On January 10th during the Alito hearings Senator Durbin mentions at the beginning of his 20 minute round of questioning that he had a "disagreement" during the break of the hearings with Adam Ciongoli whom Senator Durbin referred to as Alito's "Corner Man".
Adam Ciongoli has been featured on EVERY cable news outlet over the last few days fiercely supporting the Alito nomination. He is labeled only as a 'former Alito clerk'.
He is much more than that though, as Counselor to the Attorney General John Ashcroft, he served as the principal legal advisor in the Office of the Attorney General. He was known as 'Ashcroft's right hand'. During that time he was a key drafter of the Patriot Act and implementing the Unitary Executive theory in Bush's administration.
He was also put in charge of the 9/11 Commission:
http://www.becomethemedia.com/news/2003/WH_delays_911_i... "The administration decided that the 9/11 commission would have to channel its requests to obtain documents and interview personnel from the executive branch through the Justice Department. Adam G. Ciongoli, counselor to the attorney general who was assigned to take on this role, says he has merely acted as a "facilitator."
But Commissioner Max Cleland, a former Democratic senator from Georgia, says that Mr. Ciongoli is acting as a political gatekeeper, "cherry picking" the documents the White House wants to withhold. "It's obvious that they're sifting the information to the 9/11 commission now," he says. "We're way, way late here. The picture is not encouraging."
Prior to that position, Ciongoli served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, which he joined in April 1999.
From 1996 to 1999, Ciongoli practiced appellate law in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kirkland and Ellis, where he worked along side Kenneth Starr.
He also served as a law clerk to United States Circuit Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1995 to 1996.
Ciongoli graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, magna cum laude, and holds a B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania.
Ciongoli is now Vice President of Time Warner.
The reason I believe Alito was selcted by the Bush administration to be the next Supreme Court Justice is because of the Unitary Executive theory, Adam Ciongoli also supports this theory, which everyone should read (see link below)
Samuel Alito in a 2001 appearance before the conservative Federalist
Society, he said he continued to believe in the idea of the \"unitary
executive.\" That concept holds that the Constitution gives the
president all federal executive power, and means Congress likely could
not grant agency heads powers outside the president\'s reach.
This is a link to an extensive history of the theory of the Unitary Executive and its implementation by the Bush administration:
http://www.users.muohio.edu/kelleycs/paper.pdf 
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