By Jim Popkin, NBC News

The normally voluble Obama campaign won't answer a simple question: Where did the campaign film the office shots of Sen. Obama that were featured in last night's half-hour infomercial?

Granted, America's national security doesn't hinge on the response.

But it is an interesting parlor game, nonetheless, that has captivated some former White House image makers today.

The Obama office, as seen below in a screen grab from last night's film, is stately and projects a certain casual elegance.

It also happens to give off a distinct White House vibe. It's Oval Officey, as Stephen Colbert might say.

The similarities include the gold-colored drapes, the prominent American flags and vertical, nearly floor-to-ceiling windows.

Then there are the desks.

In the real Oval Office, the Resolute Desk commands center stage. Presented by Queen Victoria to President Rutherford Hayes in 1880, the Resolute Desk is two-toned on top, and ringed with a three-inch border of light-colored wood. The Obama desk is two-toned, too, with a three-inch border of dark wood on top.

A handsome wooden credenza is positioned behind the Obama desk, right under the windows. The Oval Office layout is identical, right down to the tasteful framed family photos on top of the wooden credenza under the windows.

No comment
A spokesman for Obama offered a terse "No comment" in an email to NBC. The film's director, Davis Guggenheim, did not reply to an email.

We showed the Obama office pictures to three experts, all of whom agree that the Obama campaign intentionally used an Oval Office look and feel to make the Democractic contender appear more presidential.

By Lisa Myers & Amna Nawaz, NBC News

The wide-ranging criminal investigation into wrongdoing at Countrywide - once the nation's largest mortgage originator - now includes serious scrutiny of a loan program that provided special mortgage deals to the well-connected and powerful, including two U.S. senators.

NBC News has learned that Robert Feinberg - a former Countrywide loan officer who handled what were known as the "VIP" mortgages - spent six hours last Thursday with a six-person team from the Justice Department. The team included prosecutors from the Public Integrity section, which handles investigations of possible public corruption.

VIDEO: Did Countrywide favor VIPs?

"The Justice Department is making very serious inquiry into any possible wrongdoing that may involve (former Countrywide CEO) Angelo Mozilo, other Countrywide employees, Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. Kent Conrad, (former Fannie Mae CEO) Franklin Raines or other public officials," said Feinberg's lawyer, Anthony Salerno. "Robert has always cooperated thoroughly with authorities and is strictly a witness in their investigation."

By Pete Williams and Jim Popkin, NBC News

Senior federal officials tell NBC News that the Feds are skeptical about whether there ever was a well-conceived plan to attack Sen. Barack Obama by two alleged neo-Nazi extremists in Tennessee. The officials say that there is no evidence at this early stage of the investigation that the two men, Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, had ever taken the plan beyond the talking stage.

Federal officials arrested the men Thursday in Tennessee, and unsealed an arrest complaint about them today.

According to the court documents, Cowart, 18, and Schlesselman, 20, are white supremacists who met on the Internet a month ago and began discussing a violent plot to kill African Americans, including Sen. Obama. 

Investigators say the men admitted to discussing "killing 88 people and beheading 14 African Americans." They wanted to generate money for their plot by robbing houses and a local gun dealer, to get weapons for a "killing spree." A law-enforcement official says the two described themselves as Nazis and had swastikas and other Nazi-related symbols painted on their car.

By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

A prominent fundraiser for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is facing a new legal challenge over a lucrative Pentagon contract that involved shipping oil to military forces in Iraq. A competing firm filed a federal suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act this week against the fundraiser, Harry Sargeant III, and his company, International Oil Trading Company. The suit accuses them of a "bribery scheme" to pay officials in the Kingdom of Jordan, in an effort to keep competing firms out. Sargeant and his company deny wrongdoing and say no bribes were paid.
 
Sargeant is the Finance Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, a key state in the upcoming presidential election. The federal lawsuit is the latest case to bring attention to him. NBC News first reported last May that Sargeant was awarded the Pentagon contract even though he was not the lowest bidder. NBC reported he was being sued in Florida state court by a former business partner who was the brother-in-law of the King of Jordan.
 
This summer, Sargeant made headlines again. Senator McCain's campaign announced it was returning $50,000 in political donations that had been "bundled" by Sargeant, after the Washington Post brought attention to some of the "unlikely" donors. And just last week, U.S. Rep.  Henry Waxman, D-Ca, called on the Department of Defense to investigate Sargeant, and accused him of "war-profiteering" for excessive profits in four successive contracts. A letter Waxman signed said “Mr. Sargeant’s personal gain from these four contracts may have been $70 million or higher.”
 
The latest suit was filed in federal court in Miami by Supreme Fuels, a contracting firm based in Dubai. The central allegation in the lawsuit is a "conspiracy since 2004 to bribe key Jordanian government officials to ensure that defendants would be the sole recipients of more than one billion dollars worth of U.S. government contracts for the supply of fuels to the U.S. military in Iraq."
 
