Talk:Alice S. Fisher

Untitled

The original of this article was derived form the GFDL source at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alice_S._Fisher. User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I've removed this article from Category:corruption. Unless significant evidence of corruption arises (more than just Ms. Fisher having connections), that is a POV placement. - Blake's Star 16:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Lots of one-sided quotes, and lack of balance. Also much of the text is taken verbatim from another cite, without attribution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki33139 (talk • contribs) 12:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I would like to update the old information contained in this article with current information, and add a photo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Updateproject (talk • contribs) 15:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

What is stopping you from simply doing so? Please elaborate if you have a specific problem. Regards SoWhy 16:01, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance. I am attempting to update on behalf of the subject. I see that Wikipedia recommends such edits be approved by other editors. Can you please advise regarding how to have the material reviewed consistent with Wikipedia's guidelines?

Ask any user who you trust here. Electriccatfish2 (talk) 20:33, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

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Request to fix erroneous information

Hi, I'm Jamie and I work for Latham & Watkins (which I've disclosed on my profile as well), at which Fisher is a partner, and am here in that capacity on her behalf. I've identified some erroneous information in the article, but I'd rather someone else update the page given my conflict of interest. Below I've identified the incorrect claims, and provided an explanation and sourcing for editors to review.

Erroneous claims:

• In 2007, Fisher allowed then U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to broker a deal that enabled multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein to escape federal charges of sex trafficking underage girls. Instead, Epstein pled guilty to the far less serious crime of soliciting prostitution in Florida.
• That deal received heavy criticism in 2019, when Epstein was again charged with sex trafficking on July 8, "deepening questions about why federal prosecutors in Miami had cut a deal that shielded him from federal prosecution."

The New York Times (listed as source 20) makes no mention of Ms. Fisher in its final form. An early report in which she was mentioned has been updated due to the erroneous information as described below. Both the Washington Post story (listed as source 19) and a CNN story (not currently used in the Wikipedia article) note that the statement by Epstein's lawyers are contradicted by a letter from the Criminal Division, which Fisher oversaw, but which was not signed by Fisher that states that the Division had examined "the narrow question as to whether there is a legitimate basis for the U.S. Attorney's Office to proceed with a federal prosecution of Mr. Epstein," and had not "looked at the entire universe of facts in this case" or the plea offer. The New York Times article used as source 21 also does not mention Ms. Fisher. I think the text should be removed altogether, but if editors insist on keeping in some form, I proposed replacing with the following:

• Defense attorneys for multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein have argued that Justice Department officials, including Fisher, allowed then U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to broker a deal that enabled Epstein to escape federal charges of sex trafficking underage girls. Fisher has stated that the claim is a misrepresentation. And a Justice Department Criminal Division official wrote to Epstein's lawyers at the time that the Criminal Division had only looked at whether there is a legitimate basis for the U.S. Attorney's Office to proceed with a federal prosecution and not the case facts or the plea offer.

References

Can editors please review the claims and sourcing, then update the article? I'll be watching the article as well as this page, so please let me know if you have questions. @Sauzer and Oceanflynn: You two have edited the article recently, along with an anonymous editor. Would you be willing to review this request?

Thanks. JZ at LW (talk) 19:06, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Current event template

I put the current event template on the section "Jeffrey Epstein's plea deal". I suggest that while the case is still currently being actively debated and analyzed by the media, etc because of the new accusations against Epstein and the ongoing criminal case, editors add short phrases as direct quotes of controversial claims as well as using some form of "according to" on x date published in Y publication (RS only) by Z. Even if a statement is later found to be incorrect, it does not need to be deleted immediately, a second edit can be added to make an opposing claim. Overly detailed and extraneous content can be edited out later when the news cycle has subsided. Let us work together cooperatively on the article and avoid lengthy talk page discussions.

If you are a paid editor and/of if you are writing as PR, consider the volunteer editors like myself who want to contribute to Wikipedia as a balanced, reliable resource and please do not create extra work. Contribute with fully completed RS, not bare urls, for every source you suggest. Add complete sections in direct quotes from the RS in the talk page that you think are relevant. Try to find the same content if you can that is not behind paywalls, and/or is not publicly available. Oceanflynn (talk) 17:15, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Request Edits

As disclosed above, I have a COI as a staff member of Latham & Watkins.

