Talk:Preston Gates & Ellis

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I have removed the following content:

Preston Gates also apparently helped lobby the Bush Administration for favorable DOJ actions towards Microsoft by having Ralph E. Reed, Jr., former Christian Coalition leader, serve as a subcontractor for Preston Gates Ellis. [1]

In a March 2006 edition of Vanity Fair, Abramoff alludes to Preston Gates & Ellis as the angry competitor who first introduced scandal involving his practices to the Washington Post. Melinda Gates is the daugheter-in-law of the Preston Gates & Ellis founder and is a member of the board of directors at the Washington Post. The Gates in Preston Gates is the father of Bill Gates of Microsoft and Melinda Gates is the Texas cofounder of the influential Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ^[1]. The foundation at one time funded Abramoff charities. Microsoft and the Gates Foundation are two of Preston Gates most important clients. The company was founded in 1990 to help Microsoft with its permatemp and antitrust issues.

The first paragraph has an incorrect conclusion. Abramoff at Preston Gates hired Reed as a subcontractor for lobbying against the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. Reed's firm was simultaneously on retainer with Microsoft, but the two are not ipso facto related.

The second paragraph is disputed at Talk:Jack Abramoff. The Abramoff quote in Vanity Fair alludes to competing Republican lobbyists, and does not focus on PG in any way. Also, it has been pointed out that Melinda Gates joined the board of the Washington Post nearly 8 months after the article exposing Abramoff was published. The choice of words seems to try to draw some false correlation between these two events which does not make sense. The remainder is not topical to this article, although the fact that the Gates Foundation and Microsoft are clients might be added in a section. KWH 17:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The above removal is misguided. The roll of Preston Gates and its powerful lobby efforts has been well documented in all of the Seattle Papers and the connection to the Washington Post is undenighable. Abramoff's credibility is not an issue and his comments in Vanity Fair and the reference to Preston Gates is one of the most significant journalistic points to be made about Preston Gates and Ellis. Mellinda Gates board position is secondary to Warren Buffet's position on the Post. Warren Buffet is a long time Gates family friend. The following was added:

Preston Gates reimbursed Abramoff for trips he funded to Saipan; the firm was later reimbursed by Marianas officials. When Abramoff left Preston Gates for Greenberg Traurig in 2001, he took with him a team of lobbyists that formed the core of "Team Abramoff".

He also took with him trade secretes the firm had developed for influence peddling such as those developed through Slate [3] an online political magazine established by Microsoft that was later sold to the Washington Post, the news source Abramoff credits in Vanity Fair with innitially discrediting him in the eys of his clients, possibly in retaliation for Team Abramoff. Today adversaries at his old firm continue scapegoating Abramoff for practices that under the leadership of Bill Neukom, continue even today. Those practices involve lobbying Seattle Business Journals [4] to put the firm in the best possible perception. Bill Neukom will become the next president of the American Bar Association unless more individuals become aware of his roll in developing and encouraging Abramoff and the Preston Gates way which has been characterized as a culture of corruption spread throughout the Bush administration.

This page takes on special significance as the Chairman of Preston Gates and Ellis, Bill Neukom seeks to take his ethical standards to the American Bar Association. Neukom likely will become the next President of the ABA and further degrade the legal profession in that roll.

[edit] Merging

PG&E just merged with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. Should the articles be merged?