Tobacco Witnesses Were Told To Ease Up

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.

I know, this one is a couple of days old, but my outrage is suffering from jet lag.

Seems to me that it is becoming ridiculously easy to predict Sith Administration behavior-- at least when there is a confluence of evil and venality.