FBI Agent Connects with Jury

Although we will have our daily update later today, the CDLU was at the court hearing this morning listening to testimony from the FBI agent who connected with the jury.

A female agent who looks to be in her forties, wearing reading glasses, she appeared to be cut from the same cloth as the women on the jury: middle-aged, motherly, and Alabamian.

Defense attorneys have been objecting since yesterday about her presentations of excerpts of Balch & Bingham billing records.

Her presentations are fabulous. Broken down in a rainbow of colors, she shows when billings were referring to specific government agencies or officials by font color.

The defense attorneys tried to grill her about the billings, witness testimony, and her testimony to the Grand Jury.

The defense argument that the jury need to look at full bills to appreciate the work done by Balch & Bingham fell flat.

Ask yourself, who cares if the bank took in 100 deposits or approved 50 loans if the crime is laundering money? Likewise, who cares if 100 lawyers were working on legal research or 50 on FOIA requests when the alleged crime is a bribery conspiracy?

At one point a defense attorney was pressuring and grilling the FBI agent about specifics that one witness in the trial had testified about signing off on a billing statement. The defense attorney’s tactic backfired.

The FBI agent replied that there had been so many witnesses, so much testimony, and evidence presented at the trial there was no way she could recall specifics.

Many of the members of the jury nodded in agreement.