ited states headed by chief justice t robert.ay chief justice and conference also concluded that impeachment may be warranted and referred the case against judge porteous to the house of representatives.tial the case was also recommended for potential impeachment by the department of justice which in li part because the statute of limitations had run many judge porteous is a mutation spoke that impeachment may be the more appropriate remedy. ..ma potential charges from the kickbacks from the lawyers or the bail bondsman corrupt activity already time barred from prosecution. in the house judiciary committee we undertook a thorough investigation, interviewing a great many witnesses taking depositions, acquiring documents never found by the justice department revealing the recusal hearing in the hospital case mentioned by my opposing counsel where judge porteous so

grievously misled and deceived the parties. at the conclusion the committee considered carefully whether judge porteous's conduct was so of the public trust and so dem whether heea demeaned himself in office he waes guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors that should be removed from the bench. unanimously the committee concluded that he was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and must be impeached. our committee studied the issue is implicated in this morning's three motions to dismiss wehould considered carefully how many craft articles shoulded be crafted with the rest conduct naturally divided as off into a coherent schemes and if sohe how many come as a west to give the public knowle hdge what he was charged with and to give judge porteous the chance to defend himself and we ccluded that the senate articles to be voted on.d we concluded the judge's conduct could be divided logically into four parts. based

one article based on his corrupt scheme with the lawyers, oneme with article based on the corruptondsman, scheme with the bond spend and on his false bankruptcy petition and one based on his deception of the very body of the senate. we did not meet to pile on pil charges against judge porteous by dividing any of these articles into a natural pieces. pro something prosecutor might refer to as to as loading up an indictment. th there erweere other charges weed as well. consider as well. which the evidence of which was suc h introduced at trial such as as sta miniseries false statements onforms. mandatory judicial discourageroduce reforms but offensive to introduce as evidence of wn willingness to perjure himselfthing relant and interest, something veryents t the relevant to both his statements of the senate and in they bankruptcy proceeding.inow the house has great discretion in how it to act soon article in the impeachment and the senate impeachment trial committee ingain this case ruled againstame precisely the same motion the council makes only two months

char ago finding that the schemes charged were very straightforward. v we also consider whioether the charge of a violation of a specific criminal statute that the judge violated 18 u.s. section at winder ze but rejected that approach.ected most impeachments do not charge specific crimes, some charge no crimes at all and impeachment president is very clear no the particular statute need the referenced, only the conduct or that constitutes high crime for wl misdemeanor which is why as iion will explain later the judge motion to dismiss arbuckle i planning charges of violations of 18 usc section 1446 is a fl fatally flawed to readaw the article charges no suchviolatio of violation of that statute and that indeed makes no reference to that code section whatsoever.ommi the house judiciary committee elicit considered how to view theous illicit conduct of judge porteous not only while he wasrior on the federal bench, but priort,

and to his appointment. the and indeed during the reconfirmation process itself. we concluded that we could not ignore the judge's correct prior conduct or conduct during the confirmation because it was so his interwoven with the corruption on the federal bench. deplorabl his deplorable handling of the a hospital case while a federal judge, his allies during the ritual hearing, hitting up theh, lawyers for cash the very reason a lawyer was brought into that hospital case to begin whi with. porte all that conduct occurred when a the judge porteous was f on the federal bench none of it can be fully understood withoutsidering the considering the judge's priorh conduct and relationship with the same attorneys. it was also the unanimous view of the judiciary committee thatr a high crime or misdemeanor occurs before or after appointed bench to, the bench if it is such alic violation of the public trustjudiciarl that the institution of the judiciary will be harmed the of the

public will lose confidence in the decisions of the court and of the judge he must be impeached. to reach the opposite conclusion, would be the continued injury to the diciary w judiciary whihich will be forced to retain judges prove to bed an corrupt.ed before even where a judge is indicted and convicted on conduct that occurred before his appointment remo the senate would be powerless to remove him from office or lifetime summary of he sits in prison nothing in the language of the constitution will 200edent s suc years of precedent support such an upsurge result. this was deny unanimous view note, but when the only of the committee, but whenefore the matter was brought before the full house it was the unanimous view of the body as convict well.teous on the senate can decide to convict george porteous of buckles if i t buckles i, cclxxxiii on conduct on the federal bench alone if itount

chooses. 4dresses and account for t it addresses thee statemes to the concealment and false s statements to the senate during thetself. confirmation itself. will or the senate may as i will his discuss later convict judge porteous on the basduis of the prior conduct as well consistent with with the constitution with precedent, with a considered opinion of experts and with a public p sound public policy reason as well. first let me turn to each of the jud judge's three motions. in considering judge porteous's motions to dismiss, let me begin with a discussion as argument the charges against the mark in imp ro properly aggregated. in order to do so it may bemay be useful to provide a brief summary of the evidence charge the full on each articles of the full senate can see just as themeri senateal impeachment trialhouse was well committee concluded the house was well within its discretion in how it drafted the articles, each contains a coherent scheme of conduct giving the judge the senate and the public a clearer him a nd understanding of the charges be against him and the motion mustg out

be denied. it is also worth pointing outchnt that as the senate impeachment c trial committee report in demonstrates so clearly none ofn the facts in this case are in dispute. oracle i peery oracle one alleges in the evidence of thece at th trial trial has now established thate a judge porteous weigel a state imp judge initiated and implemented a corrupt kickback scheme with ro attorney robert creely and his jaco partner, jacob amato. was the essence was that judge porteous and his judicial capacity assigned to leadership cases to creely and thereafter the firm of amato and creelyous gave him approximately half of the legal fees generated by those cases. a curatorships is a small caseppointed lyer where the appointed lawyer representing the sing party and has to eddo some minor administrative work the paymentsnts to the jud were always madege in cash as to amato testified at trial, to pap avoid a paper trail.ed

contrary to the council juststified tit represented amato testified that it was a classic kickbackteous' scheme. of thi prior to judge porteous'sator initiation of this curator kickback scheme it asked creelyum for small sums ofs money fromime time to time.judge porous a creely gave him the money until ounts, $ porteous ask for larger amounts 500 or one of the time.hen tha at this time creely balk and ass judge porteous began assigning creely the curatorships and seeking the cash back from his creely and his partner amato. und is the evidence is undisputed judge porteous assigned creely for 190 1988994, res cases from 1988 to 1994 resulting in fees to the firm of about $40,000. both creely and amato in the end of the estimated a total of about 20,000 in cash. they both testified they gav understood the cash they gave judge porteous was funded by the two readerships.

by initiating and implementing this curator ship kickback abu scheme, judge porteous and used his position of trust as aingions judge, but currently takingl actions and his official capacity designed and intended th to enrich himself this is judicial misconduct and abuse of power and its most venal butbeginng of this was only the beginning ofgious mconduct. judge porteouss' and egregious misconduct. it gets worse.ederal judge thereafter when judge porteouspresid began a federal judge, he presided over a complex, high-stakes, non-jury caisse. yo you'll hear referred tou as thepital hospital case.onters amato enters the appearance in this case as an attorney evene has been though the case has been around a at for years, tens of millions aree at stake. he enters the case six weeks before trial. when opposing counsel filed a motion to recuse judge porteousrned because he was concerned about the late introduction of this

attorney.g seeking that he assigned a casee t to another judge based on whatel the counsel understood to be thelationship to judge's close relationship toately amato, the judge deliberatelyes misled council and the parties concealing the previous corrupt financial relationship that existed between he amato andearing creely. in fact judge porteous did something much worse to read the rth transcript was truly revealing mading and sets forth a series of misleading statements, half truths and outright lies by judge porteous. one as one example judge porteous porteous steered the colloquy into aloquy discussion i of whether amato had given j ever given judge porteous campaign contributions and in i that discussion judge porteousst time stated and i quote the first 1984, time i ran 1984i think is theve me only time when they gave me money. dective the statement was clearly false many and deceptive and concealed many thousands of dollars in cash that amato and his partner hadenies given to judge porteous.

he denies the motion and the order is appealed.ppealed. the court of appeals based on a b false record that he treated the firms that denial. so j the council for the other party, was on willingly forced u to represent his client against again anst opposing counsel given judge porteous thousands of dollars ast o part of a corrupt scheme. sche in of the most appalling andupt acts, corrupt acts among many by judgehe porteous, after the case was tried, but it hadn't been n on decided and again, nonjury case tri the judge at the trial fact the judge solicit and receive a secret cash payment of $2,000 of from amato. a he testified during the senate trial it was the worst decision of hisci life.is case and with acknowledged he worked on this case for two years m00,000 stood to make $500,002,000,000 in fees if he prevailed, and if he lost he would make nothing.ons he and this was one of the reasons the he gave the judge the cashimport

because anthe judge was presiding over this very important case. judge porteous decided theo liljeberg case very favorably toer amato's client. this decision was later reversed u.s. and skating terms by the u.s. the court of appeals of the fifth circuit and in the opinion of the appellate court, which characterized by the appellate court judge porteous as centralntral r rulings as inexplicable.parent apparentlyly constructed close tong being nonsensical. long over until the case was long over and the parties had moved on whatreva they learn the lawyer for the ha prevailing side of the trial had tho givenus the judge pilsen's in 1. secret cash. that is article 1. eviden orval to alleges the evidence is state shown that judge porteous wileynto state judge extending in audge had federal judge had a corrupt b relationship with local bilmes en list speed and his sister, laurie. the essence of thess relationship the is the judge would take officialorteous

acts to financially benefit thethe marcottes by setting bail amount req is the requested to maximize their profit, not in the best interest of the public or what was necessary to secure thece in c appearance in court but what maximize their profits. and in addition, he would set aside the convictions of the the marcottes employees. the way the arrangement worked is this, he would interview the f defendant and the family to the figure out the most expensive bond a could c possibly afford and por what ask the judge said the bond precise thi at precisely this amount. wou do and the judge would do so. if the bond was set too low below what the family couldif the bon was afford, marcotte could loseigh, money. of the bond was set too high,rcotte at a and then the defendant couldn't use m him at all marcotte would lose s money. it had to beri set just right to jge maximize their profit and judgebondsetter porteous was there go to bond said.latel although other judges would later go to jail for precisely

this relationship with the trial marcottes, he testified at the senate trial no one no one did more for them than judge d porteous. and marcotte said further the more they did for porteous, the more he did for them. the marcottes supported judge porteous's lifestyle in numerous ways in putting in his request a requ frequently took judge porteous to not too expensive restaurants paying for his food and copious liquo amounts of liquor. they sent their employees tos at t pick up his cars at thehe up with courthouse, repair them, fill the them up with gas the tell themttles o f these buckets of shrimp or bottles of liquor in them when employe to they were done. repai they said their employees to hisnt house to home repairs where they spent three day s repairingaying the 85 feet of damaged fence digging holes, leaving the concrete, picking up the fence boards, or during the construction, ando las vas they paid for one or more trips to las vegas for the judge and the the secretary. as we proved during the trial judge porteous was also asked bye the

louis marcotte to expunge or set aside the felony convictions of bail the employees said it licensed as ballan sign. but significantly told one of the convictions until after the senate confirmation of hisjudge b jud position as a u.s. district judge because judge porteous did in the not want to jeopardize what was in the judge's words his lifetime appointment in essencet h that he would set aside the conviction but that he needed to hide the current relationship from the senate and in fact this d is exactly what he did. conf shortly after senate confirmation but before he was j sworn in as a federal judge judge porteous did in fact set aside the conviction of marcotte's employee and had to be done precisely then after confirmation so you wouldn't bause learn about but before he was sworn in because once he was he cou sworn in it was too late, he could no longer to expunge theevidence

est ab condition. with the article's alleged the evidence established is this was with h a classic quid pro quo relationship between a judge with his hand out and a bonds for w man willing to pay for what the judge could do for him.tionshiph th e the judge had a relationship for the sba to did not come to the judge po end after judge porteous became a federal judge. although he no longer had the power to set bonds were expunged conditions for the marcottes. the marcottes continued winings and dining judge porteous because they needed his help to recruit a successor and other state judges to assume judge porteous former role in setting bonds up the amounts necessary pro to maximize their profits. and once again judge porteous agreed.uching for the meeting with state judges and a t bulging for the marcottes and his o using their prestigeff power of these his office to foster these new js corrupt relationships. one of the judges that he helped a the marcottes and recuses while he is a federal judge was a state judge named ronaldoden bodenheimer. bodenheimer testified he did not

hold louis ex-da in high regard hold l and wouldn't do with him because w he had a low regard for h marcottes character and believes he was a r drug user. drug bodenheimer testified that when judge porteous felch fourarcotte's marcottes integrity it was critical to his decision to form a relationship with louis speed. judge bodenheimer would laterted convicted and incarcerated under federal corruption charges inpart bause part because of his corruptonship w the relationship with the marcottes setting bonds and the amounts r requested and return for financial favors. guilt they would plead guilty to o corruption charges premised on the samere relationships.udge peery let me return to clause three. close to $2,000 that credit card his debts. m. the resulted from his gamblingdishontly problem. debts he had concealed his debts andambl expense of his gambling by filing false annual disclosures fil

for forms in march of 2001 judgeeplete porteous filed bankruptcy his violins were replete with his dishonest the presentations.judge p first to conceal his identity e-file and signed a petition of f penalty perjury using a fake name.g as pt g.t. ortous. prior to filing a plan to conceal his identity he obtained a post office box which hen th listed as his residence on the bankruptcy petition to conceal assets so they could gamble such $4, as the 4,100-dollar tax refund, even thoug even though theh bankruptcyther h formed asked him specifically tax whether he was expecting the tax day refund the money lifemark account he dues before filing a bankruptcy and it was while inay for his bankruptcy to pay for his about gambling he lied under oath about payments to creditorsiednder particularly casinos. he falsely denied under oath having gambling losses insked just response to a question on the form that asked just that he hadff

a sick to repeal the credit s account shortly before filingter and field trip for thetcy jud transaction. after the bankruptcy judge issued an order confirming judgehich bbu chapter 13 plan whichncurring permitted him from entering newhout debt without permission. violated the order that secretly sev er altering additional debt that attai several casinos by obtaining and us using a new credit card alle without the permission of the sum h is bankruptcy trustee. in sum his bankruptcy was st replete with deliberately false statements made under penalty of avoid perjury in an effort to avoid public disclosure of bankruptcy now and his gambling problem. now let me turn to article 4. a i previously mentioned while he was a state judge, judge porteous said corrupt scheme is going on with the attorneys amato and creely and the marcottes. how did he get come from theshed t first place?dly lie article for alleges judge and to porteous repeatedly lied to theng to q fbi and the u.s. senate in part

