From The Chronicle:
Duke has hired former U.S. deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick to assist in the defense against the federal civil rights lawsuit filed by three unindicted members of the 2005-2006 men's lacrosse team, University officials confirmed Wednesday. …The entire Chronicle report is here.
If the University was more transparent, Duke’s latest “hiring announcement” would have begun as follows:
President Brodhead and the trustees announced today the hiring of prominent Washington attorney Jamie Gorelick.But Brodhead never said that.
“I’m really, really happy to welcome Jamie Gorelick to the Duke team,” President Richard H. Brodhead said. “I’m confident she’ll be an enormous help to me and others as the University moves on and things get uglier and Dukier.”
10 comments:
I had the misfortune of working for the Navy's Antiterrorist Alert Center when Gorelick was General Counsel in the Department of Defense during the Clinton administration. I know first-hand of the serious damage she did to national security with her theories of "walls" within the intelligence community. More than any other individual, Gorelick has the blood of every victim of Islamic terrorism on her hands. She fits admirably with the crowd at Duke/Durham. Sadly, she was permitted to lie her way out of admitting her guilt for the 9-11 attack. May she one day meet her Karma.
To TH,
I've heard others who know about Gorelick's "walls" work say the same thing.
Many in Washington who know "how the game is played" say she was picked by the Dems to be a member of the 9/11 Commission because she would "cover" for what went on during the Clinton administration.
Thank you for your comment, but much more, thank you for your service to our country.
Best,
John
One of the Bush administration's many serious errors was to permit Ms. Gorelick to sit on the 9/11 Commission asking questions, when she should properly have been sitting in a witness chair answering them.
Dear IS,
Amen!
John
I fail to see how Ms. Gorelick’s participation in the defense team is going to be of much help to Duke in this process – her expertise, such as it is, is in political infighting, not litigating. What Duke and the BOT really needs is a litigator, not a politician. In fact, it was Duke’s apparent desire to be “political” that got it in the mess it’s in right now.
This brings to mind the line from “A Few Good Men” in which Tom Cruise’s character is finally given respect as “a lawyer” following his cross-examination of a pre-Jack Bauer Keifer Sutherland. In fact, those who might concern themselves with the value of Duke’s endowment might rather see a real lawyer on the team, rather than a partisan politician.
Never having seen Gorelick in a courtroom scenario, I have no idea if she is a capable trial attorney. Having seen her up close and personal as a DoD General Counsel, I can attest to her expertise in bullying tactics and mean-spirited sarcasm. When a judge is in charge, one suspects she might not be able to use that particular skill without earning a contempt citation. But then these proceedings are to be held before a federal judge, so who knows how it will turn out. If the judge who is assigned the case owes anything to Gorelick from when she was with the DoJ, we may see a repeat of the Durham travesties. I'll withold judgement, but my suspicions are in the building phase.
Hawkeye-It could very well be she was hired for her connections, not necessarily for her courtroom capabilities. Others on the team could pick up that ball.
Porkupyne- Possibly, but why would she have to be a defense team member if they only intended to use her connections? If that were the reason, she'd be even more valuable as an "agent-in-place" who could peddle her influence as necessary without anyone being aware of her connections. Gotta be another reason for her high-profile image with the Duke defense team.
Duke is just building an all star team for it's defense and maybe gambling that Hilliary will be elected then all sorts of payback can come down the pike.
Folks,
IMO all of you commenting so far are speaking thoughtfully about a very critical and calculated decision made by the very top people at Duke.
None of us know all of the calculations that went into Gorelick's selection.
But it is interesting to ask why, when Duke decided it needed a well-connected Washington insider attorney, it selected from the hundreds of such attorneys this particular attorney.
A hat tip to all of you.
John
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