Rep. Tom DeLay is likely to face more legal problems as fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff — one of his “closest and dearest friends” — cooperates with federal prosecutors.

But while DeLay will try to distance himself from Abramoff, the camera doesn’t lie. Watch it:

For more on DeLay’s involvement in the Abramoff scandal, click here.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, has pledged to hold congressional hearings on Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program. At today’s press briefing, Scott McClellan made it pretty clear that administration officials wouldn’t cooperate:

Q And my question is, does the White House take this into account, will it try to talk to them, will it participate in the hearings?

MR. McCLELLAN: Like I said, and the President has said we’ve briefed members of Congress on more than a dozen occasions.

Q But that’s not what they’re talking about.

MR. McCLELLAN: And in terms of discussions about this, the President talked about this at his end-of-the-year news conference. We shouldn’t be talking about intelligence activities, particularly in a time of war, in a public way. This is a highly classified authorization –

Q Not anymore. I mean, it’s public now.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, it still is. It still is highly classified. The President has talked in a very limited way about the nature of this authorization and what it’s designed to do, and how it’s limited. And so we will continue to talk with members of Congress —

Q Will you cooperate with a congressional hearing?

MR. McCLELLAN: — the Attorney General has been talking to additional members of Congress about this authorization, so that they do understand why this tool is so vital in our efforts to prevail in the global war on terrorism.

Q But will you cooperate with a hearing?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I’m not going to get into talking about ruling things in or out from this podium. We’ll talk with members of Congress and make sure that they’re briefed and kept informed, as we have been.

This is whole problem. The administration doesn’t recognize that Congress has a role in overseeing the executive branch. They only want to inform Congress on their terms. That’s not oversight, that’s a lecture.

Jack Abramoff is expected to plead guilty today to fraud, public corruption and tax evasion.

Even more significantly, he has agreed to cooperate with the government. Abramoff’s misdeeds could become the “biggest scandal in Congress in over a century.”

ThinkProgress has produced a research document that takes a comprehensive look at all the potential players, including members of Congress, members of the Bush administration and right-wing operatives.

Check it out HERE.

UPDATE: Abramoff makes it official. Appears in U.S. District Court in Washington and pleads guilty.

UPDATE II: Crooks and Liars has the video of CNN’s segment on Abramoff.

UPDATE III: The plea agreement can be found here.

After taking nearly two weeks off from his regular briefing schedule, it’s good to see Scott McClellan hasn’t lost his touch.

Here’s McClellan on December 13, responding to a poll that found almost 60 percent of Americans do not think Bush has a plan for Iraq:

QUESTION: So what does that say about the hill that you have to climb?

MCCLELLAN: A couple things. Let me first correct you in terms of saying that we don’t ever look at polls. We don’t govern based on polls. The president does not govern based on polls. The president governs based on a clear set of principles and a clear set of beliefs. [WH Press Briefing, 12/13/05]

Today, responding to why Bush is justified in continuing to conduct an illegal wiretapping program:

MCCLELLAN: I think that clearly the American people strongly support the efforts that we are undertaking to save their lives. I think there actually was a poll last week that said 60 percent — more than 60 percent of the American people support the actions the president is taking to prevent attacks from happening in the first place. That is what this president is committed to doing. This is about saving lives.

By the way, that poll that McClellan is referring to didn’t even describe the president’s policy.

James Risen, the co-author of the New York Times story that broke Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program was interviewed on the Today Show this morning. Watch it:

Transcript:

COURIC: I know that you broke the story, as we mentioned, for the New York Times. Why do you think that people who talked about this secret program came forward and told you about it?

RISEN: Well you know I think this was the most classic whistleblower case I’ve ever seen. Where people – You know, in a lot of stories people have mixed motives for why they talk to reporters, some people in some stories there’s a turf battle and they’re losing out on a turf battle, or whatever. In this case – I’ve been a reporter for about 25 years – this was the purest case of whistleblowers coming forward, people who truly believed there was something wrong going on in the government and they were motivated, I believe, by the purest reasons.

Read more

From CNN:

Filing papers in court now.

Pleading guilty to fraud, corruption and tax evasion in Federal Court.

Agreement reached late last night.

It’s a cooperation agreement. Final sentence will be determined when he finishes cooperating. Maximum of 10 years.

CNN reports he’s been cooperating for over a year.

UPDATE: The New York Times has the story.

UPDATE II: CNN says the paperwork will be officially filed at about 12:15 or 12:30 today.

UPDATE III: Hotline reports Abramoff’s attorney will hold a press conference at 12:30 PM.

UPDATE IV: Abramoff’s “Criminal Information” — the facts he’s admitting to as part of his plea agreement — is available from CNN.

“[T]he CIA recruited an Iraqi-American anesthesiologist in 2002 to obtain information from her brother, who was a figure in Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program. Dr. Sawsan Alhaddad of Cleveland made the dangerous trip to Iraq on the CIA’s behalf. The book said her brother was stunned by her questions about the nuclear program because “” he said “” it had been dead for a decade… In all, the book says, some 30 family members of Iraqis made trips to their native country to contact Iraqi weapons scientists, and all of them reported that the programs had been abandoned.”

“Barring a last-minute snag, the terms of Abramoff’s plea bargain were expected to be announced in Washington as early as today or Wednesday…By reaching an agreement with Abramoff, federal investigators would gain the ultimate insider witness in a probe into any possible favors the one-time king of Washington lobbyists gave members of Congress and their staff members,” the Houston Chronicle reports. (Via TalkLeft)