John Ashcroft Last Updated: August 20, 2008
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft went
from belatedly fighting the war on terror to profiting from it. Just one year after
leaving office, Ashcroft opened a lobbying shop. The Ashcroft Group makes millions
off its clients’ government contracts awarded by Ashcroft’s former government
associates. Ashcroft publicly prides himself on having a strong sense of morality:
in 2002 the Department of Justice spent $8000 on curtains to cover the exposed
breast of the "Spirit of Justice" statue often shown behind him during news
conferences.
Ashcroft served as governor of Missouri from 1985 through 1993.
The following year he was elected to the Senate. He lost in 2000 to Gov. Mel
Carnahan. Carnahan died in a small plane crash weeks before the election and his
widow, Jean, took his place in the Senate.
But the defeat didn’t push
Ashcroft out of government. In December 2000, President George W. Bush appointed him Attorney General.
Prior to 9/11, Ashcroft’s Justice Department, as later revealed, failed miserably in
pursuing information about terrorists in the US. Following the attacks, Ashcroft was
particularly tough on terrorism issues, spearheading several bills that made
trade-offs between privacy and out-sourced security measures.
He resigned in
November 2004 and in 2005 opened a lobbying shop named The Ashcroft Group that
focused on defense, homeland security, and technology contracts. Homeland security
clients include Nanodetex Corp., which can detect airborne pathogens such as
anthrax; data-mining company Exegy Inc.; French e-mail tracking company, LTU
Technologies; software company Innova Holdings Inc., which makes a program to
remotely control unmanned vehicles used to search for terrorist networks, and Dulles
Research LLC, whose technology can detect illicit terrorist connections.
The
firm also represents ChoicePoint. The company already had a contract with the
Justice Department dating to 1998, but in 2005 it signed on with Ashcroft's firm to
get further traction into government agencies. In 2005, ChoicePoint also paid $15
million to the FTC after selling the personal records of more than 163,000 consumers
to inadequately vetted fake businesses. The mistake resulted in at least 750 cases
of attempted identity theft.
ChoicePoint had been previously cited for major
violations of law. lealso supplied the faulty list that purged 94,000 voters from
Florida’s voter rolls before the 2000 presidential election. The disenfranchised
voters were largely Democrats so the mistake may have cost Gore the
race.
Ashcroft reported $1.4 million in lobbying fees for 2005, only a
fraction of his company’s total fees. (The firm doesn’t report all its clients
citing privacy concerns.)
The Ashcroft Group boasts a well-connected staff of
Ashcroft devotees. David Ayers, Ashcroft’s former Chief of Staff at the Department
of Justice is the firm’s CEO. Both Lori Day Sharp, who worked for Ashcroft as the
Justice Department’s director of intergovernmental affairs and as a legislative aide
in the Senate, and William Gaynor, the Western finance director for the Bush-Cheney
2004 campaign and a former Commerce Department official, are senior advisors.
Categories
Homeland Security | 9/11 | Functionaries | Information Technology | Government Officials | International Finance
Sources
- www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/100405_brief.html
- www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/11/AR200608110 1846.html?nav=rss_politics