transition

Jason Linkins, in fine form after Jerome Corsi’s conspiracy ramblings about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and President Obama, does some reporting:
I contacted Frank Cillusso, the director of the HSPI at George Washington University, who tells me that Nidal Hasan has no affiliation with the HSPI or with George Washington University, at all. “[Hasan] has no [...]

Reports are trickling out that President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, may not have paid Social Security or Medicare taxes for “years” and he may have employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper, according to Mark Halperin, via the Wall Street Journal. MSNBC just reported the same news.
Things are looking better for [...]

My CIA sources on Monday were surprised but not so dismayed by the news that Leon Panetta is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the agency. Jeff Stein’s CIA sources yesterday? Much more dismayed.
Writing in his CQ column, Jeff talks to veterans of the CIA’s operations directorate — the people who recruit spies, gather information, [...]

Republicans have made it clear that Attorney General-designate Eric Holder is the most problematic of President-elect Barack Obama cabinet nominees. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, gave a scathing floor statement on Holder Tuesday, laying out many of the GOP’s lines of attack: the 1996 “campaign finance violations” of [...]

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the post of surgeon general to neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta, who is better known for his work as a CNN correspondent, The Washington Post reports.

As Daphne blogged earlier today, Dawn Johnsen of Indiana University Law School is going to helm the Justice Dept.’s Office of Legal Counsel, a crucial position for the balance between civil liberties and national security. (Under the Bush administration, it became the go-to office for rubber-stamping the legality of torture, indefinite detention and warrantless surveillance.) [...]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who’s about to take the reins as chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, doesn’t appear to be too happy with Leon Panetta’s prospective appointment to head the CIA. Here’s what her office just sent me:
“I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the [...]

Both Chuck Todd at NBC and The New York Times are reporting Leon Panetta, a former member of President George W. Bush’s Iraq Study Group who doesn’t have much more of an intelligence background, is President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to head CIA.
Well, he’s no Mike Hayden. More soon.

The Obama-Biden transition team this morning announced several key posts for the Justice Department: David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General; Elena Kagan as Solicitor General; Tom Perrelli as Associate Attorney General; and Dawn Johnsen, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.
None of these appointments, some of which we’ve speculated about recently, are [...]

Anyone who thinks that the only thing better than one Democratic governor embroiled in a pay-to-play scandal is two Democratic governors embroiled in pay-to-play scandals received a big treat Sunday when another federal investigation that had been flying under the national radar suddenly came to light.
The twist? This scandal involves New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, [...]