Edwards epilogue: Does the press really vet presidential candidates? (Talk about a joke..)

Over the past few weeks, the world has learned quite enough about John Edwards – from the lies he told in trying to cover up an adulterous affair to the compulsive vanity that left some people close to him questioning his judgment and even his grip on reality.

Democrats who seriously considered making Edwards the party’s 2008 presidential nominee could be forgiven for asking: Now you tell us?

The revelations about Edwards, contained in two best-selling books, have undermined one of the favorite conceits of political journalism, that the intensive scrutiny given candidates by reporters during a presidential campaign is an excellent filter to determine who is fit for the White House.

While the media “usually does well” in vetting candidates, said presidential historian Michael Beschloss, “Edwards is a good case” in which it didn’t.

And that failure is worrisome in a changed political world where politicians - be they Barack Obama or Sarah Palin - can burst upon the national stage and seemingly overnight become candidates for higher office.

The media, according to Beschloss, now has “a much bigger responsibility than it used to.” In the past, he said, the political establishment “would usually have known the candidate for a long time, and if there were big problems, they probably would have known about those, and tried to make sure those people wouldn’t be nominated.”

That did not happen with Edwards, even though as a Senator he had run for president once before, in 2004, ended up on the Democratic ticket as John Kerry’s running mate, and was a known quantity to many top Democrats.

In 2008, there were conversations among some Edwards staffers, according to “Game Change,” the new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, about the responsibility of coming forward with what they knew about Edwards, perhaps leaking to the New York Times or Washington Post, if it looked like he might win the nomination. But there is no evidence they ever did.

Two stories by the National Enquirer that ran before Iowa described Edwards’s affair with Rielle Hunter. But the mainstream media went to sources within the Edwards campaign to try to confirm the stories and got nowhere. No one in the campaign would confirm them.

Those staffers are the ones who should be held accountable, Marc Ambinder wrote in response to the question he posed on The Atlantic’s website: “Should Edwards Aides Be Shamed And Blamed?”

“It’s your responsibility to quit the campaign and not enable it,” he wrote. “If you enable it, you are responsible in some ways for the fallout. Your loyalty isn’t an excuse for that.”

The failure to follow up aggressively on the reporting by the National Enquirer, which has nominated itself for a Pulitzer Prize for its Edwards coverage, has served as fodder for conservatives and others convinced the media has a double standard when it comes to vetting Democrats and Republicans.

"I feel sorry for the liberals who were duped by Edwards,” said Cliff Kincaid editor of the right-leaning watchdog organization Accuracy in Media. “They were the real victims of the failure to vet Edwards.”

“Now we know that Edwards was a phony in more ways than one,” Kincaid added. “Our media, especially progressives in the media, were in love with Edwards because of his liberal views. But he wasn't in love with them. He was in love with someone else—and it turns out it wasn't his wife.”

Not everyone agrees that the media completely dropped the ball, including a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, who might have had the most to gain from any Edwards disclosures.

“Edwards was pretty thoroughly vetted but there are limits to what the press can reasonably be expected to uncover, said Phil Singer, Clinton’s former deputy communications director, “and events that take place in the bedroom are probably at the top of that list.”

Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, said that there isn’t a “simple yes or no” answer when looking at whether Edwards was fully vetted. What news organizations can cover, he said, comes down to a question of resources.

“News organizations just don’t have the horsepower to go out when there’s fields of eight people in each party to do the level of vetting it would take to uncover that,” Lemann said of the Edwards affair.

.......when one of Milberg Weiss’ plaintiffs was charged with art theft and defrauding his insurance company, he gave the police a bigger prize: Lerach’s firm.....

EXCERPT Milberg Weiss indicted for allegedly paying $11.4M kickbacks
Oct 31, 2006, By Peter Elkind, Fortune Magazine editor-at-large
http://biz.yahoo.com/hftn/061031/103006_8393127.html

But these lawsuits were only that profitable if Milberg Weiss ended up in charge of the case. By gaining the coveted role of lead counsel, the firm commanded the biggest fees and controlled the litigation. Until 1995 that job usually went to whoever filed first, winning the "race to the courthouse." That put a premium on having plaintiffs who lost money on the company's stock available at a moment's notice.

