The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : RE: Thompson's Lobbying

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RE: Thompson's Lobbying

By Philip Klein on 7.19.07 @ 10:40AM

In John Hinderaker's defense of Thompson that Jennifer noted below, he writes:

Nothing in the records contradicts Thompson's statements that 1) he has no recollection of working on behalf of this group, and 2) he is quite sure that he did not lobby John Sununu on its behalf.

But let's look back to what the Thompson campaign actually said in the original LA Times story:

Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. "Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he said in an e-mail.

In a telephone interview, he added: "There's no documents to prove it, there's no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn't happen."

So, there was a clear flat denial in addition to saying Thompson had no recollection, and part of Corallo's defense at the time was that there were no documents or billing records to prove it. So, now there are billing records. And what does Corallo now say?

Yesterday, Mr. Corallo said the family planning group was an Arent Fox client.

"The firm consulted with Fred Thompson," he said. "It is not unusual for a lawyer to give counsel at the request of colleagues, even when they personally disagree with the issue."

Why didn't he say this from the beginning rather than waiting for the media to find the hard evidence? Let me be abundantly clear once again that I could care less if Thompson did some lobbying for an abortion rights group 16 years ago. I think his eight-year pro-life record in the Senate should be more important to pro-lifers trying to assess his record on abortion. What is an issue to me is the ham-handed manner in which his campaign has handled the story.

This reinforces the point James Poulos makes in his excellent piece on our main site, that it's time for Thompson to end his shadow campaign and formally throw his hat into the ring.

topics:
Abortion, Law