The Law Blog is tired after a full day that saw a high-profile fugitive caught, a notorious Ponzi schemer spend his second day in prison, and a Madoff associate make an interesting legal filing.

But, alas, other important matters came to our attention. Without further ado (adieu!):

Make it 22: Sam Israel, who was sentenced last year to a 20-year prison term for defrauding clients of his Bayou hedge funds of more than $450 million, will tack on another two years for failing to show up to prison to serve that time. Press release from today’s sentencing is here. (Prior posts here, here and here.)

Harvard Law Doesn’t Panic: It’s scary when HLS students have to worry about future employment. With dreadful news coming out of BigLaw (exhibit A), the school has some advice for its students, according to a memo released earlier this year: “Now is not the time for avoidance, denial or panic. Instead, keep a cool head and focus on the things that you can control.” Here’s the Bloomberg story. The school’s assistant dean told the newswire: “If you are looking in D.C., consider Baltimore or Richmond…If you’re looking in Chicago, try Milwaukee and St. Louis, too. You need to be casting a wider net in this market.”


Tolkien Heirs Want Their Preciousssss: Speaking of Bloomberg, here’s the story about a case that pits the heirs of “Lord of the Rings” author JRR Tolkien and Time Warner. The heirs say Time Warner’s New Line Cinema hasn’t paid them, even though Tolkien sold movie rights to his novels 40 years ago for 7.5% of future receipts. The three films grossed $6 billion. Trial is slated for October.

NYC’s Law$uit Nightmare: John Avlon says it all in the lead sentence of his article in Forbes: New York City spends more money on lawsuits than the next five largest American cities — Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia — combined. The city’s $568 million outlay in fiscal year 2008 was more than double what it spent 15 years ago and 20 times what it paid in 1977. (HT: Overlawyered and ATL)

Julian Tzolov, a former Credit Suisse Group (CS) broker, who was declared a fugitive by federal prosecutors in June, has been apprehended, prosecutors said Wednesday, but the specifics remain pretty murky.

Chad Bray, our colleague at Dow Jones Newswires, reports that prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office submitted a letter to the court Wednesday, saying that Tzolov had been apprehended. The letter didn’t provide any details of the arrest or where it took place and Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said he had no additional details.

Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer for Tzolov, declined comment.

Tzolov, a native of Bulgaria, was charged in an indictment unsealed last week for failure to appear and visa fraud, according to an indictment made public Wednesday.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in June, prosecutors said Tzolov, who was free on bail and subject to home confinement with electronic monitoring, left his home without permission May 9 and they haven’t been able to locate him. An arrest warrant for Tzolov was issued May 11 and remained under seal until last month, according to the government’s letter.

Tzolov and Eric Butler, both formerly of Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, have been accused of engaging in an alleged fraudulent scheme to obtain higher commissions by selling clients higher-risk auction-rate securities backed by mortgages, when those clients wanted to buy lower-risk securities backed by student loans. They have been charged in Brooklyn with conspiracy, securities fraud and multiple counts of wire fraud. Butler is set to go to trial on those charges beginning Monday.

On Monday night, former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork (pictured) did his best to “bork” Sonia Sotomayor on Campbell Brown’s CNN program. (Video here.)

In the three-minute interview, Judge Bork — he of the slip-n-fall lawsuit against Yale Club — said her “wise Latina” comment should disqualify her.

“I would say it should, except for the fact that we don’t disqualify other people for similar remarks,” Bork said. ” I don’t think what she said is consistent with the job of a judge. On the other hand, the woods are full of people out there who are making remarks which are not consistent with their role as judges.”

He then added: “But I don’t think the — that one remark, although she said it several times — I don’t think that will prove to be disqualifying nor do — nor do I think it should, unless we had — unless we’re enforcing stricter standards than we have been enforcing.”

When asked by Brown what he would have done differently before the senators at his confirmation hearing, he said: “…I think I could have been more intelligent in my approach and more aware of what was taking place. I kept responding to questions as if it was a rational discussion, which it wasn’t.”

