After 50 years of defrauding the public and poisoning their customers, the tobacco industry was poised to pay dearly for their crimes. Government experts had concluded that the nation’s largest tobacco companies should pay $130 billion, partly as punishment, but mostly to help reduce smoking in the U.S.
Yesterday, however, we learned that the Bush administration’s Justice Department, after years of ongoing litigation, has inexplicably decided to reduce its settle request with the tobacco industry from $130 billion to $10 billion. Why? Because the Bush gang wants to let Big Tobacco off easy.
A person familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the change was “forced on the tobacco team by higher-level, politically appointed officials of the Justice Department,” including Associate Atty. Gen. Robert McCallum, who oversees the civil division.
The government attorneys who had worked on the case were stunned. The lawyers for the industry were stunned. Even the judge was stunned. Perhaps the only person involved who approved was McCallum, who just so happened to be a partner at the firm represeting R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in Atlanta before going to the DoJ.
Today, the story gets even more interesting.
Government lawyers asked two of their own witnesses to soften recommendations about sanctions that should be imposed on the tobacco industry if it lost a landmark civil racketeering case, one of the witnesses and sources familiar with the case said yesterday.
Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the Justice Department’s lead trial lawyer called him May 9 to say her superiors wanted him to scale back the recommendations he had made in written testimony. They sought to remove his suggestions for a ban on tobacco company methods of marketing to young people before Myers took the stand. Myers said he refused to do so.
A second witness, scientific expert Michael Eriksen, also departed from recommendations in his earlier written testimony, court documents show. Eriksen declined to comment, but four separate sources familiar with the case said Justice Department lawyers had asked him to do so.
Why the Washington Post put this story on page A4 instead of A1 is a complete mystery.
Here we have a couple of key government witnesses who would establish why the financial penalties were necessary. But before they offered their recommendations, Bush’s Justice Department encouraged them to pull their punches.
Even before this latest revelation, Dems have been apoplectic about the Bush gang caving to Big Tobacco. In the House…
Seven Democratic Senate and House members called on the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate possible political interference by Bush appointees in the government’s tobacco case, citing news reports that Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum Jr., a former lawyer for tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, ordered the downsizing of the penalties. Lawmakers also questioned why McCallum was allowed to participate in the government’s case.
“The Justice Department’s approach to tobacco litigation should be based on the facts of the case and not political favors to the tobacco industry,” wrote Rep. Henry A. Waxman, (D-Calif.) and Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.). “It is highly unusual for government prosecutors to abandon evidence-based testimony by their key witnesses at the last moment in a major trial.”
…and in the Senate.
“It reeks of political interference … from a White House that chooses its industry friends over the well-being of our nation’s kids,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). The Senate letter was signed by Lautenberg, Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
The signers said they were determined to get to the bottom of why the Justice Department appeared to undermine its own case.
“I find it hard to believe that this is an innocent mistake. We’re going to dig here,” said Wyden. “The Justice Department owes the American people some answers.”
I, for one, can’t wait to hear them.