Perkins Coie
Perkins Coie is an international law firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded in 1912. It is the oldest and largest law firm headquartered in the Pacific Northwest and has a total of 19 offices across the United States and Asia. In addition to corporate representation, the firm often represents political clients.
The firm was founded in 1912 and has represented the Boeing Company since the founding of the aerospace company in 1916. Other clients include or have included Microsoft, Amazon.com, Starbucks, Costco, Craigslist, Google, Facebook, Intel, Twitter, AT&T, Zillow, REI, Intellectual Ventures, UPS, Barack Obama, Expedia, Safeco, T-Mobile, Dale Chihuly, Quora and Nintendo.
Perkins Coie is counsel of record for the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Leadership Council, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Other political clients include nearly all Democratic members of the United States Congress. It has also represented several presidential campaigns, including those of John Kerry,[2] Barack Obama,[3] and Hillary Clinton.[2] The group's Political Law practice was for many years headed by Robert Bauer and is now chaired by Marc Elias.[4]
The firm represented Christine Gregoire in the prolonged litigation surrounding her 2004 Washington gubernatorial election.
A team of Perkins lawyers headed by Elias successfully represented Al Franken in his recount and legal battle over the 2008 Senatorial election in Minnesota.[5]
In 2006, Perkins Coie, led by partner Harry Schneider, represented Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the alleged driver and bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld,[6] in which the Court ruled that the Bush Administration's use of military commissions to try terrorism suspects was unconstitutional.[7]
Perkins Coie worked in the Doe v. Reed case concerning petition signatures in state ballot initiative campaigns, which was argued successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 28, 2010.[8]
In 2010, Elias sought advisory opinions from the Federal Election Commission declaring that certain Google[9] and Facebook[10] advertisements were covered by the "small items" and "impracticable" exemptions of the law that otherwise requires a political advertisement to include a disclaimer revealing who paid for it.[10][11] The commission granted Google's request in a divided vote, and deadlocked on Facebook's request.[11] According to The New York Times, "Facebook nonetheless proceeded as if it was exempt from the disclaimer requirement".[11] In October 2017, Perkins Coie lobbied to defeat a bill called the "Honest Ads Act", which would require internet companies to disclose who paid for political ads.[11][12]
Perkins Coie was hired in 2015 as counsel for the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.[2] As part of its representation of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Elias retained the intelligence firm Fusion GPS for opposition research services. Those services began in April 2016 and concluded before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election in early November. A notable product of that research was the dossier describing alleged attempts by Russia to promote the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.[13]During the campaign, the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Perkins Coie $5.6 million and $3.6 million respectively.[13] On October 24, 2017, Perkins Coie released Fusion GPS from its client confidentiality obligation.[13]
Living alumni of the firm include the 16th Lieutenant Governor of Washington Cyrus Habib, former Attorney General of Washington State Rob McKenna, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Margaret McKeown and Ronald M. Gould, and Oregon State Representative Chris Garrett.
In 2009, President Obama appointed Robert Bauer, the chair of the firm's Political Law practice, to become his White House Counsel. Bauer returned to private practice with Perkins Coie in 2011. In 2015, Hillary Clinton named Marc Elias as general counsel to her campaign.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkins_Coie
https://www.dailywire.com/news/22822/lawyer-linked-trump-dossier-sat-right-next-podesta-james-barrett
https://truepundit.com/all-american-ncaa-wrestler-dies-in-crash-after-car-runs-off-the-road/
Embattled GOP Congressman Jim Jordan’s Nephew — All-American NCAA Wrestler — Dies in Crash After Car Runs Off the Road
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rep-jim-jordan-says-he-never-heard-locker-room-talk-n889411
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/07/06/jim-jordan-responds-allegations-he-ignored-sexual-abuse-ohio-state-wrestling-coach
After being accused of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse by a team doctor when he was an Ohio State wrestling coach, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) spoke out on "Special Report."
