Surprise Surprise

This is ridiculous

Washington - The lawyer who recommended the American Bar Association's highest rating for controversial appellate judge candidate Miguel Estrada took part in partisan Republican activities during his term as a nonpartisan judicial nomination evaluator for the Bar, according to records and interviews.

While serving on the ABA's nonpartisan Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, veteran Washington lawyer Fred F. Fielding also worked for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team, accepted an appointment from the Bush administration and helped found a group to promote and run ads supporting Bush judicial nominees, including Estrada.

Fielding evaluated Estrada in the month after President George W. Bush nominated him on May 9, 2001, ABA officials said. That was just weeks after Fielding vetted executive appointments for Bush's transition team and a year before he helped start the partisan Committee for Justice, records show.

The overlap has thrust Fielding - and his evaluation that led to the 15-member ABA Standing Committee's unanimous vote to rate Estrada "well qualified" - into the heated political battle over Estrada's nomination to the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a stepping-stone to the Supreme Court.