Fred Thompson Must Be A Real Threat

Fred Thompson must be scaring the crap out of the Democrats because they've unleashed a week's worth of negative attacks against him -- and he's not even a candidate yet.

The most recent 'attack' comes from Judith DeSarno of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. She told the Los Angeles Times that Thompson once lobbied for the group back in 1991.

DeSarno is hoping that her revelation will diminish Thompson's appeal to social conservatives who believe that killing an unborn baby is murder.

"Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," said Thomspon spokesman Mark Corallo. "There's no documents to prove it, there's no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn't happen."

The ball is in Judith DeSarno's court right now. If Thompson was hired by the group, they should be able to produce some billing records that would settle the dispute.

My guess is that the NFPRHA does not have a billing record that proves that Fred Thompson worked for the group. If they did, they would have produced it along with the meeting notes from 1991.

Over at Captain’s Quarters Ed Morrissey has done some good research on this too:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/010467.php

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July 8, 2007

When Did Fred Start At Arent Fox?

An interesting question came to me from CQ reader Adam W regarding the Los Angeles Times’ story about Fred Thompson and his supposed work for the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association in 1991. The only evidence of this work comes from a copy of the NFPRHA’s board minutes from September 14, 1991 that claims that the group had hired “Fred Thompson, Esq. as counsel to aid us in discussions with the administration” to end the rule barring abortion counseling at clinics that received federal funds. A couple of the group’s principals swear that they hired Thompson; Thompson denies working for them, and the man whom Fred would have had to meet categorically states that he never discussed the gag rule with Fred at all.

Now a new bit of indirect evidence has been found. Arent Fox brought Thompson into the firm to be “of counsel” in 1991 for his expertise in their lobbying business, including the representation of foreign governments. Anyone involved in such lobbying has to register with the Foreign Agent Registration Unit at the Department of Justice. Arent Fox filed its registration for its lobbyists, complete with the listings of all its lobbyists — including their start and termination dates.

Take a look at registrant #2661 in the FARA search system (unfortunately, the results are unlinkable). Fred D. Thompson, according to their records, starts as a lobbyist for foreign business on 10/10/1991 and terminates on 9/17/1993, which is when he decided to run for the remainder of Al Gore’s term in the Senate. That gives some indication that Thompson started lobbying for Arent in October and not September of 1991. It’s possible that Arent had limited Thompson to lobbying for domestic clients until October, but that seems rather odd, given their desire to have him on board as a major attraction for DC lobbying.

I’d be interested to know when he started lobbying for Arent Fox — with an exact date. The information on Thompson’s association with Arent Fox says that they hired Thompson specifically for lobbying on behalf of foreign customers, which would require the FARA registration with an exact date that such lobbying began. This implies that Thompson wouldn’t have been available to the NFPRHA in Septemer 1991, and make the document on which the Times based its entire story somewhat suspect.

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