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SNIPS Two months ago, the Obama administration acted to relax a trade embargo imposed on the island nation in 1962. A senior State Department official described the potential for damage as great and the timing unfortunate, noting that it could affect congressional support for the administration's recent attempts to engage Cuba. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. Cuba is notorious for not paying its agents, said a former intelligence official speaking anonymously because of the highly sensitive matter. Indeed, court documents indicate the couple received little money for their efforts, but instead professed a...

SNIP Myers first began working for the State Department in 1977 as a lecturer at the department's Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia. But from 1988 to 1999 he began to work for its bureau of intelligence and research. In 1985, he was given top-secret security clearance which was then upgraded to a higher level in 1999. By the time he retired, Myers was working as a senior Europe analyst for the department's intelligence bureau and had daily access to classified information stored on computer databases, the Justice Department said. A scan of his computer showed that from August 2006...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a concession to the Senate's new Democratic majority, four of President Bush's appeals court appointees have asked to have their nominations withdrawn, Republican officials said Tuesday. These officials said that William Haynes, William Myers and Terrence Boyle had all decided to abandon their quest for confirmation. Another nominee, Mike Wallace, let it be known last month that he, too, had asked Bush to withdraw his nomination.

BOISE, Idaho -- Members of Idaho's congressional delegation say they'll fight California's two U.S. senators over their claim to a vacancy on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after President Bush picked an Idaho judge for the spot. In December, Bush nominated Idaho 6th District Judge Randy Smith of Pocatello to the San Francisco-based appeals court, which covers nine Western states with a combined population of 58 million people. The court has 28 full-time judges, and its retired judges often consider cases as well. Smith was nominated to replace Judge Stephen Trott, who moved to Idaho from California after...

Former Solicitor of the Interior William G. Myers III of Idaho is a highly respected attorney who has extensive experience in the fields of natural resources, public lands, and environmental law. His nomination enjoys widespread support from across the ideological and political spectrum. Mr. Myers has been nominated to the Ninth Circuit, which covers the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The Senate fight over President Bush's judicial nominees isn't just about their opinions -- it is also about their destinations. The contentious choices would tip the balance in some evenly split appellate courts, or could challenge the prevailing views of other panels on issues such as civil rights or environmental policy.... Democrats say the seven blocked Bush nominees could start a conservative shift in courts that aren't already tilted that way. "Balance on the court matters to us," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. "I've always felt a good court would have one [Justice Antonin] Scalia and one [former...

When the Senate Judiciary Committee met in the Russell Building Thursday morning, chairman Arlen Specter didn't see the need to refight the nomination of William Myers to a place on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Myers had already had two hearings before the committee, and everyone knew that the Democrats objected to his record on environmental issues, and everyone knew that the Democrats would vote against him, and everyone knew that the real fight would be on the Senate floor. So when it came time for the committee to vote, Specter asked Democrats to dispense with the long...

William Myers on Thursday became the first of seven judicial nominees blocked by Democrats and renominated by President Bush to win the approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee. On a party-line vote of 10-8, the panel sent the nomination of Myers back to the full Republican-led Senate for another chance to be confirmed to a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Democrats say Myers has a long anti-environmental record, a position that Republicans dispute. "The real battle will be on the floor," Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said of the mounting showdown over renominated judicial candidates....

Republicans on Thursday cleared the first of President Bush's blocked judicial nominees for Senate approval, a move that Democrats say could lead to a filibuster confrontation that could shut the chamber down. The GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) on a 10-8 party line vote agreed to send the nomination of former Interior lawyer William Myers to the full Senate for approval. While Republicans say Myers, who now is in practice as a private lawyer in Boise, Idaho, would make a good judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Democrats claimed that he is too anti-environment....

Can't post Bloomberg, but KJL is linking a report that Myers made it out of committee. Whoo hoo!!!

