Another USA comes forward - Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case

[Oilwellian]

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.


"The political people were . . . ordering us to say what we said," lawyer Sharon Y. Eubanks said. (By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)

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."

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

[Syrinx]

1. the bastards are going down

At least I hope so.

[az chela]

9. Off with their heads,hang em high boys

[tom_paine]

2. One CANNOT be a Loyal Bushie and a Loyal American at the same time

CAN....NOT!!!!

The two are wholly incompatible philosophies.

The Loyal Bushie IS the Loyal Commie, the Loyal Nazi, with some slight differences and the fact that they have not yet been ordered to commit violent atrocities by their Bushie Masters (yet).

[Oilwellian]

4. Shumer said there were disgruntled DOJ employees

everything will leak out, one way or another. Will President Bunnypants fess up? Pshaw. :D

[WinkyDink]

19. Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo?

[tom_paine]

32. I meant en masse and to American Citizens

So far Jose Padilla has been the only American Citizen subject to torture and driven insane by Loyal Bushie Torturers by 3 almost 100% years of solitary confinement and God knows what else (you can bet there's SOMETHING else).

[Lasher]

3. Isn't it illegal to tell a witness to change their testimony?

And isn't it illegal to conspire to do that?

[wake.up.america]

5. There is part of me that says that all this cannot be happening or if it is, it ...

has happened in other administration. This level of lies, deception, outright animosity is unique in the annals of American history, or am I wrong?

[tom_paine]

8. You are not wrong. There have been many times of greater physical danger

but I too believe that there is something uniquely sinister, ominious and thoroughly unAmerican (and more than a little bit of Nazi-lite) about what these Busheviks are doing.

This may be among the very most dangerous threats to America ever because it comes from within and by people who have a pre-1776 attitude, and zero moral compunctions about restoring America to a pre-1776 condition by other means, a place in which the Superior fluorish and the Inferior know their place, to use Straussian terms (which is the Bushies' philosophical guiding star).

No, you are not wrong and we can thank our lucky stars for the moment that the level of physical danger is not much greater, for 15% of Americans are ready to "staff the concentration camps" metaphorically speaking (your Loyal Bushies) and the other 15% are ready to unquestioningly wipe of the strange greasy soot off their windowsills every morning, metaphorically-speaking.

The level of physical danger could be much worse, and probably WILL be, if the Democrats get close to impeachment/conviction and the Loyal Bushies are forced to have their al-Qaeda pals run a nuclear 9/11 (God Forbid) to "support the team".

But there is now a lot of deliberately cultivated consciencessless evil, and it's dumb mesmerized followers, in this country. It is coiled like a spring. It could strike any time.

You are not wrong.

[WinkyDink]

23. The soot from 9/11 wasn't so metaphorical, nor the mud from New Orleans.

Nor are the guarded camps for Katrina refugees metaphorical.

[Lasher]

31. Wow, that's real heavy dude.

I keep coming back to read it again. Why don't you put it up in an OP so I can nominate it?

[WinkyDink]

22. Where is the evidence, the complaints, from previous Administrations?

This entire regime is illegal, and has been committing crimes ever since its installment.

I mean---if one is going to order crimes against humanity (torture) and war crimes (the illegal invasion of Iraq), what's a few corrupted trials here or there??

[madokie]

18. I'll take that with butter thank you

theres not an honest person in lord pissie panties whole cabinet, not one

[cali]

6. OMG

This is some bad shit. And it's not going to go over well with the American people.

[kaal]

11. That's always what we assume

But in the end the representatives of the American people do nothing to put a stop to it.

When Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq, Dems supported him. And recently our reps failed to put a hold on the budget for war and they also failed to take away Bush's ability to go to war with Iran....

And here again, they'll do nothing about it. The American people are not getting a fair deal.

[WinkyDink]

24. Henry Waxman better hire a taster and a mail-opener. No joke.

[cali]

29. Sorry, that's crap.

Yes, many dems, though not the majority voted for the IWR, but the dems are trying against steep odds to end the war. What part of they don't have the votes to stop funding the war, is so difficult to understand? As for there not doing anything about USAgate, that's just laughable.

[kstewart33]

7. This should seal Gonzales' fate, and

considerably weaken Bush's position.

Chuck Shumer was right - the disgust at Justice Dept. would drive people to tell their stories. This one might be the first of many.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. I'm shocked.

These people are so incompetent that they can't even obstruct justice properly.

[lligrd]

10. Unbelievable

Although I am not really surprised, it is absolutely amazing the depths to which this administration has sunk. Whatever penalties they receive in the end will not be near enough.

[gaspee]

12. How do they get away with this shit?

I'm so afraid that they're going to keep getting away with it. The bad guys win all the time. It sucks, but it's reality.

Country of laws? Not for the past six years, that's for sure.

How about what happened with microsoft? The big anti-trust case with the legal win by the justice department to break the company up into smaller companies? Funny how that disappeard when chimpy and his crew of organized crime took over the country with the help of the supreme court.

[Virginia Dare]

33. The abuse of power party train is about to come to a screeching halt..

all aboard the impeachment express.

[cassiepriam]

13. The AG scandal is only one example of the extensive infrastructure

that was set in place to ensure repug dominance forever.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Fucking sons of bitches.

May those "political people" get every punishment afforded by God for their crimes against humanity.

[Bassic]

15. This is fucking incredible.

Maybe I'm wrong, but all the shit Bush has done seems to me like it's a lot worse than fuking Watergate, and clearly not in the same class as a stupid blow job. Why the fuck is he still in office? Can people on the right really be that stupid?

[Vinca]

17. There has to be something criminal about this.

Everything is being called "political," but if it's causing a desired end result, isn't that some sort of conspiracy or fraud or something???? I just read "Worse Than Watergate" by John Dean and the daily news is now worse than "Worse Than Watergate."

[PA Democrat]

26. It's a crime to solicit perjury. It's called subordination of perjury.

This whole scandal gets more shameful by the day. Nice to see the the Department of Justice is on big tobacco's payroll.

[Vinca]

30. Someone posted this link yesterday about a fired federal prosecutor

in Guam ending the Abramoff investigation there. This investigation is going to get interesting. I emailed the story to Patrick Leahy.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/08/08/bush_removal_ended_guam_investigation?mode=PF

[SpiralHawk]

20. republicons = Total Corruption

Why do republicons hate the Ten Commandments?

Why do republicons hate Jesus and his teachings of honesty and integrity?

Why do republicons hate the American Way of Truth, Honesty, and Justice?

Why do republicons hate all that is good and decent in life?

[WinkyDink]

25. $$$$$$$$. And you know what? They don't even know how to spend it!

I don't read of Cheney's buying a Venetian palazzo or a Ferrari Testarossa, you know what I mean?
It's all to hoard and make the rest of us DIRT-POOR.

I don't get it.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

21. Pat Leahy mentioned this briefly on the Today Show in an interview today. As Schumer said

last night to Keith, he does expect more people in the DOJ to come forward.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

27. Where's Ashcroft in all of this?

Is it just me or does all of this shit seem to have taken place on Gonzo's watch?

[oldlady]

28. I can't wait for the pendulum swing

my wish....this raises the conciousness of the public enough that over the next several decades we go toward the other extreme and start ripping corporate charters off the dole like crazy. I'm sick of living with these super-human eternal entities.