responding to questions posed to confiation him as part of the confirmation process on no less than four particul occasions. the particularly response to the very tough questions that have of required disclosure as the relationship with creely amato b and the marcottes. he was interviewed by the fbif agents and to separate questionnaires one of which wasse sent to replete to the senate di committee on the judiciary. there is perhaps more important question for the condition ande that which seeks information judg concerning and integrity. judge porteous responses to the questions were false given his current relationship withhip wi attorneys amato creely in theil bond b relationship with the marcottes c and the available business.erstoo the red of residents believe the evidence that makes clear he di understood the questions as of calling for his disclosure of amato the current a relationships amato creely and the marcottes. most critically as i mentioned in december of 1994, louisde

marcotte asked judge porteous to h set aside ais felony conviction of one of his employees named marcottmploye aubrey wallace. a marcotte employee who it takencarsnd h care of judge marcottes cars and p house repairs for judgended to porteous. marcotte testified judgeling porteous responded to marcottes request by telling him quote, louis i am not going to let wallace didn't leave me becoming a federal judge and getting appointed for the rest of my it life. wait until it happens. in short george porteous would red set aside the conviction as you requested that he would hide h that senate so as not to jeopardize this appointment. judge porteous knute had to ament. conceal the part of relationshipship wit h marcotte if he had any hope of anyope being confirmed as a u.s. judge u. and that is exactly what he did. salie facts almost half of the facts in this case that i've just mentioned connectn w are not seriously contested. in connection with article 1 and as a relationship with

creely amato coverage porteous head of the facts during the sworn testimony before the fifthrom circuit. where he was given immunity from the use of the testimony in a criminal proceeding.itted he admitted he gave him moneycontinuido and then continued to do so. t he was asked to carry their money and he admitted sending the curatorships and getting and cash from amato and creely after as he signed them the curatorships, though he will not call with a cal kickbackl judge porteous hasn't denied getting the cash back s does from the trees after sending them to the curatorships. when he was asked how much he got back from creely at amatoamato, h ans we during the fifth circuit proceedings his answer was i have n o earthly idea.dea. i have no idea. not i didn't get the money, not taing i don't know what you're talking about, but in terms of how much i have no idea. often the payments of cash to judged of porteous o ccurred so often and w for such a prolonged period of time he could not or would not estimate how many thousands of dollars he received from them to a read this yet but getting the 2,000 in cash and an envelopeto after soliciting it from amatoncy

during the liljeberg case? yes. he admits to that and the fifth circuit. he takes issue strangely enough tak withes the envelope itself. he can't remember where the mo money was delivered in a pinklope or envelope or a regular envelope doesn't d but he doesn't deny getting anpend of envelope with cash during the pendency of this multimillion-dollar litigation.got it p whetherer he got it personally or send his secretary to pick up but he doesn't do my getting the portes did cash. the record is absolutely clear disc judge porteous did not disclose his seat to the money when heasked was asked to recuse himself from theli liljeberg case. he admits filing bankruptcy under a false name saying it was idea. only his lawyer's idea. not he admits not disclosing or forms spending income tax on the formhe admits as required and not disclosing the gambling a loss as required and not disclosing the bank account used for gambling and j ud asked the judge is false statements for the fbi and said that the defense expertthat testified if the judge receivedhie kickbacks while he was on the

state bench, or had a corrupt relationship with bill bondsman he would have understood thisd in answe to must be disclosed and answeringf. the questions he wasb. asked by the fbi and the senate.ts t these were the facts. the house considered in unanimously approving for the im articles opef impeachment.onduct by judge the house determined the corrupt conduct by the judge phill wentrelationith to the for this great themes. one involving the current relationship with amato andis creely, another pertaining tofis and the marcottes and thirdis reflecting false filings and bankruptcy and thpte other concern the is the deception of the senate and the fbi. notwithstanding the precedent of giving the house broadhe discretion and drafting articles impeachment in the plan logic of article con this divisionta george porteous compliance the articles contained allegations that in the council words or improperly order abrogated. ar the senate has never ordered aned u article passed by the house to be divided up according to the multotes o accused desires work required multiple votes on an article a prohibid proposal prohibited by the t

senate rules. ticles i unlike his motions to dismiss dec id articles 1 and two this motioneachment t was heard and decided by the mer senateit impeachment trial committee on the merits which cla rejected a completely. judge porteous cleaves the structure of the articles of impeachment abrogates the series a of gispert allegations. all of the and further should dismiss all the articles and his pleadings when so many words vote on each separate factual claim within each article. judge porteous is characterized the articles in this case andhe mystics the impeachment on thentin issue there is no basis for granting of the relief he seeks and the motion should be denied. not first, as a factual matter the articles simply do not contain a series of unrelated discrete ch acts as judge porteous contends.ards each article describes a course of conduct towards a unitary and pursued to the combination of means. po article 1 describes judgepr porteous while presiding overri the liljeberg case of risingfinanc fromia his conceal financial arcle i

relationship with amato a creely anrovi andde describes them marcottes and details of what he received from des them and what he did for them. b article 3 has numerous acts and false statements under oath that judge porteous to deprive his his fin creditors and the baannkruptcy court of the truth surrounding the financial circumstances.ibes oracle war for this kind of false statements during the when h conce confirmation process when he amato a concealed his relationships with amato and creely and marcotte even though each of the schemes comprise discrete acts each article describes the coherent articl scheme. second, as such each of the articles easily withstandsenate scrutiny under long settled i mp senate precedent. comttee the nixon impeachment committee propey ruled that articles impeachment "ey are properly framed quote, they t give fair notice of the contours j of the charges against the judge and contain an intelligible essential allegation, thus providing a fair basis for the conduct of the of interiorte to set

proceedings. there is no reason for the full decisn senate to set aside the analysis and decision of the senate case. impeachment trial committee in this case which found judge the nixon standard persuasive and quo consistent with the constitution and wrote, quote, each of theandard four articles against judge ts porteous meets the nixon co mm standard.he in reaching this conclusion the committee scenarist the articlesdes judge and stated, quote come each the article provides judge porteous c with their notice of the makes contours of the charges against him and makes it clear intelligible allegations, and of quote. each article contains a series of factual allegations comprising the charge course of the conduct that constitutes theor article.ho count although the requirements i for count charge in a criminalmpeachme indictment don't apply in and an whihouse impeachment we think that senator whitehouse, a former pro u.sce. attorney got it right when he said during the proceedings let's say you were looking at a case involving a scheme oro defra artifice to fraud and a whole allegedn bunch of conduct is alleged in that particular scheme and defra

artifice to the fraud. t the jury doesn't have to agree on every single piece of evidence evidence of what is of thatn having been done. look they have to look atat the bas evidence and include this based on what we see we do see a scheme of artifice to be tried in that particular case. isn't that the case here asase h well.er the case conduct integrated can fall within the general theall impeachment standard for high crimes and misdemeanors. hea it hits the nail right on the describe head. each of the four articles describes integrated schemes, look integrated coursein of conduct. i, fo looking at article 1 fred the siegel, defense counsel arguesing in his brief the refusal of hearing alone should be three separate counts, one sitting of the recusal motion is improperly recu sa denied another charging that the during the recusal hearingmato. an he should disclose thed kickbacks from creely and amato and thirdusal he made false and misleading statements during the same recusal hearing. artic one hearing three articles. had we charged in the way the in you

r council suggests is there any question in your mind the council wouldn't be before yourly here today arguing that the house improperly disaggregate chges? one corrupt scheme to pile on three separate charges.nstitu te in fact, none of these articles been constitute what in the past hasan omn been occasionally referred to asngcreet an omnibus article or articlesin gl involving discreet spheres of misconduct are joined in a artic single article. had we drafted a fifth article that set out the relationship ma with amrcato and creely and theeption of the marcottes and the bankruptcy and the deception of a the senate and be said because of all these acts together he should be removed there would be considered an omnibus article.o the house chose not to do so. house although we know the house has p frequently returned omnibus article summarizing the prior p accounts and the senate asedly lonely deemed them proper, but omnus repeatedly voted to convict them consi on such of mabus articles.cles as draed sun judge porteous congested the - articles as drafted as unfair or

would lead to confusion. porte according to the judge porteous, senators would not really understandt the work -- with a were voting on until they weres to convict.. this is hardly a seriousn to bel contention. tha an article 1 there is not notonvi credible reason to believe a senator would not convict unless he or shee were satisfied with a count a the court factual theories of forces in that account and the same is true of oracle two article 3 ofarguedt the article for. the accounts of trustees of theig lifemark cases of judge hastingszi and archibald approach his claimhis pointing to the comments of some individual senators. but as the senate impeachment trial committee in this case so correctly pointed out quote this, however was not the adopted you in either instance as both judges were convicted on the the aggregated articles. socoun in both the cases cited bynvict o the council the senate voted to convict on the omnibus or the aggregated articles. judge porteous argues no different substance to those raised in the hastingse, there was

impeachment.pa in that rlcase there was aer to parliamentary inquiry as to whether in order to find judge hastings guilty a senator has defined it committed each of the artic four allegations of a given for article senate responded this is a nd for each segment to determine and his own mind and conscience in accordance with his oath he the constitut do in partial justice under the constitution and the law.nion it is the chair opinion the senate and his conscience based he on the fact is the understand them determines that in any one of the paragraphs the judgenfiden hastings has undermined confidence and the integrity andnd brayed t impartialityhe of the judiciaryhould vot and the trade trust the people of the united states he should vote accordingly. not and so it is here it ised certainly not necessary for the senate to proceed sentence by sentence and so long as you're able to find based on the facts as youth understand themle that judge porteous by his the conduct in the give an article has undermined the confidence and the integrity andpeople o impartiality of thf e judiciary

and the trade to trust of thelternate people of the united states. the request of the council to require multipleo votes on each imp article is also rejected by the senate impeachment trial committee and should be rejected here. as the committee rules, quote come andy schmidt rules do not vot permit judge porteous position that the senate vote separately witn on the individual impeachment allegations within each article. impeachment rall 23 space arbuckle impeachment, quote comeof shall not be divisible for the purpose of voting at any time me now during the trial. port' mot let me now turn to judge porteous motion to dismisswritten eadings article 1. judge porteous acknowledges in his written pleadings that for the purpose of this motion alli should the facts alleged in article 1 should be accepted as true. judge porteous urges the senate to dismiss article 1 on three grounds.8, first, that it charges a u.c., violation of title 18fraud sta tu section 1346. unde the weigr el fraud statute claimedlling that on the supreme court honest decision in skilling and on the

services claim cannot be made under that section. n second he argues judge porteous could not have known takingci kickbacks wondering the refusal from hearing for soliciting thousands in cash with an attorney with a case before him constitute grounds for impeachment. most remarkably in his written nothing pleadings, he claimswr he didwhose c i nothing wrong and that taking secret cash from arn attorney is, whose case is under submissionem in your courtroom is at most it only an appearance problem. a it is just such an argument that the demonstrates judge porteous's firs and fitness for the bench. first, as to his honest services back argument it would provide ae is in a background of an honest service charge is in a criminal case. 18 u. s. c. sections 1346 and 47 areraud the warrior and mail fraudefenda statutes.cr under those laws a defendant inwith a criminal case can be charged prope defrauding some one of money,es. property or honest services. george porteous argues here that he has been charged with w

violation of the mail and wire fraud statutes and that if this were a crimi tnal case and would seek to dismiss those charges on ad the basis that it did not set out to crime under that statute. the problem with judge's forget is he is not charged with mail or wire fraud under section 1346 or 47. this is not a criminal case. ver and even if it were it would lose on the very case you cite h on for instilling the courts found he could be charged.ckback seme with honest services abroad and in a case involving a kickback scheme. pleading for me readinge the article 1 that the house is notorteous charged, nor is it required toai charged guilty of mail or wire fraud and in violation of title by 18. article 1 described judge porteous council bares littletually cha in th resemblance that was not charged in this case which consists of six paragraphs that is triple george porteous received kickbacks from attorneys amatoeberg creely how he dishonestly provided over the liljeberg case by concealing the kickbacks and

making intentionally misleadinge rec statementsus for the refusal hearing and by secretly soliciting and accepting cash from amato while the case was pending. article 1, despite defense council claim is not patterned after the mail or wire fraud i statutes ort any other criminal statute and it does not otherwise alleged scheme, quote or artifice to the fraud or anyud" or other language the would be a necessary to charge an honest fraud service fraud offense. writt article 1 is written in the nontechnical language and focuses on judge porteous's receipt of kickbacks and act of concealment of financials in the relationships, corrupt financial presiding relationshovips in the course of providing a free case. article 1 concludes georgedes that porteous brought his court and to scandal and repute prejudice the fed public respect and confidence in the federal judiciary and offe of demonstrated peebles' unfit for the office of the federal judge. whether the conduct alleged in en article 1 also violated criminaliolated

laws, or could have resulted in indictae indictable offense for honest services rot simply has no bearing on the issue before theausibleeading senate. and no plausible reading the article 1.ctually dr it is actually drafted suggests it intended to import supreme court interpretation of aate federal statute. it is for the senate totes tha determine whether the chargeot conduct demonstrates the individual is not fit to be aot judge. that determination does not turn i ss on whether the conduct of issued constitutes a federal criminalirst offense. indeed, one of the first a impeachment was a judge for john genex and for the most of the nation's history federal judges jud havege been in peach and convicted for and removed pursuant to articles not alleged that have not alleged the commission a particular federaliminal o criminal offense. as the senate impeachmentmm committee in this case repeatedly pointed out, this is criminal not a criminal case to the impeachment in this country asts in this opposed to t che british model,ature. are not punitive in nature and loss

don't threaten the judge with a or jai lossl of liberty or jail time. they are designed to protect the institution from the affects of having a corrupt officer destroy the public trust in thatriminal institution. finally, if this were a criminal f case, and we were charged with mail or wire fraud, and you were this judge judges rather than senators, and this judge stood to go to jail rather than lose his office he would still lose this motion under the very president he ski cites, skilling. en skilling, the former ceo of enron, was charged with mail ande wire fraud on the theory that he deprive shareholders of truthful information about the value of the company.preme cour held the supreme court held to ask the house of congress to apply broadly the statute to apply sayi this broadly who ngwould need toga do it better job saying so invol because the charges against skilling didn't involve briberyolve or kickbacks if the scheme didicle involve kickbacks as alleged in charges article 1 the court said the charges would be fine.

as the court stated, quote come a criminal defendant who participated in a bribery orort kickback scheme in short cannot protion complain about prosecution under section 1346 on the of a kuran spirit judge porteous argues article 1 should be dismissed becausee the charges as he notes i in his written pleadings onlyngs only the appearance of impropriety not actual wrongdoing. wrongdo as as of no judge can be expected juhould n to knowot it cannot receive secret cash with an attorney from a pen pending case and kickbacks from attorneys such as sending cases. this is truly a remarkable assertion. judges are on notice from thema day they're sworn in they made the convicted and removed it to commit high crimes andcommit misdemeanors. this is t ahe constitution standard to which the judges judg mus must adhere judge porteous and every other judge ought to to uerstan understand this requires a veryf basic level of integrity.

