Tom Liddy

Thomas "Tom" Liddy is an attorney and political figure in Maricopa County, Arizona. He is the son of Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy.

Early Years

Liddy was born July 20, 1962, in Poughkeepsie, New York. He is the fourth of Gordon and Frances Liddy's five children. The family moved to a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. in 1970 when Gordon Liddy began to work for President Richard Nixon.^[1]

Education

Liddy received BA in history at Fordham University in 1986, the same college his two brothers, father, and grandfather attended. He spent his junior year abroad in Jakarta Indonesia where he studied Economics and Theology and learned to speak Bahasa Indonesia. After serving in the US Marines, he returned to Fordam and graduated with a Law degree in 1992.

Military Service

Liddy was sworn in as a U.S. Marine on December 28, 1982 while at Fordham and attended the Officer Candidates School of the United States Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia during the summer.

He was commissioned as a Second lieutenant in the Marines in April 1985. He served on active duty from 1986 until 1989. He was a 81MM mortar platoon commander and later the Executive Officer of Weapons Company 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines. He served in Camp Lejeune, NC; Okinawa, Japan; The Republic of Korea; and the Republic of the Philippines. Tom left the Second Marine Division in 1989 and headed back to Fordham to study law. He remained in the Marine Reserves until 1998.

Personal

Liddy married his wife Stacy (née Gretkowski) of Bethesda, Maryland, an elementary school teacher, in 1991 while in law school. They have four children and live in Chandler, Arizona.

Career

• After law school, he worked in a Washington, D.C. law firm for several years
• In 1995-1998, he served as Deputy Counsel of the Republican National Committee, having been appointed by RNC chairman Haley Barbour
• From 2003-2005, he was Chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party in Arizona^[2]
• In 2004, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention
• In 2004, he served and as the Co-Chairman of the Republican National Convention Committee on Rules
• In 2006, he was appointed by Mayor Phil Gordon to serve as Chairman of the Phoenix Veterans Commission.
• Until mid 2016 - Litigation Bureau Chief Maricopa County, office of special litigation services
• In 2016 - Maricopa County Risk Manager

Major Cases

• Friendly House v. Whiting, representing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, where he argued before U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton defending Arizona's controversial S.B. 1070
• Melendres v. Arpaio, with co-counsel Tim Casey, defended Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in the three-week racial profiling trial, in the United States District Court for Arizona in the summer of 2012.

Congressional Run

In 2000, Liddy ran in the Arizona District 1 Republican Primary for the US House of Representatives. He finished fourth of the five candidates with 20.70% of the votes. The winner was Jeff Flake with 31.80% who went on to win the seat in the general election.^[3]

Other

He has been a vocal critic of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, claiming they profited unduly from Watergate.

Radio Talk Show

Liddy was a nationally syndicated conservative talk radio host.^[4] Along with Austin Hill, Liddy hosted the "Liddy & Hill Show" at station KFYI in Phoenix, since 2003 until moving to KKNT 960 in October 2006.^[5] Liddy created "PC Friday" to mock the politically correct left and was known for his parody songs, such as "The Day Dan Rather Lied."

References