Rapper Snoop Dogg may be a convicted felon as well as a hip-hop impresario, but he is a well-connected one – boasting indirect ties to some of America’s most powerful families.
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The musician, originally named Calvin Broadus, has been nominated for nine Grammy awards (although he has never won one), but has also had a series of run-ins with the law, most related to drug possession.
His high-powered criminal defense attorney, Donald Etra of Los Angeles, who appears to be on permanent retainer, is a college chum of George W. Bush’s from their days together at Yale. Etra, like Bush, was a member of the elite Skull and Bones Society, whose members include the scions of some of America’s most prestigious families
Etra and Bush are still close. Last month, Etra was one of 79 members of the president’s delegation to Israel in honor of the Jewish state’s 60th anniversary. This past spring, Bush reappointed him to his second five-year term on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
And Etra and his wife, Paula, regularly visit the president and his wife, Laura, at the White House.
There is no indication that Etra has introduced his client to the president, whose music tastes lean in other directions.
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2 Comments
#1. Barbara B 09.08.2008
If I had enough money, I’d hire the best lawyer I could find to defend me. And if they were the best they probably would have defended members of the political elites. Doesn’t mean I had any real ties. As for those other ties, any recording artist would have to have them to get his music out. This makes me mistrust Muckety’s representations of the power elites.
#2. Laurie Bennett 09.08.2008
We try not to be patently unfair in our Muckety this! maps. (It’s quite easy, for example, to link many public figures to Hitler.)
That said, we like to have some fun with the Muckety this! section. We make these maps precisely because the connections are unexpected, even outlandish.
We think it’s a good contrast to the seriousness of most of our news, politics and business stories.
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