Conflict of Interest

Source: The Hill, May 1, 2005 Taken from PR Watch
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is opening a lobbying firm, the Ashcroft Group, to provide "strategic consulting, security and internal investigative services, and crisis counseling" to countries, corporations, and industry and political associations. According to a spokesperson, the new firm expects "to grow rapidly." Ashcroft Group staff include David Ayres, formerly Ashcroft's chief of staff, and Juleanna Glover Weiss, a lobbyist at the Clark & Weinstock firm, where she "helped the Iraqi Governing Council's U.S. rep on 'messaging'," according to O'Dwyer's PR Daily. Previously, Glover Weiss was Vice-President Dick Cheney's press secretary. The Center for Responsive Politics' Larry Noble said Ashcroft is "clearly trading off the whole anti-terrorism and 9/11 aspect of his being attorney general. ... I think he'll probably find it very profitable."