Posted on 06/13/2006 4:57:40 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., under federal investigation over his ties to a lobbyist, has hired a high-profile legal team from a Los Angeles-based law firm.
Lewis has denied wrongdoing and has said he has not been contacted by federal investigators in the probe, which became public last month and is being run by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.
The team includes former Solicitor General Ted Olson; Robert Bonner, who once led the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles and was once head of Customs and Border Protection; Mel Levine, a former Democratic congressman from California; and Joseph Warin, a former federal prosecutor.
All are partners at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP. Olson and Warin are based in Washington and Bonner and Levine in L.A.
The hires were confirmed by Barbara Comstock, an attorney at another firm who is acting as a spokeswoman for the legal team. Comstock said the team was hired within the past several weeks but declined to comment further. Lewis' congressional spokesman also declined to comment.
Comstock previously has acted as spokeswoman for lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.
The hires were first reported Tuesday by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.
As part of the investigation, a federal grand jury has subpoenaed a number of clients of a lobbying firm that employs former California Republican Rep. Bill Lowery. Lowery is a close Lewis friend who represents clients looking for federal project spending - or earmarks - in bills that mostly come out of Lewis' committee.
Lowery, others at the firm and their clients have donated heavily to Lewis' campaign operations, and the clients - including a number of Southern California municipalities - have obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in earmarks.
Term Limits. Citizen government time. Bump.
AP trying to spit out a tiny little dark cloud to attempt to darken an otherwise bright, sunny, beautiful day?
Jerry Lewis?
Do his staffers call themselves "Jerry's Kids?"
lol, I hear ya.
This one has been brewing for awhile but definitely hit the front burner recently.
The flames'll be coming thru the roof in a bit, it's a good move to get legal representation now.
Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra? This is a movie plot, right? I never understood what the French saw in Jerry Lewis. Oh, this is a different jerry lewis, not the actor? Nevermind. /Latella
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