Justice Department nominees are supposed to be tight-lipped before they are confirmed. But the nominee to be the new U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington didn’t get the message in time.
Michael C. Ormsby (K&L Gates, LLP)
Mike Ormsby, who was nominated on March 3, granted an interview to The Spokesman-Review of Spokane before he learned from the DOJ that on-the-record conversations with reporters are taboo while he is going through the confirmation process.
According to the newspaper, “Ormsby, whose practice mostly includes public finance and municipal law, granted an interview to The Spokesman-Review last week before he learned of an e-mail from the U.S. Justice Department admonishing him against making any comments until after his confirmation hearing. That hearing, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, has not yet been scheduled.”
In the interview, Ormsby cast aside criticism he received from some Spokane, Wash., leaders who condemned his work in the 1990s as an attorney for the controversial nonprofit Spokane Downtown Foundation. The foundation was established to sell bonds in order to purchase a parking garage. The foundation would use the revenue from the parking garage to repay investors. Critics, including former Spokane Mayor John Talbott, have alleged the deal was “rife with fraud.” and sent a letter to President Barack Obama in March 2009 urging him not to nominate Ormsby for the Spokane-based U.S. Attorney post because of the controversy, The Spokesman-Review said.
K & L Gates LLP, Ormsby’s law firm, reached a settlement on a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service, saying that Ormsby and another lawyer did not perform sufficient “due diligence” before the nonprofit organization sold bonds to investors, according to newspaper. The law firm paid $1.4 million as part of its settlement with the city.
“I guess I’ve let it go and tried not to think about it much,” Ormsby told The Spokesman-Review. “I understand that people develop very, very strong feelings about an issue. I may not agree with them, but I certainly respect … the vehemence in the way they hold their views and their rights to express their views.”
Current U.S. Attorney James McDevitt, a George W. Bush administration holdover who also worked at K & L Gates, told the newspaper that he supports Ormsby’s nomination, although he acknowledges there were missteps in the parking garage controversy.
“But stupid decisions don’t make a crime,” McDevitt told The Spokesman-Review.
The nominee said he became interested in law when he was 11 years old. He said his godfather, a criminal defense attorney, inspired him to be a lawyer after a young Ormsby became angry with something he thought was unjust.
“He said you are in a position to help people in a number of ways as long as you were willing to listen to their issues and problems,” Ormsby told The Spokesman-Review. “I was hooked. From that point forward, I was going to college and law school to become an attorney.”
Read the full profile of Ormsby here.
