Views on Reputation/LawFirmsPR.com

Does Patton Boggs' Spokeswoman Speak for Karl Rove?

Law firm spokespeople might find it interesting that Patton Boggs' spokeswoman, Rebecca Carr, is now advocating for the firm's client, Karl Rove. Carr was interviewed about the former White House Chief of Staff's questioning by a federal prosecutor at the law firm last Friday concerning the firing of U.S. Attorneys during the Bush Administration.

Here's her quote from the Associated Press story that ran over the weekend:

"He has nothing to hide and plans to answer any further questions" the prosecutor might have, said Rebecca Carr, a spokeswoman for Patton Boggs, the law firm where the meeting took place. Rove was inside the law offices for about five hours.

Carr said Rove "fully cooperated in trying to answer all of her questions."

"I don't think it was a confrontational interview," said Carr. "I think he was trying really hard to work with them."

Rove's attorney is Robert D. Luskin. It seems to me that Luskin should be speaking directly for his client, rather than utilizing the firm's spokesperson. 

 I question the wisdom of a spokesperson saying "he has nothing to hide."  That could give the opposite impression to many readers.  It would have been sufficient to say Rove " is fully cooperating with the investigation and is answering all the prosecutor's questions."

Carr also said the she thought Rove "was trying really hard to work with them."  Unfortunately, that does not instill great confidence that Mr. Rove was fully cooperating. 

Sometimes law firm spokespeople need to be interviewed on behalf of the firm's clients. 

However, in this case,  Ruskin -- instead of the firm' spokesperson -- should have made himself available for interviews around such a high-profile client.  

With Carr's staunch defense of Rove, the firm as a whole is now clearly associated with him going forward. That may be fine for Patton Boggs, which makes no secret of its ties to the Bush Administration. But it could cause the firm a reputation problem when seeking other business. 

"Following Orders" Not Sufficient Defense for Authors of 'Torture' Memos

The United States this week correctly extradited John Demjanjuk to Germany for his alleged involvement in the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Many war criminals over the years have said they were only "following orders" of Hitler and other Nazi leaders and should not be prosecuted. 

Today, there's talk of not prosecuting the two Department of Justice attorneys who reportedly also claim they were "just following orders" from the Bush Administration.  It doesn't matter that the Demjanjuk case involved mass murder and that the DOJ case involved waterboarding and possibly other forms of torture. In short, people need to be held accountable for their actions. The two DOJ attorneys had the freedom of choice so cherished in our democracy: to follow orders that were morally and legally wrong or refuse those orders and resign their positions. 

Sadly, like their Attorney General and others in the former Administration, they chose to follow an angry mob instead of standing up for the rule of law and for international human rights.

(If I shoot someone to death and later claim that I was "following orders" of another person, does that mean I should not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law?)

America simply can't hold the moral high ground in the world on human rights if the authors of the "torture" memos go unpunished. And our voices of reason and compassion will no longer carry weight when we protest genocide and other obvious human rights violations around the world if we do not seek justice on the "torture" memos case.