Bush Campaign Chief Outside Lawyer Resigns

    Ginsberg Acknowledged Advising Anti-Kerry Veterans Group

By Dana Milbank and Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 25, 2004; 12:03 PM

CRAWFORD, Tex. Aug 25 -- The Bush campaign's chief outside counsel
resigned Wednesday morning after acknowledging on Tuesday that he also
was providing legal advice to the veterans group working to discredit
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's war record.

In a resignation letter sent to President Bush, Benjamin L. Ginsberg
said there was nothing wrong with doing work for both the campaign and
for the outside group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, known technically
as a 527 organization.

Ginsberg's resignation followed the Bush campaign's dismissal Saturday
of a volunteer on its veterans steering committee who appeared in a
Swift boat veterans ad. The campaign said retired Col. Kenneth Cordier
had not previously disclosed his participation with the swift boat group.

Ginsberg's dual role became known Tuesday evening in an Associated Press
story. It was seized upon by the Kerry campaign as evidence the
president's campaign is orchestrating a "smear" by the private group.

In his letter this morning, Ginsberg said: "Unfortunately, this campaign
has seen a stunning double standard emerge between the media's focus on
the activities of 527s aligned with John Kerry and those opposed to him."

"I cannot begin to express my sadness," he wrote, "that my legal
representations have become a distraction from the critical issues at
hand in this election. I feel I cannot let that continue, so I have
decided to resign as National Counsel to your campaign to ensure that
the giving of legal advice to decorated military veterans, which was
entirely within the boundaries of the law, doesn't distract from the
real issues upon which you and the country should be focusing."

Mary Beth Cahill, the Kerry campaign manager, used Ginsberg's
resignation to renew Kerry's request for Bush to renounce the ads by the
swift boat veterans.

"The sudden resignation of Bush's top lawyer doesn't end the extensive
web of connections between George Bush and the group trying to smear
John Kerry's military record," she said in a statement. "In fact, it
only confirms the extent of those connections. Now we know why George
Bush refuses to specifically condemn these false ads. People deeply
involved in his own campaign are behind them, from paying for them, to
appearing in them, to providing legal advice, to coordinating a negative
strategy to divert the public away from issues like jobs, health care
and the mess in Iraq, the real concerns of the American people. It's
time for George Bush to take responsibility himself and condemn these
false attacks."

In his letter, Ginsberg said he had no regrets about his dual role.

"I am proud to have given legal advice to American military veterans and
others who wish to add their views to the political debate," he wrote.
"It was done so in a manner that is fully appropriate and legal and, in
fact, is quite similar to the relationships between my counterparts at
the DNC [Democratic National Committee] and the Kerry campaign and
Democrat 527s such as Moveon.org, the Media Fund and Americans Coming
Together."

The Kerry campaign acknowledged Wednesday that Bob Bauer, a lawyer
advising the campaign on voting rights, is part of the same team that
advises America Coming Together, a Democratic 527. But aides to Kerry
pointed out that top Bush officials have denied any connection
whatsoever between the Swift Boats group and the campaign.

Other election lawyers agreed that the fact that Ginsberg, who also was
active in Bush's 2000 campaign, has been giving legal advice to Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth does not violate campaign finance law
prohibiting collusion between campaigns and independent groups.

But Ginsberg's dual roles complicate the Bush campaign's effort to rebut
as "frivolous" Kerry's complaint that it is behind the Swift boat ads.

Asked about the Ginsberg matter Tuesday night, Bush campaign spokesman
Steve Schmidt said: "There has been no coordination at any time between
Bush-Cheney '04 and any 527 organization."

The veterans group's advertisements casting doubt on Kerry's Vietnam War
decorations have turned the senator's earning of a Silver Star, a Bronze
Star and three Purple Hearts during four months of duty in Vietnam into
a dominant election issue this month. The Kerry campaign has filed a
complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging illegal
coordination between the Bush campaign and the group.

The 527s are nonprofit political groups named for a section of the tax
code that covers them. They may raise and spend unlimited amounts of
unregulated, or "soft," money from individuals, businesses and unions to
run issue ads in federal elections. But the law prohibits 527 groups
from coordinating their activities with individual political campaigns
or political parties.

Bush on Monday said he was opposed to all advertising by 527 groups --
most of which has favored Kerry -- but would not specifically condemn
the Swift boat veterans' advertisements.

In a letter Monday to the Federal Election Commission, Tom Josefiak,
general counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Kerry's complaint is
"frivolous" and "baselessly alleging illegal coordination" between the
two groups. Josefiak said the "complaint should be promptly dismissed."
The campaign also contacted stations that might air a Kerry ad alleging
a smear to warn of possible libel.

The Kerry campaign jumped on Ginsberg's admission Tuesday night. "If the
Bush campaign truly disapproved of this smear, their top lawyer wouldn't
be involved with the Swift boat veterans group," said Kerry campaign
spokesman Chad Clanton.

Ginsberg said Wednesday that a group of "decorated Vietnam War veterans
came to me and said, 'We have an important point to get out in the
debate under the First Amendment, the American right of free expression.
. . . Help us,' they said, and I did."

He said he did not participate in strategy planning or in the
development of messages, and did not discuss Bush campaign activities
with the Swift boat veterans, or vice versa.

Democrats also said their allegation of collusion was supported by a
flier at a Bush-Cheney office in Florida promoting a Swift boat event,
and by close relationships in the past between backers of the veterans
group and Bush aides such as political adviser Karl Rove.

Don Simon, an election-law expert with the campaign finance watchdog
group Democracy 21, said Ginsberg's dual role "is not per se
coordination" between the Bush campaign and the veterans group. That
would occur only if Ginsberg has been transferring information between
the two -- a question that likely would not be resolved before the
election even if the FEC chooses to investigate the matter. But, Simon
said that "as a matter of common sense, it certainly raises questions."

Larry Noble, who runs the Center for Responsive Politics watchdog group,
said the Ginsberg situation is not by itself improper, but "when you're
looking at common lawyers, it adds another level to it."

Edsall reported from Washington.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company