Fred F. Fielding

Infobox US Cabinet official
name=Fred F. Fielding
small

order=19th
title=White House Counsel
term_start=1981
term_end=1986
predecessor=Lloyd Cutler
successor=Peter J. Wallison
president=Ronald Reagan
order2=32nd
title2=White House Counsel
term_start2=2007
term_end2=
president2=George W. Bush
predecessor2=Harriet Miers
successor2=
order3=
title3=
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term_end3=
president3=
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order4=
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term_start4=
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birth_date=Birth date and age|1939|3|21|mf=y
birth_place=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
death_date=
death_place=
party=Republican
spouse=Maria Dugger
profession=Lawyer
religion=
footnotes=

Fred Fisher Fielding (born March 21, 1939) is an American lawyer and a member of the George W. Bush administration. He was selected on January 8, 2007 by President George W. Bush to replace outgoing White House Counsel Harriet Miers. [cite news |first=Mike |last=Allen |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Exclusive: Bush Picks a Replacement for Harriet Miers |url=http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1575066,00.html |publisher=Time |date=January 8, 2007 |accessdate=2007-01-08 ]

Personal life

Fielding was born in Philadelphia and raised in Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania. Fielding graduated with honors from Gettysburg College, and then attended the University of Virginia School of Law.

He married Maria Dugger on October 21, 1967. They have two children: Adam and Alexandra.

Career

Fielding was a senior partner at Wiley Rein LLP (formerly Wiley Rein & Fielding), a Washington, D.C. law firm. He has served the American government in a number of roles throughout his career.

Fielding served as Associate Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1972, where he was the deputy to John Dean during the Watergate scandal. He was the Counsel to the President for President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1986. Fielding has also served on the Tribunal on the U.S.-UK Air Treaty Dispute (1989-1994), as a member of the president's Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform (1989), as a member of the Secretary of Transportation's Task Force on Aviation Disasters (1997-1998) and as a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission). He is reported as being both an executive, and legal counsel [ [http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jiM0qSFLYuMsEGS6gjVvgAnxbsvQ] Dead link|date=August 2008] for private military company Blackwater USA, recipient of over a billion dollars [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/world/middleeast/27contractor.html Blackwater Tops Firms in Iraq in Shooting Rate - New York Times ] ] in mostly no-bid contracts from the State Department.

Fielding has reportedly maintained close ties to Vice President Dick Cheney, whom he has known for decades and occasionally served as an informal adviser. J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge who worked with Fielding in the Reagan administration and remains close to him, said: "He has a firm, clear view of executive prerogative, but he also understands as well as anyone in Washington the constitutional need for compromise. He is not someone that takes an absolutist position and then drives the presidency and the branches together off the brink. He has judgment." [cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/washington/09counsel.html?pagewanted=print
title=Reagan Lawyer Ready to Return to White House
author=Jim Rutenberg
publisher=The New York Times
date=2007-01-09
accessdate=2007-11-19]

Fielding is the chairman of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest.

Deep Throat connection

In April 2003, a team of journalism students taught by William Gaines conducted a detailed review of source materials, leading them to conclude that Fielding was Deep Throat, the unnamed source for articles written by "Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.cite news |first=Timothy |last=Noah |authorlink=Timothy Noah |title=Was Fred Fielding Deep Throat? |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2082179/ |publisher=Slate |date=April 8, 2003 |accessdate=2007-01-09] Many years previously, former White House Chief of Staff for Richard Nixon, H. R. Haldeman, also concluded that Fielding was Deep Throat.

This would prove not to be the case when former top Federal Bureau of Investigation official W. Mark Felt announced in May 2005 that he was the mysterious Watergate informant. This was later confirmed by Woodward, Bernstein and Executive Editor Ben Bradlee in a statement released through "The Washington Post".

References

ee also

* [http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_fielding.htm 9/11 Commission]
* [http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Fred_Fielding.php Fred Fielding's federal campaign contribution report]
* [http://www.wrf.com/directory.cfm?attorney_id=462 Listing on Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP]
* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKfielding.htm Spartacus Educational Biography]

Category:9/11 Commission