when judge porteous or any other judge is exposed to havingings o accept the things of value fromappein attorneys beg for him and ruling that gives the client represented by the san dages t attorneys he damages the bring judicial system and brings the i whole court into disrepute. so this is especially so here with rul judge porteous rulings as financial benefactors were first on the central issues and litigation and opinion that excoriated the judge. whr the whether the house approved these m facts, is a matter must decide when to deliberate on the case after closing our dance. the senate report makes clear these facts are really beyondllegatio dispute. but acc iepting the obligations of article 1 as true as defenses counsel conceded a must for the purpose of this moistion, there is no question they set out afor these chargeable high crimes and misdemeanors. for these reasonsec judge porteousme n ow second motion must be denied. o let me now turn to the motion of tha article 2. judge porteous argues the m article to must be dismissed on3 g three grounds. allegation first because the conduct both his

before and after his appointmenteder to the federal bench and i dismissal he claims as constitutionally required as shown by the senate precedent in second archibald. h second, because the house experts he claims testified a judge could never be in peach on the basis of prior conduct an argument he nixon depleting. becau finally, because the article alleges judge porteous socialized with a long people an argument also made in thers hearings. judge porteous moving papers artic again conceits the obligations of article 2 for the puthrposes ofust this motion must be accepted as are true. the allegations in summary our this judge porteous was listed a judge began a relationship withh the the marcottes in which the judge solicited numerous things ofome value, meals, trips come home rep repairs, car repairs, the use of benefits and in return took the official actions benefitting setting bail, and we to maximize pro fi their profits, explaining they didn't get the convictions of speed employees both before and t after for the federal bench andis

off using the power and prestige as a federal judge and helping s recruit others to show just to form the same curve relationshipou c with the marcottes. as you can see article to buy its own terms the conduct which occurred before the confirmation conf ir for the bench after confirmation that before he was sworn in and t after hhee was sworn in and serving on the federal bench.iile the conduct charged an article to while he was a federal judge is egregious using the power of his federal office to recruit other state judges before the the same for a relationship with thearcottes marcottes that he had to be aonship tha the relationship with these other would later judges would later go to jail for. we proved this but more than that the conduct for the purposes of this motion must be accepted as true.icle just as an article on the senate c mckenrick the article to solely on the basis of what judgeudge porteous did as a federal judgeral ju i if they choose to do so. onl the only article that chargesharges federal bench conduct alone is

article for which charges judge false porteous for making false senate statements in the senate and fbin during the the confirmation process. takes interestingly, although judge porteous takes issue other wit issues with oracle four, he does not challenge the constitutionality of the factor c onlyon prior conduct is alleged to nautical for.t, a and as i in fact as i willoment, discuss in a moment, even not defense council recognizes it isution not only constitutional to prior condu impeach cta judge on prior conduct in certain cases, it isell. inevitable as well.. with me turn first to the th constitution. the constitution is silent on when a hiker and mr. meter i warranting impeachment must take describes place. certai then constitution describes for certain types of conduct which impeachment is warranted such as o bribery or treason but does not t say when the misconduct must have b been committed. plainly had the framers wished to come when the time the would

conduct must have taken place it pla must have been easy toce do so. ea the could have provided anld officer could be removed for high crime or misdemeanor committed while in office. in but they chose not to do so andnd not t no so limit the scope ofent and impeachment and for good reason. the liberation of the framers were focused on the impeachment w walls to make it clear that it pr was the institution they sought to protect from the descriptive offic er to become destructive influence as an of pficer who violates the ing th public trust and brings the institution into disrepute. with high crime or misdemeanors before occurs before or after appointment to a particular conduc office, if the conduct of the itituti official has brought thes to reon tha institution into ill repute, it stands to reason the framers that intend was at that conduct could impe warrant impeachment.is no iion t there was certainly no char like indication that in the charge like article to which discourageduring conduct before, during and afterat the appointment that anything in the constitution present droughtcedentn for dismissal. was chaed with the one precedent for which a

judge was charged with a single o count of both pre-and post office conduct is the 1913 impeachment of judge robert archibald. im the 13 articles of impeachment against judge archibald. six accused for misconduct while ile on the commerce court where he was signed at the time the o impeachment.ile on t six accused them as misconduct while it was on the district court. his prior judicial appointment.llegat article 14 said for the allegations that involved conduct on both courts and is therefore directly analogous to article 2 in the case against article i judge porteous. and on article 13, the senate voted to convict and remove george archibald. c because the debate was closed during the floor vote in the w archibald impeachment there was no formal debate or discussion about the senate jurisdiction toate's impeach over the conduct.ere n the centers were not required tosons state their reasons for f the votetes. al although some did. senator owen ferguson willn stated quote, with these kindstted would be committed during the p holding of the present office ormmaterial

proceeding office is immaterial. denstrat if such crime deterrence or unfit demonstrates the gross unfitness officia of some such official to hold the great offices and dignities of the people.d that other senator specifically noted not he was voting not guilty on all the but one of the prior quarter evidence accounts because he felt thatnhose the evidence did not support a vote sho conviction on those counts but his vote should not bethat misinterpreted as suggesting charging prior conduct was improper. in fact there were many senators of five for example that did not feel the evidence on any count was sufficient whether pre-or post and voted on all counts. now more than a quarter of the was senate was absent during ar ch archibald's case and it's is impossible to determine what motivated the votes of every senator who was present. but we do know that of the 60 evence t o senators who believed there waseast sufficient evidence to convict on at least one count pre-or

post a full 34 of them expressed and a quickly that they believed a judge should be impeached on misco the basis of misconduct proceeding their appointment to the current position.do we how do we know this?olds because 32 of them told us so by convi voting to convict on purely prior conduct, and to others by publicly stating that they would havenv done so if the evidence of guilt were stronger. w so we know with certainty 34 ofelieved itas the 68 senators was not only appropriate but imperative to condu convict on the prior conduct, view only seven tolino expressed the view associated with the judge about it was beyond question about senate archibald, and that is that the senate voted to convict archibald on the account thatchbaldt most closely resembles article alled cond to against judge porteous andduri both prior to and during his tenure in office.

defense council argues in hisstinguisd written pleadings those who testified before the house impeachment taskforce took thee consider position the prior conduct could not be considered by the senate as a basis for impeachment. this is a rather incredible claim claim since each of the expertsied testified precisely the contrary to the timing of the misconduct co was not a constitutional impediment and the constitution permits impeachment convictionval of a and removal of a federal judge for for the pre-federal benchthey fer tes conduct. the further testified the principles underlying the reasons for the impeachment process, protecting the jiciary integrity of the judiciary compelled this. michael garre heard explained in his statement say for instancee the defense was murder. any a series of tv to see rates come as we have been commissioned by complet a judge completely undermines both his integrity and his moral must authority he must've in order to function as a federal judge. the timing of the murder is a

conc less concern than the fact it. t this is a kind of behavior that is completely incompatible with inco mp public trust invested in officials with high ranking to be subject to the impeachmentr process. the professor stated at ary. imag hearing. let's take bribery. his imagine now person who drivesice his very way into office by occur definition the bribery heref occurs before prior to thet office. but certainly that fact can immunize the bribery from the and peach or removal.he had the bribery not occurred, the person never would have been an officer in the first place. def moreover, defense counsel statemen himself concedes in his written statement of the case to the full senate the conduct can be impeach. inappropriate ground for impeachment. and discussing the case the judge mightd be indicted and committed the murder committed wit before he was apphointed to the the federal bench but was only lat discovered later defense counsel conceded impeachment would be appropriate, writing quote there would be littlesy about controversy about removing a f

judge from office who was conv convicted of murder during his o term convicted of murder during his term in office and the presidential all due of such action would be limited. but nor has the defense counselnsel take the position impeach for cases prior conduct should be limited for cases s of murder. senators from illinois may recall the case of the judge. he he had been the governor of governor illinois before his appointment to the second circuit court ofappeals. appeals to realize all the courteals of appeals he was indicted and ind convicted for accepting bribesbes not as a judge but while governor. goverr long before he does put on the bench.ut on in writing about the case ofonly auto, the defense council not only asserted he would beeached for impeached for the bribes to as h governor but his impeachment was initable inevitable. to quote him judge also jr. befor for the circuit resigned before he inevitable impeachment after he conduct tha was convicted for conduct that preceded his service, and of the

quote. of loveless assume the statute of limitations had not brought barred prosecution of judge porteous on the kickbacks or the corrupt scheme with the marcottes. and that judge porteous had been indicted and convicted and triedcted -- and tried and convicted based on the prior conduct.that he would it be any less inevitablempeached that he must also be impeached and removed from office. app although vietnam which is theg f appropriateness ofor the inand teaching for prior conduct and murder and bribery and other cases indeed its inevitability cas he evidently seeks to was distinguish the case because convicted judge porteous was not first cr convicted during a criminal not r trial. of course the constitution doeson prior not require a criminal conviction prior to the t impeachment of framers didn't want toga delegate the the part of justice the power to remove a judge which would be the effectn of saying it requires the on the conviction to remove some of the basis of the conduct.resumes indeed the language of the constitution presumes a prosecution may follow not

proceed in peach and when it provides an article 1 section 3hat that a party convicted in thehall -- -- impeachment, quote, shall nevertheless be liable l and subject to indictment, try on the judgment and punishmentording t according to the law criminal law.nts, in many pryor impeachments there have been no criminal trial, no ior prior criminal trial and in the hastings case impeachment c followedas a acquittal in the criminal case. so plainly, the constitutionequire a doesn't require a prior criminaltrial o trial of conviction to impeach. whether the conduct occurredn before or while service. bause nonetheless, council argues itcriminalrial w is unfair here because afully brou criminal trial would havease brought out the facts in the case and provided a more very detailed record.re co but this ignores the full record in the fifth circuit proceeding t the depositions in this case ashe was the comprehensive trial point before the senate committee to read it is worth pointing outal that during the trial judge porteous represented the only by the cable mr. curley by at least eight attorneys from the law from firm of bryan cave. c

moreover, the team of attorneys attneys did not feel it was necessary toire amo use theun entire amount of time to put permitted to put on their case before they were arrested. counsel you'd think if the council ce that really felt there was more to the case that needed to be eliminated it would have been -- o the would have used the full wsses. opportunity presented to give witnesses . finally, there was a policyporteo argument advanced by the judgeco porteous the if the senate convicts on the basis of conductccurred that incurred in part before he on t was on thehe federal bench, even inter though it was intertwined with his appointment and service on the bench it will open the impeachment process to reduce partin bipartisan interest.ests ups these interests upset with the dec is judge's decision or judicial philosophy conjure up some conduct and use it to urge theonjure impeachment of the judge. it is true the power to impeach the judge based on prior conduct judge could be abused. like any other power. if the partisan interests wish to urge the and each root of aike,

judge whose decisions they don't like, they can just as wellhile t jud conjure up gehowever misconduct bench a bef occurred while the judge was on the bench as before they wereabuse rests appointed. the protection against abuse rests on p to places. it rests with the house to is reject any impeachment charges atacking a jud ge subterfuge for attacking the judge's decision or philosophyn and it rests here on this neve chamber where you must never ruled the charge for a partisan reason that would a rose the judiciary. no importantly, there was nolegation allegation, no suggestion spot not by defense counsel or anyone else but in this case that is th true withere respect to judgeachmentased porteous. there is no clean this impeach what is based on some illicitthere is aore partisan interest. there is a more seriousoweverf consequence, however, ofusion reaching the opposite conclusion can that the judges cannot be for impeached for prior misconduct.

confirmation is a safe harbor against all prior offenses bidet and discovered the time and thatublicrust is the destruction of the public trust that would accompany aation th policy detatermination that a judge who is so disgraced his office by committing a high crime or misdemeanor. though they fit in jail must c continue to be called judge must continue to be paid their full salary for life and rests beyond the reach of this body. whether the senate concludes the prior conduct alone should be the basis of these impeach or not, since article to allegis the impeachable conduct whichot just b occurred just before, but while fedal jud he was a federal judge, and for the purpose of this motion to dismiss those obligations must be accepted as true this final d motion must be denied. mr. president, for these reasons dismiss

suld judge porteous' must be denied and i would be happy to respond t to any questions.stions. >> thank you very much.te w representative goodlatte ilwill now complete the argument for the house. >> thank you mr. president. thank you for allowing me the chance to rebut some of what my you esteemed colleague has told youin by today.aking i have to begin by making annd perha you observation and perhaps you noticedd what happened.e we were told to data we were going to speak to you thisd the first morning about constitutional hou issues. and the first thing that theo throu house did was they started to goudge through the specific allegations the

against judge porteous, the merits of the case. it may be i'm a bit sensitive but the way that i heard it made it sound as if if you don't like merits this guy if you don't like what read the merits say it should influence how you read the y constitution. as many of you k know we as all of you know the constitutional interpretations don't depend on about how you feel about someone. it doesn't depend on how youe. feel about the case. r the it depends how you read the constitution. and so, oomy opposing counsel to to about 10,000 feet as you look down at these articles and said look at all the bad things you bad t say this guy did.hiuy he's the one asking you to to interpret the constitution. is he's not asking you to enter but the constitution.et the you require the constitution. doesn'tatter it's your job. it doesn't matter if he were guilty of all these things he's that not guilty. we will make that argument. but that doesn't have any bearing on how you interpretlso these clauses.

