In recent months, most of Rand Paul’s political odd-couple pairings have underscored the Kentucky senator’s Republican credentials. Paul joined with John McCain to introduce a GOP jobs bill. He teamed up with Lindsey Graham on legislation that would prioritize smaller harbors for dredging work. He worked with his fellow Kentuckian, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on repealing net neutrality. When Paul arrived in Washington, it was widely assumed he would spend some of his time fighting these men as well. Last week, that time finally came. On a series of votes involving foreign policy and civil liberties, one of the Senate’s most rock-ribbed Republicans channeled John F. Kennedy: “Sometimes party loyalty asks too much.” McCain and Carl Levin, the liberal Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed on rules for detaining suspected terrorists. They claimed it would leave most Americans untouched, affecting only a tiny minority who would take up arms against their own country as members of known terrorist organizations like al Qaeda. Critics charged that the McCain-Levin language gave too large a role for the military in potential civilian prosecutions and lacked adequate safeguards to prevent the indefinite detention of American citizens. If the U.S. is a battlefield and the war on terror has no end in sight, it is dangerous to tell Americans, as Lindsey Graham puts it, “And when they say ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up.’” Paul and McCain had a testy exchange over this amendment. “Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well then the terrorists have won,” Paul maintained. “[D]etaining American citizens without a court trial is not American.” “Facts are stubborn things,” McCain shot back. “If the senator from Kentucky wants to have a situation prevail where people who are released go back into the fight to kill Americans, he is entitled to his opinion.” “I don’t think it necessarily follows I am arguing for the release of prisoners,” Paul countered. “I am simply arguing that particularly American citizens should not be sent to a foreign prison without due process.” Paul supported an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, to strip the McCain-Levin detainee provisions from the national defense authorization bill. When the Udall amendment failed, Paul backed a similar measure by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. The Feinstein amendment was voted down by a smaller margin. Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions then offered an amendment saying that alleged enemy combatants acquitted by civilian courts could still be held indefinitely by the military. Levin, eager to spare his fellow Democrats an awkward vote on national security, moved to pass Sessions’ amendment by unanimous consent but Paul demanded a roll call vote. “I am going to ask for the yays and nays,” Paul said. The Sessions amendment then failed 41-59. Both Levin and McCain voted with Paul to kill it. According to some reports, Levin had been promised that Sessions’ language would be excised from the final conference report anyway. But the roll call vote defeated it outright. Later, Paul voted with a 99-1 majority in favor of a compromise purporting to clarify that existing law concerning the detention of American citizens was unchanged. As if that wasn’t enough, Paul later pushed for a vote on revoking congressional authorization for the war in Iraq. The president had announced that the war was effectively over, so Paul reasoned that the body the Constitution authorizes to declare war should ratify that decision. Paul’s bill failed, despite a Democratic Senate majority eager to take credit for ending the Iraq war. While only a few Republicans joined Paul’s rebellion, there were some interesting names on the list. Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Dean Heller of Nevada voted with Paul on Iraq. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah backed Paul on terror detainee rules. All three are Tea Party favorites. Some of the Democratic votes were also revealing. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, once declared the Iraq war a failure. But he voted to authorize it under President Bush and has now voted against de-authorizing it under President Obama. Sometimes Paul stood alone against both parties. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a fellow Tea Party triumph from last year’s election, had bipartisan support for an amendment to bring the former Soviet republic of Georgia into NATO. “It called for the President to lead a diplomatic effort to get approval of Georgia’s Membership Action Plan during the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago,” a Rubio spokesman explained in an email. Paul blocked the amendment. He believed that NATO expansion in this sensitive area could embroil the United States in Georgia’s conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia, potentially risking war. Since Rand Paul joined the Senate, his fellow Republicans have found him much more of a team player than his father Ron Paul, the feisty libertarian-leaning congressman from Texas. Last week reminded them that Rand is still very much his father’s son.
