The Liberal on Karl Rove's Case

"He spent a lot of time talking to me, and there were people who would not give you the time of day," recalls M.J. Anderson, who met Luskin in 1978 when she was a secretary at the prestigious publication. "He was one of the least conventional people on the law review when he was there." (Among Luskin's classmates and fellow law review editors: John Roberts, who would become chief justice.)

Before pursuing a law career, Luskin worked as a general-assignment reporter at the Providence Journal in the mid-1970s. (He briefly covered Washington.) He had become enamored of journalism as a Harvard freshman, back when a lot of the students -- Luskin included -- had shaggy hair and mutton chops.

Working at the school radio station, he found himself inside University Hall when 500 cops ended a takeover by protesters in April 1969: "I basically did the play-by-play of the bust while it was happening," he says. Luskin and three other student reporters secured a book contract and quickly produced "The Harvard Strike," which placed the incident into a wider context of radical politics.

"He really wanted to be a writer but didn't see a way to stay in it and make a living," says Anderson, now an editorial writer at the Providence Journal. "He ended up in law school in spite of himself."

Luskin explains: "I think I was probably getting family pressure that being a journalist was an utterly disreputable profession." He laughs heartily. "It was neither a doctor nor a lawyer and, therefore, by definition, not totally acceptable. But I loved being a reporter . . . and still miss it."

That part of his background may redound to Rove's benefit. Journalists tend to like Luskin: He's smooth and personable but manages not to come off as unctuous. Like many others in the capital's permanent scandal infrastructure, he knows fully the art of leak-and-tip, but he also has the advantage of understanding what it was like to be on the other side. He gamely calls that attribute part of his "skill set."

"I think the picture is of a very good reporter who turned out to be an ace lawyer, with a sort of humility and charm to boot. That's hard to beat," says Harvard law professor Philip B. Heymann, who served as a top Justice Department official. (On his referral, Luskin went to work for the department's organized-crime section in 1980.)

"I could easily imagine his being a friend-making, humanizing force for anybody he is representing. I've never met Rove, but he looks like he could use it."

Because of Luskin, "you think better of Karl," concurs Mark Corallo, who is handling PR for Rove and Luskin. (Even a mouthpiece needs a mouthpiece in this town.)

Luskin's résumé includes scandal experience dating back to the Abscam bribery case. He weathered some of the most subpoena-happy Hill investigations of the Clinton years -- Whitewater, Vince Foster, campaign fundraising. He earned particularly good notices in Democratic power circles when he represented a former Clinton aide named Mark Middleton in front of ravening Hill Republicans. (Rep. Dan Burton's committee linked Middleton to all manner of allegations involving the Chinese government, the Lippo Group, Charlie Trie, John Huang, Johnny Chung et al., but Middleton was never charged.)

Luskin had to do a lot of spinning for himself when the U.S. attorney in Rhode Island accused him of "willful blindness" for accepting 45 gold bars worth more than $505,000, as well as Swiss wire transfers of $169,000, for his work on the case of a precious-metals dealer convicted of laundering millions in drug money. In 1998 Luskin settled with the government, forfeiting $245,000 in fees.

Luskin says he did due diligence to assure that the money he got was legit, even if it was paid in "a somewhat unusual fashion," but now admits it looked bad. "I kind of got lost in what I thought were the legalities of the situation and didn't take a step back and say, you know, how would people regard something like this?"