Now, again, i'm a big believer in the various ethics rules bars have for what previous government lawyers are allowed to do and not do.
But they still have to be able to get jobs.
Kevin spent 16 years in government. It's not a blood oath not to go to a private law firm and be on the other side of the table, anymore than working at Google for 16 years is a blood oath to not go work at apple or facebook.
Arguments that they use their previous experience/knowledge to abuse the system (by getting favors, etc) need to be backed up with evidence, not handwaving, because they are serious allegations.
If they did, great, lock them up. But their skill sets prety much only lend them to two types of work: Prosecuting people for civil/criminal tax law, and defending people being prosecuted in civil/criminal tax law.
It's not like you can reasonably say "they used to work at the DOJ so now they have to go work at the zoo".
The argument isn't that using knowledge and skill gained working at DOJ/SEC in private industry is bad. The argument is that while working at DOJ/SEC you go soft on your adversaries because you know you'll need them to hire you at some point.
and Kevin went to Miller and Chevalier http://www.millerchevalier.com/OurPeople/KevinMDowning
Now, again, i'm a big believer in the various ethics rules bars have for what previous government lawyers are allowed to do and not do.
But they still have to be able to get jobs.
Kevin spent 16 years in government. It's not a blood oath not to go to a private law firm and be on the other side of the table, anymore than working at Google for 16 years is a blood oath to not go work at apple or facebook.
Arguments that they use their previous experience/knowledge to abuse the system (by getting favors, etc) need to be backed up with evidence, not handwaving, because they are serious allegations.
If they did, great, lock them up. But their skill sets prety much only lend them to two types of work: Prosecuting people for civil/criminal tax law, and defending people being prosecuted in civil/criminal tax law.
It's not like you can reasonably say "they used to work at the DOJ so now they have to go work at the zoo".