Ivanka's lawyer, a Democrat, defends herself

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"I don't pass my clients through a 100 percent values alignment litmus test," Attorney Jamie Gorelick said. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO
WHITE HOUSE
Ivanka's lawyer, a Democrat, defends herself
Jamie Gorelick, a veteran of President Bill Clinton's Justice Department and a Hillary Clinton supporter, explains why she's working for Trump's daughter now.
By ANNIE KARNI 03/24/17 05:09 AM EDT
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/ivanka-trump-lawyer-jamie-gorelick-clintons-236445

  "Attorney Jamie Gorelick had just finished vetting potential Cabinet
   secretaries for Hillary Clinton — and raising money for the failed 2016
   Democratic nominee — when Jared Kushner called her last year, seeking
   legal counsel.
   
   Gorelick, who served as deputy attorney general under President Bill
   Clinton and a former member of the 9/11 Commission, was recommended to
   Kushner by former News Corp. executive Joel Klein, who now serves as
   chief strategy officer at Oscar, the health insurance company
   co-founded by Kushner's younger brother, Josh. Klein told Jared Kushner
   he needed a real lawyer to sort through nepotism and
   conflict-of-interest concerns that could bar him from working in the
   White House for his father-in-law, President Donald Trump.
   
   "He said that Jared was a good person, and that he thought he would be
   a good influence on the administration," Gorelick said in an interview
   Thursday afternoon, sitting in a sunny conference room at her law firm,
   Wilmer Hale.
   
   Gorelick, widely rumored to have been Hillary Clinton's front-runner
   for attorney general, hesitated before agreeing to represent someone
   who served as the de facto campaign manager for a candidate who
   encouraged chants of "Lock Her Up" at rallies.
   
   "At the time, I was grieving for Hillary Clinton," she said. "This was
   not the transition I was contemplating working on — at all. And I
   didn't know Jared Kushner. And I did think twice about it."
   
   Since signing on with Kushner, Gorelick has been in the spotlight for
   lending credibility to his efforts to comply with federal ethics laws —
   as well as those of his wife, Ivanka, also a Gorelick client.
   
   It has been an uncomfortable position for a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat
   to assume, and Gorelick has been shocked by the vitriol that has been
   hurled in her direction.
   
   "Hey Jamie Gorelick, you've just poured that 'Complicit' perfume on
   yourself. #Ivanka," top Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen, also a
   former Clinton surrogate and a partner at SKDKnickerbocker, tweeted, in
   reference to a "Saturday Night Live" sketch about an Ivanka
   Trump-branded scent called "Complicit."
   
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   Gorelick sees herself as part of a time-honored Washington tradition of
   well-respected lawyers representing clients from the opposite party.
   Two of President Bill Clinton's chiefs of staff, Mack McLarty and
   Erskine Bowles, turned to Arthur Culvahouse, former White House counsel
   under Ronald Reagan, to oversee their ethics arrangements, as did
   members of President Barack Obama's administration.
   
   In hiring Gorelick, Ivanka Trump and Kushner — two expats from Midtown
   Manhattan, who are part of an administration trying to upend all of
   Washington's norms — are simply following that old D.C. playbook,
   buying themselves the patina of a former Clinton Justice department
   official vouching for their good names.
   
   But Gorelick is testing whether that norm still holds true in Trump's
   Washington. Many former Clinton diehards have branded themselves as
   "the resistance" and view any effort to work with advisers close to the
   president as an obscene attempt to "normalize" a politically abnormal
   president. For this liberal crowd, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner —
   branded as the moderates of Trump's world — are viewed as extensions of
   the president, just operating under more glamorous, and therefore
   dangerous, facades.
   
   Earlier this week, Gorelick vouched for Ivanka Trump's ability to work
   as a de facto full-time White House adviser — complete with a security
   clearance, a West Wing office, and a government-issued phone — without
   formally becoming a government employee. Under the unprecedented
   arrangement, the first daughter will only voluntarily submit herself to
   ethics laws, without taking an oath of office that would subject her to
   disclosure and other requirements.
   
   Gorelick also maintains that it would be impossible for Ivanka Trump to
   sell her eponymous fashion and jewelry line, because the buyer would be
   able to use her name — acknowledging there's no way to create a setup
   for the first daughter that would be free of conflict of interest.
   
   "The swirl of money and conflicts is unprecedented and their
   arrangements are not curing it," said Robert Weissman, president of the
   nonprofit Public Citizen. "That Ivanka Trump has branded her company
   with her name is a complicating factor, and it should be, for her, not
   for the American people. Looking at [Gorelick's] comments saying it
   doesn't work for Ivanka to sell off the company — well, then maybe it
   doesn't work for her to be in government."
   
   Even inside the Republican Party, the bipartisan spirit of the
   Washington power lawyer scene is being tested. "Some of my Republican
   friends who are 'Never Trumpers' are not particularly happy that I
   wound up doing the vice-presidential vetting," Culvahouse conceded.
   "But the question is: Do you want him to fail, or do you want good
   people to get in? Is President Trump better served with Kushner and
   Ivanka serving with him in the White House? Absolutely he is."
   
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   Gorelick is of the same mind as Culvahouse: She believes in pushing
   good people into government, even if she disagrees with the man at the
   top. She admitted the criticism from Democrats bothers her — especially
   Rosen's tweet, which was forwarded to her.
   
   "I was shocked by that," she said, adding sarcastically, "it must be
   that Hilary has never taken a client on, whose values and principles
   she didn't entirely agree with. Really? There is something that has
   been so polarizing about this administration that it does make it
   harder to do what I would consider a normal lawyer's job to be."
   