malae also have to object to the use by the house of testimony by law professors in the houseou proceedings. as some of you know the house of representatives submitted a post trial brief that contained brief tha statementst from law professors on the merit of impeachment basically telling you what youase. should do in this case. cha the committee determined viewuled directly in our view it's not would bowed i appropriate. a court it would be allowed in a court of law so the house was told to redo their brief and resubmit it. very but the house and proceeded to introduce the very samne information in today's presentation.lso i simply have to object. so, also have to object when they

actual quo did so the house didn't act likessue quote the law professors foley on the issue of the federaly conduct.t as the professor of shall be dismissed as just all that state gerhard said stuff. he said no one has beenonvi convicted of the federal conductpre-fede which to replyral contradicts what house has said. but the reason that we object to the inclusion of thesehink professors and if i had testified ish think my testimony should have been excluded is that it's your decision. judges don't hear experts on the merits of decisions. now, i'd like to actually const address the constitutional howev take issues. i will however, take thetual liberty to deal with one factual assertion the house has madehat because it was in direct response to something that i had of said.his i told the members of this body agreed t that judge porteous agreed to limi

waive the statute of limitations he was asked to waive, but he did not think it was appropriate behi to stand behind the statute of to sugst limitations. had the house proceeded to suggest were that he had not -- that there were a statute of limitations that he did not waive. the record will show if you look at some of the material we have to you already submitted to you and our post trial brief that in effect judge porteous agreed to everyer of a weaver of the statute of of limitations put in front of him. he he did not refuse any waiver of a statute of limitations.d when they came to him and said we want the ability to charge blo you even if you could block a of charge of statute oftions, heaid s limitations, he said so be it. jud i'm a federal judge. crime if you find crimes charge me. not just to make sure we be understand this, they began themid to investigation in the mid to late limit 1990's, the statute ofs for t he

limitations on the charges forimpeachment the article the impeachment ran five to ten years. so no statute of limitations had a fed passed for anything that he didat we're d as a federal judge which is what we are discussing today. o .. regard to judge bodenheimer and it didn't stop them from charging. all they did was charge conspiracy and said there were ongoing acts and so the statute of limitations had to run. it wasn't even a speed bump on their way to charge judge bodenheimer. i just wanted to correct that on the record. specifically judge porteous waived among others, the right to charge them with bankruptcy fraud, bribery illegal gratuities, criminal conflict of interest criminal contempt, false statements, honest services wire fraud. those were requested of him and that's what he signed, so i think it was a bit unfair to suggest that somehow he had not done that. >> now, the court the senate

has heard from the house that they were simply showing considerable restrain and deference to this body by aggregating counts. my esteemed colleague on the other side said, after all, you wouldn't want to break this up into unnatural pieces. i want to talk about those unnatural pieces in a second, but i can't allow it to pass when the house said do any of you doubt if we had disag gaited the defense wouldn't be here today complaining they faced individual articles on individual claims? i'll simply represent to you if you look at the record no one, no criminal defense attorney in history objected to having specific defined charges but more importantly if you lock at the history of this body defense attorneys and members of this body have objected to the

aggregation being used in these articles, and up deed the house of representatives in hastings had specific false statements so that you could make a decision whether a judge gave a false statement, a specific one before you reach your decision to remove them. those were not unnatural pieces, but stand alone charges and those would be in an indictment of separate counts. now, my esteemed colleague also has objected that we are asking you to set up a situation where some judge is going to sit in a prison and i believe the expression was force people to call him judge. once again just as the response

was to go to the merits instead of the constitutional issues clearly the right is better by directing your attention to a mythical judge sitting in a federal prison making people call him judge. i'll argue that case if you want me to, but i got to tell you i'd lose. the judge can want serve -- cannot serve in office in good behavior in prison. i don't know of anyone who is credible who has said at any time that a judge could insist on being treated as a judge. yon about being -- i don't know about being called a judge, but to be a judge that would not be possible in our view. i'd like to address a couple points about a agree gait -- aagree gages. the house said you have the authority to do preliminary votes. that was very clear k and at the

time i commended that position. i have no idea what the authority is for saying that you cannot organize your deliberations any way that you want. what you are required to do under rule 23 is have a final vote on the article, and it cannot be divided, and we suggest that you do that. all we are proposing is that the senate know what it's voting on, to look at the individual issues presented in these articles. furthermore, the house said that this was already rejected by the committee. we were given a fair hearing by the committee in the pretrail motions, and i thank the chair and vice chair for that opportunity. if you look at the record what occurred is that some senators agreed that they had

difficulties with the aggregation issue, and mr. shift stood up and said, you don't have to decide because you have the authority to do this. you can go ahead and make determinations on individual issues. some senators raised this question, and it was ultimately not granted at that time. instead, we have submitted it to you. i will only submit to you that it makes no sense. honestly rs for the frame -- honestly, for the framers to go through the trouble of establishing a two-thirds vote requirement, but allow the house to simply ag aggregate charges that virtually guarantees that in many cases two-thirds of you will not agree on the reason you're removing a federal judge. that can't possibly be what the framers intended because they were not stupid men. they were very careful and deliberate men and they set up

a standard that was exacting. now, the house also says in addition to our being able to do this to aggregation because it would be so exhaustive to turn one article into three even though they did that i in prior impeachment cases. they say these are not individual frames, but they are all related. they don't have to be separated because the house says it wouldn't make any sense. you wouldn't understand it okay? i draw your attention to article ii. in article ii, judge porteous is accused of using his power to assist bail bondsmen in making relationships and acting corruptly. all right, i understand that. i don't think it's an

impeachable offense. saying corruption is the exact word that madison rejected, but still, that's a stand alone issue. you can make a decision if that happened, and i will simply say because i will not argue the merits at this time. i was told to argue the motions. we have very strong disagreements with the factual representations made by the house, but that is one of the claims in article ii. in the same article he's charged with knowing that louis marcotte a bail bondsmen from louisiana lied in the interview. those are two very distinct charges. one is saying he essentially procured someone to testify or make statements falsely, and one is that he used his office to assist in a corrupt relationship. as you can imagine if you were

standing here in my place, could you defend against both those points with the same argument? i don't think so. those two points raise two different issues. they actually refer two different issues in the criminal code. what i'm asking from you with all due respect, is to give this judge the process that you would want for yourselves if god forbid you were accused by anything of what the judge is accused of. would it be fair if you stood here accused to have the house say, you know what? we don't have to separate allegations, we just pile them together because after all, they have one thing in common, judge porteous. that's not enough. now, we've submitted a motion that showed no discernible connection between some of these

aggregated claims and we will leave it to that because we have limited time and i know the members of this body have somewhere to go and i'll wrap up quickly as possible. i was noting on the issue that if you listen carefully, the house on skilling said that it's not a problem after skilling because you can read in a bakeback -- kickback scheme into the articles. if you want to, you can read the facts and say this is a kickback, so skilling applies. isn't the danger to that argue obvious? the senate would be changing an article of impeachment. that is is what they -- that is what they are being invited to do. the house of representatives has the sole authority and obligation to define what it is that a judge should be removed for. it's not just their power it's

their obligation. now, the house says, look, we're giving great discretion to give you whatever we want. no one tells us what has to be in an article. we can do it because we have the authority to do it. that's true. the constitution gives you great authority to turn down an article from the house of representatives. that's what you can do so this idea that the house would produce four articles that don't even mention bribery or kickbacks, but you can read it into those articles is unbelievably dangerous. it means that you could get any article and transform it here on the floor of the senate. you could remove someone for something that the house members did not agree should be submitted to you. suspect that danger obvious? -- isn't that danger obvious? the house had the opportunity to

state there was a bribe or a kickback. bribery is in the standard. it was used by the frarmers -- framers. they rejected corruption but they put bribery in and so the question is are you allowed to do a do-over here on the floor of the senate and simply ask the members of the senate to make the article fit like it's close enough for jazz? that's not the standard under the constitution. now, the house says that the constitution is silent on when conduct has to occur in order for it to be the basis for removal of the federal judge. in fact, i thought i heard the house say that the framers chose not to put in a statement in the dyings when it -- constitution when it would occur. like many in the room i've

spent a lot of time at those debates, probably more than i should. i don't remember ever seeing that. my understanding, the framers never addressed this issue, but they did address it in the constitution. they just didn't put it in the impeachment clause, but when they defined life tenure they said you have life tenure during good behavior, during good behavior? what? it wasn't good behavior in life. they said good behavior in office. it was a reference to the office that they held because nay wanted to -- they wanted to make sure people would not abuse their federal office. the life tenure guarantee in article iii of the constitution was to guarantee an independent judiciary by says you could not be denied life tenure as long as you served good behavior in that office. what the house would have you believe is that the framers

would allow you, even though it refers to good behavior in office to remove a judge for anything that thigh did in life -- that they did in life. now, once again, does that track with what you know about article iii? does that make sense in terms of the only seven judges that were removed by this body? that all the time it turns out for 206 years congress could have removed for something anyone did in life. now, the house says you shouldn't be scared by the implications of all of this, that if you allow prefederal conduct, if you allow anything done in life to be the basis of removal of a federal judge, don't be concerned about abuse. god knows congress would never abuse any authority under the constitution, and basically the argument was trust us, we're the

house. that's not what i frarmers said in the constitution. they didn't tell you to trust them because they're the house, and yes, you are here. even if we abuse this, it's got to go through you. now, if that's true god knows this body has stopped a lot of impeachments. it's only agreed to seven removals, but is that the constitutional standard that the house can go ahead and impeach anyone for anything they did in life and seek the removal in hope that you correct their actions? >> your time has expired. >> thank you, mr. president, and thank you, members of congress. >> the jury has received two questions for both sides. one from senator durbin and the other from senator leahy.

>> senator durbin's question to both sides. what is the standard of proof for the motive or partition near in impeachment proceedings? >> you wish to respond? >> senator durbin, the standard which we will be addressing in the merits of the case, has been subject to historical debate. i'll give you what i believe is the weight of the record. it is true the constitution does not annunciate a specific standard in terms of a burden of proof. we do not agree with the house that they refer to high crimes of misdemeanors as standard.

that's not a standard of proof but the definition of a reremovable offense. we suggest the senate can look at a known standards such as beyond a reasonable doubt. beyond a reasonable doubt is a standard for a criminal case. the constitution is written in criminal terms of high crimes and misdemeanors. that is why you had these articles crafted closely to the criminal code. in fact many impeachments actually took directly from a prior indictment and made the indictable couldn'ts the articles of the impeachment. the house argued that standard is not necessarily too high. what we would submit to you, and we'll certainly argue this in the merits, is that in the house, recently when they held the member up for senture, they had a clear and convincing standard that you must at least

be satisfied clear and convincing evidence. in my view as an academic, it must be somewhere in between clear and convincing and beyond a reasonable doubt. what is more clear senator, is what it is not. if you read the impeachment clauses, the clear message is that you can't just take facts that are in ceo we poise. you can't just choose between them that the facts have to, in your mind, go beyond a simple disagreement and be established in our view at the minimum by clear and convincing evidence. >> mr. president senators the senate has considered and rejected the adoption of any particular standard such as beyond a reasonable doubt. what the senate has determined in the past in these cases is that essentially each senator must decide for themselves, are

they sufficiently satisfied that the house has met its burden of proof? are thaw convinced of the truthfulness of the allegations and rise to the high crimes and misdemeanors. we can get the precise language that the senate used in the pass but the presiding officer instructed each senator to look at their own conscious and conviction to be sure they believe the judge in this case has committed the acts that the house has alleged. it is an individual determination, and the senate has always rejected adopting a specific criminal code base standard such as beyond a reasonable or convincing or clear proof because it is an individual senator's position. it reflects the fact that as the framers articulated, this is a political process not political

in the partisan since, but political in it's not a criminal process. it's not depriving someone of their liberty. what it is designed to do is protect the institution, and so the question for each senator is has the house sufficiently proved the case that in the view of each senator to protect the institution, they must be removed from office so it's an individual determination. intl thank you very much -- >> thank you very much and now will the clerk read the question from senator leahy? >> the senator judiciary committee requires a sworn statement as part of a detailed questionnaire by a nominee. i'm told this questionnaire is filed, neither the jew judiciary committee nor the senate votes to device the nomination smed would not perjury in that questionnaire in that process be an impeachable offense?

>> thank you, mr. president, and thank you senator leahy. the -- in my view, yes. if you commit perjury in the course of confirmation, that would be basis for removal. in fact, i believe they made reference to judge porteous because that's not charged of the what would have to be done is the house would have to accuse someone as perjury as in the hastings case and have perjury statements, and i could stand here and tell you why there's no intent to commit perjury or why the statements were true. they referred to perjury. once again, perjury is not one of the articles of impeachment and i caution, even though it can be i caution this should not been an ad hoc project to graft on actual criminal claims

by implying them in language issued by the house. >> congressman? >> thank you, mr. president, and senators this is essentially what article iv is about charges judge porteous of making false statements to the fbi in the confirmation process and the answer is yes, absolutely. what is telling here is that counsel has conceded that yes if they perjury themselves in the confirmation process, they can and should be impeached, but by definition, that is conduct that occurred prior to their assumption of federal office. if someone can never be impeached on the basis of prior conduct, his answer should have been no but counsel recognizes there are circumstances where impeachment it not only appropriate, but inevitable and essential, and where someone lies to get the very office that

they're confirmed to to deprive them of that office, to deprive them of the ill-gotten gain of that deception i think is not only constitutional, but essential to uphold the office as well as to uphold the confirmation process itself. >> the senate resumes consideration of the articles of impeachment against judge g thomas porteous, j.r.. the chair understands that final

arguments with the house on the articles of impeachment will be presented by representative schiff and representative good. mr. schiff was asked to speak first, and do you want to leave room for closing, and if so, how much time? >> mr. president, if it's permitted after i give brief remarks, i'll turn it over to my colleague to speak, and i would like to reserve the balance of my time unless we have to set that in advance. >> you may proceed sir. >> mr. president, and members of the senate, this is a case about a state court judge from gretna louisiana who had a gambling problem and had a drinking problem and as a result of both of those problems also had serious financial problems. he was constantly short of money. this judge entered into a corrupt scheme with lawyers and

bail bondsmen that help him lead a lifestyle he couldn't otherwise afford. he sent them cases they sent them kickback money and paid for his meals liquor, parties and some of his son's expenses. he set bonds for the bail bondsmen at the amounts to maximize their profits. he expingedded imixes of their employees and paid for his meals, trips repairs, and lave vish gifts. the white house was not aware of this corrupt activity, and nominated the judge to the federal bench. the judge misled the senate about his background concealed the kickbacks in graft waited until after his confirmation hearing, but before he was sworn in to expunge the conviction of another bail bonds employee, and falsely told the senate there was nothing in his background to adversely affect his confirmation. unaware of what the judge had

been engaged in, he was confirmed. the very reason why the information sought by the senate was so material whether he had a drinking problem, whether he had a gambling problem whether he lived beyond his means whether he engaged in conduct to make him the subject of compromise was to prevent the damage of the judiciary caused by putting a corrupt man on the bench. what happened when the judge took the federal bench was all by predictable. the corruption continued. the judge declares bankruptcy files with a false name and signs under penalty of perjury. he has at seeses takes out a new credit card, disrupts new debt files false judicial financial disclosures stating he has no more than $30,000 when he owes over $100,000 on his credit

cards, and most pernicious to the interest of his creditors he keeps on gambling. the judge is assigned a complex case in a trial that is years in the making putting a hospital against a pharmacy worth tens of millions of dollars. six weeks before trial, one of the lawyers paying him cakebacks is brought in at the last moment to represent the pharmacy. the hospital smells a rat. they don't know about the kickbacks, but they are suspicious about why an attorney with no experience in the case or complex of bankruptcy litigation was brought in. they ask around, and they don't like what they hear. they ask the judge to rescue himself, and he refuses falsely representing he never received money from the attorneys but once and that was just a campaign contribution that went to all the judges of that per rich. the case goes to trial, and it

taken under submission by the judge. while he is considering how to rule he goes fishing with a lawyer who paid him the kickbacks and hits him up for $2,000 more in cash. the two partners at the law firm put the cash in an envelope and the judge sends his secretary to pick it up. at the law firm the judge's secretary asks what's in the envelope. the lawyer's secretary rolls her eyes and says never mind i don't want to know and the relationship with the bail bondsmen isn't over either. he can no longer set bonds for them, but recruit other judges to step into his shoes by bringing them together, and he does. now we are here. everyone around the judge has fallen. the bondsmen have gone to jail. the other state judges he helped recruit have also gone to jail.