In practice, the plaintiffs were figureheads - the lawyers ran the case. So Milberg Weiss built a stable of plaintiffs with tiny holdings in dozens of companies, ready to lose money and bring suit within hours of a big stock drop. And that's where the likes of Dr Steve Cooperman came in.

When the retired doctor and his lawyer began trying to negotiate a cooperation agreement, Richard Robinson, the veteran assistant U.S. attorney in L.A. who had won Cooperman's conviction for insurance fraud, knew next to nothing about Milberg Weiss.

There were plenty of reasons not to do a deal. Cooperman's story was that Milberg had paid him to serve as plaintiff - usually about 10% of its fees. If true, the practice was illegal. Lead plaintiffs aren't supposed to receive any special compensation, just their share of the settlement and approved expenses. Indeed, the lead plaintiffs (and their attorneys) are required to swear under oath that they aren't getting special payments; lying about it would be a felony. Yet Robinson knew the charges might strike a jury as a legal nicety, since the money to pay the plaintiffs had come from the pockets of the plaintiffs lawyers, not investors.

Milberg was also a huge, politically charged target - a big supporter of Bill Clinton, then still in office (and later John Edwards). Robinson, a lifelong Democrat, had no animus toward plaintiffs lawyers. But like most prosecutors, he was eager to chase a bigger case.

A deal was soon struck: In return for his cooperation, Cooperman would remain free until 2001, then serve just 21 months. (He is now living in Connecticut.) A sealed July 2001 government sentencing recommendation obtained by Fortune cited his "valuable assistance in the initiation and development of a major criminal investigation." The document notes that Cooperman wore a body wire, initiated bugged phone calls, and helped persuade others to cooperate. A lifelong packrat, he produced letters and bank records.

And what a story he had! Cooperman told prosecutors that he, along with relatives and friends, had been paid for serving as plaintiff in about 70 cases over a decade. (The indictment says the total would turn out to be $6.5 million.) He explained that Lerach had introduced him to this new line of work in 1989. After contacting the firm about launching a potential shareholder lawsuit, Cooperman and a Brentwood buddy, Dr. Ronald Fischman, had met with Lerach in San Diego.

Lerach, Cooperman later testified in his divorce trial, "told us that it was very difficult for them to get people to be plaintiffs, and he volunteered that... they compensate the plaintiffs ... by giving them 10% of the fees that they receive." (Lerach declined requests for comment; his lawyer did not return calls.)

According to the indictment, Lerach urged Cooperman and Fischman to buy stock in different companies to position themselves as plaintiffs in future lawsuits. Dozens of cases and payments followed. But because Milberg wasn't supposed to pay plaintiffs, all of this had required certain arrangements.

Following Lerach's instructions, Cooperman testified, he enlisted lawyers to act as intermediaries for the payments. That gave the pretext that Milberg was paying referral fees to the attorneys for originating the case and providing the plaintiff. In most states such fees are legal, as long as the lawyer doesn't share the money with the client. But Cooperman's lawyers did share the money with their client; according to the government, they served as fronts, either passing the money on to Cooperman by personal check or using it to pay bills that Cooperman had run up for other litigation.

Milberg, for example, sent 35 checks totaling $3.5 million to Richard Purtich, an L.A. insurance lawyer who had represented Cooperman in various court battles. (Purtich has pleaded guilty to a felony tax charge in the case.) Cooperman directed another $2 million in Milberg payments to James Tierney. Cooperman's brother-in-law Bruce Bjork served as another conduit; according to the government, Milberg paid him $245,000 for consulting work he never performed, and he passed most of it on to Cooperman. (Bjork declined comment.)

