The only new addition will be a Press Secretary. I wouldn’t call that a shake up.

How do guys sip it? Straight outa the bag?

Timestamps on pictures can be faked: it’s like setting the time on your computer, but slightly more difficult (you have to know the camera menu). Whether someone would have done it for this purpose is another question.

Pat Fitz is famous for being shy and totally unwilling to “work a room”. He is the last person you should expect to run for elective office.

But I do buy what Phoenix Woman (211) suggests, that Rover needs more time to meet lawyers “if Rove remains a subject” of Fitz’ investigation, as well as building a subtle firewall between the WH and Rover pre-indictment.

[God, I do want that evil lard*ss ratf*cker to be indicted and soon…]

I don’t know the tradition at NDIL, but the practice as SDNY was, whenever possible, for the people who did the trial to do the appeal. Obviously if the lead trial attorney left the office right after the win (which is VERY common–this is the moment of that lawyer’s greatest self marketability) the appeal could be assigned to someone new.

{Totally OT, but in SDNY after Guiliani left, the appeals of some of the Wall Street cases were given to inexperienced newbies B/C the incoming US Attorney had essentially campaigned for the job by having his very outspoken law partner complain that the insider trading cases were bullshit. As you may expect, the new kids lost their appeals and undid years of really cutting edge work that has not been attempted again until Jim Comey [the man who also created the Enron Task force] and later, Dave Kelley went after — what was the name of it NEED COFFEE–Imclone? You know, Sam Whatshisname and Martha Stewart. After that show of testicular fortitude, Elliot Spitzer followed suit}

The idea being that the people who did the trial already know the facts and law of their case and remember the tiny details in the record and are emotionally invested in winning the appeal (not to mention wanting to win to protect their own career prospects).

Each US Attorney’s Office also has a 2-4 person “Appeals” unit made up of senior attorney’s. They are more like faculty advisors for doctoral candidates and mentor the attorney writing the brief through the several drafts. They also make you practice your argument in front of them and, for big appeals, organize your moot court, which start out brutal but end up hilarious (and which often concludes with a beer bash).

It is much more difficult for a new attorney to come in and have to learn the facts from scratch. Back in my teaching days, I would also do appeals referred from other attorney’s. For some reason, a lot of lawyers would rather gnaw off their own leg than brief and argue their own appeals. I can tell you that when you come in cold like that, most of your 30 days that should be spent researching and writing, gets eaten up reading and annotating the record. The “record” is the trial transcripts and exhibits and prior rulings.

It is much easier to brief and argue an appeal from a case you have already worked on and I much prefer it that way, though I still occasionally take appeals from others.