   Rosen, in response, said she doesn't "wish [Gorelick] or Ivanka any ill
   will. ... But there is widespread distaste for how the president has
   meshed his and his family's business interests, and good lawyering
   doesn't fix that problem."
   
   In Gorelick's worldview, however, she believes that it does. "I don't
   pass my clients through a 100 percent values alignment litmus test,"
   she said. "If people want to come to me and get good, principled,
   ethical advice, and they want to follow it, then I will take them on as
   a client. I don't need to take on clients if I don't want to spend my
   time with them. There is a voluntary piece of this. But I encourage
   people to serve."
   
   Along with Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Gorelick represented former Exxon
   CEO Rex Tillerson in his confirmation and vetting process to become
   secretary of state. She said she has not spoken to the Clintons about
   her new clients.
   
   She dodged the question, though, of whether there are people she would
   not represent. If White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who
   represents the most extreme end of Trump's administration, asked for
   her help, would she offer it? "Good luck to you, but I'm not going
   there," Gorelick said. "In general, I have really pressed people who
   have had the opportunity to go into this administration to go in. A lot
   of people do not want to go in. But we have one government, elections
   have consequences, we should not want the government to fail."
   
   For Gorelick, there is some cosmic irony to representing members of the
   Trump administration, late in her career. In her first job out of
   Harvard Law School, her firm at the time was representing Richard Nixon
   in the Supreme Court. "I was a very progressive young woman, and I had
   never expected to represent Richard Nixon," she said. "This is an
   interesting bookend."
   
   
   Jamie Gorelick sees herself as part of a time-honored Washington
   tradition of well-respected lawyers representing clients from the
   opposite party. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO
   
   Gorelick might be new to taking hits from the Hilary Rosens of the
   world, but she has long been a bête noir of the right — she's a
   recurring villain on conservative talk radio, where Rush Limbaugh for
   years has falsely blamed her for instituting a "wall" between law
   enforcement and intelligence agencies when she served in the Justice
   Department, making it easier for the lead 9/11 hijacker to enter the
   country. And Gorelick drew criticism from both the left and the right
   when it was revealed she received $26 million from Fannie Mae before
   the mortgage giant was bailed out by the government.
   
   "They make things up," she said. "They say I caused 9/11, and that I
   caused the financial crisis. I know there are people that say that, but
   no legitimate person has ever said that. I ignore it. I've had
   criticism come at me from different directions, pretty much my whole
   career."
   
   And for all the flak she's getting from the left, it's Gorelick's
   reputation in conservative circles that made her a surprising hire to
   Trump loyalists. "If Jared and Ivanka had asked my opinion, I'd say
   great, find a Democrat lawyer," said one longtime Trump loyalist. "If
   they said, it's Jamie Gorelick, I'd say, great, find a different one."
   
   Gorelick is also in the odd position of working concurrently for
   clients who are members of the Trump administration, as well as
   individuals fighting his policies.
   
   As part of her pro bono work, Gorelick recently filed a brief on behalf
   of immigrant women who have been the subjects of of gender-based
   violence, seeking the court in San Francisco to understand the
   implications of Trump's immigration ban on their lives and communities.
   She also serves as an outside adviser to the liberal Center for
   American Progress, which has been fighting against Trump's health care
   overhaul.
   
   Gorelick said she flags some of those outside issues she is working on
   to Kushner and Ivanka Trump. "I'm not going to lobby them for any
   client, but if there are issues that I know they care about that are
   percolating, I would send it to them, and I have," she said. "It's
   possible to become extremely isolated in the White House. I think
   people like that need to hear from outside sources."
   
   Longtime Gorelick friends, like President Barack Obama's former ethics
   czar, Norm Eisen, have criticized her read of the anti-nepotism
   statute, which Gorelick said does not bar Kushner from serving as a
   senior adviser in the White House. And they have vocally disagreed with
   her decision that Ivanka Trump could voluntarily submit herself to
   government ethics rules, when she is serving as a de facto full-time
   government employee in everything but title.
   
   But Eisen said that despite his legal disagreement, he thinks
   Gorelick's involvement is good in that it's pushing top members of the
   Trump administration in the right direction. "It's consistent with our
   profession to represent your clients zealously, but at the same time,
   push them as far as they will go in the direction of what is right," he
   said. "The thing that distinguishes really great lawyers — starting
   with John Adams, who famously represented a British redcoat — is that
   you take on tough clients and you do the best for them. I think Jared
   Kushner and Ivanka Trump have fared much better in the public eye
   because of Jamie's work."
   
   Gorelick said separating Kushner from his real estate company took up
   most of her time in December and January and that his financial
   disclosure form will show that he still retains sizable assets.
   
   "I like hard and interesting problems, and I have certainly had them in
   this representation," she said. "The Kushner Cos. is really a series of
   dozens and dozens and dozens of individual buildings and their own
   corporate structure. Extricating him from each one of those was
   extremely difficult."
   
   But she said Kushner gave her carte blanche to make it work. "His view
   was, 'Do what needs to be done.' There are a lot of assets left and he
   will have to recuse himself on quite a few issues."
   
   Months after getting involved with the people closest to the man she
   tried to help defeat, Gorelick said Klein's assessment of Kushner has
   held up. "I don't have much insight as to what he is doing inside on a
   daily basis," she said, "but he does seem like a good person."
   
   Authors:
   Annie Karni   akarni@politico.com   @anniekarni  "

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Trump better watch out no-one is fiddling with the intelligence handed
to him, but also his food and drinks.