by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick

ETHICS

Chris Christie's Cronyism

In September, New Jersey's U.S. attorney, Christopher Christie, announced that the nation's largest manufacturers of hip and knee implants agreed to pay $311 million to settle allegations that they secretly paid kickbacks to surgeons. At the time, Christie touted the case as "groundbreaking" for consumers. Yet the deal also "proved to be lucrative for Christie's old boss," former attorney general John Ashcroft, whose firm received a $52 million no-bid contract to monitor one of the corporations in the settlement. This apparent favoritism is part of a pattern by Christie, who has directed similar contracts to other former Bush administration colleagues. The Justice Department has now opened up an investigation into U.S. attorneys' "procedures for selecting outside monitors to police settlements with large companies," which have gone largely unmonitored. Congressional leaders in both the House and the Senate have also suggested that they will soon be holding hearings on the subject.

POLITICAL FAVORITISM: Last fall, Christie awarded Ashcroft's firm a private, no-bid 18-month contract worth $28 to $52 million to monitor Zimmer Holdings of Indiana, one of the corporations in the settlement. According to SEC filings, the arrangement calls for Zimmer to directly "pay Ashcroft Group Consulting Services an average monthly fee between $1.5 million and $2.9 million. The figure includes a flat payment of $750,000 to the firm's 'senior leadership group,' individual legal and consulting services billed at up to $895 an hour, and as much as $250,000 a month for expenses including private airfare, lodging and meals." Zimmer has confirmed that "Christie had directed it to hire Mr. Ashcroft," who had tapped Christie to serve on his advisory panel in 2004. Christie has insisted that Ashcroft was the best pick to monitor Zimmer because he "understands organization structure and how to get things done." Yet Ashcroft's group isn't even a law firm. A spokesman for Ashcroft also confirmed that the group never lobbied for the contract, but "was pleased by the referral." While Ashcroft's deal with Christie appears to be the most lucrative, three other former Justice Department colleagues received similar contracts from Christie to monitor medical-supply companies.

LARGER SYSTEM SET UP BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Christie's contract to Ashcroft may be receiving the most public attention, but he is taking advantage of a larger system set up by the Bush administration. Under this President, "federal prosecutors have increasingly relied on out-of-court settlements with large corporations in criminal investigations that in the past might have resulted in indictments and trials." According to a recent study, "the number of so-called deferred-prosecution or nonprosecution agreements between the [Justice] department and large companies grew to 35 last year from 5 in 2003." These federal prosecutors, therefore, are allowed to award contracts to company monitors with the compensation agreements "almost always [kept] secret." Justice Department officials have confirmed that Christie was actually not legally obligated to seek approval before hiring Ashcroft because "there were few internal guidelines for hiring independent monitors."

INVESTIGATIONS LOOMING: The Justice Department has opened an investigation into how federal prosecutors appoint independent monitors, although it insists that the review was not prompted by the Christie-Ashcroft deal. While the Ashcroft contract was legal, aides to Attorney General Michael Mukasey have noted that they are "concerned about the appearance of favoritism." Lawmakers have written to the Justice Department objecting to the Ashcroft deal, pointing to it as "new evidence of political favoritism in the Bush administration." In November, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) wrote to Christie, pointing out that these deals invite "the very sort of favoritism, political interference, and back room dealing that your office has been so successful in combating throughout New Jersey." Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) said that he is pushing for legislation "that will provide the necessary oversight" over contracts for federal monitors. Both the House and Senate Judiciary Committee chairmen, John Conyers (D-MI) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), have also pressed the Justice Department for details on the contract awarded to Ashcroft and other outside lawyers since 2001. Conyers expressed concern that many of the monitoring contracts "have been completely shielded from review by either the legislative or judicial branches of the government." The two committees plan to hold hearings on the issues in the coming weeks.