Earlier this week, Jordan's office denied knowing about any allegations against Richard Strauss, a team doctor who died in 2005.
Jordan worked as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1987 until 1995 before going into politics. He was elected to the U.S. House in 2006 and is seen as a contender to be the next Speaker of the House.
"It's false," Jordan said of the allegation in an at-times emotional interview.
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
The Honorable Rod J. Rosenstein
Deputy Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania A venue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
The Honorable Christopher A. Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20535
Dear Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and Director Wray:
Attached please find a classified memorandum related to certain communications between
Christopher Steele and multiple U.S. news outlets regarding the so-called "Trump dossier" that Mr.
Steele compiled on behalf of Fusion GPS for the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National
Committee and also provided to the FBI.
Based on the information contained therein, we are respectfully referring Mr. Steele to you for
investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, for statements the Committee has reason to
believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained in the dossier.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter. If you have any questions,
please contact Patrick Davis or De Lisa Lay of Chairman Grassley' s staff at (202) 224-5225.
Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
Sincerely,
Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
Committee on the Judiciary
Enclosure: As stated.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/read-the-full-text-of-the-nunes-memo/552191/
Investigation Update
On October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order (not under Title VII) authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. Page is a U.S. citizen who served as a volunteer advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Consistent with requirements under FISA, the application had to be first certified by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI. It then required the approval of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.
The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC. As required by statute (50 U.S.C. §,1805(d)(l)), a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Then-DAG Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.
Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA submissions (including renewals) before the FISC are classified. As such, the public’s confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court’s ability to hold the government to the highest standard—particularly as it relates to surveillance of American citizens. However, the FISC’s rigor in protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government’s production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government. In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts. However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.
1) The “dossier” compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.
a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.b) The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson, who was paid by a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie) representing the DNC (even though it was known by DOJ at the time that political actors were involved with the Steele dossier). The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of—and paid by—the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.
2) The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News. The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News—and several other outlets—in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.
a) Steele was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations—an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jonesarticle by David Corn. Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September—before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October—but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts.
b) Steele’s numerous encounters with the media violated the cardinal rule of source handling—maintaining confidentiality—and demonstrated that Steele had become a less than reliable source for the FBI.
3) Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein. Shortly after the election, the FBI began interviewing Ohr, documenting his communications with Steele. For example, in September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” This clear evidence of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files—but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.
a) During this same time period, Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs’ relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC.4) According to the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial Page FISA application. After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated. Yet, in early January 2017, Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was—according to his June 2017 testimony—“salacious and unverified.” While the FISA application relied on Steele’s past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.
5) The Page FISA application also mentions information regarding fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, but there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos. The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s Office to FBI Human Resources for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page (no known relation to Carter Page), where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton, whom Strzok had also investigated. The Strzok/Lisa Page texts also reflect extensive discussions about the investigation, orchestrating leaks to the media, and include a meeting with Deputy Director McCabe to discuss an “insurance” policy against President Trump’s election.
https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/practices/ip/patent-law.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2017/0332930.html
https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/03/04/clinton-hires-campaign-lawyer-ahead-of-likely-run/
While attention around Hillary Rodham Clinton has been focused on her email use as secretary of state, her team quietly brought on a new lawyer for her campaign-in-waiting two months ago.
Marc Elias, a veteran campaign finance lawyer who was general counsel for John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004, is scheduled to be Mrs. Clinton’s lead campaign lawyer in her all-but-assured second bid for the presidency, three Democrats with knowledge of the hire said. Mr. Elias, who was brought on long before questions emerged about Mrs. Clinton’s personal email use at the State Department, is a partner at the firm Perkins Coie, which represents a number of Democratic senators.