the lawyers who gave him the cash have given up their practices. most devastating the institution itself has suffered greatly. litigants and the public in new orleans wonder if the example of this judge if they too must pay a judge in cash and under the table, do the home or car repairs or other favors of the judge to win their case or have their conviction expunged. only the judge remains defiant claiming his problems are no more than the appearance of inpropriety, not actual wrong doing. he retains his office, title his full salary though he hears no cases and has not for years, and if he can just hold out a little longer, a full retirement. the judge is a gambler and he is betting that he can beat the system just one more time.

in a moment i'll turn it over to my colleague to give a detailed presentation of what the house proved at trial of high crimes committed by judge g thomas porteous. the remarkable thing about the case is most of the pertinent facts are not in dispute. as a knew federal fact -- neutral fact demonstrates, the points were uncontested. at the same time, the report is not a substitute for hearing from the witnesses themselves or because that is not possible for the entire senate, hearing from the senators who did. senate impeachment committee of 12 conducted a remarkable trial, laid the creditability of every witness, ruled on every objection, heard every argument, and they will be a great resource to you in your deliberations. to give one example, it is uncontested that judge porteous

solicited and received $2,000 cash secretly from an attorney and his partner while that attorney's case was under submission. judge porteous admitted this before the 5th circuit. the judge called it a loan that he never paid back but as counsel is taking to calling it a wedding gift as if it were a piece of china from the pottery barn. significantly, no one other than defense counsel has ever called this cash a wedding gift, not a one who paid it the secretary who delivered it or the judge himself. this is the best defense counsel at his most creative. the 12 senators who heard the testimony are in best position to refute those characterizations so at odd with the evidence. one last example before i turn it over the defense suggested many times in prior proceedings

and may today that judge porteous is impeached for nothing more serious than having lunch with attorneys. this was represented to the committee of 12 senators after the pretile deposition of creighly. because he had heard the testimony, he was able to form the other senators of what he really had said. as johanns said i sat through the deposition and to suggest it was about a purchased lunch is really in my personal opinion very misleading. he later went on to say again i will emphasize don't convince my colleagues that the creeley deposition was just about a free lunch. it was not, and i can cite what i heard that day. . the 12 senators can cite what they heard during that trial and they will be a tremendous resource.

i would now like to introduce mr. goodlatch of virginia of a detailed presentation of the details of the house presented and at the end we reserve the balance of our time for rebuttal argument. >> the chair recognizes the representative. >> thank you, mr. schiff. let me turn to what the evidence showed, mr. president. by way of background, in the early 1970s judge porteous practiced law as a partner and robert was an associate who worked for them. they ultimately split off and fompled their own law firm as equal partners and remained friends with judge porteous. in 74, he was elected judge in jefferson parrish louisiana with the courthouse in gretna outside of new orleans. he was a state judge from 1984

to october 28, 1994 when he was sworn in as the united states district judge for the eastern district of louisiana. starting with article i, let me first describe what the evidence established concerning judge porteous curatorship kickback scheme with creeley. he started to ask for money. at first he asked for small amounts, $50 or $100 money that was in his wallet and he would give him. at some point in the mid to late 1908s, he asked more significant sums amounts in the range of $500 or $1,000. he resisted giving judge porteous that sort of money as testified. i did tell him i was tired of giving him cash. i felt put upon that he continued to ask. i thought avessen imposition on our friendship. i told him a couple times, i'm tired of giving you money and

you asking for money. judge porteous needed cash and creeley would not give it to him. what did judge porteous do? the evidence shows he came up with a kickback scheme using the power of his office to assign him curatorships and requested from his partner a portion of the fees received by their law firms from handling the cases. overtime, he received $20,000 from the law firm as a result of this arrangement. let me show you what one of these orders looks like. as you see here, and mr. president, let me just say, i know it's difficult for some of the senators to see these exhibits at the conclusion of the closing arguments, we will leave all of these exits for the senators to examine if that is appropriate with the senate. as you see here an order signed

by judge porteous aassigning creeley to be the -- they assigned a fix fee of $200 for handling the matters, and it was those fee judge porteous sought the cash. this corrupt scheme we want on for years. the proof of series of the evidents is evidence by the testimony of creeley and the judge himself. it is also corroborated by the court records. first, creeley testified after judge porteous started assigning the curatorships, he called over to his office and saying look, i've been sending you curiae toes you know, can you give me that money. he testified even though he resisted giving cash, he would now give him cash in response to

judge porteous' demands because it "wasn't costing him anything." it did not cost him anything because the money he gave judge came from the fees. who split the payment with creeley 50/50 corroborated the course of evidents. erik informed him that the judge was sending cases to him and that he would in turn give money to the judge. he agreed to go along with the arrangement, but told creeley that it was "going to turn out bad." which it clearly has. he testified he knew the curatorship scheme was wrong but he was not strong enough to say no what he understood to be a classic arrangement. he provided the judge cash every few months in response to judge porteous' requests. they give him cash opposed to

checks drawn on the firm's accounts. according to the testimony, it was "to avoid any kind of paper trail." as clearly testified, they gave him cash because that's what judge porteous wanted. in most instances creeley gave the cash to judge porteous, but both testified that on occasion, they personally gave judge porteous the cash as well. judge porteous confirmed in testimony under oath before the 5th circuit the essential aspects of the scheme. he admitted that one he received cash from creeley. two, at some point in time creeley expressed his displeasure with giving judge porteous cash. three, there after judge porteous assigned curatorships and four, judge porteous got cash from creeley and followed his assigning curatorships. first judge porteous admitted he

received cash from creeley. question, when did you first start getting cash from creeley or the law firm? answer, probably when i was on the state bench. question and that practice continued into 1994 when you became a federal judge did it not? answer, i believe that's correct. judge porteous confirmed there was a time when creeley expressed resistance to giving judge porteous money before the curatorship started. question, do you recall mr. creeley refusing to pay you money before the curatorship started? answer, he may have said i need to get my finances under control, yeah. judge porteous admitted the cash from creeley occasionally followed his assignment of curatorships to creeley. although judge porteous refused to label it as a kickback, he

accepted the description of the arrangement that he had with creeley as one where he gave "creeley curatorships and was getting cash back." what about the court records? during its investigation the house located close to 200 orders signed by judge porteous assigning creeley curatorships between 1988 and 1994. all of these orders are in evidence. these curatorships generates fees of nearly $40,000 to the firm and both testified contist tently they gave judge porteous 50% of the proceeds of the curatorship fees or approximately $20,000 in total. for his part, judge porteous testified at the 5th circuit he had "no earthly requested" how much creeley gave him, though he did not deny the total could have been more than $10,000. he testified as followed.

question, judge porteous, over the years how much cash have you received from jake and bob creeley or the law, i have no idea. question, it could have been $10,000 or more; is that right? answer you're asking me to speculate, and i have no idea what to tell you. on october 8, 1994, he was sworn in as a federal district judge. judge porteous was no longer in a position to assign curatorships and stopped asking them for cash, at least for the time being. the fact that the judge requested cash temporarily came to an end, at the same time, he stopped assigning them curatorships constitutes powerful evidence that those two actions were connected, and that the cash payments from creeley to judge porteous were not merely gifts from the two men separate and apart from the

curatorships. i'll provide you with a little bit more flavor as to judge porteous' relationship with the two. though i focused on the cash and curatorships i should stress that he dpenlded on the two men to provide for his entertainment and support his lifestyle in other major republics. for example, while judge porteous was a state judge, both men frequently took judge porteous to lunch at expensive restaurants. he testified he took judge porteous to lunch a couple times a month amounts to potentially hundreds of lunches and that judge porteous paid only two or three times out of 100. at these lunches, he typically paid for at least two vodka drinks for judge porteous. similarly, creeley took him to lunch approximately twice a month. creeley testified that when they went to lunch either creeley paid or someone else paid but

not judge porteous. in addition, they hosted judge porteous on a variety of hunting and fishing trips and arranged those trips, some of which involved air travel to mexico so that judge porteous never paid, and they gave him cash on at least one other occasion at his request. in the summer of 1994 when judge porteous son, timothy, was this washington, judge porteous had his secretary solicit and receive money from creeley to sponsor timothy's position and pay for his expenses. this is all in the record. now, let me turn to judge porteous' relationship with creeley after he became a federal judge. on january 16 1996, judge porteous now a federal judge was assigned a complicated civil action lifemark hospitals, very enterprises that involved a dispute between a hospital and a

pharmacy and involved bankruptcy law, real estate law, and contract law. the matter was particularly contentious with tens of millions of dollars at stake. the case was set for a nonjury trial before judge porteous in early november 1996. he was to be the trial of law and fact. in mid september, just six weeks before the scheduled trial date, they filed a motion to enter the appearances and leonard elevenson, another friend as attorneys. he was hired on a con tenge gent fee basis providing his law firm receives a percentage of any award. he estimated that if they prevailed in the case, he and the firm would receive between $500,000 and $1 million. if they lost he would receive nothing. lifemark's lead counsel jim

mull, was alarmed when they were hired on the eve of trial. even testified "i'm sure my relationship with judge porteous had something to do with it." he was concerned judge porteous would give an award to benefit the firm. with him on the other side he would not receive a fair trial. mull did the only thing we could. he filed a motion asking judge porteous to rescue himself requesting that judge porteous have the case assigned to another judge. he drafted the moment based on his limited understanding of the facts alleges quote only there was a close relationship between the judge and the attorneys. they were not to sorellize together, -- socialize together and they were law partners and the timing into

the case just a few weeks prior to trial created suspension. he had no idea that he and his partner creeley had given him approximately $20,000 pursuant to the curatorship cakeback arrangement nor did he know the other things of value they provided to judge porteous. he held a hearing on the motion. judge porteous statements at the recusal hearing are set forth in detail in our brief and the hearing transcript is also in evidence, so i'm not going to repeat all of them here. in sum, judge porteous made a series of deceptive misleading statements which he mine mizeed the relationship between the two and criticized mull for filing an unfounded motion. judge porteous portrayed the relationship as simply the same sort of unexceptional relationship that he would have had with any member of the bar.

for example, judge porteous stateed "yes, they are friends much mine. have i ever been to either one of their house? the answer is no. have i gone to lunch with them? the answer is a defentive yes. have i been going to lunch with all members of the bar? the answer is yes." even that is misleading because he accepted hundreds of meals at numerous restaurants, but most significantly judge porteous made no mention whatsoever of what was the issue, that is he received approximately $20,000 in cash from the law firm money that he knew came from the law firm and creeley. when he was at great disadvantage saying he contributed to judge porteous'

campaigns, judge porteous went on the offense. "well, luckily i didn't have any campaigns so i'm interested to find out how you know that. i never had any campaigns counsel. i never had an opponent. " he went on to say the first time i ran, 1984, i think is the only time they gave me money. that blanket statement was, of course a deliberate falsehood because he and the firm had given judge porteous approximately $20,000 in cash purr siewnlt to the curatorship scheme. he concluded with a self-serving comment promising to notify counsel if he has any question he should rescue himself and concluded, i don't think a well-informed individual can question my impartiality in this case. what you have is judge porteous who knows the facts, just not

disclosing it completely deceiving lifemark and the counsel as of his true nature of the relationship between the two announcing to the world how honest he was complete with the mock indignation. judge porteous denied the recusal motion after the argument in open court on october 16, 1996. lifemark appealed to the 5th circuit seeking to overturn judge porteous order, but because of the false representation, that appeal was denied. trial was held without a jury in the summer of 1997 and judge porteous took the case under advisement. while the case was pending judge porteous continued to solicit and accept cash and things of value from creeley. in may 1999 while judge porteous had not yet ruled on the case he went to las vegas, nevada and

friends for his son's bachelor party. he also paid for the room and over $500 for timothy's porteous bachelor party dinner and that resulted in $1100 on the express card in evidence. he brought them to a strip club giving a club employee $200 to pay for a lap dance for judge porteous and an employee. he admitted that creeley paid for the hotel room and a portion of the dinner. in june of 1999 while judge porteous still had the case under consideration, the two men took a nighttime fishing trip together. on the fishing trip, judge porteous told them he needed cash for his son's wedding and requested that he give him approximately $2,000.

