White House Coordinated With GOP Consultant on US Attorney Scandal
    By Matt Renner
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Tuesday 22 May 2007

    Emails released late Monday by the US Justice Department show the White House hired a well-known Republican operative to handle damage control in the aftermath of the US attorney scandal.

    Mark McKinnon, a heavyweight strategist whose primary company, Maverick Media Inc., did almost $170 million in business with the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign, appears to have been hired by Peter Wehner, director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, which "plans, develops, and coordinates a long-range strategy for achieving presidential priorities," and "conducts research and assists in message development," according to the White House web site. Wehner worked with McKinnon in an official capacity, corresponding through McKinnon's company email account. It is unknown whether McKinnon was paid for his work.

    McKinnon also serves as the vice chairman of Public Strategies Inc., a corporate public relations firm that is staffed primarily by political campaign strategists.

    In what may prove to be telling advice, McKinnon's PR firm works with clients to "turn risky public situations to their advantage," and advises them to "pay as much attention to issues in the public arena as they do to running their day-to-day business," according to their mission statement. According to the firm's web site, political strategists make excellent public relations consultants because they "have the tenacity to stay the course, not just through Election Day, but well beyond."

    The emails clearly show that a request for talking points to respond to a critical column written by Joe Conason of Salon.com, was made by McKinnon as a consultant to the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives: " ... Do we have something off the shelf on this...?" referring to Conason's article.

    White House officials requested information for McKinnon from Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Monica Goodling, former DOJ liaison to the White House. Sampson and Goodling coordinated the official response to the media questions about the firings.

    Associate Counsel to the President Christopher Oprison received an email from Goodling with responsive documents for McKinnon. "The relevant talkers and statistics are contained in the attached documents," Goodling wrote. Seemingly concerned about the idea of giving privileged, nonpublic information to a private public relations firm, Oprison responded by asking, "Is any of this material public and can it be disseminated to Mark McKinnon?" Goodling responded to his concern by writing, "It is info we have given to friendlies on the Hill. It can all go."

    In response to this new information, Naomi Seligman Steiner, spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said: "This administration has a history of hiring outside consultants at taxpayer expense to provide government officials with public relations advice."

    In 2005, during the Bush administration's attempt to privatize Social Security, it was revealed that the administration paid public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard nearly $1.8 million to help trump-up the risks faced by the Social Security system.

    The Bush administration also came under fire for hiring the public relations firm Ketchum to coordinate messaging for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As part of a contract agreement between the Department of Education and Ketchum, the popular African-American pundit Armstrong Williams "would regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts and would work with African-American newspapers to place stories and commentary on NCLB." Williams was paid $240,000 for his advocacy of the program.

    At the time, the senior Democrat on the education committee, Rep. George Miller (D-California), told USA Today that the contract was "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that was "probably illegal."

    This revelation comes at a sensitive time for the administration. Congressmen from both parties have called for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales because of the shifting and sometimes contradictory explanations for the firings given by Gonzales and other DOJ officials.

    Monica Goodling is scheduled to testify with immunity before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Prior to her limited guarantee of immunity, Goodling invoked her Fifth Amendment right and refused to testify for fear of self-incrimination. Her testimony could shed light on questions that have yet to be answered in the attorney firing investigation, because she was a central figure in the firings and the subsequent public relations struggle.

    Over the weekend, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), told CBS that he thought Gonzales might resign prior to a "no-confidence" vote in the Senate. The vote will probably not occur before the Memorial Day recess.

    Appearing with Specter, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) said, "I'm very worried about the department. I think its credibility is crumbling.... And I think the only thing that can really change that is a new attorney general." Specter predicted that a "sizable number" of Republicans would join Democrats in a vote of "no-confidence," a historical rarity in the US.