The lead lawyer for a presidential campaign is traditionally involved in an array of decisions, including negotiating the ground rules for the presidential debates, signing off on television ads and monitoring voting rights issues. In the modern political landscape, part of Mr. Elias’s role will be ensuring that coordination rules are followed to maintain the firewall between the campaign and the outside groups supporting it.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign lawyer in 2008 was Lyn Utrecht, who is still expected to help her handle some personal issues. David Kendall, who has worked with Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton since their days in the White House, has been helping her respond to the latest House inquiry into the 2012 Benghazi attacks.
According to Politico, Mr. Elias played a pivotal role in pushing through a rule in last year’s federal spending bill that drastically increased the maximum amount of money donors can give to both major party committees every year.
https://www.scribd.com/document/370918981/2018-02-06-CEG-LG-to-DOJ-FBI-Unclassified-Steele-Referral
https://www.scribd.com/document/20946250/Craigslist-Spammers-Lawsuit
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-lawyer-kept-russian-dossier-project-closely-held/2017/10/27/e7935276-ba68-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.b3d264d20ecf
When Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, hired a private research firm in the spring of 2016 to investigate Donald Trump, he drew from funds he was authorized to spend without oversight by campaign officials, according to a spokesperson for his law firm.
The firm hired by Elias, Fusion GPS, produced research that resulted a dossier detailing alleged connections between Trump and Russia. While the funding for the work came from the campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Elias kept the information about the investigation closely held as he advised the campaign on its strategy, according to the spokesperson, who requested anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics.
Elias's involvement in the financing and internal dissemination of the Trump research underscores the influence he wields behind the scenes in Democratic politics — a role that is now being pushed into the spotlight amid multiple investigations into Russia's attempts to meddle in the 2016 elections.
The 48-year-old lawyer and his firm, Perkins Coie, represent many of the party's political committees and candidates. Elias also has worked on behalf of companies such as Facebook, fighting in 2011 to exempt the social media network from disclaimer rules on political ads. The company's sale of ads to Russian actors during last year's campaign triggered calls on Capitol Hill for more disclosure of online ads.
Elias's robust client list — which included both Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee last year — has led to questions about how he juggles competing interests and whether some of the arrangements create awkward dynamics.
Elias declined to comment.
In September, he accompanied former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to a closed-door interview with Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, during which Podesta said he had no knowledge of payments to Fusion GPS, according to CNN.At the time, it was not publicly known Elias had hired Fusion GPS; that was revealed by The Washington Post this week. Elias, who was there as Podesta's lawyer, did not participate in the interview as a witness, CNN reported.
Podesta did not respond to a request for comment.
While it is common for campaigns to conduct opposition research, Elias's decision to hire Fusion GPS has drawn intense interest because it resulted in the controversial dossier. Republicans have said their effort to investigate Fusion's role in producing the dossier will intensify with the revelation that it was funded by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.
President Trump seized upon the news, saying this week that "this was the Democrats coming up with an excuse for losing the election . . . they made up the whole Russia hoax."The dossier was part of research into Trump that Fusion GPS began in the Republican primaries for the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication that receives financing from billionaire GOP donor Paul Singer. The Beacon's role was first reported Friday by the New York Times.
After the Free Beacon stopped funding the project, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson met with Elias at his Washington law office and asked if he was interested, according to people familiar with the arrangement.
Elias agreed, deciding Fusion GPS had more capacity than the campaign's in-house operation to do sophisticated research, according to the Perkins Coie spokesperson. Elias drew from funds that both the Clinton campaign and the DNC were paying Perkins Coie, The Post reported this week.
It is unclear who else was familiar with the arrangement, or who knew that Fusion GPS hired a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who wrote the dossier. Clinton has not responded to requests for comment.A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), who was DNC chairwoman at the time Perkins Coie contracted with Fusion GPS, said the former chair was "not aware" of the law firm's arrangement with Fusion.
Elias himself did not receive the dossier but was briefed on some of the information in it, according to his firm's spokesperson. The dossier was published by BuzzFeed after the election.
