Posted on 04/28/2004 8:50:10 AM PDT by pookie18
A complaint filed Wednesday with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics accuses Sen. Ted Kennedy and two of his former aides of improper conduct for their alleged role in delaying the confirmation of one of President Bush's judicial nominees.
The Center for Individual Freedom's complaint follows a similar move by Judicial Watch in December. The new complaint names the two Kennedy aides who wrote an April 17, 2002, memo seeking to delay Julia Smith Gibbons' confirmation to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Certainly, Kennedy's office violated ethics rules of the Senate," said Jeffrey Mazzella, executive director of the Center for Individual Freedom. "The question now becomes, did Kennedy do so himself? With the new information that has surfaced in the last few weeks, there is strong reason to believe that he did. Yet, we won't know the extent of his ethical transgressions reflecting poorly on the Senate unless an investigatory body looks into it.
"Regardless," Mazzella said, "at the end of the day, Senator Kennedy is responsible for the actions of his staff. And it's clear to everyone that, at the very least, some of his closest aides disregarded the most fundamental ethics rules governing the Senate."
The two former Kennedy aides - Olati Johnson, his judiciary counsel, and Melody Barnes, his chief counsel - wrote the memo at the request of Elaine R. Jones, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), according to the Center for Individual Freedom.
At the time, Jones' organization was defending the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy in one of two high-profile cases before the 6th Circuit. Johnson was an attorney at the LDF before taking the job in Kennedy's office.
The memo spells out the rationale for delaying Gibbons' confirmation: "The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under 6th Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it."
Gibbons was eventually confirmed by the Senate, but not until two months after the 6th Circuit had issued a ruling in one of the University of Michigan cases. Both cases eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which preserved the use of affirmative action in higher education.
Kennedy's press secretary, Jim Manley, declined to comment Wednesday about the ethics complaint. When Kennedy was asked about his staff's involvement earlier this month, the senator abruptly ended a news conference and left the room without addressing the matter.
Johnson and Barnes haven't commented publicly about the memo either. An ethics complaint against Johnson has also been filed by the Center for Individual Freedom in New York.
Even though the Senate Select Committee on Ethics has taken no public action on Judicial Watch's earlier complaint against Kennedy, Mazzella said he was optimistic the latest developments might lead to an investigation.
"Through their efforts to influence a pending court case, Kennedy, Johnson and Barnes have brought disrepute on the U.S. Senate," Mazzella said. "It's time for the Ethics Committee to investigate and punish their wrongdoing."
Typical!
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