The suit claims that, without the approval of the government of Jordan, companies were not able to get the contract from the U.S. military.

By Robert Windrem and Jonathan Dienst, NBC News

Federal officials tonight released dozens of video and audio tapes from the terrorism trial of five men accused of planning an attack on the Fort Dix Army training base in New Jersey. Prosecutors said during opening statements that the men were inspired by al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

The tapes show some of the defendants training with automatic weapons at a firing range in the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania. Others are downloads and tapes seized from the suspects' homes that show the killing of American troops in Iraq.

The government charges that the men, all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who lived in suburban New Jersey, conspired to kill U.S. servicemen at Fort Dix. Prosecutors have not said the men were part of any overseas terrorist groups. But they argue that were the defendants not arrested in May 2007, they would have tried to carry out an attack on Fort Dix, where U.S. troops train for deployments to Iraq.

The plot was disrupted when the FBI infiltrated the cell with two paid informants. After prosecutors entered the videotapes into evidence, the Court agreed to post all the tape on a U.S. District Court website.

As the Associated Press is reporting, the government has presented the case as one of the most frightening examples of homegrown terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks. Authorities said that in 2006 and 2007, the men turned paintball games into terrorist training sessions and met to discuss a plot to sneak into Fort Dix. No attack was carried out.

"Their motive was to defend Islam. Their inspiration was al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. Their intent was to kill members of the United States armed services," Deputy U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick told the jurors.

The suspects could face life in prison if they're convicted during the trial, which is expected to last into December. They were arrested in May 2007.

Lawyers for the defendants said the government's recordings will show that the defendants were not planning anything.

By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

Governor Sarah Palin used her state law-enforcement agency's twin-engine plane to travel around Alaska, accounting for about 20 percent of its flying time, according to a document obtained by NBC News. The police plane is a King Air turboprop that is primarily used for police-related missions and search and rescue missions.

The governor's flight usage is laid out in a chart prepared by the Alaska Department of Public Safety and obtained by NBC News under the state's Freedom of Information law. (The governor's flight usage is indicated as "Gov" on the chart, and marked in purple.)

On the campaign trail, Gov. Palin has touted her credentials as a reformer by discussing how she sold off the state's other plane, a jet, and even listed it on eBay. Her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, had used that plane for travel.

But after Palin's sale of the state jet following her inauguration as governor, the document shows, she did not stop flying on state planes. Gov. Palin used her Public Safety department's prop plane for 110 hours, or 19 percent of its flight time, in 2007 and 2008. The Department of Corrections used it 28 percent of the time, and Alaska Wildlife troopers also used it 28 percent of the time.  A spokesman for the McCain Palin campaign defended the flights, saying the governor needed to use the state Public Safety plane because of the remote geography of Alaska. "For the governor to perform her duty visiting rural communities the use of an aircraft was necessary," a campaign spokesman said.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News

The McCain campaign released Cindy McCain's tax returns late Friday afternoon, and the numbers might make Joe the Plumber blush. The beer-company executive reported income last year of nearly $4.2 million, and more than $6 million in 2006.

The campaign released four pages of returns for 2006 and 2007--and none of the other forms and schedules that generally accompany complex tax returns--after 6pm EST. It's become a tired Washington ritual for politicians to deliver potentially embarassing news just before the weekend, when coverage typically slows. This campaign season, both the Obama and McCain campaigns have dumped documents on news organizations late on Fridays.

The tax returns show Cindy McCain paid taxes of $1.1 million last year and received a refund of $954,112 (for overpaying.) In 2006, the potential first lady paid $1.7 million in taxes and got a refund of nearly $300,000.

In a press release, the McCain campaign said: "Mrs. McCain had received an extension to file her 2007 tax returns because she had not received all information necessary to complete the returns. Senator and Mrs. McCain have filed separate tax returns throughout their marriage, because Mrs. McCain is an owner of a family business. Sen. McCain's tax returns were made public earlier this year."

By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer

A company that ships oil into Iraq for use by American forces there "appears to have engaged in a reprehensible form of war profiteering," according to a letter by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Cal., Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The company, International Oil Trading Limited, is run by Florida-based businessman Harry Sargeant, a top fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.
 
Waxman's committee launched an investigation earlier his year following a May 2008 report by NBC News that first reported on the oil contracts.

Sargeant, the McCain fundraiser, is the president of IOTC, which won massive Pentagon contracts to provide U.S. troops in Iraq with fuel. NBC first reported on the contracts in May. This summer, Sargeant came under the spotlight again after the Washington Post reported that he was at the center of campaign-contribution "bundling" involving tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from "unlikely" donors.  In August the McCain campaign said it was returning about $50,000 linked to Sargeant's fundraising.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

Move over, Bill Ayers. This week, Republican activists have a new Public Enemy #1. It’s ACORN, the once-obscure community-organizing group that boasts of having registered 1.3 million new voters.

