Redecorating Time in Foggy Bottom

During the Bush era, Bush-centric photographs lined the hall leading to the State Department cafeteria. The new management has other plans. (By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)
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McCain called that response vague and disappointing and demanded in a new letter yesterday that he try again. "Your letter refers to a screening process run by lawyers," McCain wrote, saying he wants to see a list of the issues on which Lynn lobbied the Pentagon for Raytheon "that would raise concern with the American public if you took action on them." He said he could not support the nomination without knowing the answer.

Another Republican senator, Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), chimed in, denouncing the ethics exemption as a bad signal to others and demanding in a letter to new Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag to know exactly what criteria the administration used to decide the nomination was "in the public interest."

In a separate letter to Lynn, Grassley also accused him of presiding over two disastrous financial policy decisions while serving as the Pentagon's comptroller in the Clinton administration: He said one known as "Pay and Chase" involved writing checks to pay the Pentagon's bills without seeking receipts until later; the other, known as "Straight Pay," allowed bills up to half a million dollars to be paid without checking documentation.

"Your policy left the barn door wide open to fraud and mismanagement," Grassley wrote, citing the case of an Air Force sergeant who stole a million dollars to give to his mother and girlfriend.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in response that he "will not revisit" Lynn's career but that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates "still strongly supports Bill Lynn's nomination and looks forward to" his approval by the committee. He noted that Lynn is divesting all his defense holdings, and that the review process envisioned has been used with others, including former Northrop Grumman executive Donald C. Winter, who is now the secretary of the Navy. It "works and is fair," Morrell said.

Moving About

Call it the Dingell Diaspora -- the exodus of top aides on the House Energy and Commerce Committee who have moved to new jobs in the weeks since Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) lost the chairman's gavel to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

John F. Sopko, who was Dingell's senior adviser and chief counsel for oversight, has left to become a partner at the Washington law firm Akin Gump. Sopko oversaw the committee's investigative hearings on food and drug safety, energy pricing, Medicare and Medicaid fraud, and Hurricane Katrina. Now he's going to help clients navigate congressional and other investigations.

Gregg Rothschild, who had been Dingell's chief counsel on the committee, is now at Glover Park Group as managing director of its government relations practice. John Arlington, who had been Sopko's deputy, moved to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where he will be chief counsel to the committee chairman, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.).

Christine Blackwood, another Dingell investigator, is becoming chief counsel for the Senate Special Committee on Aging, while Dingell's communications director, Jodi Seth, is communications director for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

Moving In

Jody Freeman, a Harvard Law School professor, is the counselor for energy and climate change in the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change, which is what they call Energy and Environment Empress Carol M. Browner's shop.

Ivan K. Fong, former deputy associate attorney general in the Justice Department, is to be nominated as general counsel in the Department of Homeland Security.

A Tear-Jerker

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who introduced the legislation to overturn the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision that limited the amount of time people have to sue for pay discrimination, was overcome at yesterday's White House signing ceremony for the bill.

The feisty Mikulski told aides yesterday that when Obama handed her the first pen he used to sign the first major bill of his presidency, there were tears in her eyes.

Who knew?

With Philip Rucker