Discussion

Although I am not going to prejudge the issue without a hearing, I will say that I was incredibly shocked by the redactions that were made. I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of grand jury transcripts involving prosecutors who are the most junior of prosecutors to several U.S. Attorneys who appeared before the grand jury. I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts. At a high-level summary for the defendants, who do not have the benefit of having seen the transcripts yet, several potential issues jumped out at me immediately and glaringly. First, improper prosecutorial vouching to the grand jurors, with the AUSA putting her personal credibility and trustworthiness on the line in support of the charges.

Second, improper prosecutorial communications of a substantive nature with the grand jurors outside of the grand jury room. And, third, the prosecutor excusing grand jurors who disagreed with the government's case from the deliberations process. Which brings me to problem Number 4, which is the fact that all of this was redacted out of the versions of the transcripts that I got. And frankly, it is that that I find the most problematic. Mistakes happen. They happen to all of us. But as I tell my children, you own it. You admit to it. You apologize for it, and you move on. What you do not do is hide it. I relied on all of you and your personal representations in this case about what has been issued in discovery, about the types of searches you have done for

You apologize for it, and you move on. What you do not do is hide it. I relied on all of you and your personal representations in this case about what has been issued in discovery, about the types of searches you have done for exculpatory material, about what arguments you will and will not make in this case. And I do that because, first of all, I treat every attorney who appears before me as an officer of the court. But secondly, because I put even more reliance on Department of Justice attorneys. Your sole goal is to do justice. Your client is justice itself. I do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing. That trust has been broken.