Administration

UPDATED 3:17 p.m.:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and other panel members are calling on Karl Rove to testify to Congress on the alleged White House led investigation of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D).

Siegelman was convicted of bribery, but has since been released on appeal.

The former Governor has accused Rove of orchestrating a Justice Department investigation on supposed bribery charges to gain political advantage. Siegleman was the leading Democrat in Mississippi.

The Senate agreed on Thursday to extend the farm bill deadline to April 25th by a voice vote, giving lawmakers another week to pass the $280 billion 5-year bill.

On Wednesday, the House passed an extension after lawmakers were unable to resolve disputes over tax breaks.

Despite the White House's warm reception, and President Bush congratulating the pope on his "awesome speech," his holiness wasn't able to find time in his schedule to actually attend a White House dinner being held in his honor Wednesday night.

But unlike the pope, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apparently will make time for his White House dinner Thursday.

From today's press gaggle with White House spokesman Tony Fratto:

At 6:50 p.m. this evening, the President and Mrs. Bush will welcome the Prime Minister and Mrs. Brown at the North Portico, and then they will have a social dinner at 7:00 p.m. in the Yellow Oval.

Quick --

Q: Brown actually will attend the dinner in his honor?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) indicated today the the Colombia Free Trade Agreement may not be dead yet. Pelosi was speaking to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and, according to Reuters, said:

Perhaps we can get some of the trade agreements through. We did get the Peru trade agreement recently in a bipartisan way.

I've told the White House we stand ready to discuss with them how we can proceed in bringing this legislation to the floor. I said "you want to do it the way you want to do it, it will lose. You just want to jam it down the throat of Congress, it will lose."

On Monday, The Hill's Mike Soraghan reported that President Bush said the Colombia FTA "is dead unless the Speaker schedules a definite vote."

President Bush told ABC News he approved specific techniques to be used by CIA interrogators against high value al Qaeda targets. Bush was responding to reports that senior administration officials met, discussed and approved of "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Bush told ABC Friday:

"Well we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people."

"And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on the issue. And I approved."

Bush called the initial report this week that top administration officials had signed off on the "enhanced interrogation" not so "startling."

The White House released tax return information from President Bush and Vice President Cheney Friday.

The President and First Lady are paying $221,635 in federal income taxes on $719,274 in taxable income. Vice President Cheney and his wife Lynn are paying $602,651 in taxes on $2,528,068 of income.

The income for both couples combines the government salaries of the President and Vice President along with any investment income from trust-held assets. Cheney also earns $32,500 in pension benefits from his time as director of the Union Pacific Corporation.

Both Laura Bush and Lynn Cheney received income from book deals and Mrs. Cheney continues to work for the American Enterprise Institute.

The White House press releases detailing the tax returns are after the jump.
Read more...

UPDATED 4:19 p.m.:

The Pentagon has told North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry (R) not to re-post video on his website that the lawmaker shot in Iraq during a March trip, the Charlotte Observer reported.

McHenry is accused by the veterans group Vote Vets of breaching operational security by videotaping and posting video from an enemy rocket attack. On the video McHenry says a rocket "hit just over my head" and mentions two other locations struck by rockets. Following the complaint, McHenry's office took down the video.

From the Charlotte Observer:

On Friday, his Web site featured a video shot in the fortified section of Baghdad known as the Green Zone. McHenry could be seen gesturing to a building behind him and saying that one of 11 rockets "hit just over my head." Then he named two other places struck by the rockets.

On Monday, a veterans group called VoteVets.org accused McHenry of giving away intelligence information that could have aided terrorist organizations in targeting the Green Zone.

"The bottom line is that whoever launched that strike could take the information McHenry provided and use it to kill Americans in the Green Zone," wrote Brandon Friedman, vice chairman of VoteVets.org, a veterans advocacy group that has called for troop withdrawal and promoted veterans for political office.

A Pentagon spokesman told the Observer visitors are "routinely briefed" on operational rules. "We do not as a matter of policy discuss attacks in a way that would provide the enemy any better understanding of the effectiveness of their attacks," the spokesman told the paper.

UPDATED 1:14 P.M.: