Employment of Kyle D. Sampson reflects poorly on Hunton & Williams, LLP, No.3

Updated March 10, 2009 to reflect Mr. Sampson’s leave of absence from Hunton & Williams.

Cross-posted at the Oxdown Gazette, Firedoglake‘s new diary blog.

My third e-mail to Ms. Field:

Andrea Bear Field
DC Office Managing Partner
Hunton & Williams

cc: Kyle D. Sampson , Partner
Hunton & Williams

Dear Ms. Field,

On behalf of The Grievance Project, I would appreciate Hunton & Williams‘s response to the following items:

1. The most recent United States Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility and Office of the Inspector General report, An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006, which describes* additional allegations of unethical conduct by Hunton & Williams partner Kyle D. Sampson.

Professor Marty Lederman succinctly summarizes this matter at Balkinization:

The basic thrust of the Report, as I understand it, is that Kyle Sampson was acting in cahoots with the White House Counsel’s Office to fire disfavored U.S. Attorneys — at least some for possibly impermissible reasons — and that AG Gonzales and others at DOJ therefore left the entire project up to Sampson, stepping in merely to rubberstamp whatever decisions he reached in accord with the Counsel’s Office.

Is this type of conduct typical at Hunton & Williams? If not, why does Hunton & Williams continue to condone and encourage this type of conduct through its partnership with Mr. Sampson?

2. The appointment of Nora Dannehy as Special Prosecutor to review this matter, including your partner’s apparently central involvement in this scandal.

Update: The Wall Street Journal’s Dan Slater has published a profile of Ms. Dannehy. (h/t emptywheel)

3. Like the previous report, An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General, this most recent report again confirms my opinion that Mr. Sampson committed numerous violations of the rules of professional conduct of both Utah and D.C that raise a substantial question as to his honesty, trustworthiness and fitness to practice law. Has Hunton & Williams reviewed whether Mr. Sampson’s conduct violated the Utah and D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct? If so, what was the conclusion of that review? If not, why not?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

E.M./The Grievance Project

*Section C of the DOJ OPR/OIG report:

As discussed above, Sampson was the person most responsible for creating the removal plan, selecting the U.S. Attorneys to be removed, and implementing the plan. Yet, after the controversy over the removals erupted, Sampson attempted to downplay his role, describing himself as the “aggregator” and denying responsibility for placing several of the U.S. Attorneys on the list.

We concluded that from start to finish Sampson mishandled the removal process. And, as discussed above, he inappropriately advocated bypassing the Senate confirmation process for replacing U.S. Attorneys through a strategy of “gum[ming] this to death” and “run[ning] out the clock” while appearing to act in good faith.

We were also troubled by Sampson’s claims that he did not recall the reasons for many of the removals or who had recommended that certain U.S. Attorneys be removed. For example, while Sampson said he did not place Iglesias on the list at the request of the White House, his recollection on this issue was varying and vague. We question why Sampson could not recall the precise reason why he placed Iglesias on the removal list, given the relatively short passage of time since the incident, and the fact that Iglesias’s name alone was added, for the first time, to the November 2006 list. Moreover, other misleading after-the-fact explanations for why Iglesias was placed on the list caused us to further doubt the candor of Sampson’s explanations. In the end, we question whether Sampson provided us the full story about Iglesias’s placement on the list, as well as the reasons for other U.S. Attorney removals.

As discussed in the sections that follow, we also concluded that Sampson made various misleading statements about the U.S. Attorney removals to the White House, Congress, and other Department officials.

1. Misleading Statements to the White House

Sampson’s misleading statements about the U.S. Attorney removals began as the selection process was unfolding. He misrepresented to the White House how the selections occurred. In an e-mail to Harriet Miers in January 2006 forwarding a list of names to the White House, Sampson wrote, “I list
these folks based on my review” of the EARS evaluations, and “my interviews with officials in the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and the Criminal Division.” Sampson thus created the general impression that the EARS evaluations and his “interviews” of senior Department officials, including officials in the Criminal Division, formed the basis of his identification of specific U.S. Attorneys for removal.

However, Sampson admitted to us that he did not remember speaking to anyone in the Criminal Division about the performance of U.S. Attorneys, except “only in the most general terms.” He also acknowledged that he never reviewed any EARS evaluations. He told us that it would have been better if he had stated in the e-mail to Miers that it was based on his understanding of somebody else’s understanding of the reviews of the offices. [Footnote] 202[.] We believe that Sampson’s misleading statements to Miers gave the impression that the Department had engaged in a far more systematic and structured evaluation process to determine which U.S. Attorneys should be removed.

2. Misleading Statements to Congress

Sampson similarly misled congressional staff in his January 12, 2007, briefing that the removals were based on EARS evaluations. At this meeting, Sampson and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs Richard Hertling briefed staff for Senators Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein about the removals. Sampson told the Senators’ staffs that the Department had been engaged in a process to identify underperforming U.S. Attorneys and that the process included a review of the EARS evaluations. The two staff members for the Senators told us that Sampson initially explained that the terminations were based on the EARS evaluations, but backtracked when Feinstein’s counsel pressed him for copies. According to both staff members, Sampson then explained that some of the removals were based on EARS evaluations, and some on other factors such as caseloads and responsiveness to Department policy initiatives.

According to Hertling, who said he knew little about the controversy at the time, Sampson attempted to impress upon the congressional staff that the removals were the result of a process the Department undertook to identify U.S. Attorneys who were the “weakest performers,” and that the process included a review of EARS evaluations. Hertling told us that one of the things that stuck in his mind was Sampson’s “specific reference” to EARS evaluations as a basis for identifying these particular U.S. Attorneys for termination.

However, Sampson claimed to us that he mentioned the EARS evaluations only in connection with Ryan’s removal. He said that he doubted he would have suggested that the other removals were based on the EARS evaluations because “that wouldn’t have been accurate.” Yet, based upon the recollection of the other witnesses at the briefing, including Hertling, we believe that Sampson misled the congressional staff that EARS evaluations played a more significant role in the Department’s decision-making process than they actually did.

Second, Sampson included misleading statements in the Department’s response to a February 8, 2007, letter from several Senators asking for information about the circumstances of Cummins’s resignation and Griffin’s appointment. Sampson, who drafted the response and circulated it in the Department and the White House for comment, had the final sign-off on the language in the response.

The response, which was sent on February 23, 2007, contained three misleading statements. The first was the statement that “it was well-known, as early as December 2004, that Mr. Cummins intended to leave . . . .” As we noted in Chapter Five, we found evidence that in drafting the response Sampson discovered a small news item in a free weekly Arkansas tabloid reporting that Cummins might begin exploring career options before the expiration of President Bush’s second term. However, Cummins told us he did not intend to resign at that time and was not looking for other employment. We also found no evidence that anyone at the Department was aware of the article until February 2007.

The second misleading statement in the Department’s response was that “the decision to have Mr. Griffin replace Mr. Cummins was first contemplated in spring or summer of 2006 [and] the final decision to appoint Mr. Griffin . . . was made on or about December 15 . . .” This statement is directly contradicted by the January 9, 2006, e-mail Sampson sent to Miers in which Griffin is listed as a replacement for Cummins. The second part of the statement, that the final decision to appoint Griffin was made around December 15, is also misleading. As noted in Chapter Five, Sampson informed Goodling on August 18, 2006, that the Attorney General would appoint Griffin Interim U.S. Attorney following Griffin’s return to the Department.

The third misleading statement in the Department’s response was that “The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin.” This statement is contradicted by Sampson’s e-mail on December 19, 2006, to Associate White House Counsel Christopher Oprison in which Sampson wrote, “I’m not 100 percent sure that Tim was the guy on which to test drive this authority, but know that getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” While Sampson later explained this e-mail by stating that he “assumed” but did not know that Rove was involved in the decision to appoint Griffin, we found this explanation unpersuasive and belied by the evidence.

3. Misleading Department Officials

Sampson also misled Department officials and allowed them to mislead others about several aspects of the U.S. Attorney removals.

First, in mid-December 2006 after media reports began questioning the circumstances of Griffin’s appointment, Sampson drafted talking points for the Department’s Office of Public Affairs to use to respond to media inquiries. In these talking points, Sampson wrote that “Griffin was appointed Interim U.S. Attorney because of the timing of Cummins’s resignation.”

In fact, as Sampson knew, Cummins had been removed so that Griffin could take his place. The Department’s talking points left the misleading impression that Griffin was appointed as Interim U.S. Attorney because of the unexpected timing of Cummins’s resignation, when in fact Cummins was told to resign to create a position for Griffin.

Second and more important, Sampson’s failure to disclose what he knew about the White House’s involvement in the removals caused McNulty and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella to provide inaccurate testimony to Congress. Both McNulty and Moschella testified that based on what they knew at the time, the White House was not involved in the removals until October 2006 and at that point became involved only to sign off on the process.

Sampson was present at staff preparation sessions before both McNulty’s and Moschella’s congressional testimony where the group discussed what they should say in their testimony. Several other participants told us that the question about the White House’s involvement was raised during at least one of McNulty’s preparation sessions, and McNulty indicated that he would tell Congress that the White House was involved to sign off on the process because U.S. Attorneys are Presidential appointments. This was a misleading statement about the extent and timing of the White House’s role, which Sampson knew. However, Sampson did not correct McNulty’s mistaken belief or inform him of the full extent of the White House’s involvement.

Consequently, in a closed briefing session on February 14, 2007, McNulty told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the U.S. Attorney removal process began within the Department in September or October of 2006, and that the Department sent a list to the White House Counsel’s office in October and asked if they objected to the names. Similarly, Moschella testified incorrectly before a House Judiciary Subcommittee on March 6, 2007, based on what he had learned during the preparation sessions and from McNulty’s testimony, that the process to remove the U.S. Attorneys began in early October 2006 and that the White House eventually became involved in the removals, but only to sign off on the proposal because the U.S. Attorneys were Presidential appointees.

When we interviewed Sampson, he rationalized his not correcting the misimpression left at the preparation sessions by arguing that there were two separate phases of the process – the earlier “thinking” phase and the later “action” phase, and he said he was focused on the later action phase during the preparation sessions. We found Sampson’s testimony on this point not credible. Sampson sent three separate lists of U.S. Attorneys for removal to the White House for consideration before the fall of 2006. We believe that Sampson should have been more forthcoming at the preparation sessions about the White House’s involvement to ensure that McNulty and Moschella were aware of the facts and did not mislead Congress. Sampson’s failure to do so resulted in inaccurate and misleading testimony about a critical aspect of the controversy.

We concluded that Sampson engaged in misconduct by making misleading statements and failing to disclose important information to the White House, members of Congress, congressional staff, and Department officials concerning the reasons for the removals of the U.S. Attorneys and the extent of White House involvement in the removal process.

[Footnote] 202[:] However, even that would have been inaccurate because, as we noted in each of the U.S. Attorney chapters, with the exception of Ryan’s March 2006 EARS evaluation (which had not yet taken place), each of the EARS evaluations of the removed U.S. Attorneys was largely positive.

Report, pp. 346-351.

Tags: Alberto Gonzales, Andrea Bear Field, Balkinization, Bud Cummins, Chris Oprison, David Iglesias, Dianne Feinstein, Grievance Project, Harriet Miers, Hunton & Williams, Karl Rove, Kevin Ryan, Kyle Sampson, Marty Lederman, Monica Goodling, Nora Dannehy, Office of Professional Responsibility, Office of the Inspector Generals, Patrick Leahy, Paul McNulty, Richard Hertling, Rules of Professional Conduct, Special Prosecutor, Timothy Griffin, Utah, Washington D.C., William Moschella

Alberto Gonzales: Not just unethical, but criminal?

As reported by Jason Leopold at the Online Journal on February 29, 2008, (h/t nonnie9999), Alberto Gonzales not only engaged in unethical conduct, but likely also engaged in conduct that was criminal:

John McKay, the former US attorney for the Western District of Washington who was also fired in late 2006 for reasons that appear to have been motivated by partisan politics, wrote in a lengthy article in the January edition of the Seattle University Law Review [incorrect link in original document] that Iglesias’s firing stands out among the other eight federal prosecutors because it demonstrates “the very real prospect of improper interference with an ongoing criminal investigation involving public corruption and the seeking of political advantage.”

“Violations of the obstruction of justice statute may have occurred and should be investigated,” McKay wrote. “Even as the role of the White House remains shrouded in its claims of executive privilege, 23 certain White House employees appear to have been heavily involved in the dismissal of U.S. Attorney Iglesias. In several e-mails it appears that these officials were reacting directly to the complaints of Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) and the ongoing investigation into public corruption in New Mexico. For example, Deputy White House Counsel Bill Kelley smugly e-mailed Gonzales’ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson to report that Domenici’s office was ‘happy as a clam’ on learning of Iglesias’s ouster. Senior Counselor to the President Karl Rove bragged about Iglesias’s dismissal by proclaiming ‘he’s gone’ to the New Mexico Republican Party Chairman, who had previously complained to Rove about Iglesias.”

* * *

This chain of events troubles McKay who wrote in his law review article that former Attorney General Gonzales ultimately approved Iglesias’s termination with the full knowledge that it was based on partisan politics.

Gonzales admitted “he took multiple phone calls from Domenici concerning [Iglesias], urging that he be replaced, and has admitted that [President Bush] spoke with him about the ‘problems’ with Iglesias,” McKay wrote.
”Gonzales has even admitted that one of the reasons that Iglesias was fired was because Senator Domenici had “lost confidence” in Iglesias. “While these allegations are troubling under any analysis, a thorough and independent investigation is necessary to determine whether criminal laws have been violated,” McKay added. “Among the considerations facing the inspector general is whether the actions of former Attorney General Gonzales constituted obstruction of justice by removing Iglesias.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for justice. No attorney employed by the Michael Mukasey-led Department of Justice will initiate an investigation of and pursue a criminal prosecution against Alberto Gonzales. As Leopold reports, they’re too busy fighting voter fraud:

Recently, the OPR contacted Iglesias’s former executive assistant, Rumaldo Armijo, to interview him about whether he was pressured by Pat Rogers, a Republican attorney in Albuquerque, and Mickey Barnett, a Republican lobbyist, to bring charges of voter fraud against Democrats in the state, Iglesias confirmed when asked about the matter during an interview.

Rogers was affiliated with the American Center for Voting Rights, a now defunct non-profit organization that sought to defend voter rights and increase public confidence in the fairness and outcome of elections. However, it has since emerged that the organization played a major role in suppressing the votes of people who intended to cast ballots for Democrats in various states. Rogers is also the former chief counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party, and was tapped by Domenici to replace Iglesias as US Attorney for New Mexico.

Rogers did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Armijo was also unavailable for comment. During his tenure in the US attorney’s office he was in charge of issues related to voter fraud in New Mexico. Iglesias said in an interview that he launched an in-depth investigation into claims of voter fraud in New Mexico and found the allegations to be “non-provable in court.” He said he is certain that his firing was due, in part, to the fact that he would not file criminal charges of voter fraud in New Mexico. Iglesias added that, based on evidence that had surfaced thus far and “Karl Rove’s obsession with voter fraud issues throughout the country,” he now believes GOP operatives had wanted him to go after Democratic-funded organizations in an attempt to swing the 2006 midterm elections to Republicans.

Armijo spoke to the Senate Ethics Committee last year about numerous telephone calls and emails dating back to 2005 he received from Rogers related to voter fraud, and Iglesias’s alleged failure to investigate the matter while Iglesias was US attorney, Iglesias confirmed.

Last May, House Democrats released a transcript of an interview congressional investigators had with one of Gonzales’s senior Justice Department staffers, Matthew Friedrich, in which Friedrich recounted that over breakfast in November 2006, Rogers and Barnett told him they were frustrated about Iglesias’s refusal to pursue cases of voter fraud and that they had spoken to Karl Rove and Domenici about having Iglesias fired.

“I remember them repeating basically what they had said before in terms of unhappiness with Dave Iglesias and the fact that this case hadn’t gone anyplace,” Friedrich said, according to a copy of the interview transcript. “It was clear to me that they did not want him to be the US attorney. And they mentioned that they had essentially . . . they were sort of working towards that.”

According to media reports, Rogers said he does not recall speaking to Rove about Iglesias.

Additionally, Barnett and Rogers met with Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s White House liaison, in June 2006 to complain that Iglesias was ignoring voter fraud. Goodling’s meeting with Rogers and Barnett took place at the urging of a colleague. Rogers also drafted a lengthy letter that he sent to Domenici detailing what he claimed were Iglesias’s prosecutorial failures, Iglesias said he had been told.

Allen Weh, the New Mexico Republican Party chairman, told McClatchy Newspapers in March that he urged Rove to use his influence to have Iglesias fired because Weh was unhappy with Iglesias’s alleged refusal to bring criminal charges against Democrats in a voter fraud investigation.

At best, nothing will happen until Attorney General John Edwards(?) can order an investigation on January 21, 2009. But the fact that justice will not be served by the Department of Justice does not mean that justice must be denied:

ANY person residing in ANY state can file a grievance against Alberto Gonzales.

Tags: Alberto Gonzales, Allen Weh, American Center for Voting Rights, David Iglesias, Department of Justice, Ethical Violation, Grievance, Jason Leopold, John Edwards, John McKay, Karl Rove, Matthew Friedrich, Michael Mukasey, Mickey Barnett, Monica Goodling, Pat Rogers, Pete Domenici, Professional Misconduct, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Republicans, Rumaldo Armijo, Voter Fraud

Kyle D. Sampson

Updated July 28, 2008, to include the recent report, An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General, by the United States Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility and Office of the Inspector General, which concluded that Kyle D. Sampson engaged in conduct during the course of his employment at the Department Justice that calls into question his fitness to practice law.

Personal Information:

• Name: Sampson, Kyle D.
• Bar: Utah
• ID No: 8112
• Status: Active

Grievance Information: Utah

• Bar Home Page: Utah State Bar
• Main Grievance Page: Utah State Bar Office of Professional Conduct
• Ethics Rules: Utah Court Rules
• Complaint Form: Utah State Bar Consumer Assistance Program Request Form
• Attorney Search: Utah State Bar Attorney & Associate Member Directory Service

Grievance Information: Washington, D.C.

• Bar Home Page: D.C. Bar
• Main Grievance Page: When Complaints Arise
• Ethics Rules (current): D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)
• Ethics Rules (previous): D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective January 1, 1991 through January 31, 2007)
• Complaint Form: D.C. Bar Complaint Forms
• Attorney Search: D.C. Bar Member Search

Allegations:

Illegal Utilization of political considerations personally and in conjunction with Monica Goodling in Hiring and Firing Personnel at the Department of Justice in violation of the Hatch Act

As originally reported by Dan Eggen in the Washington Post,

“The Justice Department considered political affiliation in screening applicants for immigration court judgeships for several years until hiring was frozen in December after objections from department lawyers, current and former officials said yesterday. “The disclosures mean that the Justice Department may have violated civil service laws, which prohibit political considerations in hiring, for as long as two years before the tenure of Monica M. Goodling, the former aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales who testified about the practice this week. “Goodling told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that she “crossed the line” in considering political affiliation for several categories of career applicants at Justice, including immigration judges.

* * *

“The department’s hiring practices have come under scrutiny in the furor over the firings last year of nine U.S. attorneys. A Justice Department investigation of the dismissals has been expanded to include whether Goodling and other Gonzales aides improperly took politics into account in hiring for nonpolitical jobs. “Goodling testified that Sampson told her that the department’s Office of Legal Counsel had concluded that immigration judges were not covered by civil service rules. The Justice Department said after her testimony that it had “located no record” of an OLC opinion that reached that conclusion.”

Officials Say Justice Dept. Based Hires on Politics Before Goodling Tenure, Dan Eggen, Washington Post, May 26, 2007

Additional Sources:

Letter regarding Investigation of Kyle Sampson, From U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, August 24, 2007

Document Shows Widening Probe Into DOJ Hiring , Paul Kane, Washington Post, August 30, 2007

This has now been confirmed by the United States Department of Justice Offices of Professional Responsibility and Office of the Inspector Generals in their report, An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General:

We concluded that Sampson violated Department policy and federal law, and committed misconduct, by considering political or ideological affiliations when hiring IJs. Sampson knew that, historically, most IJ hiring was handled by career employees at EOIR. However, he moved that authority from EOIR and placed it in the OAG. Sampson told us that he had understood it was appropriate to consider “political criteria” in selecting IJs. He stated that his understanding was based on a conversation he had with Ohlson in April 2004 about the Attorney General’s direct appointment authority for IJs, combined with advice he claimed to have received from OLC that IJ hiring was not subject to civil service requirements.

However, as detailed above, Ohlson said he did not tell Sampson that direct appointments were exempt from federal civil service laws. Ohlson said he merely noted to Sampson that direct appointments had been used occasionally in the past to appoint IJs. Nor does the evidence support Sampson’s claim that OLC advised him that civil service laws did not apply to the career IJ positions. Neither OLC nor we could find any record of OLC ever providing such advice to Sampson, and the two officials he identified as possible sources of the advice – AAGs Goldsmith and Levin – had no recollection of advising Sampson that civil service laws did not apply to IJ hiring. To the contrary, the evidence showed that neither would have offered legal guidance on this point informally. While it is possible that Sampson mistakenly inferred on his own that civil service laws did not apply to direct appointments by the Attorney General, there is no evidence that he was ever so advised by OLC.

Moreover, as described in the document attached to his October 8, 2003, e-mail, Sampson sought to use the Attorney General’s direct appointment authority to appoint candidates as IJs who had been recommended by the White House and screened using political criteria
well before those conversations with OLC and Ohlson supposedly occurred. It is clear from Sampson’s October 8 e-mail that he contemplated using political considerations in IJ hiring at least 6 months before his conversation with Ohlson; at least 9 months before Levin (one
of the OLC Assistant Attorney Generals he cited as a possible source of OLC’s legal advice) became the head of OLC in July 2004; and before any conversation he had with Goldsmith (the other OLC Assistant Attorney General cited by Sampson), who did not begin serving in OLC until October 3, 2003, just 5 days before Sampson’s e-mail.

In sum, we concluded that the evidence did not support Sampson’s claim that he was advised by OLC that IJ positions were exempt from federal law governing career civil service positions.

Because the Attorney General’s direct appointment authority to hire IJs is a departure from the usual Department career hiring practices, we considered the possibility that Sampson may have been confused or mistaken about whether civil service laws apply to such hires. Yet, even if Sampson was confused or mistaken in his interpretation of the rules that applied to IJ hiring, we do not believe that would excuse his actions. His actions, which were carried out over a lengthy period of time and were not based on formal advice from anyone, systematically violated federal law and Department policy and constituted misconduct.

Report, pp. 117-118.

In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs, which are career positions protected by the civil service laws.

Report, p. 137.

Rules Violated (Pursuant to Rule 8.5. Disciplinary Authority; Choice of Law , Utah Rules of Professional Conduct):

1. Rule 8.4 – Misconduct – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
2. Rule 8.4 – Misconduct of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)

Misleading Statements to Congress

Chairman Rep. John Conyers, Jr., provided this summary of the misleading testimony of Kyle Sampson, Chief of Staff to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in the Executive Summary of his memo to the members of the House Committee on the Judiciary:

Mr. Sampson appears to have made at least two significant misstatements to Congress. On January 18, 2007, he emailed the Senate Judiciary Committee Chief Counsel that “last year, eight USAs [were] asked to resign” and further assured him “per my prior reps to you, the number of USAs asked to resign in the last year won’t change: eight.” However, as the Committee subsequently learned, Mr. Graves was in fact forced to resign in January 2006. On February 23, 2007, Kyle Sampson drafted a Department letter, which was also approved by Chris Oprison of the White House Counsel’s office, stating that Karl Rove did not play any role in the decision to appoint Tim Griffin as interim U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Documents subsequently came to light showing that before proposing that statement be made to Congress, Kyle Sampson had written to Mr. Oprison that the appointment of Mr. Griffin was “important to Harriet, Karl, etc.,” and just a week before Mr. Oprison signed off on the statement, Tim Griffin had emailed both Karl Rove and Mr. Oprison and others regarding the U.S. Attorney position.

Memorandum to Members of the Committee on the Judiciary, from Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Chairman, regarding Full Committee Consideration of Report on the Refusal of Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to Comply With Subpoenas By the House Judiciary Committee, July 24, 2007, page v.

Rep. Conyers’ memorandum provides additional, sourced details:

Mr. Sampson has made a number of statements to Congress that may have been inaccurate. One such statement appears to have concealed the forced resignations of U.S. Attorney Todd Graves, which was not confirmed by the Department as a forced (as opposed to voluntary) resignation until May 2007. On January 18, 2007, Kyle Sampson emailed the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Chief Counsel that “last year, eight USAs asked to resign” and further assured him, “per my prior reps to you, the number of USAs asked to resign in the last year won’t change: eight.” [FN113] Such misstatements hampered the Committee’s investigation by concealing Mr. Graves’ connection to the firing process while many hearings and interviews on the matter were conducted, and caused the Committee to expend substantial resources trying to learn which U.S. Attorneys had been forced to resign by the Department and which had not. [FN114]

Mr. Sampson also led the drafting of a letter send by Richard Hertling on February 23, 2007, to several U.S. Senators that inaccurately stated that “The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin,” a letter that the Department subsequently acknowledged was in part “contradicted by Department documents.” [FN115] Mr. Sampson’s knowledge of the inaccuracy of his statement regarding Mr. Rove is shown by his prior email stating “getting [Mr. Griffin] appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” [FN116] Mr. Sampson’s effort to explain this contradiction to the Senate Judiciary Committee by claiming that he had merely assumed that the Griffin appointment was important to Mr. Rove, and had not truly “known” that fact, is hard to credit. White House information, and particularly documents of Mr. Rove, would be critical in determining whether Mr. Sampson’s statements on this issue were truthful.

Mr. Sampson’s testimony regarding reasons for the firings and the development and maintenance of the firing list may itself prove to have been false or incomplete. As described below, many of the reasons offered by Mr. Sampson for the removal of these U.S. Attorneys do not appear to hold up to scrutiny. [FN117] And Mr. Sampson’s inability to remember many important details of the process, including critical recent details such as who suggest that David Iglesias be placed on the firing list just months prior to Mr. Sampson’s testimony on the subject, is particularly troubling. [FN118] Finally, the Committee has some concern about the email described above, transmitted to Mr. Moschella as he was preparing to testify before this Committee, in which Mr. Sampson appeared to validate an inaccurate version of events.

[FN113] OAG 1805-06. [This and subsequent like citations refer to numbered documents provided by the Office of the Attorney General to the Committee – E.M.]
[FN114] The Attorney General’s prepared testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in May 2007 also suggested that only eight U.S. Attorneys had been fired, referencing “the decision to request the resignations of eight (of the 93) U.S. Attorneys,” although there appears to be no fair basis for excluding Mr. Graves from the discussion of these issues other than the fact that the Committee had not learned at that time that Mr. Graves’ resignation had been forced. See Alberto Gonzales May 10, 2007, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, Prepared Testimony at 2.
[FN115] Letter from Richard Hertling to John Conyers, Jr., Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, and Linda Sanchez, Chair, Subcomm. on Commercial and Admin. Law, Mar. 28, 2007.
[FN116] OAG 127
[FN117] See Section I.D.1 and I.D.2 below.
[FN118] Sampson, Apr. 15, 2007, Interview at 143.

Id., at pages 16-17.

In Section I.D.1 and I.D.2 referenced in footnote 117 above, the memorandum makes clear that Mr. Rove “raised the idea with officials in the White House Counsel’s office of replacing some or all of U.S. Attorneys[,] [FN135] and that “Mr. Rove’s request was forwarded to Kyle Sampson, then a deputy Chief of Staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who responded that most U.S. Attorneys ‘are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc.’ and that even ‘piecemeal’ replacement of U.S. Attorneys would cause political upheaval. [FN137] The memorandum adds that with “‘That said.’ Mr. Sampson wrote, ‘if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I.'” [FN138]

[FN135] OAG 180; Greenburg, E-mails Show Rove’s Role in U.S. Attorney Firings, ABC News, Mar. 15, 2007; Shapiro, Documents Show Justice Ranking US Attorney, NPR, Apr. 13, 2007 available at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyID=9575434.
* * *
[FN137] OAG 180.
[FN138] Id .

Rules Violated (Pursuant toRule 8.5. Disciplinary Authority; Choice of Law , Utah Rules of Professional Conduct):

1. Rule 3.3 – Candor Toward the Tribunal – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
2. Rule 3.3 – Candor to Tribunal of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)
3. Rule 3.4 – Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
4. Rule 3.4 – Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)
5. Rule 3.9 – Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
6. Rule 3.9 – Advocate in Non-adjudicative Proceedings of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)
7. Rule 4.1 – Truthfulness in Statements to Others – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
8. Rule 4.1 – Truthfulness in Statements to Others of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)
9. Rule 8.4 – Misconduct – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
10. Rule 8.4 – Misconduct of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)

Providing Misleading Information in violation of Federal Law to Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling which Sampson knew AAG Hertling would communicate to Congress

As noted in the previous allegation, Rep. Conyers reports that:

Mr. Sampson also led the drafting of a letter send by Richard Hertling on February 23, 2007, to several U.S. Senators that inaccurately stated that “The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin,” a letter that the Department subsequently acknowledged was in part “contradicted by Department documents.” [FN115] Mr. Sampson’s knowledge of the inaccuracy of his statement regarding Mr. Rove is shown by his prior email stating “getting [Mr. Griffin] appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” [FN116] Mr. Sampson’s effort to explain this contradiction to the Senate Judiciary Committee by claiming that he had merely assumed that the Griffin appointment was important to Mr. Rove, and had not truly “known” that fact, is hard to credit. White House information, and particularly documents of Mr. Rove, would be critical in determining whether Mr. Sampson’s statements on this issue were truthful.

[FN115] Letter from Richard Hertling to John Conyers, Jr., Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, and Linda Sanchez, Chair, Subcomm. on Commercial and Admin. Law, Mar. 28, 2007.
[FN116] OAG 127

As further reported at TPMMuckraker.com:

“On February 23, acting Assistant Attorney General wrote Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and other senators in response to questions about the appointment of Timothy Griffin, a former aide to Rove. In the letter, Hertling stated “The Department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin.”

“But emails subsequently released by the Justice Department showed that wasn’t the case. Last December, for example, Sampson wrote in an email that Griffin’s appointment was “important to Harriet, Karl, etc.” Other emails showed that Rove’s deputy had been intimately involved in the effort to get Griffin installed as the U.S. Attorney in Eastern Arkansas.

“In a letter accompanying documents sent to Congress today, Hertling admits that the assertion in his letter isn’t true, adding, “We sincerely regret any inaccuracy.” And to answer questions about who was responsible for that inaccuracy, he accompanied his letter with 202 pages documents “reflecting the preparation and transmittal of the February 23 letter.”

“Among the documents is a February 8th email from Kyle Sampson providing what ultimately, with a few small revisions, comprised Hertling’s letter. And in that email Sampson wrote that Hertling should say, “I am not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the Attorney General’s decision to appoint Griffin.”

“Now, Hertling might not have known of Rove’s role in Griffin’s selection, but Sampson sure did.”

New Docs Show Sampson Behind Misleading Statement to Congress, TPMMuckraker.com, March 28, 2007.

White House OK’ed Sampson Statement on Rove, TPMMuckraker.com, March 28, 2007.

Rules Violated (Pursuant toRule 8.5. Disciplinary Authority; Choice of Law , Utah Rules of Professional Conduct):

1. Rule 4.1 – Truthfulness in Statements to Others – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
2. Rule 4.1 – Truthfulness in Statements to Others of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)
3. Rule 8.4 – Misconduct – This Rule governed the practice of law in the District of Columbia from January 1, 1991, through January 31, 2007. As of February 1, 2007, the New Rules took effect.
4. Rule 8.4 – Misconduct of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct (effective February 1, 2007)

Alberto Gonzales

This morning, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that he will leave the Department of Justice, after two and a half years of service to the department. Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle. And I have reluctantly accepted his resignation, with great appreciation for the service that he has provided for our country. * * * After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It’s sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.

President George W. Bush, August 27, 2007

Personal Information:

Name: Gonzales, Alberto
Bar: Texas
ID No: No. 8118550
Status: Active

Grievance Information: Texas

Bar Home Page: State Bar of Texas
Main Grievance Page: Texas Client Assistance & Grievance
Ethics Rules: Texas Procedural and Conduct Rules
Complaint Form: Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel Grievance Form (.pdf)
Attorney Search: Texas Member Directory

Allegations:

Knowing Attempt to Coerce Execution of Legal Document by Incompetent Person

On March 4, 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was stricken with pancreatitis for which he underwent gall bladder surgery. Prior to being admitted to the hospital, Ashcroft executed a formal document transferring the powers and responsibilities of the office of Attorney General to his Deputy Attorney General James Comey. This transfer of power was communicated to the White House. Knowing specifically that Ashcroft had both transferred power to Comey and had also not reclaimed his position, Alberto Gonzales, then-White House Counsel, visited the hospital intensive care bedside of Ashcroft on March 10, 2004 in an attempt to pressure Ashcroft to execute a legal document as the Attorney General. Ashcroft, who was barely conscious at the time, refused. Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, acting-Attorney General James Comey stated that

I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that.

Comey further testified that, after witnessing Gonzales’ visit, that

I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general.

An excerpt of Comey’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 15, 2007, further explains the improper conduct of Gonzales:

COMEY: We had — yes. We had concerns as to our ability to certify its legality, which was our obligation for the program to be renewed.

The attorney general was taken that very afternoon [March 4, 2007] to George Washington Hospital, where he went into intensive care and remained there for over a week. And I became the acting attorney general.

And over the next week — particularly the following week, on Tuesday — we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality and explained our reasoning in detail, which I will not go into here. Nor am I confirming it’s any particular program. That was Tuesday that we communicated that.

The next day was Wednesday, March the 10th, the night of the hospital incident. And I was headed home at about 8 o’clock that evening, my security detail was driving me. And I remember exactly where I was — on Constitution Avenue — and got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft’s chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call…

SCHUMER: What’s his name?

COMEY: David Ayers. That he had gotten a call from Mrs. Ashcroft from the hospital. She had banned all visitors and all phone calls. So I hadn’t seen him or talked to him because he was very ill. And Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.

SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?

COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don’t know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital.

So I hung up the phone, immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called Director Mueller and — with whom I’d been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week — and told him what was happening. He said, “I’ll meet you at the hospital right now.”

Told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up — literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.

SCHUMER: What was your concern? You were in obviously a huge hurry.

COMEY: I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that.

SCHUMER: Right, OK.

COMEY: I was worried about him, frankly. And so I raced to the hospital room, entered. And Mrs. Ashcroft was standing by the hospital bed, Mr. Ashcroft was lying down in the bed, the room was darkened. And I immediately began speaking to him, trying to orient him as to time and place, and try to see if he could focus on what was happening, and it wasn’t clear to me that he could. He seemed pretty bad off.

SCHUMER: At that point it was you, Mrs. Ashcroft and the attorney general and maybe medical personnel in the room. No other Justice Department or government officials.

COMEY: Just the three of us at that point. I tried to see if I could help him get oriented. As I said, it wasn’t clear that I had succeeded.

I went out in the hallway. Spoke to Director Mueller by phone. He was on his way. I handed the phone to the head of the security detail and Director Mueller instructed the FBI agents present not to allow me to be removed from the room under any circumstances. And I went back in the room.

I was shortly joined by the head of the Office of Legal Counsel assistant attorney general, Jack Goldsmith, and a senior staffer of mine who had worked on this matter, an associate deputy attorney general. So the three of us Justice Department people went in the room. I sat down…

SCHUMER: Just give us the names of the two other people.

COMEY: Jack Goldsmith, who was the assistant attorney general, and Patrick Philbin, who was associate deputy attorney general.

I sat down in an armchair by the head of the attorney general’s bed. The two other Justice Department people stood behind me. And Mrs. Ashcroft stood by the bed holding her husband’s arm. And we waited.

And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card. They came over and stood by the bed. They greeted the attorney general very briefly. And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there — to seek his approval for a matter, and explained what the matter was — which I will not do.

And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me — drawn from the hour-long meeting we’d had a week earlier — and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, “But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general.”

SCHUMER: But he expressed his reluctance or he would not sign the statement that they — give the authorization that they had asked, is that right?

COMEY: Yes. And as he laid back down, he said, “But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general. There is the attorney general,” and he pointed to me, and I was just to his left. The two men did not acknowledge me. They turned and walked from the room. And within just a few moments after that, Director Mueller arrived. I told him quickly what had happened. He had a brief — a memorable brief exchange with the attorney general and then we went outside in the hallway.

SCHUMER: OK. Now, just a few more points on that meeting. First, am I correct that it was Mr. Gonzales who did just about all of the talking, Mr. Card said very little?

COMEY: Yes, sir.

SCHUMER: OK. And they made it clear that there was in this envelope an authorization that they hoped Mr. Ashcroft — Attorney General Ashcroft would sign.

COMEY: In substance. I don’t know exactly the words, but it was clear that’s what the envelope was.

SCHUMER: And the attorney general was — what was his condition? I mean, he had — as I understand it, he had pancreatitis. He was very, very ill; in critical condition, in fact.

COMEY: He was very ill. I don’t know how the doctors graded his condition. This was — this would have been his sixth day in intensive care. And as I said, I was shocked when I walked in the room and very concerned as I tried to get him to focus.

SCHUMER: Right. OK. Let’s continue. What happened after Mr. Gonzales and Card left? Did you have any contact with them in the next little while?

COMEY: While I was talking to Director Mueller, an agent came up to us and said that I had an urgent call in the command center, which was right next door. They had Attorney General Ashcroft in a hallway by himself and there was an empty room next door that was the command center. And he said it was Mr. Card wanting to speak to me.

I took the call. And Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately. I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present.

He replied, “What conduct? We were just there to wish him well.”

And I said again, “After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness. And I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States.”

SCHUMER: Let me ask you this: So in sum, it was your belief that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card were trying to take advantage of an ill and maybe disoriented man to try and get him to do something that many, at least in the Justice Department, thought was against the law? Was that a correct summation?

COMEY: I was concerned that this was an effort to do an end-run around the acting attorney general and to get a very sick man to approve something that the Department of Justice had already concluded — the department as a whole — was unable to be certified as to its legality. And that was my concern.

(Emphasis added.)

Robert S. Mueller, Director of the FBI, arrived at Ashcroft’s hospital room moments after Gonzalez left. In notes memorializing his observations of Ashcroft, Mueller described Ashcroft as “feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed.”

Mr. Ashcroft himself confirms Mr. Comey’s observation that Mr. Ashcroft was ‘a very sick man’ and Mr. Mueller’s observation that Mr. Ashcroft was ‘feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed.’ In Never Again – Securing America and Restoring Justice, former Attorney General John Ashcroft described his stay in the hospital and the subsequent period of recuperation in this manner (emphasis supplied):

They tubed me up with intravenous lines so they could shut down my pancreas and digestive system. … I felt weak and emaciated, but my doctors assured me that when they got me patched up, [i.e., removed his gall bladder,] over time, I’d be close to good as new.

The doctors kept me in intensive care, lying on my back for almost ten full days, pumping me full of antibiotics and morphine. They then sent me home, where I needed another three (3) weeks to recuperate. Following my bout with acute pancreatitus and the necessary surgery, I returned to work in the early spring of 2004. I had relinquished my official responsibilities as attorney general during my stay in the hospital and through the recuperation. I was in no position to exercise judgment or to make decisions on behalf of the United States Government.

John Ashcroft, Never Again – Securing America and Restoring Justice, p.235.

Clearly, Mr. Comey’s statement that he was concerned that Mr. Gonzales was trying ‘to do an end-run around the acting attorney general and to get a very sick man to approve something that the Department of Justice had already concluded — the department as a whole — was unable to be certified as to its legality’ is supported by the facts. Mr. Gonzales’ explanation, however, does not.

In explaining his conduct, Gonzales testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24, 2007 that he went to the Ashcroft’s hospital at the behest of the “Gang of Eight” bipartisan congressional leaders who, according to Gonzales, had demanded that the program continue. Former Senator Tom Daschle, a member of the Gang of Eight, however, states that:

I have no recollection of such a meeting and believe that it didn’t occur. I am quite certain that at no time did we encourage the AG or anyone else to take such actions. This appears to be another attempt to rewrite history just as they have attempted to do with the war resolution.

Additionally, Gonzales’ testimony was further contradicted by other members of the Gang of Eight:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), who were briefed on the program at the time, said there was no consensus that it should proceed. Three others who were at the meeting also said the legal underpinnings of the program were never discussed.

“He once again is making something up to protect himself,” Rockefeller said of the embattled attorney general.

Ashcroft undergoes successful gall bladder removal, doctor says, USA Today, March 9, 2004

White House pressed Ashcroft on wiretaps , USA Today, May 15, 2007

Gonzales slammed for visiting hospitalized Ashcroft on wiretapping, USA Today, May 15, 2007

Transcript of testimony of Deputy Attorney General James Comey to Senate Judiciary Committee , Salon.com, May 15, 2007

In sickbed showdown, principle trumps power , USA Today, May 16, 2007

Senators renew call for Gonzales’ resignation, USA Today, May 16, 2007

Leahy asks Gonzales to clarify testimony, USA Today, July 18, 2007

Attorney General faces new questions, USA Today, July 19, 2007

Daschle: Gonzales Trying to “Rewrite History” by Blaming Congress for Ashcroft Spying Crisis, TPMMuckraker, July 24, 2007

Pelosi: I Objected to Spying When Comey Did, TPMMuckraker, July 24, 2007

Gonzales, Senators Spar on Credibility, Dan Eggen and Paul Kane. July 25, 2007

FBI chief’s notes detail Ashcroft visit, USA Today, August 16, 2007

Special Gonzales Top 10 (video), Talking Points Memo, August 28, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 3.04 Fairness in Adjudicatory Proceedings
2. Rule 3.05 Maintaining Impartiality of Tribunal
3. Rule 3.10 Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings
4. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

False Statement to Congress

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6, 2007, Gonzales testified about a White House Situation Room briefing to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of and DoJ objections to an unidentified program. Then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey led the objections and questioned the program’s legality. Specifically, Gonzales stated that:

The dissent related to other intelligence activities. The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program. … It was not [about a program called the Terror Surveillance Program]. It was about other intelligence activities.

According to the Washington Post,

Gonzales, testifying for the first time in February 2006 about the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which involved eavesdropping on phone calls between the United States and places overseas, told two congressional committees that the program had not provoked serious disagreement involving Comey or others. “None of the reservations dealt with the program that we are talking about today,” Gonzales said then. No Dissent on Spying, Says Justice Dept. , Washington Post, R. Jeffrey Smith, May 17, 2007

The New York Times adds that

Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining. Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over U.S. Spying , New York Times, Scott Shange and David Johnston, July 29, 2007

However, a May 17, 2006 memo from then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte addressed to then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert confirms that the briefing on March 10, 2004, was indeed about the TSP and detailed “the classification of the dates, locations, and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program[.]” As noted by reporter Spencer Ackerman,

As the world knows, Gonzales testified on Tuesday that James Comey, the former deputy attorney general, may have had legal objections to … to… well, to some “intelligence activities” by the Bush administration, but not to the surveillance program announced by President Bush in December 2005, known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Stunned lawmakers immediately began talking about perjury charges: the previously-unknown “program” came as very convenient for Gonzales, who had told the Senate on February 6, 2006 that no one within the Justice Department had dissented from the program the “president described.”

