Hulk Free to Smash Again.

Mr. Holder said in a statement that ‘I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial.'” Hmmm. Why does Clay Davis come to mind? After discovering that agents at Justice and the FBI tried to frame a guilty man, as it were, Attorney General Eric Holder drops the prosecution of 85-year-old former Senator Ted Stevens. “The collapse of the Stevens case was a profound embarrassment for the Justice Department, and it raised troubling issues about the integrity of the actions of prosecutors who wield enormous power over people they investigate.” Uh, ok…but why aren’t we seeing this judicious, otherwise laudable commitment to fair play when it comes to state secrets and victims of extraordinary rendition?

At any rate, as official Washington rushes to embrace Stevens once more, let’s keep the big picture in mind: “[E]ven leaving criminal wrongdoing aside, no one disputes that Stevens accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of home renovations and gifts (remember that massage chair?) from a supporter who had a slew of business interests that Stevens was in a position to affect as a powerful federal lawmaker and appropriator. That’s what we call ‘corrupt’. As Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington put it, according to The Hill’s paraphrase: ‘Holder’s decision in no way should be viewed as a vindication of Stevens but rather as an indictment of the Justice Department’s inability to do one of its most important jobs.‘” True, that.

Murtha Gets PAID.

“‘It’s a real tangled web between the congressman, the nonprofit, the defense contractors and the lobbyists,’ said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. ‘It’s hard to say where one stops and the others start.'” In troubling news that should test the commitment of the incoming Dem majority to real lobbying reform, the WP takes a long hard look at John Murtha’s lobbyist-tinged relationship with the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals with Disabilities (PAID…an unfortunate acronym, to be sure). “‘It sounds like DeLay Inc.,’ said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Democratic-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.”