New FBI Investigations: Felony Lying by False Accusers, Feinstein’s Handling of Ford Letter, Ford Lawyer’s Attorney Malpractice

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Hoisted on their own petard.

https://twitter.com/KMCRadio/status/1046505561309810688

Why There’s A Good Case For Sanctioning Christine Blasey Ford’s Lawyers

Did Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers deprive her of the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether to accept the committee’s offer to interview her in California?

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By Michael Ginsberg, The Federalist, October 1, 2018

Like most professions, lawyers have codes of professional responsibility under which they operate. In the case of Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford’s counsel may well have violated them.

It has been widely reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee offered to send investigators to California to speak with Ford. Ford did not accept this offer. In addition, Ford reportedly was unable to attend a hearing set for Sept. 24 because she is afraid of flying and could not otherwise get to Washington by that date. The committee agreed to delay its hearing to Sept. 27.

Yet in her testimony, Ford stated it was not clear to her that the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) had offered to take her statements and testimony in California to prevent her from having to fly. Ford testified she would have accepted the offer had she known about it.

Indeed, she testified to Chairman Chuck Grassley, “If you were gonna come out to see me I would have happily hosted you and would have been happy to speak to you out there. It wasn’t clear to me that that was the case.” Ford also testified, “I was hoping that they would come to me [in California] but I realized that was an unrealistic request.” Not only was it not unrealistic, the offer was on the table.

Here I’ll assume Ford testified truthfully that she was not clear about the Judiciary Committee’s offer. (The alternative raises its own issues.) If Ford’s attorneys did not inform her clearly of the SJC’s offer, the Judiciary Committee could file a grievance against Ford’s attorneys, Debra Katz and Michael Bromwich, with the DC Bar. It would be even worse if they withheld this information from Ford because they were interested in a delay of the hearing for reasons other than their client’s interests.

Lawyers have obligations to their clients and to the tribunals before which they practice. In this case, the client is Ford, and the tribunal is the SJC.

DC Bar Rule 1.4(b), “Communication,” provides that “A lawyer shall explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation.” Did Ford’s lawyers withhold from her the SJC’s offer to take her statement in California? Or did they fail to make clear to Ford what the SJC had offered?

It beggars belief to think the offer could not be conveyed clearly. “The committee will take your testimony in California and you will not have to fly anywhere” seems straightforward enough. Grassley informed Minority Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein that “I have offered [Dr. Ford] the opportunity to testify in any of four possible venues: (1) a public hearing; (2) a private hearing; (3) a public staff interview; or (4) a private staff interview. I am even willing to have my staff travel to Dr. Ford in California — or anywhere else — to obtain her testimony.” It’s hard to see how that could be stated more clearly.

Bottom line, did Ford’s lawyers deprive Ford of the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether to accept that offer? Ford’s testimony that she was not clear about the SJC’s offer, and that she would have accepted it had she known about and understood it, certainly suggests so. If this is the case, counsel arguably violated Rule 1.4(b).

Counsel also owes a duty of candor to the tribunal, in this case the committee. Under DC Bar Rule 3.3, attorneys cannot make a false statement of fact or law to the tribunal. If Ford’s fear of flying would not have prevented her from testifying on Sept. 24 in California, then any representation they made to the committee that such fear of flying was the basis for a delay was a false statement. This seems particularly egregious if, as Ford’s testimony suggests, she did not realize the committee had offered to take her testimony in California and avoid Ford having to fly anywhere.

DC Bar Rule 4.4 provides that “In representing a client, a lawyer shall not use means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a third person, or knowingly use methods of obtaining evidence that violate the legal rights of such a person.” If Ford would have accepted the committee’s offer to testify in California, the committee could have completed that process well before the hearing on Sept. 27.

Ford’s counsel stated on Sept. 17, the day after the Washington Post published an aticle identifying Ford as Kavanaugh’s accuser, that Ford was ready to tell her story and, indeed, wanted an opportunity to tell her story. The committee, in all likelihood, could have had investigators in California by Sept. 19 prepared to speak with Ford, gather information, and pursue any leads. The SJC could then have held the public hearing in California on Sept. 24, as offered. Yet Ford was apparently unaware of or unclear about this option, and the hearing was put off until Sept. 27.

