I think this "guilt by association" line is a little weak, given the documentation, Neocon. Let's go back to the post I originally responded to, Message 7457480
Actually, Paula decided to come forward after an allusion to the incident in David Brock's original article on Clinton's abuse of office and reckless behavior in Little Rock. She was not enlisted. Her original attorneys were straightforward litigators.
Compare and contrast:
While cloaking their roles, the lawyers were deeply involved -- to an extent not previously known -- for nearly five years in the Paula Jones sexual misconduct lawsuit. They then helped push the case into the criminal arena and into the office of the independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr.
The group's leader was Jerome M. Marcus, a 39-year-old associate at the Philadelphia law firm of Berger & Montague, whose partners are major contributors to the Democratic Party.
Although Ms. Jones never met him or knew he had worked on her behalf, Marcus drafted legal documents and was involved in many of the important strategic decisions in her lawsuit, according to billing records and interviews with other lawyers who worked on the case. As much as any of Ms. Jones's attorneys of record, Marcus helped keep Ms. Jones's case alive in the courts.
In his long efforts to promote Ms. Jones's lawsuit, and in helping Mrs. Tripp find her way to Starr, Marcus found other allies, including another Chicago law classmate, Richard W. Porter. Porter had worked as an aide to former Vice President Dan Quayle and was a partner of Starr's at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, based in Chicago.
George T. Conway 3d, a New York lawyer educated at Yale, shared Marcus's low view of President Clinton. When the Jones case led to Ms. Lewinsky, Marcus and Conway searched for a new lawyer for Mrs. Tripp. Marcus and Porter helped arrange for Mrs. Tripp to take her explosive allegations to Starr.
Here we get to the good part. Porter kicks it off.
Porter was the most overtly political member of the group, having worked on the staff of Vice President Quayle and on the Bush-Quayle campaign, where he did opposition research.
Porter was also an associate of Peter W. Smith, 62, a Chicago financier who was once the chairman of College Young Republicans and a major donor to Gopac, a conservative political group affiliated with former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Beginning in 1992, Smith spent more than $80,000 to finance anti-Clinton research in an effort to persuade the mainstream press to cover Clinton's sex life. Among others, his efforts involved David Brock, the journalist who first mentioned the name "Paula" in an article on Clinton.
Smith declined an interview request.
In 1993, Brock said, Smith helped introduce him to the Arkansas state troopers who accused Clinton of using them to procure women when he was Governor of Arkansas. Brock wrote an article based on the troopers' account of Clinton's sexual escapades that was published in the January 1994 issue of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine. According to Brock, Smith wanted to establish a fund for the troopers, in case they suffered retribution. Brock said he opposed payments because they would undermine the troopers' credibility.
To allay his concerns, Brock said, Smith urged him to speak to Porter, who was then working at Kirkland & Ellis, the Chicago law firm that employed Starr in its Washington office. Brock said he had hoped his talk with Porter would put an end to any planned payments to the troopers, but Smith did pay them and their lawyers $22,600.
So, Porter was working with/for Smith, who planted the original "Paula" story with Brock. This goes a little beyond "guilt by association", as Smith referred Brock to Porter on the (ethical?) question of payments to the troopers for their story.
Brock's trooper article in The American Spectator mentioned a woman identified as "Paula," and in May 1994, Ms. Jones filed her lawsuit against President Clinton. Ms. Jones's lawyers of record were from the Washington area, Gilbert K. Davis and Joseph Cammarata, whom Marcus had helped recruit.
Then suddenly, Jones decides to "come forward on her own", and by some strange coincidence, with lawyers recruited by Marcus. Lawyers who never exactly carried things forward on their own, either, by another odd coincidence.
Lawyers of Record Had Help From Start
The Davis and Cammarata billing records show that from their earliest involvement in the case, they were consulting with Marcus and Porter. Conway also helped draft briefs, Cammarata said.
"Marcus was involved," Cammarata said, "but he insisted that he not be identified. But that was fine with me. We were just two guys involved in the middle of a world war. We welcomed his help."
No one was more important to the Jones case than Marcus. Besides helping to write several important briefs, Marcus spoke numerous times at the most critical moments in the case with Cammarata and Davis, offering legal advice that Cammarata said was "vital."
According to the billing records, Porter also offered "legal strategy" and once wrote a memo on "investigative leads" that might embarrass the President.
"Porter was a cheerleader," Cammarata said. "He used to call up and say, 'Maybe we can find you some money.' "
Back to you, Neocon:
It was only after it became too expensive to support the suit that conservative groups stepped in.
Hahaha. No, this little action was not a vast right-wing conspiracy, more like a cosy little undercover operation.
So, Marcus went off and found some "straightforward litigators" to front the Jones case. But those straightforward litigators weren't up to snuff for an operation of this magnitude, they needed help right from the start. The funny thing about this "guilt by association" thing is that Marcus and Porter, while not being willing to put their names on the filings, were willing to bill for their work. Odd, but I'd say that little bit clearly puts us beyond "guilt by association". Would you care to dispute that?
If you believe that Clinton probably did what was charged, why insist that it was only political?
First of all, who knows what to believe in any of this? It's all quite magical what the simple mention of the name "Paula" stirred up in Ms. Jones, in a source I'm sure she always read religiously. As you disingenuously claim in Message 7469272
A: The article stirred up old feelings; B: The trooper was under the impression that she had "done" Clinton; C: Little Rock is a small place, and enough information was given that some of her acquaintances could have figured it out.
Back to your original, Message 7457480
And if there were merit to her suit, who cares why she was helped?
Who knows what merit there was to her suit? I wouldn't judge that. But suddenly, you've gone a bit afield from the "straightforward litigators" line.
Would the prospect of splitting a huge settlement be a better motivation for an attorney then the conviction that Clinton gets away with too much, and must be brought to account?
First of all, "huge settlement" is a bit exaggerated for a civil action of this type. As for Clinton getting away with too much, and being brought to account, fine. So why weren't Marcus and Porter willing to put their names behind their apparently extensive legal efforts on Ms. Jones' behalf? They should be happy to explain how their long running role here was honorable and upright, and how much they resent the "guilt by association" presented in the Times article. Give them a chance to clear their names, too.
In the remainder of Message 7457480, you get into the hoary matter of the inadequacy of Clinton's mandate. On the one hand, we have Nixon. In the "neocon" revisionist history of the moment, he could have won a Senate trial and resigned out of honor. In reality, he was dead meat in the Senate and in the polls. Compared to Clinton, where the majority clearly choose Clinton over the moral reformationists hounding him, and his Senate support is solid. The majority is sick of the current "politics by other means" in the Senate. But you're welcome to keep pushing your peculiarly inerrant version of the "truth". Me, if there's going to be witnesses, I'd like to hear from Marcus and Porter most of all. With all their arduous labor in pursuit of "truth and justice", you'd think they'd want to share some of the spotlight, wouldn't you? |
