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BP's Army of Democratic Lobbyists
BP, which has garnered the bulk of public attention and contempt for the spill, has assembled a formidable team of Democrats for its Washington lobbying, legal and public-relations offensive. There is Tony Podesta, who heads one of the District's leading lobbying firms; legal adviser Jamie Gorelick, a top Justice Department official in the Clinton administration now at the law firm WilmerHale; Hilary Rosen, a former recording-industry lobbyist who heads the Washington office of the Brunswick Group, a public-relations consultancy; and Michael S. Berman of the Duberstein Group, who was a longtime aide to former vice president Walter F. Mondale before becoming a lobbyist.

Gorelick, who also served as a member of the 9/11 Commission, proved critical in coaching the company during tense negotiations with President Obama over the creation of a $20 billion escrow fund for spill damages, according to several sources close to the talks. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that the administration "forced" BP to set up the fund and to intensify its efforts to contain the spill....