Edit request

1. Please update the lead so it includes her current title and a recent supporting source. The American Law Institute is a well-known non-profit. Alice Stevens Fisher' (born January 27, 1967) is an American lawyer, partner at the of the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins LLP and a member of its executive committee. 2. Please add this sentence after “…dismissal of James Comey by President Donald Trump.”: She later withdrew her name from consideration. 3. Please change “She currently serves as Managing Partner of the Washington D.C. office and is “one of only a handful of women who head offices of major international law firms."” to “In 2011, she was named Managing Partner of the Washington D.C. office and was “one of only a handful of women who head offices of major international law firms." The same sources support this rephrasing. This current language is no longer true, so should be moved into the past tense. 4. Please delete this language, which is not about Alice Fisher: … who left in August 2005 to be Lockheed Martin's new general counsel. Comey had been "a veteran prosecutor in Manhattan...Judiciary Committee members said that for the first time in memory, none of the most senior officials at the Justice Department"—Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Timothy E. Flanigan, Robert D. McCallum, Jr., or Alice Fisher "would have experience as a criminal prosecutor.” 5. Please delete all of the following, which is sourced only to a transcript, so has no reliable secondary source. The transcript is that of the hearing. There was a statement from every Senator on the Judiciary Committee and there’s no rationale for extensive excerpts for any specific one of them, absent a reliable secondary source. In his May 12, 2005 statement to hearing on for nominees for positions as Assistant Attorneys General for the Criminal Division, the Office of Legal Policy, and the Office of Justice Programs brought before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, VermontSenator Patrick J. Leahy acknowledged Fisher's "substantive law firm career", and her two years working in the "Criminal Division overseeing the Department's prosecutions in the high-profile areas of counterterrorism and corporate fraud".[15] However, Leahy was "somewhat concerned" that Fisher was "nominated for one of the most visible prosecutorial positions in the country without ever having prosecuted a case, and she brings to the position minimal trial experience in any context."[15] He contrasted her lack of experience to her predecessors, Criminal Division AAG's such as Mike Chertoff, James Robinson, and William Weld were seasoned federal prosecutors prior to taking this job.[15] Leahy also expressed concerns about Fisher's "views on checks of controversial provisions of the Patriot Act and her opposition to the Act’s sunset provision; her participation in meetings in which the FBI expressed its disagreement with harsh interrogation methods practiced by the military toward detainees held at Guantanamo, and her ideas about appropriate safeguards for the treatment of enemy combatants." Leahy was also concerned about "reports that she has had ties to Congressman Tom DeLay’s defense team" and "also [wanted] to know what steps she [intended] to take to avoid a conflict of interest in the Department’s investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and possibly Mr. DeLay."[15] 6. Please replace the language of the current subsection labelled “Jeffrey Epstein’s Plea Deal.” The reason all of the current language needs to be replaced is that none of the sources cited even mention Alice Fisher. So this is all original reporting and analysis, contrary to WP: NOR and WP:VER. There is a newer source, though, that does discuss her. This source is summarized below: The lawyers for financier Jeffrey Epstein’s unsuccessfully lobbied Fisher and other DOJ officials to stop the sex crimes prosecution against Epstein. Epstein’s lawyer Ken Starr later sent Fisher a letter appealing the U.S. Attorney’s stated intention to notify the victims of an appending plea deal, an appeal Starr used to stall the notifications. Fisher said her office did not make any decisions related to victim notification, a decision ultimately made by U.S. Attorney’s office. 7. Please remove the sub-section headline "Jeffrey Epstein's plea deal". Other items under "Major cases" are not given a sub-heading. Unless more material is added to the article breaking down all her major cases with sub-headings, there's no rationale for separating out this one for organizational purposes, which is what sub-headings are supposed to be used for. References

JZ at LW (talk) 22:12, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance.

Reply 10-NOV-2019

Below you will see where proposals from your request have been quoted with reviewer decisions and feedback inserted underneath, either accepting, declining or otherwise commenting upon your proposal(s). Please read the enclosed notes within the proposal review section below for information on each request.  Spintendo  10:00, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposal review 10-NOV-2019

Alice Stevens Fisher (born January 27, 1967) is an American lawyer, partner at the of the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins LLP and a member of its executive committee.  Declined. She later withdrew her name from consideration. Clarification needed. In 2011, she was named Managing Partner of the Washington D.C. office and was “one of only a handful of women who head offices of major international law firms. Clarification needed. Please delete this language, which is not about Alice Fisher: who left in August 2005 to be Lockheed Martin's new general counsel. Comey had been "a veteran prosecutor in Manhattan...Judiciary Committee members said that for the first time in memory, none of the most senior officials at the Justice Department"—Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Timothy E. Flanigan, Robert D. McCallum, Jr., or Alice Fisher "would have experience as a criminal prosecutor.”  Unable to implement. Please delete all of the following, which is sourced only to a transcript, so has no reliable secondary source. Clarification needed. Please replace the language of the current subsection labelled “Jeffrey Epstein’s Plea Deal.” Clarification needed. Please remove the sub-section headline Jeffrey Epstein's plea deal  Approved. ___________

Revised edit request 14-NOV-2019

Thank you for your assistance and comment.