* * *

If Gonzales concedes that the March 10, 2004 meeting was about the TSP, he’ll be conceding that Comey’s objections were indeed about the TSP — and that means that his February 6, 2006 testimony misled the Senate. In other words, unless Gonzales can prove that the March 10, 2004 meeting wasn’t about the TSP, he’s going to be hounded by perjury charges for the rest of his tenure.

Additionally, Jack Goldsmith testified on October 1, 2007, that

And counter to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ testimony to Congress, Goldsmith said there were “enormous disagreements about many aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program.” Goldsmith repeatedly used the plural when describing those disagreements, making it clear that it was not a single aspect of the program that was at issue. Goldsmith: Legal Basis for Surveillance Program was “Biggest Mess” , TPMMuckraker, October 1, 2007

Senators renew call for Gonzales’ resignation, USA Today, May 16, 2007

Another Surveillance Program or a Lie?, TPMMuckraker, May 22, 2007

Ashcroft: Officials fought over snooping, USA Today, June 21, 2007

Leahy to Gonzales: Start Trying to Remember Now, TPMMuckraker, July 18, 2007

Today’s Must Read, TPMMuckraker, July 18, 2007

Documents contradict Gonzales’ testimony, USA Today, July 25, 2007

Letter from Sens. Schumer, Feinstein, Feingold and Whitehouse to Solicitor General Paul Clement , July 26, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 3.04 Fairness in Adjudicatory Proceedings
2. Rule 3.05 Maintaining Impartiality of Tribunal
3. Rule 3.10 Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings
4. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 473, June 1991
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 473, V. 56 Tex. B.J. 705 (1993)
Section 3.03(a)(2) of the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act….

Attempt to Improperly Influence a Witness and False Statements to Congress

On May 23, 2007, former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that a conversation with Gonzales about his recollections of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys made her “uncomfortable.” According to Goodling in her testimony to Congress, Gonzales recounted his recollection of events surrounding the firing of up to nine (9) United States Attorneys before asking for her reaction. Goodling testified that Gonzales began telling Goodling what he remembered about the firing process and then asked her if she had “any reaction” to his memory. “I didn’t know that it was maybe appropriate for us to talk about that,” she said, adding that it made her “uncomfortable.” She said Gonzales’ comments discomfited her because both Congress and the Justice Department had already launched investigations of the dismissals. Additionally, Goodling’s testimony contradicted Gonzales’ testimony to Congress that he could not remember numerous details about the prosecutors’ dismissals because he had purposely avoided discussing the issue with other potential “fact witnesses.” This matter is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General.

Goodling Testifies about Gonzales Meeting , TPMMuckraker, May 23, 2007

Letter to Sens. Leahy and Specter from US DoJ, OIG, TPMMuckraker, May 23, 2007

Gonzales Meeting With Aide Scrutinized , The Washington Post, June 15, 2007

Leahy asks Gonzales to clarify testimony, USA Today, July 18, 2007

Leahy to Gonzales: Start Trying to Remember Now, TPMMuckraker, July 18, 2007

Gonzales: Witness Tampering? No, It Was Witness Consolation, TPMMuckraker, July 24, 2007

Letter from Sens. Schumer, Feinstein, Feingold and Whitehouse to Solicitor General Paul Clement , July 26, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 1.06 Conflict of Interest: General Rule
2. Rule 3.04 Fairness in Adjudicatory Proceedings
3. Rule 3.05 Maintaining Impartiality of Tribunal
4. Rule 3.10 Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings
5. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 473, June 1991
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 473, V. 56 Tex. B.J. 705 (1993)
Section 3.03(a)(2) of the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act….

Complicity in Violations of the Presidential Records Act

During investigation of the firing of nine (9) United States Attorneys, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee learned that Republican National Committee e-mail accounts, that were supposed to be used only to conduct political work, were in fact used to evade the federal law on retaining presidential records. The existence of such communications were discovered in the investigation of the firing of nine (9) U.S. attorneys last year. In a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Rep. Henry Waxman noted e-mails from senior aides who were using the RNC and other e-mail accounts that were controlled by the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign.

Since March, the Committee has been examining why White House officials used e-mail
accounts operated and controlled by the Republican National Committee for official government
business, apparently in violation of the Presidential Records Act. I am writing to request your
assistance in obtaining documents and interviews relevant to the Committee’s investigation.
On June 18,2007 ,I released an interim report prepared by the majority staff on the status
of the Committee’s investigation. This report found that at least 88 White House officials had
RNC e-mail accounts, more than the White House had previously acknowledged. It also found
that although the RNC has preserved 674,367 e-mails to or from White House officials on RNC
accounts, there was extensive destruction by the RNC of White House e-mails. Of the 88 White
House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC preserved no e-mails for 51
officials. In general, the RNC appears to have destroyed most of the e-mails sent or received by
White House officials prior to 2006.

The interim report described evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under
Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts
for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records. In a deposition
before the Committee on May 10, 2007, Susan Ralston, Karl Rove’s former executive assistant,
testified that she and Mr. Rove searched for e-mails on his political accounts in response to
requests from two separate investigations. Ms. Ralston stated that in 2001, Mr. Rove was asked
to search his political computer in response to a request relating to an investigation involving
Enron. She testified that the White House Counsel’s office would have known about these searches “because all of the documents that we collected were then turned over to the White
House Counsel’s office.”2 According to Ms. Ralston, this investigation was related to the Vice
President’s energy task force and contacts with Enron.’

In addition, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Rove searched his RNC e-mail account in
response to several subpoenas from Patrick Fitzgerald during the investigation into the leak of
the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. She testified that the White House Counsel’s
office also knew about these searches and received copies of the search results.

It would be a matter of serious concern if Mr. Gonzales or other attorneys in the Office of
White House Counsel were aware that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts to
conduct official White House business, but ignored these apparent violations of the Presidential
Records Act.

Letter from Rep. Henry Waxman to Fred Fielding, July 25, 2007

Letter from Sens. Schumer, Feinstein, Feingold and Whitehouse to Solicitor General Paul Clement , July 26, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 1.06 Conflict of Interest: General Rule
2. Rule 8.03 Reporting Professional Misconduct (regarding any improper use of e-mails by Harriet Miers)
3. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

False Statements to Congress regarding abuses of USA Patriot Act by FBI

In testimony to the Senate seeking to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Gonzales testified that the FBI had not abused its use of national security letters. Specifically, he stated on April 27, 2005 that “There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse.” However , six (6) days earlier,

the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated.

The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI’s use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department’s inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March.

Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations , John Solomon, Washington Post, July 10, 2007

When Did AG Gonzales Know About FBI Abuses? , TPMMuckraker, July 10, 2007

Today’s Must Read , TPMMuckraker, July 10, 2007

Gonzales: NSL Abuses Weren’t Really Abuses , TPMMuckraker, July 24, 2007

Letter from Sens. Schumer, Feinstein, Feingold and Whitehouse to Solicitor General Paul Clement , July 26, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 3.04 Fairness in Adjudicatory Proceedings
2. Rule 3.05 Maintaining Impartiality of Tribunal
3. Rule 3.10 Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings
4. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 473, June 1991
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 473, V. 56 Tex. B.J. 705 (1993)
Section 3.03(a)(2) of the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act….

Conflict of Interest and/or Failure to Procure Written Waiver of Conflict

Murray Waas of the National Journal, writes that

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration’s warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry — to be conducted by the department’s internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility — would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.

Sources familiar with the halted inquiry said that if the probe had been allowed to continue, it would have examined Gonzales’ role in authorizing the eavesdropping program while he was White House counsel, as well as his subsequent oversight of the program as attorney general.

Both the White House and Gonzales declined comment on two issues — whether Gonzales informed Bush that his own conduct was about to be scrutinized, and whether he urged the president to close down the investigation, which had been requested by Democratic members of Congress.

* * *

Stephen Gillers, a law professor at the New York University School of Law and an expert on legal ethics issues, questioned Gonzales’s continued role in advising Bush in any capacity about the probe after he learned that his own conduct might be scrutinized: “If the attorney general was on notice that he was a person of interest to the OPR inquiry, he should have stepped aside and not been involved in any decisions about the scope or the continuation of the investigation.”

Bush Blocked Justice Department Investigation, Murray Waas, National Journal, July 18, 2006

Internal Affairs, Murray Waas, National Journal, March 15, 2007

Gonzales: Don’t Blame Me, Blame Bush, TPMMuckraker, March 23, 2007

Memorandum to the Senate Judiciary Committee from Chairman John Conyers, pp. 14 -5, July 24, 2007

The Case Against Gonzales , The Anonymous Liberal, July 27, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 1.06 Conflict of Interest: General Rule
2. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinion:

OPINION 325, December 1966
[Citing] Opinion 173 (March, 1968):
“Public officials should act with the utmost caution at all times to avoid any suspicion on the part of the public that there is some influence operating on the Court in the handling of matters before it and they should not conduct themselves in such a way as to impair the confidence which the community has in the administration of justice.”
The same policy carries forward to the conduct of an attorney after his retirement from public office and he should not accept employment in any matter which might be calculated to arouse suspicion of impropriety in the public mind.

