In the fifth day of deliberations the jury ruling on the David Safavian trial found the former Bush administration official and acolyte of Jack Abramoff guilty on four counts. The Safavian trial was the first trial in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal and sets a precedent for future trials, (cough cough) Bob Ney (cough cough). Safavian's testimony did nothing to help him and most likely hurt him more than anything. As Paul Kiel notes, the "Forrest Gump" defense is not going to fly.

The New York Times reports that a juror has been dismissed from the federal corruption trial of David Safavian. The jury has been deliberating for one day over the verdict.

• The federal government spent over $1.4 billion on fraudulent assistance to fake victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. One man spent 70 days at a hotel in Hawaii on taxpayer money.
• Alan Mollohan (D-WV), who resigned his seat on the House Ethics Committee after he became the subject of a federal inquiry, released corrections to his financial disclosure forms yesterday, according to the New York Times. Mollohan "filed some two dozen corrections to his past six annual financial disclosure forms, saying his accountant had uncovered 'a relative handful of unintentional and immaterial mistakes.'" He had left out one major transaction in which in he took out a "$2.3 million 'back-to-back loan'". Mollohan stated that he did not feel that he had to report this previously because the net value was zero.
• The judge ruling in the David Safavian trial is weighing whether to toss a juror because she spoke to persons outside of the juror pool about the case. The prosecution wants her tossed, while the defense wants her to stay.
• The Defense Appropriations bill for FY 07 contains $1 billion less in earmarks than the previous year's bill did. Well, they did get rid of Duke Cunningham, so that's about what I'd expect.
• Yesterday Redstate reported that Jerry Lewis (R-CA), under fire for earmarking and connections to lobbyists, inserted a $500,000 earmark to renovate the swimming pool in Banning, California. Today, the San Bernardino Sun picks up the story along with criticism of Lewis from his fellow caucus members. Jeff Flake (R-AZ): "It's just ridiculous. Cities ought to pay for their own pools." Banning is represented by lobbyist David Turch, who has lost numerous county and municipal clients to the now-radioactive lobbying firm of Copeland Lowery Jacquez and White.

A judge threw out part of a charge against former Bush administration official David Safavian in the first trial related to the Jack Abramoff scandal:

The judge threw out language from the indictment that said Safavian lied by telling a GSA ethics officer Abramoff had no business with the GSA and was not seeking to do business with the agency. There was no evidence during the trial that Safavian ever made such statements to the GSA, Friedman said. The judge left intact the remainder of the count that Safavian concealed his assistance to Abramoff, and deletion of the language was expected to have little substantive impact.

This move is "inconsequential" to the outcome of the case.

• The Club for Growth Blog reports that Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) is really excited about earmarking. “When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I’m going to earmark the s—t out of it,” Moran buoyantly told a crowd of 450 attending the event.” Can we please get earmarking transparency -- QUICK!
• The David Safavian trial is about to be handed to the jury to decide the former Bush administration official's fate. Did Safavian abuse his position to help Jack Abramoff? Was it a mistake for the prosecution to not send Abramoff to testify? Will Safavian's bumbling testimony lead to a guilty verdict as Ken Lay's did? I'm putting my money on the latter.
• CongressDailyAM reports that the Democratic Caucus will vote on Thursday on the Steering Committee's recommendation that William Jefferson be stripped of his seat on the Ways and Means Committee.
• Also in CongressDailyAM, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) plans on naming conferees to the lobbying and ethics reform conference committee. Don't expect much of the conference committee or the legislation that they create. Whatever comes out of that committee it will not be reform.
• The Washington Post's Jeff Birnbaum reports that Congress is about to make it infinitely more difficult to lobby members of Congress through email. If you wish to send an email to your representative you will now have to complete a math problem. I'm going to go with MoveOn's Eli Pariser's statement about this: "We should be living in the golden age of politics -- an age in which every member of Congress can easily have a two-way conversation with his or her most engaged constituents. Instead, we're seeing bunkerization." Exactly. And why don't we have instant, searchable Internet disclosure of all information reported in Congress? This is the 21st Century isn't it?
  

• Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) secured a $100,000 bribe for the Vice President of Nigeria to get leverage in dealing with the Nigerian state phone company, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Jefferson received the $100,000 from Lori Mody, the woman who wound up turning on the congressman, and promptly hid $90,000 in his freezer while telling Mody that he had given the money to the Vice President. The money was recovered in an FBI raid of Jefferson's house. The big question here is whether Jefferson was ripping off Mody and is that why she decided to turn him in?
• All eyes are on the congressional race to fill Duke Cunningham's (R-CA) House seat. Cunningham resigned last year and subsequently pled guilty to accepting bribes and was sentenced to 8 years and 8 months in prison.
• Another big race will test how Abramoff-related charges are affecting the image of Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) as he faces a state Sen. Bob Keenan in the Montana Senate Republican primary.
• The Associated Press rewards bad journalism.
• Closing arguments in the David Safavian case will be held next Monday, according to the Associated Press.
• And finally, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) asserted that Jefferson should step down from the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. When asked why he gave this reason, "I think the reason is because he sits on a tax-writing committee and he had $90,000 found in his freezer ... I think he's got a tax problem, if nothing else." (CongressDailyPM)