ROSS: We told her that we would take it seriously, that it was a potentially important story. Her point is that she runs an operation that she claims offered no sex. And that she sees it as hypocritical that the government is going after her and the women who worked for her and not the men. The phone lists were in her home when the Federal agents raided it. But they were not interested in apparently the names of the men, only the women who worked for her. So she thinks that it is hypocritical. Secondly, she wants to call some of these men to testify on her behalf. She's turned down a deal, a plea bargain deal from the government and wants to go to trial.
While I think the clients have legitimate privacy claims if they were committing no crimes, the flip side is that the the Feds have indicted her based on the idea that there were crimes committed but that any legal issues related to the men should just be ignored. Whether or not she was running an illegal prostitution ring, the Bush Justice Department is claiming she did.
That does complicate the issue quite a bit. She obviously has a legitimate right to expose her clients in order to use them in her defense. The fact that cracking down on prostitution is a Bush DOJ initiative also makes it more justifiable to highlight any Bushies who get entangled with it, as they are being implicitly accused of criminal activity by that DOJ even if it is unconcerned with those crimes.
Media outlets have a tough call here. Any name they release is a choice both to name that one and to not name others. Rumors (true or not) about who they haven't named will be used to accuse the media outlets of covering for some people but not others.
Anyway, the legal consensual sexual activities of private citizens really shouldn't be media fodder. Prominent politicians are always open to gross hypocrisy charges, which makes them potentially fair game. It's a bit murkier for non-prominent government officials.
Should be interesting...