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Rand’s Rebellion
In breaking news this afternoon, a Georgia woman is claiming that she had a 13-year affair with Herman Cain . She says she has documents (whatever they might be) which can back it up. In what can only be described as the guiltiest-looking no-comment statement in the history of politics, Cain’s lawyer offered this absurd response (especially hilarious parts in bold): Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault – which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate. Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults – a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public . No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life . The public’s right to know and the media’s right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one’s bedroom door. Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media. One of two things is true about this statement. Either Mr. Cain and his attorney are basing their views on what is an appropriate subject of media scrutiny for political candidates on the way politics work on another planet (perhaps another galaxy, even), or they are basically trying to telegraph to us that he completely did it. After following Cain’s campaign for the last several months, I would say either is equally likely. After all, basically the only reason a Presidential candidate would take a principled stand against admitting or denying that they had a multi-year affair on the woman to whom they are still married is if they have some principled objection to lying about having completely done it. And if that wasn’t the intended message, then Cain’s communications operation is even worse than we thought – which is really saying something. Cain himself apparently went on CNN to talk about the allegations . CNN’s headline is billing this appearance as a denial by Cain of the allegations. A few points: I watched the video at the link above and nowhere in there did he deny it. In fact, he did the opposite. He said that he didn’t know enough about the allegations (apart from the fact that an acquaintance was going to allege a multi-year affair) to respond, but once the allegations became clear, his attorney would respond. Which sort of contradicts what his attorney said at about exactly the same time, which was that he wasn’t going to even dignify the allegations with a response. If indeed Cain did issue a blanket denial (I didn’t watch it live so maybe the CNN web monkeys cut the part where he actually denied any of the allegations), that also directly contradicts his lawyer’s statement about the “principled stance” Cain was prepared to take on this issue. Doesn’t look good when a campaign can’t get their story straight about something as basic as this, and shoots themselves in the feet multiple times in the process. UPDATE: A couple of additional points, for those who might be suffering cognitive dissonance from this post as compared to my posts defending Cain from the sexual harassment allegations a few weeks back. At that time, we were told no details about who the women were, or any details about what Herman Cain was alleged to have done. I kind of felt the Cain campaign had a point in that it’s awfully hard to respond to allegations of “sexual harassment” (which is a term that contains a significant amount of ambiguity) from anonymous women. This, however, is completely different. This woman has already come forth and given us her name, occupation, details of how she knew Cain, phone bills showing text messages with Cain, and details of how and when they allegedly met. To answer these allegations with the same sort of stonewalling (or even, more strenuous stonewalling) smacks of guilt. Sorry. UPDATE II: I feel compelled to add one more thing. As hilarious as Lin Wood’s statement is, he is definitely a competent lawyer. Which is to say, there is no way he would have released it unless he was convinced in his own mind that he had Cain’s consent to do so. Make of that what you will.
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Herman Cain’s Attorney [Basically] Admits Affair
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing. Follow me by Twitter @AaronWorthing.] So there has been a lot of events in Sandusky-land, particularly the interview between Sandusky and Bob Costas, which attorneys agree has been sort-of a disaster. Consider this answer to the question of whether he fit the profile of a pedophile: “I didn’t go around seeking out every young person for sexual needs that I’ve helped.” Which, gosh seems like an implicit confession that he has done that with at least some of the children he helped through his charity. And for this some people have criticized his lawyer, Joe Amendola, for allowing this to go on. But bluntly, there are some clients too stupid to listen to their lawyers, so I am not going to knock Mr. Amendola for that. I will give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he told his client ahead of time that this was a mistake. But there is a funny consequence that comes with representing a client in a high-profile case; it throws the spotlight on you, too. What I am about to say doesn’t bear in the slightest bit on the guilt or innocence of Sandusky, but I find it independently interesting/horrifying, if true: Defense attorney Joe Amendola, 63, representing Sandusky in the sexual molestation case roiling Penn State and Joe Paterno’s legendary football program, impregnated a teenager and later married her, The Daily has learned. According to documents filed with Centre County Courthouse, Amendola served as the attorney for Mary Iavasile’s emancipation petition on Sept. 3, 1996, just weeks before her 17th birthday. The emancipation request said Mary graduated from high school in two years with a 3.69 grade point average and maintained a full-time job — but makes no mention of any special relationship between her and her lawyer. Roughly around the same time, however, Iavasile became pregnant with Amendola’s child, and gave birth before she turned 18, her mother, Janet Iavasile, alleged in an interview with The Daily. He was born in 1948 and was around 49 at the time. “At the time, I didn’t know the extent of the relationship,” said Janet of when her daughter first began spending time with the attorney. Amendola seemed