(h/t TPM)
Unbelievable. Politico is reporting key evidence against Stevens has been thrown out. The chances he’ll get off just increased significantly.
Judge Emmet Sullivan threw out two big pieces of evidence in the Justice Department’s prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) after it was disclosed that prosecutors failed to provide defense attorneys with all the information they needed to put on their case.
Stevens’ attorneys are also expected to offer a motion for acquittal on Thursday, once the government finishes putting on its case for conviction. Stevens’ defense team has repeatedly sought to have the case dismissed or a mistrial declared due to alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
TPM readers are speculating if this wasn’t maybe planned all along by Mukasey and the Bush DOJ to have “prosecutorial misconduct” in order to get the case tossed out of court. By this time, do any of us trust Mukasey or the Bush U.S. attorneys that weren’t fired?
I mean, look at the “mistakes” that were made. How could a prosecutor be so incompetent?
But prosecutors never presented testimony from Williams, who was suppose to be the foreman on the home project, and instead shepherded him out of Washington right before the trial started, all without informing Stevens’ attorneys.
And Anderson told the grand jury that he was in Portland, Ore., not Alaska, in late 2000, when Veco’s records have him as working on Stevens’ home. Prosecutors knew that Anderson had told the grand jury that and did not tell the defense team.
….
Judge Sullivan will also exclude all evidence from a 1999 car swap between Allen and Stevens in which Stevens got a new Land Rover from Allen in return for a beat-up 1964 Mustang and some cash.
Prosecutors failed to turn over to Stevens’ defense team a copy of the check which Allen used to pay for the Land Rover. Defense counsel alleged that they their case had been hurt when they cross-examined Allen over the transaction, which they only did because — they asserted — they didn’t have Allen’s original check.
Just freaking unbelievable.