Bush' election lawyer resigns

[bigpoppanils]

Bush Campaign's Top Outside Lawyer Resigns

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 25, 2004

ASHINGTON -- An election lawyer for President Bush who also has been advising a veterans group running TV ads against Democrat John Kerry resigned Wednesday from Bush's campaign.

"I cannot begin to express my sadness that my legal representations have become a distraction from the critical issues at hand in this election," Benjamin Ginsberg wrote in a resignation letter to Bush released by the campaign.

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"I feel I cannot let that continue, so I have decided to resign as national counsel to your campaign to ensure that the giving of legal advice to decorated military veterans, which was entirely within the boundaries of the law, doesn't distract from the real issues upon which you and the country should be focusing."

Ginsberg's acknowledgment Tuesday evening that he was providing legal advice to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth marked the second time in days that an individual associated with the Bush-Cheney campaign had been connected to the group, which Kerry accuses of being a front for the Republican incumbent's re-election effort.

The Bush campaign and the veterans' group have said repeatedly that there is no coordination, and the campaign repeated that statement Tuesday.

Lawyers on the Democratic side are also representing both the campaign or party and outside groups running ads in the presidential race at the same time. Ginsberg's dual role has drawn attention because the Swift Boat Veterans group ran an ad accusing Kerry of exaggerating his Vietnam War record, an issue that has dominated the campaign since early August.

Kerry has fired back by accusing Bush of using the group as a front to run a smear campaign for him. Democrats have jumped on any tie, even if legal, to back up that claim.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/campaign/25CND-SWIF.html?hp

[sobeton]

[igloo]

The above would seem irrelevant, when you consider other data (not sure if this was conatined in the rest of the online NY Times article, but here is the bottom half of what was posted:

Joe Sandler, a lawyer for the DNC and a group running anti-Bush ads, MoveOn.org, said there is nothing wrong with serving in both roles at once.

In addition to the FEC's coordination rules, attorneys are ethically bound to maintain attorney-client confidentiality, Sandler said. They could lose their law licenses if they violate that, he said.

Ginsberg said Tuesday he never told the Bush campaign what he discussed with the veterans group, or vice versa, and didn't advise the group on ad strategies.

The group "came to me and said, 'We have a point of view we want to get into the First Amendment debate right now. There's a new law. It's very complicated. We want to comply with the law, will you keep us in the bounds of the law?'" Ginsberg said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I said yes, absolutely, as I would do for anyone."

Ginsberg said he had not yet decided whether to charge the Swift Boat Veterans a fee for his work.

On Saturday, retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier resigned as a member of the Bush campaign's veterans' steering committee after it was learned that he appeared in the commercial.

Ginsberg represented the Bush campaign in 2000 and became a prominent figure during the Florida recount.

He also served as counsel to the RNC in its unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn the new federal campaign finance law, which banned the national party committees from collecting corporate and union contributions and unlimited donations known as soft money and imposed stricter rules on coordination involving parties, candidates and interest groups.

Larry Noble, head of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics campaign watchdog group and former FEC general counsel, said it's true that serving as a lawyer for both a campaign and a soft-money group isn't considered automatic evidence of coordination under commission rules, but he added that it doesn't mean the FEC won't look at it.

"I think there's a valid question about when you're talking about strictly legal advice and when you're talking about policy issues and strategic issues," Noble said. "It's fair to ask what the advice is about."

[sobeton]

an actual article from the times in its entirety concerning the issue ...

August 25, 2004

Bush Campaign's Top Outside Lawyer Resigns

By JIM RUTENBERG

and KATE ZERNIKE

The Bush campaign's top outside lawyer, who said on Tuesday that he had given legal advice to the group of veterans attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record, said today that he was resigning from the campaign because his activities were becoming a "distraction" to Mr. Bush' re-election efforts.

The lawyer, Benjamin L. Ginsberg, said that the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, called him last month to ask for his help and that he had agreed. The group has criticized Mr. Kerry's war record and his antiwar activism in a book, television commercials and appearances on various news programs, especially on cable.

