Government Misconduct

A former U.S. military prosecutor at Guantanamo, who accuses his superiors of suppressing evidence, refused Thursday to testify in a war crimes case unless he is granted immunity. Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who was called as a defense witness, revealed a day earlier that he had quit over what he called ethical lapses by prosecutors. His action has sent ripples throughout the U.S.

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley won't face state or federal criminal charges for allegedly sending salacious computer messages to underage male pages, officials said. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said that it couldn't prove the authenticity of the 2003 messages and that too much time had passed to bring charges. The Florida Republican resigned from Congress in 2006 after being confronted with illicit e-mails and instant messages he was purported to have sent to Capitol Hill pages.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's husband refused to testify in the investigation of his wife's alleged abuse of power, and key lawmakers said Thursday that uncooperative witnesses were essentially sidetracking the probe until after election day. Todd Palin, who participates in state business in person and by e-mail, was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska Legislature. His lawyer sent a letter to the lead investigator saying he objected to the probe and would not appear today to testify.

Gov. Sarah Palin is unlikely to speak with an independent counsel hired by state lawmakers to review the firing of her public safety commissioner, a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday. Spokesman Ed O'Callaghan initially said Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, would not testify as part of the investigation "as long as it remains tainted." He later clarified his statement to say Palin is "unlikely to cooperate" with the inquiry.

A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving President Bush the authority to wage war in late 2002 said Vice President Dick Cheney misled him by saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to Al Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon, according to a new book by Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman. Cheney's accusations, described by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, came in a classified one-on-one briefing in the vice president's office in the Capitol.

Gov. Linda Lingle called for the state's top tourism executive to resign after it was revealed that he had sent racist and sexist material from his government computer. Hawaii Tourism Authority Chief Executive Rex Johnson forwarded jokes about Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to friends, as well as pornographic e-mails whose existence had been disclosed earlier.

Prosecutors accusing Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of perjury said Wednesday that a plea deal could come as soon as today, a surprise development that could cost him his job. The office of Wayne County prosecutor Kym L. Worthy had said the agreement could come Wednesday, then this morning. But Kilpatrick's attorney cautioned that talks were continuing. The Detroit City Charter stipulates that any mayor guilty of a felony must be expelled from office. Kilpatrick is charged with eight felonies in the perjury case, linked to the attempted cover-up of an extramarital affair with an aide.

A pair of octogenarian ex-generals who served during Argentina's "dirty war" against internal dissent were sentenced to life in prison Thursday after defiantly declaring they were innocent of the murder charges on which they were convicted. "I am being pursued politically by those defeated in yesterday's war," white-haired ex-Gen. Antonio Domingo Bussi, 82, testified before being sentenced in the northern province of Tucuman. Also sentenced by the same three-judge panel was Bussi's former boss, former Gen. Luciano Benjamin Menendez, 81, who testified that he had done what was necessary to confront "international communism."

Long before the mortgage crisis began rocking Main Street and Wall Street, a top FBI official made a chilling, if little-noticed, prediction: The booming mortgage business, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, was starting to attract shady operators and billions in losses were possible. "It has the potential to be an epidemic," Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004. But, he added reassuringly, the FBI was on the case.

Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey said Tuesday that the Justice Department had no plans to bring criminal charges in connection with hiring abuses that took place under his predecessor, Alberto R. Gonzales. Mukasey said the findings in two recent reports by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine -- that a group of influential Gonzales aides considered politics and ideology in hiring career employees and summer interns -- were "disturbing. " The aides violated civil service laws and department regulations, Mukasey said, but they did not commit crimes that could send them to jail.