more like Mary’s “mentor,” she added. “She met him through the school district; she was interested in the law,” Janet said. Court records show the two were married on Feb. 8, 2003, around the time her mother says their second child was born. They are now separated, but she has kept his surname. Read the whole thing. Now as of today, here are the relevant rules. First, the age of consent in Pennsylvania appears to be 16, so it isn’t statutory rape. At the same time, the rule on sexual relations between an attorney and his/her client is more or less this: you cannot have sex with our client, unless you were in a consensual sexual relationship before you entered into an attorney client relationship. So none of this was a slam dunk (assuming both of those rules were the same back then—which may not have been the case). I could see a scenario (with extra creepiness added) where he started this relationship and then said to his teenage girlfriend, “hey, let’s get you emancipated so that we can have even more sex together without mom interfering!” But even in that scenario, while he steps around the technical rules regarding sexual relations with his client, it raises the concern that he was giving her legal advice driven more by his needs, than what is best for her. I am not saying he has definitely violated any of the Rules of Professional Conduct for certain. I can imagine scenarios where he avoids doing so. I am just saying that the situation is questionable enough that the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court or Pennsylvania needs to look into it now that the public has been informed of this conduct. [Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
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Paging the Attorney Disciplinary Board in Pennsylvania…
Well. So the woman who accused Herman Cain at the National Restaurant Association is outed. And lo and behold — her complaints against employers about matters of sex in the work place include more than Herman Cain. That’s right. Ms. Kraushaar, according to this AP story , hired the same attorney she sent after Herman Cain to go after — wait for it — the federal government. Why? Here are some excerpts from the AP exclusive by reporters Brett J. Blackledge and Suzanne Gamboa:
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.] Update: The PJ Media article now has significant corrections that undermine the believability of the original account and the certainty that sex occurred. Not their finest moment. Thanks to narciso in the comments for pointing that out. So PJ Media (a.k.a. the website formerly known as Pajamas Media) has the scoop on the details of one of the allegations against Herman Cain, and if true, it’s pretty bad: Adding to the ongoing Herman Cain sexual harassment controversy, two sources have now confirmed to PJ Media that a female employee of the National Restaurant Association told associates she had been brought by Mr. Cain to his Crystal City, Virginia residence where she alleged “he had taken advantage of me.” Now let me point out a few issues that the lawyer in me can’t help but notice. First, I assume “take advantage of” means sex (and my definition of sex includes a “Lewinsky”) and PJ Media is either being coy, or letting sources get away with coyness. Please don’t. If they had sex, say that, so there is no needless ambiguity. Second, assuming I am right on the first point, then the timeline goes like this. Cain pressures the woman to have sex with him, she capitulates… and then she goes to HR, hires a lawyer and sues? That sounds odd to me, although the answer might be that something might be missing. Like maybe something happened to buck up her courage or something like that. But unless there is something missing, that timeline seems weird. If she is going to challenge Cain about it, wouldn’t the time be before she slept with him? But again, more facts might illuminate the matter. Third, and this is something I have been meaning to say all along: settling doesn’t mean very much. That goes double when insurance companies are involved. For instance, years ago my mother was the victim of an auto insurance fraud. Two con artists intentionally struck my mother in her car, and then claimed she was at fault when the police arrived. Despite this, the insurance company settled the claim, and paid the men and about ten years later when the fraud ring was busted, the insurance company humbly apologized and paid her back about a decade’s worth of higher premiums. On the corporate insurance level, I have been involved with companies where there was strong evidence that the claim was entirely fraudulent and where a single subpoena of the right person would have revealed the fraud, if it existed. But the insurance company didn’t bother to do even that much, and paid off the plaintiff. But I also wanted to make another point. Now even these allegations are kind of fuzzy right now on the “how” of the seduction. Did they just have sex that night? Did she feel that because of his position it was an inherently coercive situation? Did he seem overbearing, but it was ambiguous about whether he was trying to use his position to obtain sex? Or did he do the full quid pro quo (“something for something”) and say, “sleep with me or you are fired/won’t get that promotion, etc.?” Now I want to be careful to say that we are not nearly there, yet, but if that is what it was, then it’s not just “sexual harassment.” Seriously what do you call it when you give something of value in exchange for sex? In most states, that’s prostitution. It certainly is under the Virginia Code (where the conduct occurred) as of today. Indeed, I have read of cases where Virginia attorneys offered for their clients to pay them in sex instead of fees, which then led them to be arrested for soliciting prostitution. Which feeds back to my original observation; it is strange that she let it go that far and then reported Cain’s conduct. But like I said, maybe that account is incomplete. Finally, the PJ Media article explains why the woman’s name is kept out of their piece. I can accept that, but why keep out their sources? I think we deserve a word or two on that subject. [Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
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On the Latest Cain Allegations; Some Thoughts
