If you’ve ever even seen an episode of Law and Order, you know that a good lawyer never asks a question to which he doesn’t know the answer. But for his part in the Watergate proceedings, Thompson’s being dragged through the mud by some muckraking journalist is trying to create a name for herself:
What rarely is mentioned is that Thompson knew the answer to the question before he asked it. Investigators for the committee had gotten the information out of Butterfield during hours of behind-the-scenes questioning three days earlier, on July 13.
Okay… this is somehow wrong? Seems like solid investigative work to me.
A little further on in the article:
“When the prosecutor discovers the smoking the gun, he’s going to be shocked to find that the deputy prosecutor called the defendant and said, ‘You’d better get rid of that gun,’” Armstrong said in an interview.
Or, you could look at it this way: in every legal case, both sides must provide the other with notice of evidence or witnesses they plan to introduce during trial to give the other side an opportunity to review it. So apparently, it’s not that outlandish a thing to let the defense know about the smoking gun. Thompson even disclosed the whole part about tipping the White House off in his 1975 book. He apparently wasn’t trying to hide anything.
“Fred (Thompson) and Baker carried water for the White House, but I have to give them credit “” they were watching out for their interests, too,” Kutler said. “They weren’t going to mindlessly go down the tubes for this guy.”
So essentially, Joan Lowy from the AP, your article is just full of weak sauce, trying to stir up a scandal where one doesn’t exist. Thompson and Baker were investigative counsel during the Watergate scandal representing the GOP. Do you really expect counsel for a party in power to not at least take an interest in their own affairs? They did nothing wrong and ultimately did not let the Nixon White House off the hook, regardless of what Nixon and his chief of staff thought they might be able to get away with through Thompson. Calm down.
Loading ...