Henceforth, if you subpoena our clients to appear before a Grand Jury, we’ll make a deal with you. Our clients will answer questions in the secrecy of the Grand Jury room, but there can’t be any court reporters there, or witnesses, and there can only be one or two Grand Jurors, and they can’t be fluent in English. And oh, no oaths. We're sure you'll agree that these conditions are fair, reasonable and respectful.

I consider David Sirota a good friend and a good progressive. Much more progressive than I across the board. He has written a piece supporting a Yes vote on the Iraq supplemental funding bill with which I profoundly disagree. But I am very glad David wrote the piece. David, alone amongst the proponents of this piece of legislation, has taken the objections some of us raise seriously and has attempted to respond to our concerns in detail.

For that I am grateful to David. One of my biggest concerns in this episode was the kneejerk attempts to shut down discussion of the merits of this bill. Too many bandied in misinformation, falsehoods and insults to the "idiot liberals' like myself. David has avoided this in his response. As I say, David is a friend, and I expect nothing less from him.

And yet he is wrong. I will explain why I think so on the other side.

RNC Regional Director James Tobin's phone jamming conviction has been reversed. It's remanded for a new trial. The opinion is here. (pdf).

Tobin was sentenced to 10 months in prison on charges of telephone harassment. But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the statute under which Tobin was convicted "is not a close fit" for what Tobin did and questioned whether the government showed that Tobin intended to harass. A Justice Department spokesman said prosecutors were reviewing the decision, and did not say if they planned to appeal.

The Government will now decide whether to appeal.

An AP report on a Iraq proposal spearheaded by Sen. Byrd:

Senate Democrats have drafted a $121.5 billion war spending bill that would direct President Bush to begin bringing home troops from Iraq with the goal of ending U.S. combat missions there in just over a year.

But unlike that resolution, Democrats think the spending legislation has a much better chance of passing. Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat who voted against last week's resolution, has agreed to support the spending legislation because it includes a provision he wants outlining benchmarks for the Iraqi government.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., released details to panel members Wednesday in anticipation of a committee vote on the bill on Thursday.

(Emphasis supplied.) The key point for me is whether the funding is to the date certain Byrd specifies March 31, 2008. If it is, I think it likely that I could strongly support such a measure. I'll remind those who have not understood my views on the flip.

Yes, I changed my mind this morning and decided to live-blog another day at the Joseph Nacchio insider trading trial. I'm actually enjoying it now, so I will continue for most of the afternoon.

The transcript of yesterday's opening arguments is now available here(pdf).

You can read the live-blogging at 5280.

I did get formally introduced to Joe Nacchio and Herb Stern this morning. I'm sitting behind the Nacchio family in the courtroom today.

I only have one laptop battery so I can't stay in the courtroom the whole time because there are no electrical outlets for us. It's so much better in the courtroom than the media room where you only get a partial view and it's hard to hear. But better in the media room than nowhere.

We'll see how this plays out:

A House Judiciary subcommittee today authorized subpoenas for Karl Rove, President Bush’s political adviser, and other senior White House officials in the investigation into the firing of eight United States attorneys.

Democrats said the subpoenas, approved on a voice vote of the panel, would not be issued immediately but could provide leverage for Congress in trying to win the testimony of the aides being sought.

. . . Republicans on the subcommittee said they did not dispute the power of Congress to call the officials, but said the action was premature and smacked of politics. . . .

Score round 1 for the Dems. The GOP just conceded the officials can be called.

As usual, I speak for me only

Last week I asked for the following -- Out of Iraq Blogger Caucus or Idiot Liberals of the World Unite! The response has been overwhelming . . . Ok, actually, a few bloggers do agree with me. They are, along with other organizations:Peace Action; United for Peace; Military Families Speak Out; Insitritute for Public Accuracy; Code Pink; Democracy Rising; True Majority; Labor Against the War; PDA;Drawing the Line; Take It Personally; edger; Just A Bump in the Beltway; afterdowningstreet.org; democrats.com; NION; downwithtyranny; My Left Wing; propaganda press, as well as some FPers at daily kos, and the previously mentioned corrente and Gun Toting Liberal. I am sure there are others. I just do not know who they are.

Via Democrats.com:

Call your members of Congress now toll free at 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803.

The case of the Juneau, Alaska high school student who was suspended from school for holding up a banner "Bong Hits for Jesus" when the Olympic torch was run through the town can only be described as idiotic. I understand why Frederick is fighting the suspension and why the ACLU is fighting the case. The idiots here are the Juneau high school principal, school board and of course, the DC based idiots - Kenneth Starr, who is representing the school board and the Supreme Court justices who voted to grant cert to this case.

States that insist on using death as a sanction have a special obligation to assure that the punishment is administered fairly and that the innocent aren't sentenced to die. This editorial, authored by the ABA's president and the chairman of the Indiana Death Penalty Assessment Team, chastizes Indiana for failing to adopt procedures that assure accurate and just results in death penalty trials.

We in the ABA and the members of Indiana’s assessment team, agree that if the government is to take a life, it must first provide justice throughout every stage of the proceedings, including the trial, appeals, and clemency proceedings. Justice is not simply swift retribution — it requires accuracy, due process and fairness, and the opportunity to verify that each of those qualities was present at trial.

Among other things, justice means that all DNA and other physical evidence must be preserved for as long as a death row inmate is incarcerated. As science advances, that evidence should be available for confirming testing. Currently, however, Indiana only requires preservation of biological evidence in limited circumstances.

Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias has an op-ed in today's New York Times.

United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.

He goes on to describe the telephone calls from Sen. Peter Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson.

More...

I've been absent a lot the past few days because I've been working on my cases in the morning so I could attend and live-blog the jury selection and opening arguments of the Joseph Nacchio insider trading trial that began this week in Denver. A big thanks to Big Tent Democrat and TChris for posting in my absence.

A few things I learned from the Nacchio trial: I'm clueless about stock trading. I don't know a recurring revenue from a one-timer, a publicly stated financial target from a growth target, a sale of stock from a sale of a stock option. Nor do I want to.

I'll take kilos of pot, the legalities of wiretapping, how to cook powder coke into crack or whether lies amount to obstruction of justice any day of the week over this stuff. It's a good thing I'm not on the Nacchio jury. The learning curve would be way too steep.

Anyway, I'm done live-blogging Nacchio until the cooperating witnesses testify. That's the juicy part to me. Did they agree to tell the Government's truth in exchange for promises of leniency for their own misdeeds?

The highlight of the day for me was getting to talk to our relatively new U.S. Attorney Troy Eid in the elevator.

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This is mostly for the trial lawyers reading TalkLeft.

We all know how important it is to use opening statements as a vehicle to humanize our clients, to show a wrong has occurred and to convey the idea of their innocence of the charges against them.

Defense attorney Herb Stern (a former federal judge and prosecutor) did an excellent job in opening arguments today of humanizing his client, former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, charged with insider trading.

First, he told the jury, "I'm going to tell you something no one has ever known." Everyone, jurors and those of us in the media room, leaned forward. Big pause.

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