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| Ex-Kennedy Aide May Face Ethics Probe for 'Memogate' |
| 2004-04-16 |
| The Center for Individual Freedom filed an ethics complaint Monday against a former aide to Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy. The complaint revolves around the aide's recommendation that the confirmation of one of President Bush's conservative judicial nominees be delayed in order to influence the outcome of an affirmative action case before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Olati Johnson, who was Kennedy's counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote the controversial April 17, 2002, memo that sought to delay Julia Smith Gibbons' confirmation to the same court handling the University of Michigan affirmative action case. Johnson had come to Kennedy's office from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), where she was co-counsel for the students supporting the university's affirmative action policy. She allegedly wrote the memo after consulting with her former boss, Elaine R. Jones, the LDF's president and director-counsel. The memo spells out the rationale for delaying Gibbons' confirmation: "The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under 6th Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it." |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #11 Old Patriot: "all his many crimes against the Constitution and people of the United States" And those are just the ones we know about . . . |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2004-04-16 2:47:27 PM |
| #10 Here is a link to the other article that details the NAACP involvement in the memo. Even if the extra judge had been on the court, I speculate that the case still would have ended up in the surpreme court, regardless. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-16 1:18:09 PM |
| #9 Anon, Actually, I think "Big Head Ted" has been sober now for at least a decade... but therin lies the rub. He is a man truly in need of a good stiff drink to overcome his "crochediness". |
| Posted by: Capsu78 2004-04-16 12:38:57 PM |
| #8 Whatever happens, Kennedy will do his best to distance himself from this. With the media's help. While the Dems circle the wagons. As they are doing for Gorelick right now. |
| Posted by: Jack Deth 2004-04-16 12:31:09 PM |
| #7 The liberal position is that the only authentic conservatives are the opressing white males like us. Anyone else who deviates is inauthentic. Judge Gibbons is a poster-child of this inauthenticity. However suggesting hanging Teddy is not a good thing to do because we sink to the level of the nutcase in Florida that wanted to shoot Rumsfeld. Let them babble with the real "hate speech". Teddy should be portrayed as he is; a drunken old hack living off the memory of his brothers. The more we can drive this point home, the better. Since the "regular media" fawns over the old goat, we must make our friendly outlets such as FNC and Talk Radio stay on point about Teddy |
| Posted by: Anonymous4052 2004-04-16 11:39:46 AM |
| #6 According to information readily available on the Internet, the information was not "burgled", but placed on an OPEN, SHARED server, not even password-protected. Kennedy, as usual, is spinning, trying to turn a Democratic crime into a Republican misdeed. I would gladly assist in hanging Mr. Kennedy by the neck until dead with a hemp rope from the Senate Gallery for all his many crimes against the Constitution and people of the United States, if only we could get past all the protections put in place by people like Ted Kennedy to keep the laws of this nation from applying to people like Ted Kennedy. Calling him a "bastard" is an insult to all children born out of wedlock. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-04-16 11:18:56 AM |
| #5 From a related article about Kerry's staff's involvement: Kennedy and his aides have tried to dismiss the issue. At a Wednesday press conference, when CNSNews.com asked the senator about the memo, Kennedy was quickly escorted from the room by his staff. "No. I'm not gonna, uh, re, uh," Kennedy muttered. Hurt cornered the senator as he made his way back to his office, but Kennedy shifted the topic away from the alleged conspiracy to block Gibbons' confirmation and toward allegations that Republican staff members on the Senate Judiciary Committee had read Democratic strategy memos. "I am so troubled, as other members of the Judiciary are, in the fact that Republican staffers would burglarize this confidential material in the Judiciary Committee. ... We can't have staffers - in this case, Republican staffers - believing they can basically commit criminal crimes in order to advance a political agenda," Kennedy said, according to the Times. What an asshole. If you think a crime has been committed file charges. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-04-16 10:29:56 AM |
| #4 Well, a fish does rot from the head... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-04-16 9:32:05 AM |
| #3 Edward is correct. When they get their site working again, there is also a story available about the NAACP involvement. The staffer was a former employee of the NAACP who appears to have used her position within Kennedy's staff to act in the interest of the NAACP. I'm sure Ted would have approved of her plan even if he was unaware of it. I don't know why she would have felt the need to draft an official memo to document what she was doing. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-16 3:12:41 AM |
| #2 That may or may not be THE memo (Estrada's), but speaks of one (the NAACP request that a conservative judge's nomination be delayed til Michigan ruled on affirmative action). |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2004-04-16 2:47:58 AM |
| #1 I can't reach the link right now, but is it a reference to the memoranda regarding judicial nominees? I'd like to ask them what made Miguel Estrada "so dangerous because he is Hispanic". If I'm off topic, hell I'd still like to know... |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-04-16 2:44:47 AM |