What’s his advice for Sonia? “Don’t lose your temper. …[S]he’ll be confirmed if she — if she doesn’t, as was said, if she doesn’t meltdown,” he said. “There’s no reason why she should meltdown. And if she just maintains an even emotional temper, she’ll be confirmed easily.”

The Sotomayor confirmations had turned seriously plodding this afternoon until Lindsey Graham livened things up ever so slightly.

The South Carolina Republican (pictured left) told Judge Sonia Sotomayor that he liked her, and he maintained a winning smile throughout his questioning. But that didn’t stop him from going on the attack when asking Sotomayor about criticisms of her temperament on the Second Circuit. In anonymous surveys, he said, attorneys had offered these comments: “She’s a terror;” “she seems angry;” “she abuses lawyers,” and on and on.

Sotomayor defended herself by saying that she asked tough questions of lawyers. Appellate lawyers, she said, are generally critical of the Second Circuit, because it is a hot bench, often drilling attorneys with questions even though they have only 10 minutes to make their case in oral arguments, she pointed out.

No, Graham replied. Lawyers “find you more difficult and challenging than your colleagues. …You stand out like a sore thumb in terms of your temperament.”

The Democrats quickly responded to this line of attack with a statement titled “correcting the record,” which included comments Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made to the New York Times (here) suggesting that male appellate judges are given more leeway than women to aggressively question lawyers. “Yes, the notion that Sonia is an aggressive questioner – what else is new,” she told the Times. “Has anybody watched Scalia or Breyer up on the bench?”

Graham was also one of the few senators who appeared to learn anything of substance about Sotomayor’s views. At one point, he seemed to illicit a suggestion from the judge that even though the Constitution does not expressly grant women the right to an abortion that, standing alone, does not give states the license to regulate abortion as much as they choose. Graham, however, treated this perhaps as more of a gotcha moment than it warranted, suggesting that Sotomayor clearly embraced the idea of the Constitution as a broad document that evolved with the times.

Sotomayor, however, told Graham that the “Constitution doesn’t live except to be timeless.”

Continuing on the abortion theme, Graham later asked Sotomayor about her 12-year tenure as a board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. The group, he noted, repeatedly argued in motions that impoverished women should get taxpayer assistance to get abortions. The judge said she was not familiar with those motions and that as a board member her primary responsibility was to raise money for the group.

Sotomayor, though, did once sign a brief by the Puerto Rican legal group in which it argued against the death penalty in New York on the grounds that it was used more against minorities.

Despite that, the judge said she defers to the Supreme Court precedent that the death penalty is constitutional.

LB Bonus: We also highly recommend this post on Sotomayor’s questioning about the Ricci case, found on WSJ’s Washington Wire, written by Supreme Court reporter Jess Bravin.

Photo: AP

Let’s get ready to rumble. Day 2 of the Sotomayor hearings, just underway, is already more sporting than yesterday’s round of senatorial soliloquies.

Taking a page from Tiger Woods’s playbook, Sotomayor (pictured) was dressed in a red jacket today, perhaps hoping to signal impending victory.

Pat Leahy, the Democratic chair of the judiciary committee, got the first crack at Sotomayor. He quickly focused on the dents in her armor, asking her about the Ricci holding and her “wise Latina” comments, as well as her recent holding that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not binding on states, despite a recent ruling by the Supremes that shot down a DC gun-ban law.

In Ricci, the New Haven firefighter case, where she held a city was free to scrap a promotions test that had a disparate impact on minorities, Sotomayor said she was simply following precedent. In reversing her ruling, she said, “the Supreme Court applied a new standard . . .from a different area of law.”

She also portrayed her conclusion about the Second Amendment’s limited reach as a mere application of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Heller case. She also added: “I have friends who hunt.”

As for the “wise Latina” comment, given in a speech to law students in California, Sotomayor explained that she had given several versions of the speech to various student groups composed of women and young Latinos. In that context, she said, “I was trying to inspire[listeners] to believe their life experiences would enrich the legal system.” But, she added, “I want to state up front, unequivocally. . .I believe every person has an equal opportunity to be a wise judge, regardless of their background or life experience.”

Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the committee, was predictably far less warm and fuzzy than Leahy. He started right in with questions about some of the judge’s speeches, including one to Duke law students where she said that circuit courts are where policy is made.

If you look beyond snippet of that speech on You Tube (see the video below) be, Sotomayor said, the context is clear: she was simply saying, she explained, that circuit courts establish precedents, which have policy implications because they bind future litigants, not just the ones in the case at hand.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Court is Where Policy is Made



Sessions said he had seen the whole speech and didn’t believe her message was quite as clear as she portrayed it. The senator hammered away at comments the judge had made in speeches – including, “my experiences affect the facts I choose to see as a judge” and “impartiality is a mere aspiration” saying they showed a consistent philosophy that life experiences and prejudices inevitably and fairly affect a judge’s decisions.

“My record shows that at no point or time have I ever allowed my personal views or sympathies to affect the outcome of a case,” Sotomayor countered.

“The point I was making is that our life experiences permit us to understand some facts more easily than others.” And the “wise Latina” comment, she said, was a “rhetorical flourish” that “fell flat.” She conceded: “It was bad.”

Herb Kohl of Wisconsin then asked her in successive questions what she thought of affirmative action and the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision, and Roe v. Wade.

Whether affirmative action is necessary is always first a legislative decision, Sotomayor said, later echoing a comment by Sandra Day O’Connor that she hopes race won’t be an issue in our society in 25 years. As for Bush v. Gore, she said she looked at “that sui generis situation” and thought that some good came from the discussion, including fixing election flaws in various states. She said simply that the court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v Casey established that Roe v. Wade is still settled law.

A federal judge in San Jose on Monday sent mixed signals over the fate of a new law designed to target violent animal-rights protests, indicating he will rule later in the nation's first direct legal challenge to Congress' attempt to protect animal researchers and scientists from serious safety threats.

During an hourlong hearing, U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte suggested that the 2006 Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act may be legally vulnerable, but he also left doubts about whether the current lawsuit is the right path to take on the law in its entirety.

Federal prosecutors invoked the law for the first time earlier this year, indicting four activists accused of threats and vandalism against University of California medical researchers in Santa Cruz and Berkeley.

Lawyers for the defendants, backed by civil liberties groups, argue that the animal terrorism law is unconstitutional. They say it's too broad, vague and tramples on the free speech rights of animal rights advocates who protest and boycott for their cause. In moving to dismiss the indictment, they maintain the law targets animal rights groups so broadly that it would criminalize a boycott or protest outside a fur store.

More...

Federal judge weighs legal challenge to animal rights anti-terrorism law

The new state law permitting gun carry permit holders to bring firearms into Tennessee bars and restaurants goes into effect at midnight Monday, after a group of restaurateurs failed to convince a judge to stop it. However, another hearing on the issue has been granted.

Monday afternoon, Randy Rayburn, owner of Sunset Grill, Cabana and Midtown Cafe, asked Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman for an injunction against the law, which was vetoed by Gov. Phil Bredesen but affirmed by the Legislature in a veto override. Rayburn contends the new law, which allows carry permit holders to bring handguns into places that serve alcohol, puts his customers and employees at risk.

Bonnyman refused to issue an injunction, saying Rayburn and others who disagree with the law may place signs on their doors prohibiting guns. Rayburn has argued that places him in an uncertain liability position should an incident occur. He has already posted such signs on his restaurants.

Despite the disappointing verdict, another hearing has been granted after 90 days, Rayburn spokeswoman Jayne Rogovin says. "We live to fight another day," she says.

Proponents of the law say patrons will be safer if trained gun owners with carry permits can easily access their guns to defend them in case of a robbery or other crime.

More...

Restaurant owners' plea fails to stop guns-in-bars law - Nashville Business Journal

Bernie Madoff was transferred today from his New York City jail cell to a federal prison in North Carolina where he’ll begin to serve his 150-year prison term, according to a Dow Jones Newswires story.

