>> thanks very much. that's all the time we have. >> thank you. coming upthe senate judiciary committee looks into misconduct in the case against ted stevenses. then a look at security efforts. later, the sun light foundation hosts a forum on the role of super pacs in the 2012 elections. after that, a decision on the end of the war in iraq and u.s. relations to that country. >> reagan was leaving this hotel, he's this close. 15 feet from the president.

agents are surrounding him. he shoots. six shots. the first hits grady. the second, a d.c. police officer who had turned around to check on the president's progress. gets hit in the back, falls down, screaming, i'm hit. now, the path to the president is clear. hinckley has a range of 20 to 30 feet. he can hit stationary targets. >> march 30th, 1981, mark hinckley fires six shots. this weekend, on the race to save a president. sunday at 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv this weekend on cspan 3. the attorney investing the prosecution of ted stevens said congress should pass rules for prosecutors. his final report on the case says justice department officials with hold evidence

that would have quote seriously damaged the testimony and credib credibility of the government's key witness. the case was thrown out after evidence surfaces of misconduct. testifying before the senate, he said he believed that some of the prosecutors involved has engaged in illegal activity. this is 90 minutes. senator cornyn, senator grassley, we have a number of hearings going on around the capitol involving members of this committee. but this is an area, mr. schuelke, that we've had a great deal of interest in, as you can imagine.

senators of both parties have talked to me about this. i've said many times and in a lot of different contexts that our criminal justice system is the envy of the world. our constitutional framework provides all individuals a guarantee to the right to fair treatment, a fair trial. but in order for a criminal justice system to work, the courts must ensure adherence to the rule of law. defendants have to be afforded vigorous and competent counsel. but i feel and i think senator cornyn who is a former prosecutor also would agree, prosecutors bear a very special responsibility in the system. they wield so much power when it comes to charging decisions, not only to bring a charge but determining when to withhold a charge, plea bargain, trial, prosecutors have to uphold the law.

they have to adhere to the highest ethical standards. they have to seek justice. the integrity of our criminal justice system relies heavily on prosecutors. on the fact that they want to make sure all parties, the state, the defendant, witnesses, victims, whatever else have to be treated fairly. now, much of the country is focused on the killing last month of trayvon martin in florida. it's a matter in which the police decided not to bring charges. the local prosecutor has since recused himself while a special state prosecutor re-evaluates the case. last week, the civil rights division of the u.s. department of justice announced it had begun an investigation into this matter. i share the president's heartfelt feelings and sense there needs to be a thor role investigation to get to the truth, which is what the

american people want, the truth. last week, i chaired a judiciary committee hearing that focused on one pivotal component that supports the integrity of our system and importance of retaining critical evidence like dna that can be used to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. one of the witnesses at the hearing was the outstanding attorney in dallas, craig watkins, dedicated to re-evaluating prior cases to make sure they were handled fairly. we heard about the extraordinary work that he is doing and his criminal justice integrity unit is doing and the works of the judge in that -- in dallas. an example and model how prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys can work together to ensure all criminal defendants receive fair trials. now what's going to happen today, we're going to talk about what went wrong. i emphasize what went wrong in the trial of the late senator ted stevens. we're going to hear testimony from henry schuelke or i

understand he just goes by hank. is that correct? the special counsel appointed by judge emmet sullivan to investigate allegations. the federal prosecutors in the state in this case engaged in intentional prosecutorial misconduct by not sharing exculpatory evidence with the defense. in fairness, i would note his report is the accompanied by lengthy rebuttal admissions on behalf of those investigated which challenge the evidence of intentional misconduct. this is a prosecution that took place before the election of president obama. and before his appointment of attorney general holder. in fact, it was attorney general holder who decided based upon his own review of the matter to seek to dismiss the indictment and with drew the case after the jury's guilty verdict. and the justice department has also taken recent steps to improve its training of prosecutors, and as the senior official dedicated to this purpose, the attorney general

