He was a top fundraiser for President Barack Obama and is ramping up travel to help Democrats around the country.

O’Malley has said he would give “serious consideration” to a presidential race after wrapping up his most recent legislative session. He has steered measures into law that repeal capital punishment, legalize gay marriage and seek to curb gun violence.

One of his major considerations will be whether to compete if former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to run.

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The official said Monday that Treasury told the White House in late April about a possible speech in which IRS official Lois Lerner would make a public apology and that outgoing Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller expected to be asked about the issue during congressional testimony. However, the official said Treasury did not give the White House advance warning that Lerner planned to address the issue during a May 10 conference, which she ultimately did.

White House advisers have said President Barack Obama was not told about the IRS targeting before it became public.

The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity.

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The Stolen Valor Act, sponsored by Nevada Republican Joe Heck, is a second attempt by the House to revive a law on fraudulent claims to medals that was struck down by the Supreme Court in June last year. The legislation is identical to a measure that passed the House overwhelmingly last September but saw no Senate action before the last session of Congress ended. The vote Monday was 390-3.

The Supreme Court, in invalidating the Stolen Valor Act of 2006, ruled that while making false statements about receiving a military medal might be contemptible, such lies were protected by First Amendment free speech rights. The case involved a former California politician who lied about being a decorated military veteran. It has long been a crime to wear, manufacture or sell military declarations or medals without proper authorization.

As rewritten, the bill more narrowly focuses on those who lie about receiving medals “with intent to obtain money, property or other tangible benefit.” That could include those who claim medals in order to receive veterans benefits, land a government contract or get a job reserved for veterans. Offenders face fines and up to a year in prison.

The bill, said Heck, “resolves these constitutional issues by clearly defining that the objective of the law is to target and punish those who represent their service with the intent of profiting personally or financially.”

After the Supreme Court ruling, the Pentagon announced it would establish a database of military valor awards and medals, making it easier to validate claims.

The site, http://valor.defense.gov/, lists individuals who were awarded the Medal of Honor or a Service Cross prior to or after Sept 11, 2001. It also lists Silver Star recipients for actions since Sept. 11.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., has similar legislation pending in the Senate.

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In a case against State Department adviser Stephen Kim, investigators obtained a search warrant for some private emails of James Rosen, Fox News’ chief Washington correspondent, and they tracked Rosen’s comings and goings from the State Department.

An FBI agent seeking the search warrant spelled out the government’s view of the journalist’s role, saying the reporter is a co-conspirator and that there is probable cause to believe the reporter violated criminal law.

Fox said it was outraged by the accusation.

The post Govt presses ahead on another leak case appeared first on Official Wire.

During the investigation of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, law enforcement officials obtained a search warrant for some private emails of James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News. Investigators also tracked Rosen’s comings and goings from the State Department.

An FBI agent seeking the search warrant spelled out the government’s view of the journalist’s role, saying the reporter is a co-conspirator and that there is probable cause to believe that the reporter committed a violation of criminal law.

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter,” said Michael Clemente, Fox’s executive vice president for news. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

Kim, who is awaiting trial, is accused of revealing secrets to the news organization. No charges have been filed against Rosen.

The Kim case is further along than a more recent leak probe in which prosecutors secretly subpoenaed Associated Press phone records. In the AP case, AP President and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said the government’s conduct has already had a chilling effect on newsgathering, a week after the AP subpoenas were revealed publicly.

In June 2009, Rosen reported that U.S. intelligence officials warned President Barack Obama and senior U.S. officials that North Korea would respond to a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning nuclear tests with another nuclear test.

The 2010 affidavit for a search warrant, first reported by The Washington Post, does not identify Rosen as “the reporter,” but he wrote the story at issue, and Fox News confirmed it was him on Monday.

The White House wouldn’t comment about tracking Rosen, citing an ongoing criminal investigation. Instead, White House spokesman Jay Carney cited a media shield law Obama supports as evidence of his commitment to journalistic freedom, reprising an argument the White House used a week earlier in declining to address the Justice Department’s probe involving AP.

“The president believes it’s important that we find a proper balance between a need — absolute need — to protect our secrets and to prevent leaks that can jeopardize the lives of Americans and can jeopardize our national security interests on the one hand, and the need to defend the First Amendment and protect the ability of reporters to pursue investigative journalism,” Carney said.

In the Kim case, “based on the investigation and all of the facts known to date, no other individuals, including the reporter, have been charged since Mr. Kim was indicted nearly three years ago,” said the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., which is prosecuting the case.

The Justice Department said that improper disclosure of classified information to the press can pose a serious risk of harm to national security, and said it has followed the law and its policies to protect First Amendment rights.

The material at issue in the Kim case came from an intelligence report that had been communicated to officials in the intelligence community, including Kim, on the morning that Rosen’s story was published, according to the affidavit for a search warrant by FBI agent Reginald Reyes. Between the time of that communication and when the story was published, someone with Kim’s unique electronic profile and password accessed the report at least three times.

