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Political Interference Charged In Tobacco Case

June 20, 2005
When the U.S. Government announced its recommended penalties against the tobacco industry in its long-running racketeering case, many lawyers and tobacco activists called them shockingly lenient. Now, a published report suggests internal Justice Department pressure ensured they turned out that way.

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According to a report in the Washington Post, a high-level Justice Department official threatened to remove one of the department’s outside experts from the case unless he agreed with reduced penalties for the industry.

Harvard University business professor Max H. Bazerman is quoted as saying 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. According to the Post, 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 case revolved around charges by the government that the tobacco industry engaged in a 50-year conspiracy to defraud the public about the dangers and addictiveness of smoking.

The Post account says Bazerman was told 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.

Despite the threat, Bazerman said he refused to water down his testimony. He was allowed to testify in the case, and told the court he believed a monitor should be appointed by the judge to study whether future violations could be prevented by removing longtime senior management.

The government lawsuit, filed six years ago, maintains that America’s six largest tobacco companies lied about the dangers of smoking. The Justice Department dropped a bombshell on anti-smoking activists and members of Congress in early June when it in the closing days of the eight-month trial that the government would cut its demand for an industry-funded anti-smoking program from $130 billion to $10 billion.

Allegations of interference center on McCallum. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has called for an ethics investigation into McCallum’s role in the case. Nader's complaint highlights McCallum's previous work for a firm that represented the tobacco industry, and questions why McCallum was given clearance to work on a tobacco-related case.

"This was transparently a rationale chasing an already-reached, politicized decision," Nader said. "The government offered no explanation of how it would limit the cessation treatment to newly addicted smokers, and commentators quickly came to a consensus that the government had not proposed a workable plan."

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