Perkins Coie’s Myriad Roles Raise DNC Conflict Questions
Beck/Law.com: Perkins Coie’s domination of the Democratic federal election scene has long been a point of pride for the firm and the envy of its competitors.
But now, with the uproar triggered by the release of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, the firm’s multiple roles for Democratic committees and candidates have raised questions about potential conflicts, and whether these conflicts contributed to the DNC’s troubles.
Since at least March 2015, Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias, chair of the firm’s political law practice, has been lead outside counsel to Hillary Clinton for America, the presidential candidate’s campaign entity. Elias’ partner, Graham Wilson, has worked with him for the Clinton campaign. (For her ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton did not use Perkins Coie, having instead relied on Lyn Utrecht of Washington, D.C.’s Utrecht, Kleinfeld, Fiori, Partners.)
In another corner of Perkins Coie’s office in Washington, D.C., is partner Robert Bauer, a former White House counsel to President Barack Obama. Bauer now serves as lead outside counsel to the DNC.
Since March 2015, the Clinton campaign has paid the firm $905,219.93, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Perkins Coie has also earned at least $1,318,375.92 from DNC affiliates, including $657,340.20 from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $661,035.72 from the DNC Services Corp. (Expenditure filings for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are not available electronically.)
A review of DNC emailsposted online by WikiLeaks raises questions about whether Perkins Coie lawyers blurred the lines between its clients. Elias, the Clinton campaign’s lead counsel, was included in several email exchanges in which DNC staffers discussed strategy. In one email, Elias urged DNC officials to attack Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for allegedly lying when he accused the DNC of improperly using campaign money in a “Joint Victory Fund” to help Clinton.
Both Bauer, counsel to the DNC, and Wilson, counsel to the Clinton campaign, are included in other email discussions about how to defuse this issue with the press.
“I can understand why the Sanders’ campaign might be uncomfortable with this,” said Lawrence Noble, general counsel of the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, about Perkins Coie’s multiple roles. Noble, a former general counsel at the FEC, also previously worked in the political law group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. “If Perkins Coie represents the party people, and you’re not represented by Perkins Coie, you may feel you’re at a disadvantage,” Noble said.
The Sanders campaign, which has now publicly thrown its support behind Clinton at the Democratic National Convention this week in Philadelphia, declined to comment on the matter. Perkins Coie did not return requests for comment.
Two lawyers who do political work and asked not to be named said Perkins Coie’s near monopoly on federal Democratic politics has drawn criticism before this scandal erupted. One said it wasn’t a good idea for the DNC to be advised by the same firm that’s representing one of the party’s candidates. “You really do have to be careful about appearances as well as actual conflicts,” this person said.
The leaked emails have roiled the Democratic Party nomination process because they indicate that some DNC officials tried to sabotage Sanders’ presidential campaign. Sanders supporters heckled DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who resigned Sunday as a result of the controversy, during an appearance Monday that showed some Democratic disunity in the City of Brotherly Love.
The DNC has professed publicly that it did not favor Clinton before she became the party’s official nominee. On Monday it issued a statement offering “a deep and sincere apology” to Sanders, his supporters and the Democratic Party “for the inexcusable remarks made over emails.” The organization added: “These comments do not reflect the values of the DNC or our steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process.”
The Republicans have not concentrated so much of their work in one law firm. The Republican National Committee is using more than a dozen firms, according to FEC filings, with no firm earning more than $45,000 in the month of May, the most recent month for which data is available. The RNC is relying on at least one major firm that also represents nominee Donald Trump—it paid $13,367.46 in May to Jones Day, but that was not the RNC’s largest payment to a law firm.
Katelyn Polantz and Meghan Tribe contributed to the reporting of this story.
**** As a reminder going back to 2008, Bob Bauer worked for the Obama campaign and was for a time White House counsel. His wife, Anita Dunn –> Anita Dunn: A corruptocrat flack and a Mao cheerleader Oh and another item from history, Shore Bank.
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Attorney Robert Bauer has been mentioned as a possible pick for White House Counsel in an Obama administration. The ABA Journal recently assessed his chances:
HuffPo: As a partisan regular with a street-fighter’s zeal, Bauer has earned a reputation among some Republicans as the “focus of all evil.” But they weren’t all that crazy about him in the Hillary Clinton campaign either. In March, Bauer crashed a Clinton campaign conference call with reporters, calling into question a charge that Obama workers had violated Texas party rules during post-primary caucuses. An early Obama supporter, Bauer is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post website.
He helped represent Minority Leader Tom Daschle during the Senate impeachment trial of Bill Clinton and was general counsel to Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign. He’s considered one of the nation’s top experts on the intricacies of campaign finance and writes about it regularly on More Soft Money Hard Law, a law blog devoted to campaign finance.
Bauer has also blogged for HuffPost. Read his work here.
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