Revised edit request

1. The blank citation “1”, copied from the existing Wikipedia article to support Fisher’s full name, is 2. Fisher withdrew her name from consideration the week of May 15th 2017. The supporting reference can be found in the final paragraph of the article. 3. Please replace: “She currently serves as Managing Partner of the Washington D.C. office and is “one of only a handful of women who head offices of major international law firms."” with In 2011, she was named Managing Partner of the Washington D.C. office and became one of very few women who headed offices of major international law firms. 4. Please delete this language, which is not about Alice Fisher. It is a “Coatrack.” It is in the sub-section titled “Attorney General for the Criminal Division” with sub-sub section “Nomination, hearing and confirmation.” It is at the end of the third sentence, and the entire fourth sentence. “… who left in August 2005 to be Lockheed Martin's new general counsel. Comey had been "a veteran prosecutor in Manhattan...Judiciary Committee members said that for the first time in memory, none of the most senior officials at the Justice Department"—Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Timothy E. Flanigan, Robert D. McCallum, Jr., or Alice Fisher "would have experience as a criminal prosecutor.” 5. This section violates a number of Wikipedia policies. Regarding the use of a primary source, first there is the admonition in WP: Primary to use “common sense.” There are 22 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Each of these 22 members gives an opening statement in a confirmation hearing, or introduces one into the record. Since there is no secondary source given here to establish the importance of one versus another of these statements, inserting a 249 word summary from any one of them, without also summarizing the others, is arbitrary or worse, biased against Fisher, violating WP: NPOV. The content of this summary is critical of Alice Fisher - . But we know she passed the committee and was confirmed, so more members were supportive of Alice Fisher. So why is Wikipedia using its own editorial judgment to highlight a lengthy critical passage? If we gave a 249 word summary of all 22 members of the committee, for NPOV balance, this one sub-section would be 5,478 words long, which would be dramatically WP: Undue. Therefore it would violate common sense to start adding these statements one by one. If we attempted to synthesize the 22 opening statements into a Due length, it would violate WP: NOR. If we attempted to choose just a few opening statements to summarize, it would be involve very subjective editorial judgment as to their relative importance, which is again a violation of WP: NOR. Finally, give there is already a summary of a reliable secondary source about the hearing in the preceding paragraph, including similar criticism, adding another 249 words about the same subject, especially from a primary source is WP: Undue. 6. Please delete the following, and replace it with the paragraph below it. The reason is this: none of the sources in the paragraph I am requesting be deleted even mention Alice Fisher. But I find one more recent source that does talk about her role in this incident and have summarized it. Delete: In Florida in 2008, during the tenure of Fisher as AAG, then U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta—who was federal prosecutor in Florida at that time—handled the "sex crimes case" of the multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein who had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution. According to a July 12 article in the Times, Acosta agreed to the 2008 plea deal "in which Epstein served 13 months in jail after being accused of sexually abusing dozens of young women and girls." On July 8, when new charges were brought against Epstein by federal prosecutors—who accused him of "child sex trafficking"—the handling of the federal government—DOJ's Criminal Division—came under scrutiny resulting in Acosta's resignation as labor secretary. There were "deepening questions about why federal prosecutors in Miami had cut a deal that shielded him from federal prosecution." Replace with: The lawyers for financier Jeffrey Epstein’s unsuccessfully lobbied Fisher and other DOJ officials to stop the sex crimes prosecution against Epstein. Epstein’s lawyer Ken Starr later sent Fisher a letter appealing the U.S. Attorney’s stated intention to notify the victims of an appending plea deal, an appeal Starr used to stall the notifications. Fisher said her office did not make any decisions related to victim notification, a decision ultimately made by U.S. Attorney’s office. References

JZ at LW (talk) 16:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Reply 16-NOV-2019

  Edit request partially implemented  

1. Y The lead section claim was implemented.
2. Y The claim regarding the removal of her name from consideration was implemented.
3. The claim regarding being "one of a handful of women" could not be implemented because that claim has been omitted from the article. (See WP:AWW.)
4. The claim regarding the Comey quote could not be implemented because that section of the article has since been revised by another editor after the request was posted, meaning the verbatim directions of what was to be removed no longer apply.
5. N The claims regarding Eppstein were not revised because the supplied reference for the revised text is to a search engine's news section, Yahoo. Search engines and their related sections should not be used as sources. (See WP:YAHOO).

Regards,  Spintendo  13:28, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Reply

1. The language discussed above regarding the extended language based on a primary source has not been addressed. Here it is again. Please delete the following, which is the third paragraph of the sub-section "Nominations, hearing and confirmation":

In his May 12, 2005 statement to hearing on for nominees for positions as Assistant Attorneys General for the Criminal Division, the Office of Legal Policy, and the Office of Justice Programs brought before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Vermont Senator Patrick J. Leahy acknowledged Fisher's "substantive law firm career", and her two years working in the "Criminal Division overseeing the Department's prosecutions in the high-profile areas of counterterrorism and corporate fraud". However, Leahy was "somewhat concerned" that Fisher was "nominated for one of the most visible prosecutorial positions in the country without ever having prosecuted a case, and she brings to the position minimal trial experience in any context." He contrasted her lack of experience to her predecessors, Criminal Division AAG's such as Mike Chertoff, James Robinson, and William Weld were seasoned federal prosecutors prior to taking this job. Leahy also expressed concerns about Fisher's "views on checks of controversial provisions of the Patriot Act and her opposition to the Act’s sunset provision; her participation in meetings in which the FBI expressed its disagreement with harsh interrogation methods practiced by the military toward detainees held at Guantanamo, and her ideas about appropriate safeguards for the treatment of enemy combatants." Leahy was also concerned about "reports that she has had ties to Congressman Tom DeLay’s defense team" and "also [wanted] to know what steps she [intended] to take to avoid a conflict of interest in the Department’s investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and possibly Mr. DeLay."

The policy explanation, is the same as before: This section violates a number of Wikipedia policies. Regarding the use of a primary source, first there is the admonition in WP: Primary to use “common sense.” There are 22 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Each of these 22 members gives an opening statement in a confirmation hearing, or introduces one into the record. Since there is no secondary source given here to establish the importance of one versus another of these statements, inserting a 249 word summary from any one of them, without also summarizing the others, is arbitrary or worse, biased against Fisher, violating WP: NPOV. The content of this summary is critical of Alice Fisher. But we know she passed the committee and was confirmed, so more members were supportive of Alice Fisher. So why is Wikipedia using its own editorial judgment to highlight a lengthy critical passage? The proper use of primary sources is to establish non-contentious facts, like DOB or job title WP: Primary. But this criticism is the embodiment of contentious material - a partisan political fight. If we gave a 249 word summary of all 22 members of the committee, for NPOV balance, this one sub-section would be 5,478 words long, which would be dramatically WP: Undue. Therefore it would violate common sense to start adding these statements one by one. If we attempted to synthesize the 22 opening statements into a Due length, it would violate WP: NOR. If we attempted to choose just a few opening statements to summarize, it would be involve very subjective editorial judgment as to their relative importance, which is again a violation of WP: NOR. Finally, give there is already a summary of a reliable secondary source about the hearing in the preceding paragraph, including similar criticism, adding another 249 words about the same subject, especially from a primary source is WP: Undue.

2. If the Yahoo News source can't be used, the story was cross-published by an advocacy organization called POGO. So here is the same request with POGO as a source instead of Yahoo. Delete this paragraph because none of these sources mention Alice Fisher, so it is unverified WP: Reliable Source with respect to her. No reliable source and coatracking:

In Florida in 2008, during the tenure of Fisher as AAG, then U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta—who was federal prosecutor in Florida at that time—handled the "sex crimes case" of the multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein who had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution. According to a July 12 article in the Times, Acosta agreed to the 2008 plea deal "in which Epstein served 13 months in jail after being accused of sexually abusing dozens of young women and girls." On July 8, when new charges were brought against Epstein by federal prosecutors—who accused him of "child sex trafficking"—the handling of the federal government—DOJ's Criminal Division—came under scrutiny resulting in Acosta's resignation as labor secretary. There were "deepening questions about why federal prosecutors in Miami had cut a deal that shielded him from federal prosecution."

In its place, insert:

The lawyers for financier Jeffrey Epstein’s unsuccessfully lobbied Fisher and other DOJ officials to stop the sex crimes prosecution against Epstein. Epstein’s lawyer Ken Starr later sent Fisher a letter appealing the U.S. Attorney’s stated intention to notify the victims of an appending plea deal, an appeal Starr used to stall the notifications. Fisher said her office did not make any decisions related to victim notification, a decision ultimately made by U.S. Attorney’s office.

3. The revised language for the sub-section "Latham & Watkins" now omits that she was the Managing Partner of the Washington D.C. office of Latham & Watkins. As the sources indicate, this was not merely an important part of the career of Fisher, but was a milestone for all women in the legal profession. Even if we don't describe this was a milestone, it should be included as part of her career. Here is a proposed language that takes this into account. Insert as the second to last sentence of the current final paragraph of the sub-section "Latham & Watkins:"

In 2011, she was named Managing Partner of the Washington D.C. office.

This sentence should go immediately before the sentence that reads: "Fisher previously served as global co-chair of the firm's white-collar and government investigations practice group."

4. The rephrased lead of the article did not include the suggested language that she is a member of the executive committee. Latham & Watkins is a 2600 lawyer firm, one of the biggest in the country. Being an the executive committee is like being on the Board of Directors of a Fortune 500 company. So I propose it be inserted as the new last sentence of this same final paragraph in the subsection. "Latham & Watkins":

She is a member of the Latham & Watkins executive committee.

5. In the sub-section "Nomination, hearing and confirmation", in the second paragraph, please delete the last sentence of the paragraph:

Comey had been "a veteran prosecutor in Manhattan...Judiciary Committee members said that for the first time in memory, none of the most senior officials at the Justice Department"—Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Timothy E. Flanigan, Robert D. McCallum, Jr., or Alice Fisher "would have experience as a criminal prosecutor."

This is about the Justice Department at the time, not Fisher. So it's coatracking, I think.

Thank you for your assistance.JZ at LW (talk) 21:57, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

References

Reply 17-NOV-2019

  Discussion required  

1. Thank you for supplying the requested information, it is much appreciated.
2. Unfortunately however, a review of the clarified information shows that the requested information may be in dispute. Disputatious issues ought not to be resolved through the COI edit request process, which is primarily meant for COI editors to suggest changes of a nominally controversial nature.
3. The changes you have requested here — from removing sourced claims to adding superfluous job titles — might be considered as eminently controversial. This is beyond the purview of a single edit request reviewer.
4. Thus, the process of content dispute resolution needed here should proceed by either discussing the issues with local editors here on the talk page or through using the strategies listed under WP:CONTENTDISPUTE — both of which do not involve the use of the {{request edit}} template.

Regards,  Spintendo  12:06, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

References

Fixing Unsourced Paragraph

Hi. I have a conflict of interest, as disclosed above, as a staff member for Latham & Watkins. I made “Request Edits”, above, and the reviewing editor suggested they be opened up for consensus discussions. First, there is a paragraph in the article, below, where none of the cited sources actually mention the subject of the article, Alice S. Fisher. However, I did a search and found one source that does discuss the matter as it relates to Fisher. I cannot find any others (though two sources repeat the same article.) So, I’d like to suggest that a new paragraph be written based on this source. I am putting up a notice about this discussion on WikiProjects WP: BLP and WP:LAW as per instructions on WP:APPNOTE. Here is the paragraph in the article, without any sources that mention Fisher:

In Florida in 2008, during the tenure of Fisher as AAG, then U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta—who was federal prosecutor in Florida at that time—handled the "sex crimes case" of the multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein who had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution. According to a July 12 article in the Times, Acosta agreed to the 2008 plea deal "in which Epstein served 13 months in jail after being accused of sexually abusing dozens of young women and girls." On July 8, when new charges were brought against Epstein by federal prosecutors—who accused him of "child sex trafficking"—the handling of the federal government—DOJ's Criminal Division—came under scrutiny resulting in Acosta's resignation as labor secretary. There were "deepening questions about why federal prosecutors in Miami had cut a deal that shielded him from federal prosecution."

Here is suggested language for a replacement paragraph, with a source that actually does discuss the matter as it relates Fisher:

The lawyers for financier Jeffrey Epstein’s unsuccessfully lobbied Fisher and other DOJ officials to stop the sex crimes prosecution against Epstein. Epstein’s lawyer Ken Starr later sent Fisher a letter appealing the U.S. Attorney’s stated intention to notify the victims of an appending plea deal, an appeal Starr used to stall the notifications. Fisher said her office did not make any decisions related to victim notification, a decision ultimately made by U.S. Attorney’s office.

JZ at LW (talk) 20:46, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

References

IMO the current version you highlighted does go into too much detail on stuff where the connection to Fisher is unclear. But I feel your version goes too far in the opposite direction basically only covering her claims. From what I can tell there is dispute over her role e.g. [1] says it's alleged she approves the deal but she denies it. Nil Einne (talk) 13:45, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at this User:Nil Einne. Indeed, as the July 15, 2019 Wash Po article says, Epstein's defense lawyers claimed that prosecutors were rehashing allegations for which Epstein had already served time, by naming anyone at the Department Justice who had any dealings at all with the case (the POGO article goes into specifics about Fisher's very limited role.) But Wash Po does not say it was alleged Fisher approved the deal. That would be impossible. The United States Department of Justice Criminal Division does not supervise and has no authority over any U.S. Attorney's office. Again, thank you for looking at this. JZ at LW (talk) 19:38, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I was hoping someone else would respond, but since no one has. Approval might not be the right word. But the source does say

They noted that high-ranking Justice Department officials approved of or were otherwise involved in his agreement to avoid federal charges, including Mark Filip, was who deputy attorney general at the time; Alice Fisher, who led the department’s criminal division;

So Epstein's lawyers at least were suggesting she had some involvement in the deal. It also says

Through a spokeswoman, Fisher said it was a “mischaracterization” to suggest she approved the deal, but declined to comment further.

suggesting that Fisher at least interpreted this as suggesting she had some approval role.

