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).
In 2007 he represented, along with a great many others, Blackwater Worldwide, a private military company. Following the Blackwater Baghdad shootings, Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee subpoenaed its Chief Executive Officer Erik Prince to testify. The climate of opinion among politicians and the public at large jeopardized its contracts to provide security for State Department personnel in Iraq. He also represented the firm in Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security, a lawsuit arising from the 31 March 2004 Fallujah ambush.
He was selected on January 8, 2007 by President George W. Bush to replace outgoing White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Fielding has reportedly maintained close ties to Vice President Dick Cheney, whom he has known for decades and occasionally served as an informal adviser. However, according to Time magazine in July 2009, Fielding opposed Cheney's request that President Bush issue a full pardon to convicted vice presidential aide Scooter Libby. Following Fielding's advice, Bush ended up not pardoning Libby. J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge who worked with Fielding in the Reagan Administration and remains close to Fielding, 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."
Fielding was responsible for approving the pardon issued by President Bush to convicted real estate fraudster Isaac Toussie. When the New York Daily News reported that Toussie had made large contributions to the Republican Party, the White House revoked the pardon the next day.
Fielding is now the chairman of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest.
Read more about this topic: Fred F. Fielding
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