has sought a thorough internal investigation what happened in the stevens case by the office of professional responsibility. i've talked to the attorney general about that report. he hopes to make the report public. i intend to have this committee review that report. but the hearing today is part of our important oversight responsibility. prosecutorial misconduct cannot be tolerated. i wouldn't tolerate it when i was a prosecutor. it shouldn't be tolerated within our federal system under any circumstances at all. what happened in the stevens case should not happen again. whether the defendant is prominent or an indigent defendant, they should all be treated the same. significant evidence was not

disclosed to the defense. critical mistakes were made throughout the course of the trial that denied senator stevens a fair opportunity to the defend himself. the sloppiness, mistakes, poor decisions in connection with the stevens case disturbed the judge hearing the case. but they also disturbed me. i might say that it disturbs an awful lot of the senators on both sides of the aisle. this is not a partisan issue. the justice department needs to ensure such a situation is never repeated. day in day out, prosecutors across the nation work tirelessly to seek justice and protect our communities. they do it at the highest standards possible. i speak often my time as a prosecutor in vermont because i'm proud of the dedicated service the prosecutors and law enforcement officers with whom i had the privilege to work, but in order for the justice system to work, good prosecutors know they have to adhere without fail to the direction to seek justice for all parties, the government

and the defendants, not just convictions. senator grassley, do you want to stay something and then we'll start with our witness. >> yeah. well, obviously you deserve a big thank you for holding today's hearing because this is eight very troubling matter that warrants more attention than it has gotten. in his famous speech titled "the federal prosecutor," then attorney general and later justice jackson said "the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in america. while the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficial forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is he one of the worst." obviously fitting words for today's hearing as we examine the conduct of the justice department prosecutors in an effort to understand what went wrong in the prosecution of ted stevens. the government's prosecution of senator stevens was arguably the highest profile case ever

brought by the justice department's washington, d.c. based public integrity section. it had consequences far beyond the jury's guilty verdict and impacted the senate election in 2008. while all criminal cases should be handled with the jut most professionalism, cases of this level of importance and publicity where elections can be swayed should be shining examples of the best of the justice department. they should have the best prosecutors, best agents and should be the centerpiece of america's criminal justice system. unfortunately, this case appears to be the opposite of the ideal. according to our witness today, the prosecution of senator ted stevens was "permeated by the systemic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated his defense and his

testimony and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witnesses." these are shocking statements that will call into question the conduct of those involved in this prosecution and threaten to resonate further throughout justice. like so many times before, we owe much of our insight into the department's failures to a whistleblower. fbi agent chad joy came forward january '09 with allegations of misconduct in the investigation of stevens. while there were indicators of failures to turn over exculpatory material before, it was agent joy's disclosure to the courts that instigated the investigation. according to media reports, agent joy is no longer with the fbi. and, of course, i hope it's not because he was run out of the

fbi for blowing the whistle on then prosecution gone wr he deserves our thanks for having the currently to speak up. to its credit, the justice d to dismiss with prejudice the case against senator stevens. j did not ignore the whistleblower. he held the prosecutors in contempt of court for failure to turn over the exculpatory evidence. he then appointed an independent special consult to investigate and prosecute criminal contempt proceedings if appropriate against the justice department lawyers involved. mr. schuelke's report was recently released on march 15th and attorney general holder has publicly stated the report has disturbing findings. i think that's an understatement. reading through this report is like reading through a case study in poor management. the case was riddled with problems right from the start

when doj saw the an expedited trial date. this decision was, which is not fully explained and something i want to know more about helped put the case on a collision course for failure. why would the department ask for an expedited trial case when the review for brady material had just started and was far from complete? from the report's detail, the brady disclosure problems appeared to stem from an expedited time line, inadequate staffing, a lack of defined chain of command for making decisions and poor supervision. two major disclosure problems were not revealed until after the conclusion of the trial. exculpatory information from one of the prosecution witnesses and with the holding of impeachment material for the prosecution's star witness bill allen. the impeachment evidence is particularly troubling because

it involves the witness's effort to cover up a relationship with a 15-year-old prostitute. it also raises questions because the justice department later advised state and local prosecutors not to pursue child sexual exploitation charges against allen and then dropped any federal charges. this has led to a second investigation at the department's office of professional responsibility as to why that prosecution was declined. in addition to the failures to disclose exculpatory material, the case also suffered from a series of questionable decisions from management at main justice. for example, prosecutors claim that conflicting involvement between public integrity section and the leadership of the criminal division created an unclear chain of command. they also claimed that conflicts in personalities developed as a result of staffing decisions decided by senior leadership in d.c.

