This time last year, in my blog the missing “bonesman” (see http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/2839), I introduced bushit’s Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary to Australia, Robert D. McCallum.

The rattus government is seen by the bushit administration as being so subservient & compliant to its interests, that the position of Ambassador was left vacant for 18 months, before McCallum eventually turned-up.

In my earlier blog, I discussed McCallum’s credentials, in particular his track record as a lawyer in successfully representing the interests of big tobacco. Indeed, McCallum’s dedication was such that, even after joining the US Justice Department, he continued to corruptly represent their interests, at the enormous expense of the American taxpayer; the health of millions of Americans & the integrity of the US justice system.

The former legal eagle for the tobacco giant, R.J. Reynolds, personally intervened to reduce the size of the damages claim being pursued by the Justice Department against the US tobacco industry, from US$130 billion to US$10 billion.

But hey, that’s hardly a big deal for the gangsta interests that have succeeded in suborning the US political system. McCallum is a protégé of bushit …. a fellow “bonesman” who, when he first arrived in Canberra, characterized himself as a “recovering lawyer”. Based on his track record, it is the American taxpayer that should be in recovery.

A few weeks ago, the “bonesman”, whilst routinely smooching-up to members of the Sydney establishment at the Sydney Institute, accused the legal team attempting to secure a modicum of justice for David Hicks of engaging in “lawfare”; suggesting that their attempts to secure the human & legal rights of the Australian were somehow responsible for his detention & torture at Guantanamo Bay for more than five years.

But hey, what would anyone expect from a crooked lawyer; a pal of the war criminal bushit & whore to big moneyed business interests? We’ve seen enough of such corruption in our own neck of the woods to readily recognise the type.

Anyway, whilst McCallum has been busying himself managing the Canberra branch office for the past 12 months – feeling right at home with his local criminal cousins – the wheel has been slowly turning back in the US.

The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to US smokers.

She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He & two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.

The political people were pushing the buttons & ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."

Eubanks, who served for 22 years as a lawyer at Justice, said three political appointees were responsible for the last-minute shifts in the government's tobacco case in June 2005 …….

And guess who one of the alleged corrupters was folks?

Yep, you got it – former Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum – current bushit consiglieri for the antipodes territory.

With the way things have been going in Washington over the past few months, maybe we’ll soon be seeing a new representative of the outhouse, whilst McCallum might well wind-up in a US prison, giving unintended new meaning to his jest about being a “recovering lawyer?

Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case