In
February 2004, a liberal front group filed an
ethics challenge to my Bar admission in New York. I
welcomed it. Their arguments tracked those
propounded by Senate Democrats and Senator Orrin
Hatch, and surrendered to by a few other Republican
senators.
New York
lawyers told me that they would charge $20,000 to
$30,000 to handle the matter. I opted to defend
myself. That defense consisted of a few hours, one
letter without research, and simple ethics logic. I
dealt with both legal and Senate ethics issues
proving that my reading of Democrat documents
violated neither ethics rules nor ethics concepts,
nor justified even the appearance of an
impropriety.
On
October 14, 2004, I received word that the Ethics
Committee had dismissed the frivolous
complaint. According to my accuser, the response
came in record time. While this was welcomed news,
it was painful to know just how easy it was to
defend, knowing the harm done by those in the Senate
who chose not to for there own egos and reputations
sake.
The fundamentals of my defense are outlined in the
ethics section of my Law Review article and in
the two articles on the main page "Ethics of
Memogate" and "What Wrongdoing?" For a technical
perspective see the article by Ira Winkler
"Memo-gateless."
Now what remains are the legal allegations
that Democrats used to distract Republicans and the
press from their misdeeds, and
that even push-over Orrin Hatch believes no
prosecutor "worth his salt" would take up. I have
sued for a declaratory judgment on these.