folo

May 21^st: The agent discussed having Judge Lackey make this call before it was made.

The day after the recusal, Judge Lackey called Delaney to tell him about that on the 22^nd, the day after doing it. Delaney went and talked to Judge Lackey. He discussed recusal, the possibility of Judge Lackey’s getting back in the case, and a different option. The agent learned that Judge Lackey was getting back in the case less than a week later.

When Judge Lackey was with Balducci at lunch in New Albany, he was with Balducci alone in a car coming and going, and nothing was said about Jones. The agent did not put this in his affidavit.

The idea of asking Balducci what he could do for Judge Lackey was there from the beginning. It took Judge Lackey literally the entire summer to realize that we needed to get this resolved and that the only way to do it was broach the topic the way we did. In early September, the judge realized that we needed to find out what exactly is involved, and we decided that asking was what we were going to do.

The reason the judge recused himself was not the contact from the other side in the Jones case [this is what Judge Lackey had told Balducci] but that he was troubled by the situation.

The hearing then turned to the next affidavit, for a wiretap of Patterson’s phone. The judge asks if there is any information learned between the first and second affidavits that the defendants are aggrieved by being omitted from the 2^nd affidavit on October 18^th.

[There is a gap in my notes at this point; not a lot of news here].

One of Balducci’s package pickups was at the Scruggs firm’s financial office.

The judge asked Keker what is false in the affidavits. Keker answered that there is no evidence of the change-of-strategy comment in the affidavit. What Balducci had told Judge Lackey in March was that they wanted arbitration. When Judge Biggers starts questioning Keker closely about this, he makes it clear that he is not buying the argument, and Keker flounders a bit for the first time (and seems a bit angry –his ears turn red!).

There was an exchange about giving the defense information. Keker was to get the agent’s 302s (summaries of interviews) with Judge Lackey from May 3^rd and April 23^rd. Judge Biggers stated: "They’ve agreed to give them to you. That’s very generous of them. " Keker: "Following the law is never generous, your honor. "

At this point, the government asked the agent about the final affidavit, to search the Scruggs law office. He turned to an area where the agent apparently misunderstood Balducci in an initial interview on November 2^nd (Balducci had testified about this). In the first meeting, the agent thought Balducci had said that at the March meeting in the Scruggs office, Scruggs had said, "Do not ask to do something illegal. " When the agent showed a draft of that to Balducci, Balducci said that is not accurate, that is not what he had told the agent. What he said is that at that point, Scruggs did not ask him to do anything illegal, not that he’d actually said do not do anything illegal.

Keker asked for recross again, about which Judge Biggers was barely tolerant –he was being pushed, I think he was feeling.

Balducci said he’d never seen the interview forms. “Did you let him read it?” The agent said he let him read it. The agent went and discussed this with another agent and reviewed his notes.

Keker asks for an order to preserve any notes. The judge takes this under advisement.

At this point, the judge talks about wanting more briefing; this is described in another post.