. Working out of Washington, she will oversee the firm’s new group focusing on crisis communications, litigation and congressional probes.

Schmaler departs as one of Holder’s longest serving advisers, with four years at his side crafting messaging and strategy during a period that saw the department confront the BP oil spill, negotiate a $25 billion  settlement with the five largest U.S. mortgage servicers over abusive practices, and engage in the ongoing fight with congressional Republicans overthe bungled federal gun operation known as Fast and Furious.

“While I am sad to lose one of my closest and most trusted advisors, I am grateful to Tracy for her wise counsel, loyalty, good humor and unwavering support of me and the Justice Department,” Holder said today in a statement.

Schmaler became a popular target for Republicans and conservative media outlets during her defense of the department’s role in the gun operation. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation resulted in the loss of more than 2,000 guns across the Mexican border, one of which was found at the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Holder, who was found to have no involvement in the operation’s failures by the department’s inspector general, was cited by the U.S. House for contempt in June 2011 for refusing to provide documents related to the operation.

Schmaler came to her Justice position after two years running Yahoo Inc.’s global public affairs office in Washington. She also is a former reporter for the Vermont Press Bureau and served as an aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Original post is Top Holder Aide to Leave Justice for Axelrod Firm by Political Capital.

Photograph by George Burns/Oprah Winfrey Network via Getty Images

Oprah Winfrey speaks with Lance Armstrong during an interview regarding the controversy surrounding his cycling career on Jan. 14, 2013 in Austin, Texas.

After weeks of public lashings and millions in lost sponsorship deals, Lance Armstrong finally received a shred of good news today.

While Armstrong’s primetime television doping confession may have changed how people feel about the cancer-surviving former cycling champion, one person’s view remained unchanged: Andre Birotte Jr., the U.S. attorney who led the criminal probe into the cyclist.

Birotte, at an unrelated press conference at the Justice Department today in Washington, D.C., said he was “well aware” of Armstrong’s decision last month to come clean about years of doping. Still, the Los Angeles-based U.S. attorney told reporters today, his February 2012 decision not to pursue charges against the cancer survivor and former seven-time Tour de France champion stands.

“Obviously we’ll continue to look at the situation, but it hasn’t changed our view as we stand here today,” Birotte said.

That should serve as at least one piece of good news for Armstrong, who told cable television’s Oprah Winfrey during his two-night prime-time confession that he lived “this mythic, perfect story and it wasn’t true.”

Armstrong told the former day-time talk show host that he has lost millions of dollars in endorsement deals after he was banned in October from competing in Olympic-level sports after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency published a 1,000-page report that it had found proof he engaged in serial cheating.

Armstrong’s trouble with the federal authorities may not be over, however. Floyd Landis, a former teammate, filed a whistle-blower lawsuit on behalf of the U.S. government claiming Armstrong violated a sponsorship deal with the Postal Service by doping. The Justice Department maintains the option of joining that suit.

Original post is Armstrong’s Confessions Stir No Interest from Federal Prosecutor by Political Capital.

Photograph by ISAF via Getty Images

Gen. Davis Petraeus with biographer Paula Broadwell, co-author of 'All In: The Education of General David Petraeus' on July 13, 2011.

Paula Broadwell, the biographer and mistress of former CIA Director David Petraeus, will not face charges for cyber-stalking, according to federal prosecutors.

In a Dec. 14 letter to Broadwell’s lawyer, U.S. Attorney Robert O’Neill advised the West Point graduate that “no federal charges will be brought in the Middle District of Florida relating to alleged acts of cyber stalking.”

The federal investigation that led to Petraeus’s admission of an affair and resignationl was sparked by harassing e-mails received by Jill Kelley, a Florida woman who associated with the retired four-star general. Those e-mails, an FBI investigation discovered, came from accounts associated with Broadwell, according to law enforcement officials. The investigation also uncovered the relationship between Petraeus and Broadwell, which both admitted to during FBI interviews and Petraeus acknowledged in his resignation letter to CIA employees.

“We are pleased with the decision, and are pleased with the professionalism of the Tampa United States Attorney’s Office, particularly Assistant United States Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow,” Robert Muse, Broadwell’s lawyer, said in a statement.

The letter does not address whether officials are still looking into Broadwell’s possession of classified documents, a large number of which were discovered by the FBI when agents searched her computers, according to the law enforcement officials.

Broadwell told the FBI in interviews that the classified information did not come from Petraeus, the official said.

Last month, Petraeus, 60, resigned and admitted in a statement to having an affair. During his career, he rose to the rank of four-star general and led the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring to become head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Broadwell, 40, graduated with academic, fitness and leadership honors from West Point, according to the Penguin Speakers Bureau. During more than 15 years of military service, she has served with the U.S. intelligence community, Special Operations Command and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces, according to the speakers bureau.

Original post is Broadwell: No Cyber-Stalking Charge by Political Capital.