The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Brushing Up on Business Law

Business lawyers who need CLE credits or who just want to rub shoulders and network should head to the annual spring meeting of the American Bar Association's Business Law Section, which will be held March 15-18 at the Renaissance Hotel and the Washington Convention Center in the District. More than 60 topics will be covered, including e-consumer issues and regulations; risks in internal investigations; cross-border mergers, acquisitions and philanthropy; and patent risks. Speakers will include federal judges, state supreme court justices, corporate executives, academics and representatives from the Justice and Treasury departments and several other federal agencies. For more information, visit the ABA.

The Little Engine That Couldn't

Despite their optimistic tune that we reported here, the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad isn’t chugging along quite so merrily after the federal government put the smack down on their loan request. The largest government loan ever – $2.3 billion – got a hearty “heck no” from the Federal Railroad Administration. As reported in a Washington Post article today, the administration cited “financial factors” for the denial, but others suspect that opponents to the railway’s expansion project might have had more to with it. The opponents, led by the Mayo Clinic, lobbied with gusto on the charge that Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a key proponent of the loan, was a former lobbyist for the railway. Will someone please play Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” now?

Pie and Ethics

A pizza party scheduled for today by Attorney General-turned-consultant John Ashcroft for some of his old political appointees has "raised eyebrows" at the Justice Department's ethics office, according to this week's US News & World Report. The ethics office didn't block anyone from attending the luncheon, but "advised invitees to consider the appearance of attending such an event," a Justice Department spokesman told US News.

The BLT is curious about the Justice Department's ethics office. After all, as Legal Times reported last month the same office gave the Justice Department's top environmental prosecutor the okay to buy a $980,000 condo with a top lobbyist for oil-heavyweight ConocoPhillips. And top Justice Department officials were apparently in the dark about the same official's years' old romantic relationship with a coal and energy lobbyist.

The Axe Man

At this point it's probably fair to say that the Justice Department's leadership probably didn't expect quite the firestorm that's followed the forced resignations of at least seven US attorneys this winter. But one question that's always intrigued the BLT is: who gets to fire a U.S. attorney? At the Justice Department only Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales outrank the nation's 93 presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys. But the BLT always assumed that it wasn't Gonzales or McNulty but some poor subordinate who had to actually spend an entire morning firing people over the phone.

Now there's confirmation. According to this new Salon article, the man who actually told former San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam and the rest of the lot to take a hike was a humble non-Senate confirmed career Justice Department official. That would be Michael Battle, a former New York state judge and career prosecutor who heads the Justice Department's Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys.

Sorry About That

The room was full of anticipation, but the response from the Scooter Libby jury fell flat. "After further discussion we are clear on what we had to do. No further clarification needed. Thank you and we apologize," the latest note read. Judge Reggie Walton wouldn't clarify further, but the initial question that led to the enormous gathering was filed on the docket. The jury wanted clarification on the part of the indictment which says that Libby falsely told the FBI that he had told Time's Matthew Cooper that reporters were telling the administration that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA but that Libby did not know that this was true. Their question: "Is the charge that the statement was made or about the content of the statement itself." Huh?

Scooter Rumblings...

FROM THE COURTHOUSE: “I say, there’s a lot of people here for such a small note,” defense attorney Ted Wells said to special prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald in federal court this morning. He was referring to the more than 50-person crowd of reporters and lawyers who had gathered in the hallway of the D.C. federal courthouse while waiting for Judge Reggie Walton’s courtroom to open. They were there to hear about the latest jury note.

The faces in the crowd were largely familiar to anyone who sat through the four-week long trial, except for one: Hardball’s Chris Matthews. Matthews’ name had come up repeatedly during trial for his comments in July 2003 that incited Scooter’s ire. Libby attempted to avoid eye contact when he passed Matthews in the hallway, which was caught by a courtroom sketch artist.

Meanwhile, Wells and Fitzgerald exchanged stories of their troubled travels while trying to get back to Washington during the stormy weekend. Fitzgerald was apparently stranded in Chicago and forced to find his way to the District by car (though he declined to elaborate later, saying “nice try, I’m not trying to create news.”). Wells apparently waited at LaGuardia Airport for two hours on Sunday before heading to Penn Station to find all the trains sold out.