Also, it seems to me the POGO article doesn't say what you are suggesting it says. Yes it does discuss some areas where her involvement is known. But it also says:

A key attorney handling the matter for Monsanto, Alice S. Fisher, is a former senior DOJ official alleged to have played a part in keeping Jeffrey Epstein’s controversial plea deal secret from his victims more than a decade ago, although some U.S. officials have provided other reasons why victims were not notified. Fisher denies playing a decision-making role in the Epstein matter.

and

While it is unclear what role Fisher may have played, Epstein’s attorney Ken Starr portrayed the appeal to her as key to keeping victims in the dark. He wrote to the DOJ in April 2008 that the victim notification “letter was only halted by an eleventh-hour appeal to [Assistant Attorney General] Fisher.” Starr did not respond to a request for comment.

Yes after this it goes on to include Fisher's denial and her comments on what's in the public record, but it seems apparent that even they are not willing to conclude that Fisher's role was as minor as she suggests, I assume in part because not everything may be in the public record.

Nil Einne (talk) 19:08, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Anyway, I have partially made the chance you requested, adding details about what Starr said, as covered in POGO. I also kept the first sentence, since I felt it needed more introduction as an extremely controversial case, hence why it gets a lot of attention, whatever Fisher's involvement. I am still considering whether or not to add a brief comment on the WaPo stuff. Something like "Epstein's lawyers later attempted to use the involvement of several Justice Department officials including Fisher in his earlier plea deal to get new charges against him thrown out on the basis he'd already served time for them." (It will need more work, this is just a quick draft.) And including Fisher's denial she approved the deal. Nil Einne (talk) 19:45, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Request Edit - Add Categories

As disclosed above, I work for Latham & Watkins. I have a simple request. Can you add the following categories to this article? WikiProject Law, WikiProject Women

I seem not to have the privileges to add Categories on Talk. I know this will help get wider discussion should an RfC arise. Thank you. JZ at LW (talk) 19:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Reply 03-DEC-2019

  Already implemented    Spintendo  03:32, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to Delete Paragraph Using Only a Primary Source

As disclosed above, I have a COI as an employee of Latham & Watkins. The reviewing editor on the Request Edit queue asked that the following proposal be opened to a consensus discussion.

I would appreciate for independent editors to weigh in on deleting the extended passage in the section Alice_S._Fisher#Nomination,_hearing_and_confirmation, paragraph three. I think it should be deleted under a straightforward application of the Wikipedia policy on the use of WP: PRIMARY, as well as WP: NPOV and WP: UNDUE. It begins:

    “In his May 12, 2005 statement..."

The only source for the Leahy paragraph is a Wayback Machine PDF of the primary record of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. There is no secondary source. Primary sources should not be used to support contentious content under WP: PRIMARY. All 22 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee typically introduce a statement about every nominee. But in order to track these down and create a balanced, neutral summary of all the 22 opening statements, an editor would need to do extensive original research in violation of WP:NOR. Just cherry picking the highly critical Leahy primary source statement from among 22, using it almost in full, violates WP: NPOV.

Futhermore, the immediately previous paragraph to the Leahy statement covers the exact same topic, with a pro and con discussion of the criticism from multiple sources. So all the substance is already included in the article, using a reliable secondary source, the New York Times. It begins:

    “According to an August 15, 2005 The New York Times' article…”

JZ at LW (talk) 22:24, 13 February 2020 (UTC) JZ at LW (talk) 15:19, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

References

I agree that I don't think we should be adding this when it is source solely to the statement. If there is reliable secondary source coverage of his statement than maybe, but the only thing I found from a quick search was Heavy.com which is highly questionable for BLPs and I suspect they copied it from us anyway. If someone disagrees and wants to add it back, I suggest it needs to be drastically pared down and probably integrated with the NYT section above it. Nil Einne (talk) 15:59, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Request Edit May 18

{{BLP noticeboard}}

I have a COI as an employee of Latham Watkins, where the subject of this article is a law partner. In accordance with the Wikipedia “Contact Us” page [2], I am requesting that independent editors review the following proposal to correct a severe distortion of facts. I am also posted this request to WP:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard

1) In the section "Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division", sub-section “Major Cases”, in first sentence of the paragraph:

Delete:

One of her first major investigations in the DOJ according to a January 2006 The Washington Post article, was the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal involving Jack Abramoff, who was a movie producer, an American lobbyist, and a businessman.