"I cannot begin to express my sadness that my legal representations have become a distraction from the critical issues at hand in this election," Mr. Ginsberg told the president in a letter distributed today by the Bush-Cheney campaign. "I feel I cannot let that continue, so I have decided to resign as national counsel to your campaign to ensure that the giving of legal advice to decorated military veterans, which was entirely within the boundaries of the law, doesn't distract from the real issues upon which you and the country should be focusing."

The Kerry-Edwards campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, said today that Mr. Ginsberg's resignation "confirms the extent of those connections."

"Now we know why George Bush refuses to specifically condemn these false ads," she said. "People deeply involved in his own campaign are behind them, from paying for them, to appearing in them, to providing legal advice, to coordinating a negative strategy to divert the public away from issues like jobs, health care and the mess in Iraq, the real concerns of the American people."

And in another sign of how the fierce debate about Mr. Kerry's Vietnam record has continued to dominate both campaigns, news agencies reported today that Mr. Kerry was dispatching two fellow Vietnam veterans to Mr. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., to urge him to condemn the television advertisements challenging Senator Kerry's military record.

Former Senator Max Cleland, Democrat of Georgia, who lost three limbs during the Vietnam war, and Jim Rassman, a former Army Green Beret whose life was saved by Mr. Kerry during a Vietnam firefight, will travel to the high-security Bush ranch in Crawford to try to deliver a protest letter from several Democratic senators, all of whom have served in the military, Kerry aides told the news agencies.

Mr. Ginsberg, the chief outside counsel to the Bush-Cheney re-election effort, agreed to an interview on Tuesday after several telephone calls to him and the campaign asking that he explain his role. He said that he was helping the group comply with campaign finance rules and that his work was entirely separate from his work for the president's campaign. President Bush has called for an end to advertising by all groups like that of the Swift boat veterans, called 527's for the section of the tax code that created them.

Mr. Ginsberg said in the interview that he had yet to work out payment details with the group and that he might consider doing the work pro bono.

In his letter to the president today, Mr. Ginsberg said his work with the Swift boat group was conducted "in a manner that is fully appropriate and legal and, in fact, is quite similar to the relationships between my counterparts at the D.N.C. and the Kerry campaign and Democrat 527's such as MoveOn.org, the Media Fund and Americans Coming Together."

Mr. Ginsberg said his role was no different from that of Robert Bauer, a lawyer the Kerry campaign shares with America Coming Together, a liberal group that is organizing a huge multimillion-dollar get-out-the-vote drive that is far more ambitious than the Swift boat group's activities.

The Bush campaign had nothing else to say on the matter today, but on Tuesday, Scott Stanzel, a Bush spokesman, said, "There has been no coordination at any time between Bush-Cheney '04 and any 527."

Mr. Bush's campaign aides have repeatedly said they have no connection to the swift boat group, whose challenges to Mr. Kerry and his war record have been largely contradicted by official war records and even some of its members' own past statements.

Mr. Ginsberg, a prominent elections lawyer, was a senior lawyer for the Bush organization in the Florida recount after the 2000 election and was once general counsel to the Republican National Committee. He said he had no involvement in the message or strategy of the Swift boat group and said he had no reason to believe that Mr. Bush knew of his involvement.

"The truth is there are very few lawyers who work in this area," Mr. Ginsberg said in the Tuesday interview. "It's sort of natural that people do come to the few of us for the work. What happened was a month or so ago some decorated Vietnam vets came to me and said: `We have an important point of view to enter into the debate. There's a new law that's complicated, and we want help complying with the law.' "

He added, "I have given them some legal compliance advice."

Mr. Kerry has gone on the offensive over the group's activities, saying it is "a front" for Mr. Bush's campaign and repeatedly calling on the president to repudiate an advertisement from the group attacking his record. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is also a decorated war veteran, has also called on Mr. Bush to repudiate the spots.

The 527 groups are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they do not coordinate their activities with federal campaigns or political parties. Campaign finance rules do not prohibit lawyers from working for both outside groups and campaigns because they are not considered strategists.

