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Ex-Rowland Counsel Helps Gov Sanford

Ross Garber represented the govenor's office during impeachment proceedings

By JIM DAVENPORT

| Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009 | Updated 1:25 PM EST

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Shipman & Goodwin

Ross Garber is going to be helping Gov. Mark Sanford.

The man who counseled beleaguered Gov. John G. Rowland is giving some help to another troubled governor.

That would be South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, the philandering pol who mysteriously disappeared for a week over the summer and then admitted to a lengthy affair with an Argentinean woman.

The governor's office has hired lawyer Ross Garber, who claims the case against Sanford doesn't meet the high standard for impeachment.

Sanford’s office will pay Garber $150, according to the Web site for The State, a South Carolina newspaper.

Garber has experience dealing with these types of situations. The ethics expert was the lead counsel when a Legislative committee was deciding whether to impeach Rowland.

As we all know, Rowland resigned, pleaded guilty to a corruption charge and went to prison.

"I hope the House looks at the history and realizes what they’re doing is an extraordinary thing," Garber told the newspaper. Only 16 governors ever have been impeached and only eight removed from office, he said.

In the past 80 years, only two governors have been impeached, Garber said. In both cases, they were subject to criminal charges alleging they had committed felonies.

"The further you get away from (a felony), the more difficult it is to justify impeachment," Garber told the newspaper.

On Tuesday, the first step in considering Sanford's impeachment begins in Columbia, South Carolina as a legislative panel is to consider whether he was derelict in his duties by leaving the state in June to see his lover.

Garber works for Connecticut-based Shipman& Goodwin, specializing in government investigations, white-collar criminal defense and business litigation.

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