Fred Fielding Defends What Everyone Says They Hate

"Everybody laughs when I say we need a revolving door," says Fred Fielding, White House Counsel to Bush 43 and Reagan, and Nixon deputy counsel. "But we really do." It brings in fresh ideas and vitality to the government.Fred encouraged everyone to take time to serve the country through government work, though histime was not all peachy."Watergate washorrible to go through as a lawyer," but it prepared him better for next time, he says,and when you go through something like that, people listen to you much more. Now a Morgan Lewis partner, he picked up the Ed Meese Award at National Press Club during the recent Republican National Lawyers Association's annual policy conference. But the best part of Fred's speech may have been left unspoken: when an audience member asked him to tell an unknown story about Reagan, Fred replied that he had many funny ones, but "you don't want them public."

Three state attorney generals smiled for our camera: GA AG Sam Olens, AL AG Luther Strange, and WV AG Patrick Morrisey. In a panel, they discussed fracking (Morrisey calls the Marcellus Shale a "booming area"), oil and gas, Dodd-Frank, and healthcare. Morrisey recalled his time working with election law to discuss voter fraud. Nowadays the Internet poses a possible concern, but even when he helped run an election in Mongolia, he'd advise "If somebody's on horseback and says all the ballots fell into the river, that might be fraud."

The conference ended with a speech from RNC chair Reince Priebus and newly appointed RNC GC John Ryder. We snapped John, center, the evening before, when he told us he's officially been GC since April 12 (his February appointment by Reince had to be approved by the RNC). He's working on the McCutcheonv. FEC case recently accepted by the Supreme Court, but when he's free you can probably find him at the opera.

We also spotted former Nixon Peabody DC managing partner and LeClairRyan IP co-chair Laurin Mills with LeClairRyan's David Warrington. Just out of sight on the right is the Washington Monument, surrounded by scaffolding; David recalled how an expert witness he'd worked with was pulled to consult on its reconstruction.

Send story ideas to Roksana Slavinsky at [email protected].