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Me too. I won't raise it beyond you.

Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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On Jun 17, 2010, at 7:42 PM, "hbiden@rosemontseneca.com" <hbiden@rosemontseneca.com
> wrote:

> Ithink it is.
> Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
>
> From: Eric Schwerin <eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com>
> Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:11:45 -0400
> To: Hunter Biden<hbiden@rosemontseneca.com>
> Subject: Is this an issue?......
>
> Gorelick's challenge: Backing BP
> By: Abby Phillip
> June 17, 2010 04:44 AM EDT
>
> When BP executives filed into the West Wing on Wednesday morning to
> meet with President Barack Obama, they were joined by at least one
> familiar Washington hand: former Clinton administration Deputy
> Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who signed on earlier this month to
> represent BP in congressional inquiries linked to the massive oil
> disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
>
> As one of the top lawyers in Washington and a former Justice
> Department official, it is no surprise that BP tapped Gorelick and
> her prominent law firm, WilmerHale, to do the nearly impossible:
> defend it against a deluge of legislative inquiries into the oil
> disaster.
>
> And her role is not very different from the one played by another
> prominent Democrat, former White House counsel Greg Craig, who is
> now representing Goldman Sachs — which until the oil spill was Washi
> ngton’s favorite corporate pariah.
>
> “Speaking generally, the reliance on high-powered insiders results i
> n corporations escaping penalties that are not as severe as they wou
> ld otherwise face. The familiarity of the former prosecutor with the
> system enables them to think creatively about tricks to end up with
> resolutions that seem much more significant than they actually are,
> ” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.
>
> Still, Gorelick could easily have been on the other side of the
> table as one of the Obama administration’s key players. Her role in
> the Clinton administration and her later service as a member of the
> 9/11 Commission made her a logical choice for attorney general.
>
> But Gorelick has had her own share of controversies, which are
> widely believed to be why she is representing high-profile clients
> rather than working for Obama.
>
> After leaving the Justice Department, Gorelick served for six years
> as vice chairwoman of Fannie Mae and got caught up in the mortgage
> agency’s accounting controversy. In 2005, two years after Gorelick l
> eft Fannie Mae, a federal investigation into the public-private mort
> gage company found that accountants had falsified signatures to eras
> e $9 billion in losses from the books. Eliminating those losses resu
> lted in Gorelick and four other Fannie Mae executives taking away si
> x- and seven-figure bonuses in 1998.
>
> The federal investigation found that Gorelick was paid more than $25
> million during her time at Fannie, and the huge compensation
> received by Fannie Mae executives later became a major issue in
> Congress.
>
> When it comes to defending BP, Weissman said that Gorelick should
> feel some responsibility to defend the ideals that led her into
> government, especially given the importance of her former position
> as the Justice Department’s second-ranking official.
>
>
> “She’s made a lot of money in her life,” Weissman said. “Does
> she wake up and say, ‘I want to defend BP?’ She’s a free agent,
> but it’s a reasonable ethical question to ask yourself in that posit
> ion. Presumably, you felt some public service instinct when you went
> into government. On one hand, you’re trading in on that; on the oth
> er hand, you’re betraying the ideals you believed in when you went i
> nto government in the first place.”
>
> Since leaving Fannie Mae, Gorelick has been a partner at WilmerHale
> and head of its Defense, National Security and Government Contracts
> Practice Group. Even with a Democrat in power, she has not shied
> away from representing clients with interests at odds with the Obama
> administration.
> Earlier this year, student loan giant Sallie Mae made it a point to
> hire prominent Democrats, including Gorelick, and Democratic
> lobbyists from the Podesta Group to stop congressional legislation
> that would severely alter its role in the student loan industry.
> Their efforts were defeated, and the Obama administration succeeded
> in attaching a reform bill to the health care legislation that made
> the federal government the only lender to students — effectively cut
> ting out private companies like Sallie.
>
> Gorelick has also represented Steve Rattner, a prominent Democratic
> fundraiser, against accusations by the Securities and Exchange
> Commission that he arranged a pay-to-play deal that secured a $100
> million investment from the New York public pension fund for his
> private investment management firm.
>
> Despite the potential for ill will in Washington, Gorelick is only
> reprising a role for BP that she played in 2007, when the company
> was scrambling to deal with yet another oil spill, off the coast of
> Alaska. Then, the company was fined $50 million.
>
> This time, the price tag is bound to be much higher. And BP will
> face intense scrutiny from Congress in the coming months.
>
> Gorelick will have plenty of work — and detractors.
>
> “They took her into this meeting, and they still got nailed for $20
> billion. I would say that she’s not yet earning her money,” said
> Kenneth Green, a resident scholar on energy and the environment at t
> he American Enterprise Institute. “I think their concern now is to a
> void criminal prosecution, so they’re trying to figure out how best
> to navigate the justice system to minimize their criminal risk.”
> Even if Gorelick has friends in the White House, Melanie Sloan,
> executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
> Washington, said her connections are unlikely to save BP from paying
> the greatest possible price for the spill.
>
> “Of course, it helps if she has a good relationship with someone in
> the White House, but it doesn’t mean they’re going to go soft on
> BP,” she said. “They’re the villain of the world. Even a good
> lawyer can only help you so much.”
>
>
>
>
> Eric D. Schwerin
> Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
> 1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
> Suite 705
> Washington, DC 20007
> (202) 333-1880
> eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
> P Consider the environment before printing this email.