Judge Amy Berman Jackson's opinion to require disclosure of a memorandum written by people in the Department of Justice who have just left town, says that testimony in that case was a "misrepresentation." The case is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Department of Justice.
The testimony in question came from a lawyer. It was filed with the Court. Surely Judge Jackson thought about the next step. The judge's description of the testimony as a "misrepresentation" is on page 31 of her attached opinion from the Court File, which was redacted for the public by the Court. If she called the lawyer's testimony under oath a "misrepresentation," which she said freed her from any deference to the DOJ's representations for secrecy of the memorandum, surely the judge or one of her clerks or somebody in her Chambers said something to the effect of, "Wait a minute, once you say that this lawyer's testimony is a misrepresentation, what's the next step?"
To rephrase the end of the first episode of "The Night Watchman": "Now that you said this, what are you going to do about it?"
The corporate media understandably have paid very little attention to this. The reporters on this story are mostly all civilians unfamiliar with lawyers and the law. Their reports have concentrated much more on Judge Jackson's description of former Attorney General Bill Barr's statements as "disingenuous." Parenthetically, that word appears twice on page 25 of the judge's attached REDACTED for the public opinion. Come to think of it, same question: "Now that you said this, what are you going to do about it?"
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