Given Ford’s testified-to willingness to speak to the SJC investigators in California, there seems no reasonable basis for the delay of the hearing to Sept. 27. Make no mistake, this delay unquestionably delayed and burdened numerous third persons. It obviously burdened Kavanaugh, who was subjected to further efforts from Senate Democrats to tarnish his name. We know Senate Democrats used this time for precisely this purpose. Debra Ramirez, the second accuser whose allegations were published in The New Yorker, stated she was contacted by Senate Democrats, not the other way around.

The delay also burdened the tribunal, the Senate Judiciary Committee. Instead of having the opportunity to collect facts essential to the SJC’s consideration of Kavanaugh’s nomination in a manner that could have minimized the publicity associated with the case, which could potentially affect witnesses, the committee lost ten critical days and subjected the process to the very public scrutiny Ford sought to avoid.

Perhaps worst of all, the delay and the failure to accept the SJC’s offer even embarrassed and harmed their client, Ford. Giving her testimony in California to Senate investigators would have allowed Ford to maintain at least a modicum of the privacy she desired.

Ford testified she was “terrified” about having to go before the SJC. Yet if her lawyers failed to tell or adequately explain to her that she could provide her testimony to investigators in California, outside the Washington spotlight and in a setting she would have preferred, her lawyers were the ones responsible for putting her in that terrifying situation. If they did it because it benefitted someone other than their client, that would be an extraordinary breach of the duty they owe their client. It would also suggest conflicts of interest, a subject on which the DC Bar Rules of Professional Responsibility have plenty to say.

And for what was this delay needed? Ford’s story was Ford’s story. It should not have changed between Sept. 17 and Sept. 27. She could have told it to Senate investigators on Sept. 19 and in a hearing on Sept. 24 just as easily as on Sept. 27.

Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine a federal district judge instructing an attorney to convey information to his or her client of something, and the attorney failing to do so. That attorney would be in a world of trouble. Depending on the judge, volcanic might not begin to describe the reaction. That’s what’s happened here if Ford did not know of or understand the offer to take her testimony in California.

For the last several weeks, the SJC Republican majority has been a marionette for activist Democratic lawyers, who keep demanding delay after delay. It’s time to go on offense. If this hearing was delayed by false representations by Ford’s attorneys and withholding information from their client, there may be grounds for the SJC to file a grievance with the DC Bar. If I were in the SJC majority, I’d be exploring those right now.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, what do you think?

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Thomas Faddis
Thomas Faddis
5 years ago

If by sanctioned, you mean DISBARRED, then yes…

BigBen
BigBen
5 years ago
Reply to  Thomas Faddis

Nothing will come of it….

Suresh
Suresh
5 years ago
Reply to  BigBen

Left/Liberals,Muslims are pathological liars. share this if anyone believes their Lies http://bit.ly/2rF8pfo

They protect jihadis and get away with crime.

Tm.
Tm.
5 years ago
Reply to  Suresh

I don’t understand why my access to your links is limited, but whatever.

Halal Bacon
Halal Bacon
5 years ago

Ford needs to become a penitentiary carpet muncher like all lying demonrats

disqus_xkGq56Mn53
disqus_xkGq56Mn53
5 years ago

They better go full force on this.

OverIt
OverIt
5 years ago

Anybody who expects one word that comes out of a lawyer’s mouth to be truthful is out of their mind.

John Hart
John Hart
5 years ago

Does this mean we may yet see Feinstein in an orange jump suit?

desperaddo
desperaddo
5 years ago
Reply to  John Hart

Fein-SWINE LIED!!! She leaked the info!!! FART-SWINE MUST be arrested!!! SHE LIED!!

Mohammed_Goldberg
Mohammed_Goldberg
5 years ago

Fartstein’s office had a pallet of adult diapers delivered to her office after she heard she and her staff are going to be investigated. /sarc

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

Fret not. Like Hillary and Benghazi, she will investigate it herself and find nothing amiss.

bargogx1
bargogx1
5 years ago

The whole lot of them should be thrown in jail, along with Hillary.

MAS
MAS
5 years ago

Yawn, give me a call when Democrats start doing mass perp walks. Until then it’s just more DC Kabuki theater…

Mrs. Patriot
Mrs. Patriot
5 years ago

According to Gateway Pundit and other sources, Ford has strong family ties to the CIA and she taught about using hypnosis to elicit and also create “memories.” She needs to be part of the investigation. As for her lawyers not revealing the willingness of investigators to travel to her, whoever orchestrated this heinous attack ordered that. Not willing to fly on the 24th but fine with it on the 27th? Come on!