In its place, insert:

One of Fisher's first major investigations at the DOJ focused on congressional corruption and the Jack Abramoff Native American lobbying scandal.

Why?

• removes NPR as a supporting source as it does not mention Alice Fisher. See: [3]

• removes the language that says: “according to a January 2006 The Washington Post article” because a) there is no WashPost source cited and b) this is not an opinion of the Post -- it’s a fact, so no attribution is needed under WP: RS. I did find an article from 1/2006 in the Post about Abramoff that quotes Fisher about his guilty plea [4] - but it does not say this was “one of her first major investigations.” So there is no need to mention The Washington Post at all.

• removes extraneous information about Abramoff, as per WP: Coatracking, describing who he is -. “who was a movie producer, an American lobbyist, and a businessman.” Not needed for Fisher’s bio.

2) In the section "Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division", sub-section “Major Cases”, please add the following sentence as the new second sentence:

As part of a broader investigation of public corruption, in January, 2006, Fisher announced a deal in which Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist, pleaded guilty to three felonies, including conspiracy to bribe public officials, in return for Abramoff's cooperation in the broader investigation.

Why? This is a significant omission that needs to be fixed. Necessary to the core recounting of what happened -- Fisher getting a guilty plea from Abramoff as part of a broader inquiry is the main event of this case.

3) In the section "Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division", sub-section “Major Cases”, please delete the following sentences, which are the second, third and fourth in the first paragraph:

According to a May 1, 2005 Newsweek article, the case was particularly challenging because of the alleged close relationship between Abramoff and then House majority leader, Tom DeLay (R-Tx).

The Abramoff investigation was overseen by prosecutor Noel Hillman. With Fisher's appointment as AAG, Hillman would be working under her leadership. According to the Newsweek article, while Fisher was "widely respected", she was also a "loyal Republican socially close to DeLay's defense team".

Why? First, the Newsweek article is from before Fisher became assistant attorney general - it speculates on how she might do her job if confirmed. It is not about her first "major case." It was not a critique of the Abramoff investigation or guilty plea, which happened seven months after this article appeared. The sentences have been positioned severely out of sequence - as though Newsweek was offering criticism after Fisher's tenure as AAG, and the opening of the Abramaoff case, had begun. The sentence, together with the failure to mention Abramoff pleaded guilty, is written to make it appear as though Fisher didn’t pursue the matter. In fact, the Newsweek speculation posits a problem that never occurred, since Abramoff pleaded guilty as part of Fisher’s public corruption prosecutions.

4) In the section "Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division", sub-section “Major Cases”, the last sentence in the first paragraph:

Delete:

The case was settled in September 2008, after Fisher left the DOJ, leading to the imprisonment of Abramoff for 48 months on "corruption, fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion" charges.

Why? Not about Alice Fisher’s career. This is WP: Coatracking -- the source, a press release, doesn’t even mention Alice Fisher. The sentence appears to have been inserted to make it seem like Abramoff prosecution wasn’t pursued until after she left. In fact, Abramoff's sentencing was delayed to ensure he fully cooperated with the Fisher’s investigation See [5]. JZ at LW (talk) 14:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Sorry it took so long. I've mostly fulfilled this request. A few comments:

1)