Citing telephone call records, the affidavit also said that multiple phone calls were made between the two that day, including two from Kim when someone with his profile was viewing the report. The FBI agent also cited multiple calls between Kim’s cellphone and Rosen and his news organization.

The FBI went well beyond phone records to try to establish a connection between the two. The agent wrote that State Department security badge access records showed that Kim and Rosen, who had an office at the State Department at the time, left the building at nearly the same time that day, were gone for about 25 minutes, and returned around the same time. The FBI affidavit also said that when State Department Diplomatic Security personnel entered Kim’s office space two months later, they found Rosen’s article “lying in plain view” on Kim’s desk.

The affidavit stated that the email communications, obtained by search warrants on Kim’s Yahoo email accounts, show Rosen and Kim used aliases — “Alex” and “Leo,” respectively. In one email, Rosen writes: “What I am interested in, as you might expect, is breaking news ahead of my competitors … Let’s break some news, and expose muddle-headed policy when we see it.”

Rosen encouraged Kim to disclose sensitive U.S. internal documents and intelligence about North Korea (identified only as the “Foreign Country”), according to the affidavit.

“The reporter did not possess a security clearance and was not entitled to receive the information published in the June 2009 article,” wrote Reyes, the FBI agent.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay signed the warrant.

___

Associated Press writers Frederic J. Frommer and Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

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Obama says Ride was a role model to young women and showed that achievement has no limits. He says Ride advocated for innovation in science, engineering and math.

Ride rode on the space shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983. She died in July 2012 at 61 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Ride broke another barrier by disclosing that she was gay at the end of an obituary she co-wrote with her same-sex partner before her death. The White House says Ride’s partner was notified last week of the award along with her mother and sister.

The award will be presented later this year.

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Thein Sein made the comments Monday in a speech at a university in Washington after meeting President Barack Obama.

Myanmar has been roiled by unrest between Buddhists and minority Muslims over the past year that has left hundreds dead and displaced more than 100,000 people. Most of the victims have been Muslims.

Separately, Thein Sein expressed confidence of soon reaching a cease-fire with Kachin rebels, the main ethnic armed group still fighting the military.

Earlier, Obama said Thein Sein has shown leadership to move his country toward political and economic reforms.

It was the first time a Myanmar leader has visited the White House in 47 years.

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The Obama administration said Monday it wants to see more cuts to agriculture subsidies and crop insurance in the legislation, which would cost almost $100 billion a year over five years and would set policy for farm programs and food aid.

The bill would cut about $2.4 billion annually from overall farm spending. But it would still expand federally subsidized crop insurance and raise some subsidies for rice and peanut farmers.

The White House did not specify how large a cut it was seeking.

The Senate began debating the bill Monday.

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“There’s a few chapters before we get to the last one. So it’s up to us to connect the dots first,” RNC chairman Reince Priebus told reporters when asked about impeachment ahead of a New Hampshire GOP fundraiser.

Some conservatives have compared recent IRS wrongdoing to the Watergate scandal, and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., last week raised the prospect of impeachment.

“There isn’t a weekend that hasn’t gone by that someone says to me, ‘Michele, what in the world are you all waiting for in Congress? Why aren’t you impeaching the president? He’s been making unconstitutional actions since he came into office,’” Bachmann said during a Washington news conference with tea party leaders.

Paul, a tea party favorite who is considering a 2016 presidential bid, said such rhetoric is premature.

“We need to figure out the truth of what happened before we go anywhere else,” Paul said, standing at Priebus’ side.

The Internal Revenue Service has acknowledged inappropriate scrutiny of tea party groups applying for tax-exempt status ahead of the last election.

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior presidential advisers knew in late April that an upcoming report was likely to find that IRS employees had targeted conservative political groups. The White House said McDonough and the other advisers did not tell Obama about the impending report, leaving him to learn the results from news reports later.

The issue has given conservatives a new rallying cry following a disappointing 2012 election cycle. But some GOP leaders worry their criticism could backfire if it appears their attacks appear too politically motived.

While striking a moderate tone on impeachment, Paul said Monday that it “stretches credulity” to think no one else in the Obama administration knew about the misconduct.

“For goodness sake, somebody’s got to be fired, if not go to prison,” he said in an evening speech to roughly 500 New Hampshire Republicans gathered in the state capital.

Priebus blamed Obama for creating a culture of political “guerrilla warfare” that allowed politics to infiltrate the IRS.

“I think this is just the beginning. It’s certainly not the end,” Priebus said. “And I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more to it. We’ll see how far it goes. We’ll see how high it goes, too.”

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The audit by a Treasury Department inspector general found that IRS employees singled out groups with names like “tea party” and “patriots” for special scrutiny that delayed their applications for tax exempt status.

Carney said no one in the White House intervened in the inspector general’s audit. He says Obama did not learn of the probe until there were news reports about it.

Carney noted that the practice by the IRS workers ended in May 2012.

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