Comments (35)

Richard Blair wrote on April 12, 2007 3:18 PM:

Cripes, McClatchy is way behind the ball on this one - even though they're the only ones to really target the RNLA. Digby was all over the RNLA last week, as were several other blogs (including my own). It all fits into the voter fraud issue. More at allspinzone.com or this link (if it shows up...)

http://allspinzone.com/wp/2007/04/08/attorneygate-vote-suppression/

Anonymous wrote on April 12, 2007 3:34 PM:

Orwellian.

r€nato wrote on April 12, 2007 3:39 PM:

some fucking Rethuglican water-carrier was on Diane Rehm a day or so ago, advancing the argument that these US Attorneys were just like any other political appointee, nothing to see here, move along... as if every other past administration had always done things this way.

I usually don't mind listening to opposing points of view, but I was so angry at having to hear these blatant insults to my intelligence, these damned lies, that I had to shut off the radio.

The GOP really needs to be punished in 2008 by the voters. I've been saying for some time now that they need to lose a few elections in a row until the message begins to sink in. The Republicans need about a generation in the political wilderness, if not longer, to recover from their current bout of lying, incompetence, corruption and fascist tendencies.

Pat wrote on April 12, 2007 3:39 PM:

Wow.

All of the AUSAs (assistant United States Attorneys) that I know studiously avoid any contact with the political parties. Going to a cocktail party is a sin, much less being active in such a group. I'd imagine there is a written rule about that, but I have no idea how to find it.

Anon wrote on April 12, 2007 3:40 PM:

No federal prosecution for voter fraud of Ann Coulter though. . . .Nahh. Too easy. Too legitimate. Too Republican!

XL wrote on April 12, 2007 3:43 PM:

Ethics? We don't need any stinking Ethics! This might as well be the catch phrase of this administration. It is only if Rove & Co. or the Bush Crime Family do something ethical would I actually be surpised.

My question is, and has been, where are the local state bars that are supposed to regulate federal attorneys? It is well settled law that the state bar regulate attorneys and can disipline them for ethical violations. Citizens can certainly voice their concern that the there are ethical violations without needing to be directly involved in cases.

GeorgeD wrote on April 12, 2007 3:56 PM:

Is this going too far, maybe?

McClatchyism: "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association?"

TR wrote on April 12, 2007 3:57 PM:

Maybe it's just me, but what's up with the headline? It makes it look like DOJ lawyers sue Dems by day and then sue GOP lawyers at night.

swamp thing wrote on April 12, 2007 3:59 PM:

And we're barely seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Ellen wrote on April 12, 2007 4:05 PM:

No morals, no conflict. How tidy.

jan wrote on April 12, 2007 4:06 PM:

I think there is a Pulitzer Prize story here, if only someone can chack out all Dem prosecutions since the Bush machine took office. I still believe Meg Scott Phipps was unfairly targeted and villified into a conviction and then a plea agreement.

fatkat wrote on April 12, 2007 4:09 PM:

Paul, you talked about the Rep. Lawyer referral web site...and I went fishing!

check out this name and who they served under.

Ms. Lani Miller
O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Regular Member
Office:
1625 Eye Street NW
Washington, DC 20006

Phone: 202-383-5126
Email: lmiller@omm.com
Web Site: www.omm.com

Law School: Southwestern University (1996)

Practice Areas:
Civil Rights
Litigation
White Collar Crime

Lani Miller is a counsel in the Adversarial Department of O'Melveny & Myers LLP's Washington, D.C. office. Before coming to O'Melveny & Myers, Lani was a Commissioned Officer at the White House and served as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Press Advance. Prior to assuming her post at the White House, she was a Federal Prosecutor in the Fraud Unit at the U.S. Attorneys Office, Eastern District of Virginia. Lani also was Assistant to the Attorney General and Counsel to the Associate Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice.

