Justice Official Bought Vacation Home With Oil Lobbyist

A senior Justice Department official who recently resigned her post bought a nearly $1 million vacation home with a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips months before approving consent decrees that would give the oil company more time to pay millions of dollars in fines and meet pollution-cleanup rules at some of its refineries.

Sue Ellen Wooldridge, former assistant attorney general in charge of environment and natural resources, bought a $980,000 home on Kiawah Island, S.C., last March with ConocoPhillips lobbyist Don R. Duncan. A third owner of the house is J. Steven Griles, a former deputy interior secretary, who has been informed he is a target in the federal investigation of Jack Abramoff’s lobbying activities.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said yesterday that Wooldridge sought and received approval from a career ethics official in her office before buying the vacation property. Wooldridge’s lawyer and officials at ConocoPhillips said that Duncan had no role in negotiating the consent decrees and never lobbied Wooldridge.

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11 more Republicans get behind Iraq rebuke

The lawmakers take to the House floor to show support, reflecting the rising anxiety within the GOP over the war.

WASHINGTON — In a striking display of dissension, a group of Republican lawmakers broke ranks with the White House on Wednesday and embraced a resolution opposing more U.S. troops in Iraq — airing their criticism even as President Bush publicly defended his plan.

Bush questioned the message that expected House approval of the nonbinding resolution would send, saying at a news conference: “People are watching what happens here in America. The enemy listens to what’s happening. The Iraqi people listen to the words…. They’re wondering about our commitment to this cause.”

Undaunted, 11 GOP lawmakers, including normally staunch Bush allies who represent districts he carried in his presidential campaigns, took to the House floor to express their support for a Democratic-sponsored resolution renouncing Bush’s decision to add 21,500 troops to the roughly 135,000 already in Iraq.

The Republicans complained that the U.S. military finds itself in the middle of a civil war, that the Iraqis haven’t done enough to make their country safe and that a “surge” in diplomacy — not troops — is needed.

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