Filip, Scalia, 2000 Florida election recount, and Clement connection.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher, BuzzFlash.com
November 26, 2007

All you had to know about the newly nominated second in command at the Justice Department, the Deputy Attorney General to AG Mukasey, is the final paragraph of a November 16 Chicago Tribune article: "After clerking for [Antonin] Scalia, [Mark] Filip returned to Chicago rather than stay in Washington and pursue the kind of career track that traditionally leads to a choice government appointment. He did, however, work as a volunteer Republican vote counter in Florida during the 2000 election recount."

Ah yes, how much fun the mainstream press is! Reading a "news" article is really like hunting for buried treasure. And then you have to connect the dots on your own.

Filip, who is currently a federal judge in the Northern Illinois District (Scalia swore him in), was appointed in 2004 to the bench by George W. Bush. And, as we recently noted in a series on Republican judicial appointments, they don’t put "freelancers" on the bench, just reliable partisan judges.

Also worthy of note in the Tribune article is this statement: "As a contender for the deputy job, it couldn't have hurt Filip that one of his close friends is Paul Clement, the U.S. solicitor general, and a rising legal star. Filip and Clement are part of a network of former Scalia clerks who keep in touch."

Good grief, it’s the Federalist Society cabal run amuck!

Meanwhile, in checking out Filip’s "close friend," Bush’s Solicitor General Clement, we discovered that Clement not only clerked for Scalia, he also spent time as a protégé under the infamous Laurence Silberman, who advised the Ken Starr crew on how to impeach Bill Clinton while serving on the D.C. Appellate Court.

It gets worse as far as Mark Filip’s good buddy. A January 16, 2004, Law.com article hailed that "Paul Clement leads the charge in defending the administration's tactics in the war on terror."

To be fair, the Chicago Tribune article was filled with lavish praise for what a resourceful, intelligent and hardworking attorney (and former prosecutor) Filip is. But that’s what we read about Alito, Roberts and – way back when – Scalia too.

We’d like to know more about Filip’s stint as a "volunteer Republican vote counter in Florida during the 2000 election recount," but do we really need to?

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve already connected the dots, and what we’ve got is someone who, once again, is a product of the Federalist Society – whether he is personally a member or not -- soldiers in the jurist army of the GOP.

Maybe the White House put Filip as second in command at the DOJ to watch over Mukasey.

But we doubt Mukasey will be running too far astray of the White House. Before he was appointed AG by Bush, Mukasey was the chief advisor to Rudy Giuliani on who he should appoint to the judiciary if he were to be elected president.

Are you getting the full picture now?

We are.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/011

On a side note: While in law school at Harvard, Filip was listed as vice president of the school's chapter of the Federalist Society.