In today's Washington Post, John Kenney and Bruce Ohr respond to the allegations that the Bush Administration interfered with the federal government's RICO case against the major tobacco companies.
One of us is the senior career official in the Justice Department's criminal division, has served in the department for 56 years through Democratic and Republican administrations, and also served as the criminal division's principal decision maker in the tobacco case during the relevant period. The other one of us is the career chief of the organized crime and racketeering section in the criminal division and has served at Justice for 16 years, also during Democratic and Republican administrations.
The allegations reported in the article are entirely groundless. The Justice decisions at issue adopted and followed the authoritative positions we developed and the specific recommendations we made and approved as senior career prosecutors in the criminal division, which by Justice regulation is vested with authority over enforcement of civil and criminal RICO. Those positions, recommendations and decisions were based entirely on legal considerations, not political ones -- as the department's office of professional responsibility, staffed exclusively with independent career attorneys, concluded after the matter was investigated.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Interference with Tobacco Litigation: DoJ Responds:
- Was There "Political Interference" in Tobacco Litigation?
If that's true (and I don't know if it is), but if it is, then that to my mind shows that there was interference. I'm sorry, but NO supervisor who knows even the slightest bit about litigation would ever require an attorney to read either the opening or closing argument from a script. If you have so little faith in an attorney in such an important case, you assign someone else.
Reading of any kind diminishes your credibility before the jury, and everyone knows that.
In fact, I can't ever imagine a scenario where a supervisor would require such a thing. If you don't trust the litigator to say all the right points, then you replace her with someone who can.
Randy, there was no jury. There was an adverse decision at the appellate level, however. (I'm sure the judges were somehow compromised.)
And followed that up with: And do you know where I learned that, Prof. Adler? Well, I'm an alum of CWRU, and I took two semesters of Trial Litigation with the great Prof. McIlhenney, and you NEVER NEVER NEVER read to the jury, (unless you are actually quoting a document, of course.)
Ok Roger, if one never reads to the jury, and Ms. E account is correct and she did read to the jury; what's that tell you about her? I don't see what the problem is here other then giving credibility to a person who is making inconsistent arguments. Ms. E also claimed to "zealously" protect the rights of the citizenry, yet when told to read a prepared statement in which she objected with the content and protocol, she did it anyway.
Heck, Bill Clinton was the target for 8 years, long before Monica. Now, those who waged war against Clinton believe waging war against Bush is baaaad!
What is the difference, or is it honestly just that only repubs can wage war against a sitting prez?
Umm, now where did I put that thing?