MemoGate- sedition, slander-- or something worse?
Various FR links | 11-06-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
Various FR links | 11-06-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
Posted on 04/16/2004 1:52:53 AM PDT by Liz
Following up on the "Memogate" story reported in the last issue of Insight [see "Hatch and Frist Fire Whistle-blower"], the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) has learned that the author of a memo encouraging Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) to stop the confirmation of a federal judge at the request of a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) lawyer was, in fact, a former assistant counsel at the NAACP.
The memo was addressed to Kennedy and told of a telephone call to the Kennedy office from Elaine Jones of the NAACP requesting help with a case she was handling. The memo states that Jones asked that the confirmation of Judge Julia Smith Gibbons to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals be delayed until the University of Michigan affirmative-action case could be decided, a case in which Jones was involved. Jones feared that if a judge with conservative views made it to the 6th Circuit bench before the case was decided, it would be lost. The memo was sent along to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) with a recommendation that Democrats try to stall Gibbons.
According to CFIF, the author of the memo was Olati Johnson, then the judiciary counsel for Kennedy who had just come off the job at the NAACP, where she worked on the University of Michigan affirmative-action case. In a recent press release, CFIF states that Johnson left Kennedy's office in September 2003 and went back to the NAACP.
On Jan. 15, just two months after the Memogate scandal began to develop, Jones announced her resignation from the NAACP, a CFIF press release states. It adds that a spokesperson for Jones claimed the resignation, effective May 1, had nothing to do with the Kennedy memo that had been prepared to try to sway the federal court decision.
Though Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has not pursued an investigation of the memo's content, there is growing public demand that it be investigated. Watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee attempting to spur an investigation, and the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary and other judicial watchdogs have filed an ethics complaint against Jones with the Virginia State Bar Association. As Insight went to press the Ethics Committee hadn't responded.
John M. Powers is a writer for Insight.
Must be nice to have that kind of pull with a well-entrenched Senator.
Kennedy sees himself as a charmer, but women really hold the power in their relationships with him.
My diagnosis is that Kennedy has a mommy fixation due to his father's self-absorption.
Since Kennedy has such a babylike relationship with women, I think this scandal should be called Mammo-gate.
LOL. Sounds good to me.
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