The RJ article phrased things in a loaded fashion which presumed certain negative conclusions when, in the article's first paragraph, it referred to the District Attorney's practice of paying money for testimony.

Strictly speaking, and to be fair, the policy is not to pay money for certain, specific testimony that the DA desires, but instead to reasonably compensate a witness, often travelling from out-of-town, to simply testify truthfully.

But, admittedly, the devil can be in the details. If the DA's offcie goes way beyond compensating someone for standard, legitimate expenses(e.g. hotel, plane fare, meals,etc.) and starts paying for cell. phones, car payments, college tuition, or a myriad of other things, it raises a fair question as to whether in a case of real import to the DA(like one that receives a fair degree of public attention)a witness , by being provided all these extra goodies, is being provided an inducement to beef up their testimony so that it is more clear, and more favorable to the prosecution's position.

And the fact they fought this for four years or more in litigation always raises a question. People will not buy the argument that someone blocked production of the records primarily due to confidentiality concerns or to protect the integrity of the process. They will instead believe that if the DA's office spends all this litigation money to protect records of payments from disclosure to the media, that some of it is embarrassing and that some of the payments are really excessive.

Another questionable decision is the DA refusing to open an investigation, and not referring the matter out to a separate agency like the AG, concerning allegations of campaign contributions allegedly used for improper and/or personal purposes. The DA's decision to stand by the campaign worker who handled the finances, and saying she is so wonderful he wishes he could clone her, is very concerning.

Perhaps she has always been reliable in the past, but things do change, and people can become desperate for money. I have no idea if that is what happened here, but that is what an investigation can hopefully determine. And the DA seems to fail to fully understand the fiduciary nature of all this. If a campaign worker inappropriately used funds for personal and/or inappropoate purposes, the buck stops with the candidate and the candidate(in this case the DA) can be largely responsible and culpable. Now this responsibility and culpability can be dramatically mitigated if the DA invites an investigation, rather than declining one.

The RJ and other media outlets will pound on this relentlessly, and an otherwise safe re-election could be placed in peril. And that is a shame, because on the balance I would much prefer Wolfson over his opponent.

This is a bigger clusterf**k having heard Leverty than I ever imagined. What a DISASTER this hearing is.

Gene Leverty is an idiot. At first, he took the untenable position that a random audit would impose zero cost on a small firm. Justice Cherry quickly disposed of that, and Leverty then shifted to the contradictory position of arguing that the costs to small firms were the "cost of doing business." So which is it, Gene? Zero cost or the cost of doing business?

Any bozo who supports the audit fuck job gets opposition in their election.

For educational purposes, the State Bar would like to come into your office and have a representative sit in on every client consultation and telephone call, just the make sure that you are handling everything appropriately. They don't know what they are looking for yet or what the guidelines for their supervision will be but would like to assure you that they will know it when they see it.

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