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Former AG Ashcroft Forms Nationwide Law Firm with Ex-Prosecutors

Posted Apr 22, 2009 6:41 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft is teaming up with former federal prosecutors to open a nationwide law firm that will affiliate with his consulting business.

Ashcroft’s law firm is expected to open offices in several cities in the next several weeks, the St. Louis Business Journal reports. The former Missouri governor and attorney general opened his lobbying and consulting firm, The Ashcroft Group, in 2005, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Its work includes corporate monitoring under contracts that are part of deals companies make to avoid prosecution.

Former Texas U.S. attorneys Johnny Sutton and John Ratcliffe are forming the law firm Ashcroft Sutton & Ratcliffe in Texas, the Tex Parte Blog reports. Meanwhile, former U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway is forming Ashcroft Hanaway in Missouri and will be stationed in its St. Louis office, according to Tex Parte and the Post-Dispatch.

Clients of The Ashcroft Group will work with the new law firms when necessary, Hanaway told Tex Parte.

Comments

1.

Michael
Apr 22, 2009 10:41 AM CST

Hopefully I’m not reading this right but if I am a former US AG and some of his prosecutors have formed a firm that will be hired to monitor companies pursuant to agreements they or their colleagues entered into while acting as prosecutors. 

The agreements, again contingent on my understanding of the issue, are usually part of plea-style deals to avoid or lessen criminal liability. 

If this is correct it sounds like a massive conflict-of-interest, with the Bush Justice Department—an organization not exactly known as a bastion of ethical behavior—setting up monitoring agreements their own prosecutors would later financially benefit from. 

Even if this is entirely legal it doesn’t exactly inspire public confidence in the fairness of the judicial system to corporate criminal defendants.

I’m hoping I’m missing a key piece of information and that this can’t possibly be allowed…  Does anybody else have more information into how these arrangements are negotiated, who they cover, or how the monitoring firms are chosen?

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