HUMAN RIGHTS -- McCONNELL ADMITS WATERBOARDING WOULD BE TORTURE IF DONE TO HIM: In an interview with the New Yorker, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell admitted that the practice of waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him. "If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful!" said McConnell. "Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture." He added that there should be a "pretty simple" legal test for torture: "Is it excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain?" A CIA spokesman, however, was quick to point out that "DNI McConnell is quoted as saying the United States does not torture." Last month, Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Williams, a JAG officer with the U.S. Naval Reserve, resigned his commission after Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann refused to say whether he would consider it to be torture if Iranians waterboarded American soldiers. "Thank you, General Hartmann, for finally admitting the United States is part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition," Williams wrote, explaining his resignation. IRAN -- BUSH DISOWNS U.S. INTEL, TELLS ISRAELIS IRAN NIE DOESN'T REFLECT HIS OWN VIEWS: After the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran was released, Israel publicly challenged the U.S. intelligence community's consensus that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program. "In our opinion," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, Iran "has apparently continued that program." Just days after the NIE was released, President Bush quickly announced he would make the first visit to Israel of his presidency to mend differences over Iran. In private meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week, Newsweek reports that Bush disowned the U.S. intelligence community's judgments, saying "that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views." Bush had reportedly briefed Olmert about the Iran NIE days before it was publicly released in late November. According to the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, "The Israelis were very upset about the report. They think we're naive, they don't think we get it right. And so they have a different point of view." But after his private meetings with Bush this week, Olmert -- asked whether he felt reassured about the U.S. stance toward Iran -- replied, "I am very happy." IRAQ -- SNOW CLAIMS 'EVERYONE GETS IT WRONG AT THE BEGINNING OF A WAR: On Friday, former White House spokesperson Tony Snow was interviewed on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Maher discussed how woefully unprepared the Bush administration was for post-invasion Iraq. "People paid in blood for him to learn" that more troops were needed for post-Saddam Iraq, Maher said to applause and cheers from the audience. "Even if this did work," he added, referring to the surge. But Snow tried to shrug off Maher's statements, declaring that "everybody gets it wrong at the beginning of war." Snow added, "I think it's impossible for anybody to get their arms around the whole thing. Anybody." "Including the administration?" asked entrepreneur Mark Cuban. "Including you, me, yeah," said Snow. Snow seems to believe that no one could have predicted that fallout from the invasion, an attempt to exonerate the administration's rosy view of post-invasion Iraq. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi responded, "I didn't get it wrong. We shouldn't have gone." Not everyone got it wrong -- just everyone in the Bush administration did.

Officials in Vice President Cheney's office saw the Iran National Intelligence Estimate "as a death blow to their Iran policy," reports the Wall Street Journal. The report's authors "knew how to pull the rug out from under us," said a "long-time aide to the vice president, referring to the way the key judgments were presented." "In a closed door hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Congress plans to ask why the CIA destroyed tapes showing interrogations of suspected al-Qaeda operatives. Was it a cover-up?" 75 percent: Americans who think the country is off on the wrong track, matching the highest number ever recorded in the CBS News/New York Times poll. "Strong evidence is emerging that consumer spending, a bulwark against recession over the last year even as energy prices surged and the housing market sputtered, has begun to slow sharply at every level of the American economy, from the working class to the wealthy." Soon "after it returns tomorrow, the House is likely to take up contempt of Congress resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for their refusal to appear before Congress for questioning about the 2006 removal of nine U.S. attorneys, Democratic leadership aides said."  The de-Baathification law passed by Iraq's parliament on Saturday is "riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets back in, particularly in the crucial security ministries." MSNBC uninvites Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). After initially inviting Kucinich to take part in its debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday, MSNBC announced that it had changed its criteria and told Kucinich he was not allowed to attend. "Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming." The report came just days after the head of the IPCC "said the group's next report should look at the 'frightening' possibility that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could melt rapidly at the same time." And finally: A survey conducted by pollster Frank Luntz exclusively for Playboy magazine found that Republicans and Democratic voters have more in common than they realize. Among its key finds, the poll reported that "a quarter of Dems and GOPers say they’d have a 'one night stand' with the president, in the White House."

The United Service Organizations, which "aims to help boost the morale of U.S. troops abroad through donations and volunteers," has seen an estimated 50 percent increase in donations since 2007.

OHIO: Cleveland sues 21 of the nation's largest financial institutions, accusing them of "flooding the local housing market with subprime mortgage loans."

MARYLAND: Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) "is drawing up plans to issue separate driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants and legal residents."

MASSACHUSETTS: "Domestic violence shelters across the state are becoming overwhelmed and are increasingly turning victims away."

THINK PROGRESS: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): I am the "godfather of green."

MEDIA MATTERS: Does MSNBC's Chris Matthews have a problem with women?

OPEN CONGRESS: Open Congress launches "My Open Congress," which allows users to be their "own best watchdog."

INFORMED COMMENT: New Iraqi de-Baathification law worries ex-Baathists.

"He told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the National Intelligence Estimate's] conclusions don't reflect his own views" about Iran's nuclear-weapons program.
-- Senior administration official, 1/08

VERSUS

Q: So is it safe, then, to draw from that that the president is fully confident in the information contained in the NIE?
PERINO: The president accepted the results of the NIE.
-- White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, 12/13/08