The 71-year-old Madoff, who pleaded guilty to bilking investors out of billions, will start his lengthy sentence at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C., which is within a half-hour of Raleigh. The complex includes a pair of medium-security prisons and a low-security prison.

During Madoff’s sentencing two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin recommended that the Ponzi-scheme operator be imprisoned in the Northeast. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons, however, has final say over where prisoners serve their time.

Alan Ellis, a lawyer who specializes in federal sentencing and matters involving the Bureau of Prisons, told the Law Blog in June Chin’s recommendation on location may have little relevance in the BoP’s decision. Click here to read the transcript from that interview.

“Not at all,” Ellis said when asked whether the BoP had to follow Chin’s suggestion. “And, frankly, I’d be very surprised if he was sent to the northeast. I’d guess that they’re going to put him far away from the media, in a very well-run but isolated facility in the middle of nowhere.”

A handful of other infamous people inhabit the Butner prison. Current inmates include Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas and his son Timothy, each of whom was found guilty of concealing more than $2 billion worth of company debt. John Rigas, 84, will serve time until 2018 and Timothy, 53, is scheduled for release in 2022. Former Rite Aid Corp. Vice Chairman Franklin C. Brown, convicted of an accounting scandal, is at Butner until 2013. Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy official who admitted to spying for Israel, is at the prison until 2015.

As if investors needed more to worry about. The outlook for corporate profits already is clouded by an uncertain economy, and markets remain skittish. Now there is a burst of antitrust activism.

The Justice Department is conducting a review of the telecom industry. Last week, it toughened its line on payments paid by drug makers to avoid defending patents in court. It also convinced the Department of Transportation to put restrictions on a route-sharing pact between Continental Airlines and the Star Alliance.

That is a change from the last several ...

Antitrust Revival Adds Risk for Investors - WSJ.com

Much of the anticipation among the press hordes in the Sotomayor confirmation hearings today has focused on someone other than the star: Al Franken, the junior member of the judiciary committee. Would he offer any stabs at humor?

Not a one. Franken, the former Saturday Night Live star turned Democrat politician who fought an exhaustive battle for the seat held by Republican Norm Coleman, played it deadly serious, even using some of his allotted time to try to put to rest any concern that he would be overly partisan. Addressing Republican Jeff Sessions, Franken said he would strive to “work with his colleagues across the aisle.”

On the subject of judging, Franklin hit on the topic that has occupied all the senators: Judicial activism. Franken said he was wary of activism, and he said the current Supreme Court had evidenced too much of it. “Looking at recent decisions on voting rights, campaign finance reform,” he said, “appropriate deference has not been shown [to precedent] in the past few years.”



It was the other Minnesotan on the Judiciary Committee, Democrat Amy Klobuchar, who got the laughs this afternoon. When she met Sotomayor, she said, the judge recalled how she had to wear a parka in Minnesota in June. “But I won’t hold that against you,” Klobuchar said. She then went off on a long tangent about Pat Leahy’s affection for the Grateful Dead, saying that Leahy even once turned down a chance to talk to the president because the senator was on stage with the Dead.

Editor’s Note: The Journal’s Nathan Koppel is blogging this week from the Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, giving quick impressions in some posts and longer legal analysis in others. This is his first post.

Despite about 1,000 moving parts in a crowded Senate committee room, the Sotomayor confirmation hearing began promptly on time this morning.

Here are a few quick impressions:



Sotomayor–pictured with Sens. Leahy and Sessions (right)–spoke for only about a minute, but she quickly showed flashes of charm when asked to introduce her family. “We’d be here all morning if I introduced all my family members,” she said. When she turned to her mom, brother and immediately family, seated behind her, even some of her Republican detractors smiled warmly.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Leahy, in his introductory comments, came out swinging, almost suggesting that aggressive questioning of the nominee might border on racism. He talked about the hostile questioning Thurgood Marshall received, at his confirmation hearing, including: “Are you prejudiced against the white people of the South?” And Louis Brandeis, he added, got questions about the “Jewish mind” and how “its operations are complicated by altruism.” To bring the point home, Leahy said: “I trust that all members of this committee here today will reject the efforts . . .to create a caricature of Judge Sotomayor.”

Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the judiciary committee, took all of about a minute to say the “E” word, as in empathy, as a part of a treatise on the evils of activist, expansive judging. “I fear this empathy standard is another step down the road to a liberal activist, results-oriented world,” Sessions said.

Republican Orrin Hatch invoked the failed confirmation hearing of Miguel Estrada for a circuit court post. Hatch said that Estrada is a respected appellate litigator with a compelling life story, but he was fiercely opposed. Hatch’s message: it’s okay to aggressively challenge attractive Hispanic candidates.

And while Democrat Dianne Feinstein was speaking, an abortion protester started screaming: “Abortion is murder.” He was quickly grabbed by security and dragged out of the room.

Photo: AP

Saying that the U.S. military may inadvertently be training "future domestic terrorists," the Southern Poverty Law Center on Friday asked Congress to strengthen policies against racial extremists in uniform.

"Evidence continues to mount that current Pentagon policies are inadequate to prevent racial extremists from joining and serving in the armed forces," Morris Dees, founder of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote to the heads of four congressional committees. "Because the presence of extremists in the armed forces is a serious threat to the safety of the American public, we believe Congressional action is warranted."

In the 1980s and 1990s, defense officials issued and strengthened regulations against hate speech and activity. But the center's 2006 report to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not produce any action, said Heidi Beirich, the organization's director of research. Pentagon officials insisted regulations prohibiting participation in white supremacist groups were adequate, she said.

Read more...

Group warns Congress of racial extremists within military | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

Cities and counties in East Tennessee and across the state are just now coming to grips with a new law effective Sept. 1 that will allow citizens with handgun permits to carry guns in public parks.

A provision in the law allows cities and counties, after adoption of a resolution by the legislative body, to opt out of the provision and keep their parks free from guns.

One such city considering an ordinance is Dandridge, where in 2006 three adults were shot and killed, including the shooter, at a city ballpark known as the "Field of Dreams."

Dandridge Mayor George Gantte said the ordinance is on the agenda for Tuesday's Dandridge City Council meeting.

"Under the ordinance, you would not be allowed to carry a handgun on city-owned municipal property or the Field of Dreams or any other city-owned park," Gantte said. "Certainly, we don't want another incident. Unfortunately, it gave the town of Dandridge a black eye, and none of the people involved were from Dandridge. In a small town, when something of that magnitude happens, it doesn't help the image of the town."

The ordinance states: "Any person authorized to carry a handgun is prohibited from possessing any handgun while in a public park, natural area, historic park, nature trail, campground, forest, greenway, waterway or other similar public place that is owned or operated by the town of Dandridge."

Gantte said there's already an ordinance in place that prohibits the discharge of a firearm within the city of Dandridge.

The ordinance must be passed on two readings, then after 30 days, a third reading and a public hearing will be held.

Last week the Murfreesboro City Council voted to opt out of the law.

More...

Cities, counties may choose to opt out of weapons-in-parks law Knoxville News Sentinel

Gov. Jay Nixon signs new crime laws

CARTHAGE, Mo. - While a new crime lab was a big focus of Gov. Jay Nixon’s signing ceremony south of Carthage on Thursday, the other laws he signed could have as much of an impact on crime fighting and every day life.

Nixon signed five bills into law in a ceremonial signing at the Missouri State Highway Patrol Satellite office south of Carthage.

These new laws, when they take affect in August, will affect DNA databases, change the way child witnesses are handled in court, prohibit young people texting while driving, increase the penalties for crimes such as the rape or sodomizing of a child and make a host of other changes.

“I’ll be here signing five different bills that on the surface you might think have little in common, but quite frankly, they have a lot in common,” Nixon said. “One deals with DNA, another with children who are witnesses in criminal cases, another increases the sentences for some vicious sex offenders, another helps streamline the investigatory process for the highway patrol, and the fifth deals with many different crime issues, different, yes, but not unrelated at all.”

