Think Progress

JUSTICE -- FORMER TOP GUANTANAMO ATTORNEY CLAIMS TRIALS MAY BE RIGGED: In October 2007, Col. Morris Davis resigned as chief prosecutor for Guantanamo Bay's military commissions upon concluding that "full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system." He quit just hours after he learned he was to be placed under the command of President Bush's appointee and torture advocate William J. Haynes. Following military prosecutors' decision earlier this month to seek the death penalty for six Guantanamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the 9/11 attacks, Davis gave an interview to The Nation in which he said does not believe "the men at Guantanamo could receive a fair trial." Davis claims that in August 2005, he mentioned to Haynes that "at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings." According to Davis, Haynes replied, "Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? ... We've got to have convictions." Clive Stafford Smith, a defense attorney who has represented more than 70 Guantanamo detainees, noted that three prosecutors requested to be transferred out of the Office of Military Commissions in 2004 after being "told by the chief prosecutor at the time that they didn't need evidence to get convictions."

ADMINISTRATION -- CHRISTIE, ASHCROFT REFUSE TO TESTIFY ON NO-BID CONTRACT: Last fall, New Jersey U.S. attorney Christopher Christie awarded former attorney general John Ashcroft, his one-time boss, a lucrative no-bid contract "to monitor a large corporation willing to settle criminal charges out of court." In  December, the Justice Department's discovery of the contract given to Ashcroft's consulting firm, The Ashcroft Group, "prompted an internal inquiry into the department's procedures for selecting outside monitors to police settlements with large companies." Christie -- once a top fundraiser for President Bush -- and Ashcroft were supposed to appear before a House Judiciary subcommittee next week to testify about the deal. The hearing, however, has been postponed until next month. Christie has said he would testify only if asked by the Bush administration, but "Justice Department spokesman Paul Bresson did not say whether his department had asked Christie to testify, or whether they were refusing to do so." The committee has also "still not heard back from the Justice Department regarding its request for Christie to testify." Marcy Wheeler at the site Emptywheel noted that "it sure does look like they're trying to avoid Congressional scrutiny" of their cronyism.

ECONOMY -- UNDER PUBLIC PRESSURE, BUSH ADMINISTRATION AGREES TO KEEP OPEN ECONOMIC DATA SITE: Last week, The Progress Report noted that the Bush administration has taken another step in hiding data from the public by announcing plans to shut down EconomicIndicators.gov because of "budgetary constraints." The award-winning site compiles economic data for the public to easily access. Yesterday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, urging him to keep the site open. Schumer stressed how valuable the site is because the public can receive free real-time e-mails about economic information from various government agencies. "I find it hard to believe that shutting down this important information portal will result in any significant savings to the Department," he wrote. Yet facing intense public pressure and "feedback," the Bush administration has now agreed to keep open the site. "The new system, which will remain free of charge, will email an abstract and link so that users can access the full release on the source website," reads a message on the site. "We believe the cost of rewriting the system will, in the long-run, be less than continuing to run the existing system."

In a letter to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) this week, Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason says the presidential candidate "can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign."

 Federal agents are investigating whether former Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) "knowingly played a role in an alleged conspiracy in 2006 to influence a Mississippi judge presiding over a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against” his brother-in-law, "famed plaintiff attorney Richard 'Dickie' Scruggs." In November 2007, Scruggs was indicted for bribing the judge.

Despite recent interest rate cuts, "the Federal Reserve on Wednesday lowered its projection for economic growth this year, citing damage from the double blows of a housing slump and credit crunch. ... It said it also expects higher unemployment and inflation."

In a statement to Parliament, British foreign secretary David Miliband "has admitted two US 'extraordinary rendition' flights landed on UK territory in 2002." Miliband said he was "very sorry" for previous denials from top British officials, who said in 2005, 2006 and 2007 that "there was no evidence that rendition flights had stopped on UK territory."

An Urban Institute study found that "the average number of Americans who lost their insurance each year increased faster during the economic recovery of 2004-2006 than the recession years of 2000-2004." The study concludes that this spike resulted because the number of Americans receiving coverage from their jobs declined, while wage increases failed to match growing insurance premiums. 

A new study concludes that the "supposed 'global cooling' consensus among scientists in the 1970s -- frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds -- is a myth." An examination of  "dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979" found that "only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming."

"The Army has shut down public access to the largest online collection of its doctrinal publications," a site "popular with researchers for its wealth of field and technical manuals and documents on military operations, education, training and technology." Open government advocates call it "unnecessary secrecy by a runaway bureaucracy."

The Pentagon's disbursement of "roughly $1 billion a year for the past six years" to Pakistan is facing allegations of "disputed expenses and suspicions about overbilling." Congress has asked the Bush administration "to provide receipts for every Pakistani expense over $1 million," but has not yet received a response.

And finally: It's no secret that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) enjoys golfing. Harper's, however, reports that in 2007, Boehner "used money from his political funds to pay for food or lodging at least 16 resorts or country clubs. His combined spending between 2005 and 2007 at the Wetherington Golf & Country Club alone came to nearly $60,000," roughly "equivalent to the median family income (for a three-person family) in Boehner's home state of Ohio."