Political MoJo

President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has requested and accepted the resignation of acting Internal Revenue Service commissioner Steven Miller in response to news that the agency singled out some conservative organizations for extra scrutiny.

Beginning in March 2010, the IRS targeted groups with words like "tea party" and "patriot" in their names when applying tax laws relating to political activity. There's no evidence other groups got the same level of scrutiny, although according to a investigation by the Treasury Department's inspector general, that was due more to murky campaign finance laws than ideological discrimination.

"I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has in all of our lives," said Obama, who took heat this week over the IRS affair as well as his administration's handling of the Benghazi attack and the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' phone records.

Miller wasn't at the IRS when the Tea Party targeting happened—Bush appointee Doug Shulman was in charge then. But according to the IRS, Miller failed to alert the Obama administration to the problem when he learn it in May 2012. Miller is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday.

Obama also announced that he had told Treasury Secretary Lew to implement recommendations in the inspector general's report, which doesn't mention Miller's name, and said he will work with Congress "as it performs its oversight role."

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Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.)

Rep. Louise Slaughter, the top Democrat on the powerful House rules committee, has a response to Republican efforts to water-down financial reform legislation: Tie it to political intelligence. On Tuesday, with the rules committee set to consider the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act, a GOP bill designed to stunt the Security and Exchange Commission's implementation of the Dodd–Frank financial reform law, Slaughter introduced an amendment that would prevent the law from going into effect unless Congress also passes a law requiring so-called political intelligence operatives to register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act and disclose their clients. Slaughter would also extend revolving-door statutes to government employees who join the private sector, mandating a cooling-off period of varying length before they can begin working as a political intelligence operative.

Political intelligence is a roughly $400-million-a-year industry which collects information on Congressional and regulatory wheeling and dealing, and passes it on to clients on Wall Street. Political intel operatives insist they come in peace, and that their work at its most basic level is a lot like that done by journalists—albeit for much smaller audiences. The counterpoint from disclosure advocates is this story from the Wall Street Journal, which describes how a hedge fund gained early access to a decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and triggered a spike in the stock prices of health insurers. The SEC launched an investigation into the case in April.

Slaughter first floated regulation of political intelligence in 2006, and nearly pushed it through last year before a fierce push-back from hedge fund lobbyists slammed the door. Her amendment isn't expected to pass, but it's a preview of what Slaughter and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are hoping to unveil in a few months, after the SEC finishes its probe.

Here's the amendment:

Update: Slaughter's amendment was blocked. Here's the relevant exchange:

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The Associated Press announced on Monday that federal agents had secretly seized two months of its phone records in what the organization called a "serious interference with the A.P.’s constitutional rights to gather and report news." Although much of the resulting furor has focused on the rights of a free press, the sweeping move by the Department of Justice also highlights the Obama administration's rough treatment of leakers and whistleblowers within its ranks.

The Obama administration has used the 1917 Espionage Act, which was originally designed to prosecute spies, to indict twice as many government officials for leaks than all other administrations combined. The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has assembled a list of the six current and former government officials that the Obama administration has indicted under the law:

1. Shamai K. Leibowitz, 2009

Leibowitz, a former-FBI Hebrew translator, pleaded guilty to leaking classified information to Richard Silverstein who blogs at Tikun Olam, reported AlterNet. The translator passed 200 pages of transcribed conversations recorded by FBI wiretaps of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Leibowitz was sentenced to up to 20 months in prison, according to The Washington Post.

2. Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, 2010

Kim was a nuclear proliferation expert working on a contract basis for the U.S. State Department when he was accused of leaking information about North Korea to Fox News.

The Justice Department claimed that Kim was the source behind Fox News journalist James Rosen’s 2009 report suggesting that the North would likely test another nuclear bomb in reaction to a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning its tests, reported AlterNet.

Kim pleaded not guilty to the charges. A Federal Grand Jury indicted him but the case has not gone to trial, according to The New York Times.

3. Thomas Drake, 2010

Drake worked as a senior executive at the National Security Agency when he was charged with “willful retention” of classified documents under the Espionage Act. He leaked information about government waste on digital data gathering technology to The Baltimore Sun, according to AlterNet.

At one point Drake faced up to 35 years in prison for several charges. Eventually, most of the charges were dropped and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for  “exceeding authorized use of a computer.” He was sentenced to one-year probation and community service.

4. Pfc. Bradley Manning, 2010

Probably the best known of the six under indictment, Manning was the source behind the WikiLeaks and CableGate information dumps. Critics accuse the government of dragging its feet and aggressively redacting requests for public information about the trial. One journalist opined that the Guantanamo military tribunals were more transparent.

Manning faces a court martial and a harsher sentence that could include life in prison without parole, reported The New York Times. AlterNet pointed out, however, that prosecutors would have to prove Manning released the documents with the intention of harming the U.S. to win those harsher charges, something Manning denies. His trial is set for next month, June 3.

5. Jeffery Sterling, 2010

Sterling, a former-CIA official, pleaded not guilty to leaking information to New York Times journalist James Risen regarding a failed U.S. attempt to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. The information in question was published in Risen’s book “State of War.”

Risen successfully fought several subpoenas from the federal government to reveal his sources during Sterling’s trial, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Justice Department announced in the summer of 2012 that it has “effectively terminated” the case, according to the Times.

6. John C. Kiriakou, 2012

One of the few prosecuted under the Espionage act to serve jail time, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Jan. 25, 2013, for leaking classified information to the media. Kiriakou pleaded not guilty to releasing the name of an undercover CIA agent to a reporter and information about the intelligence agency’s use of waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique.

Kiriakou is the first person successfully prosecuted under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in 27 years, according to the Times. The reporter the ex-CIA official spoke to did not publish the undercover agent’s name, although the Times pointed out that the agent’s identity appeared in a sealed legal filing and on an “obscure” website.

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In what may be the first move toward a federal shutdown of the wildly popular online currency known as Bitcoin, the Department of Homeland Security today issued an order that has restricted the transfer of funds in and out of Mt. Gox, the Bitcoin exchange that handles some 60 percent of the transactions.

A creation of bank-fearing techies, Bitcoins are now worth more than $1 billion, and consumer interest has been skyrocketing. For more background, read our Bitcoin explainer.

[Read more]

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