Michele Bachmann’s Lies About Her History– Is She Hiding In Plain Sight?

[Lisa0825]

I missed this when Anderson Cooper covered it. It doesn't seem to have caught much attention in the media.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/03/23/michele-bachmanns-lies-about-her-history%E2%80%93-is-she-hiding-in-plain-sight/

Well, Anderson Cooper had the same question. Another commenter on the Addictinginfo.org Facebook page made a reference to an article on the Daily KOS (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/01/25/938752/-Michele-BachmannLying-about-Her-Law-Degree) Basically, they uncovered that William and Mary does NOT offer a degree in tax law. The only LL.M I found W&M to offer is title as an LL.M for foreign students. Now, the Daily KOS also said it is not possible or nearly impossible to obtain a tax law degree, which is half true. I just did a basic google search on this and this is what I found: (http://www.ehow.com/how_2107018_become-tax-attorney.html) It explains how to become a tax attorney. I am sorry, but there is NO WAY Bachmann is a tax attorney – NOT possible.

I personally do not believe she is even an attorney at all, considering her ‘law schools’ are very questionable to begin with. One law school is not in existence because they were FORCED to close for not being accredited. I even did a search on the American Bar Association website to see if Oral Roberts was an ABA approved school – nope. William and Mary is, but where is the proof she actually went there?

This only leads to more questions and actually it could lead to some legal problems – criminal – for Bachmann. This is if she is really telling the TRUTH about trying cases for the IRS as a tax attorney. The last article I wrote, I spent of the time looking for cases she tried, but came up empty, which is not unusual, but now it is down and out-right suspicious. If she did NOT try ANY cases, then this just proves she is a pathological lair and she is not fit for public office.

[Oceansaway]

1. K&R...n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Her degrees are legit.

William & Mary does not currently offer a degree in tax law, but it used to, and she did go there when they offered the degree. This was confirmed a long time ago. She got her J.D. from Jerry Falwell's fundie law school, which I don't think has AALS accreditation (but it does have ABA accreditation), and I question the quality of her legal education, but she did pass the bar exam and worked as a staff attorney for the IRS.

It does no good to try to throw dirt where it's not deserved. Bachmann is a big, fat, totally legitimate target based on her ridiculous positions on everything. Let's stick to that.

[Lisa0825]

4. Think she shoud be forced to show her degrees.... the long forms. nt

[aquart]

5. Thank you!

[Scruffy1]

10. You are correct

Which leads me to wonder if much of her ignorance is just an act. The Minnesota Bar exam is just not that easy.

When you consider that every dime she ever made came from the taxpayers and she now has a 1.7 million dollar house on a private golf course and gets lots of national exposure, and I am sure big speaking fees, I think that she is just a grifter who found a way to hustle the rubes. But then again, she would have to be a superb actor to stay in role all the time. I saw her a while back with governor Dayton pleading for a new bridge over the objections of environmentalist (and the law) and she seemed to act quite normal. I don't live in her district, but its been reported she tones down the act a lot in her district, at least in front of non fundie groups.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. I don't think she's stupid. She's an ideologue, probably even more

than Palin. Yes, the Minnesota bar exam is hard -- I sweated bullets over that thing. But I had classmates who I thought were as dumb as rocks but somehow they passed. Also, even very intelligent people can allow their biases to warp their understanding of what they know intellectually to be true. And I have no doubt that Bachmann says some things that she knows to be inaccurate (or pure bullshit) but that will play well with the teabagger/fundie base.

[Coyote_Bandit]

14. Ummmm......No

She got her law degree from the Oral Roberts University law school in May 1986.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. Yes, her J.D. And then she got her LL.M. in tax law from William & Mary.

Correction: I got Jerry Falwell mixed up with Pat Robertson. ORU transferred its law school to Pat Robertson's Regent University around the time Michele graduated.

[Fumesucker]

3. K&R, thanks for posting..

[Rincewind]

6. I have not seen any proof

that she is in the country legally, much less that she is a citizen. Just saying.

[MinneapolisMatt]

7. There is a law school in Minnesota called

William Mitchell. Perhaps there is some confusion?

Don't read this as defending her, because I'm disgusted she's from my State.

http://www.wmitchell.edu/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. She didn't go there.

