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Update: The heading said 9/3 and 9/27,while these are from 8/3 and 8/27. It’s fixed. The heading left out 8/9. Also, I had guessed that the excerpt below is from the 8/27 conversation, but learned from the Scruggs Motion to Dismiss it is from the 8/9 conversation. The 8/27 conversation is not yet available.

This post is dedicated to Rose Marie Woods. The picture is a memory aid for those who blank on the dedication, and is also here because I thought it about time I stuck a picture in one of my posts. Someday I will figure out how to wrap the text around it.

It seems that there are large gaps in the transcripts offered as exhibits. Unlike Rose Marie Wood’s famous gap, there’s nothing necessarily sinister about that– it could mean that the judge and Balducci were talking about fishing, but on the other hand, it could be important parts of the conversation between the two. All we really know is that the defense chose to omit them. The timing of the gaps makes them interesting, because they are from just as the bribery scheme was turning from talk to action.

The title quote is from the 9th, and in my opinion pretty spectacularly undercuts the notion that Balducci was being pulled along by a scheme that only the FBI and Judge Lackey were trying to accomplish. What Balducci is saying is that the order he is seeking– unlike the crazy stuff he got DeLaughter to do in Wilson v. Scruggs has that extra-added benefit of being the frigging right thing to do. Just this once, lets bribe a judge to do the right thing!

There is an 11 page gap in a transcript containing conversations on August 9^th and 27^th. It omits a part of the conversation on the the entire conversation of the 9^th and all of the one on the 27^th. I’m guessing that mostly what is missing is the conversation on the 9^th. The letter has this exchange about the infamous "man-crush " letter which, if you have not yet read, you owe it to yourself to read:

Balducci: And you know what, it’s like Judge Shands told me, he said, you know Tim, he said, that’s one of those letters you write and then you sit on your desk and you wait and you go home and you think about overnight and you come back and you see how you feel about it the next day.

Lackey: Uh-huh.

Balducci: And I said, judge, I intentionally faxed it out that night so that I wouldn’t be able to do that, "cause I knew if I sat overnight and thought about it, I’d never send it.

Lackey: (laughs) Yeah.

Balducci: But you know, I got, I wanted them, I wanted everybody to know that the son of a bitch was trying to go behind my back to the bar and complaining to the bar about me and didn’t want anybody to know abou tit. I wrote the letter as much to expose him and what he was doing to us as anything.

Lackey: Oh, yeah.

Balducci: You know?

Lackey: Well, it, uh ".

Balducci: So [unintelligible] every damn bit of it’s , it’s just nonsense, you know?

Lackey: (laughs)

Balducci: You know, every damn bit of it’s nonsense.

Lackey: Of course. …

Lackey asks Bladucci if he is where he can talk for a minute. Balducci says: "I’m private, I’m private. " Lackey responds: "Uh, you think , uh, uh Dicky wants this thing, uh, in , uh, I mean, arbitration. Balducci responds "that’s his number one goal. " Lackey comments, "Well, I just wondered if he wanted me to take care of it somehow, or something, you know. " Baldducci responds that would be terrific. Lackey tells Balducci he does not know Scruggs but trusts Balducci. Then:

Balducci: The only concern I think anybody had after the hearing was Johnny Jones blowing his snot bubbles and stuff. Everybody was afraid he might, he might pull on somebody’s heart strings, but you know, I think if you, I mean, really do, this is one of those where I think it has the added benefit of being right. You know, I think if you look at the agreement, uh, you know, hell, I think they’re right. You know? So, yeah, I all they want is, for the thing to be kicked to arbitration so, "

Lackey: uh, and as long as they feel comfortable with that "rather than be in court, alright.

Balducci then asks where Lackey will be the next week, and when Lackey says in Oxford, Balducci says he will see him there. Balducci says that last time he was in Oxford, went looking for Judge Lackey "and I ran into Howorth and uh and I spent time with him and he was ribbin’ me about my letter. And uh, you know, gosh damn, you know, he’s so full of shit himself. He was, he, he was all over it and uh, and we had a good laugh about it, but uh " "

Here the transcript ends a page without the (end of transcript) phrase you normally see, and with nothing from 8/27th.