I just realized that Ted Wells was the defense attorney for Mike Espy

[Catherine Vincent]

Will he be successful once again and get an acquittal for Libby?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/counsels/stories/espy120398.htm
Espy Acquitted in Gifts Case

Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy pauses outside federal court in Washington on Nov. 5. (AP)

By Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 3, 1998; Page A01

Former agriculture secretary Mike Espy, forced out of office in 1994 by allegations that he improperly took gifts from businesses and lobbyists, was acquitted yesterday of 30 corruption charges brought against him by an independent counsel whom Espy likened to a "schoolyard bully."

Espy pumped his fist in jubilation as the jury forewoman announced the verdicts in U.S. District Court. Thirty times she looked at the verdict form and declared "not guilty" as independent counsel Donald C. Smaltz and his team of lawyers sat in silence at the prosecution table. As the litany continued, Espy turned to his lawyers and whispered, "I knew it, I knew it."

Moments later, outside the courthouse, Espy called the acquittal a long-sought vindication. He declared it a repudiation of Smaltz, who spent more than four years and $17 million on a wide-ranging investigation, and said his case illustrated flaws in the independent counsel law that should be reformed.

"He's not unlike any other schoolyard bully," Espy said of Smaltz, one of seven independent counsels appointed to investigate the conduct of officials in the Clinton administration, and the first to bring one to trial. "You have to stand up to him. You have to let him know you're not going to back down, and sooner or later it's going to be okay."

Defense lawyers Reid H. Weingarten and Ted Wells chose not to present a defense after Smaltz rested his case, contending that prosecutors had not inflicted any damage.




...more

[jobycom]

1. The truth was for Espy, and against Libby.

The jury reaction when reading Espy's verdict was classic. The foreperson read the decision on each charge directly to Espy, not to the court or the judge, and on the last charge, she smiled at him before declaring, emphatically, "Not guilty." The jury was clearly giving not only their verdict, but their opinion of the charges.