I went there. I'd know if she'd been there, and she wasn't. She has a real, genuine tax law degree from William & Mary. That doesn't mean she's not a lunatic.

[MinneapolisMatt]

9. Thanks for clearing that up!!

:hi:

[StarburstClock]

12. NO WAY! A pathological liar lied???

What a shocker! I don't know when any person who's a member of that party has ever told the truth.

[Coyote_Bandit]

13. The ORU law school

did indeed have provisional ABA accreditation. Under ABA rules a law school must go through a period of provisional accreditation before being granted full accreditation - although the standards are the same. It was the only ABA accredited law school in history to pack up and move cross country. The ORU law school became Pat Robertson's Regent University when Oral Roberts "gave" the law school away. The ORU law school was not forced to close. It's alumni were and are granted the privileges accorded to graduates of ABA accredited law schools.

The Martindale-Hubbell directory of attorneys lists the ORU law school graduates as graduates of Regent University - and while Regent does not consider them "alumni" they do confer alumni benefits to ORU law school graduates - including alumni newsletters, inclusion in the alumni directory, job placement services, discounts on continuing legal education programs, etc.

There were approximately 200 ORU law school graduates. The vast majority of them successfully passed a bar exam and have been practicing law for the last 25+ years in various states around the nation. Believe it or not some of these graduates are not religious zealots - or Republican.

The fouding Dean was a guy named Charles Kothe - and he was a labor advisor to the Reagan administration.

Anita Hill taught there - before the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing.

The $10 million donation that led to the founding of the ORU law school came from an Oklahoma optician named O.W. Coburn - and the ORU law school bore his name. FWIW, O.W. Coburn was the father of current Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. When Senator Tom graduated from college he was an accountant. He went to work at daddy's company and built a company of 15 employees into a company of over 300 employees. When the family sold their interest in the company, daddy gave Oral Roberts $10 million - and Tom went to medical school.

Michele's tax law professor was a guy named Tate Dencer (sp?). His credentials included an MBA and a JD - one from Harvard and the other from Yale. I'm told that when the ORU law school moved some 25 years ago that he went to work for a conservative think tank. The ORU Law School never offered a tax law degree - and Michele does not claim that she earned one there.

Whoever wrote this is ignorant of the history of the ORU Law School, Bachmann's background and legal training at ORU - and of the many connections that has in conservative and religious legal circles. For example, her Constitutional law professor served as an advisor to Judge Roy Moore. As did Herb Titus, founding Dean of Regent University School of Law and former Assistant Dean of the ORU Law School.

Michele is a kook - and her loony ideas clearly deserve to be attacked and criticized. That said, a good journalist would do better research than reflected in this article. Some Bar Association should be able to verify whether or not she ever passed a bar exam and held a license to practice law. Likewise, any degree granting institution should be able to verify whether or not a particular degree was awarded to a specific person.

Unrec for bad journalism.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. It is bad journalism. Bachmann, as awful as she is,

was elected to Congress in 2006, had been a member of the Minnesota legislature before that, and had worked as a staff attorney for the IRS. If she didn't have legitimate academic credentials, surely that fact would have been discovered many years ago. ORU was not a top-tier law school by any means - while its successor, Regent University, has ABA accreditation, it has not been accredited by the American Association of Law Schools (AALS), which accredits the "better" schools. William & Mary is one of the better schools, however. There is no doubt that Bachmann has a J.D. degree, an LL.M. in taxation, and has passed the bar exam.

This kind of stuff is just as stupid as the fake controversy over Obama's birth certificate. The problem with Bachmann is not her academic pedigree, it's her goofball ideology. That's what we need to go after, and not engage in a stupid snipe hunt for "proof" that she doesn't have a law degree, because she does. We don't need to be the Orly Taitzes or Donald Trumps of the left.

[Coyote_Bandit]

18. Exactly

and I think it would be effective if people were made aware of the connections and relationships to other conservative religious and legal groups and individuals.

[Gabi Hayes]

15. let's just put this on ice until she gets on the Gooper ticket, preferably with sister sarah

and since when does truth or accuracy matter when the other side employs similar tropes?d

I heard she studied advanced pederasty as an undergrad