George W. Bush's rising political fortunes provided a windfall for Harriet Miers' law firm.
Campaign records show Bush's Texas gubernatorial campaigns paid Miers a total of $163,000 in legal fees, most of it for work done during the future president's 1998 re-election bid.
Some senators are planning to explore Miers' legal work for Bush during her confirmation process to be the newest Supreme Court justice, but the White House says it won't release any memos detailing that work.
"I'm baffled," said Randall B. Wood, a partner in the Austin firm of Ray, Wood and Bonilla, and former director of Common Cause of Texas. "I've never seen that kind of money spent on a campaign lawyer. It's unprecedented."
Dana Perrino, a White House spokeswoman, said the legal fees to Miers' firm were for routine campaign work, but declined to be more specific. Presidential aides declined to say whether Miers ever worked on researching Bush's past, such as his military record.
Former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, a Democrat who was defeated handily by Bush in the 1998 campaign, said both the amount and the timing of the payments are curious. In late September, when Miers' firm received the first of two $70,000 payments, Mauro said he trailed Bush in the polls by 35 points.
"If they're spending that kind of money," said Mauro, now an Austin attorney who estimates he spent less than $20,000 on legal fees during the campaign, "they're spending it to protect themselves from something."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051021/ap_on_go_su_co/miers_campaign_windfall
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