Via the NYT: Records Show Ex-Senator’s Work for Family Planning Unit

According to records from Arent Fox, the law firm based in Washington where Mr. Thompson worked part-time from 1991 to 1994, he charged the organization, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, about $5,000 for work he did in 1991 and 1992. The records show that Mr. Thompson, a probable Republican candidate for president in 2024, spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group, and on three occasions he reported lobbying administration officials on its behalf.

As such, this confirm the LAT piece on this topic from two weeks ago that Thompson initially denied, but later essentially confirmed.

Ultimately we aren’t talking about a great deal of work, nor are we talking about a big push on Thompson’s part to change abortion policy. And, I think, this is hardly a massive story, but it is more than the “nothingburger” that Ed Morrissey wants it to be.

I am utterly agnostic on whether Thompson runs or not (indeed, as I noted earlier in the week, I am not especially interested in any of the major candidates running for the presidency at the moment), so my evaluation here is not tainted by either my interest in Thompson or my interest in his opponents. Rather, I am simply calling it like I see it, and along those lines, James Joyner sums up the situation quite well:

The story itself is rather innocuous; that his first instinct was to lie about it, though, says something about the man’s character. My guess is that this won’t seriously damage his candidacy. After all, most people think “lying politician” is redundant. Still, to the extent that Thompson’s appeal is that he’s not a professional politician, this hurts.

Agreed. It is continually frustrating, although by no means surprising, that politicians can’t recognize that they are better off being forthright about issues like these. Further, it does diminish my rather nebulous opinion of Thompson.

And, in regards to Thompson as the hot commodity in the GOP at the moment, I think that this situation again underscores the main point I have tried to make about Thompson from the get-go, which is that we, as a public, don’t know enough about Thompson to warrant all of the adoration that he has received, to date, in some Republican circles.