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• Wednesday, January 7, 2009 02:45 PM

  thelastnamechosen

  This may be a logical conclusion, but do Federal prosecutors normally inform a person being investigated by a grand jury that they are no longer a target by implying the will be subpoenaed, or is there a more formal process?

  I don't know because I'm a state, not a federal prosecutor, but if I were Tamm's attorney and got that letter, I would say to the prosecutor "OK, you are implying that you will compel his testimony. Since we both know you can't force him to self-inculpate, I assume you plan to offer my client immunity?" I read up on immunity in federal grand juries in the DoJ handbook on-line before posting today, and it appears this is something they do fairly often - compel testimony with immunity to certain players to build evidence against others.

  Do you think it is more likely that the DOJ is going to grant Tamm immunity or that a federal prosecutor is just making vague threats and hoping the defendant is unaware of the law?

  The letter is to Tamm's attorney, not Tamm (though in this instance Tamm is also a federal prosecutor and well aware of the law).

  I'm confused about what the prosecutor is doing here. It seems that after Tamm declined their first invitation to the grand jury (and refused to take a plea) they were locked in a stalemate. Perhaps DoJ was trying to build a case against him through other witnesses; seems that way from the Newsweek piece.

  Perhaps when the prosecutor saw the Newsweek article (which may well be incriminating, no wonder Tamm's lawyers were against it!) he may have thought "well, now that he's decided to testify in the media, maybe he's changed his mind about the grand jury."

  What I don't get is this talk about compelling him to testify. They can't do that without giving him immunity, which is why I wonder if they are thinking of moving on from Tamm.

  My experience is that vague threats that play off of a person's lack of legal knowledge is law 101.

  Police interrogators are known for that ("Confess everything and you can go home!"...not) but prosecutors generally don't speak to defendants, but to their attorneys, so that wouldn't work.

  While I'm grateful that Tamm's actions brought this illegal program to light, I think he has exercised extremely poor judgment throughout this affair. Reading the article my jaw dropped several times over what I consider to be incomprehensibly reckless behavior on Tamm's part (especially given his professional experience).

  If I were him I would have gone to someone like Russ Feingold or John Conyers and not the press. That's the way to out the program without criminal liability.

  —Jestaplero Read Jestaplero's other letters
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