Turmoil in Hastert's Office as Key Staff Testifies -( hiring lawyers)

[donsu]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/turmoil_in_hast.html


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Some of Hastert's principal aides have hired criminal defense lawyers to represent them during the investigation. Ted Van Der Meid, Hastert's chief in-house counsel, has retained Washington, D.C.-based attorney Lee Blalack, who also represents convicted former Congressman Duke Cunningham.

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[MrCoffee]

1. what kind of moron testifies before Congress without a lawyer?

of course they're lawyering up.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. An innocent one? Who is not guilty of the likely crimes he is being

investigated for in the context? What kind of a moral universe do you live in to ask a question like that?

Mind you, it's easy to see how criminality is viewed as the norm, and lawyering-up, de rigueur", when the biggest perk of an outgoing President is the gift of being able to have his imprisoned criminal aides and friendly felons pardoned.

What's the matter with your body politic? Probably not much apart from the military-industrial complex, I suppose. I doubt if there is an equivalent expression for "lawyering up" in Europe, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. Though our adversarial legal system in the UK, like yours in the US, tends to turn the courts into a kind of venue for a tournament, rather than an investigation. If only we had an inquisitorial system like the rest of Europe.

[hijinx87]

3. this isn't moving fast enough

we need this can of worms opened before election day . . . .