Chatterbox

More on the Payoff to Bush’s Lawyers

Earlier this month, Chatterbox posted a chart showing Bush appointees who’d previously worked on Bush’s legal team in Florida during the postelection Long Count. In fighting for their candidate, Chatterbox observed, these folks also turn out to have been fighting for their future jobs. Chatterbox saw nothing particularly sinister in this, but thought the information warranted airing. Although Chatterbox thought he did pretty well in finding 13 Florida veterans in the Bush administration, inevitably, he missed a few. Readers have now alerted him to three omissions. They are:

Kevin Martin. A Bush campaign aide who worked extensively on the Florida case. Now confirmed as a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission.

Viet Dinh. A Georgetown law professor and a prolific TV commentator during the Long Count, Dinh filed a Nov. 28 amicus brief on behalf of Florida Bush voters in Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. Now an assistant attorney general. (To read Dinh’s brief, click here and scroll down to “Briefs for Amici Curiae.” The one you want is “Brief for William H. Haynes et. al.”)

John Yoo. As professor of law at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, Yoo, in testimony before the Florida legislature, urged it to do the manly thing and appoint electors for Bush. Now up for deputy assistant attorney general. (Click here to read a Wall Street Journal op-ed adapted from his testimony.)

Technically speaking, neither Dinh nor Yoo served formally as a member of Bush’s legal team. But both applied their legal expertise in government forums in ways that helped Bush–Dinh acting as an attorney, and Yoo acting as an expert witness on the law. If not official members of the Bush legal cabal, they were certainly fellow travelers in good standing. Martin, Dinh, and Yoo have all now been incorporated into an updated chart.