Earlier this week, the embattled U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of California, under fire for failure to disclose key documents before obtaining a settlement of the federal Moonlight Fire lawsuit, filed its response to previous defense filings. The government brief runs 127 pages and categorically denies pretty much all of the allegations against it while downplaying the significance of a slush fund run by Cal Fire outside of state auditing oversight.
Following the principle that the best defense is a good offense, the government’s brief also launches a counterattack that is, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, “blistering.” Reserving its most vicious accusations for two whistleblowers who worked on the litigation, the government claims that the whistleblowers violated their own ethical duties by notifying defense attorneys about wrongdoing by the government litigation team. The government also tries to discredit the defense attorneys themselves by accusing them of ethical lapses, deceiving the state trial court, and even “doctoring” deposition evidence. In the government’s telling, practically everybody except the government was acting unethically during this lawsuit.
Read the brief for yourself, but it looks like things are getting ugly in the E.D. Cal. Hopefully the government won’t forget that its primary duty is to the law and the truth, not just the Treasury.