Judge Sack's Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher/Bush White House Connection?

If you check out the May 1, 2009 financial disclosure form that Columbia Law School faculty member Robert D. Sack filed for 2008 (which is posted on the Judicial Watchdog website at ( http://www.judicialwatch.org/judge/sack-robert-d ), you’ll notice that the federal appellate court judge who wrote the recent unjust legal decision in the Lynne Stewart Case was paid $7,500 by Columbia Law School in 2008. In addition, Judge Sack apparently also received $72,000 in 2008 from the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP Retirement Plan—at the same time he was employed as both a federal court judge and a lecturer at Columbia Law School.

Coincidentally, the lawyer who served as the principal legal advisor to the National Security Council in the Bush White House, Michael Edney, now works in the Washington, D.C. office of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP firm whose “retirement plan” apparently paid Judge Sack $72,000 in 2008. As a press release, titled “Former White House Legal Advisor Returns to Gibson Dunn in D.C.,” that was posted on the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP website on May 13, 2009 revealed:

“Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP welcomes back Michael J. Edney to its Washington, D.C. office after four years of high-level Executive Branch experience in the White House and the Department of Justice. Edney rejoins the approximately 125-lawyer litigation practice group in the Washington, D.C. office, including more than a dozen former Department of Justice attorneys….From 2007 to 2009, Edney served as a principal legal advisor to the National Security Council in the White House. In that position, he participated in crafting and implementing the Administration’s response to national security legal matters in the courts, before Congress, and in the public….

“Edney resumes his litigation practice at Gibson Dunn after a four-year absence…He joined the Office of Legal Counsel in the United States Department of Justice in 2005, where he provided legal advice on the most difficult constitutional and statutory issues facing the Executive Branch…He brings to Gibson Dunn a wide knowledge of the Department of Justice’s civil litigation and criminal enforcement practices. In 2007, he joined the National Security Council staff in the White House, where he served among a small group of legal crisis management experts responsible for national security…His responsibilities included advising senior White House policymakers and reaching consensus among the senior lawyers of the Executive Branch on the most serious national security legal questions confronting the Nation….”

A former Assistant United States Attorney named Alexander Southwell also began working in 2007 at the New York office of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP firm whose “retirement plan” apparently paid Judge Sack $72,000 in 2008. As a July 24, 2007 press release on the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP website noted:

“…Mr. Southwell joins a number of former Assistant U.S. Attorneys at Gibson Dunn, including Jarrett Arp, Robert Blume, Robert Bonner (U.S. Attorney, Cent. Dist. of Calif.), David Burns, David Debold, Lee Dunst, Miguel Estrada, Michael Farhang, Douglas Fuchs, Nicola Hanna, Peter Jaffe, Randy Mastro, Marcellus McRae, Orin Snyder, John Sturc, Maurice Suh, Jim Walden, Joseph Warin, Gregory Whitehair, and Debra Wong Yang (U.S. Attorney, Cent. Dist. of Calif.).

“Mr. Southwell served from 2001 through 2007 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.”