Ashcroft Demeans The Office Of Attorney General

Yesterday's Chicago Tribune carried a story about former Attorney General John Ashcroft's lobbying activities in which one expert concludes he has demeaned the office of Attorney General.

Less than three months after
registering as a lobbyist, former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has banked
at least $269,000 from just four clients and appears to be developing a
practice centered on companies that want to capitalize on a government
demand for homeland security technology that boomed under sometimes
controversial policies he promoted while in office.

Three
clients of Ashcroft's lobbying firm want his help in selling data or
software with homeland security applications, according to government
filings.

A fourth, Israel Aircraft Industries International, is
competing with Chicago's Boeing Co. to sell the government of South
Korea a billion-dollar airborne radar system.

While Ashcroft's
lobbying is within government rules for former officials, it is
nonetheless a departure from the practice of attorneys general for at
least the last 30 years. While others have counseled corporate clients
or perhaps even lobbied in a specific case as part of law firm
business, Ashcroft is the first in recent memory to open a lobbying
firm.

More:

"One would have thought that a former
attorney general wouldn't be doing that," said John Schmidt, an
associate attorney general in the Clinton administration who now is a
lawyer at Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw of Chicago. "To take the kind of
prestige and stature of the attorney general [and lobby] . . . . It
seems a little demeaning of the office, honestly."

In addition to his lobbying, Ashcroft is also teaching law at the University founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson.

Enough said.