Posted on 07/16/2009 2:26:31 PM PDT by kristinn
The following letter was confirmed to me by Mr. Greenberg with the following statement:
"The letter was sent to Senators Sessions, Hatch, Grassley, Graham and Coburn. It was also sent to Cong. Peter King (R) NY. The story is being covered extensively by the photo blogs, the trade publications and the NY Times. No politician has responded. The NY Times quotes attributed to me are accurate and therefore I assume that the quotes of my adversary Mr. Fairhurst are accurate as well."
Text of the letter:
I am an attorney in NYC who represented White House Photographer Chris Usher in litigation against Corbis, a privately held company wholly owned by Bill Gates. The case principally concerned lost Presidential and campaign photography during the 2000 Bush v. Gore Campaign and the US Supreme Court case related thereto.We won at the trial level in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York but the award to the victorious plaintiff was absurdly low.
We appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals where the award was inexplicably upheld. The New York Times reported on this high profile case today, please see:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/behind-6/
It was revealed therein by opposing counsel hat Judge Sotomayor and Mr. Gates’ counsel have known and (possibly worked with) each other for decades. Such relationship was never disclosed to me as plaintiff’s attorney by the Court. No opportunity for us to request that Judge Sotomayor recuse herself was afforded as this information was never disclosed.
The appearance of impropriety is astounding as Judge Sotomayor could have recused herself and we could have had another Appeals Panel within days.
Please contact me so that this apparently unethical judicial behavior is brought to the attention of the judiciary committee immediately.
Edward C. Greenberg, Esq.
contact info redacted
POW
They could find a few dozen bodies buried in her backyard and she’d still be confirmed. The Dems are too corrupt to care and the Repubs are too wimpy to fight back.
After the way the Republicans were talking about her today, Sotomayor could have killed Judge Crater and she’d still be confirmed.
It won’t matter.
Excellent! Let’s hope this liberal stink fills the hearing room until everyone runs from her gasping for breath.
Sorry, but a judge knowing an attorney for decades is hardly unethical and certainly isn’t a “bombshell”.
Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.
I though the lousy liar was through but this, on a legal basis, this could be trouble.
Big trouble.
I’d love to hear the wise Latina ‘splain this one.
As if ethics mattered to the Marxist party at all.
Is this meltdown that Graham was talking about...
Hope it’s true.
Bump
Yep. It reminds me of Edwin Edwards old line, "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."
The Dems will vote to confirm her even if she is caught in bed with any combination of dead and live boys and girls.
That’s bad, really bad. But I think the Republicans are in on the plans to turn this country into an Oligarchy. Either they are in on it or they fear for their lives. Either way, the end result is the same. Graham wouldn’t vote no if Sotomayer ripped the heads off of kitten for the fun of it.
The issue is disclosure. She failed to disclose a friendship and prior working relationship.
brave person to go volunarily before the left’s firing squad.
Lame.
Agree.
She’s a RAT. RATs need not have ethics; it’s not expected of them.
Wow...she fits the bill perfectly for the Dems as a nominee. Congrats to Stopandbuybeer or whatever her name is. I ‘m sure she has many many liberal rulings in her back pocket ready for use...
The gutless GOP will say a word about this.
“They could find a few dozen bodies buried in her backyard and she’d still be confirmed. The Dems are too corrupt to care and the Repubs are too wimpy to fight back.”
Exactly. The Dems could confirm John Gacy in today’s political media climate.
won’t vs will
I think there's some truth to both speculations.
Says “possible.” If this were grounds for disqualification there wouldn’t be any courts.
I’m not exactly sure why Greenberg (who comes across in this letter and his post in the NYT’s comment section as rather...eccentric, let’s call it) thinks an Circuit Court judge knowing an attorney, even for decades, is either unusual or unethical.
Agreed. It happens all the time (as one might expect given the nature of the profession, what with associations, required continuing eduction, etc.)
The issue is she failed to disclose the relationship.
Disclosure. She didn’t disclose the relationship. He just learned about it in the NY Times article published yesterday and today.
Repubs are too wimpy to fight back.
Sad, but true...it IS a bombshell, but it will be a dud in the hands of these cowardly bstrds.
The smell of a liberal wretches the stomach of patriots but is sweet smelling amphoria to our enemies.
It says that they have known and possibly worked with each other for decades. It doesn’t really explain the degree of the relationship—it could have been mere acquaintanceship or a casual working awareness.
Wow, she should have to take that one right in the kisser!
Well, it would help to know what the "relationship" was, wouldn't it?
If a judge used to be partners with a litigant, represented them in the past, or has a business relationship with them, that's the sort of thing requiring disclosure. If a judge worked at the same firm or office as a litigant, went to law school with them, or has known them professionally for 50 years, that's not the sort of thing that requires disclosure.
“They could find a few dozen bodies buried in her backyard and she’d still be confirmed.”
Yup, she could be eating babies on the steps of the SC and the Dems would ask her if she needed something to drink to wash them down!
Pathetic and beyond frustrating, if
the pubbie senators had this information
in time and didn’t raise it with her
during her public questioning.
I believe the hearings are over, at least
with her participation, are they not?
Lawyer me says all smoke, no fire. Totally normal.
The issue is not whether or not she knew the guy, it’s that she failed to DISCLOSE that she knew the guy, thereby not giving the plaintiff opportunity to request that she recuse herself.
Yes, it is expected that judges know attorneys, but it is also expected that those relationships be disclosed.
Mr. Greenberg is apparently a rather prominent attorney. I doubt he would bring this up if it wasn’t at least somewhat of a big deal.
The current state of the Republicans in the Senate is soooo weak kneed, you could have proof that Sotomayor was the Boston Strangler...and there’d be Lindsay Graham leading the charge that she is “pretty much in the mainstream”.
That is why the NRSC got an non-contribution return from me last month.
No, that’s not really how it works. Judges are not required to disclose every time they “know” one of the parties attorneys.
We all need to realize one thing. This stuff does not matter. The communists have their votes. We have all accepted 32-33 unvetted czars. If we accept that and all else Obama has done, why does anyone think this is going to matter?
AfterPorkulis, healthcare, Sotomayor, Cap and Tax, they are coming for the guns. The just know we will squeal and roll over like we have on everything else.
Maybe we couild have a Tea Party with drinks and dancing and stop this.
Ya think?
Mr. Fairhurst said in an interview Wednesday that he has known Judge Sotomayor since the 1980s, when they both served on the legal committee of an imported automobile trade association. (She represented Fiat, he Jaguar.)
It's not known if there are more working relations than the one mentioned.
possible unethical behavior....
Too little, too late. Its over now. a done deal.
Isn’t there a venue they could go after her without congress. I thought there is a group that investigated judicial miscondut and ethics.
Her inclination to think that rules for everyone else need not apply to her was detected in the following editorial before this news broke.
It is good the news broke. But as the above editorial averred, are a majority of senators indeed so spineless as Sotomayor has assessed that they will still lack the courage to protest her confirmation should these allegations prove to be true?
And if that is the extent of the "relationship," that is simply not the kind of thing that requires disclosure. Mr. Greenberg certainly seems to have his knickers in a twist over losing his case and is trying to get some mileage for his client, but that doesn't mean this suddenly becomes a legitimate issue.
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