Mr. Bush has declined to take on the group directly but repeated this week that he believed that all outside groups should stop advertising.

Mr. Ginsberg had been at the forefront of pressing the legal case against Democratic 527's, which have spent more than $60 million on advertisements against Mr. Bush.

In complaints against the groups, Republican lawyers have noted that Harold M. Ickes, who has helped raise money for and organize America Coming Together and the Media Fund, both 527 groups, is also on the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee.

The chairman of the Democratic convention, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, has been an adviser to another 527 group, the New Democrat Network. And Jim Jordan, a spokesman for the Media Fund, was Mr. Kerry's campaign manager until he resigned in November.

Mr. Ginsberg said he decided to help Republican groups after the Federal Election Commission declined to imposed strict rules on the 527 groups in May.

"At that point," he said, "I was more than happy to help all Republican groups comply with the law so that there wasn't unilateral disarmament."

An occasional collaborator with Mr. Ginsberg, Chris LaCivita, is also working for the group, advising on media strategy. Mr. LaCivita was political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2002 and now works for the DCI Group, a Washington political strategy firm whose partners include Charles Francis, a longtime friend of President Bush from Texas and Tom Synhorst, an adviser to the Bush campaign in 2000, who was an architect of the campaign's effort in the Iowa caucuses.

Mr. LaCivita said on Tuesday that he worked as a private contractor for DCI and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and that there was no coordination between the firm and the group.

"Obviously, I don't work for the Bush campaign," he said.

Mr. LaCivita described his role as providing advice on the news media and placing advertisements. Asked to describe how close his involvement was or how Mr. Ginsberg was involved, Mr. LaCivita referred calls to a spokesman for Swift Boat Veterans, which declined to comment.

Mr. LaCivita and Mr. Ginsberg have also been involved with Progress for America, a group that calls itself the leading organization pushing a conservative agenda. Mr. Ginsberg did not say how frequently he consulted with the group.

This is the second time in recent days that an individual associated with Mr. Bush's campaign has acknowledged working with Swift Boat Veterans. On Sunday, the campaign confirmed an accusation first made by Mr. Kerry's campaign that Kenneth Cordier, a retired colonel who appears in the second of two commercials by the group, had been a member of the Bush campaign's veterans' advisory committee. The campaign said that it had not known that Mr. Cordier, a volunteer, was going to be in the spot and that he had resigned as a result of it.

Mr. Kerry's campaign filed a complaint last week with the Federal Election Commission about collaboration between Mr. Bush's campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans, activities that would violate the laws for the 527's.

Swift Boat Veterans portrays itself as an organic group opposed to Mr. Kerry. On Tuesday, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission defended the group's right to advertise. But it has gradually acknowledged ties to people close to the Republican Party and Mr. Bush's campaign.

"It's another piece of evidence of the ties between the Bush campaign and this group," Chad Clanton, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, said. Asked about his campaign's use of shared lawyers, Mr. Clanton said, "If the Bush campaign truly disapproved of this smear, their top lawyer wouldn't be involved."

On Monday, the veterans' group acknowledged that a longtime Republican operative, Susan Arceneaux, was working for it and had taken out the post office box listed as the group's address. The group described Ms. Arceneaux's role, also, as "compliance."

Records also list Ms. Arceneaux as treasurer of the Majority Leader's Fund, a political action committee affiliated with the former House majority leader, Dick Armey of Texas, which like the Swift Boat Veterans received significant financing from Bob Perry, a Texan who has long supported Mr. Bush.

Mr. Perry has given $200,000 to Swift Boat Veterans. He is listed as co-host on an invitation to a fund-raiser next week at the Tavern on the Green in Manhattan. The invitation list includes President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, The Dallas Morning News reported on Tuesday. Mr. Rove has acknowledged through a spokesman to being friends with Mr. Perry.

Maria Newman contributed reporting from New York for this article.

