Government case in Moussaoui trial hurt

Judge warns government lawyer
Martin, the Transportation Security Administration attorney who prompted Tuesday’s hearing without the jury present, also was summoned. But her questioning was delayed when she told the judge she had not been able to arrange for her own lawyer. Brinkema had warned her that “you violated a court order and could be held in civil or criminal contempt,” and directed her to return with a lawyer by Wednesday morning.

Martin had been the government attorney for the seven witnesses and worked with prosecutors on preparing evidence.

Kormann also testified that in addition to receiving an e-mail from Martin, she told him at a meeting last week about the defense’s cross-examination of an FBI agent.

Claudio Manno, deputy chief of security for the Federal Aviation Administration on Sept. 11, 2001, and Pat McDonnell, who retired in May 2001 as FAA director of intelligence, both testified they had been reading and watching news accounts of the trial and were not told until last Friday that Brinkema had ordered witnesses not to follow the proceedings.

Kormann, McDonald, Manno and Manno’s boss, Lynne Osmus, all denied in court that they would alter their testimony in any way as a result of being coached last week by Martin.

Phone conversation at issue
Defense lawyer Edward MacMahon also elicited testimony Tuesday that prosecutor David Novak had conducted a joint telephone conversation with two upcoming witnesses, despite long-standing prohibitions against trial witnesses interacting before they testify.

Novak told Brinkema the phone call, which apparently happened after the judge issued rules on witnesses on Feb. 22, concerned only the logistics of trial exhibits, not the substance of testimony.

MacMahon had moved to bar the government from pursuing the death penalty.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly airplanes into U.S. buildings; this trial is to determine whether he will be executed or spend life behind bars.

The only person charged in this country in al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Moussaoui has denied having any role in those attacks. He says he was training for a possible future attack.

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