Politico's Josh Gerstein, my former New York Sun colleague, quotes Ted Frank, identified as "a conservative lawyer who runs the Washington-based Center for Class Action Fairness":
Frank warned of a potential economic fallout from the White House's efforts to bully BP into paying claims for which it may not have legal liability.
"Every other business doing business in the U.S. has to say: What happens when the government decides to come after me? They expect with Chavez in Venezuela, they have to account for that risk, but if the U.S. does it, that just reduces the incentive to invest in the United States," Frank said. "The damage the administration is doing to the U.S. economy by playing these kinds of games is just appalling."