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Bush Administration Brings Big Biz to Liability Insurer

Just part of the Bush administration economic stimulus plan: big business for companies insuring federal workers. From The New York Times:

When Al Qaeda attacked the United States in 2001, Wright & Company was insuring about 17,000 federal employees against the legal hazards of their work. Today, that total has nearly doubled to 32,000, Wright executives say, spurred in part by a spate of lawsuits, investigations and criminal prosecutions related to mistreatment of detainees from Iraq to Guantánamo Bay, an immigration crackdown and other aftershocks of 9/11. The insurance is popular with F.B.I. agents, Secret Service officers, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers as well as C.I.A. officers.

“The things that help us are any negative events related to the federal government, and there have been plenty,” said Bryan B. Lewis, Wright’s president and chief executive, who holds a security clearance that allows him to discuss his clients’ secret business.

Yes, times are good.

One of the latest to draw on his policy is Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who ordered the destruction of the torture tapes. He's used it to pay for heavy-hitter Bob Bennett, the Times reports, though how long that's going to last him, nobody knows (Bennett charges up to $900 per hour). He's covered for up to $200,000 in fees to represent him against Congress' probe, and $100,000 in fees for the criminal probe.


Comments (2)

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It is unlikely that Rodriguez is solely accountable for the destruction of the tapes.

It is unlikely that copies of the tapes do not exist on various storage devices here and there.

It is highly likely that some 'tapes' will be seen by the public fairly soon.

It will take Bob Bennett no time at all to run through such a small fund.

Question : what other interested parties will step forward to help defray legal costs ?

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It's not like the federal government can afford to self-insure... Thank God big-business is there to bail us out.

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