Former Justice Official Accused of Exchanging Favors With Abramoff
By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 22, 2008; A08

A federal prosecutor in Maryland has accused a Justice Department official who became the former deputy chief of staff of the criminal division of helping Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for a "stream of things of value," according to criminal papers filed yesterday.
Robert E. Coughlin II, who two years ago received a prestigious attorney general's award, provided "assistance to a lobbyist and the lobbyist's law/lobbying firm on particular matters before DOJ while" accepting gifts and favors and discussing a possible job offer, the federal court filing said.
The documents do not name the lobbyist or the firm, but The Washington Post reported last year that Coughlin resigned on April 6, 2007, and was under investigation by a federal task force looking into Abramoff's activities. At the time of Coughlin's allegedly improper activities, Abramoff worked for the lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig.
Several sources familiar with the matter said that Coughlin was lobbied by Abramoff colleague Kevin A. Ring, whose activities remain under investigation. One source, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said Ring lobbied Coughlin to get federal money from the Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, to build a jail for the Choctaw tribe, one of Abramoff's clients.
Both Coughlin and Ring worked as staffers in the 1990s to then-Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who became attorney general in 2001. During the period depicted in the court documents, Coughlin worked in the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs.
When Coughlin joined the criminal division in 2005, he was recused from the Abramoff inquiry because of a longtime personal friendship with Ring. Investigators came across Coughlin's name while trying to ascertain whether Ring improperly sought or received favors for lobbying clients from people in government, sources told The Post last year.
The gifts Coughlin received are not described, but Abramoff was found guilty in 2006 of giving public officials sports and entertainment tickets, meals at his downtown restaurant and other gratuities to get favors. Ring took Coughlin to sporting events with tickets provided by his lobbying firm, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.
Ring declined comment yesterday.
Abramoff, who has provided extensive assistance to prosecutors, is in federal prison in Maryland serving time for a Florida fraud conviction and is awaiting sentencing on separate charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion.
Coughlin was accused of a felony count of violating the federal conflict-of-interest statute. The offense, which allegedly occurred between March 2001 and October 2003, was outlined in a filing known as a criminal information, which prosecutors often use rather than an indictment when the defendant is cooperating with an ongoing investigation.
A plea hearing for Coughlin was scheduled for today. His attorney did not respond yesterday to a phone call and an e-mail requesting comment.
Coughlin is the second Justice Department official whose name has surfaced in the wide-ranging Abramoff investigation. Last year, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, deputy assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources, abruptly resigned when her boyfriend, whom she later married, was notified that he was a criminal target. J. Steven Griles, former deputy secretary of the Interior Department, later pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Abramoff.
The task force has tracked millions of dollars in meals, trips, tickets, gifts and campaign contributions that the Abramoff lobbying team lavished on lawmakers and staffers. The investigation has resulted in convictions and guilty pleas from lobbyists, staffers, two administration officials and a congressman.
Staff writer Carrie Johnson contributed to this report.

OSC Watch is focused on
exposing and stopping systemic and persistent
lawbreaking in US Office of Special Counsel
(OSC). OSC Watch contends that OSC, since at
least 1989, has fundamentally failed to comply
with its most important nondiscretionary duty to
enforce the civil service laws, rules, and
regulations under its (frequently sole)
jurisdiction. OSC Watch contends that OSC, in
investigating about 30,000 complaints since 1989
of violations of law, rule, or regulation under
its jurisdiction, has failed to investigate the
complaint, determine whether there is reasonable
cause to believe violations occurred, and, if so,
to report them to the involved agency head, per 5
U.S.C. 1214(e), and create a permanent, public
record of its report and the agency response, per 5 U.S.C. 1219.

OSC, contrary to the clear wording of the law,
its legislative history, and a final decision of
a federal court - all of which state that 5
U.S.C. 1214(e) applies to ANY law, rule, or
regulations, including those within OSC's
jurisdiction, still openly holds to its
self-nullifying interpretation of the law it is
charged to implement, that it does not apply to
laws, rules, or regulations under its jurisdiction.