RNLA Logo

bubba wrote on April 12, 2007 4:10 PM:

Well, I guess anyone faced with a US Attorney or Judge who is a member of this group should raise the Tom Delay recusal/conflict of interest defense to have the person removed from their case. If just the mere giving of money to a political group is sufficient to taint a judge in a case, actual concurrent participation in a political group should be more than sufficient to have a USA or judge recused or removed.

bear wrote on April 12, 2007 4:33 PM:

The DOJ guidelines for U.S. Attorneys prohibit this conflict of interest, or even the appearance of a conflict.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/...doj.htm#1- 4.400

1-4.320 F provides,

"Conflicts of Interest. Employees may not engage in outside activities that create or appear to create a conflict of interest with their official duties. Such a conflict exists when the outside activity would: (1) require the recusal of the employee from significant aspects of his or her official duties (5 C.F.R. § 2635.802(b)); (2) create an appearance that the employee's official duties were performed in a biased or less than impartial manner (5 C.F.R. § 2635.502); or (3) create an appearance of official sanction or endorsement (5 C.F.R. § 2635.702(b))."

My guess is that these guidelines apply to direct DOJ lawyers too.

Anthony wrote on April 12, 2007 4:48 PM:

Of course Ike Brown is African American.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/politics/11voting.html?ex=1318219200&en=974523118ca482f3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

KY3 Democrat wrote on April 12, 2007 4:50 PM:

bubba says: "...actual concurrent participation in a political group should be more than sufficient to have a USA or judge recused or removed."

And so leads us to the paralysis of the rule of law, one very nasty result of this whole scandal. Open, credible, non-partisan prosecution and judging of the law now goes out the window, and we're back to the rule of the jungle.

KY3 Democrat: "Who needs the law when we've got all the money?"

DM wrote on April 12, 2007 5:00 PM:

Thanks for pointing out the website of the Republican National Lawyers Association. Its "mission" includes "advancing fair and honest elections ... in a non-discriminatory manner."
to wit, "It responds to requests for assistance from the Republican Party and its candidates by communicating the requests to its members."

It's nice to know they don't discriminate among Republicans.

wls wrote on April 12, 2007 5:06 PM:

So you've got 25 nitwits out of about 6000 attorneys at DOJ -- and that's a story?

Being a member of a organization like RNLA isn't a problem. DOJ attorneys are entitled to participate in political activities similar to other citizens. There are certain limits under the Hatch Act, but those limits only apply to DOJ attorneys in the Criminal Division. Everyone else is free to participate in the political process and do political work (without pay) on behalf of parties or political organizations.

The Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division does not fall under the most restrictive provisions that apply to criminal prosecutors.

So, why criticize them for doing something that the law allows them to do?

Whether they should list their positions of employment with DOJ, rather than simply their city and state, is a different question. I suspect word will go out to them to change their listing, since they may not use their official authority to influence an election, and there is no justifiable reason for identifying themselves as DOJ attorneys in this kind of listing.

http://www.osc.gov/documents/hatchact/haflyer.pdf

wls wrote on April 12, 2007 5:18 PM:

Having read a few more of these posts, I'm going to quote from the federal statute, because so many readers here think there is some legal/ethical basis for a claim that the DOJ attorneys who belong to this organization have done something wrong:

5 USC Sec. 7321: It is the policy of the Congress that employees should be encouraged to exercise fully, freely, and without fear of penalty or reprisal, and to the extent not expressly prohibited by law, their right to participate or to refrain from participating in the political processes of the Nation.

5 USC Sec. 7323(b)(3): No employee of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice (except one appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate), may take an active part in political management or political campaigns.

Northern Observer wrote on April 12, 2007 7:06 PM:

That's nice wls.
How typical that the RNC is able to accomplish thier subversion while respecting the letter of the law.
It's not the affiliation that is a problem.
It is their behavior and prosecutorial record combined with their affiliation that raises a clear and present conflict of interest.

Nice water carrying. Top marks for style.

