The Old Gray Lady Disses Edwards Again

I’ve decried how the New York Times only seems to care about news concerning John Edwards if it involves something that could be spun as questionable behavior or something negative for his candidacy, but after reading reporter Mike McIntire’s story today on the involvement of the Edwards campaign with the law firm of Milberg Weiss, I’m wondering if it would be better if they just ignored Edwards altogether.

As the story notes…

Last year, the firm was indicted on federal charges of fraud and bribery. But the political partnership has not been entirely severed. Since the indictment, 26 Democrats around the country, including four presidential candidates, have accepted $150,000 in campaign contributions from people connected to Milberg Weiss, according to state and federal campaign finance records. And some Democrats have taken public actions that potentially helped the firm or its former partners.

The recent contributors include current and former Milberg partners who had either been indicted or were widely reported to be facing potential criminal problems when they wrote their checks. One of them, William S. Lerach , was a fund-raiser for John Edwards ’s presidential campaign until his guilty plea last month. Melvyn I. Weiss , a founder of the firm, gave the maximum $4,600 to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in June. Other firm members contributed to the presidential campaigns of Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr.

OK, so the only person from the firm who donated to Edwards to plead guilty was William S. Lerach; I assume it was to charges related to the first paragraph I excerpted above (we find out about this in the fourth paragraph of the story).

And what did Edwards do to earn Lerach’s good graces? As McIntire tells us…

Mr. Edwards, a trial lawyer who became wealthy pursing personal injury cases, joined labor unions and consumer groups last May in pressing securities regulators to intervene in a lawsuit against banks brought by Mr. Lerach on behalf of Enron investors. His campaign said Mr. Edwards’s actions had nothing to do with Mr. Lerach, and were consistent with the candidate’s longstanding defense of working people.

Still, Mr. Edwards’s willingness to be seen doing anything that could benefit Mr. Lerach and allowing him to raise money provided fodder for critics.

Oh, brother; as you can read in the excerpt below from this link, Edwards wasn’t “doing anything he could to benefit Lerach,” but instead, he was working with Lerach and Andy Stern to represent defrauded Enron investors (as stated by McIntire)…

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) -- Presidential candidate John Edwards joined a growing movement to persuade Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox to take a stance in a Supreme Court case that is being closely watched by Enron Corp. investors who lost money in the accounting scandal.

"I urge the SEC to fulfill its historic mission of protecting investors," Edwards said in a statement issued by his campaign. "Silence or, even worse, siding with fraud participants would be a betrayal of that mission."

Edwards, who has been running a populist campaign that focuses on the gap between rich and poor, issued the statement at a time when some Enron investors have teamed up with trial lawyer Bill Lerach and union leader Andy Stern to make their voices heard.

Yep, it sure sounds like Edwards is “doing anything he can to help Lerach” here, doesn’t it?

And the Times also does a rather interesting job of explaining what happened to the money Lerach gave to Edwards.

As I noted above, we first find out that Lerach raised money for Edwards in the 4th paragraph of the story. In about the 12th paragraph, we find out about Edwards’ association with Lerach through the suit representing the defrauded Enron shareholders. In the 15th paragraph, we get a quote from some conservative mouthpiece about how bad Edwards is for his association with Lerach. But in the 16th paragraph, lo and behold – we find out that Edwards donated the $4,600 that he personally received from Lerach to charity and will do the same thing with any other monies from firm contributors found guilty of wrongdoing.

Burying the fact that Edwards donated the tainted money to charity is “shooting dirty pool” as far as I’m concerned.

Also, the story mentions Norman Hsu, the Democratic donor who still hasn’t been found guilty of wrongdoing, as well as Geoffrey Fieger, a trial lawyer accused of using “straw” donors to make illegal contributions.

I thought this article related to Fieger was interesting, specifically the following…

Federal officials alleged that Fieger and an associate illegally raised $127,000 for the Edwards campaign through conduit contributions - contributions gathered by pressuring underlings and family members to “max out” to Edwards - make the maximum $2,000 contribution - and then promising that the law firm would reimburse them.

Today, Fieger’s lawyers, led by Wyoming trial lawyer Gerry Spence, submitted a brief calling on a federal judge in Detroit to dismiss the case on the grounds that the prosecution is “selective” and “vindictive.”

The lawyers argue that the Justice Department has been “hijacked” by Republican political operatives and “turned into a weapon to silence political dissidents like Mr. Fieger and others threatening the Republican stronghold in this country.”

Fieger’s attorneys say they plan to prove that the Department has been converted into “a militia arm of the White House.”

Fieger, a well-known Michigan Democrat, gained prominence in the 1990s as the lawyer for Dr. Jack Kevorkian and when he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Michigan in 1998.

In the presidential primary of 2000, Fieger says he “encouraged the people of Michigan to vote for John McCain and against Bush which caused droves of Democrats to the polls and gave McCain a win in the Michigan primary.”

“The day after the primary, George Bush gave a speech at Lawrence Technological University during which he denounced Mr. Fieger by name no less than four times - referring to him as ‘Kevorkian’s Attorney,’” according to the brief.

Dubya remembers someone four times in one speech, calling them by name each time, huh?

Nah, Fieger wasn’t targeted. Not much, he wasn’t.

And by the way, it would be nice if our corporate media brethren decided to report on the antics of Repug fundraisers as well as those “rainmakers” for the Democrats.

But I suppose if they did, that would affect the “hard work” of “reporting” on hedge funds, fancy homes, and $400 haircuts, to say nothing of ignoring huge union endorsements.