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Mueller Notes
In the torrent of comments on the report submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, here are mine from Law 360: Jack Sharman, who served as special counsel on the House Financial Services Committee during the Whitewater investigation and is now a partner at Lightfoot Franklin & White LLC, agreed that those findings in the report raise serious questions for Congress going forward. “There may be misconduct here, not criminal misconduct, and it may be up to the political branch to resolve that, and not in the hands of an Article II prosecutor,” Sharman said. Sharman said there is typically “a little bit of a shadow dance that takes place” when…
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The Special Counsel and Obstruction of Justice
Here, a few thoughts on the Special Counsel, the President and obstruction of justice: Jack Sharman – MSNBC – The 11th Hour with Brian Williams (Dec. 4, 2017) from LFW on Vimeo. For earlier discussions about obstruction charges (and avoiding them), see the notes below that manage to combine Mr. Rogers and Barry Bonds. and .
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The Five Best Ways for Your Client’s Employees to Get Indicted
The nice folks at the Birmingham Bar Association (and white-collar criminal defense lawyer Steve Shaw in particular) invited me to deliver a lunchtime CLE on a white-collar subject of my choice. The topic ended up being “The Five Best Ways for Your Client’s Employees to Get Indicted.” One could come up with more ways your client’s employees could get indicted, but life is short. Here is the handout: The Five Best Ways for Your Client’s Employees to Get Indicted. Download it. It’s not legal advice, but it has some fairly useful material about bribery, obstruction and honest-services fraud in the Eleventh Circuit, as well as quotes from Men In Black (1997). We spent…
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Barry Bonds, Ramblin’ Man
The federal appeals court in San Francisco recently reversed baseball player Barry Bonds’s conviction for obstruction of justice. The criminal charge and conviction arose out of testimony that Bonds gave to a grand jury investigating the illegal provision and use of steroids in major league baseball. As the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals summarized it: During a grand jury proceeding, defendant gave a rambling, nonresponsive answer to a simple question. Because there is insufficient evidence that Statement C was material, defendant’s conviction for obstruction of justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1503 is not supported by the record. Whatever section 1503’s scope may be in other circumstances, defendant’s conviction here must…
