Joint Hearing Of The House Committee On the Judiciary's Subcommittees- Federal Justice System's Selective Prosecution

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Joint Hearing Of The House Committee On the Judiciary's Subcommittees- Federal Justice System's Selective Prosecution

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REP. LOFGREN: Chairman, thank you.

REP. SCOTT: Wait, one -- excuse me.

REP. LOFGREN: Oh.

REP. SCOTT: Ms. Lofgren, sorry.

REP. LOFGREN: Mr. Chairman, I thank you for recognizing me.

First, I have a letter that has been delivered to us by Timothy Hawkvy (ph), the lawyer for Ms. Thompson who was convicted and whose conviction was overturned. And I -- in response, I'd ask unanimous consent to put that in the record.

REP. SCOTT: Without objection, so be it.

REP. LOFGREN: And I just want to raise that issue because when we started out on this inquiry, I'll confess, I thought we were going to find some ineptness and some bungling. It -- I never really believed that we would uncover something that looked very seriously wrong. And people who were -- who -- because they were going to risk their job brought prosecutions that shouldn't have been brought. And then of course that brings us to the question, what about the people who didn't lose their jobs? What did they do?

In the case of Ms. Thompson is a pretty stark one. I mean, as this letter indicates, the Republican party spent millions of dollars advertising Ms. Thompson as a symbol of corruption of the incumbent Democratic regime but when her case was heard on appeal the applet court, the 7th Circuit described the government's evidence as, quote, "beyond sin" and described the legal theories of the prosecution as preposterous, and the very day of oral arguments, ordered that she be released from custody.

So my question, Mr. Attorney General and Mr. Jones, have you ever -- are you familiar with another case where the applet court on the day of the oral arguments orders the applet release with this kind of description of the prosecution?

MR. THORNBOURGH: Pretty unusual, I must say.

MR. JONES: I think it would be extremely unusual.

REP. LOFGREN: Well, it just seems to me, it looks not right. And I would hope, I mean, I first -- let me say, Mr. Attorney General, that politically we're not aligned but I do respect your integrity and you're what we always thought of on my side of the isle is an honest conservative and that you would stay here today and to speak as you have in an effort to really, I think, save the country from a souring and a corruption of the prosecution process is really in keeping with your reputation as an honest conservative. And I appreciate it. I cannot be -- (inaudible) --. I appreciate that you have done this.

And I hope that all of us in the Congress will get a grip. It's time to stop descending the indefensible and time to clean up something that appears to have seriously damaged the integrity of the judicial system which is core to our free society.

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Artur Davis.

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