Attorney Works for Bush, Anti-Kerry Group
story.news.yahoo.com
By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A lawyer for President Bush 's re-election campaign disclosed Tuesday that he has been providing legal
advice for a veterans group that is challenging Democratic Sen. John
Kerry' s account of his Vietnam War service.
Benjamin Ginsberg's acknowledgment marks
the second time in days that an individual
associated with the Bush-Cheney campaign
has been connected to the group Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth, which Kerry has accused
of being a front for the Republican incumbent's
re-election effort.
The Bush campaign and the veterans' group say there is no coordination.
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 never told the Bush campaign what he discussed with
the group, or vice versa, and doesn't advise the group on ad strategies.
"They have legal questions and when they have legal questions I answer
them," Ginsberg said. He said he had not yet decided whether to charge
the Swift Boat Veterans a fee for his work.
The Kerry campaign last week filed a complaint with the Federal Election
Commission (news - web sites) accusing the Bush campaign and the
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth of illegally coordinating the group's ads.
The ads allege Kerry has lied about his decorated Vietnam War service;
the group's accounts in a television ad have been disputed by Navy
records and veterans who served on Kerry's boat.
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 Swift Boat veterans' commercial.
Kerry, meanwhile, is the subject of complaints by the Bush campaign
and the Republican National Committee accusing his
campaign of illegally coordinating anti-Bush ads with soft-money groups
on the Democratic side, allegations he and the groups deny.
Ginsberg also represented the Bush campaign in 2000 and became a
prominent figure during the Florida recount.
He also served as counsel to the Republican National Committee in its
unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn the nation's campaign finance
law, which banned the national party committees from collecting
corporate, union and unlimited donations known as soft money and
imposed stricter rules on coordination involving parties, candidates and
interest groups.
Ginsberg contends that by offering legal advice to both the Bush
campaign and the Swift Boat group, he has done nothing different than
other election lawyers in Washington, including attorneys for Kerry and
the Democratic National Committee who have also
advised soft-money groups. Representing campaigns, parties and
outside groups simultaneously is legal and allowed under the law and by
the FEC, he said.
"The truth is there is only a handful of lawyers who live and breathe this
law. And so because the coordination rules do not include legal services
among the prohibited coordinated activities, we provide legal service,"
Ginsberg said.
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 said that 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." |
