Bill Berkowitz
February 2, 2006

"Let the dollars soar"

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft cashes in as Homeland Security lobbyist

Of the many cronies, chums and political appointees that have come and gone through the Bush Administration's revolving door, former U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft sings John Ashcroft was one of those who practically disappeared from the news after he resigned from his position in November 2004 (his tenure officially ended in February 2005 when White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales was confirmed as Attorney General.) Unlike former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who was fired by Bush, or Richard Clarke, the former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism -- both of whom spilt the beans about the administration's shortcomings in best-selling books -- Ashcroft moved quietly on.

One of the Christian Right's most stalwart allies within the Bush Administration, Ashcroft hasn't written a best-selling book. He hasn't, as far as I can tell, sung his self-penned paean to America, "Let the Eagle Soar" -- a performance of which is captured in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. (According to Wikipedia, Ashcroft has written and sung a number of other songs and created compilation tapes, including In the Spirit of Life and Liberty and Gospel (Music) According to John.)

And Ashcroft apparently isn't going around the country throwing protective curtains over nude statues. (In January 2002, in a bit of unintended DOJ comic relief, the partially nude female statue of the "Spirit of Justice," which stands in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, where Ashcroft held press conferences, was covered with blue curtains, along with its male counterpart, the "Majesty of Law.")

Instead, the former Attorney General has started up a lobbying firm, and in a few months has managed to rake in a fair amount of money representing an assortment of corporate clients, several of whom stand to reap great profits from the president's war on terrorism.

Five years ago, Ashcroft's nomination as Attorney General was sent to the floor of the Senate by a narrow 10-to-eight vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee (all but one Democrat voted against him). The former Senator and Governor from Missouri was then confirmed by the Senate by a 58-42 vote.

(A precious Ashcroft sidebar from Wikipedia: "In his bid for reelection to the Senate, Ashcroft faced a challenge from then-Governor Mel Carnahan ... [who] died in an airplane crash two weeks prior to the election, but [whose] ... name remained on the ballot due to Missouri state election laws. Lieutenant Governor Roger Wilson became Governor upon Carnahan's death. Wilson announced that should Carnahan be elected he would appoint his widow, Jean Carnahan, to serve in her husband's place; Mrs. Carnahan agreed to this arrangement.")

In looking at Ashcroft's controversial tenure in office, several things stand out. As the major pitchman for the Patriot Act and Operation Tips, he was no friend of civil liberties. The Patriot Act (now being reconsidered as the Patriot Act II) allowed police and intelligence agencies greater latitude to conduct secret surveillance and gather information on people even if they were not alleged to be terrorists.

Ashcroft's short-lived Operation Tips was a program designed to get workers and government employees to inform the government of any suspicious activities they encountered while performing their duties. (For more on Operation Tips, see "AmeriSnitch," which first appeared in the May 2002 issue of the Progressive magazine.)

As the "Great Distracter," Ashcroft seemed to frequently deflect the public's attention away from the scads of bad news emanating from the administration by his "timely" appearances at the Justice Department podium announcing the apprehension of yet another suspected terrorist.

Ashcroft's Justice Department was also responsible for the "torture memos" which, Lance Morrow wrote in a recent review of two new collections of essays on torture in the New York Times Book Review, gave "legal cover for getting rough, for 'taking the gloves off' in America's war on terror."

And, recently, by a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court "rejected the Bush administration's challenge to the nation's only right-to-die law [1994's Death With Dignity Act] ... and ruled that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft overstepped his authority when he sought to punish the Oregon doctors who helped terminally ill people end their lives," the Los Angeles Times reported.

After Ashcroft took office in 2001, he reversed Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno's decision allowing doctors to give medication to end a person's life, declaring that it did not serve a "legitimate medical purpose." Ashcroft, "citing a federal law against drug trafficking ... said Oregon's doctors who persisted in the face of his edict would lose their right to prescribe medication," the Los Angeles Times pointed out.

But, that was then.

In early January, the former AG reappeared in the news in matters related to his new lobbying company. According to the Chicago Tribune, "Less than three months after registering as a lobbyist ... Ashcroft has banked at least $269,000 from just four clients and appears to be developing a practice centered on firms that want to capitalize on a government demand for homeland security technology that boomed under sometimes controversial policies he promoted while in office."

Ashcroft's firm, The Ashcroft Group LLC, received over $200,000 from the San Francisco, Ca.-based Oracle Corp., which the Chicago Tribune reported, "won justice department approval of a multibillion acquisition less than a month after hiring Ashcroft in October."

Oracle, one of the world's largest software companies, "makes large databases, including some used by intelligence services, and plans to use Ashcroft as a consultant for business opportunities on homeland security issues, a company spokesman said."

The Ashcroft Group is also working with ChoicePoint, which the Tribune describes as "a data broker that sells credit reports and other personal information to the FBI and other federal agencies." Another client, LTU Technologies Inc., is a Washington and Paris-based "maker of software for analyzing large batches of video and other visual images."

According to The Hill's Jonathan E. Kaplan, in late-December, Ashcroft's company was hired by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), a major Israeli aerospace company, to "to help secure the U.S. government's approval to sell a weapons system to the South Korean Air Force."

"The South Koreans are choosing between an early-warning radar system built by ... IAI and a similar, more expensive system built by Chicago-based Boeing Co. The radar systems enhance an air force's ability to track enemy fighter jets during combat," The Hill reported.

Any country wanting to resell American military technology, must receive approval from the Department of State's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, an agency, Kaplan pointed out, "can also consult with the Pentagon on whether to issue an export license."

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

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

Attorneys General have tended to avoid the role of "a hired gun selling his connections," said Charles Tiefer, a former deputy general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives and author "Veering Right, How the Bush Administration Subverts the Law for Conservative Causes."

"The attorney general is very much supposed to embody the pure rule of law like the" Department of Justice's "statue of 'Blind Justice' and he's not expected afterwards to cloak with the mantle of his former office a bunch of greedy interests," said Tiefer, who teaches law at the University of Baltimore.

Edwin Meese, who served President Ronald Reagan as the nation's 75th Attorney General, is currently part of the Senior Management team at the Heritage Foundation -- one of the nation's premier right wing think tanks -- where he directs its Center for Legal and Juridical Studies.

President Richard Nixon's former Attorney General John Mitchell wound up in a stickier situation. He was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice as part of the Watergate scandal, and served 19 months of a two-and-a-half-to-eight year prison sentence.

"I'm sure that anything John Ashcroft would do would be guided by the highest ethical standards, because that's the kind of person he is," Meese told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Without knowing the nature of his clients, this is not different really from former Attorneys General going into law firms, where they do the kind of counseling and advising that he's undoubtedly doing here...

In this period tainted by the Abramoff Affair, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., had a contrary view of Ashcroft's endeavors:

"It is surprising that he moved this quickly into lobbying. I can't think of another Attorney General who has done this. I think it does raise concerns about elected officials. If there is a perception we're not in this for public service but for profit, I think it really could raise questions about our credibility."

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in addition to the lobbying, Ashcroft teaches law at the Rev. Pat Robertson's Regent University, "engages in Republican Party activities - including speaking out last week on behalf of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, and gives speeches - from Europe to Las Vegas - at $75,000 apiece."