OPINION 367, March 1974
Ethical Consideration 9-3 of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides “after a lawyer leaves judicial office or other public employment, he should not accept employment in connection with any matter in which he had substantial responsibility prior to his leaving, since to accept employment would give the appearance of impropriety even if none exists.

OPINION 441, March 1987
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 441, V. 50 Tex. B.J. 618 (1987)
A lawyer may not represent an interest adverse to a client’s or a former client’s interest if the two matters are substantially related. Such adverse representation is prohibited in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

OPINION 494, February 1994
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 494, V. 57 Tex. B.J. 786 (1994)
Is an attorney disqualified from representing a client in a situation where the husband had a brief consultation with the attorney in 1986, and the wife consulted the attorney in a subsequent divorce action in 1992?
* * *
Were the factual matters involved in the representation so related that there is a genuine threat that confidences gained in the former representation will be divulged to the attorney’s present client?
ANSWER
Yes. The wife seeks to have the attorney represent her in a divorce from her husband, after the husband consulted with the attorney about a possible divorce from his wife. Obviously this factor is met. In a similar opinion, (Opinion 294, TBJ, September 1964) the committee found that an attorney who represented the wife in a prior divorce action, which was dismissed upon reconciliation, could not ethically represent her husband in a subsequent divorce suit filed against her by her husband. The committee reasoned that an attorney’s duty to preserve a client’s confidence outlasts his or her employment, and employment which involves the disclosure or use of these confidences to the disadvantage of the client.
CONCLUSION
The attorney’s representation of the wife would be in violation of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.

OPINION 527, April 1999
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics. Op. 527, V. 62 Tex. B.J. 4 (1999)
SUMMARY OF APPLICABLE RULE
Prior applicable ethics opinions, decisions of the Texas Supreme Court, and the provisions of Rule 1.09 may be summarized as follows:
1. Rule 1.09 prohibits an attorney who has personally represented a former client from representing a person in a matter adverse to the former client if such new representation would violate any of the provisions of Rule 1.09(a).
2. If an attorney is prohibited under Rule 1.09(a) from accepting a representation adverse to a former client, each attorney currently associated with such disqualified attorney is vicariously prohibited from accepting such representation under Rule 1.09(b).
3. If an attorney who personally represented a former client leaves a law firm, the lawyers who remain at the firm are thereafter prohibited from knowingly representing a person adverse to that former client only if a lawyer presently associated with the firm is personally disqualified from accepting the representation under Rule 1.09(a) or the firm’s proposed representation involves the validity of the departed lawyer’s legal services or work product for such former client while he was associated with the firm, or the proposed representation will with reasonable probability involve a violation of Rule 1.05 with respect to the confidential information of such former client.
4. If, as in this ethics opinion, a lawyer terminates his association with a law firm and such firm retains as a client a person whom the departing lawyer personally represented while he was associated with the firm, any subsequent representation by the departed lawyer adverse to such former client is governed by Rule 1.09(a). And, all lawyers currently associated with the departed lawyer are treated the same by reason of Rule 1.09(b). The departed lawyer and members of his new firm can represent a person adverse to such former client only if the representation does not violate Rule 1.09(a)(1),(2), or (3).

False Statements to Congress regarding Intentions to appoint US Attorneys pursuant to USA Patriot Act

On January 18, 2007, Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and stated:

“I am fully committed, as the administration’s fully committed, to ensure that, with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney.”

CAUGHT ON TAPE: Gonzales Lies Under Oath, Think Progress, March 16, 2007

Again on April 19, 2007, Gonzales testified that had rejected a White House plan to appoint United States Attorneys pursuant to recent amendments to the USA Patriot Act which would permit the Attorney General to appoint United States Attorneys without having the appointments confirmed by the United States Senate and further stated that he never considered the plan. However, Gonzales’ former chief of staff Kyle Sampson testified in March to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Gonzales did not reject the idea of circumventing the Senate until after Gonzales had spoken with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) in mid-December about Tim Griffin’s appointment as a United States Attorney in Arkansas. Sampson testified that he did discuss the idea with Gonzales and that Gonzales did not reject the outright.

Schumer Tears into Gonzales, TPMMuckraker, April 19, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 3.04 Fairness in Adjudicatory Proceedings
2. Rule 3.05 Maintaining Impartiality of Tribunal
3. Rule 3.10 Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings
4. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 473, June 1991
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 473, V. 56 Tex. B.J. 705 (1993)
Section 3.03(a)(2) of the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act….

Conflict of Interest

In his letter to Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman Paul Hodes, Attorney Paul Twomey states:

We are writing to you in order to bring to your attention to what appears to be disturbing evidence of a pattern of political interference in the Department of Justice’s investigation of the phone jamming in 2002 United States Senate election in the State of New Hampshire.

On November 5, 2002, operatives working on behalf of the New Hampshire Republican Party entered into a criminal conspiracy which had as its goal the total disruption of the political communications of the New Hampshire Democratic Party in order to gain an unfair advantage in what was a very closely contested United States Senate election. To date, four individuals have been indicted and convicted including Charles McGee, the 2002 Executive Director of the Republican Party and James Tobin, a long time Republican operative who was at that time Regional Political Director for both the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (NRSC)

Additionally, a civil suit was brought on behalf of the New Hampshire Democratic Party against the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Throughout both the criminal prosecution and the civil suit, there were repeated actions of commission and omission on the part of the Department of Justice that give rise to serious questions as to whether or not there was political interference which operated to distort the judicial process.

* * *

After the filing of the criminal charges when an attorney acting for the Democratic Party, Finis Williams, was informed by the prosecutor that the delays were
due to the extreme difficulty in obtaining authorization from higher levels at DOJ for any and all actions in the case. We have been further informed by Attorney John Durkin (counsel for Republican criminal defendants, Allen Raymond) that he was told by a DOJ prosecutor that all decisions in this case had to be made subject to the approval of the Attorney General himself who had to sign off on all actions in this case. As will be discussed below, the two individuals who served as Attorney General during this case both have actual conflicts of interest that would appear to rule out ethical involvement in the investigation and prosecution of the phone jamming.

* * *

As stated above, prosecutors in this case have indicated that both that the slow pace of this case has been occasioned by delays caused by individuals at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and that all decisions had to be reviewed by the Attorney General himself. Given the extreme and critical importance of an assault on free elections by high officials in a major political party, is it certainly appropriate for attention to be given to the case by at the highest levels at the Department of Justice. However, the attention so given should be of assistance in the expeditious and efficacious prosecution of those involved. In this case, however, the attention of the higher ups in the Justice Department served only to delay, if not deny, justice.

Both Attorney General’s Ashcroft and Gonzalez had personal conflicts of interest which should have resulted in them recusing themselves from all action in the case. Attorney General Ashcroft, at the time of these events, had recently been a United States Senator and a member of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, one of the organizations for which James Tobin was working when he undertook his criminal activities. The conflict for Attorney General Gonzalez is even more apparent. At the time of the phone jamming, Attorney General Gonzales was legal counsel to the White House. During the course of the criminal conspiracy, defendant, James Tobin, made literally hundreds of calls to the political office of the White House. In the civil case, a deposition was taken of Alicia Davis, Deputy to Ken Mehlman, who was then the Political Director of the White House regarding her conversations with both Tobin and Jayne Millerick, a Republican operative on Election Day 2002. The New Hampshire Democratic Party sought to have documents produced from the White House concerning these contacts. (This request was denied by the White House on the grounds of executive privilege, although the documents sought only related to the non-official actions of the White House Political Office would not appear to be subject to executive privilege. In fact, the phone records sought were for phones that could not be paid by public funds according to the terms of the Hatch Act).

It is perfectly clear that there were significant questions regarding the involvement of the political office of the White House in this case. When it came to light that the Republican National Committee had paid several million dollars for the legal fees of James Tobin, former, RNC Chair Gillespie told a reporter that the decision to pay these legal fees made in consultation with the White House.
As Attorney General Gonzalez was then counsel for the White House, it is totally inappropriate for him to have taken any part in investigation and prosecution of the phone jamming case where part of the inquiry would involve the possible involvement of individuals working for the White House.

Letter to Sen. Leahy and Cong. Hodes, Paul Twomey, Esq., March 21, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 1.06 Conflict of Interest: General Rule
2. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 325, December 1966
[Citing] Opinion 173 (March, 1968):
“Public officials should act with the utmost caution at all times to avoid any suspicion on the part of the public that there is some influence operating on the Court in the handling of matters before it and they should not conduct themselves in such a way as to impair the confidence which the community has in the administration of justice.”
The same policy carries forward to the conduct of an attorney after his retirement from public office and he should not accept employment in any matter which might be calculated to arouse suspicion of impropriety in the public mind.

