March 30, 2016

DC Madam's lawyer wants to release her phone records, claims it affects presidential campaign

MSNBC - Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran a DC-area escort service for several years, before getting caught by the police. As part of her legal defense, Palfrey’s lawyers said they would expose the service’s client list – not by releasing a list of names, but by releasing phone records.

One of those numbers, we now know, was traced back to Louisiana’s right-wing Republican senator, David Vitter, who ran on a “family values” platform.

But what’s easy to forget nearly a decade later is that the matter wasn’t fully resolved: the full phone records were never released.

Palfrey was eventually convicted, and in 2008, she committed suicide. Her attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, says he’s the sole legal custodian of the escort service’s phone records, which he still has, and which he’s now eager to release.

So why doesn’t he just hold a press conference and share the materials? Because in 2007, as part of the case, a judge issued a court order, keeping those phone records under wraps.

Sibley, however, now wants to release the documents, and in fact, believes it’s in the public’s interest for him to do so. As Rachel explained last night, Sibley argued in his court filings that the materials from the D.C. Madam case “contain information relevant to the upcoming presidential election.”

In his latest filing with the Supreme Court, the lawyer added, “Time is of the essence. Given the significance of the upcoming political primaries and caucuses, in the looming Republican and Democratic conventions on July 18th and July 25th respectively, and given the impact of the presently sealed from the public record that this attorney seeks to release, upon those electoral deliberations, expedited resolution to this application is incumbent upon this court.”

Sibley went on to argue, “The delay by this court and resolution of this application in hindsight will intentionally favor one presidential candidate over others by protecting that candidate from the release of the D.C. madam phone records, which the attorney maintains are relevant to this election cycle.”

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any wagers on Ted Cruz?

Anonymous said...

No, Cruz wasn't even in Washington at that time. Not till years later. Of the current candidates there were only two in DC during that period, Clinton and Sanders. Who would be more likely to engage an escort service, Bill or Bernie?

Anonymous said...

Beg to differ anon 4:33. Cruz clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist in 2996, from '97-98 held a position at DC law firm Cooper & Kirk and was private council to John Boehner, following that he became a policy adviser to G W Bush in 1999. It wasn't until 2003 that Cruz returned to Texas as Solicitor General. However, within that capacity, Cruz presented nine oral argument before the United States Supreme Court. So, it seems old Teddy had lots of opportunity to troll for whores in DC.
As for bets, all in on Cruz might not be such a bad play.

Anonymous said...

Notice the phrasing, "that candidate", as opposed to "him." I suspect it's Hillary

Alternative Housing said...

Very unlikely to be Bernie. So it's either Bill or Ted.

LJansen said...

I dunno. Bernie got in trouble writing some sexual fantasy stuff in his 20s.