Political meddling alleged in tobacco lawsuit

WASHINGTON — The former leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said Wednesday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Sharon Eubanks, who served 22 years as a lawyer at Justice, said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the June 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.

News reports on the strategy changes at the time caused an uproar in Congress and sparked an inquiry by the Justice Department. Government witnesses said they had been asked to change testimony, and one expert withdrew from the case. Government lawyers also announced that they were scaling back a proposed penalty against the industry from $130 billion to $10 billion.

High-ranking Justice Department officials disputed the claim of political meddling, and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) concurred after investigating.

Eubanks, however, said Wednesday that then-Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum demanded that she drop arguments that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. She said he and two others — then-Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and his deputy, Dan Meron — instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony, and ordered her to read verbatim a closing argument they wrote.

"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."

McCallum, now the U.S. ambassador to Australia, said Wednesday that congressional claims of political interference were rejected by the OPR investigation, for which Eubanks was questioned. He said there was a legitimate disagreement about strategy and that his final decision to reduce the proposed penalties to pay for a smoking-cessation program was vindicated by the judge's ruling that she could not order such a penalty.

"Her claims are totally false in terms of [us] trying to weaken the case," McCallum said.

Eubanks, who retired in December 2005, said she is coming forward now because she is concerned about what she called the "overwhelming politicization" of the department demonstrated by the controversy over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Eubanks said Congress should not limit its probe to those dismissals.

"Political interference is happening at Justice across the department," she said. "When decisions are made now in the Bush attorney general's office, politics is the primary consideration. ... The rule of law goes out the window."

Keisler and Meron did not return telephone calls seeking a comment.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled last August that tobacco companies violated civil-racketeering laws by conspiring for decades to deceive the public about the dangers of their product and ordered the companies to make major changes in the way cigarettes are marketed. But she said she could not order the monetary penalties proposed by the government.