The Connecticut attorney general, who entered the race for the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, is a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk who later had a prominent role in the Abscam investigation of congressional corruption.
Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who hopes to succeed retiring Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun during the 1974-75 term. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Blumenthal as the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, and three years later U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti picked him to lead an internal investigation of leaks from the U.S. Justice Department to the media about Abscam.
