Injury Law Report

Lead counsel for the Justice Department in its landmark lawsuit against Big Tobacco said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps to 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. She said that her trial team was told to drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. Ms. Eubanks also charged that political appointees directed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. Additionally, she states that these political operatives wrote a portion of her closing argument and told her to read it verbatim to the jury. Read more in the Washington Post.