excuse me. in response to that request, he agreed to give judge porteous the money he solicited and supplied $1,000 and got $1,000 from creeley and gave him $2,000 in cash. it was "a decision i'll regret until the day i die." as a senate impeachment trial committee report found the $2,000 was picked up by judge porteous secretary. when asked the law firm secretary what was in the envelope. the secretary rolled her eyes and said, never mind, i don't want to know. like much of the other evidence, the fact that judge porteous solicited and received money from the men in 1999 while the case was pending is not contested. here's how judge porteous

testified under oath before the 5th circuit. question, whether or not you recall asking for money in the fishing trip, do you recall getting an envelope with $2,000 shortly there after? answer yeah, something significants the enveal envelope. i don't know the size or anything about it. question, is it the nature of the envelope you're disputing? answer no, money was received. >> question, it had cash in it? answer yes. question, and would you dispute the amount was $2,000. answer, i don't have any basis to dispute it. at the time he made the request judge porteous had significant financial leverage. his solicitation of cash from them had a shakedown quality to

it. he bluntly acknowledged that one of the factors that impacted his decision to give judge porteous the cash was that he stood to make a lot of money in connection with the case then pending in front of the judge, and that he was not willing to "take the risk of not giving judge porteous the cash the judge solicited. " judge porteous solicitation of cash demonstrates his egregious misuse of his power to enrich himself. a judge who engages in such conduct is unfit to continue to hold the office of the united states district judge. in addition, they continue to take judge porteous out to exceptive lunches on a regular basis and paid over $1,000 at a party in honor of his 5th year on the bench. mull knew nothing of the relationships while the case was pending. specifically, judge porteous did not inform mull of the meals

the payments of expenses in las vegas or the $2,000 cash payment. in april he submitted a written case. at the time the financial situation was desperate and just weeks away from meeting with a bankruptcy attorney. judge porteous who had taken judicial actions in the past with creeley to enrich himself had powerful financial motives to curry their favor, reward them for their past loyalty and generosity and encourage it in the future, thus it is not surprising that judge porteous ruled in all major aspects in favor of the clients. counsel for lifemark testified this was a "resounding loss for lifemark and lifemark repealed the decision to the 5th circuit court of appeals." they reversed the decision in most significant aspects. in doing so, the 5th circuit

characterized various aspects of judge porteous' ruling as inexplicable and constructed entirely out of whole cloth absurd close to being nonsensical, and not supported by law. after the case was reversed by the 5th circuit and sent back to judge porteous, the parties settled because lifemark didn't want to go back before judge porteous. article ii. judge porteous' relationship with bail bondsman louis marcotte and his sister, lori it is important to begin with the state court judge. first, i'll briefly describe how the bail bonds business worked in the par parrish. louis marcotte would make no money if the judge set bonds so high if the prisoner or family could not afford to pay the premium or if the bond was so

low the premium was an insignificant sum. what m marcotte wanted was for a bopped to be set at the max yum amount to pay the premium typically 10% of the bond amount, and that's how he got profits. he interviewed the prisoner know what he could afford and have bonds set at that amount. if a prisoner or his family could scrape together $5,000, marcotte would was a judge to set bail ten times that amount or $50,000 even if a lower amount would have been appropriate. now in the gretna, louisiana courthouse where judge porteous sat, marcotte dealt one-on-one districtly with the judges and magistrates to have them set boppedz. prosecutors and defense attorneys were virtually never involved. it is against this background

that judge porteous' relationship with the marcottes can be understood. he needed a judge to be receptive and reduce bonds if they were too high and higher amounts if too low. as we know from the roibs with creeley, he needed and welcomed financial support to who would provide it and more than willing to use his judicial power to obtain it. judge porteous and marcotte understood what the other could do for him and they formed a mutually beneficial corrupt relationship. first, as to what the marcottes gave judge porteous. the evidence established that the marcottes frequently took judge porteous to high-end restaurants for lunch paying for meals and drinks. over time the lunches occurred twice per week. these lunches seemed to have started in or about 1992 and corroborated by several

witnesses. he could invite whoever he wanted, especially other judges, and judge porteous presence as the marcotte's guest helped them establish their legitimacy. they paid for car repairs and routine car maintenance for judge porteous. the repairs were substantial and included buying new tires or engine and transmission repairs or installing a new radio. in addition, marcotte employee would routinely pick up his car to wash it and fill it with gas. she testified he give him his security code to go into the judge's parking lot at the courthouse. judge porteous would leave the key under the mat. wallace picked up the car and returned it washed, gassed, and occasionally with a gift like liquor inside. no fewer than five witnesses corroborated the fact that marcottes paid for the car repairs. in addition, marcotte also paid

for home repairs for judge porteous when an 80 foot section of fence had to be replaced. testimony from employees established the project took three days to complete. the marcottes paid for a trip to las vegas. on the trip, judge porteous' secretary paid for the transportation up front. the evidence is clear that lori marcotte paid for the trip by giving her cash in judge porteous' chambers. boast testified that the payment was in cash to conceal the fact that the marcottes paid for the trip. there is no pretense that this was some sort of legitimate act of generosity. it was obviously improper and hidden from the parties for that reason. in return, judge porteous willingly became marcotte's go-to judge in setting bonds.

he went to judge porteous with recommended bond amounts to maximize their income. he was receptive to them and signed countless bonds at their request and said hutch the prisoner could afford as part of the discussions where they requested that he set bail. as the senator observed in the trial, it was the poorest families hurt by judge porteous' relationship with marcotte. an inherit aspect was that bond was set at the higher amount that might have been set by a neutral judge who was not on the take. the opposite is also true. the public interest was potentially compromised when judge porteous reduced a bond at the marcotte's request leading to the release of someone who should have been confined. it perverted what should have been a neutral process. in addition to setting bonds as

requested, judge porteous took other judicial acts of significance for the marcottes. ..e's request, judge porteous expunged the felony conviction of a marcotte employee, jeff duhan so duhan could obtain his bail bondsman license. in 1994, again at marcotte's request, judge porteous set aside the conviction of another marcotte employee, aubrey wallace. this took place during judge porteous' last days on the state bench and evidences the extent to which judge porteous was beholden to the marcottes. as i will get into in a few moments, judge porteous timed this judicial action to occur after the senate's confirmation of him for the federal judgeship so as to conceal his corrupt relationship with th mares ot celeste to conceal its corrupt relationship with the marcottes and thereby not jeopardize hisoi lifetiment appointment. marco there was one more thing thatt speed did for judge porteous as relationsp

whe part of their corrupt relationship when judge porteous was a state judge.in of in the19 summer of 1994 when judge porteous was undergoing his background check, the fbi lied interviewed marcottes in the interview the marcotte light for judge porteous on three points. portus first he did george porteous -- would, quote, have appear or to at have lunch when in fact marcotte knew that judge porteous w porteous was a have ephod could we trigger with an alcohol problemul who would on occasiod n have five or or six drinks.tted second, speed stated he had no judge knowledge of judge porteous financial circumstances, when in fact, he knew that judge porteous struggled financially.ortantly finally, and most importantly f when.b interviewed by the fbi marcotte denied that there was back tha anything in judge judge to porteous' backend that could b subject the judge to conversion was blackmail or leverage.e because this was also not true because a marcotte knew that he had a corrupt relationship with judge porteous and that he himself,orteou

had a leveraged over judge porteous because of that fac relationship. in fact marcotte testifiedbl bluntly in september before the senate impeachment trial committee that he could haveave quote, destroyed judge porteous had he chosen to do so. t do marcotte told the fbi that he believed judge porteous wanted him him to -- told the fbi what hed believed judge porteous wanted him to s hay. in in effect, marcotte act as judgeng to t porteous' engine and longing too the fbi. marcotte then reported back tots of judge porteous as to the content to judge of the interview and told judge of porteous he gave him a cleandeed t bill of health. indeed, there can be littlethe j pretense that the judge porteous through kotler riss marcotte relationship was anything otherht than covetousness relationship. there were brought together byeeds. their financial need.nly marcotte was clear that the only judge reason he took judge porteous tos lunch, took him to las vegasis fixed his cars or fixed his house was because the judge was s

assisting them in setting bonds. of and using the prestige of his office to help them with other judges. marcotte testified quote, judge porteous would do more when we do would do more for him. fede after judge porteous became a federal judge he could no longer set the bond for the marcottes.cottes nonetheless, the marcottes wouldous continue to take judge porteoussoug to lunch particularly when theyer sought to recruit other state judicial officers to take his place in a similar corrupt scheme or to impress businesslained executives. louis marcotte explained judge porteous, quote, brought strength to the table, and of quote, but his presence andnd assistance.- by marcotte testified quote, it would make people respect me because you know i am sittingpeople rct me with a federal judge end of quote. as laurie marcotte described quote, state court judges wouldges you assess trusted peoplerusted because we were hanging around with a federal judge.udge

thus judge porteous used the power and prestige of his officee as a f as a federal judge to helpand marcottes expand their corrupt influence in the gretna courthouse by vouching for theirg f honesty, vaulting for theirheir practices and helping to recruitng to a successor. our our post trial brief details details several instances of judgessistanc e porteous' providing assistance to the marcottes as a federal t me t judge. let me talk about one of those instances in particular. ret, j ud in 1999 at louis marcotte'snewly request judge porteous spoke to the newly e. elected judgeo that ronald bodenheimer. prior to that conversation, fro lo bodenheimer stayedui away from co louis marconctte because he had aracte concerns about marcotte's character and believed marcotte was doing drugs. during his conversation with jge bodenheimer, judge porteous wrote for louis marcotte's bodenheimer too integrity.k st bodenheimer tuck judge porteous'bodenh statement seriously and as a result of the conversation bodenheimer began to set bond

for the marcottes. deve marcottes and bodenheimer developed a relationship that one relat the iocharacteristics of thexisted relationship that had previously existed between judge porteous and the mark marcottes. they began providing bodenheimer meals meals, house repairs and it to the casino. and bodenheimer in return beganld to set bond that would maximizedenheime profits for the marcottes.ly bodenheimer was eventually criminally prosecuted,gu pleaded s guilty and was ensentenced to prison on federal corruption corru counts arising from his corruptttes. relationship with the marcottes. let me now get to one final act of the marcotte-porteous relationship. 2000' t in the early 2000's the fbi wastigatitate investigating state court judges including bodenheimer for bodenheim correct misconduct arising outconduct of the relationship with the marcottes. on april 17th, 2003 louisprepar marcotte signed an affidavit prepared by judge porteous' attorney in which he falsely

denied he and judge porteous had a corrupt relationship. m i mentioned this 2003 affidavit for two reasons.3 first, this 2003 affidavit crupt reflects the current the relationship between the marcottes and judge porteous continued well into his tenure as a. federal judge. second just as marcotte's 1994helped false statements to the fbieck helped i obstruct the background marco checktt investigation marcotte's 2003 false affidavit prepared by an judge porteous salles study attorney was part of an effort to obstruct a criminal investigation. in both instances, he lied to the fbi to assist judge porteous by concealing their corrupt relationship. it reflects how even in 2003fter he nine years after he took the federal bench, the judge waslationshipith compromised by his relationship with louis speed. in march, to those of fer louis to marcotte pleaded guilty to aketeering racketeering conspiracy charge

involving his corrupt judges. relationship with state judges. pris he was sentenced 38 years in prison.ed his sister pleaded guilty to the br same time as her brother and was proba sentenced to three years'f probation including six months of home detention. ttimony in his house testimony, his deposition and at trial louis marcotte repeatedly described judge porteous overall view onignifi the business is even moreges significant than to other state judges who were formerly prosecuted and were sentenced to prison. testd in r question, mr. marcotte coming to testify in response to for mr. turley that you did things for lots of judges. answer, yes i did. question, and some of thosees w en judges went to prison, did they not? d answer, yes they did. yo did question of all the judges youhe did things for, who was the most important judge to you ever? answer, thomas porteous. iii

let me turn to article 3as on the involving judge porteous' bankruptcy wilkie was on the bench. the the evidence demonstrated throughout the 1990's and into 2001, judge porteous' financial pub condition deterioratedinos to largely due to gambling casinos m that by the end ofar march, 2001 when he filed bankruptcy, he had over $190,000 in credit card bank debt. his credit cards and think steegmans in the years preceding his bankruptcy reflect tens of dollars those of dollars in cash withdrawals at casinos. before discussing held judge porteous deceived the bankruptcy court, i want to stress for the years leading up to his bankruptcy, judge porteous t he concealed his debts in the financial statement that he filed with c the court's. littl let me show you an example. so this is a little details a let me walk you through it. portion what you see here is the portion of judge porteous' 1999 financial disclosure report in di which he was required to

disclose the year andorted liabilities. with porteous reported to credit liab cards with a maximum liability being $15,000 each. code j for a total maximum0. liability of $40,000. in fact, he had five creditmoun cards with announced -- debt amounting to over $100 to read these should have been reported on the form of a liability box as code k. debt over $15,000. b this form was blatantly false. judge porteous filed false financial statements that failedxtent to honestly disclose the extent of his creditd card debts for each of the four years 1996 through 1999. the forms are in evidence. has even though the judge has not been charged in any article of filing false financial reports,orts these reports constitute a pous' powerful evidence as to judge porteous' intend to read thesese false reports nuclear the false statements in bankruptcy or partus of a conscious course of conduct involving his concealment ofties and n

financial the activities and notcent some sort of innocent mistakes or oversights as claimed by in counsel. jud in 2000 judge porteous it with attorlaude bankruptcy attorney claude lightfoot about his financial predicament.icam the evidenceen demonstrates that judge porteous did not tell him at that time or indeed at any any tim that time that he gambled. thewo men the two men decided that lightfoot would attempt to work out jud out the judge's debt owed to histo his creditors and then if that failed the judge would consider porteou filing for bankruptcy. let's attempt to work out feel and about february, 2001 blight foot and judge porteous comments to preparing for chapter 13 f bankruptcy. b per year to fall before they could see, judge porteous in he consultation with lightfoot agreed he would file under a false name.nally to further this, 20 personally attended post office box so that his initial petition would have a neither his correct name or a readily identifiable address.

if you look at this exhibit you will see that ultimately on march 28, 2001, judge porteous a sitting federal judge, filed for bankruptcy under the false "g.t. name g.t. orteous listed as his adess. address. signe judge porteous signed hison petition to place. once under the representation quote, i declare under thequote -- penalty of perjury that the perjur information provided in this is petition is true and correcten d and of quote. over the other over the tight name g.t. ortous. on april 9th, to those of one, april the judge submitted a statement of financial affairs and numerous bankruptcy schedules.edules. this time, they were filed under hised true name. they were fal se however, they were false and all numerous other ways.e all reflecting his desire to gamblinivitie conceal assets and gamblingourt activities from the bankruptcy court and his creditors.throug while i am nhot gwen to go through all his false statements

during the bankruptcy doherty tilden our post p trial brief. to at i want to but least point out y some to you. failed he falsely failed to disclose he filed filed for a tax refund claiming for thousand $143.70 to send refunds even though the bankruptcy forms specifically inquired as to whether he hadfiled fo filed for a tax refund. as you see this chart sets forth his tax return dated march 23,he 2001, 5 days before he filed thehows bankruptcy. it also shows the place on the form t where he was required to tax list any anticipated taxs refunds. the copy sure is not as clear as we would like with the questiono 17 required judge porteous toot disclose, quote, otherng liquidated debts coming in the r debtor including the tax refund s end ofee quote. as you see the box - checked. judg the judge never disclosed thehis fact of the refund not to his t attorney, not to the creditors and not the bankruptcy court. instead, he kept a secret and went

rht the money went right into his failed pocket. he deliberately failed tosses disclose the had gambling losses within the prior year even the though the form specifically asked that question in fact the judge has admitted before thebling fifth circuit that he had a loes. gambling losses. in the days immediately prior to filing bankruptcy, he paid the casino debt that he owed them ine owed order to avoid listing those casinos as unsecured creditors. addi additionally he field to recordferred pay those preferred payments to creditors in the bankruptcy tir forms which require the, and fled to disclosure and fail to tell his attorney about them thus casinos which judge porteous old money in march of 2001 received 100 cents on the dollar while other creditors received but a favor fraction of that amount. judge porteous' favored casinos abity of further creditors' because he didn't plan to jeopardize his ability to take out credit and a gamble let the casinos while in wifs credit bankruptcy speak he had his cards secretary payoff one of hisor to fing wife's credit cards five days

per year to filing bankruptcy. reimburd the judge then reimbursed his payment secretary and failed to disclose this payment to the credit card that company on his schedules that he filed under oath with the court.ance he reported his account balancess and checking accounts as $100 when the day prior to filingfor bankruptcy he had deposited deposit $2,000 to the account. he deliberately failed to disclose a fidelity money-marketey marke account that he regularly used in the past to pay gambling gam bl debt. this particular nondisclosure p demonstrates judge porteous' determination to have a secrethi accounts available to pay this gambling debt while innot bankruptcy. this nondisclosure clearly was not inadvertent since the wte evidence is clear that he wrote march a check on that account on filing f march 27th, 2001, the day prior to filing for bankruptcy.nciple the single organizing principle that arranges this pattern of false statements ase judgeassets and porteous' to conceal assets andgambling

tha t to conceal is gambling so that he could gamble while inhout bankruptcy without interfering from the court or the creditors at a heari or even his lawyer. at a hearing of creditors on may 9, 2 listened one judge porteous under oath testified the schedules were accurate. dge that statement like so many ofas judge porteous' other statements at that under oath was false. bankr atup that hearing the bankruptcyas trustee also informed judge porteous that he was on a cash june basis going forward. bank yet the end of 2001 bankruptcy gree nd judge william issued an order ofer approaching the chapter 13 planot t specifically directing judgewithou the porteous not to incurred new the debt without the permission of notwhstanding the court. notwithstanding the judge'sge order, judge porteous did incur deithout additional debt without thee court permission of the court. a he applied for and use a creditt inclus a card. he hears a blowup that includes a copy of judge porteous' of the kitchen for a credit card and the statement showing its use inf september, 2001 in violation of

the order of the court.ge more particularly, judge porteous continued to borrow from the casinos without the court'ths permission. this chart which was used att trial lists 42 times he took out debt at casinos to gamble in the first of the three years he was in bankruptcy. pors further as the judge had planned, in some instances he fidelity mon paid these casino debt throughhat he the fidelity money-market attempt that he concealed. blowu here the top of this club is a check he wrote on the concealed fidelity money-market in the amount of $1,800 to the treasure o chest casino november akaka 2001. below is the check in and out of casino 1300 to the casino golf cart also drawn on the undisclosedf money-market account in july of the 2002. both of the checks repaid the outstanding debt to the casinos.

