From USA Today: "Bush consults lawyer in CIA leak case." The USA Today article identifies the President's lawyer as "Jim Sharp." Reportedly, Jim Sharp is James E. Sharp of Washington. Although little about James E. Sharp is available on the Internet (he keeps a low profile), Sharp represented Richard Secord in the Iran-Contra scandal. An article at Bloomberg.com confirms that the Sharp who's representing President Bush is also the Sharp who represented Secord. Details are in a cached article here.
Was the President's lawyer also involved in Watergate? It's possible, since lawyer "James Sharp" represented Watergate figure Jeb Stuart Magruder. Proof is on page 136 of this compilation of Watergate documents (PDF). It's a letter from Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox to "James Sharp, Esq." discussing Magruder's guilty plea.
The letter is dated August 16, 1973. Since James E. Sharp was born in 1940, he was about 33 at the time--if it's the same James Sharp.
Shouldn't we as citizens know a little more about our President's lawyer? I'll update this post with more details if they become available.
UPDATE I 6/6/04. Watergate figure John Dean weighs in on Bush's decision to hire outside counsel in a column titled "The Serious Implications Of President Bush's Hiring A Personal Outside Counsel For The Valerie Plame Investigation"
UPDATE II 6/6/04. As I speculated, Jim Sharp did represent Magruder during the Watergate scandal. Details in this post.
Can you also find out more about tricky Dick's (no, the other one- Cheney) attorney.
I know this is a non-partisan site, but it is a bit sketchy that both the President and the VP are getting lawyered up. If only Democrats were more scandal mongering we could have attorney employment levels equal to those under Clinton.
Posted by: musclehead | June 04, 2004 at 01:00 PM