What do we know about Fred Fielding?

[deminks]

He doesn't at first glance fit the blathering rabid neocon that fills the usual WH positions. I have my suspicions. This is the guy that could very well force the next constitutional crisis.

Here is the Wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_F._Fielding

Some interesting entries here:

...as a member of the Secretary of Transportation's Task Force on Aviation Disasters (1997-1998)

He is the chairman of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest.


More info here:

According to his Commission profile, "Fred Fielding is senior partner and head of Wiley, Rein, & Fielding's Government Affairs, Business & Finance, Litigation and Crisis Management/White Collar Crime Practices.

He also served as clearance counsel during the Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fred_F._Fielding



A TPM entry from 1/8/07:

White House To Hire Lobbyist as Counsel

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002300.php

Here's a piece of incoming White House counsel Fred Fielding's background that Mike Allen didn't mention -- for the past several years, he's headed up the lobbying practice at the law firm, Wiley, Rein, and Fielding.

As the Chair of Government Relations there, Fielding has overseen the lobbying of Congress and sometimes the White House on behalf of a long list of clients as diverse as the Colorado Gaming Association, Motorola, the Newspaper Association of America, and Verizon. "From our inception," according to WRF's website, "the firm has been successfully shaping public policy in Washington on behalf of our clients."

Also from today from TPM:

New Counsel's Daughter in Bush White House

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002310.php

How plugged-in is incoming White House counsel Fred Fielding? His daughter has enjoyed a career in the vice president's office. Though we doubt she's the one who got him the job.

In 2002, UPI reported that Fielding's daughter Alexandra became staff assistant to Second Lady Lynne Cheney. I'm told Alexandra now works under the vice president himself, although my call to his office has so far failed to yield a confirmation.

The New York Times reported today that the onetime counsel to Richard Nixon "maintained close ties to Mr. Cheney, whom he has known for decades, and had occasionally been an informal adviser to him."



a little more info on the National Legal Center for the Public Interest:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=57

...Initial funding for NLCPI came from J. Simon Fluor whose mineral, nuclear, oil and industrial fortunes had also bankrolled the Pacific Legal Foundation. General Motors, Ford, Texaco, Exxon, Gulf and Mobile also contributed seed money to help fund the new regional legal foundations. In addition, the philanthropic foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife kicked in $1.8 million between 1973 and 1980 . In 1976, the NLCPI put up $50,000 and the Coors foundation $20,000 to found the Mountain States Legal Foundation, the first of the new regional legal foundations...


National Legal Center for the Public Interest has received $215,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

More to come, I am sure. I am also sure that Mr. Fielding will fit in quite nicely with his "new" friends.

[burythehatchet]

1. He was Abbott and Costello's landlord

[Olney Blue]

2. Thanks for the info, deminks. We need to know the players in this

cabal.

[keepCAblue]

3. He's a Bush/neocon lawyer from way back: Nixon/Watergate

Fred Fielding, former WH counsel to Nixon during Watergate and to Reagan/Bush, during Iran-Contra (Fielding was counsel in 1985 when arms shipments were being made but left in 1986 when the sh*t hit the fan...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070108/pl_nm/bush_fielding...

Fielding was also long thought (erroneously) by intelligence experts to be deep throat...