Indiana

New Attack or Old Argument

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Indiana Democrats  are continuing their line of attack against Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dan Coats regarding his lobbying activity.

State Chairman Dan Parker Tuesday called on Coats to fully disclose the list of lobbying clients that he worked for while in D.C.  and said Coats can’t hide behind attorney-client privilege for two reasons.

First, attorney-client privilege as defined by the American Bar Association, of which I used to be a member, does not prohibit an attorney from disclosing the clients he lobbied for.  Secondly, the Democrats say Coats hasn’t been a registered attorney in Indiana since May of 2003.  They also say he never registered to practice law in Maryland, Virginia or North Carolina.

The Coats campaign tells me that he’s has never claimed attorney-client privilege prevents them from releasing an accurate list of clients. They say they are double-checking the list to ensure its accuracy and plan to release everything they can in time.   However, in an interview two weeks ago with ABC News, Coats did acknowledge some “difficulties with disclosure owing to attorney-client privilege.”

“I’m willing to sit down and explain it,” Coats said. “The problem is attorney-client relationship. So it’s a dilemma in the sense that you can’t — you’re not in a position to disclose the positive in any kind of detail of what you did for them, but you’re vulnerable to whatever the negative for whatever they say that it was.”

In addition, the campaign also accused the Democrats of attempting to change the subject away from Brad Ellsworth’s votes on health care and federal bailouts.

Frankly, if I were the Coats people I would put everything I could out right now while no one is really paying attention.  And then when it comes up in the fall, call it old news.  Otherwise this thing is really going to snowball out of control.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on May 26, 2010 (boomark / email).