Mokhiber: The Washington Post reported Saturday that George Terwilliger, who is a lawyer at White & Case here, worked for the President during the campaign and is a leading candidate to be head of the FBI.

Terwilliger has a client, Credit Lyonnais, a French bank, that is under a major fraud investigation.

He has been calling the Justice Department to try and persuade Justice Department attorneys not to bring criminal charges against his client.

The article talks about legal ethicists who say this is unethical. I was wondering if you think that this is unethical -- for him to be calling the Justice Department while he is under consideration to be head of the FBI? .

Ari Fleischer: First of all, I have not indicated who is under consideration to become the next director of the FBI. And I don't speculate about who the President is interviewing and when the President will make that decision.

In terms of your question specifically, he's a private citizen, he's not a government employee, and so I don't think that is a question that ought to be addressed to me.

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-Thanks to Russell Mokhiber

White House reporter Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter - www.corporatecrimereporter.com. He co-authors the weekly Focus on the Corporation column with Robert Weissman which Common Dreams publishes. He can be reached at: russell@nationalpress.com