Thursday, February 13, 2014

Rand Paul Cancels Conference Call Scheduled with Reporters Amidst Accusations of His "Stealing" Lawsuit

WaPo's Dana Milbank writes:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been caught using purloined passages in several of his speeches. Now the aspiring presidential candidate stands accused of filing a lawsuit stolen from its author.

Since December, the libertarian lawmaker, a tea party favorite, had been working with former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein to draft a class-action suit seeking to have the National Security Agency’s surveillance of telephone data declared unconstitutional; the two men appeared together as early as last June to denounce the NSA’s activities.

But when Paul filed his suit at the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday morning, Fein’s name had been replaced with that of Ken Cuccinelli, the failed Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia who until last month had been the state’s attorney general. Cuccinelli has never argued a case in that courthouse, and he isn’t even a member of the D.C. bar (he also filed a motion Wednesday seeking an exception to allow him to argue this case in D.C.). But he is, like Paul, a tea party darling.

Fein, who has not been paid in full for his legal work by Paul’s political action committee, was furious that he had been omitted from the filing he wrote. “I am aghast and shocked by Ken Cuccinelli’s behavior and his absolute knowledge that this entire complaint was the work product, intellectual property and legal genius of Bruce Fein,” Mattie Fein, his ex-wife and spokeswoman, told me Wednesday. “Ken Cuccinelli stole the suit,” she said, adding that Paul, who “already has one plagiarism issue, now has a lawyer who just takes another lawyer’s work product.”

After the morning news conference announcing the suit, Cuccinelli told me that “Bruce Fein will be brought in later.”

But a Jan. 15 draft of the complaint written by Fein has long passages that are nearly identical to those in the complaint Cuccinelli filed Wednesday. Except for some cuts and minor wording changes, they are clearly the same documents.

For example, Fein’s version said, “When the MATP was disclosed by Edward Snowden, public opinion polls showed widespread opposition to the dragnet collection, storage, retention, and search of telephony metadata collected on every domestic or international phone call made or received by citizens or permanent resident aliens in the United States.”

Cuccinelli’s version said, “Since the MATP was publicly disclosed, public opinion polls showed widespread opposition to the dragnet collection, storage, retention, and search of telephone metadata collected on every domestic or international phone call made or received by citizens or permanent resident aliens in the United States.”

Fein wrote: “On information and belief, Defendants’ Mass Associational Tracking Program since its commencement in May 2006 has not stopped or been instrumental in stopping even one imminent international terrorist attack or has otherwise assisted Defendants in achieving any time-sensitive objective.”

Cuccinelli’s version: “Upon information and belief, since its commencement in May 2006, Defendants’ Mass Associational Tracking Program has not stopped or been instrumental in stopping even one imminent international terrorist attack or otherwise assisted Defendants in achieving any time-sensitive objective.”

The unceremonious jettisoning of a constitutional lawyer in favor of the man best known for his unsuccessful suit to have Obamacare declared unconstitutional suggests that Paul’s legal action has more to do with politics than the law.

Read the rest here.

11 comments:

  1. Rand Paul is a voracious parasite who who has shown a complete inability to restrain his conniving subconscious mind from acting like the prostituted little quisling that he is at his core. Rand is so blind to his own ambition that he thought he could get away with a shafting one of the finest constitutional lawyers of our time. What a complete and utter moron he is revealing himself to be, but this is the quality of enlightened brilliance one should expect from a darling of the Tea Party dullards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/13/msnbc-rand-paul-didnt-plagiarize-his-nsa

      Read. Do note this entire story came from the ex-wife of the lawyer "making the statement he wasnt paid for his work. Said lawyer stated this story is blatantly false and is wondering why mainstream media is writing stories about him without asking for his confirmation. So much for unbiased journalism

      Delete
    2. http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/13/msnbc-rand-paul-didnt-plagiarize-his-nsa

      Read. Do note this entire story came from the ex-wife of the lawyer "making the statement he wasnt paid for his work. Said lawyer stated this story is blatantly false and is wondering why mainstream media is writing stories about him without asking for his confirmation. So much for unbiased journalism

      Delete
  2. They should have paid the man. Then he would have no standing (and no beef).

    I'm sure it's an oversight...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course you're sure.
      Rand Paul sycophants think he is the next Jesus and can do no wrong.
      It's all part of the secret plan.

      Delete
    2. Bruce himself says he was paid.

      “Mattie Lolavar was not speaking for me,” Fein said in the email. “Her quotes were her own and did not represent my views. I was working on a legal team, and have been paid for my work.” Bruce Fein confirmed to msnbc that the email was from him.

      Delete
  3. Paul doing something just as a political stunt???? fancy that!

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  4. It's very amusing watching libertarian purists attack Rand because he isn't a Murray Rothbard clone. Here is a news flash for you - THIS ISN'T A LIBERTARIAN COUNTRY ANYMORE. It hasn't been since at least the 1930's. If you want to be a major political figure and not just a crazy uncle act like Rand's dad then you have to play the game by the establishment rules. Sorry if that bothers you but it is what it is.

    At any rate it doesn't matter because this country is finished. We are on the fast track to a Euro-Weenie style corporate fascist, enviro-police state and there is nothing to be done about that because the majority of Americans like being enslaved, lied to, exploited and abused. Ron Paul couldn't stop that, Rand can't stop it and when Hillary gets elected President she will put the final nail in the coffin.

    P.S. You folks at EPJ must be so proud of yourselves now that you have stooped to being messenger boys for the slimy regime sycophants at WaPo. You know what they say about laying down with dogs and waking up with flees don't you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll keep it short so you can comprehend it:

      Stupid is as stupid does.

      Delete
    2. THIS ISN'T A LIBERTARIAN COUNTRY ANYMORE. It hasn't been since at least the 1930's."

      Newsflash: America has NEVER been a libertarian country. The question begs: who gives a shit?

      "If you want to be a major political figure and not just a crazy uncle act like Rand's dad then you have to play the game by the establishment rules."

      That's funny. To my recollection not many major polls have Rand boy in the running in the top of the Republicans running for the white house, while the GOP was getting hysterical over Ron Paul last time around. Rand is not even in the top three in most polls. So much for "playing by the establishment's rules" to be able to win.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_Republican_Party_2016_presidential_primaries

      Question: why the HELL would anyone care about some milquetoast wannabe when they can get the full blown real thing? For most people, Rand Paul is neither fish nor fowl.
      Ron Paul converted many people to libertarianism and THAT is what we're concerned with. Not some dumb ass thinking whether or not somebody will win the four year popularity contest for statist whores.

      "At any rate it doesn't matter because this country is finished. We are on the fast track to a Euro-Weenie style corporate fascist, enviro-police state and there is nothing to be done about that because the majority of Americans like being enslaved, lied to, exploited and abused. "

      Hey, we actually agree here. Except that America has become that long ago already.
      And except that i don't kiss Rand Paul's ass thinking that he is not part of what makes America this way.

      "P.S. You folks at EPJ must be so proud of yourselves now that you have stooped to being messenger boys for the slimy regime sycophants at WaPo."

      That's funny. You just described yourself: a messenger boy for the slimy regime sycophant (Rand Paul).

      Delete
  5. MSNBC.com just issued a retraction on the Rand Paul lawsuit "plagiarism" story. The lawyer that first drafted the papers says that he was fully paid for his services and that it was his ex-wife who made the accusation of plagiarism against Paul, not him.

    ReplyDelete