Item: Former Attorney General John Ashcroft got a "sweetheart deal" from US District Attorney for New Jersey. He was awarded a $50 million dollar no-bid contract to monitor a corporate law settlement. Before the House judiciary subcommittee, he defended the award from his former employee as not even constituting an appearance of conflict of interest. An Indiana medical supply company hired Ashcroft at the direction of the US Attorney as part of an out of court settlement of a criminal investigation.Item: The Senate appropriations committee got testimony from the GAO comptroller that significant amounts of money spent in Iraq is being diverted to Sunni and Shite militias. Meanwhile Iraq is running a budget surplus from record oil prices while US taxpayers have spent $45 billion to "reconstruct" the country.
Item: Political appointees at HUD discussed by e mail ways to retaliate against Philadelphia Housing Authority director Carl Greene after he refused to transfer a piece of vacant city property worth $2 million to a business friend of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. Greene alleges in a court affidavit that two officials at HUD made repeated threats during an 11 month period to find the city in violation of it's federal grant for redevelopment if it did not hand over the land. The city alleges that HUD's "capricious" finding of violation will cost the authority $50 million, causing it to raise rents for its low income tenants and forcing it to lay off 250 people.