[mursa]

igloo take not :

Cut & paste the truth the whole truth and not only the section that appeals to your conservative view . lol

[igloo]

igloo take not :

Cut & paste the truth the whole truth and not only the section that appeals to your conservative view . lol

Retard: here is my exact words:

The above would seem irrelevant, when you consider other data (not sure if this was conatined in the rest of the online NY Times article, but here is the bottom half of what was posted:

I do not have access to the NY Times online, but the exact text portion of what bigpoppinails posted was contained in another article I saw (as news wires often do), and I posted the rest that did not appear in bigpoppinails text message....especially when it contained information that balanced out the headline

Clear enough for you son?......If not, get an adult, but you would think when I clearly stated "not sure if this was in the rest of the NY Times article", you would have understood......my bad mistake there

Nice job making a fool out of yourself, again....

[bigpoppanils]

Retard: here is my exact words:

The above would seem irrelevant, when you consider other data (not sure if this was conatined in the rest of the online NY Times article, but here is the bottom half of what was posted:

oops

i forgot to post page 2

[igloo]

oops

i forgot to post page 2

no problem

[igloo]

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

FACT SHEET: Top 10 Connections Between John Kerry And 527s

Former Kerry Campaign Manager Jim Jordan Founded Thunder Road Group, A Consulting Firm Representing America Coming Together, The Media Fund And America Votes. "Jim Jordan, a Winston-Salem native, was fired as John Kerry's presidential campaign manager in November…. Now he has started his own consulting firm, called Thunder Road Group. The firm is representing America Coming Together, the Media Fund, and America Votes, all pro-Democratic 527 political organizations gearing up for the 2004 election." ("People," National Journal, 2/28/04)

Harold Ickes Is A Member Of DNC's Executive Committee And Head Of The Media Fund And Chief Of Staff To America Coming Together. Ickes "Admits That He Occasionally Tells The Kerry Camp What He's Up To, And He Insists It's Perfectly Legal." (Jim Drinkard, "'Outside' Political Groups Full Of Party Insiders," USA Today, 6/28/04; Paula Dwyer, "Why 527 Is The Dems' Lucky Number," BusinessWeek Online, 7/28/04)

MoveOn.org's Zack Exley Joined Kerry Campaign As Director Of Online Communications And Organizing. (Sharon Theimer, "MoveOn Staffer Moves On To Kerry Campaign," The Associated Press, 4/7/04)

Bob Bauer Of Perkins Coie Is Legal Counsel To Both Kerry Campaign And America Coming Together (ACT). (Jim Rutenberg And Kate Zernike, "Veteran's Group Had GOP Lawyer," The New York Times, 8/25/04)

Kerry Campaign Paid Bauer's Law Firm, Perkins Coie, $360,244.28 For Legal Services And Other Expenses. (Federal Election Commission Records, www.fec.gov, Accessed 8/5/04)

America Coming Together (ACT) Paid Bauer's Law Firm, Perkins Coie, $176,732 For Legal Services And Other Expenses. (Political Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 8/5/04)

Joe Sandler Is General Counsel To DNC While Serving As Legal Counsel To 527s MoveOn.org And Moving America Forward. (Jonathan Groner, "Power Punch," Legal Times, 4/26/04)

Erik Smith Is The Media Fund's Executive Director And Worked With Steve Elmendorf, Kerry's Deputy Campaign Manager, On Dick Gephardt's Presidential Campaign. (Jim VandeHei, "Kerry Expected To Emerge From Battle Stronger Than Ever," The Washington Post, 3/3/04)

Minyon Moore, A Kerry Campaign Consultant, Serves On Executive Committee Of America Coming Together. (Glen Johnson, "Kerry To Press 'Environmental Justice,'" The Boston Globe, 4/22/03; Lisa Getter, "Kerry Aided By 'Illegal' Soft Money, GOP Claims," Los Angeles Times, 4/1/04)

Media Fund Ad Consultant Bill Knapp Hired By Kerry Campaign. (Thomas B. Edsall, "Shifting The Money So The Votes Will Follow," The Washington Post, 5/11/04)

Former ACT Employee Rodney Shelton Hired As Kerry's Arkansas State Director. (Michael R. Wickline, "Arkansan To Head Kerry's State Effort," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 6/22/04)

Kerry's New Mexico Caucus Director, Geri Prado, Is Leading ACT's GOTV Effort In That State. (Michael Finnegan, "Kerry's Low Profile May Cost Crucial Latino Votes," Los Angeles Times, 5/3/04)

Don't Forget The Dewey Square Group Provides Political Consulting Services For Both Kerry Campaign And America Coming Together (ACT).