Republican officials and advisers to Sen. John McCain have accused ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) of rampant voter-registration fraud. Indeed, officials in states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Indiana and Connecticut now are looking into accusations that ACORN workers turned in thousands of fraudulent or duplicate voter-registration applications. (The Dallas Cowboys magically filled out voter registration forms in Nevada, for example.)

So what exactly is ACORN’s track record in registering new voters? It hasn’t always been pretty. Here are some highlights (lowlights?) from recent court documents and public testimony in three states that have examined ACORN’s hiring practices over the past two years.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

The Obama campaign’s Muslim outreach director participated in a meeting in mid September that was attended by several controversial Muslim activists, NBC News has learned. The Obama campaign now concedes that was a misjudgment, and that its top Muslim staffer would not have attended the meeting if she had known the full participant list beforehand.

“Would a campaign staffer have attended if they were aware of the complete list of attendees? No,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt in an email statement to NBC.

The Muslim outreach meeting
On September 15, newly named Muslim outreach director Minha Husaini spoke to a small group of Muslim leaders and potential Obama supporters at a hotel in Springfield, Virginia, several meeting participants and the campaign said. Two other Obama-affiliated Democratic Party workers joined Husaini and also spoke to the crowd. Some Virginia and Washington, D.C.-based Muslim activists and interested citizens attended, and flyers were passed out from “Arab Americans for Obama” stating Sen. Obama’s goals for achieving peace in the Middle East, protecting the civil liberties of Arab Americans and ending the war in Iraq.

Several participants told NBC News that Husaini and other speakers delivered a standard Obama campaign pitch. “They said, ‘We’re here to get the concerns of Muslim voters and let everyone know that the Obama campaign does want the support of the Muslim community,’ ” recalled one participant, who requested anonymity. The meeting was not advertised and some attendees got text phone messages notifying them that day of the meeting’s location, the participant said.

Nearly a month later, the meeting is drawing controversy--and not because of anything said at the meeting itself.

By Robert Windrem and Jim Popkin, NBC News

Is this an opportune time for a terrorist attack? Could Al-Qaida use the current financial distress and political uncertainty in the U.S. to magnify its power?

U.S. intelligence officials say no. They suggest that while Al-Qaida may want to be "part of the conversation" in the U.S. presidential election, there is no "specific or extraordinary" threat information, nothing to indicate that terrorists are capable of taking advantage of the current situation.

"They attack when they can, when they have an opportunity," said one intelligence official, adding that terrorists have wanted to attack the U.S. but have tried and failed on several occasions since Sept. 11. "For whatever reason, they have not seen the conditions they need to succeed," said the official.

Indeed, NBC News has obtained a "note" by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security that debunks recent Internet reports predicting a terror strike inside the United States prior to the elections or the inauguration. The note was distributed yesterday to thousands of U.S. law-enforcement officials, and authored by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI's Threat Analysis Unit.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives.

Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The DHS analysts--after coordinating with the FBI Threat Analysis Unit--said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and operators to be aware of potential attack tactics."

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

Adam Gadahn, the American-born Al-Qaida member, made a new videotape message that offers proof of life, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said. In a joint bulletin issued Saturday night to U.S. law-enforcement officials, the FBI and DHS said the videotape was likely made weeks ago, NBC News has learned. "The video probably was created in mid September," the FBI bulletin said.

The videotape is the first concrete evidence that Gadahn, the California-born Al-Qaida spokesman, was not killed in a Predator attack in North Waziristan in February, as some publications had speculated. Prior to the release of the videotape this weekend, Gadahn had not been seen or heard from since January 6. That’s when Gadahn released a videotape that threatened President Bush with “bombs and booby traps” during a visit to the Middle East, and when the Al Qaida propagandist ripped up his U.S. passport on camera and denounced his U.S. citizenship.

The FBI bulletin also predicts more messages from Al Qaida in the coming weeks. "We expect Al Qaida to release additional messages before the election" for U.S. president, the FBI/DHS notice said.

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

When House members today approved the $700 billion financial-industry bailout bill, they also voted to approve dozens of so-called "tax extenders." Fiscal watchdogs have another word for these "tax extenders"--pork.

You'd need to be a forensic accountant, or a CSI detective, to comprehend the bureaucratic language in the 451-page Senate bailout bill, called H.R. 1424. In tortured English, under the heading "Extension of Business Tax Provisions," the bill lists dozens of tax breaks for companies and industries large and small.

"Subpart F exception for active financing income," reads one section. "Extension of look-thru role for related controlled foreign corporations," reads another.

Watchdog groups including Taxpayers for Common Sense have been tracking some of these obscure tax breaks for years, and have published the most glaring examples. They say the small-print provisions represent billions in tax breaks for certain American industries, and were added as "sweeteners" to encourage reluctant House members to approve the bailout bill.