As the investigation into Russia’s involvement into last year’s election grows in Washington, members of the White House staff are lawyering up. That includes Vice President Mike Pence, who is now represented by a former attorney general of Virginia.
For many years, until recently, an attorney general who wanted to run for governor would resign to focus on the campaign. That’s what happened in the summer of 1997, when Attorney General Jim Gilmore stepped down to hit the campaign trail. That left Governor George Allen with a job to fill. And so he turned to Richard Cullen, a well-connected lawyer who oversaw Allen’s effort to abolish the parole system in Virginia.
“He doesn’t get tied up in a bunch of Latin words that very few people understand, and so I think that Mike Pence as vice president, he didn’t ask me. But if he did I would have recommended Richard Cullen.”
Gilmore says one of the reasons he was elected attorney general was to take the politics out of the office, a goal he says Cullen shared. But Gilmore says Cullen also brought his own personal touch to the office during his six months there.
“He wanted to do something that was going to help within the time that he was there, and he wanted to do something that was fresh and new and something that was his own initiative. And so he did an alcohol and drug awareness program for the college campuses.”
Cullen was essentially a placeholder for the office. He did not run for the office, and after serving his time in Richmond he went back to work for the powerhouse law firm McGuireWoods. Now he may become a key figure in the ongoing saga in Washington.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.