Feeble Ethical Defense of the Day
According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/washington/23justice.html" target="”_blank”">an
article</a> in today's New York <span>Times</span>,
a spokesperson for Christopher Christie, the U.S. Attorney for New
Jersey, spoke in defense of an agreement made with Bristol-Myers Squibb to avoid
its prosecution, which agreement called for the company to endow a
chair at Seton Hall University Law School, which happens to be Mr. Christie's alma mater. The spokesperson said that the particular endowment was first suggested by lawyers for the
company: "It was an idea we endorsed, but it was not something we
came up with."<br>
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Is this the best defense against charges of unethical conduct that such
an important prosecutor could come up with?<br>
<br>
Mr. Christie clearly did not want to acknowledge the concept of
appearance of impropriety. Does he really think that anyone would
believe that, of all the possible charitable acts Bristol-Myers Squibb
could come up with, its choice would be giving money to Mr. Christie's
alma mater? When it comes to the appearance of impropriety, it doesn't
matter whether the prosecutor made the suggestion, or whether the
company made the suggestion, knowing that it would appeal to the
prosecutor. <br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/443">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>
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<br>
It may come as a shock to Mr. Christie, but he could have said, "No, that wouldn't look good. Pick another law school." He could even have said, "Why a law school? Because we're lawyers? They're a lot of other charities, and a lot of other professions, too."<br>
<br>
Again, the government official's charity issue rears its pretty head. For other blog entries on this topic, in different circumstances, click <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/239">here</a> and <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/349">here</a>.<br>
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By the way, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/washington/23justice.html" target="”_blank”">the <i>Times</i> article</a> is worth reading. It also shows that
most people assigned by federal prosecutors to act as corporate
monitors -- all contracts not competitively bid -- were former federal
prosecutors themselves, and others were judges and federally-appointed
commissioners. These are multi-million-dollar contracts, and they were
awarded secretly and without any consideration for appearances of
impropriety (the story wasn't, apparently, supposed to come out).<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>