The Just-Nominated Second in Command at the DOJ Helped Bush Steal Florida in
2000 and Clerked Under Scalia. BF Editor's Blog.
Submitted by mark karlin on Mon, 11/26/2007 - 12:08am. EditorBlog
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher, BuzzFlash.com

November 26, 2007

All you had to know about the newly nominated second in command at the
Justice Department, the Deputy Attorney General to AG Mukasey, is the final
paragraph of a November 16 Chicago Tribune article: "After clerking for
[Antonin] Scalia, [Mark] Filip returned to Chicago rather than stay in
Washington and pursue the kind of career track that traditionally leads to a
choice government appointment. He did, however, work as a volunteer
Republican vote counter in Florida during the 2000 election recount."

Ah yes, how much fun the mainstream press is! Reading a "news" article is
really like hunting for buried treasure. And then you have to connect the
dots on your own.

Filip, who is currently a federal judge in the Northern Illinois District
(Scalia swore him in), was appointed in 2004 to the bench by George W. Bush.
And, as we recently noted in a series on Republican judicial appointments,
they don't put "freelancers" on the bench, just reliable partisan judges.

Also worthy of note in the Tribune article is this statement: "As a
contender for the deputy job, it couldn't have hurt Filip that one of his
close friends is Paul Clement, the U.S. solicitor general, and a rising
legal star. Filip and Clement are part of a network of former Scalia clerks
who keep in touch."

Good grief, it's the Federalist Society cabal run amuck!

Meanwhile, in checking out Filip's "close friend," Bush's Solicitor General
Clement, we discovered that Clement not only clerked for Scalia, he also
spent time as a protégé under the infamous Laurence Silberman, who advised
the Ken Starr crew on how to impeach Bill Clinton while serving on the D.C.
Appellate Court.

It gets worse as far as Mark Filip's good buddy. A January 16, 2004, Law.com
article hailed that "Paul Clement leads the charge in defending the
administration's tactics in the war on terror."

To be fair, the Chicago Tribune article was filled with lavish praise for
what a resourceful, intelligent and hardworking attorney (and former
prosecutor) Filip is. But that's what we read about Alito, Roberts and - way
back when - Scalia too.

We'd like to know more about Filip's stint as a "volunteer Republican vote
counter in Florida during the 2000 election recount," but do we really need
to?

I think it's safe to say that we've already connected the dots, and what
we've
got is someone who, once again, is a product of the Federalist Society -
whether he is personally a member or not -- soldiers in the jurist army of
the GOP.

Maybe the White House put Filip as second in command at the DOJ to watch
over Mukasey.

But we doubt Mukasey will be running too far astray of the White House.
Before he was appointed AG by Bush, Mukasey was the chief advisor to Rudy
Giuliani on who he should appoint to the judiciary if he were to be elected
president.

Are you getting the full picture now?

We are.

The Just-Nominated Second in Command at the DOJ Helped Bush Steal Florida in
2000 and Clerked Under Scalia. BF Editor's Blog.