OSC is the "immune system" of the Executive
Branch agencies - it has jurisdiction for the
laws, rules, and regulations that uphold the
merit principles of the federal civil service,
particularly to prevent agency retribution
against concerned federal employees. Because it
has nullified the law - 5. U.S.C. 1214(e) - that
is the heart of its obligations to do so, by its
untenable claim that it does not apply to the
laws, rules, and regulations under its
jurisdiction, OSC is a broken "immune
system." As a result, the merit principles of
the federal civil service are battered, much
corruption and dysfunction in many federal
workplaces has taken root and flourished, leading
to violations of laws, rules, and regulations not
under OSC's jurisdiction in those agencies, such
as the possible politically motivated prosecutions at Department of Justice.

OSC Watch has been in contact with Alabama Gov.
Siegelman, "Exhibit A" of possibly politically
motivated prosecutions by the Department of
Justice, and the House Judiciary Committee about
its concerns that OSC's lawbreaking, resulting
from its interpretation of 5 U.S.C. 1214(e), is a
significant part of the context in which the
abuses in the Department of Justice occurred.

The following recent press release of the House
Judiciary Committee is relevant to OSC Watch's
concerns that OSC's fundamental failure to
implement the law to enforce the laws under its
jurisdiction has contributed to corruption in the Department of Justice.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *******

U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary

For Immediate Release
Contact: Jonathan Godfrey
http://judiciary. house.gov/ newscenter. aspx?A=955

April 17, 2008
Melanie Roussell

(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary
Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and
Committee Members Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Artur
Davis (D-AL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) announced
three critical actions in the Committee's
investigation into allegations of selective or
poltiically- motivated prosecution in the Justice
Department. The Members today invited Karl Rove
to testify before the committee; urged the
Justice Department's Office of the Inspector
General and Office of Professional Responsibility
to investigate those allegations; and demanded
that Attorney General Michael Mukasey provide
additional documents on this subject.

Today's actions result from the Committee's
majority staff report, also released today, which
details the cases, interviews and documents they
have reviewed since the Committee began its investigation last year.

"There continue to be numerous complaints of
selective or politically motivated prosecution
since our investigation began last year," Conyers
said. "The actions we are taking today, including
calling Karl Rove to testify, are an effort to
get to the bottom of this matter."

Today's announcement stems from the Committee's
2007 oversight hearing on selective prosecution,
during which testimony was heard and documents
were entered into the record regarding cases from
Alabama, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Georgia, and
Pennsylvania. Since the hearing, majority
committee staff has continued its investigation
with interviews and document collection about
additional cases across the country.

"While this report is extensive and significant
progress has been made in our investigation, many
facts remain unknown," Conyers said. "The Justice
Department has simply not been forthcoming and I
feel the only way to move this investigation
forward is to seek further independent
investigation and testimony from Karl Rove, who
appears to be the missing link in a chain from
the White House to the Justice Department."

The letters and the majority staff report are
available at .

##110-JUD-041708# #

GSA administrator fires latest salvo in battle with agency inspector general
By Robert Brodsky rbrodsky@govexec.com April 18, 2008

Give General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan credit for this much -- she's not afraid of making new, and powerful, adversaries.

