Washington – Less than three months after registering as a lobbyist, former Attorney General John Ashcroft has banked at least $269,000 from four clients. He appears to be developing a business centered on firms that want to capitalize on a government demand for homeland-security technology that boomed under sometimes controversial policies he promoted while in office.
Three clients of Ashcroft’s lobbying firm want his help in selling data or software with homeland-security applications, according to government filings.
A fourth, Israel Aircraft Industries International, is competing with Chicago’s Boeing Co. to sell the government of South Korea a billion-dollar airborne early-warning system.
While Ashcroft’s lobbying is within government rules for former officials, it is nonetheless a departure from the practice of attorneys general for at least the past 30 years. While others have counseled corporate clients or perhaps even lobbied in a specific case as part of law-firm business, Ashcroft is the first in recent memory to open a lobbying firm.
Former lawmakers and other senior government officials routinely pass through the Washington revolving door and become advocates for commercial interests seeking to influence government, but the practice of former attorneys general has been to move to think tanks or academia, or return to the practice of law.
In addition to his lobbying work, Ashcroft is a law professor at Regent University, with campuses in Virginia Beach, Va., and Washington, D.C., run by televangelist Pat Robertson.
