October 19 Commission Session #6: On CVs and Office Conditions

In AE71, CDR Walter Ruiz seeks additional information about two FBI agents who interrogated his client, Mustafa al-Hawsawi.  This apparently bears on the defense’s motion for a defective referral.  According to Ruiz's papers, the prosecution will produce the two agents during a hearing on the defective referral motion. The defense lawyer does not present argument initially, but instead gives the floor to prosecutor Jeffrey Groharing.  The latter explains that the two agents have supplied affidavits about their interrogations already.  Now, Ruiz wants additional background materials about both men---among other things, their CVs.  There’s no authority for that, argues Groharing, but in any case, neither man has a CV to begin with.  We’ve discussed the government’s discovery obligations at length today, he continues; those don’t call for us to furnish supplementary information about the agents' training and background in language issues.  Ruiz, Groharing points out, can inquire about those issues when the agents testify. Ruiz rises briefly, and explains the need for impeachment material.  Does either FBI agent really have language-training?  If so, what kinds?  What did either understand about al-Hawsawi's English language ability, at the time of the interrogations? The absence of a CV doesn’t answer those questions.  The defense lawyer finishes up. Cheryl Bormann senses an opportunity to remind us of AE95, her bad-conditions-in-the-defense-offices motion—which was supposedly resolved yesterday.  Keeping us informed, she says the parties earlier had agreed to, and the court had ordered, an evaluation of the offices’ conditions by certain hygenists and experts.  Uh, no, says Judge Pohl: I didn’t issue any order.  The parties settled the matter.  Of course that means it still can still be litigated later, he says, if the situation isn't handled properly.  Bormann emphasizes that the experts need to get into the defense’s workspace immediately, so as not to interfere with planned cleanup procedures. Ruiz wants to talk about a motion that the court doesn’t have before it.  That occasions a quick break.