First, it was Brian Miller, GSA's inspector general, with whom she has feuded virtually since the day she took office. Then Doan drew the wrath of Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., when they alleged she improperly meddled in GSA contract negotiations.
The most recent object of Doan's ire is Kenneth Kaiser, chairman of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency's Integrity Committee, and assistant director of the FBI's criminal division. In her second letter to Kaiser in less than two months, Doan again railed at him over his January dismissal of several whistleblower allegations, calling Kaiser's explanation "absurd" and "particularly offensive to all of the people over the past several months that have demonstrated personal courage in bringing these allegations to your attention."
The committee, which is responsible for probing complaints against inspectors general, announced earlier this year that it had dismissed a number of serious whistleblower allegations filed by four attorneys in GSA's IG office against Miller and his top deputies. The investigation lasted less than six weeks. At that time, Doan wrote her first missive to Kaiser on the subject, saying the decision "confirms the suspicions of many that the PCIE is a hollow shell, that the PCIE exists only as a fig leaf to provide the illusion of oversight over IG misconduct, but, in fact, its real purpose is to whitewash any wrongdoing, avoid responsible action and ensure a blind eye to IG misconduct."
PCIE dismissed the complaints, because they did not fall within the purview of its oversight powers and referred them to an outside IG office. The FBI said the complaints have been reviewed by both PCIE and another inspector general, and the results have been sent to Clay Johnson, deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget, and Kaiser.
"Due to privacy issues, the PCIE cannot comment on the outcome, nor can we comment on Mr. Kaiser's letter to Administrator Doan," said Stephen Kodak Jr., a spokesman for Kaiser.
The dispute dates back to the fall of 2006, when a female employee in GSA's inspector general office filed a series of whistleblower complaints against Miller and Robert Samuels, his former top deputy. Shortly thereafter, Samuels assigned the employee to an eight-month nonreimbursable detail with the Housing and Urban Development Department. Samuels extended the detail several times. That action sparked a series of complaints and countercomplaints among attorneys in the IG counsel's office.
Miller and Samuels have denied the allegations against them. The IG's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment about Doan's letters.
Doan has attempted to link the whistleblower's complaints to her own long-running and very public feud with Miller, charging that they are fruit from the same poisonous tree.
The administrator has filed numerous complaints with PCIE against Miller, charging the IG with improper contracting, leaking documents to the media, falsifying records and issuing excessive bonuses to his staff. She also complained that Miller's tactics had caused three contractors -- Canon, EMC Corp. and Sun Microsystems -- to cancel their GSA schedule contracts.
Doan also appears to be seeking help in her battle with Miller from an unlikely source: Grassley.
She wrote to Grassley on March 24, briefing the senator about PCIE's complaints and urging cooperation. "We need to ensure a hostile workplace does not exist at GSA, which might prevent us from attracting and retaining qualified contracting officers. I am committed to this effort and to helping the four whistleblowers."
Grassley, a longtime supporter of whistleblower rights, has yet to respond to the letter, according to a spokeswoman.
Miller has investigated Doan for her role in a Sun Microsystems contract, her alleged attempt to give a sole-source contract to a friend and her participation in a politically motivated conference. Last year, the Office of Special Counsel found that Doan had violated the Hatch Act, a federal law restricting political activity by executive branch employees.
Doan has denied the allegations and said Miller is angry about spending cuts and increased oversight she proposed for the IG's office.

Uproar over tanker contract continues as lawmakers clash
By David Hess CongressDaily April 18, 2008

Threatening to derail the Air Force's selection of a foreign-designed air tanker to refuel military warplanes, a group of lawmakers led a Capitol Hill rally of American aerospace workers Thursday and pledged to shoot down the deal.
As the senators and representatives lined up at a news conference with Boeing Co. union leaders and engineers across the street from the Capitol, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., took the Senate floor to stoutly defend the Air Force's choice of a tanker that would be built by a consortium of Northrop Grumman Corp. and EADS, a European consortium whose Airbus airframe would serve as the tanker's skeleton.
While it remains unclear exactly how the huge contract for the 179 tankers could be repudiated, Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., whose district embraces thousands of Boeing workers, said the upcoming Defense appropriations process could provide the opportunity.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who led the protest, said the bipartisan opposition to the deal is weighing all of the options to short-circuit the Air Force's decision. One risky approach might be an attempt to abrogate any contracts between the Pentagon and Northrop Grumman-EADS -- an option that could send the dispute into U.S. courts and drag out the actual building of the plane by years.
Boeing is now seeking to overturn to contract through the formal protest it filed with GAO, which must issue a ruling by June 19.
At the rally, Murray and Dicks were joined by several other lawmakers whose states and districts could be harmed by Boeing's loss of the work. Others on hand to rail against the Air Force decision were Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Reps. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan.; Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and Dave Reichert, R-Wash.
The protestors accused the Air Force of stacking the deck against Boeing and, as Dicks complained, "doing tricky things" to justify the award to Northrop-EADS. "They bent over backward to make sure Boeing didn't get it," he fumed.
Opponents of the contract argued that U.S. security is undermined when contracts for American weapons systems and technology are granted to foreign companies, and contended that defense dollars should not be spent abroad. "We need to keep our taxpayers' dollars here at home to help our country's economy," Murray said.
The construction of the planes could cost up to $40 billion over a decade. Boeing workers have said the loss of the contract could end thousands of jobs in Washington, Kansas and other states.
As the protest of the contract continued, Wicker was on the Senate floor extolling its virtues. Northrop Grumman's proposal, he maintained, represented "a better product and better value for the taxpayer." He noted that assembly of the plane, from major parts manufactured in Europe, would take place in Alabama and parts for it would be made in 49 U.S. states, including along the Gulf Coast in his home state.
He took issue with Boeing's estimate of job losses, insisting that the Northrop Grumman tanker deal "will create 48,000 direct and indirect jobs across our country," and complained that opponents have spread misinformation about the economic impact of the project.

