everything was perfect at tom porteous' house. >> mr. gardener, from time to time, you also would give judge porteous money to gamble, isn't that right? >> from time to time, throughout our relationship before he was ever a judge, he would ask me for a few dollars. and you got thetranscript. we were out shopping for gifts at christmas season. he had had run out of cistmas money, i guess, and is i had some on me, he asked me for some money to buy glasses for his wife. when he became a judge -- >> mr. gardener, i'm not asking about christmas presents right now, i'm asking about gambling. this is a yes or no question. did you or did you not from time to time give judge porteous money to gamble? >> no, i gave judge porteous money. i told you already, if you re it, i don't know what he did with it. i presume that he gambled with it, because he took it, sometimes i would see -- he would come by, everybody would have supper and he would come by and say, you got $100 on you? i would give him $100. tom is a bummer. if he's out of cigarettes, he's

tom wilkinson, $30,000. the problem is that porteous wasn't going anywhere. while the mole conspiracy should have been the subject of an investigation, the house decided to call mole, as they just told you, as their witness on the alleged unethical act of judge porteous. now, ultimately judge porteous ruled against his closest friend, gardner, and caused him that hundred thousand dollars bounty and other possible peace. with only a gift made years after the recusal hearing, the house try to rely on money given to judge porteous over a 25 year friendship. before he became a federal judge. this is what led those judges in the fifth circuit to write that opinion that i just refer to. the house argued that judge porteous, as a state judge, granted curatorships to bob creely in order to get occasional loans and gifts from his friend. mr. goodlatte has told you that the judge conceded the relationship between the money and a curatorships. that's news to me, and it is certain is to the judge. we have never conceded that. however, let's look at the actual witnesses.

one of them was judge porteous. tom stayed. we were hiring and i hired tom as an assistant, and he was with me until he ran for a judge, district judge, which was probably 12 years or something later. >> just to wrap up on your background, did you have occasion to be appointed by the governor to the prison overcrowding policy task force? >> yes, i think i was appointed to many task. forces. that was probably one because we had a serious overcrowding in this state jails. i don't remember any of the specific meetings, but there were times when we would try to get the sheriff's to work closely with the state corrections department which ran the state prisons and made sure that all of them were doing fine and do the right thing to make -- to keep the overcrowding down. we were constantly hit with the federal courts on overcrowding. >> i want to return to that in the second, but i would like to pick up on what you said earlier about when you first met judge porteous. was that around 1972? >> i will guess 1972, or the end of 1972. it

tom wilkinson, $30,000. the problem was that porteous was not going anywhere. while the conspiracy should have been the subject of the investigation, the house decided to call him as a witness on the alleged unethical act of judge porteous. he ruled against his close friend, gardner, and cost 10 the $100,000 bounty and other possible fees. with a gift made years after the refusal hearing, the house tried to rely on money given to him over a 25-year friendship. this was before he became a federal judge. this is what led the judges in the fifth circuit to write the opinion that i just referred to. the house said he was greeted curator ship in order to get a cable loans and gifts from his friends. they have told you that the judge perceive the relationship, which is news to me and news to the judge. we have never conceded that. however, let's look at the actual witnesses. it was recently testified that the senate allowed us to hold this hearing. this was his first exposure to a full examination. in that examination, he expressly, and repeatedly, denied there was a