Marc Elias, memo-ist?

Al Franken’s lawyers take a lashing from Politics in Minnesota (PIM) — mostly on style points — for their impolitic memorandum in response to an opinion from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office that the State Canvassing Board needn’t take up the issue of improperly rejected absentee ballots:

And smart lawyers never impugn the integrity of the full-time attorneys in the Attorney General’s office. These lawyers refrain from insulting the AG’s office not only out of respect for the public office, but also because they know that what goes around comes around. The AG’s office is a permanent part of the legal structure.  The AG lawyers assigned to different areas have usually practiced in those different areas a long time. They know what they’re talking and writing about.

That statement both agrees and disagrees with Eric Black’s exposés of the goings-on at the AG’s office earlier this year.

“What goes around comes around” certainly gibes with what one source said:

“You just feel like it’s Big Brother, in a way, with Mike [Hatch] and now with Lori [Swanson]. You see their connections with legislators, with big law firms. You feel that they don’t respect you, that they’re out for themselves, and if you cross them, they’re gonna get you.”

But the part about AG attorneys being permanent goes against Black’s earlier account of the goings-out in the AG’s office:

During Swanson’s first year in office, more than 50 of the roughly 135 assistant attorneys general have left the office — an unusually high turnover rate.

Specifically, PIM frets that the Franken team’s phrase “with all due respect” may have disrespected Assistant Attorney General Ken Raschke — an especially foolhardy move if Raschke is related to the local clan of famed professional wrestler Baron von Raschke. (Ken Raschke certainly looks like he’s had it in PIM’s excellent photo from yesterday’s Canvassing Board meeting.)

But Marc Elias, Franken’s out-of-town lawyer who PIM surmises is to blame for ineptly getting crosswise with the AG, is a tough customer himself. At his first press conference last week, he towered over the podium and let a gentle tone rise quickly to an outraged roar. And if you looked down, you saw that the laces on his ankle-high leather boots were loose. This is a guy who lives by the motto, “I’ll tie my shoes when I’m dead.”