despite these supervisor failures, there is no recommendation in the report related to management of the case. i am particularly interested in this aspect because management failures such as this are sanctionable conduct by opr. it will be interesting to see how this report compares to the final report issued by opr. opr's report should include some review of the management of this case in addition to disclosure failures. the attorney general should ensure that a full unredacted version of that opr report is provided to congress. at an oversight hearing november 11th, november last year, when the senator asked for a copy of the final opr report, holder said "that is up to the people at opr. what i have indicated was that i want to share as much as that as we possibly can given the very public nature of that the matter and the very public decision that i made to dismiss the

case." despite the attorney general's purported desire to make this information public, his statement that it is "up to the people at opr" lead me to believe that we aren't likely to ever see that report. the justice department has routinely blocked the release of opr investigations citing privacy laws. an employee writes of the attorney an agent guilty of misconduct, the attorney general ultimately oversees opr and if he truly wants that information made public, he should order it released upon the conclusion of the investigation. in the event he doesn't, the privacy act has an exemption for congress and so mr. chairman, even under the department's tortured reading of the plain text of that statute, i hope as chairman, you will be able to obtain the opr report unredacted reform. i'll be happy to work with you on that issue. a lot of things went wrong in

the prosecution of stevens and despite a strongly -- the strongly reported report that we're discussing here today, it seems nobody has been held accountable at the justice department. a criminal defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial regardless of who he is is fundamental to our criminal justice system. yet, when those rights were intentionally violated by the attorneys at the justice department, it seems no one was held accountable. i find this fact even more disturbing than the findings of this report and we have an obligation to hold the justice department accountable for what went wrong here and prevent it from happening in the future. thank you. >> thank you. i noted let's take it one step at a time. the attorney general deserves credit for the report dismissed. for having the opr report and he has told me that we will be seeing it. so let's take it one step at a time. today, we have hank schuelke who

was appointed by u.s. district judge emmet sullivan to investigate allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and the prosecution of u.s. senator ted stevens. mr. schuelke filed his report with the court on november 14th, 2011. by court order, it was made publicly available two weeks ago on march 15th accompanied by the submission of the six prosecutors who were the subjects of his investigation. mr. schuelke has worked in private practice income washington, d.c. since 1979 when he starred his own law firm. before that, he served for four years in the army's judge advocate general's court. three years as a military judge, seven years as assistant u.s. attorney for the district of columbia, three years executive assistant u.s. attorney. mr. schuelke, please go ahead, sir.

>> thank you, sir. chairman leahy, senator grassley, senator feinstein, senator cornyn, good morning. i appear this morning at your invitation to address whatever questions you might have concerning our report to judge sullivan on the subject of our investigation conducted pursuant to judge sullivan's order of april 7, 2009. we were ordered to investigate and to prosecute such criminal contempt proceedings as may be appropriate against william welch, brenda morris, nicholas marsh, edward sullivan, joseph bottini and james goeke, the department of justice attorneys responsible for the prosecution of united states versus senator theodore f. stevens. in the united states district court for the district of

columbia. i come before you this morning not as an advocate for any position. but rather to respond to your questions. i have submitted to the committee a copy of our report which as senator leahy has indicated was filed on the public docket in the u.s. district court on march 15th. i should like to note that i was of assisted throughout our investigation by my colleague, william b. shields. and note, as well, that our work would not have been possible without the complete cooperation of the department of justice at the highest levels of the

department and by the department's office of professional responsibility. with that, i will be pleased to answer your questions. >> well, thank you very much, mr. schuelke. and we have been joined by another former prosecutor, senator klobuchar. the supreme court, we mentioned brady earlier, and that case brady versus maryland, prosecutor learns that they have a clear constitutional duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to a defendant prior to trial. it's a constitutional duty. it's also common sense. if prosecutors fail to disclose exculpatory evidence, whether intentionally or not, the integrity of the whole criminal justice system, in my belief, is diminished. you also end up convicting or

