Posted on 10/20/2018 4:10:28 PM PDT by Hostage
The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch announced Friday it had filed a complaint against lawyers for Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, arguing that they hadn’t kept their client properly informed about her options for testifying.
The complaint was filed “to the Board of Professional Responsibility of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals of Debra S. Katz, Lisa J. Banks, and Michael R. Bromwich for violating the rules of professional responsibility in their representation of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearings on the nomination of the Honorable Brett Kavanaugh,” the group announced in a news release.
“According to the Judicial Watch complaint, by not informing their client Dr. Ford that Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee offered in a letter to ‘fly female staff investigators to meet Dr. Ford … in California, or anywhere else, to obtain (her) testimony,’ Katz, Banks, and Bromwich violated” two rules of conduct.
The rules in question state that “(a) lawyer shall keep a client reasonably informed about the status of a matter and promptly comply with reasonable requests for information” and that “(a) lawyer shall explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation.”
The complaint notes that the day after Ford’s identity was revealed, “Ms. Katz went on several television shows asking that the (Senate Judiciary) Committee hold a public hearing so that Dr. Ford could offer her testimony.”
“Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, honored that request. In a letter sent on September 19, 2018, he informed Ms. Katz and Ms. Banks that the Committee was scheduling a hearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination for September 24, 2018, in order to ‘give Dr. Ford an opportunity to tell her story to the Senate and, if she chooses, to the American people,'” the complaint said.
“He informed Ms. Katz and Ms. Banks that the hearing could be public or private, and that Dr. Ford could also choose to have a public or private staff interview with Committee staff, either by phone or in-person.
“‘To that end,’ Chairman Grassley continued, ‘Committee staff has attempted to contact you directly by phone and e-mail several times to schedule a call at a time convenient for you and your client. We thus far have not heard back from you with regard to that request.’
“He reiterated that ‘my staff would still welcome the opportunity to speak with Dr. Ford at a time and place convenient to her.’”
When questioned about her fear of flying, she told the committee, “I was hoping that they would come to me, but then I realized that was an unrealistic request.”
Later, prosecutor Rachel Mitchell asked Ford, “Was it communicated to you by your counsel or someone else, that the committee had asked to interview you and that — that they offered to come out to California to do so?”
After a bit of kerfuffle over whether or not this represented a privileged conversation between Ford and her lawyers, the accuser seemed to indicate that the offer wasn’t explained in detail to her.
“I just appreciate that you did offer that. I wasn’t clear on what the offer was,” Ford said. “If you were going to come out to see me, I would have happily hosted you and had you — had been happy to speak with you out there. I just did not — it wasn’t clear to me that that was the case.”
This wasn’t a terribly complicated offer; the Senate Judiciary Committee would have interviewed her in California. How difficult was this for a gaggle of people who have done postgraduate work in law to elucidate to their client?
It’s pretty obvious that either Ford or her lawyers are lying about this. At least in this case, I believe Ford. She surrounded herself with Democratic operatives who realized it was to the advantage of the left to have this testimony aired in the open. If they didn’t make this clear to their client, however, they violated their professional obligations — and they need to face the consequences for it.
In the statement, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said this wouldn’t be the end of their Kavanaugh-related inquiries, either.
“We are concerned that ethics rules were violated by Dr. Ford’s attorneys during the Kavanaugh confirmation and took action to get accountability,” Fitton said.
“We already filed a Senate ethics complaint against Sen. Cory Booker over his admitted rule breaking and are considering additional steps to address the misconduct committed by Justice Kavanaugh’s opponents.”
In this action, Judicial Watch is spot on.
The Kavanaugh debacle must not be forgotten. There need to be consequences for this abuse of the system.
The schemers behind the Kavanaugh attack need to be held to account.
Hurrah, JW!
Hard to tell what really happened because Ford is so full of it...
Judicial Watch: still doing the heavy lifting required to drain the swamp...
How does Judicial Watch have standing to file such a suit?
Interesting how the only ones caring about Ford now are Republicans.
I doubt Judicial Watch has standing to file a complaint insofar as they were not harmed. In any case, I’m very happy that the American public got to witness the whole thing live.
Had the Judiciary committee gone to her the true nature of the events would have been clouded. We should rejoice in their incompetence.
On what grounds?
Coffee grounds—Groucho Marx.
I don’t put a whole lot of stock in just bashing her lawyers. I think the whole thing was a set-up. Her father and grandfather held prominent positions in the CIA. Her best friend worked for the FBI. It’s got Deep State shenanigans written all over it.
Side issue.
How did 1,000 articles use the same image of Ford with big sunglasses, smiling, young,decades ago, when she is a shriveled up hag mummy as above?
That should sink any vestige of respect for the media.
Like that dead teen thug who was made to look like a 10 year old choir boy on his way to feed an orphan by spending his last lawn cutting money. Actually was a smirking little violent urban drug using teen thug. Trayvon.
i think the nasty frunt was lying and now, it's either perjury, or the lawyers get sanctioned... doesn't get much better than this
Of course we all know two door fraud was lying her arse off but to show that it could get her lawyers disbarred then so be it.
I think you need to be harmed to file a lawsuit, but not a complaint. For example, lawyers can file complaints against judges for judicial misconduct even though the "harm", if any, was to the clients and not the lawyers. I could be wrong, though.
And do they really want the judiciary to set the rules for the conduct of congressional hearings?
And do they really want the judiciary to set the rules for the conduct of congressional hearings?
It is not a lawsuit and it does not question the rules for the hearing. It is a complaint to a Board that polices attorney practices in the area served by the DC Appeals Court. I believe that any attorney in that area can lodge such a complaint given reasonable evidence; no legal "standing" required. CBF's attorneys seem to have misled their client or withheld vital information from her. If they get investigated and sanctioned that would theoretically be a blot on their record and could impair their future business, but in the DC Swamp it will probably make them heroes and in extra high demand ...
Excellent question.
They filed an ethics complaint as lawyers against lawyers.
They are not suing Blasely-Ford but making a complaint against the lawyers that hatched this scheme.
My hope is that the FBI with Sen. Grassley are still investigating Feinstein and others.
JW’s action will at least give lawyers pause to pull this type of stunt again.
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