Baucus Acknowledges Recommending a Woman He Was Dating
CARL HULSE and ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: December 5, 2009
WASHINGTON — Senator Max Baucus, a powerful committee chairman and a chief architect of the Democratic health care overhaul, acknowledged Saturday that he had recommended the Obama administration appoint a woman he was dating to serve as the federal prosecutor in his home state, Montana.
In response to news media inquiries, Mr. Baucus, a Democrat and the chairman of the Finance Committee, said that he had already begun a relationship with the woman, Melodee Hanes, the director of his state operations, in February when he submitted her name along with two others as candidates to serve as United States attorney for the state.
When the relationship intensified, Mr. Baucus said, he and Ms. Hanes agreed jointly in March that she would withdraw from consideration, and another person was eventually nominated. Ms. Hanes, 53, an experienced prosecutor, then took a job at the Justice Department. She and Mr. Baucus, both divorced, now live together.
“It just made sense for her not to be a candidate because we were close,” Mr. Baucus, 67, said Saturday as he met with reporters just outside the Senate chamber. He said Ms. Hanes began looking for a new position after they agreed she should no longer work in the Senate office because of their relationship.
News of the job recommendation, first disclosed Friday by the Web site MainJustice.com, came as the senator is squarely in the public eye as one of the chief proponents of the health care legislation that kept the Senate in session over the weekend. The relationship between Mr. Baucus and Ms. Hanes is just the latest in a string of incidents that has focused attention on the personal lives of senators.
Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, called for an inquiry by the Senate ethics committee.
“Today’s report that Senator Max Baucus used his Senate office to advance a taxpayer-funded appointment for his staff-member girlfriend raises a whole host of ethical questions,” Mr. Steele said.
But top Democrats stood by Mr. Baucus, and party officials said that legal advisers doubted there was any reason for an inquiry since Ms. Hanes had withdrawn her nomination of her own accord.
“Max is a good friend and an outstanding senator and he has my full support,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a statement issued by his office.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, chose not to weigh in on the matter. “I don’t have any observations to make about that,” Mr. McConnell said when asked about Mr. Baucus at a news conference.
Mr. Baucus said he saw no grounds for an inquiry and noted that Ms. Hanes was one of three Montana lawyers recommended as finalists for the position by a lawyer who, at Mr. Baucus’s request, reviewed the qualifications of six people whose names were submitted by the senator.
“Everything was straight and on the up-and-up,” said Mr. Baucus, who said he submitted the three names to the administration without a recommendation as to which one should be chosen.
Ms. Hanes is now serving in the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as counselor to the administrator. Agency officials said Mr. Baucus did not write a letter of recommendation or otherwise lobby for Ms. Hanes to get the job, which she took in June.
Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said that Ms. Hanes was hired “because of her decades of experience in the field,” saying she had specialized in the prosecution of child abuse and neglect at the Polk County Attorney’s Office in Des Moines.
“She has won awards for her work, been published on the topics of child abuse and fatality, and taught classes in these areas to both law students and Department of Human Services child protection investigators,” Ms. Schmaler said
Before going to work for Mr. Baucus, Ms. Hanes handled a number of high-profile trials, including a double murder at the Iowa State Fair in 1996, where a husband and wife who operated a funnel cake stand were killed in a murder-for-hire case. She won frequent convictions during more than a dozen years in the state attorney’s office.
She also drew controversy, though, because she was married to the state’s medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Bennett. Together, they aggressively pursued cases of shaken-baby syndrome and were criticized by defense lawyers for filing homicide charges against parents in cases of crib deaths or other unexplained deaths.
A decade ago, the couple moved from Iowa to Montana, where Ms. Hanes traded prosecuting for Democratic politics and ultimately worked for Mr. Baucus. A spokesman for Mr. Baucus said the senator and Ms. Hanes began their personal relationship in the summer of 2008. She was divorced from Dr. Bennett later that year.
Mr. Baucus said the relationship began after both he and Ms. Hanes were separated.
“There was no affair,” he said. “We became close after each separated from our respective spouses.”
Mr. Baucus said he did not expect the disclosure to be a distraction in the health care debate.
Charlie Savage and Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting. |