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago

I see Moe, Larry and Curly. What do you see??

If you see the same thing it tells you what a FARCE this whole charade was. Just an attempt to show Demoncrap hate and displeasure of a white man finally bringing Americans up to be independent of Government just as the Constitution allowed.

We have the right to be left alone. and not harassed, or threatened by government. All they are suppose to do up there is SECURE your rights.

BUT they have done the OPPOSITE! They do not want to leave you alone. They harass you at every opportunity (taxes and tax liens, fees, regulations), and they see YOU as a danger to THEIR existence in the form of hundreds of illegal and unconstitutional government agencies poking and nosing around and is some cases “feeling you up” every time you fly.

chris VN
chris VN
5 years ago

Looks like these lawyers will be needing a REAL lawyer???

Michelle
Michelle
5 years ago

Ford also lied about being afraid of flying as she does and did so frequently on vacations and in work. Why they let this drop is beyond me.

Frank
Frank
5 years ago
Reply to  Michelle

She also teaches ‘How to beat lie detector machines’ as a class!

Drew the Infidel
Drew the Infidel
5 years ago

Turn about is fair play. Here are those damned investigations the upon which the commiecrats were so insistent.

“Virtue in the middle”, said the Devil as he sat between two lawyers.

Tm.
Tm.
5 years ago

It is evident that the delays were carefully planned out.

Frank
Frank
5 years ago

Rest assured, no one is going to be prosecuted. Flake is not only disgrace to the GOP but also to being a man!

Juniper Trees
Juniper Trees
5 years ago

Christine Blasey Ford holds a:

1988 BA in experimental psychology, Chapel Hill, U. of N. Carolina

1991 MA in clinical psychology, Pepperdine University

1995 Ph.D in educational psychology, U. of Southern California

2009 MA in epidemiology, Stanford University School of Medicine

BUT most significantly in 2008, Ford co-authored an academic journal article on how hypnosis can be used to retrieve lost memories … with one finding which specifically stated that patients who undergo hypnosis therapy are “highly suggestible and easily subject to memory contamination.” So, when she testified before the Judiciary Committee, was the watching world ‘observing’ how successful such therapy is? For instance, was the therapist ‘honest or dishonest’ in how he handled the ‘hypnotized OPEN mind’ of Christine Blasey Ford? We know of professional, registered licensed psychologists who literally refused to use such therapy because they recognized that once the hypnotist has ‘opened wide’ the mind, the therapist is NO LONGER IN CONTROL of what ‘demonic entities’ enter that open mind! This raises the question of, WHO were the senators and the hired prosecutor interviewing? Could it have been ‘an evil spirit’ responding? This whole debacle is starting to look more and more like the Salem witch trials which occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693; wherein more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil’s magic—and 20 were executed.

The direction of hypnosis is totally dependent upon the integrity of the therapist employing this method. Hypnosis is in itself a spiritually neutral phenomenon that may be used for good or evil purposes…with the caveat that it is practiced by a reputable medical practitioner for legitimate therapeutic purposes, hypnosis may be of significant benefit to a patient. The operational word here is ‘legitimate’ and that can be an ill defined term. Thus, even if hypnosis is a neutral mental state, it is nevertheless a ‘opened up state of mind’ which is easily prone to abuse and manipulation. AND it doesn’t matter how many degrees the ’therapist’ holds after their name, all in the field of psychology, this doesn’t automatically grant a therapist and/or their client, spiritual discernment, wisdom, or biblical commitment.

A Critique of Hypnosis in Christian Psychotherapy, by John Ankerberg
https://www.jashow.org/articles/a-critique-of-hypnosis-in-christian-psychotherapy/

The Efficacy, Safety and Applications of Medical Hypnosis; A Systematic Review of Meta-analyses, by Winfried Hauser et al
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4873672

CharlieSeattle
CharlieSeattle
5 years ago

Whooo Hooo! More lame FBI investigations.

…and yet, no will be arrested.

CreoleGumbo
CreoleGumbo
5 years ago

The ethic rules quoted in this article are routinely violated by attorneys in all manner of cases. Why should we expect that someone be disbarred for this kind of thing now?

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