Senate Ethics Complaint Filed Against Senator Kennedy and Former Aides

"...Through their efforts to influence a pending court case, Kennedy, Johnson, and Barnes have brought disrepute on the U.S. Senate," said Jeffrey Mazzella...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 28, 2004

Contact: Jeffrey Mazzella

703.535.5836

Center Files Senate Ethics Complaint Against Senator Kennedy and His Former Aides Johnson and Barnes

"Through their efforts to influence a pending court case, Kennedy, Johnson, and Barnes have brought disrepute on the U.S. Senate," says CFIF Executive Director

Alexandria, VA — The Center for Individual Freedom today filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics against Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and two of his former aides, Olati Johnson and Melody Barnes.

The complaint stems from an April 17, 2002, Memorandum written to Senator Kennedy from Johnson, in which Johnson and Barnes recommended that the Senator delay action on a judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit for the sole purpose of manipulating and influencing the outcome of the University of Michigan affirmative action cases then pending before that court. At the time, Johnson was Senator Kennedy’s Judiciary Counsel and Barnes served as his Chief Counsel.

On April 6, the Center revealed that Johnson, prior to joining Senator Kennedy’s staff, was a lawyer at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and was co-counsel in one of the cases supporting the University of Michigan’s undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy. Johnson’s and Barnes’ recommendation resulted from a request by Elaine Jones, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP LDF, to delay all judicial confirmations to the 6^th Circuit. Jones was also counsel in the case.

The Center’s complaint charges Kennedy and his former aides with engaging in "improper conduct reflecting on the United States Senate" and behavior that is contrary to the "generally accepted standards of conduct" for a Member of the United States Senate, his staff and staff members of a standing committee of the U.S. Senate. The Center’s complaint expands upon an ethics complaint filed by Judicial Watch, Inc., on December 2, 2003.

There is no publicly available record of how Kennedy acted in response to the memo, and he has refused to publicly discuss the subject. Judge Gibbons was not confirmed until July 29, 2002, nearly two months after the 6^th Circuit ruled 5-4 in favor of Johnson’s and Jones’ position.

"The Senate cannot allow its Members and staff to use their official positions to interfere in the impartial administration of justice. Through their efforts to influence a pending court case, Kennedy, Johnson, and Barnes have brought disrepute on the U.S. Senate," said Jeffrey Mazzella, the Center’s Executive Director. "It’s time for the Ethics Committee to investigate and punish their wrongdoing."

"We hope this complaint will be a vehicle for other members of the Senate, especially those in leadership, to condemn what Senator Kennedy and his staff tried to do. For the judicial confirmation process to be abused in this way is truly disturbing. The only way to begin to repair the process and fully understand the extent of the obvious ethical transgressions that took place is to fully investigate and condemn this sort of behavior," Mazzella concluded.

The Center for Individual Freedom (www.cfif.org) is a nonpartisan constitutional advocacy group that fights to protect individual freedom and rights in the legal, legislative and educational arenas. Since 2001, the Center’s Confirmation Watch project has worked to expose and eliminate the corruption and manipulation that plagues the judicial confirmation process in the United States Senate. On April 6, 2004, the Center was the first organization to reveal the identities of the Kennedy staffers involved in the controversial April 17, 2002 memo.

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To download a copy of the Center’s complaint, click here (pdf).

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