Even before he gets the presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain has done something presidential.
Like former President Bill Clinton, McCain has hired high-profile lawyer Robert S. Bennett to help him get by a little scandal. (Story continues below interactive map.)
Clinton used Bennett, a partner in the Washington firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, to defend him against charges leveled by Paula Jones.
Bennett is doing damage control for McCain in the wake of a story first published on The New York Times website Wednesday.
The story, published in the print edition today, suggests McCain may have had a romantic relationship with a lobbyist several years ago. It also suggests that McCain may have used his position to benefit her clients.
The story reports that McCain aides were worried about the appearance of a relationship between McCain and Vicki Iseman, a telecommunications lobbyist.
McCain today said the story is “not true” and that Iseman is simply a friend.
Defending McCain, Bennett, who was once described as having a “proven rapport with the media,” appeared on television and was widely quoted in print.
“There is no evidence that John McCain ever breached the public trust, and that is the issue and the only issue,” he told NBC’s Today show today.
On Fox News Wednesday night, Bennett called the Times story “a real hit job.”
Howard Kurtz, media columnist for The Washington Post, had written in December that McCain had hired Bennett to deal with rumors that linked McCain to a then unidentified media lobbyist.
“What is being done to John McCain is an outrage,” Bennett told Kurtz then. He also said that he had sent the Times answers to questions about the rumored affair.
In comments Wednesday and today in the wake of the Times story, Bennett alleges that the newspaper ignored many examples he supplied of times when McCain had taken stances unfavorable to Iseman’s clients.
Writing today, Kurtz states that “the McCain/Bennett strategy, of course, is to make the Times the issue.”
Whatever the strategy, Bennett has substantial experience trying his cases in the court of public opinion.
In addition to representing Clinton, Bennett represented Paul Wolfowitz, whose time as the head of the World Bank was cut short because of allegations that he used his influence on behalf of his girlfriend.
Bennett was also the lawyer for New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was charged with contempt of court for not revealing a source. And, in other cases, he represented Clark Clifford, the former secretary of defense, and Caspar Weinberger, also a former secretary of defense.
The brother of William Bennett, the conservative commentator and former Secretary of Education, Robert Bennett is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former federal prosecutor.
A former boxer, he’s also the author of In the Ring: The Trials of a Washington Lawyer.
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