John M. Dowd

John M. Dowd (born November 2, 1941), an American lawyer. He received his J.D. from Emory University School of Law in 1966.

In 2010 Dowd was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. and as of 2013 Dowd set up his own practice John M. Dowd,in Washington, D.C.

Dowd was the Special Counsel to the Commissioner of Baseball and author of a report that led to the banning of Major League Baseball player Pete Rose. In his role as Special Counsel to the Commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, he produced the thedowdreport.com, which detailed Rose's betting on baseball games in the 1980s, including teams Rose was managing at the time. The report led to Rose's lifetime ban in August 1989, even though "no evidence was discovered that Rose bet against the Reds" according to Dowd in 1989. Dowd mentioned in a 2002 ESPN interview that he "probably did".

Dowd represented Senator John McCain (R-AZ) during the Senate Ethics Investigation known as the Keating 5 in the hearings held in 1990 and 1991. John McCain along with John Glenn were cleared for impropriety by the Senate committee, but were reprimanded and criticized for their poor judgment.

Dowd represented former Arizona governor Fife Symington during the latter's trial for extortion and bank fraud in 1996 and 1997, of which he was convicted for bank fraud. Symington was convicted on 7 of the 21 counts and acquitted on 3, with the other 11 resulting in a hung jury. His conviction was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2000. Symington was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001, whom Symington had once saved from a rip tide off of Connecticut.

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