WP: Expert Says He Was Told to Soften Tobacco Testimony

[Pirate Smile]

A top Justice Department official threatened to remove a government expert from its witness list if he did not water down his recommended penalties for the tobacco industry, the witness said in an interview yesterday.

Harvard University business professor Max H. Bazerman said a career trial lawyer told him senior Justice officials wanted him to change his recommendation that the court appoint a monitor to review whether it was appropriate to remove senior tobacco company management. Bazerman said the lawyer was passing along the "strong request" the week before Bazerman was to take the witness stand on May 4 in the government's landmark racketeering case against the industry.


The government says the tobacco industry engaged in a 50-year conspiracy to defraud the public about the dangers and addictiveness of smoking.

Bazerman said the lawyer told him the change -- opposed by the career lawyers on the case -- had come from Justice Department senior litigation counsel Frank J. Marine and Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum Jr.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/19/AR2005061900691.html

[rodeodance]

1. why is this allowed to go on and on--NO one being held accountable!

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. I blame it on our MBA programs.

Far too much emphasis on maximizing the positive and minimizing the negative. Far too much emphasis on individual success at the expense of the community.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. There doesn't seem to be an end to this!

Vaccinations that cause autism; environmental studies doctored to allow development, logging, or unwise use of limited water resources; tobacco studies; The DSM scandal.

So, the big question is, What came first, Wall Street lying about stocks? Or was that kind of fraud always with us all this time?

[spanone]

4. America should be outraged by this whole incredible scam going on.

We are watching one of the biggest blow-jobs ever given to an industry by OUR GOVERNMENT! WRITE CONGRESS. www.congress.org

[Syncronaut Seven]

5. I thought intimidation of a witness was a FELONY

What's up with that?

[damntexdem]

6. He was instructor to perjure himself.

Marine and McCallum should be investigated by a grand jury.