• I'm fairly sure the Washington Post part was intended to refer to the WSJ since the WSJ does basically say it's her first major investigation.
• Whether it's a "fact" is IMO more complicated than it may seem. See WP:Wikivoice and WP:ASSERT. There could be dispute whether it's a major case, or whether it's one of her first. If both of these are so widely accepted that they aren't reasonably disputed, then we can say it in wikivoice, otherwise we should attribute it in some way. With only one source, the WSJ (and the Washington Post doesn't comment on this aspect), it's not so easy to claim it's widely accepted. I think we can say it being a major case is obvious due to the fact we have an article on the case i.e. it's notable and if it's not a major case then it doesn't belong in a section entitled major cases anyway plus we shouldn't be including minor cases. So the main problem is whether it's "one of the first". It's obviously the first one we cover, and did happen early on in her career at the DOJ, but that still requires assumptions about our coverage and how common "major cases" are (which gets back to what you mean by major case). In the end, I decided to accept the wording since I feel it's fairly harmless way of saying it's one of the first ones significant enough for us to mention. (Well actually the first.) However it's possible others may object and we may have to reconsider the wording. I did consider simply removing the bit about being a major case/first completely but couldn't think of a good wording without it.
• I agree the details on Abramoff's seem unnecessary. Although some description of who he is is helpful, and I assume you agree since your wording is the one which mentions him being a Republican lobbyist. But that's sufficient.
• I agree the NPR source which doesn't mention Fisher is irrelevant.
• The WSJ source only seems to mention congressional corruption in relation to the Jack Abramoff scandal. While it's far wider than one person, it all seems to radiate outward from that. Therefore I think it's better to simply mention that the scandal involved congressional corruption. (The WSJ does mention general corruption concerns, but these aren't exclusive to congressional corruption.) Frankly, I kept vacillating on mentioning congressional corruption in this sentence and may still change my mind. I'm not certain if it's necessary given the very next sentence effectively makes it clear by mentioning the cooperation agreement.
• I followed the article title rather than piping the Native American one. While we don't always have to follow article titles, in this case I felt uncomfortable putting a different one, as while Native American is often preferred, I understand it can be complicated and don't want to get into a mess I don't properly understand. In addition, I have no idea how widely recognised such a title would be compared to the article title. (My feeling is Native American or Indian are probably superflourous.) Although the Washington Post source does mention Native American, the WSJ doesn't mention either Native American or Indian. So ultimately I felt it better to defer to the article title. (I'm not sure that article title had received much though. The whole article seems somewhat typical of work of that era where often they've been forgotten about. For example, there is no mention of the 2008 settlement that I saw. However, it still seemed the safest bet.

2)

• I reworded this. It seems better to mention the settlement then explain what was expected from the settlement (cooperation in the investigation). I don't think it's necessary to "hype up" the reasons for the settlement. I also felt broader was unnecessary as by definition if you're expecting someone's cooperation into an investigation into something, it's "broader". But I did include wide-ranging as this is in the WSJ source the congressional corruption investigation.

3)

• I agree that the Newsweek stuff seems of no relevance to the section. (Perhaps it's of relevance in the article on the scandal.) If concerns over Fisher's association came up in her confirmation hearing, that could be covered in the relevant section with sufficient sourcing.
• There's a slight chance it could merit mention if there was significant concern from other parties as reflected in reliable secondary sources, relating to her appointment, even if it didn't come up in the confirmation hearing, but it would still likely belong somewhere else. IMO by this stage, it would likely only merit inclusion if it's covered in more recent sources which would likely also deal with whether people feel such fears were correct.

4)

• This one is more complicated. I agree the source is too poor. However it's possible that a more complete article may include some mention. While this is the article on Fisher, some limited details on the case may be relevant to help readers understand it, and the final outcome is perhaps one of the more important details. However I don't think such details are needed at this moment, so sourcing aside, I felt it better to leave it out.
• I think we should assume our readers understand that when there is a guilty plea, cooperation agreement and wide-ranging investigation, it may take a while for the final settlement. One possibility to allay concerns may be to simply mention the date of the settlement without explicitly mention it was after she left.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I ended up renaming the section from major cases into tenure for reasons mentioned below. Nil Einne (talk) 18:51, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Fisher's other work

While dealing with the above edit request, I couldn't help but notice the next paragraph was problematic. One is that it didn't really deal with major cases. I therefore renamed the section into tenure. Two was that it was basically one long quotation. This isn't really acceptable. While looking in to this, I found out that part of the quotation didn't even come from the source, law.com/Corporate Counsel. It seems to have come from the Washington Post. Further, law.com/CC doesn't really seem to be a great source for Fisher especially about her tenure as AAG. Indeed the article itself seems almost like a PR piece. While I appreciate even the Washington Post source is a bit like that, I assume reflective of the fact her tenure was relatively uncontroversial at the time, and so it tends to be the way such things are written, I think using law.com for such details is a bridge too far. If those were noted/significant parts of her work, they should be covered in better sources. This isn't some minor lawyer. I did have a very quick look and couldn't find any other sources mentioning either her role on the President’s Council on Corporate Responsibility or her work on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. I did find [6] which mentions her setting up a task force for the FCPA which I guess could be added (in some ways the source is perhaps a better one since it's coming from a while after the event). I left the Washington Post bit, quickly attributed. As mentioned in relation to the edit request above, I don't think the sourcing is sufficient to establish those "signature initiatives" as a fact instead of simply an opinion of the Washington Post. I also moved this part to the end since it's sort of a reflective of her whole time. Nil Einne (talk) 18:50, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The U.S Opioid epidemic and the Purdue Pharma non-prosecution

Should a section be added about her and Paul McNulty's decision to overrule the prosecutors in charge of the Purdue Pharma prosecution? This happened back in 2007 and was well reported but it's back in the news because of the documentary The Crime of the Century. Roan Asher (talk) 13:41, 23 May 2021 (UTC)