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Jill Sampson, the whistleblower in the Don Siegelman case who has been hounded by her local USA in Alabama, has requested that White House Counsel Greg Craig resign or recuse himself from dealing with any Bush administration matters. (h/t democraticunderground.com)
The "exclusive" story by Glynn Wilson in the Knoxville, TN, Locust Fork News-Journal was also covered by Afterdowningstreet.org a week earlier. Both have the text of Simpson’s attorney’s letter to Craig.
If true, this would be important news. White House lawyers, led by Craig, will be combing through mountains of legal garbage left by the Bush White House. They will be in constant contact with the DOJ over what to do about it, Craig and AG Eric Holder especially. The apparent conflict of interest is a good argument for Craig’s documented recusal (unlike Leura Canary’s faux recusal in the Siegelman case) on all matters Rove and Bush, since lawyers are supposed to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.
More troubling is the allegation that Craig pursued Simpson as a client, seeking to represent her in connection with a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. He allegedly persuaded her to reveal her case against Rove, then declined to represent her. I assume Craig has a different take on this besides what a Japanese trading company would call gathering routine market intelligence. Then again, it wouldn’t be bound by American legal ethics rules. At the time, apparently, Craig represented Rove in his book deal, which could well have involved substantive discussions of its contents. Craig’s partner, Emmet Flood, was apparently also representing Bush involving executive privilege claims before the DC Court of Appeals.
If true, it would be a typical example of the Beltway boys always working both sides of the legal fence. As usual Legal Schnauzer has more, as does Daily Kos.
21 Comments
Oh, where is the update button for blog authors? Her correct name is Jill Simpson. Apologies.
Given the volume of matters involving Rove and Bush that the Obama White House is likely to deal with, it is hard to see how Mr. Craig could recuse himself from all of them and still do his job. Perhaps he needs to be reassigned as senior presidential adviser, with the White House Counsel’s slot and its management responsibilities going to someone else.
Edward Lazarus, writing about judicial conflicts of interest (slightly different rules apply to lawyers’ conflicts), cautions that we would hamstring ourselves if we expect top judges (and lawyers) to be as blameless and above suspicion as Caesar’s wife.
I would argue that we have gone so far in the opposite direction that a little over-correction would be in order. The Beltway in particular thinks that a twenty degree list to starboard is sailing on an even keel.
I understand that sometimes it’s useful to gather information, but this really has a strange feel to it. Particularly given the ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ way that Siegelman was sent out of a federal courtroom off to a 7 year sentence by a judge who had no business ruling in his case.
Craig may be an excellent attorney, and he may know invaluable insider info, but in an age where we are bailing out AIG, national banks, still have no medical coverage for millions, and things are very unstable, this is just ‘beyond the pale’.
Craig may be a fine, committed person but this is not the historical moment to play both sides of THIS particular political fence.
So many threads on Rove, Craig, Simpson…egad?!
I read about this on DU earlier today but didn’t recognize Simpson’s name. This could all get very interesting. I wonder if the MSM will carry any news of it?
MSM only carries water (fascist water).
I won’t hold my breath on that one. If anything at all is “covered”, it will only be in the most superficial manner. You know…just like pretty much everything else they “cover”…except shark attacks and steroids, of course.
Goopers are reaching a new low:
The Harris Poll. Based on nationwide surveys of adults, conducted over the course of each calendar year.
“Regardless of how you may vote, what do you usually consider yourself: a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, or some other party?”
Republican Democrat Independent
% % %
2008 26 36 31
Only 26% of americans will admit to being goopers vs 36% who proudly claim to be dems. At 31%, indies outrank goops by 5%
This stinks to high heaven
Like a Dead Skunk In The Middle of the Road
Far from being a Republican too, Craig was Bill Clinton’s defense counsel in the impeachment farce. Which is why wingnuts hate him.
From RightPundits, a right-wing blog:
No mention of Rove here. I suspect that if he was really seriously tied to Rove, the wingnuts wouldn’t hate him.
hah! I’d forgotten that gem
In light of recent history, administration lawyers (and judicial nominees) must be like Caesar’s wife — above suspicion.
SunnyNobility, he WAS Bill Clinton’s lawyer during the impeachment farce.
In fact, if you Google “craig obama”, the first result that currently (and likely for some time) turns up is a RightPundits post attacking Craig for his Clinton associations! No mention is made of Karl Rove.
the hell with Harris :D
here’s a Fox Poll out today:
Approve: 63% Disapprove: 26% Don’t Know: 11%
but wait, there’s more !
What do you think the nation’s economy needs more of right now — the
economic policies of Ronald Reagan or the economic policies of Barack Obama?
Reagan: 40% Obama: 49% DK: 11%
linky
my apologies to eoh – simply couldn’t resist
Has anyone in the Obama Administration even heard of vetting? It seems hard to believe that none of this ever came up in conservations with Craig or that no one in the Obama WH saw this as a potential problem.
Emmet Flood and Greg Craig, representing their respective presidents, will be arm in arm at the no-depo recitation. No other witnesses will be called — that’s also in the agreement (maybe one), and the transcription of testimony won’t be released unless all parties approve. That’s a committee rule. There were 701 tracked political prosecutions in the Bush Justice Department, and they’re not even going to examine Siegelman’s enough to call the planners.
Any “friendship” of any sort with Rove should have disqualified Craig from service in the O administration. Period.
I guess “vetting” is relative, especially when the Gold Standard is McCain’s choice of Palin as his VP. /S
Bob in HI
I think Obama’s vetting process highlights what Glenn Greenwald has been saying about the Beltway generally, especially its press corps. It’s a game of inside baseball, political blackjack where the house always wins. The players who know the substance of what the government needs to do and how it ought to operate are co-opted in the process of learning it.
It’s almost like having a single real estate broker in all of Chicago. The odds seem high that they will play both sides off against each other to empower and enrich themselves. Vetting might have come up with a lawyer in SFO or Boston who knew the law, but not how DC operates. That would be good only if they had the juice with Obama to do things differently.
Obama seems too full of having taken the helm to want to do anything but steer a steady course into the wind. That it doesn’t lead anywhere near a safe harbor is beside the point; it’ll keep his ship from floundering or being taken over by disgruntled GOP’ers and New Democrats below decks.
That blog’s point in criticizing Craig, I assume from the reference to “perjury”, is to accuse him of the perjury they claim Bill Clinton committed when Craig was defending him in his impeachment hearings. The Right’s authoritarian base feeds on hypocrisy, so I doubt that blog’s views would be different because Craig had an attorney-client relationship with Rove.
The connection between Rove and Craig seems straightforward and presumably was explicitly vetted by Team Obama. He represented Rove in a deal to sell book rights for Karl’s “story”. Fiction, no doubt. Rove may have thought using Craig, an attorney for the arch-nemesis of many of Rove’s clients, was so delicious an irony he couldn’t pass it up. Besides, if Craig was capable of negotiating a lucrative deal for Rove, he probably wouldn’t have cared if he represented Jimmy Carter, Jane Fonda and the ACLU.
I assume Team Obama took the view that all its top picks for WH Counsle would have similar conflicts. If not, they weren’t a big enough player to get the job. But they may not have heard about the alleged facts relating to his apparent marketing of himself to Ms. Simpson and his decision not to take the case after he got the details of her claims against Rove.
Which gets back to what Hugh said here and EW said on her post on the same topic: the Beltway is so incestuous, half the top guns probably have haemophilia and call Queen Victoria their great, great, great grandmother.