"Dear Moammar... thanks for everything."
Funny, I thought "mainstream" Republicans didn't much care for trial lawyers, Washington lobbyists, Hollywood actors and state-sponsored terror...

New York Times:

A little over three years after Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, Fred Thompson provided advice to a colleague about one of his law firm’s new clients: The man representing the two Libyan intelligence officials charged in the terrorist bombing.

The colleague, John Culver, a partner at the Washington firm of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn began advising the two suspects’ Libyan lawyer in February 1992. Mr. Thompson, according to a memorandum from that era written by his secretary, held “discussions with Culver re: Libya” that same month.

At the time, Libya (which was listed by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism or acts that included the 1989 bombing of a French airliner and the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco that killed two American soldiers) was facing international outrage for refusing to comply with a United Nations demand that the two suspects be extradited to the West for trial in the 1988 bombing, which killed 270 people. Revelations that American firms were representing Libyan interests provoked a furor among the Pan Am victims’ families. Some law firms refused to represent the country or the suspects, while others withdrew.

The involvement of Thompson, who worked for Arent Fox as a lawyer and lobbyist from 1991 until shortly before his election to the Senate in 1994, never became public. Asked about Thompson’s participation in the case, James Kreindler, a lawyer who represents 130 of the victims’ families, said: “Pan Am 103 was really an attack on the United States, so while some families understood the concept that everyone deserves a defense, a number were offended and angered that American lawyers were willing to earn fees by doing anything to help this pariah nation or the two bombing suspects.”

Arent Fox, in papers it was required to file with the federal government, reported that from February 1992 to August 1993, it provided advice on American and international law to Ibrahim Legwell, the Libyan lawyer representing the two intelligence officials charged with the Flight 103 bombing. Arent Fox received $833,960 in fees and expenses for its work on the case. Ultimately, only one of the officers - Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi - was convicted by a panel of Scottish judges in a "neutral" Netherlands court for the bombing.

Thompson has faced questions about his work for other Arent Fox clients as well:

• He initially denied working on behalf of a family planning group seeking to overturn an abortion counseling ban at federally financed clinics, but billing records showed otherwise.

• His work on behalf of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the deposed Haitian leader, has also become fodder for his rivals because of human-rights abuses during Mr. Aristide’s presidency.

...

So which is it, Freddie... are you conservative America's total package, or just another disingenuous, grandstanding phony?

UPDATE 7:00 PM CDT: Mitt Romney FTL.

The longer the campaign drags out, the more the GOP candidates look like a bunch of inept, Keystone Cops. They can’t even figure out how to properly attack each other anonymously on teh tubes...

*chuckle*

Tags: '08 elections, fred thompson, libya, pan am 103, republican hypocrisy, stopfredthompson.com
From: Chicago
Mood: Pyew