The DOJail- "The warden said, "Hey Buddy, don't you be no square. ![]()
As they always say in Washington, "it's not the crime; it's the cover-up." Now Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) are asking AG Eric Holder whether or not DOJ is "prepping" witnesses who are being called to testify about Operation Fast and Furious.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/12/grassley-issa-slam-holder-again-are-you-skewing-witnesses-with-access-to-fast-and-furious-background-information/
Let me offer my own perspective. Hopefully, these witnesses are people authorized to view the referenced documents. Secondly, when you get called to testify under oath, you are not supposed to testify to what some document is telling you. You are supposed to testify as to what you know from your own personal knowledge.
It would not come as a surprise to me that Eric Holder and his aides at Justice have no concept of that.
Darrell Issa has less credibility than Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy combined. All he does is carp, and he doesn't even have a pumpkin to pretend he found something in. Grassley has done some good work on embezzlement in the name of God, but has otherwise not shown much capacity for rational thought.
ReplyDeleteAlmost any witness called to testify about the affairs of any person represented by counsel, or corporate entity, gets briefed carefully in advance. It's part of the adversary system of justice. Par for the course.
"Republicans do it" is not a universal excuse for felonious behavior, but this is not illegal, just a nice talking point for demagogues like Issa.
Gary Fouse is particularly tongue tied here, if the term can be applied to digital communication. He hopes the witnesses are people familiar with certain documents, which, he emphasizes, is not at all what they are to testify about.
Uh... yeahhhhh...
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteYou don't know what you are talking about-par for the course. There is a difference between a pre-trial briefing in which the prosecutor or defense lawyer interviews his witnesses go over the questions he will ask and to know what they are going to testify to. That is part of the procedure and something different from what we are talking about here. If you are being called to testify about malfeasance in govt, it is not proper for the target to influence what you will testify about.
The ever-present dissenter, constant contradicter, and quibbler in chief offers wild exaggerations again.
ReplyDelete"You don't know what you are talking about" is the last refuge of the sore loser. How many witnesses called to testify in a matter involving their own employer or family member do you think have NOT been briefed by the relevant attorneys? Who knows whose witness most of these would be anyway, prosecution, defense, or both?
ReplyDeleteThere is no law that a lawyer for either side cannot speak to a relevant witness. I've seen district attorneys interrogate defense witnesses in the hallway, under the rubric "He answered my question voluntarily. He didn't have to answer, even if I do appear to be a big bad officer of the law, in my own domain, which he might find intimidating."
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteYou still don't know what you are talking about. Yes, a witness can be interviewed by the other side's lawyer. As a prosecution witness, I was occasionally interviewed by the defense attorney before trial in the prosecutor's office. Nobody, however, can tell you how to testify when it is not the truth.
Subornation of perjury is a crime.
So, if I am a DOJ or ATF employee who may have knowledge of this operation, and I am called as a witness to testify under oath, that's what I have to do. If (if) officials at DOJ are trying to pressure employees to testify a certain way-then there is that subordination law,
But Gary, you don't have evidence of subornation of perjury. All you have is speculation that superiors at DOJ might be talking to subordinates, about a matter both are involved in. Hypothetically, it might only be about making sure that they have a common understanding of relevant departmental policy, as distinguished from specific facts about specific events...
ReplyDelete...of course we all know that can be a cover for all kinds of implicit or subtle subornation of perjury... in all kinds of cases... but again, you have no hard evidence that that is happening here. I know what I'm talking about. You are shifting your ground because your stated position isn't holding up.