Clinton campaign officials who said they were not aware of Elias's arrangement with the firm defended his decision to tap its resources.
"Marc is known as one of the most skilled professionals in Democratic politics, in addition to being the party's top election lawyer," said Brian Fallon, who served as a spokesman for the campaign. "I am damn glad he pursued this on behalf of our campaign and only regret more of this material was not verified in time for the voters to learn it before the election."Among Perkins Coie's clients is Facebook, which Elias helped in 2011 when the company was asking the Federal Election Commission for an exemptionfrom having to include political disclaimers on the small ads that appear on its site.
Advocates for more transparency of online ads said that better disclosure requirements could have prevented a Russian troll farm from running ads during last year's election that were aimed at sowing divisions between groups of Americans.
Facebook, which noted that it has pledged to create a system to disclose the ads run on its site, declined to comment on Elias's role.
Elias is well known in political circles for his work on voting rights cases, an effort that has been funded by Democratic megadonor George Soros. Elias also has scored major victories in hard-fought election recounts, including the 2008 election of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.).His role as the go-to Democratic lawyer in Washington was spotlighted this week when he was slated to testify in the federal bribery trial of one of his clients, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). Elias, who had been expected to testify about the advice he gave Menendez about how to fill out financial disclosures, was ultimately stricken from the witness list by the judge.
Even as he has built a robust Democratic client list, Elias has often been at odds with groups that advocate for stricter campaign finance rules, including many on the left, over his efforts that have expanded the influence of wealthy donors in politics.
"He has done good stuff on the voting rights side, but he has also been an opponent of many campaign finance reforms and has been largely responsible for some of the loopholes that exist in the campaign finance laws," said Lawrence Noble, a former Federal Election Commission general counsel who now works as a senior director at the advocacy group Campaign Legal Center.Elias played a key role in helping craft a massive expansion of party fundraising that was slipped into a 2014 end-of-the-year spending bill. That measure created new party accounts that can accept donations three times larger than contributions to the general party fund. The Republican National Committee is now using money raised by one of those funds to help pay for the legal bills accrued by President Trump and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., in the multiple Russia probes.
In 2015, Elias appeared before the FEC to seek greater interplay between candidates and super PACs, which can collected unlimited contributions. Critics saw it as a way around campaign finance laws that set a strict cap on donations to candidates.
Then-commissioner Ann Ravel, a Democratic appointee, objected to the idea — and was "berated" by Elias, who said she should have raised her concerns earlier, she said in an interview. A key element of the measure passed by a 4-to-2 vote, with Ravel in opposition.He was always trying to figure out a way to get around" campaign finance restrictions, Ravel said.
Veteran election law attorney Robert Bauer, who founded the Perkins Coie political practice and recruited Elias, said that anyone practicing political law "cannot escape the politics."
"It understood that your clients, and their objectives, will come under fire," Bauer said. "But it is wrong to find fault in a lawyer because he is effective in making the client's case for a particular law or rule."
Former secretary of state John F. Kerry, who hired Elias as general counsel for his 2004 presidential campaign, called Elias "an outstanding lawyer."
"He always gave us advice to live up to the law and not avoid it," Kerry said.
Former Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid, who won a 1998 recount with the help of Elias, said the lawyer's decision to tap Fusion GPS for research "makes good sense."
"Time is not on your side in these elections," Reid said.
Franken, who declined an interview request, praised Elias in a statement for helping him secure his Senate seat, while saying that "I don't always agree with what he advocates for — including when it comes to campaign finance."
In his book "Al Franken, Giant of the Senate," published this year, the senator ribbed Elias about the size of his legal fees, which totaled $3.6 million, according to federal filings. Franken wrote that he was often sequestered at home, "calling people for money to pay our bafflingly large and expensive team of lawyers, led by Democratic super-attorney Marc Elias. (If you're ever in Washington, check out the Franken Wing of the Perkins Coie law office — it's gorgeous.)"
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