Subject: Re: Is this an issue?......
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:58:42 -0400

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

Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 17, 2010, at 7:42 PM, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked] 
 > wrote:

> Ithink it is.
> Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
>
> From: Eric Schwerin <[email-masked]>
> Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:11:45 -0400
> To: Hunter Biden<[email-masked]>
> 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
> [email-masked]
> P Consider the environment before printing this email.