I want you all to see an email that a gentleman named Kenneth Lamb sent to both Wild Bill and myself. Mr. Lamb has given me full permission to post this.

I read the email from the attorney.

His client is now what is known under the law as a “semi-public” personality, if in fact not a “public personality,” given the scope of the story, the breadth of its dissemination, and the fact that his client is employed as a political operative in an active campaign for the governorship.

Unless the subject’s attorney can demonstrate that you published “with a reckless disregard for the truth” in a “malicious manner,” he can go pound sand. If the IM scammer thinks this is the best legal representation he can get, he’s cooked.

I thought the most foolish part of his email had to do with premising you must have someone’s “authorization” to run his client’s name or photograph. The guy is a campaign staffer, and this is legitimate news affecting the campaign with which he is associated.

He appears publicly in connection with the campaign as a matter of his employment; does this attorney think news organizations around the world have to either get his client’s permission to have his image in a photo, or else brush stroke the guy out if they don’t? What a maroon.

Well, I guess you have to give the attorney 2 points for trying to bluff you into submission. While he is suggesting you seek an attorney familiar with civil and criminal liability, he may want to contact an attorney himself to stop having a “fool for a client” when considering exactly what you will be able to subpoena and depose if a civil suit is filed – multiplied infinitely if a criminal investigation began. There are no Fifth Amendment claims in a civil suit. Ask OJ Simpson.