By 10:15 a.m. – 45 minutes later than expected – the courtroom doors opened, at which time all Judge Walton would say is that he wasn’t sure what the jury was asking – and that he would send another note requesting clarification. Wells objected. Walton wouldn’t budge. And the crowd remained in the dark.

GSA Smackdown

A lawyer for the top official at the General Services Administration is pushing back on that agency's inspector general's office, according to Government Executive's Daniel Pulliam. Patton Boggs' Michael Nardotti, a lawyer for GSA chief Lurita Doan, has asked a presidential ethics committee to investigate whether the GSA's inspector general's office leaked sensitive information about Doan. The IG's office has been investigating Doan for allegedly attempting to award a no-bid contract to a friend's company. But Doan hasn't just got a lawyer, she's also hired spinmaster Mark Corallo, the former spokesman for Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The Morning Wrap

Stock Down. The Shanghai Composite Index bounced back early this morning by almost four percent, giving investors a reason to breath a bit easier. But the overriding concern for the Gordon Gekkos of the world is that yesterday’s 3.2 percent drop - and subsequent U.S. tumble - was a sign of major weakness in the Chinese economy.

Table for three. The U.S. announced yesterday that it would hold talks with Iran and Syria about Iraq. The trio is expected to include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from the two countries.

Busted. Kent Roberts, former chief counsel at McAfee, was the first Silicon Valley lawyer charged in the stock options backdating debacle. Roberts faces six counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and filing false SEC documents. The charges from DOJ are in connection with options grants given to Roberts and ex-McAfee CEO George Samenuk in 2000 and 2002.

Padilla. The NYT has a long piece offering new details on the treatment of Jose Padilla while in U.S. custody. The three days of court testimony before Federal District Court Judge Marcia Cooke, who must decide if Padilla is competent to stand trial.

Meow. Capitalizing on the Geffen-Obama-Clinton cat fight, The Politico has a fun story comparing the culture’s of Hollywood and the Hill.

Sold. Marty Peretz has sold his stake in The New Republic, the political magazine he has owned for more than three decades. The new owner is CanWest Global Communications, which has already announced the magazine will cut back publication to twice a month.

The Song Remains The Same

Note to lobby shops everywhere: Barbour Griffith & Rogers is sticking to its GOP-centric strategy.  While other shops have reached across the aisle, think Ogilvy Government Relations, formerly known as the Federalist Group, Barbour Griffith is continuing to gamble on Republicans, according to the Politico. But, what the Politico doesn’t say is that everything isn’t coming up roses for the firm. While its still making money, the firm lost 17 clients in the last half of 2006 year, up from 4 in last half of 2005.

Brown v. Mahoney

Jan Crawford Greenburg, whose book about the high court, Supreme Conflict, is this week No. 19 on the New York Times hard cover non-fiction list (one notch above Terry McAuliffe’s What a Party!) is interviewed by readers of the conservative blog “Confirm Them,” a website dedicated to the vacancy politics of both the Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals.

Asked who she thinks Bush will nominate if a third SCOTUS justice steps down during his presidency, Greenburg fires back with a couple of interesting choices: Janice Rogers Brown if it’s in 2007, and litigator Maureen Mahoney in 2008.

Brown, a former associate Justice on the California Supreme Court, faced vehement Democratic opposition when she was appointed in 2005. But her nomination was one of three ultimately agreed to as part of a deal made by the Gang of 14, seven moderate Democrats and seven moderate Republicans who banded together in the 109th Congress in order to avoid a vote on the so-called “nuclear option,” which could have brought the Senate to a standstill.

Now, contends Greenburg, Brown is “getting very high marks from colleagues on the D.C. Circuit, and her experience, compelling life story and demeanor (she’s fast on her feet and would be a terrific witness) would present those moderate southern Democrats (there are still a few of them) with a very difficult choice.”

The closer a vacancy occurs to the 2008 presidential election, however, the greater are the chances that Maureen Mahoney will be chosen. Mahoney’s credentials, however, cut both ways. Although she is prized by Republicans as a judicial conservative, they grit their teeth when Democratics point to the thing they approve of: her advocacy in support of affirmative action in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court case which upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School.

Legal Times recently reviewed Greenburg's book in our After Hours section. Check out the review.