he engaged in a pattern of deceit collectivity designed to frustrate and confound the th bankruptcy process. harm brought by the judge conduct in bankruptcy was totay incalculable. the b oankruptcy process the depends totally on a the honesty and candor of the debtors, the trustee does not dispatched investigators to check on a debtor's judge porteous display lit of content for the bankruptcydisp la court is a little more than a o display of contempt for his ownn judicial office. after all judge wind at heard bankruptcy appeals in his court should be expected to uphold the highest standard of honesty.us it is inexcusable judge porteous manipulated this process for his own benefit. disss let me know discuss article for coming and for that, i need to return to the summer of 1994. at t let me set the stage. at that time while judge judgesh porteous was being considered a two federal judgeship he was engaging into corrupt schemes.

first, the curator ship kickback with creely a amato that it previously discussed in connection with article 1 and sick and the corrupt relationship with the marcottes i described in connection withe h article 2. and the judge porteous knew that if thend white house and the senate found out about his relationships with peter creely and amato were the marcottes, he would never diman in t cou nominated were confirmed. in the course of the backgroundnfirmati proce investigation and during the porteous confirmation process judge on porteous was asked questions on four seheparate occasions that if he were to answer the questionsdidly, truthfully and candidly, requiretionships wi him toth disclose the the relationships with creely andon each amato and the marcottes. on each instance, judge porteous lied because of those -- becauses of the statements at the heart m of article for let me show you exactly what judge porteous was asked and exactly what he 1994 answered. first at some time per year toled july of 1994, judge porteous filled a form referred to as the supplement to the sf 86.

goes t on that form is a question that goes to the heart of the issuerocess. associated with the bonackgroundas process to bid on the form, judge porteous was askedour psonal l question, is their anything in your personal life that could be y used by someone to coerce orn your blackmail you? coul cause an is their anything in your life that couldu cause an preside i embarrassment to you or to theif s president is publicly known? if so please provide fullso which j details,ud to which judge porteous that answered no to the judgend porteous signed the erdocument penal under the warnings of criminal. penalties for making false aie statements. this statement was a relief mauney.4, on july 6 and july 8 1994n judge porteous was personally interviewed by an fbi agent as aocess part of the background check process. judge porteous was asked by the agent the same sort of questions i discussed in connection with a the esf '86.m his answers were incorporated in a memorandum of the fbi agent that summarized the interview. let me show you the relevant

portions of the memorandum. judge porteous was reported as saying that he was nott that c concealing any activity or in conduct thatfl could be used to influence pressure course or compromise him in any way would that would impact negatively over the candidate's character,r recusation, judgment orlso a discretion.e. afte the statement also a lie. after that interview the fbi. said the background check to the fbi headquarters in washington, d.c. for the review. agents fbi headquarters directed the agents to interview porteous a particular second time about a very receive particular allegation the fbi received in 1993 that judge porteous had taken a bribe frome bond f an attorney to reduce the bond for an individual who had been arrested. so on august 18th, 1994, the fbi with j ud conducted a second in person interview with judge porteous.gal conduc this time probing possible illegal conduct on his part in connection with bond settings. w

again, the fbi right of the stati interview records judge porteous of as stating, quote, he was not broun d aware of anything in hisis background that might be the basis of attempted influence, pressure, co portion or on compromise and or would impact negatively on his character an again reputation, a judgment or discretion. and again, he lied.ed finally, after he was nominated jry the united states senatejudge porteou committee on the judiciaryial ascent judge porteous nominee questionnaire for judicial. nominees. again, i am sure you the documents. judge porteous wteas asked the ans following question and give the "please following answer: question please advise the committee if effec any unfavorable inftormation that may affect your nomination. answer, to the best of my knowledge i do not know of any t unfavorable information that may affect my nomination. formf an the signature block is in the form of an affidavit but thee and information provided in the. document is true and accurate.

judge porteous light for fourth time. the questions the judge asked are clear and unambiguous. instaes in each of the for instance isporteo the question is called for judge re porteous to disclose his relationship with amato ande creely and the marcottes. there is additional evidence uld that suggests judge porteous the r would have well understood the questions. reach of his questions. first, second of the two fbi bond- interviews adjust judge porteoushe bond setting practices to it's hard to imagine he could have been put on more specific notice them his relationship with bonds marcotte and his conduct in sitting bonds was a relevant and should be disclosed. rel second, judge porteous understanding of the material to give his relationship with fther marcotte and intent to conceal it i s further evidence by his statements and conduct associated with setting aside referenced aubrey wallace' federal had conviction. asem i mentioned are caught had an of

employee named aubrey wallace c will take care of his cars and around also fixed his house. at around the time of theed him confirmation, marcotte went tode the judge and asked him to set a slight wallace's burglarystep iting conviction to take the first step in getting rid of his wa felony convictions so that wallace was ultimately able to judge obtain a bail bond license. judge porteous agreed to do it aft but informed marcotte he would do soco only after he was bec confirmed by the senate becausehis he did not want to jeopardizeintm his, quote, a lifetimewhen a sk appointment, in the of quote. when asked to describe a judge porteous' response marcotteer -- "h kind o testified, answer he kind of put me off and put me off when not he said look, lewis, i am not w o going to let anything stand in the way of me being confirmedso aft and my lifetime appointment. so after that's done i will do it. marcotte went on to explain theern uote - nature- of judge porteous' concern. shat he quote, if the government would have found out some of the wou

things that he was doing with me, it would probably keep him from getting his appointment as end of quote. senator mcc aaskill simply askedju marcotte as to whether judge porteous used the lifetime in appointment phase.'s in response, marcotte's answeras the was clear.ous quote, that was the word of judge porteous, end of quote. andsa substance, judge porteouss convict said he would seiot aside all this conviction that he was going to it is har hide itd from the senate. it's hard to conceive of a clear the more explicit expression of intent to deceive the senate. judge porteous's sections corroborate the actions of theconversati. conversation. he wasen confirmed by the senate walla's october 27, 1994 and set aside wallace stevens conviction as he said he would after that on wallace october 14th, 1994.set-asnfirms the timing set t aside confirms he calculated and plotted to relatiohip wi th concealed material facts lo marco concerning his relationship with

louis marcotte from you the united states senate. the procedural history of but wallace's case is discussed inact i the posst trial brief the fact isside that judge porteous could have he set aside the conviction if he chose to do so weeks prior to his confirmation. ored absolutely nothing in wallace'sil after t case occurred that explains the delay in waiting until after the confirmation. is the only yvette of significance that explains the timing is that confirm judge porteoused was confirmed in the interim.to set asi de moreover judge porteous'uest willingness to set asidees wallace's conviction that marcotte's request constitutes positive that judge porteous was leverag a in fact subjectnd to coercion leverage and compromise, theich ju very fact as to which judge porteous was questioned and judge porteous tonight.mitted because of the fraud committede by judge porteous on the fbi and wa thes senate, judge porteous was orn i in fact confirmed and was sworn. in on october 28, 1994. he has been a federal judge in

joining the fruits of his deceit and the power of the position since that date. in conclusion the house has impeachme proved eachnt of the four articles d of impeachment. the evidence demonstrates thatcorrupt judge porteous is dishonest and corrupt and does not belong onhe has the federal bench. he assigned false financial d forms come calls questionnairesfals and eve en signed documents under a false name under penalty of in perjury. he has engaged in corrupt schemes with attorneys and they'll bondsmen. in he has betrayed his oath in handling a case dishonestly and with partiality and favor,statemen at characterized aby making falseerniis finan statements at a hearing concerning his financial atrneys relationship with one of the attorneys and in soliciting cash from the tree while the case he h awaited judge porteous' decision. he has brought disgrace distribute to the federal bench. has the evidence demonstrates he hassdemeano committed high crimes andts that y f misdemeanors. the house request to find him

guilty on each of the fourn counts and remove him fromupy office he is not fit to occupy. thank you for your time and time attention. i reserve the balance of my much. time. >> thank you very much. you may proceed on behalf of the judge. >> thank you mr. presidentre not members of the senate. for those who are not present this morning, i am jonathan, the chicago professor of publicingtonnivers interest law at george washington university and council to judge g. thomas eastern porteous, a judge on the district court in the easterng me district of louisiana.e are joining me again at the counsel table or my colleagues from the law firm of bryan, daniel.j.meitl schwartz, p.j. and daniel konar. sitting here listening to my esteemed opposing counsellmost easily in mind of another trial held almost 200 years ago

almost to the very day in a be case that proves to be one of the turning point in americansh sold law, eight british soldiers who were accused of murder in what americans called the boston massacre and the english called the boston rye yet columnists demanded that the soldiers be executed and everyone came to the trial expecting less of a trial as much as a hanging. adams himself solve the case entl differently.y. inject john adams salles not just another case of a very calls for which he was already fighting. the creation of a new nation based on due process and principles of justice. today as in today's case, many of the in facts were not in dispute in thathe 1770.sh it was clear the british soldiers fired into the crowd.

but adams stopped the jury and conside challenged them to consider two wheth questions. one, with the soldiers had acted with required intent and malice whether and never to, whether the requested punishment data fit c the crime.he it was also one of the earliest o uses of the reasonable doubt recorded standard that were recorded in our country. a proof and proportionality the can the touchstone of that caset and later cases in the republic that adams helped bring intohatould existence. in the words that would echo ages, through the ages, adams warned the jury quote, whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations orates of dictate a four passions, they facts cannot alter the state of factvidence. and evidence. uncertai the wall will not bend to imagition

uncertain wishes, imaginations or want and temper of man. fra when the framers turned to the constitution, they sought to t protect the judiciary from wantgined and tempers and a mentioned impea offenses. in cases of impeachment the framers expressed fear the yld to congress would yield the passions over proof in the removal of federal judges. james madison, george mason and cra the others carefully crafted the standard of impeachment to indepnt protect the independent judiciary and m madison expressly they wante td to avoid standard, standar quote, so vague as to be the equivalent of tenure during the avoid. senate. that is what he wanted to avoid.n becaus they rejected corruption because coulbe they knew the term corruptionn could be used to mean anythingm and for that reason the term wass

adopted by the house in this case. hasn't changed.nd framers debated and rejected sta this standard of the administration and instead co demanded a federal judge could not be removed and sent provedribe of trees and bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. applying the standard this congress has refused to remove judges n not because they agree with the elections.wi every judge whose case was brought before members of thisought esteemed body were worthy of wor condemnation. they had few friends but this body drew a distinction betweenjudg judges who have done wrong and who have committed removablei'd likeo tell y offenses. i would like to tell you aboutn the man that is on trial todaythomas g. thomas porteous jr.. heas he spent virtually his entiree

life as a public servant. he served as assistant district attorney, state judge andge. federal judge.ved a he served a total 26 years. the past 16 as a federal judge. when asked all the witnesses in the case without exception described him as one of the bestouisiana. judges in louisiana. as i will discuss later as however, his skills as a judge excuse to h not exclude his feeling as ato person. to the contrary, he is notany contested many of the fact in this case and ultimatelyoo accepted severe discipline for the poor decisions he made. he is here for you to judge now, to judge him. the c but he is not the character that was once described by the house. the indeed, i don't know how the man a described by the house avoided a criminal charge. theepartm after all the department of justice got waivers to look into c all these crimes. him a thend investigate him and many wrinkle

other. when i was sitting here i was lord, thinking my lord, how long the is the justre professionals. rimes and didn'tn't find find a crime that could be could be proven in trial any crimecrime, great great or small against this agai this jud judge. his son expressed the total that has cost him and his family ranging his from the death of his life, the h loss of his home in katrina. one way or the other, this t matter is when to come to closure now. he will either be convicted or ret he wilirl retire in a matter ofe's months as he has already promised. what is clear either way thomaseturn porteous will not return to the bench. remaid he has however remained silent m for many months as newspapers and commentators have said a grossly false things about his about

case and what his character.ent he waited for this moment for his defense to be presided s many have so many differences in hisurtroom, courtroom for impartial judgmentmpartial and he gave impartial judgment. even the house own court eous g witnesses said judge porteous gave them a fair hearing gave he ar everyone a fair hearing. you can disagree with theook, actions that he took but you turn h don't have to turn him into a grotesq grotesque caricature he's not. the he have been many things in the was eyes of others, but he was never being corrupt and he loved being a de federal judge.e despite his feelings, he neverand compromised the court and he he ok never broke the oath he took asudge a federal judge in october, 1994. that may seem a preciousut distinction to some, but he is here to fight for that legacy. failing he is accepted his feelings that

he will not accept that. about tho this case is not just about l thomas porteous. spe all teachers speak to all present judges. this case presents articles of impeachment the arnall and theycussed are dangerous. we discuss some of those issuesitution this morning and of course the incre constitutidion puts the incredible burden on you. the it requires you to ignore the and wan face the passion and want and timbers described byy john adams. drg you must decide in considering your evidence with the actions that were taken in this case to the rice to the level of treason,ry, or o bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, and i would likeike to t to return to something senator durbin asked about which is the standard of proof. as we mentioned, in the pastd many of sight beyond a reasonable doubt as the most obvious standard forimpeac becau

