VA official quits over theft of vets' info

WASHINGTON — A Veterans Affairs deputy assistant secretary who didn't immediately notify top officials about the theft of 26.5 million veterans' personal information is resigning, citing missteps that led to the security breach.

Michael McLendon, who supervised the VA data analyst who lost the data, said he would resign Friday. The data analyst will be fired, and the acting head of the division in which he worked, Dennis Duffy, has been placed on administrative leave, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said Tuesday.

McLendon is the first official to depart after Nicholson pledged to hold officials accountable after the May 3 burglary, in which a laptop computer and disks were stolen from the data analyst's home in Maryland.

Witness: Abramoff teed up Bush aide

A former congressional aide and lobbyist described Tuesday how he obtained insider information, advice and assistance from Bush administration procurement chief David Safavian to advance two projects for Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff, who then took Safavian on a lavish golf trip to Scotland.

The aide, Neil Volz, who was a partner of Abramoff's at the time, also outlined how the Abramoff team received assistance from several Republican congressmen including Reps. Bob Ney, R-Ohio; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Don Young, R-Alaska; and Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio.

Within weeks after this assistance, Safavian, Ney and two of Ney's staff members accompanied Abramoff and Volz on a golfing trip to Scotland and then to London. Volz said the bills for $500-a-night hotel rooms, $100 rounds of drinks, $400 rounds of golf, dinners and travel on a private Gulfstream jet were paid by Abramoff and his staff.

Volz is the government's star witness in the trial of Safavian on charges of lying to investigators about his assistance to Abramoff while he was chief of staff to the administrator of the General Services Administration, which oversees property owned by the federal government.

Victims' kin view film with Bushes

President Bush invited relatives of some of the 40 passengers and crew members who are portrayed in "United 93" to join him for a screening of the film at the White House Tuesday night.

Bush and his wife, Laura, were to watch the film about the attacks in the family theater. The film focuses on the tragic drama aboard United Flight 93, the plane that crashed in rural Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, after passengers fought back against their hijackers.

"The president has always said that those who were on the flight, that the passengers and crew members of the flight, were heroes," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Hayden starts job with CIA pep talk

Gen. Michael Hayden was sworn in as CIA director Tuesday and told the officers at the embattled agency they must be competent and cooperative to keep the "central" in Central Intelligence Agency.

Even with those marching orders, Hayden reassured the agency that it remains key to U.S. spy operations and analysis. In his first day on the job, Hayden told his staff that only the CIA has the "connective tissue" to bring the intelligence community together.

While the CIA once was pre-eminent among the 15 other spy agencies, the 2004 intelligence reform law made it equal to other spy organizations including the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency.

Also

The Senate has approved J. Richard Capka as head of the Federal Highway Administration.

Compiled from The Associated Press