Kerry Campaign Has Paid Dewey Square Group $194,936.48 For Political Consulting And Other Expenses. (Federal Election Commission Records, www.fec.gov, Accessed 8/5/04)

America Coming Together (ACT) Has Paid Dewey Square Group $51,808 For Political Consulting And Other Expenses. (Political Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed 8/5/04)

At Least Four Kerry Advisors Are Associated With Dewey Square Group: Michael Whouley, Jill Alper, Minyon Moore And Joe Ricca. (Glen Johnson, "Kerry To Press 'Environmental Justice,'" The Boston Globe, 4/22/03; Dewey Square Group Website, http://www.deweysquare.com/, Accessed 2/5/04; Peter Grier, "How Kerry Turned The Corner," Christian Science Monitor, 2/5/04; Glen Johnson and John Aloysius Farrell, "Kerry's New-Look Campaign Relies On A Few Key Players," The Boston Globe, 1/9/03)

And Michael Meehan, Now A Communications Advisor To Kerry, Was Hired By NARAL In 2003 To "Oversee Its Vastly Expanded Soft-Money Operation." His Hiring Was "Billed As A Two-Month Leave From His Job As Political Director Of NARAL." (Carol Beggy and Mark Shanahan, "Names," The Boston Globe, 11/21/03; Chris Cillizza, "NARAL Plans Big '04 Effort," Roll Call, 5/8/03)

[mursa]

..lol It took Igloo from 1:02pm to 4:05pm ( 3 hours ) to post the 2nd page of the article ...and he did so after being put out clearly by Sobeton .

honest mistake igloo ?

[igloo]

..lol It took Igloo from 1:02pm to 4:05pm ( 3 hours ) to post the 2nd page of the article ...and he did so after being put out clearly by Sobeton .

honest mistake igloo ?

Is there something seriously wrong with you......I suggest you start from the beginning of the thread, and re-think your statement...

At this point, the words imbecile and moron are simply not strong enough to describe you and this latest idiosy debacle by you....

Listen, you were wrong, again....and bad.....and you have made a complete asshole out of yourself, again.....don't you think it is time to have your head checked out for serious mental deficiencies?

Take a deep breath, and start from the beginning of the thread.....get a friend to help you, because that same friend, if it is a true friend, will push you to get professional help.....

You fucking jerkoff....this could not have been scripted better to demonstrate what a complete fucking moron you are...

Too good...

[mursa]

Retard: here is my exact words:

......my bad mistake there.

..Apology accepted ........here i extend my hand to you in friendship =

....and BTW tell your booty partner Hannity that he's just taken over O'reilly for the most Fanatical & obnoxioua conservative on cable . . . good viewing .

[igloo]

..Apology accepted ........here i extend my hand to you in friendship =

....and BTW tell your booty partner Hannity that he's just taken over O'reilly for the most Fanatical & obnoxioua conservative on cable . . . good viewing .

Nice try retard, and as usual your spin did not work.....

To be clear, since you can not grasp anything: when I said my bad mistake, it was my poor assumption that you had some semblance of an IQ......but of course, you pointing this out was just weak ass desperate spin

Once again, we have another thread where you got destroyed like a bafoon, your idiosy exposed, and are trying to spin your way out of it.......

I suggest you start from the beginning of the thread, and realize what a complete fool you made out of yourself.....again.

And no need to apologize when you realize it.......just go get some professional help....

Let me know if you need some hints on your errors....even though a three year old would not recognize the blatancy

And for once, stop ducking and spinning and introducing irrelevant information......recognize you were wrong and move on to your next debacle