Posted on 07/19/2007 7:33:24 AM PDT by pissant
This may be the political version of Evolution. The New York Times is out this morning with a story about billing records that show Fred Thompson did indeed charge for his time while helping a pro-choice group. Details from the article below:
Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization.
According to records from Arent Fox, the law firm based in Washington where Mr. Thompson worked part-time from 1991 to 1994, he charged the organization, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, about $5,000 for work he did in 1991 and 1992. The records show that Mr. Thompson, a probable Republican candidate for president in 2008, spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group, and on three occasions he reported lobbying administration officials on its behalf.
Mr. Thompson's work for the family planning agency has become an issue because he is positioning himself as a faithful conservative who is opposed to abortion.
Read the whole article here. The Brody File has a call in to Thompson's people. Check back later for an update. Already, email is coming into The Brody File about the story. Here's one:
"The significance of this is not what Fred did 16 years ago. Had he been candid and honest, and explained himself, all would be well. The issue is that Fred lied for political expediency, and allowed others on his staff to do so on his behalf."
Lied may too strong a word. It seems like Thompson did what most politicians do. They beat around the bush and try to avoid an outright apology. Let's review shall we?
When this story first broke, Thompson's spokesman Mark Corallo said the following:
"Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period."
Then it became Thompson had "no recollection of doing any work on behalf of this group. He may have been consulted by one of the firm's partners who represented this group in 1991".
Days after the story broke, Thompson told radio talk show Sean Hannity:
"You need to separate a lawyer advocating a position from the position itself. They will probably come at me, in 35 years of law practice, with some people, I represented criminal defendants. I was a prosecutor. I had a general law practice. So that in and of itself doesn't mean anything anyway. … I'm not going to get down in the weeds with everything they dredge up over the next six months."
Thompson also sent in a column to the Powerline blog where he seemed to suggest he did some work:
"A lawyer who is a candidate or a prospective candidate for office finds himself in an interesting position because of the nature of the legal profession and the practice of law. … I've experienced another gambit of those schooled in the creative uses of law and politics: dredging up clients - or another lawyer's clients -that I may have represented or consulted with and then using the media to get me into a public debate as to what I may have done for them or said to them 15 or 20 years ago. Even if my memory serves me correctly, Even it would not be appropriate for a lawyer to make such comments."
Any way you slice it, what we have here is an "evolving story". This isn't really about the abortion issue. Because of Thompson's consistent pro-life record in the Senate, pro-family groups will probably give him a pass on that aspect. But Thompson needs to be careful. He wants people to see him as a plain spoken, tell it like it is southerner. But evolving stories like this are normally left to "inside the beltway" Washington insiders. For his campaign to be successful, he needs to be seen as a Washington outsider not just another politician who is spinning his way out of a mess.
ping
19 hours in 2 years ?
hang him, hang him high !
Fred ping.
LESS THAN 20 YEARS AGO! /sarc
Fred is making Mitt Romney look consistent on abortion. In the 90s, it seems like Fred’s opinion on the issue changed every year... in 1991 he was for it, as he was in 1993. In 1994 he was both for and against it. In 1996 he was against it, but in 1997 he was for it. Now he’s against it. But I guess now he’s sincere.
Wow, the media is showing almost as much interest in this as H. Clinton’s Rose Law firm billing records. Funny how decades old incriminating records hidden in plain sight can’t be located, but twenty hours of legal work from twenty years ago for a Republican turn up in a flash.
How does that happen?
This is a hit-piece, pissant.
Brody? I don’t think so.
Horse Hockey.
It’s called tapdancing. He’s good at it too.
Evolution?! Selling abortion in any capacity is plain wrong. The first problem is even working for a Dem lobbying firm. And the ultimate problem is saying yes to pushing abortion!
This guy is as big as a RINO as McCain, if not bigger. At least McCain is honest.
Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, Rudy Giuliani and any other “pro-choice” candidate are supporters of DISMEMBERING and KILLING innocent unborn children.
Pro-Choice = Chosing to Kill.
If Fred Thompson actually did some work for some-pro-choice groups, more power to him. Maybe we should give some credit to him for seeing the light and being strongly pro-life now.
LOL. No doubt.
Windows office, what record would you like to see on what and from what year. I can even make fake discharge papers!
The author might as well have outright accused Thompson of being a liar. It's ugly.
Agreed. Just another hit piece. I grew up a democrat in a pro-abortion household. I was that way through college. I finally saw the light.
So what?
It doesn’t mean he agreed with them. It’s perfectly legal for him to have advised them on what their legal rights were, whether he agreed with their cause or not.
Think about it - do you think Jeffrey Dahmer’s lawyer thought it was OK he killed those people?
Look at his RECORD.
Then look at Romney’s.
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