have the risk of convicting innocent people. i mention this because in your report, you found the information withheld from the defense was i quote you, "quintessential brady information." now, tell us what you mean by that, especially how would the -- how would the trial have been different if the prosecutors had disclose this had information? >> i think senator leahy, that i first should describe at least briefly the allegations made in the indictment against senator stevens and the essence of his defense. senator stevens and his wife catherine in addition to their home here in washington owned a small cabin in the community of

girdwood, alaska. it was a rustic cabin which was quite agreeable to senator stevens who liked to go fishing outside of girdwood, sit on the porch of an evening, put his feet up and perhaps smoke a cigar. not so mrs. stevens. or their children or their grandchildren who found the cabin to be in need of improvement. and so in 1999, senator stevens resolved that he would do some kind of a renovation to the cabin which he jokingly called the chalet. he was a friend of a gentleman whose name is bill allen, a self-made entrepreneur who by

1999 had become quite wealthy and he was the ceo of an oil field services and construction company. he was a fishing buddy from time to time of senator stevens, as well. he was conversant with the construction industry to some degree and he certainly knew what was available in and about anchorage alaska in terms of contractors. senator stevens and he met in 1999 in the company of a gentleman whose name was rocky williams who was a veco employee, the name of bill

allen's corporation. senator stevens told him that he wanted to do a renovation to the so-called chalet. he wanted allen's assistance in identifying a remodeling contractor who might do the bulk of the work, and he was interested in having bill allen through a couple of his employees assist as might be appropriate in the renovation of the chalet. >> mr. schuelke, i don't want to cut in, but i'm trying to keep peace with the senators to a certain amount of time. i do want you to get to the point where on my basic question, how would the trial have been different if the exculpatory information had been released. >> all right. one principal example, senator, i told you who rocky williams was. rocky williams in effect served as the on-site foreman of the job.

the job was performed for the most part by a firm called christianson builders. the stevens mortgaged their home in washington for $100,000, liquidated a trust for another $10,000 and spent -- for another $50,000 rather, and spent an additional $10,000 from savings. so they paid christianson builders and a couple of its subcontractors $160,000. for the cabin which was appraised to be worth after the renovations $152,000. senator stevens and his wife catherine stevens testified during senator stevens trial that it was their understanding that whatever work allen's company had provided on the

house had been included in the christianson builders' invoices. which they paid in full. that testimony of both senator stevens and mrs. stevens was ridiculed by the prosecutors both in cross-examination of each of them and in their summations. rocky williams was interviewed by two of the prosecutors messers bottini and goeke in the company of fbi agent chad joy one month before the trial commenced here in washington. on the morning that he was interviewed, another of the prosecutors, edward sullivan, sent an e-mail to the group of prosecutors which said we got some additional documents from senator stevens' defense

council. it's apparent from those documents that senator stevens and mrs. stevens will testify that they thought that all of the veco charges were included in the christianson builders' bills. and if catherine stevens does not testify, they will try to squeeze that out of rocky on cross-examination. the very day that that e-mail was circulated, messers bottini and goeke interviewed rocky. they didn't have to squeeze that out of rocky. rocky told them that. well, back in 1999, i met with senator stevens and with bill allen. senator stevens wanted us to arrange to find a contractor. he wanted to pay for everything. and he wanted to make sure that this was done right. and so it was my understanding as the foreman on the job that my time as a veco employee, dave anderson's time as another veco employee and anybody else who worked on the job from veco

would be included in the christianson builders invoices. and so every month he told them, i went and got the christianson builders invoice. i checked it to make sure it was accurate based on my observations of what their people did. then i took it to the front office at veco to give to bill allen or his secretary if he wasn't there so that my time, that of dave anderson and other veco employees could be added to the christianson builders bills before they were sent to the stevens for payment. that was rocky williams account. that was his understanding. his understanding was all together consistent with that of senator and mrs. stevens. had rocky williams testified as a government witness as the plan was originally, that's what he would have testified to. >> that would have made a