Ashcroft's new job extremely lucrative

Andrew Zajac / CHICAGO TRIBUNE | January 15 2006

WASHINGTON - Less than three months after registering as a lobbyist, former Attorney General John Ashcroft has banked at least $269,000 from just four clients and appears to be developing a practice centered on firms that want to capitalize on a government demand for homeland security technology that boomed under sometimes controversial policies he promoted while in office.
Three clients of Ashcroft's lobbying firm want his help in selling data or software with homeland security applications, according to government filings.

A fourth, Israel Aircraft Industries International, is competing with Chicago's Boeing Co. to sell the government of South Korea a billion-dollar airborne early warning system.

While Ashcroft's lobbying is within government rules for former officials, it is nonetheless a departure from the practice of attorneys general for at least the last 30 years.

While others have counseled corporate clients or perhaps even lobbied in a specific case as part of law firm business, Ashcroft is the first in recent memory to open a lobbying firm.

Former lawmakers and other senior government officials routinely pass through the Washington revolving door and become advocates for commercial interests seeking to influence government, but the practice of former attorneys general has been to move to think tanks or academia, or return to the practice of law.
The office of the attorney general, along with the secretaries of state, defense and treasury, is among the oldest and most prestigious in the president's Cabinet.

"One would have thought that a former attorney general wouldn't be doing that," said John Schmidt, a former associate attorney general in the Clinton administration, who is now a lawyer at Mayer Brown.

"To take the kind of prestige and stature of the attorney general (and lobby) . . . It seems a little demeaning of the office, honestly."

Attempts to obtain comment from Ashcroft's firm were unsuccessful, but in the past, a senior company official has defended the business as proper.

The official, Juleanna Glover Weiss, a former press secretary to Vice President Dick Cheney, also worked for Ashcroft when he was a senator.

The changes in government operations following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks opened up numerous new commercial alliances between the private sector and the government.

During a frequently contentious four years as attorney general, Ashcroft championed a series of measures, including the USA Patriot Act, which gave police and intelligence authorities greater latitude to conduct secret surveillance and gather information on people even if they were not alleged to be terrorists.
In year-end filings, Ashcroft's firm, The Ashcroft Group LLC, reported collecting $269,000, including $220,000 from Oracle Corp., which won Justice Department approval of a multi-billion acquisition less than a month after hiring Ashcroft in October.

As attorney general, Ashcroft sued Oracle in 2004 to try to block an earlier acquisition by the company.

Ashcroft's clients also include ChoicePoint, a data broker that sells credit reports and other personal information to the FBI and other federal agencies.

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