The vast majority involved are second-tier officials of the Clinton administration, eager to help another Democrat take control of the White House.
Seizing the moment, three second-tier officials — Michael V. Forrestal, W. Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman — set out to provide it.
Television reports about second-tier officials being arrested are seen by the public not as part of Mr Putin's anti-corruption campaign but as confirmation that corruption is ubiquitous.
Whitley Bruner, a retired intelligence officer who was a senior member of the C.I.A.'s task force on Iraq a decade ago, said that the new interim government in Iraq is urgently seeking ways to provide affordable security for second-tier officials — the men and women who make the government work.
The law similarly gives the DNI control over the agencies' personnel, but here too there is devilment in the detail: in practice, the DNI can veto the appointment of some second-tier officials, but he will not be able to sack agency chiefs.To shore up the DNI's putative powers, Mr Bush has suggested that Mr Negroponte, not Mr Goss, will deliver his morning intelligence briefing.
In another ominous sign, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed — who gained popularity for openly declaring a war on corruption several months ago — formed a new government in a ministerial reshuffle days before the passage of the reconciliation law that includes Ben Ali's finance minister, Ben Ali's education minister and other second- and third-tier officials from the former ruling RCD party.
The federal appeals courts upheld all convictions of second-tier officials, and the Supreme Court refused to hear their appeals until 1956, when it agreed to hear the appeal of the California defendants; this led to the landmark Yates v. United States decision.
He himself, a 51-year-old lawyer now married to a recent Miss Paraguay, was long a second-tier official.
The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself.
The second tier of officials cannot be expected to be virtuous and so the successful performance of their function cannot depend on their voluntary recognition and acceptance of a common purpose.
"They would be prepared to allow penetration through their forward units and plan to counterattack with mechanized and armored units in the second tier," this official said.