Case in Point – A Really BIG Revolving Door!

McCain seems to be delivering a promise of more of the same.

-GFS
----------------------------------------------------------------

Brokering Power In Business and Politics
Buyout Firm Founder Fred Malek's Career Spans Nixon to McCain
By Michael S. Rosenwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 21, 2008; D01
Three guys in suits came strolling down the hallway. Fred Malek, chairman and senior adviser of a District buyout group, waited for them in his corner office. One of the men was Scott Rued, a managing partner at Malek's firm. He was with an investment banker, who was representing the third man, an owner of a logistics company that Rued coveted.
The company's owner looked tense. Perhaps he should have been. He had started his firm in his living room, and now he was wrestling with giving it up to some men he barely knew. A few of months ago, Rued asked Malek to have breakfast with the owner to smooth the way for the man to attend the meeting that was about to happen: the initial negotiations to merge the company into one of Malek's.
Malek, by his admission, is not entirely warm and fuzzy, but he is likable and has a knack for winning people's trust. He could relax a mouse who was about to be eaten by a cat. In this case, he created a clubby, insider atmosphere, showing off photos from a lifetime of moving in and out of power. There's Malek with his former executive assistant, Gen. Colin Powell. There's Malek with his ex-boss, President Richard Nixon. There's Malek with former president Bush, after parachuting out a plane to celebrate Bush's 80th birthday. "Did Bush jump, too?" Rued asked. "Hell yeah," Malek said.
More small talk ensued. Then Rued and the banker went off to another room to start their talks, which was emblematic of a reality that Malek seems perfectly comfortable with these days: He is no longer the man making the deals. At 71, he is the elder statesman -- elder capitalist -- of Thayer Hidden Creek. Following the restructuring of the firm several years ago after some costly missteps, Malek has firmly stepped away from the day-to-day operations, functioning as an adviser, a listening post, an emissary of deals.
"He opens doors, and he knows which ones should be opened," said Norman Augustine, a former chief executive of Lockheed Martin who sits on Thayer's board.
In the weeks ahead, Malek will temporarily retreat further from Thayer. He is slipping back into the political world, where he was once, in Powell's words, Nixon's disciplinarian and later the campaign chairman for President George H.W. Bush. He has been drawn back by an affection for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), a fellow Vietnam War veteran with unpopular positions in the Republican party who Malek says reminds him of one of his favorite credos, which he learned at West Point: Have the courage to choose the harder right vs. the easier wrong.
Malek is a co-chairman of McCain's campaign finance committee, an unusual position for him because he previously has served in more strategic roles. But it's a job that fits Malek at this time in his life, in that he has come to know a lot of people with a lot of money. Asked why he thought Malek will be successful raising money, Bill Marriott, Malek's boss when he oversaw Marriott's hotels, said: "He has an amazing Rolodex. And when he calls people, they pick up the phone."
After all these years, and despite some embarrassing controversies and a disheartening end in his bid to buy the Washington Nationals, Malek remains one of Washington's ultimate insiders. The other night he had President Bush -- the one living in the White House -- over for a fundraising dinner at his palatial home overlooking the Potomac River in McLean, where he lives with his wife of 46 years, Marlene Malek. He is not a billionaire, but he has his own plane and a house in Aspen. He has certainly come a long way from growing up the son of a Chicago beer delivery man -- a Democrat, no less.
"My parents taught me to achieve," Malek said, sitting on the couch in his living room. "And I found the wonderful gratification that comes from achievement. The motivation to achieve and the fulfillment of achievement gives me great satisfaction." His philosophy on work brings to mind his other favorite credo, from Bill Marriott: Success is never final.