OPINION 367, March 1974
Ethical Consideration 9-3 of the Code of Professional Responsibility provides “after a lawyer leaves judicial office or other public employment, he should not accept employment in connection with any matter in which he had substantial responsibility prior to his leaving, since to accept employment would give the appearance of impropriety even if none exists.

OPINION 441, March 1987
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 441, V. 50 Tex. B.J. 618 (1987)
A lawyer may not represent an interest adverse to a client’s or a former client’s interest if the two matters are substantially related. Such adverse representation is prohibited in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

OPINION 494, February 1994
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 494, V. 57 Tex. B.J. 786 (1994)
Is an attorney disqualified from representing a client in a situation where the husband had a brief consultation with the attorney in 1986, and the wife consulted the attorney in a subsequent divorce action in 1992?
* * *
Were the factual matters involved in the representation so related that there is a genuine threat that confidences gained in the former representation will be divulged to the attorney’s present client?
ANSWER
Yes. The wife seeks to have the attorney represent her in a divorce from her husband, after the husband consulted with the attorney about a possible divorce from his wife. Obviously this factor is met. In a similar opinion, (Opinion 294, TBJ, September 1964) the committee found that an attorney who represented the wife in a prior divorce action, which was dismissed upon reconciliation, could not ethically represent her husband in a subsequent divorce suit filed against her by her husband. The committee reasoned that an attorney’s duty to preserve a client’s confidence outlasts his or her employment, and employment which involves the disclosure or use of these confidences to the disadvantage of the client.
CONCLUSION
The attorney’s representation of the wife would be in violation of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.

OPINION 527, April 1999
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics. Op. 527, V. 62 Tex. B.J. 4 (1999)
SUMMARY OF APPLICABLE RULE
Prior applicable ethics opinions, decisions of the Texas Supreme Court, and the provisions of Rule 1.09 may be summarized as follows:
1. Rule 1.09 prohibits an attorney who has personally represented a former client from representing a person in a matter adverse to the former client if such new representation would violate any of the provisions of Rule 1.09(a).
2. If an attorney is prohibited under Rule 1.09(a) from accepting a representation adverse to a former client, each attorney currently associated with such disqualified attorney is vicariously prohibited from accepting such representation under Rule 1.09(b).
3. If an attorney who personally represented a former client leaves a law firm, the lawyers who remain at the firm are thereafter prohibited from knowingly representing a person adverse to that former client only if a lawyer presently associated with the firm is personally disqualified from accepting the representation under Rule 1.09(a) or the firm’s proposed representation involves the validity of the departed lawyer’s legal services or work product for such former client while he was associated with the firm, or the proposed representation will with reasonable probability involve a violation of Rule 1.05 with respect to the confidential information of such former client.
4. If, as in this ethics opinion, a lawyer terminates his association with a law firm and such firm retains as a client a person whom the departing lawyer personally represented while he was associated with the firm, any subsequent representation by the departed lawyer adverse to such former client is governed by Rule 1.09(a). And, all lawyers currently associated with the departed lawyer are treated the same by reason of Rule 1.09(b). The departed lawyer and members of his new firm can represent a person adverse to such former client only if the representation does not violate Rule 1.09(a)(1),(2), or (3).

False Statements to Congress regarding reasons for firing nine (9) US Attorneys

Gonzales testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would ‘never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons…. I just would not do it.” This is claim is directly contrary to the known facts that United States Attorney Bud Collins and other United States Attorneys were asked to resign so that Tim Griffin, as a replacement for Mr. Collins, and others to “build there resumes [and] get in (sic) experience Attorney as a United States attorney.”

Memorandum to the Senate Judiciary Committee from Chairman John Conyers, pp. 14 -5, July 24, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 3.04 Fairness in Adjudicatory Proceedings
2. Rule 3.05 Maintaining Impartiality of Tribunal
3. Rule 3.10 Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings
4. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 473, June 1991
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 473, V. 56 Tex. B.J. 705 (1993)
Section 3.03(a)(2) of the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act….

False Statements to Congress regarding Conversations with Senator Pete Domenici

Gonzales testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that in a conversation that occurred he spoke to Senator Pete Domenici who, according to Sen. Domenici, criticized the performance of United States Attorney David Iglesias. William Moschella, an attorney with DoJ, testified that he was present during each of these phone conferences, that it was his impression that each conversation regarded only the allocation of additional funding and that Gonzales had never relayed to him that the calls were critical of Iglesias. An e-mail regarding a phone conference further states that “Senator Domenici would like to talk to the AG regarding his concerns about staffing shortages” which supports Mr. Moschella’s contention that that conversation(s) were about funding issues only.

Memorandum to the Senate Judiciary Committee from Chairman John Conyers, pp. 14 -5, July 24, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 3.04 Fairness in Adjudicatory Proceedings
2. Rule 3.05 Maintaining Impartiality of Tribunal
3. Rule 3.10 Advocate in Nonadjudicative Proceedings
4. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 473, June 1991
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 473, V. 56 Tex. B.J. 705 (1993)
Section 3.03(a)(2) of the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act….

Failure to report Unethical Conduct

Then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers was properly served with a compulsory subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee. Claiming executive privilege, Ms. Miers failed to appear before the relevant tribunal. Gonzales knew about the compulsory subpoena and provided legal advise to Ms. Miers through the Department of Justice that application of the privilege obviated her need to even appear before the tribunal.

And as noted above, in his letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Rep. Henry Waxman noted e-mails from senior aides who were using the RNC and other e-mail accounts that were controlled by the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign:

It would be a matter of serious concern if Mr. Gonzales or other attorneys in the Office of
White House Counsel were aware that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts to
conduct official White House business, but ignored these apparent violations of the Presidential
Records Act.

Letter from Rep. Henry Waxman to Fred Fielding, July 25, 2007

Rules Violated:

1. Rule 1.06 Conflict of Interest: General Rule
2. Rule 8.03 Reporting Professional Misconduct
3. Rule 8.04 Misconduct

Texas Professional Ethics Opinions:

OPINION 520, May 1997
Tex. Comm. on Professional Ethics, Op. 520, V. 60 Tex. B.J. 490 (1997)
QUESTION
Does Rule 8.03 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct require a lawyer to report suspected misconduct by another lawyer, when the first lacks solid proof that the second lawyer engaged in the suspected conduct?
DISCUSSION
Rule 8.03 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct (Rules) provides in pertinent part:
(a) Except as permitted in paragraphs (c) or (d), [FN1] a lawyer having knowledge that raises a substantial question as to that lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the appropriate disciplinary authority.
Comment three explains that Rule 8.03 “. . . describes only those disciplinary violations that must be revealed by the disclosing lawyer in order for that lawyer to avoid violating [the] rules.” (Emphasis added.) Comment four further elaborates by stating that Rule 8.03 “limits [a lawyer’s] reporting obligations to those offenses that a self-regulating profession must vigorously endeavor to prevent.” Hence a lawyer is required to report violations of the applicable rules of professional conduct that raise a substantial question as to that lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.
Comment three, however, also provides that Rule 8.03 “is not intended to . . . limit those actual or suspected violations that a lawyer may report to an appropriate disciplinary authority.” (Emphasis added.) Rather, lawyers are instructed to use their best judgment in complying with the reporting requirements of the rule. See comment four.
With regard to a report of alleged misconduct, comment two recognizes that “. . . the existence of a violation [frequently] cannot be established with certainty until a disciplinary investigation . . . has been undertaken. Similarly, an apparently isolated violation may indicate a pattern of misconduct that only such an investigation or inquiry can uncover. Consequently, a lawyer should not fail to report an apparent disciplinary violation merely because he or she cannot determine its existence or scope with absolute certainty.”
The text of Rule 8.03(a), however, requires that a lawyer have knowledge (rather than suspicion) that another lawyer has committed a violation of the applicable rules before informing the appropriate disciplinary authority. A report of misconduct must therefore be based upon objective facts that are likely to have evidentiary support.
CONCLUSION
Rule 8.03(a) of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct is limited to those disciplinary violation that must be revealed by the disclosing lawyer in order for that lawyer to avoid violating the rules. As recognized in the commentary, however, Rule 8.03(a) is not intended to limit the actual or suspected violations that a lawyer may report to an appropriate disciplinary authority. Before reporting an alleged violation, however, Rule 8.03(a) requires that a lawyer have knowledge that another lawyer has in fact committed a violation of the rules. A report of misconduct must therefore be based upon such objective facts that are likely to have evidentiary support. It is beyond the scope of this opinion to comment on specific facts that would constitute sufficient basis for a report of misconduct.

FN1–Paragraph (c) pertains to a lawyer who knows or suspects that another lawyer or judge is impaired by chemical dependency on alcohol or drugs, or by mental illness. Paragraph (d) pertains to the disclosure/non-disclosure of confidential information.