Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof

CIA Wanted Boston Bomber on Terror List - The CIA pushed to have one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers placed on a U.S. counterterrorism watch list more than a year before the attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The CIA request led the National Counterterrorism Center to add Tsarnaev’s name to a database known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, that is used to feed information to other lists, including the FBI’s main terrorist screening database. The Washington Post has more here.

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Bomb Suspect Silent After Read Miranda Rights - Sixteen hours after investigators began interrogating him, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings went silent: he'd just been read his constitutional rights.
 
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney's office entered his hospital room and gave him his Miranda warning, according to four officials of both political parties briefed on the interrogation. They insisted on anonymity because the briefing was private.  Politico.com has more here.

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Judge To Rule on House Republican Benghazi Subpeona - President Barack Obama is resisting a congressional subpoena for documents related to how the administration responded to the revelation of the failed operation known as "Fast and Furious" on the U.S.- Mexican border. It has already turned over thousands of pages of documents about the operation itself.

Justice Department lawyer Ian Gershengorn told a hearing the matter was best left to the give-and-take of the U.S. government's two elected branches, the president and Congress, and should not be a matter for the courts.

"That is how it has worked for 225 years," said Gershengorn, referring to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was skeptical and told Gershengorn, "There are three branches here, not just two." She did not say how she would rule, but questioned Gershengorn for more than twice as long as she did House of Representatives lawyer Kerry Kircher.  Reuters.com has more here.

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Hillary Clinton To Earn $200,000 For Dallas Speech - On Wednesday, Hillary Clinton begins what will likely be the most lucrative part of her life – so far – as she gives her first paid speech in Dallas, Texas. She’s expected, like her ex-president husband, to command a whopping $200,000-plus for each appearance.

Clinton’s speech Wednesday at the posh Four Seasons Resort and Club in Dallas will be before the National Multi Housing Council and is conveniently located just 25 minutes from Southern Methodist University, the site of the George W. Bush presidential library, which opens Thursday. Clinton and husband, Bill, are expected to attend, as will the Obamas.  NBC News has more here.

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Senator Graham Keeps Hold On Energy Secretary Nomination - Senator Lindsey Graham kept in place his block on Ernest Moniz’s nomination for energy secretary after a meeting today failed to clear up the lawmaker’s concern over proposed budget cuts to a plutonium processing plant in his state.

Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for Graham, said in an e-mail that the South Carolina Republican met with Moniz today. He confirmed that the lawmaker still has a “hold” on theMassachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor’s nomination to replace Steven Chu, who is returning to Stanford University in California. Bishop declined to comment on whether Moniz tried to satisfy Graham’s concerns.

“We’re talking with the White House, and we’re trying to get resolution quickly,” Graham told reporters today in Washington.“He’s a great candidate. He’d be a good secretary of energy.”  Bloomberg.com has more here.

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Fitzgerald To Challenge Kasich in Ohio Governor Race - Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald (D) launched his campaign to unseat incumbent Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) Wednesday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

The former Lakewood mayor, whom voters chose in 2010 as the first leader of a reshaped county government, starts with a potentially strong political base that encompasses one of Ohio's most Democratic areas. But his official entry to a race that is 17 months away speaks to the name-recognition challenges the relative newcomer faces elsewhere in the state.  TPM.com has more here.

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