Informed Speculation

Today the RNC, at the instigation, no doubt, of the great Patrick Ruffini, held another blogger conference call, this time with Ed Gillespie, ‘sherpa’ to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Gillespie is a former RNC Chairman himself, as well as a prominent lobbyist.

After the obligatory introductions by Patrick, Gillespie opened with a brief statement before taking questions, making it clear that the main purpose of this call was to rebut the Vanguard recusal issue (for background on this, see here). It was a bit of an odd call…not many questions, and most were handled by Matt David, a member of the White House Communications Team, I believe. Also present and speaking briefly was Brian Jones of the RNC.

Gillespie opened by saying that he gave up his White House office (as a presidential advisor, I believe) last Friday. Gillispie suggested, rightly in my view, that the recusal issue was a red herring to distract from the fact that Alito cannot be attacked on qualifications, experience, or record, that Specter and Leahy have basically ruled out procedural arguments against Alito, and that the only worthwhile argument that remains, that of judicial philosophy, is one that the Democrats are studiously trying to avoid.

Brian Jones spoke briefly on the political element, pointing a finger at the involvement of Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice, who has been supplying oppo research to the offices of Ted Kennedy (as detailed in this Washington Post article) and Harry Reid.

Matt David then spoke of three letters circulating from respected law professors (Professor Ronald D. Rotunda, George Mason University; Professor Geoffrey C. Hazard, University of Pennsylvania; and Professor Thomas D. Morgan, George Washington University) that basically state that there would have been no compelling ethical obligation for recusal under the pertaining circumstances.

The questioning opened with Tim Chapman of Townhall.com, who asked about the reports coming out of Alito’s meetings with senators that indicate that Alito has expressed respect for Roe v. Wade as a precedent. Gillespie replied that essentially this was the same answer given by Roberts, and also suggested that rather than rely on second-hand reports, we should wait until the hearings, when we all will hear Alito’s response directly.

Our old friend Professor Bainbridge was next, with a question that drilled down further on the recusal issue to the Democratic talking point of the 1990 questionnaire. The allegation is that in 1990, Alito promised to recuse himself “from cases involving Vanguard mutual funds, because he had personal investments through the company. Yet he participated in a case decided in 2002 involving Vanguard.” Matt David took the lead in answering this, but I found his response unsatisfactory. David said that the totality of the circumstances had to be looked at, that the question was asked in 1990 regarding his initial service, but the case was heard in 2002…

John Hawkins of Right Wing News followed up on the same point, and brought in alleged language concerning Smith Barney and Alito’s sister as other cases he promised to disqualify himself from hearing. I shared Hawkins’ and Bainbridge’s feeling that this needs a better talking point; I like the one John suggests.

Flip Pidot also has some good thoughts on this subject, and he rounded out the call with a question about reports that a computer system failure prevented an alert from being provided to Alito that he might have a potential conflict on the Vanguard case. Bizarre as it seems, Alito has been telling some senators that this indeed took place, according to press reports. Matt David seemed to confirm these reports in his answer

That seems to beg the question of why the computer would alert him if he didn’t have a conflict of interest…I find this whole line of argument far too obscure for what is certainly a minor issue. Far better, as the others have suggested, to say that in 1990, Alito answered the questionnaire truthfully to the best of his ability, and by 2002, he was convinced, given the particulars of the case, that recusal was not necessary. Too much smoke indicates a fire…

Thanks to Patrick and the RNC, as always, for continuing this outreach to the blogging community…

UPDATE 4:26 p.m.: Thanks to Lorie Byrd for the double link at PoliPundit and Confirm Them…

UPDATE 2 6:51 p.m.: Eric Pfieffer at Wonkette, in an otherwise excellent post that makes short work of the non-issue of the supposed conflict of interest, and accurately summarizes much of what Gillespie said, gives far too much prominence to Gillespie’s statement that he is no longer in the White House, suggesting a somewhat clumsy attempt to…well, to do what, I’m not sure, but the implications seem a bit sinister.

Actually, the truth is rather more mundane. I don’t make recordings of these calls, and I only have my notes and memory to rely on, so this is paraphrased, but Patrick began the call, as he always does, with a short statement and introduction of the primary speaker, in this case Mr. Gillespie. In his introduction, Patrick mentioned that Gillespie was with the White House, so when it was Ed’s turn to talk, he made a point of clarification that he had, in fact, given up his White House office (I believe he said last Friday, as I indicated in the post above). A simple correction freely given, in other words…

UPDATE 3 11:56 p.m.: Captain Ed:

Even if one concludes that Alito should have recused himself from Vanguard on the basis of his earlier promise if not the requirements of the law, he reached the correct rulings as a matter of law, rulings later upheld on a rehearing by other jurists. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have violated a federal law 21 times since 1995,” the AP reported in 1995 regarding conflicts of interest over her husband’s money — and we all helped make her a Supreme Court jutice regardless. Her conflicts turned out to be inadvertent and harmless, which is the worst that can be said for Alito’s as well.