Friday, Jul 4, 2008
Whenever there's a vast right-wing conspiracy, Judge Laurence Silberman keeps turning up.
Feb 10, 2004 | Judge Laurence Silberman, George Bush's nominee to co-chair the commission investigating U.S. intelligence on Iraq, knows quite a bit about the murky intersection between facts and ideology. The senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington has been near the febrile center of the largest political scandals of the past two decades, from the rumored "October surprise" of 1980 and the Iran-contra trials to the character assassination of Anita Hill and the impeachment of President Clinton. Whenever right-wing conspiracies swing into action, Silberman is there.
A veteran of the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan administrations who is close to Vice President Dick Cheney, Silberman has a reputation as a fierce ideologue who doesn't let his judicial responsibilities get in the way of his Republican activism. David Brock, the repentant former right-wing journalist and Silberman protégé, describes his former mentor as "an extreme partisan" who seems to relish "the political wars." Kevin Phillips, the former Nixon staffer who authored the recent "The Bush Dynasty," said on NPR on Monday, "In the past, Silberman has been more involved with coverups in the Middle East than with any attempts to unravel them." Ralph Neas, president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, calls him "the most partisan and most political federal judge in the country" and says his appointment is "stunning and disgraceful."
Silberman's panel, which is supposed to investigate U.S. intelligence on Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Afghanistan, won't report its findings until March 2005, long after the presidential election. Silberman will be balanced on it by other more moderate or more independent figures, including co-chair Charles Robb, a former Democratic senator and Virginia governor; Republican Sen. John McCain; and Judge Patricia Wald, Silberman's colleague on D.C. Circuit Court, a woman he is said to hate.
Yet Silberman's place at the head of the commission has already raised doubts about its credibility, given that Silberman has often behaved as if his paramount role as a federal judge is to protect Republicans, persecute Democrats and slander anyone who disagrees.
"My guess is that he's on there for protection," says Neas. "To protect the president at all costs and to do what he's done in the past with respect to protecting Republican presidents from scrutiny. I think he envisions himself as a mastermind behind many right-wing initiatives, whether it's helping guide Clarence Thomas through the confirmation hearings or helping guide David Brock through all the anti-Clinton initiatives."
Besides his commitment to Republican power, Silberman is known for his temper. Several years ago, he told colleague Abner Mikva, "If you were 10 years younger, I'd be tempted to punch you in the nose."
"He's very volatile," says Brock, whose 2002 book, "Blinded by the Right," was a mea culpa for his career as a conservative operative. "He has certainly made derisive comments about many journalists and about his colleagues on the bench. Those comments were intemperate."
Of course, given his own admitted transgressions, Brock himself might not be considered a reliable source. Still, as a report on Silberman from the Alliance for Justice, a liberal group working "to promote a fair and independent judiciary," points out, Silberman has never sought to disprove or deny any of Brock's charges that he worked behind the scenes to bring down Republican foes like Hill and Clinton. Similarly, the report says, "None of Silberman's friends and allies -- those in a position to refute Brock's charges and with an interest in doing so -- have yet challenged a single claim he made."
Silberman's sojourn in the world of political scandal began during the run-up to the 1980 presidential election when, as a member of Ronald Reagan's campaign staff, he, along with Robert C. McFarlane, a former staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Richard V. Allen, Reagan's chief foreign policy representative, met with a man claiming to be an Iranian government emissary. The Iranian offered to delay the release of the 52 American hostages being held in Tehran until after the election -- thus contributing to Carter's defeat -- in exchange for arms.
A controversy continues to rage over whether the Reagan team made a bargain with the Iranians, as alleged by Gary Sick, a former National Security Council aide in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations who now teaches at Columbia University. Yet no one denies that the meeting Silberman was at took place, and although Silberman has said the Iranian's offer was immediately rejected, none of the three Reagan operatives ever told the Carter administration what had happened. McFarlane, Allen and Silberman have all since insisted that they don't know the name of the Iranian man they met with.
After working for Reagan's election, Silberman was rewarded with an appointment to the D.C. Court of Appeals, the second most powerful court in the country. After the Iran-contra scandal, he was part of a three-judge panel that voted 2-to-1 to reverse Oliver North's felony conviction. Voting with him was David Sentelle, a protégé of Jesse Helms who according to Brock named his daughter "Reagan" after the president who put him on the bench.
In his book "Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up," Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, a Republican who served as deputy attorney general during the Dwight Eisenhower administration, described Silberman as "aggressively hostile" during oral arguments. Walsh wrote that he regretted not moving to disqualify him.
The year after he ruled North innocent, Silberman joined in the right-wing campaign to defame Anita Hill, who had accused Clarence Thomas, George H.W. Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment. It was during the attack on Hill that the Silbermans took Brock under their wing.
Brock met Silberman through his wife, Ricky Silberman, who had worked under Thomas at the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission and served as a source for a story Brock wrote about Thomas' confirmation hearings.
In 1992, after Thomas had been confirmed, Brock began researching "The Real Anita Hill," a savage assault on Hill's character that Brock later apologized for. Laurence Silberman was a source for the book, feeding Brock gossip. "Judge Silberman speculated that Hill was a lesbian, 'acting out,'" Brock wrote in "Blinded by the Right." "Besides, Silberman confided, Thomas would never have asked Hill for a date: Did I know she had bad breath?"
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