"Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney
General Alberto R. Gonzales’s office began micromanaging the team’s
strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the
government’s claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S.
smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop
recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate
positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to
tell key witnesses to change their testimony….
“The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to
say what we said,” Eubanks said. “And because of that, we failed to
zealously represent the interests of the American public.”"