Malek, who is wiry, fit and always well put together, graduated from West Point in 1959 and later was an airborne Army Ranger in Vietnam, completing a tour deep in the jungles. (His buyout firm and his hotel company are named after Brig. Gen. Sylvanus Thayer, known as the father of West Point.) After Vietnam, Malek got his MBA from Harvard Business School and eventually found his way into the Nixon administration, where he was a special assistant to the president and then deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. One of Malek's key hires was Colin Powell.
"He had a reputation of -- I'll let you characterize it -- but within the bureaucracy he was the guy who the president looked to put discipline in the system," Powell said in an interview. "Fred was a disciplinarian. He was also seen as a political operative. That's a negative term nowadays. But it's a positive term. The president had an agenda and wanted to make sure it was being followed. OMB is the turnstile of government. Fred was very influential."
Malek was exceedingly loyal to Nixon. "I believed he was telling the truth until the very end," Malek said. And it was under Nixon that Malek made what he terms the biggest mistake of his life. At the president's order, he counted how many Jews worked in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Nixon was convinced that some Jewish employees of the agency weren't loyal.) Controversy surrounding his actions forced him to resign from Bush's campaign in 1988. Malek is remorseful about the episode and adamant that he is not an anti-Semite, just a guy who made a dumb mistake -- a very big dumb mistake. He sought counsel from -- and was later forgiven by -- some of the world's Jewish leaders, including Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League.
"He has been very remorseful ever since," Powell said. "But it did make it difficult for him to get back into government."
Malek's private sector positions and the number of deals he has made in business are almost too long to list. He worked for McKinsey & Co. He led a buyout of Northwest Airlines and CB Richard Ellis. His longest stint at any company was 14 years at Marriott International starting in the 1970s, where he rose to become president of the company's hotel division. At Marriott, he became close with a junior executive named Lee Pillsbury, and the two later became partners in Thayer Lodging Group, an Annapolis company that owns more than a dozen hotels. Malek is still active in its day-to-day operations.
Pillsbury said that during their time at Marriott, Malek "had the most discipline of anyone I had ever met. His time management was legendary. He walked in to the office at 5 minutes to 8 and left at 5 minutes after 5, and everything was done and finished on time the way it was supposed to be."
Nearly everyone who has worked with Malek said the precision of his actions are legendary and border on the bizarre. "When Fred tells you that he will go to the bathroom at 10, it's not going to be 9:59 or 10:01. There is nothing too trivial for Fred to keep his word on," Pillsbury said.
That reputation seemed to connect the owner of the logistics company to Malek. After Rued and the investment banker chatted privately, the group made its way to a conference room not far from Malek's office. They sat at a long, shiny wooden table. Rued, the investment banker and the company's owner took off their jackets and loosened their ties. Malek stayed buttoned up, jacket on.
Rued made a presentation about how he saw the man's firm fitting into theirs. But the owner had questions. He had lots of questions. And he seemed hesitant, particularly about giving up total control. Malek said he understood how he felt: "It's like jumping out of an airplane." At one point, the man looked at Malek and said, "I want to do this with you." Malek asked what he meant. The man said he wanted to go around the country and make nice-nice with potential customers with Malek at his side. "I want you to be you, to do your thing" the man said. Again, he repeated, "I want to do this with you."
Malek said yes, he would help the owner build relationships with customers. "I do what I say I'm going to do," Malek added. "That's why I've been around so long."