Past as lobbyist may play into future as candidate (Fred Thompson)

[maddezmom]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON — When Fred Thompson was investigating alleged campaign-finance abuses as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs committee in 1997, one of his targets was Harold Ickes — a top aide and fundraiser for President Clinton.

Over the past three years, though, the former Republican senator and the Democratic powerbroker were on the same side of a big legislative battle. Both were part of a team of lobbyists for Equitas Ltd., a British reinsurance company set up to handle billions of dollars in claims by asbestos victims, lobbying records show.

That unlikely pairing offers an insight into Thompson, 64, who declared his interest last week in running for president. Although the folksy-sounding Tennessean recently told USA TODAY that he would run an outsider, just as he did while campaigning as a "country lawyer" in a red pickup during his 1994 U.S. Senate race, his résumé is that of a longtime Washington operative who has crossed ideological lines to represent corporate and foreign clients.

~snip~

After he left the Senate in 2003, Thompson resumed his acting career with a role as the district attorney on TV's Law & Order. Less visibly, he registered in 2004 as a lobbyist for Equitas, a company created to manage the asbestos liability for Lloyd's of London.

Equitas hired a bevy of lobbyists to protect its interests in the proposal to set up a federal trust fund, paid for by insurers, asbestos-makers and others, to compensate asbestos victims. The bill failed to pass, but before that happened, Equitas got what it wanted: a change in a provision the company said singled out foreign insurers for unfavorable treatment. Jon Nash, a firm spokesman, on Wednesday credited Thompson as having "contributed to the successful outcome."

The company paid Thompson $760,000 from 2004 to 2006, according to Senate records.







Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-06-06-thompson-resume_N.htm

[salin]

1. Good - the Thompson "outsider" myth gets busted in the msm.

Glad to read that. Hopefully his "rivals" will pick up on the background and start hammering away at the "Washington outsider" bogus marketing being used by Thompson.

[silvermachine]

2. Exactly...

...I think the deeper they dig, a truer portrait of this pompous goon will begin to emerge. He reminds me of Tom Clancy, another RW blowhard with a media/celebrity platform to hold forth ad nauseum about why the poor, minorities and others are making his life so difficult.