Halliburton/Cheney and the New Federal Court Rules

CorpGovActivist

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Fri Dec-01-06 10:12 AM
Original message

Halliburton/Cheney and the New Federal Court Rules

I sent the following to my trusted MSM contacts a short while ago.
****************************************************************************************
Subject: Halliburton Faces New E-Discovery Rules, Effective Today

From: editor@halwhistleblowers.org
Date: Fri, Dec 01, 2006 10:10 am
To: editor@halwhistleblowers.org
Cc:
Bcc: (redacted)

Ladies and Gentlemen:

As you continue to cover the unfolding Halliburton story of the mis-directed e-mails (and as the new Congress prepares to convene next month), please note that - effective today - Halliburton faces new "e-discovery rules" under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

James Wright, director of electronic discovery at Halliburton, is quoted today in an AP article on the subject of the new e-discovery rules.

* The press release regarding the new rules: http://www.uscourts.gov/ttb/11-06/electronically/index.html

* The text of the new rules: http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/EDiscovery_w_Notes.pdf

* The AP story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061201/ap_on_hi_te/storing_e_mails_3

Several changes to the Federal Rules are noteworthy. Among these are rules that Halliburton could easily abuse, by seeking to portray digital shredding as "routine" maintenance.

As irony would have it, Chief Justice Roberts sent transmittal letters to Vice President Cheney (in his capacity as President of the Senate), ordering that the new rules would take effect today: http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/Letters_Orders.pdf

Clearly, nothing in these new e-discovery rules would limit the power of the new Congress - independently of a civil litigant or a Federal judge - to obtain any electronic records that would serve to demonstrate that Vice President Cheney and his successors at Halliburton have engaged in a pattern of knowing and willful violations of the U.S. Code (e.g., the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or the tax code) that meet the definition of "a pattern of racketeering activity."

Thanks to those of you who are vigilantly covering the last-ditch (and ultimately futile) cover-up efforts undertaken by the White House and the lame duck Congress. Steps such as the lame duck Congress trying to pull the plug on SIGIR (the Special Inspector General on Iraqi Reconstruction), these new Federal discovery rules, and the KBR spinoff help illustrate the guilty mindset and the level of concern in some quarters of the current Administration (and of the 41st President's Administration).

Law firms like BakerBotts and Vinson & Elkins have been busily advising their corporate clients on how to wield today's new rules to unleash a new wave of "virtual shredding" that makes the gap on the Watergate tape seem almost tame by comparison. These seminars on the new Federal rules sound innocuous enough, even boring - but they're anything but.

To the journalists in the bcc: Please let me know if there is anything more you need from me as you prepare additional groundwork/foundation stories during the transition period.

To the analysts in the bcc: I would be happy to meet with your research departments, so that you can more accurately cover the legal issues facing Halliburton, and the risks those legal issues pose to the owners/your firms' clients.

Finally, lawsuits commenced in Federal Court on or after today's date benefit from the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (on balance, not all of the new rules are likely to be welcomed by corporate co-defendants). Accordingly, I plan to file shortly.

Have a good weekend,

- David A. Smith, Editor of www.HALwhistleblowers.org
(not to be confused, ever again, with David R. Smith, the as-yet-unindicted VP of Tax at Dresser Industries, and now at Halliburton)