WASHINGTON, March 1 - The Senate moved closer to a major partisan breakdown over judicial appointments on Tuesday as Democrats on the Judiciary Committee assailed one of President Bush's nominees and asserted he would not be confirmed to the bench. Republicans had hoped that the nominee, William G. Myers III, who had been nominated to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, might get enough Democratic support to win confirmation and break a long-term logjam over judicial posts. But minutes into a two-hour hearing, Democrats on the committee began pummeling Mr. Myers, a longtime...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 - When William G. Myers III appears before the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, it will mark the beginning of another chapter in the fight between President Bush and the Senate Democrats over judicial nominations. Mr. Myers, one of 10 nominees blocked by Democratic filibusters last term, is being put forward again, this time as a candidate whose case might herald an era of compromise. Some Republicans hope that approval of Mr. Myers, nominated by Mr. Bush to be a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, might break a logjam and allow...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A former Interior Department lawyer opposed by environmentalists and American Indian tribes is the first of President Bush's judicial nominees to face a confirmation fight this year. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who handled nomination matters in his previous job as White House counsel, said Monday he wanted to end the impasse before a president's choice to fill a Supreme Court vacancy gets caught up in it. "It is imperative that this broken process be fixed before we arrive at that point," Gonzales said in a speech in Washington. Democrats blocked William G. Myers III in 2004 from...

Senator Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said today that his panel would hold confirmation hearings next week for two of President Bush's nominees for federal judgeships, who had been blocked earlier by Senate Democrats. Mr. Specter said the committee would hold a hearing on Tuesday for William G. Myers III, a nominee for the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and on Thursday for District Judge Terrence W. Boyle, a nominee for the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. "I have a commitment to the president to give his nominees prompt hearings and to...

With three weeks to Election Day, it is time for Republicans to close the deal with swing voters -- independents, Southern and Midwestern moderates, blue-collar households, Catholics, and Hispanics. The tactics of Senate Democrats and their liberal allies are now so nakedly partisan that the judiciary could well become the issue that wins tight Senate races and presidential battleground states for the GOP. (A secondary benefit of campaigning on this issue is that it establishes a clear "judiciary mandate" -- an advantage when addressing the Senate's rule for filibusters and a bonus when the time comes to nominate a Supreme...

On Tuesday, William Gerry Myers III became the seventh of President Bush's judicial nominees filibustered in the U.S. Senate. By a vote of 53-44, Senate Democrats prevented a vote on Myers's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (60 votes are required to end a filibuster). Had the vote been allowed, Myers — like Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and others — would now be a federal judge. Myers is not the most distinguished of Bush's court nominees — he received one of the lowest ratings from the American Bar Association of any...

Democrats began their seventh filibuster of a Bush judicial nominee yesterday. No Senate has ever filibustered a President's appellate-court nominee before, but never mind. Watch for the number of filibusters to hit double digits by September. The latest victim is William Myers, a nominee from Idaho for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Myers had the misfortune to work in the Bush Interior Department, a job that comes with the liberal label of "extremist." Democrats are using his nomination as an opportunity to bash the Bush Administration on the environment. The Constitution requires a majority of Senators to confirm a President's judicial...

Democrats lodged a filibuster yesterday against a nominee to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, accusing him of being an "anti-environment activist." A cloture vote fell seven short of the 60 votes needed to force a final confirmation decision on William G. Myers III, who became the sixth judicial nominee of President Bush's to be filibustered by a minority group of Democrats.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a former Interior Department official who once worked for mining and cattle interests from becoming a federal appeals judge, using the debate to criticize President Bush's environmental record. The Senate's majority Republicans were unable to muster the 60 votes needed for the confirmation of William Myers for the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The final vote was 53-44, making Myers the seventh Bush judicial nominee to be stopped by Senate Democrats.

<p>The Senate Judiciary Committee -- voting along party lines -- narrowly approved the nomination of William G. Myers III to the federal appeals bench yesterday, signaling a likely Democratic filibuster on the Senate floor.</p> <p>Mr. Myers, a lawyer in the U.S. Department of Interior nominated by President Bush to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, has drawn the ire of environmentalists for his work as a lobbyist for grazing and mining interests out West.</p>