Charlie wrote on April 12, 2007 7:35 PM:

The problem with the conspiracy theory is that this case helps Democrats - white ones - but Democrats nonetheless.

GeorgeD wrote on April 12, 2007 8:05 PM:

That's unfair, Northern Observer, and proves exactly why this McClatchy story goes too far.

I believe in civil liberties, and cherish my right to associate with whomever I want in my free time. It makes no difference if I'm an attorney, a reporter, a civil servant, or a bartender (and I've been three of the four...) It doesn't matter if THEY seek to ban such rights to assemble, associate and participate -- or if WE do. It's wrong either way.

If these attorneys violate established laws or rules and cross the line into illegal or unethical conduct, they can be fired, disbarred or even prosecuted. But membership in an organization alone does not prove or even imply guilt. We should all know and respect that.

wls wrote on April 12, 2007 8:09 PM:

Northern Observer:

Subersion? Of what?

Are DOJ attorneys not allowed to be Democrats and Republicans?

Their behavior and prosecutorial record?

Cite it.

Do you have ANY CLUE what the US v. Brown case is about?? Do you think its RNC inspired, and is being pushed by two RNLA members using their authority as DOJ attorneys??

Here is an overview of facts:

The case involves Democrat PRIMARY contests, not general elections.
The complaint alleges that the County Democrat Committee Chairman used the power of his office to recruit black democrat candidates who did not meet residency requirements to run against white democrat candidates in primary contests where there has been a historical pattern of voters casting their votes in racial blocks. The result of certifying black candidates for primaries in which they did not meet residency requirements was to deny white DEMOCRAT voters equal protection under the law.

The complaint also alleges a pattern of discriminatory conduct by Brown with respect to preventing/disallowing voting by white DEMOCRATS at the county level, while allowing black voters from surrounding counties to vote when they were not eligible.

Read the entire complaint -- its not hard to find. All you had to do was Google the caption.

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/COMPLAINT.pdf

Two of them work in the Voting Rights Section.

They

GeorgeD wrote on April 12, 2007 10:32 PM:

According to the obituary of the former publisher of the McClatchy Company, (http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2006/sepoct/classnotes/mcclatchy.html ), James Briggs McClatchy was the head of the Inter American press Association, which sought to establish American First Amendment rights throughtout the Americas. As head of a major news organization and a damn fine journalist, he led an association that fouught for the same freedoms in other countries that we enjoy here.

I don't mean to harp on this point but it is a big one to me -- Clearly is legitimate, and in McClatchy's case historically important, for a person to be allowed to associate with a professional organization of interest to him/her and professional colleagues. Does that right not apply to DOJ attorneys? Or should only DOJ Republican attorneys be stripped of their rights? And who decides what groups are in and what groups are out? Would membership in the American Bar Association or American Civil Liberties Union disqualify candidates from employment? Or the Democratic equivalent of the RNLA? That could be the entire Department. I guess we'll never know, since McClatchy didn't appear to fact-check or independently verify the following anonymous claim from their own story:

----"But a Democratic National Committee official said he didn't think that any lawyer affiliated with its lawyers' network was employed by the Justice Department, State Department or Defense Department now or under the Clinton administration. Government employees in those agencies were expected to resign membership in partisan organizations similar to the Republican National Lawyers Association, the official said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity after refusing repeated requests to be identified."-----

I'd like to see McClatchy's Marisa Taylor and Margaret Talev respond to a question: Does your news organization condone the kind of political witch hunt that Joe McCarthy engaged in? If I remember my history correctly, some in the media gave McCarthy the platform through news coverage to launch his campaign, before the journalism community came to its senses and realized that McCarthy was destroying innocent lives and threatening our fundamental rights. Melissa and Margaret: Good Night, and Good Luck.

Tompson wrote on April 15, 2007 8:23 AM:

I think you would be hard pressed to say there isn't evidence to support this case, or that this is some politically motiviated nonsense. This stuff sounds bad, real, REAL bad:

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/brown-USAproposedfindings.pdf

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