Cooperman reported recruiting others to serve as plaintiffs and share in the windfall - his wife, Nancy; a second brother-in-law; a Beverly Hills pop psychologist named Mel Kinder; and Fischman. (Most of these people are now cooperating with prosecutors.)

During his divorce trial, Cooperman said both Weiss and Lerach paid him directly. He testified that one $175,000 check came "from Mr. Weiss himself." (Weiss's lawyer says it was a down payment for a painting he planned to buy from Cooperman.) Cooperman described driving with his wife to San Diego to pick up "a cash payment" from Lerach."... We sat at - at a conference table where he handed us an envelope. And he said, 'Here is $16,000.'" (Nancy Cooperman testified that she never saw any cash change hands.)

As Cooperman described it, a major player in the payment scheme was David Bershad, the now indicted partner who served as Weiss's No. 2 and, in effect, chief operating officer of the firm. (Between 1983 and 2005, Bershad earned $160.9 million.) The indictment says Bershad kept a safe in his credenza, from which cash payments to plaintiffs were doled out. Bershad typically signed the checks to Cooperman's intermediaries.

Cooperman's kickbacks continued until Feb. 25,1999, when his pending trial for insurance fraud brought his career as a paid plaintiff to an end with a final payment of $145,305. But by then, Cooperman testified, it was clear that his was neither the only such arrangement nor the first: "At the time what was going on with Milberg Weiss was a very well-known activity. It was just an activity that Milberg Weiss did with a number of people." --SNIP--long read

Dirty monies Melvyn Weiss pocketed from corruption was earmarked to suck up to Democrats.....Weiss also used his clout to bludgeon lawyers into contributing to Dems.....or else.

=======================================

NY POST , May 16, 2003
POLITICAL QUID PRO QUO? Milberg Weiss urges "give cash........or else."

Some attorneys say powerhouse law firm Milberg Weiss hinted they must give campaign cash to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) if they want potentially lucrative work on securities class-action lawsuits, The NY Post learned.

In a meeting in New York to dole out work on these lawsuits, the senior partner at the firm urged attendees to support Schumer financially. Melvyn Weiss, who led the meeting, recommended that they send cash to Schumer in order to hold off Republican efforts at tort reform. That suggested to some that they needed to cough up cash if they wanted to participate in the imporant and lucrative tasks on the case, which dictate how much they collect in legal fees when damages were awarded.

Weiss later backtracked from his remarks in a memorandum, but he had his reps call various law firms to see if they have sent checks to Schumer, according to a source at one firm that has received one of these telephone calls.

"Sen. Schumer knew nothing about Weiss' meeting until told by the New York Post, and certainly believes that nobody should feel pressured to contribute," Schumer spokesman Phil Singer said.

But it's not the first instance of aggressive campaign fundraising in Schumer's name. The Post reported recently, employees at a private security company were pressed to donate to Schumer's campaign, and once they did, Schumer introduced legislation favorable to their company.

Weiss' NY meeting was called to ostensibly discuss large class-action effort that alleges Wall Street brokerages engaged in price fixing for IPO's during the late-1990s bull market. The litigation effort comprised around 900 individual lawsuits on roughly 300 IPOs.

At the meeting Milberg Weiss organized, Weiss told the group, "I hold some cards here and I'm going to use them," according to the notes of a source who was there. Paraphrasing Weiss, a source told The Post that the big-shot lawyer said: "I've asked you to contribute before and I'm asking you to contribute again. But this time you're going to do it."

Four days later, on April 11, Weiss (apparently panicking) sent a memo to attendees saying he did not mean to link campaign cash to participation in the class-action suits.

"I want to clarify confusion that may have arisen from my remarks," he wrote. "As you know, I am strongly committed to the zealous protection of shareholder rights and believe that it is critical that we support elected officials who are equally committed."

"The enthusiasm I expressed, however, should not be misconstrued. While I urge you all to support these important causes, your participation or lack of participation cannot and will not affect in any way the role you play in this case." (The Post obtained a copy of Weiss' memo.)

SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/seven/03232008/photos/biz038.jpg

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