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Nixon signs new crime laws - Carthage, MO - Carthage Press

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday that the Bush administration may have broken the law if the Central Intelligence Agency concealed a covert spy program from Congress.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the agency’s current director, Leon E. Panetta, had told the Senate and House intelligence committees that the C.I.A. withheld the information about a secret counterterrorism program on direct orders from then Vice President Dick Cheney.

More...

Feinstein Says Law May Have Been Broken

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A 20-year-old New York man is scheduled to stand trial in the killing of a transgendered woman.

Dwight DeLee's trial begins Monday in Syracuse, N.Y.

Prosecutors are hoping for a conviction under the state's hate crime law in the November 2008 fatal shooting of 22-year-old Lateisha Green.

The hate crime label could add years of additional prison time to DeLee's sentence if he's convicted.

But hate crime convictions in the state are relatively rare.

Of the 6,151 criminal cases classified as hate crimes in New York between 2000 and 2008, 13 percent ended in convictions.

The conviction rate for all crimes in the state during that period is nearly 65 percent.

Google's (GOOG) announcement that it will launch its own browser based operating system (OS), in direct competition with Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows, has prompted widespread analysis that has focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the respective companies.

On the US Department of Justice's Antitrust website, the Sherman Antitrust Act is summarized in part by the paragraph below:

The Sherman Act also makes it a crime to monopolize any part of interstate commerce. An unlawful monopoly exists when only one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anti competitive conduct.

Read the entire article...

Google's Chrome: Cavalry in an Antitrust War

WASHINGTON (AP) — Six months into Barack Obama's presidency, his Democratic allies are pushing for twin investigations into Bush-era torture and anti-terrorism policies.

Two senators including the head of the intelligence committee suggested Sunday that the prior administration broke the law by concealing a CIA counterterrorism program from Congress.

The assertion that Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the concealment came amid word that Attorney General Eric Holder is contemplating opening a criminal probe of possible CIA torture.

A move to appoint a criminal prosecutor is certain to stir partisan bickering that could prove a distraction to Obama's efforts to push ambitious health care and energy reform.

Obama has repeatedly expressed reluctance to probing alleged Bush-era abuses. He resisted an effort by congressional Democrats to establish a "truth commission," saying the nation should be "looking forward and not backwards."

Sheriff: Surveillance at home of slain Fla. couple captures video of swift crime, getaway

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida couple killed in their home had an extensive surveillance system in the house that recorded three apparently experienced criminals swiftly slip into the house before driving off in a red van, police said.

Several tips from the public led investigators to a red, 15-passenger van Saturday morning that they believe was used as the getaway vehicle by the three men, believed to be in their "late teens on up," Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said. Authorities were questioning two people linked to the van, but no arrests have been made.

Byrd and Melanie Billings of Beulah, a rural area west of Pensacola near the Alabama state line, were found shot dead in their home Thursday evening. The couple, known for their large family of adopted children, had an extensive surveillance system in the house and Morgan said authorities have reviewed the tapes repeatedly. The couple was killed as the children slept.

"I will share this with you — I think we were surprised by the rapidity of the crime," Morgan said.

"It suggests experience to me."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she's not only staying involved in national politics, but she plans to jump back into the national scrum when she leaves office at the end of the month.

The former Republican vice presidential nominee said she plans to write a book, campaign for political candidates from coast to coast — even Democrats who share her views on limited government, national defense and energy independence — and build a right-of-center coalition.

"I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation," she said during an interview published Sunday in The Washington Times.

Palin shocked critics and allies alike when she announced on July 3 that she would leave the governor's office while in the middle of her first term. The governor chose not to seek re-election and suggested it was unfair to hold onto the office as a lame duck. Instead, she will step down July 26 and pursue a national profile. She has not said whether she is building toward a presidential campaign for 2012.

Republican Women Federated of Simi Valley announced Palin was scheduled to speak to the group's private gala on Aug. 8 at the Ronal Reagan Presidential Library in California. The event — reporters will not be allowed to attend — will take place in an airplane hangar that houses a retired presidential aircraft Air Force One and will stir more questions about he curious resignation.