Yet More on Roberts's Partisan Activities

by Chris Bowers, Thu Jul 21, 2005 at 08:40:23 AM EDT

Yesterday, we found information on what Roberts did for Ken Starr under Bush I. Now we have more information on what role he played during the 2000 recount (emphasis mine):As the 2000 presidential recount battle raged in Florida, a Washington lawyer named John G. Roberts Jr. traveled to Tallahassee, the state capital, to dispense legal advice.

He operated in the shadows at least some of those 37 days, never signing a legal brief and rarely making an appearance at the makeshift headquarters for George W. Bush's legal team.(...)

Republican lawyers who worked on the recount said Wednesday that Roberts advised Gov. Jeb Bush on the role that the governor and the Florida Legislature might play in the recount battle. At the time, when GOP officials feared that Democrat Al Gore might win a recount battle in court, Republican state lawmakers were devising a plan to use their constitutional power to assign the state's electoral votes to George W. Bush -- a proposal criticized by Democrats.(...)

One Republican lawyer who worked on the case in Florida said he recalled seeing Roberts only once during the recount, not at one of the bars or restaurants that were mobbed every night with lawyers and journalists, but in the legal team's office at state GOP headquarters a few blocks from the Capitol.

It is starting to look like the role Roberts played in the recount was to develop the strategy to forego the recount entirely and instead have the Florida state legislature decide the election for Bush no matter what the count inevitably showed. No wonder he is being rewarded with a Supreme Court nomination by George Bush. Whatever else he has done in his life, Roberts has clearly acted as a partisan political operative on behalf of the Bush family for at least sixteen years now.

Tags: Republicans (all tags)

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They have something up their sleeve

I've been reading about him and thinking that of the possibilities he may not be so bad. I mean Bush isn't going to pick someone I like regardless. But I'm from Florida and I remember those elections well. The thugs and payed demonstrators, Katherine Harris and Jeb saying one thing but clearly doing another. Now I hear that regardless of how the fight may have turned out they were going to attempt to give him the votes anyway. I had a smile on my face as I started to read the post. It went away and has been replaced with a knot in my stomach.

by jrflorida 2005-07-21 10:18AM | 0 recs

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Roberts Wife legal counsel to anti-abortion group

Just came across this information from an extemely conservative Catholic Web site, Spiritdaily.com. John Roberts wife is a legal counsel for Feminists for Life, a "pro-life" group.

http://www.feministsforlife.org/news/index.htm

by MichiganDemocrat 2005-07-21 10:42AM | 0 recs

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Roberts' Career Path

He went straight from Harvard law to clerking for a supreme court justice, Rehnquist and then direct to the White House. In my mind, this alone tells you that he's a pokitical animal. Probably a very political animal.

There is no time spent working for a corporate firm, an advocacy group, or state government (e.g. assistant attorney general, assistant district attorney, federal prosecutor). This gilded path to the top and behinf the scenes types of jos are confirmed in this diary.

by David Kowalski 2005-07-21 11:18AM | 0 recs

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Re: Roberts' Career Path

I don't mean to just nitpick, but he has 13 years experience as a corporate attorney: Hogan & Hartson, for 1986-1989 and 1993-2003. I bring it up because it's a useful line of sliming... ask someone to visualize "corporate attorney" and it's probably not a flattering picture.

by Crazy Vaclav 2005-07-21 03:06PM | 0 recs

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Re: Roberts' Career Path

Roberts did not go straight from Harvard to clerking for a Sup. Ct. Justice. He first clerked for 2nd Circuit Judge Henry Friendly, considered a great judge by observers of varied political leanings. That's the path virtually all S. Ct. law clerks take - clerking for a Court of Appeals judge then a S. Ct. Justice. Criticizing Roberts for this is like criticizing Bill Clinton for being a Rhodes Scholar - it only makes the critic look absurd, which unfortunately is the case with much of the poorly researched, over-the-top comments on Roberts that have permeated the left part of the blogosphere.

by SLinVA 2005-07-21 09:20PM | 0 recs

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Hearings

would be a nice time for us to remind the American people of the extent to which Republicans were willing to go to install their guy instead of COUNTING THE VOTES.

Let's spend a lot of that time talking about Florida.

by freedc 2005-07-21 11:32AM | 0 recs

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Source?

What's the source on the above quote about his role in Fla 2000?

by progressivesouth 2005-07-21 11:34AM | 0 recs

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Re: Source?

Here is a Miami Herald article about it.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0721-07.htm

by nilram 2005-07-21 01:04PM | 0 recs

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He's a tool

He's a tool. Did you expect anything less?

by wayward 2005-07-21 04:23PM | 0 recs

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Is Roberts Conflicted

If then-private lawyer Roberts represented then-candidate Bush in the 2000 legal dispute over the Florida recount, does he not have a conflict of interest regarding any matter involving the now-president Bush? If confirmed, would he have to recuse himself from any case involving the president and/or the administration? Does anyone know what the judical canons say about this? It sort of begs the question, could the administration not find a suitable candidate that had not previously represented the president?

by lking 2005-07-22 12:51PM | 0 recs