{"id":1081,"date":"2007-03-22T02:14:19","date_gmt":"2007-03-22T07:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2007\/03\/22\/the-smoking-smoking-gun\/"},"modified":"2007-03-22T02:44:58","modified_gmt":"2007-03-22T07:44:58","slug":"the-smoking-smoking-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2007\/03\/22\/the-smoking-smoking-gun\/","title":{"rendered":"the “smoking” “gun”…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n
03\/22\/2007 <\/strong><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

"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."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Sharon Y. Eubanks resigned over this case, and she was fairly clear why at the time:<\/div>\n
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In Retiring, Lead Attorney in Tobacco Suit Cites Bosses<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n
12\/01\/2005<\/strong> <\/div>\n

The lead attorney in the government’s landmark racketeering case against the tobacco industry retired from the Justice Department yesterday, saying her politically appointed bosses showed little support for her or her team’s work on the case.<\/p>\n

Sharon Y. Eubanks had led a group of career government lawyers who this summer recommended a $130 billion penalty against the tobacco industry, in part to fund smoking-cessation programs for millions of Americans. Her supervisors, appointees at the department, scaled back the proposal to $10 billion.<\/p>\n

The shift triggered an uproar in Congress during the closing days of the tobacco trial in June, when requests from lawmakers prompted an investigation into whether there was political interference.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So, I was sitting around thinking last night, why do I think this Attorney firing case "has legs" [to use Mary Matalin’s phrase]? I thought it from the start, as did a lot of other people. Is it because it has to do with trying to subvert justice? Is it the straw that broke the camel’s back? Is it because Gonzales has been such a company man, defending legal positions that fly in the face of common sense? Thinking back on it, I think I started thinking that right after reading the very first emails that were released. They sounded "chronic" – like they were doing something that was standard operating procedure.<\/div>\n

We know this Administration Manipulated the Intelligence System. We know that this Administration manipulated the  Press. We suspect strongly that they manipulated the Voting System. We’ve seen them manipulate the Justice System in Judicial Appointments. But, now, it appears they have "chronically" manipulated the Justice System at the level of the Prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Back when this happened, these charges were debunked:<\/div>\n
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High-ranking Justice Department officials said there was no political meddling in the case, and the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) concurred after an investigation.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
That’s not going to happen this time. This is the<\/u><\/strong> smoking gun…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case 03\/22\/2007  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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}