Power of Attorney

ON July 9, attorney Bob Bauer was at his downtown Washington office late talking to a senior aide to Sen. Fred Thompson. The aide wanted to know why Bauer’s client, former DNC finance director Richard Sullivan, had seemingly changed his testimony from his frank private deposition to his guarded public testimony. Bauer had a pointed response. “I told him,” Bauer recalls, “I would entertain that evening any material discrepancy he believed had developed between the deposition and the hearing testimony. Lo and behold, he didn’t have any to offer.”

Sullivan had, in fact, drastically changed his tone in a matter of two weeks-just not in a way that would create any “material discrepancy.” Republican senators wound up reading to Sullivan from his deposition in order to get him to admit at the hearings what he had told them in private. “Clearly,” says a committee staffer, “he was coached by someone or other to be not quite as forthcoming.” Sullivan was Thompson’s lead witness, and his testimony helped make the crucial opening week of the hearings a debacle.

About the Author

Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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ON July 9, attorney Bob Bauer was at his downtown Washington office late talking to a senior aide to Sen. Fred Thompson. The aide wanted to know why Bauer’s client, former DNC finance director Richard Sullivan, had seemingly changed his testimony from his frank private deposition to his guarded public testimony. Bauer had a pointed response. “I told him,” Bauer recalls, “I would entertain that evening any material discrepancy he believed had developed between the deposition and the hearing testimony. Lo and behold, he didn’t have any to offer.”

Sullivan had, in fact, drastically changed his tone in a matter of two weeks-just not in a way that would create any “material discrepancy.” Republican senators wound up reading to Sullivan from his deposition in order to get him to admit at the hearings what he had told them in private. “Clearly,” says a committee staffer, “he was coached by someone or other to be not quite as forthcoming.” Sullivan was Thompson’s lead witness, and his testimony helped make the crucial opening week of the hearings a debacle.