By Mike Huckabee
February 16, 2022
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Yesterday, we promised to delve deeper into the law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, which represents Michael Sussmann and was the reason for Special Counsel John Durham’s filing last week. The matter of Sussmann’s representation hasn’t received much attention yet, but needs to.
Durham was notifying the judge of potential conflicts of interest generated by Latham, as the firm represents an amazing array of others who might be called as witnesses or possibly indicted. This firm happens to have previously represented both Perkins Coie and Marc Elias in the Durham investigation. As Durham alleges, Latham “likely possesses confidential knowledge about Perkins Coie’s role in, and views concerning, Sussmann’s past activities.”
Latham also represents both the Clinton campaign and Hillary for America. What are the odds?
Interestingly, one of the partners at Latham is...(drum roll, please)...Liz Cheney’s husband, Philip Perry.
Jake Sullivan, who appears to be the odd man out –- not represented by Latham but by attorney Brian Stekloff of Wilkinson Stekloff in DC –- is not currently under indictment but might have lied under oath to the House Intel Committee, at the very least.
Let’s look back at what Latham was doing for the Democrat Party in December of 2020. As Jerry Dunleavy reported for the Washington Examiner, “The Democratic National Committee’s legal team, bolstered by Obama’s White House lawyers, moved to dismiss a lawsuit from onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, arguing the ‘gist’ of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s controversial dossier was true.”
The attorneys argued that the “allegedly defamatory statements” against Page were “substantially true” and “are capable of an innocent construction.” I have a question: do attorneys really get to lie with such impunity and still not get disbarred? Answer: Yes! At least these lawyers do.
But here’s where it gets more interesting. Quoting from Dunleavy’s piece: “The DNC legal team, comprised of five lawyers from Latham & Watkins, including lead counsel Terra Reynolds, former Obama deputy White House counsel Nicholas McQuaid, and former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, claimed, “The statements at issue in this case are not merely susceptible of an innocent construction –- they relate to business and political contacts that Page himself indisputably cultivated in Russia.”
Aside from the fact that Page’s lawsuit states that he had never met with those contacts and that IG Horowitz had already noted the lack of evidence that he did, do you notice anything in particular about the above paragraph? The legal team from Latham & Watkins defending the DNC includes two big-time members of Obama’s own team.
In fact, Kathryn Ruemmler was Obama’s longest-serving White House counsel and has been known for years in DC circles as his “fixer.” She’s the one Obama praised for her ability to “see around corners.”
So, now we’ve got Hillary Clinton and her machine being investigated by the special counsel, and most are being represented by the law firm that employed Obama’s “fixer” as a top attorney. Ruemmler had even been mentioned as a possible successor to Eric Holder when he stepped down as Obama’s attorney general, but she withdrew her name from consideration, saying her close friendship with Obama might make the confirmation process “difficult.”
Here’s a look back at Ruemmler from 2014, as profiled by Latham & Watkins. She has a long history with the Clintons, too, serving as associate White House counsel to Bill Clinton, where she was busy “defending the White House against independent counsel and congressional investigations.”
https://www.lw.com/news/kathryn-ruemmler-to-rejoin-latham-05202014
Sidney Powell has had her eye on Ruemmler for a long time. This piece from 2018 places Obama’s “fixer” among the female “triumverate” surrounding him: Ruemmler, Lisa Monaco and Susan Rice.
Ruemmler and Monaco go back to the Enron case, working under Andrew Weissmann, all three of whom were implicated in prosecutorial misconduct, as Powell detailed in her book LICENSE TO LIE. Ruemmler hid exculpatory evidence in that case, and almost all the convictions were overturned.
By the way, guess where Lisa Monaco is now? No, she’s not at Latham. But she’s got the DOJ covered, as she is second in command there. Since April 21, 2021, she’s been Merrick Garland’s deputy attorney general. And we wonder why only Republicans are ever held accountable.
Also, guess who Nicholas McQuaid is? This colleague of Hunter Biden's defense attorney Christopher Clark moved from Latham to the DOJ the day Biden took office, named as acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. Sen. Chuck Grassley noticed...
As for Ruemmler, she’s been back and forth over the years between the White House and Latham. After just weeks of being back at Latham, she was defending...(another drum roll, please)...the Clinton Foundation.
She’s not currently at Latham or the White House. She’s Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Goldman Sachs, after joining in 2020 as a partner. It's not known if she’s taking any role in the defense of Durham’s targets.
On Monday, Sussmann’s defense filed a six-page response to Durham’s filing of last Friday, formally waiving Sussmann’s potential conflicts of interest. (No doubt the others being represented by Latham will do this same.) It complains loudly about Durham’s tactic of using “speaking indictments” to include allegations they don’t consider relevant to the charged offense (that is, lying to the FBI), saying the media coverage he’s generating might “taint the jury pool.”
Considering most media are hardly even covering the story, at least so far, that concern might be a tad overblown. But Margot Cleveland does see that changing as the media gradually start covering it. Her analysis of this new filing by Sussmann’s attorneys is a must-read.
Attorneys' characterization of Durham’s filing as “inflammatory” and “political” gives Democrats all the excuse they need not to even look at his allegations.
Cleveland’s previous analysis, made after Durham’s filing but before Sussmann’s attorneys responded, asks some good questions. In light of our general topic today, legal representation, note in particular #5-8. Especially #8: “Why the swamp is so swampy.”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/14/8-more-intrigues-inside-the-latest-special-counsel-filings/
You can bet the various defendants represented by Latham will, like Sussmann, waive any concerns about conflict of interest. If one does, they all will. Then the court has the option of accepting those waivers or not.
When a real reporter for the U.K. Daily Mail actually did a journalist’s job and dared to ask Hillary about Durham’s filing, she walked by saying nothing. I assume her attorneys have advised her not to comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1KhulzSdgs
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Finally...
LAUGH OF THE DAY
Here’s an especially hilarious excerpt from the piece by The New York Times’ national security and legal policy correspondent Charlie Savage on why not to bother covering the Durham story:
“[Durham’s narratives] tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time --- raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims.”
Duh, we’re just too stooo-pid, and it’s haaaaaard! We’d love to ask Margot Cleveland what she thinks about this! Here’s what Spencer Brown at Townhall had to say…
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