Greg Craig, Questionable White House counsel, Strikes Again
"That latter part of the above sentence is not a compliment and the first part is a warning.
"There seems to be too much inside the beltway and inside the box administration personnel filling the White House including leaving Bushite holdovers in other departmental and agency positions where they are already doing damage.
"This does not qualify as change.
"Gregory Craig as White House counsel has the kind of smell to it and the Democratic base outside the beltway should be sick of it.
"While everyone is entitled to legal counsel, taking on Karl Rove as a client for a book deal is a non-starter if this guy were a real Democrat..."
Included in my posting was this: "Emmet Flood, Craig's former close associate and mentor is representing the Bush administration on executive-privilege issues in a case involving the U.S.attorneys firings; and Craig was in contact with Jill Simpson, whistleblower in the Don Siegelman case, on the pretense of representing her regarding her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, but declined representation only after hearing her entire case against Rove."
Now from Emptywheel at Firedoglake comes more about Greg Craig and President Obama's signing statement undermining whistleblowers.
"Charlie Savage has an article chronicling Chuck Grassley's objection to something I objected to last week--Obama's signing statement undermining whistleblowers.
But that's not the really creepy part of the article. The creepy part is the way some Obama Administration official, who happens to have the same legal credential and sophist argumentative technique as Greg Craig, provided input for the article.
The White House press office referred questions to an administration official, imposing the condition that he not be identified by name or title.
The official, a lawyer, said Mr. Obama was “committed to whistle-blower protections.” He declined to define every kind of instance in which the president’s power to keep a matter confidential would trump a whistle-blower protection statute, but he did say the administration had no intention of going further than did Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in signing statements concerning similar provisions.
“I don’t think President Obama’s signing statement injects a new level of uncertainty into the law,” he said.
[snip]
The administration official pointed to a memorandum Mr. Obama issued on March 9 laying out a signing statements policy. The document, which does not mention legislative intent, says he will employ only “legitimate” interpretations of statutes. Mr. Obama’s challenge in this case, the official said, is consistent with that principle.
"So, let's review here: They've got Charlie Savage talking to a mysterious lawyer on the condition that the lawyer not be named. Said lawyer refuses to explain what the signing statement means for whistleblowers, but claims this doesn't create any new uncertainty. And then said lawyer asserts that the signing statement from last week was--by definition--a "legitimate" interpretation of statute, legislative intent be damned.
"Yup. This is the way we bring transparency to the White House alright.
With Gregory Craig's hot little hands in the mix, especially considering his apparent lack of legal ethics, potential conflict-of-interest lawyering, alarm bells should be going off.
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