impeachments because impeachments had many criminal are terms that are incorporated and also many impeachment or craftedtly on articles taken directly from the prior criminal cases.tressed we also noted and stressed the body members of this body have to firs determinations to make.ndhat th first, you must find these facts secon occur, and second you must finde fac that those facts that did occur to your satisfaction must rise to aoffense. level of removable fence. derminatio if the first part of thehis determination it's difficult in we this case because as we notednoted, ts is t this is the first modern impeachment that has come to this body without a prior trial. allo this judge has never been allowed review from a judge.thingshat h he's never challenged thingsnst have been set against him indeed most of the things you justd heard wouldn't be allowed in the we c federal court and we challengeyou

wi ll the the actual accuracy as youart of will see the that is a part of the value of having criminalally thi body charges brought because usually this body is looked at the case sipho it has been siphoned through fairness. that filter process and fairness senator each senator does have to us a a establish what he or she will use as a standard of proof by not have to say i do not agree with it's mr. schiff when he says it is up; to you. what ever to decide is enough.f where i disagree with mr. shift i from this morning iss where we can w distinguish between coulduestion. and should. there's no question you canndar adopt any standard. the question is whether you sh should.ou f obviously, the framers didn't tak want people just to take an arbitrary check on fact

particularly when there's been no criminal trial. the expected something more fromhat you you.- what is expected is to place some consistent standard and we about talked about the standard applied in the house which is clearly convincing. past this body in the past has talked a about a strict standard. indeed, senator ellen specter who was the vice chair of the senate impeachment trial of an earli earlier time stated the following to his colleagues. and i would commend it to you. judge where you have a judge of forss removal, the issue of judicialdependence ruires independence requires a veryot a strict standard. this is not a question of whether you would confirm him if if he were before us today. w it is not ahe question of whether i we feel comfortable in going quest before hioim, but it is a question of whether we are going to ousthim him from office that comes into s sayi

play. what i believe senator specter is saying is you have an obligation to provide some of standards because this is a legal proceeding to read it a might not be a criminal case you are sitting of the world's most unique injured and judges. in this case the fifth circuit is health did not consider the obligations and article 2 an cle article for simple as the five judges and mentioned earlierks wrote, quote, congress lackssdictiono jurisdiction to impeach. judge porteous for anyointment misconduct prior to his appointment as a federal judge, planned simple. the the federal judges in the fifthetailed circuit wrote a detailed 49 page e opinion on the evidence in this judge case.

the judges declared the following.hose r this is not one of those rare and egregious cases presenting the possibility of an peachabl impeachable offense against theve of nation.deci they didn't approve of thesi but decisions made with a true line and this fell far on the other side of an impeachable offense. those charges which included at all but in the district judge's said that the evidence here does that not support a finding that judge porteous abuse or violated thel federal constitutional judicial power and entrusted to him. evi instead, the evidence shows thatase in one case, he allowed theusryo appearance of serious and pieties but that he did notcomm commit an actual abuse in citutio violation of the constitutional power were entrusted e to him. these appearance controversies routine are routine in court. they are used here however, as r a basis for removal to wipe away

sentries of precedent.n, perhaps for that reason the house managers are quoted in the the media as encouraging the a adoption of a new standard to impe treat the impeachment process asmination merely an employment c termination l case. hav they would literally have this sta body adopt the standards madisonor rejected for the judge is simplyve at to serve it the pleasure of the senate, senate's like attwell employees. unfortunately this case proves one thing the old military adage have is that if all you have is a hammer lik every problem looks like a nail. it's not enough george porteous accepted sanctions from the court, on president the enough sanctions. it's not enough that he announced his recitation in a matter of months from the bench. it's not enough that no one hasugh that ever been removed from the federal contract to a staff and resources of impeachment have thhouse been committed and the houses demanded removal. base

let's look at the basis for the removal and let's turn to article 1. house an article 1 the house impeachedy george porteous on 53 that he pub deprived the public would h against ofis his honest service as discuss we discussed this morning.oblem of t we discussed the unique problems of the fact that it is crafted around the theory that the supreme court rejected. was a bad bet. now you'll notice in the opening statements again today, both o mr. schiff and mr. goodlatte kept on bringing it in up kickbacks. i counted up the 20 and then i stopped.stion to i pose the question to you. i don't know how many times you co the counted the word kick back but i ask you to look at the articlesk at and see how many times it is and mentioned in the actual articles of impeachment and that number wouldar be zero.rupt c

the alleged leader of the schemes and then they can to you said, you k and set you know what, this is going to be out kickbacks. but the reason the framers rejected the cor ruption isbecause what i precisely because what is occurring right now in front of you in you in the well of the senate,n corruption can mean anything. could have j mr. schiff could hausve stood and know just stood up and said he know what this is?or he cou this is mail h fraud. or actually this is conspiracy. he could have s said anything that constitutes corruption and we here. write the article here not come in not fulfilling the will of the house but fulfilling e whatever is the passing will of man the managers of theag house. vlation o that is a violation of the process that the framers created. in fact we now hear five o references to the finding of the financial statements that were i ggest inaccurate.thook at i suggest the members of the article. how many times is that mentioned in the article?en you u

zero. as a but when you use corruption as a term you go to the will of the what senate and say that is what this about. is all about.oes what that does for the defenseysel attorneys like myself and my colleagues is we just stand here k ee and try to keep track what is crime the kind we are supposed to be a defending against. it can be anything under theinal criminal code anything under the the ccriminal code to form couption. corruption and now its financial the h records. that's why the house has the responsibility to articulatehen those articles and when a lotf mr. schiff says the have a lot of discussion they do and when di they use the discussion poorly articles of impeachment get and rejected and that is what this body has said repeatedly. you cannot bring to us particles that present any possible crime a and that is when you are seeinghat today.n notably, in article 1 there's

one fact that literally all of the witnesses agreed on the judge was never brought. importantly, judge but more importantly, george porteous wasn't bride of oil. article 1 seeks to remove a judge based on a decision in a and single case and the decision with a single motion not tolf recuse himself in 16 years as a the federal judge.ion the life mark recusal motion was the first and only such motion wit judge porteous was faced with in three decades as a judge. cut to allow me please to cut to the chase. a new deal with one allegation in article 1 which deals withthis the single gift to judge porteous by his longtime friend, jake amato.s in m that is in my view the most serious allegation in article 1. and it was a colossal mistake. c but i need to correct the y record.

the house stood up and said you know nobody called this a wedding to give to accept defense council. news t that's newso to me. in the hearing before the committee, jake amato described and how he and the judge or on a at boat on a fishing trip late at night drinking and the judge got very emotional and was talking about the fact he could not expense cover the expenses for his son'smothy's wedding. amat amato his request to his son the timothy. that was the context of this discussion but more importantly i asked amato in fact the only money you recall ever going to this judge porteous is this wedding gift right? amato's answer was correct.er now judge porteous never disputed that gift. d whatis he disputes is the implications of the gift. judge porteous i accepted responsibility because it

created an appearance of impropriety and it did and accepting a very severe punishment by the fifth circuit he publicly apologized and gave fif th his comical, sincere apology and pub regret his actions had broughtessed regr that the court to address this matter and he also leader said he would s in fact retire from the bench. bch. before delving into the gift butift, me be clear what we are we're discussing, and i think it's cl important to call things for what they are or in this case t with the are not. this wasn't a bribe. all the parties agree on that. this was not a bribe, and it don't wasn't a kickback. they don't even allege that this was a kickback. so wt was so what was it?be if it wasn't a bribe and it wasn't a kickback it was as it gift. db was it a dumb gift?s it a was a gift he shouldn't have except it? you bet. but the framers thought it was fmers

important to define things as they are. this isn't a bright and it isn't a kickback and that is the key thing in looking at this impeachment. the appearance of impropriety is a standard race to federal courts and not uncommon, thesa court of appeals will disagree with trial judges refuse tos are recuse themselves, hundreds oftimes the m judge or faced with recusal re motions. sometimes they make mistakes. recusals are usually based on past relationships financial interests, they defend over theionships entire waterfront of conflicts. when the judge gets it wrong usually that's a it's just a a reversal. sometimes you have a reprimand,ave very rarely will you have any discipline at all. but consider the implications ofrance accepting the appearance of of impropriety is a standard forndar the removal.o that this could be so easily

used to strip the courts and appearance of impropriety is what we're that what we are going tother h substitute other high crimes andsdemeanors misdemeanors for? are something hundreds of judges are accused of.m would b all of them would be capable to be brought before this body. about we talked a lot about this life and must mark caisse and i must tell you it is exceedingly complex as a it's commercial case.ubsi it's a between a subsidiary of a giant corporation called tenet healthcare or lifemark now in a family of pharmacists for louisiana. i will tell you i see no need to need build into the specifics which i think he would be happy to know. k it's sufficient to say this was a long-running dispute betweenes. the two parties. th lifemark was accused of delaying the case at any cost. it bounced from judge to judgeltimately and ultimately was assigned to dozen

over a dozen judges, one dozenthat's t and three years. that is the lifemark case. was then in 1996 there was a randomly assigned to judge porteous, and the defense witnesses stated when asked judge porteous had a reputation cases for moving pieces to verdict. a he was a judge from gretna, a sta state judge, lawyers and judge. they tended to get the case is done and when he looked at the dhaka and saw a dozen judges in casend and of this case and no trial, he probably announced to the party on the last judge you're ca going to see in this case and we are going to try this case.he sai i want to emphasize something. he said that to the parties before any friends or wereends or lawyers in this case. before anyone he had aounsel i friendship was counsel in theill be case.t he said i will be the west and

georgia this case and wwe are go going to go to trial. so he was. thre seven district court judges three magistrates and he endedt that and they went to trial. said now, when he said that lead counsel for lifemark joe mole wanted to have him reduced and go to yet another judge and he filed the motion to recuse andited cited the fact judge porteous was close friends with jake amato and lenni edmondson -- testimo levenson. and he was. what we heard from witnesses istnesses in a gretna, small town like many small towns that the many lawyer's practice and judges preside, most judges now with the attorneys in theirges had courtrooms if judges have to recuse themselves because they know a judge in their courtroom these

there would be no peace is in small these courts. these are small communities, and in gretna, the judges didn't recuse themselves.actually our witnesses, actually not our witnesses let me correct that th never the house witnesses said the never heard of a judge recusant themselves in great much because they couldn't believe that was that the tradition that the judge porteous came from and many judges agree with that as long as you acknowledge you have a relationip relationship relationship hasdden you not been hit in, you don't havee to recuse yourself. and he was friends with amato and creely and baumgartner and i will be returning to he was mr. gardiner and a second. amato he was friends with amato and creely since the 1970's, both creely said amato and creely said they were best friends. they practiced all together, they went hunting and fished together, they knew each other's families. were timothy testified there were unc j known as akuncle jake and uncle bob. creely taught him how to fish

amato taught him how to cook. there were close friends, so was don gone. g in fact, gardiner was even closer. he asked porteous to be the godfather to one of his daughters. background, now this uncontested that robert would like to read an article 1. e port first, the house asserts george di sc porteous failed to disclose while he was a state judge of the quote corrupt scheme with attor these attorneys. this is of course predicated on the the fact that there is fa corrupt scheme.se's the problem with the house case is the house's witnesses who deny the scheme. without trial and in the senate the position bald creely expressly disavowed, expresslydge pors disavowed that he had an he agreement with judge porteous where he received to readershipsns in exchange for loans or gifts. instead, creely was adamant that there was no relationship between the gifts and theave h

curatorships. he said i gave him gifts because we were friends and he said to give him gifts before i ever got curatorships. tha not only that but he said he didn't like the curatorships and he told porteous that your a porteous was a successful lawyer. they were bringing in a feworsh hundred dollars here anipd there and he said heer hated them because they were more trouble than what they were worth. than now it's true the house is portrayed judge porteous franklymeth as something of a mooch. that was chris van goodlatte's p point when he pointed out with great emotion to you judgeotf porteous went to a lot of lunches with these men and he the didn't pay for his share of the f lunch he just pete for some of them. let me ask you did you ever think you would be sitting here on

the on the floor of the senate trillion to decide whether that is an impeachable offense, being mooc a mooch? he paid for a few lunches, didn't pay for most of them and of the witnesses said the i launches in gretna routinely ata lunch is pete for them in factnches paid the house witnesses said they hse's couldn't remember actually that's not true to remember when george on one occasion by her on own. that is the record in this case. so, creely is the guy in the bet house report that is the alleged linchpin between this alleged cur at scheme between the curatorshipsth and the gifts. only problem creely came to the senate and said there was no nev agreement. so he never gave any money to kic judge kbporteous is a goliath, never get a kick butt or anying i expected to see anything in return for the gift, just that,

friends. he not only that, he said he wouldts have given the gift is without th question regardless of the h curatorships. churn of the point further, he asked said judge porteous never asked him for any percentage or return from the curatorships.hen not only that, but then the house's own witness is set by the way all the judges and gretna get curatorships to friends and acquaintances. all of them.cussed this has been discussed in louisiana but the louisianan officials have decided that they would allow that. judges routinely but give curatorships to former partners, france, a plan to insist that has come and we heard from the only expert in this case on the ethic louisianan ethics and of was the

professor and he told the senate the this is perfectly ethical under the rules.nown. as well known and the practice that has existed for a long time and this alexis today.judge this doesn't mean every judge in don't louisiana is corrupt. they don't view this as corruption.t judge witnesses said judge porteous gave curatorships two new attorneys and curatorships to a creely. the house never went and actually found the records of all of the curatorships to review and as there is nodiscus discussion of any if the had thelity, th ability they could have said to here's resolve the curatorships issued during this period of time.he here's the curatorships thatwento went to creely. they didn't do that. but even if 100% of thet to curatorships went to his friends, it was perfectly

ethical under the local rules. ho was the only testimony the house was to able to present attempting to establish a connection between the speed will and gifts was jake amato and what they had cre the problem was with creely that's a p saying there wasn't any house relationship that's a problem creely said because the report said creely and said that. so they went to amato and he said mon one occasion years ago sahat th he remembers creely seeing that. there was a relationship. but house wasn't deterred by the fact amato was giving this testimony with creely kurant. washington denying he ever said the but that didn't deter the house it went ahead to amato sing whenever they wanted creely to see. and then amato said the figures nd by being thrown around by the housee were not figures he came up withrred

he said they were what hes referred to as guesstimates ofnd the gifts and the relationship to the curatorships. e n um now, amato said that actually here the number you have heard todayt come from didn't come from hill or creely in fact the denied the could recollect there is no record tousively. establish this conclusively t really said that amato said the from number came from fbi agentimate horner who came with an estimate ofl total gifts and just assumed just assumed porteous must have received half of and they started pressing them to say wouldn't that be accurate? the so there is the nightmare