There is a delicate art to handling a Washington scandal, you have to keep your client out of jail to be sure, but you also have to manage the press and public opinion lest the acquittal become a pyrrhic victory. In Dc it is its own specialty. well connected, well spoken "super-lawyers" dot K street waiting for just such emergencies.
So why did Uncle Karl decide to hire a virtual unknown like Robert Luskin as his Lawyer anyway? Usually a scandal of this magnitude requires a Big gun like Robert Bennett or Vernon Jordan. It seems just a little odd that when the Power behind the throne has his political life on the line, he'd put it in the hands of an untried rookie like Luskin.
It's far odder still when you do a little digging on Luskin and find he's gotten into to trouble for highly questionable dealings with a Drug Cartel money launderer.
What are we to make of this?
The Client's name was
Stephen Saccoccia:
A jury convicted defendant-appellant Stephen A. Saccoccia on racketeering, money laundering, and related charges arising from his leadership of an organization that laundered well over $ $100,000,000 in drug money during the years 1986 through 1991. On appeal, Saccoccia challenges his ... his conviction, .. Finding that his arguments do not wash, we affirm.
Now as A lawyer whose done Criminal defense I would be the last one to try to cast aspersions on someone's character based on their client list. But Luskins actions questionable in this case was how he got paid for it.
According to Legal ethics rules, lawyers may not accept money that is obviously the proceeds of a crime. So do you think Luskin should have realized something Might be amiss when his client, a money launderer, paid him half a million dollars in gold bars?
The payoff was so blatant that That prosecutors took the extremely unusual step of suing Mr. Luskin to seize his fee as proceeds of a crime:
Washington lawyer Robert Luskin will admit this much: Receiving the bulk of his payment on behalf of a shady client in the form of 45 gold bars worth a cool half million was highly unusual. but it wasn't improper, Luskin insists. And that's where he clashes with the Justice Department, which has taken the rare step of demanding that Luskin and four other lawyers turn their billings over to the government.
The department is arguing that the payments came from assets that should have been frozen and were subject to forfeiture.
Even discounting his past lapses, early signs are, Rove may have chosen poor. Luskin has been making some very big mistakes
When news first surfaced in early July that Time's Matt Cooper had talked to Rove ... Luskin told The Washington Post: "Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else," adding that the question remains unanswered: "Who outed this woman? . . . It wasn't Karl."
This answer now seems to be a) hair-splittingly legalistic, b) misleading, or c) flatly untrue. You decide. Depends on the meaning of the word "disclose," I guess.
...
Over the last two weeks, Luskin has flummoxed Washington's Fourth Estate with spin and legalisms. He has embarrassed reporters who ran with the cleverly worded denials he dished out. He has contradicted himself, sometimes within the same news article. He may have accidentally paved the way for Matt Cooper's Wednesday grand jury testimony about Rove
. . . .
It is a make-or-break moment for the Beltway defense attorney, and one of the reasons that people like Luskin relish such high-profile cases. But Luskin is stumbling out of the gate. Not since William Ginsburg, Monica Lewinsky's hapless first attorney, has a lawyer had such an inept public debut. . . . Luskin tried to snow every reporter he came across
...
"This episode launched an entirely new series of Luskinisms. Cooper publicly announced that his source had granted him consent to testify. Reporters naturally called Luskin to find out whether Rove was that source. No way, said Luskin. Rove had 'not contacted Cooper about this matter,' Luskin assured the Los Angeles Times. Get it? Rove didn't talk to Cooper. Their lawyers talked. What's bewildering about Luskin's evasion is that there was no legal rationale for it. After all, the prosecutor in the case knew exactly what had happened."
....
Not the worst performance by a Washington scandal lawyer to be sure, but the nagging question is why did Rove pick him?
Bears watching I think
