And you thought no one resigned this week!

The New York Times reported today that Ann Barrett, the State Department official in charge of passport services has tendered her resignation. The announcement comes two weeks after the flap that ensued over snooping into the files of presidential candidates and other prominent Americans came to light. On Monday morning, she will be replaced by Lawrence Baer, a senior management official. She will remain at State, but will be transfered to the consular affairs bureau.

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Mukasey won't enforce Contempt Citations

Here is your Friday News Dump™. And boy howdy, is it the sort of thing a failed administration would really try to release after the east coast network news broadcasts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday rejected referring the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury. Mukasey says they committed no crime.

Mukasey said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers were right in refusing to provide Congress White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.

"The department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers," Mukasey wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The House voted two weeks ago to cite Bolten and Mukasey for contempt of Congress and seek a grand jury investigation. Most Republicans boycotted the vote.

Speaker Pelosi requested a grand jury investigation yesterday (Thursday) and gave Mukasey a week to reply. He wasted no time in responding, because he only had one crack at the news dump. Had he responded on Thursday of next week, it would have been THE STORY all day Friday and going into the weekend.

Pelosi is pissed, and apparently prepared to make good on her threat to file a federal civil suit if the attorney general dug in his heels and refused to act as the attorney the people of this country instead of the president.

Mukasey, taking a very Nixonian position, has maintained that Miers and Bolton were right to refuse to appear because Bush told them not to. And acting on the orders of the president means they committed no crime. Like I said - Nixonian, like when he said to David Frost "[W]hen the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

Folks, this is exactly why we need to ITMFA right now. Because if aWol is not impeached, he can pardon the whole lot of them, putting them out of reach of a future Justice Department. But a president under impeachment can't pardon a thanksgiving turkey.

And this prompted a rejoinder from Pale Rider: Say we're sitting here a year from now--and Attorney General John Edwards has just refused to investigate whether some Presidential aides to President Obama have to appear before Congress because some Republican Congressman thinks they might have something to say about why all of the deleted E-Mails suddenly appeared after a few very talented people were able to retrieve them from some tape backups that were found under Bradley Schlozman's cookie cabinet in his old office. How shrill do you think these hypocritical bastards are going to be? And how loud are we going to be laughing at them for being so shrill?

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Now THIS is what I call a "News Dump"

Blackwater USA has even more trouble heading down the pike toward them. While the Iraqis are on their case because they fired indiscriminately into a crowd of Iraqis and left 20 dead.

Back home, federal prosecutors are investigating the company for illegally smuggling weapons into Iraq. Weapons that might have been sold on the black market and ended up in the possession of at least one group that the United States designates as a terrorist organization.

The U.S. Attorney in Raleigh, NC is investigating the allegations, with the help of the Pentagon and auditors from the State Department, and they have determined that there is enough evidence to move forward.

The official that spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity could not say whether indictments would be forthcoming, how many Blackwater employees might be involved, or whether the company itself might be implicated.

The allegations of malfeasance come at a time when the no-bid contracts the company has secured since 2003 invasion of Iraq are being scrutinized.

Neither George Holding, the US attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, nor the spokesperson for Blackwater returned calls to the AP on Friday, and officials from both State and the Pentagon declined comment.

Due to the sensitivity of the matter, officials with knowledge of the case would only confirm that the investigation is currently active but in an initial phase.

The investigation is fueled by the willingness of two Blackwater mercenaries to cooperate with federal investigators after pleading guilty in early 2007 to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped via interstate or international commerce to cooperate with federal investigators. They agreed to testify in further proceedings as a part of their plea agreements.

According to officials in Washington, the investigation grew from internal Pentagon and State Department inquiries into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq.

It gained steam after Turkish authorities protested to the U.S. in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels.

The Turks provided serial numbers of the weapons to U.S. investigators, said a Turkish official.

The Pentagon said in late July it was looking into the Turkish complaints and a U.S. official said FBI agents had traveled to Turkey in recent months to look into cases of missing U.S. weapons in Iraq.

Investigators are determining whether the alleged Blackwater weapons match those taken from the PKK.

It was not clear if Blackwater employees suspected of selling to the black market knew the weapons they allegedly sold to middlemen might wind up with the PKK. If they did, possible charges against them could be more serious than theft or illegal weapons sales, officials said.

Who could have imagined that hiring a mercenary outfit might blow up in their faces? People who have a profit motive for sustained conflict would never think about arming enemies or insurgents. They would never put corporate profit over the good of the nation. Yes, indeed. Who could have possibly imagined...

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