Reply #31: Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case

[OKthatsIT]

Source: Washington Post

Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 22, 2007; Page A01

The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.

She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.

"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."

Eubanks, who served for 22 years as a lawyer at Justice, said three political appointees were responsible for the last-minute shifts in the government's tobacco case in June 2005: then-Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, then-Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and Keisler's deputy at the time, Dan Meron.

News reports on the strategy changes at the time caused an uproar in Congress and sparked an inquiry by the Justice Department. Government witnesses said they had been asked to change testimony, and one expert withdrew from the case. Government lawyers also announced that they were scaling back a proposed penalty against the industry from $130 billion to $10 billion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102713.html?nav=rss_politics

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102713.html?nav=rss_politics

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WHISTLEBLOWER from heaven!!!
The DEMS HAVE CAUSE to go after these crooks, BIGTIME!