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Edited on Wed Oct-19-05 03:12 PM by blogslut
From CBS NEWS -June 24, 2004:
Federal investigators questioned President Bush for more than an hour Thursday as the investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name reached into the Oval Office.
The president was interviewed for 70 minutes by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the head of the Justice Department investigation, and by members of his team. The only other person in the room was Jim Sharp, a private trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor hired by Mr. Bush, said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
From Raw Story:
Bush's new lawyer harbors secretive, criminal past
The cult of secrecy surrounding President Bush’s newly retained lawyer in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case is so strong that the White House refuses even to confirm who the president’s lawyer is...
...Sharp’s highest profile client was Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, a major figure in the Iran-Contra scandal who helped Lt. Col. Oliver North accumulate untaxed wealth in overseas accounts...
...And, as the White House refuses to confirm Sharp’s identity, some speculate that he might also have been the Jim Sharp who served as an attorney to Jeb Magruder, a player in the Watergate scandal. It’s possible, one blogger notes, since James E. Sharp, born in 1940, would have been 33 at the time...
From FindLaw -Jun. 04, 2004/Author John Dean:
The Serious Implications Of President Bush's Hiring A Personal Outside Counsel For The Valerie Plame Investigation
Recently, the White House acknowledged that President Bush is talking with, and considering hiring, a non-government attorney, James E. Sharp. Sharp is being consulted, and may be retained, regarding the current grand jury investigation of the leak revealing the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA covert operative.
(Plame is the wife of Bush critic and former ambassador Joe Wilson; I discussed the leak itself in a prior column, and then discussed further developments in the investigation in a follow-up column.)
This action by Bush is a rather stunning and extraordinary development. The President of the United States is potentially hiring a private criminal defense lawyer. Unsurprisingly, the White House is doing all it can to bury the story, providing precious little detail or context for the President's action...
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