Thomas C. Green Complete Oral History

Oral History Of
Thomas C. Green, Esq.
Interviews Conducted by Judith S. Feigin, Esq.
Published 2026
________
The Stephen J. Pollak Oral History Project
Of the Historical Society of the District of
Columbia Circuit
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and history of the courts of the District of Columbia Circuit.
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The mission of the Stephen J. Pollak Oral History Project of the Historical Society
of the District of Columbia Circuit (the “Project”) is to preserve the recollections of the
judges of the courts of the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as those of the lawyers,
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February 2024.
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All rights reserved.
i
ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. i
Oral History Agreements
Thomas C. Green… ……………………………………………………………………………………… iii
Judith S. Feigin ……………………………………………………………………………………………..v
Note: The first two interviews were conducted by Professor Jeffrey D.
Bauman. When the interviews resumed in 2024, Professor Bauman was
no longer available, and Ms. Feigin became the interviewer. Mr. Green
and Ms. Feigin also updated the 2017 and 2019 interviews in January
2025.
Oral History Transcript of Interview
2017 (updated January 2025)………………………………………………………………………………1
2019 (updated January 2025)…………………………………………………………………………….29
May 30, 2024 ………………………………………………………………………………………………..61
June 26, 2024 ………………………………………………………………………………………………99
July 23, 2024……………………………………………………………………………………………….133
September 25, 2024 ………………………………………………………………………………………153
December 20, 2024……………………………………………………………………………………….178
March 21, 2025 ……………………………………………………………………………………………207
April 10, 2025 ……………………………………………………………………………………………..235
September 27, 2025 ………………………………………………………………………………………260
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………………268
Appendices
Appendix 1 Sachem Oration: Year in Retrospect
Appendix 2 letter to the Editor, The Memorial, the Memories. The Washington Post, November
20, 1982
Index …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. A-1
Table of Cases and Statutes …………………………………………………………………………………B-1
Biographical Sketches
Thomas C. Green…. …………………………………………………………………………………C-1
Judith S. Feigin ……………………………………………………………………………………… D-1
iii
Schedule A to Oral History Donation Agreement of
Thomas C. Green
Donor Name
Transcripts resulting from the oral history interviews of Thomas C. Green conducted by
Judith S. Feigin on the following dates:
Interview No.
I
2
3
4
5
Date
2017, updated Jan. 2025
2019, updated Jan. 2025
May 30, 2024
June 26, 2024
July 23, 2024, updated Jan. 2025
6 Sept. 25, 2024
7 Dec.20,2024
8 March 21, 2025
9 April 10, 2025
10 Sept. 27, 2025
Transcript Page Numbers
1-28
29-60
61-98
99-132
133-152
153-177
178-206
207-234
235-259
260-267
iv
v
Schedule A to Oral History Donation Agreement of
Judith S. Feigin
Transcripts resulting from the oral history interviews of Thomas C. Green conducted by
Judith S. Feigin on the following dates:
Interview No.
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
2017, updated Jan. 2025
2019, updated Jan. 2025
May 30, 2024
June 26, 2024
July 23, 2024, updated Jan. 2025
Sept. 25, 2024
Dec. 20, 2024
March 21, 2025
April 10, 2025
Sept. 27, 2025
Transcript Page Numbers
1-28
29-60
61-98
99-132
133-152
153-177
178-206
207-234
235-259
260-267
vi
1
ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Jeffrey D. Bauman and the
interviewee is Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place at Mr. Green’s office at Sidley
Austin LLP in Washington, DC in 2017. This is the first interview. [Updated 1/2025]
MR. BAUMAN: Let’s start literally at the beginning. Where are you from, what was your
educational background, family, growing up, without thinking about
anything to do with your legal career? Talk a little bit about your
background.
MR. GREEN: I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 7, 1941. And 13
months later, my sister, Jane Louise Green, was born.
My mother and father were a wonderful couple. I know that my
father’s family had been in this country for a substantial period of time,
from the late 1800s. I am not sure about my mother’s family, although I
know it was later. I regret not recording all this when I had the opportunity
many years ago.
MR. BAUMAN: Where were they from?
MR. GREEN: They were basically from the greater Poland area, which, because of the
shifting borders, encompassed at times part of Ukraine and Estonia,
Lithuania, etc. – in that area, what we sometimes referred to as the Minsk
and Pinsk area. But part of the family actually ended up in England and
came to the United States from Liverpool, where they had been living.
My understanding is that some of them first settled in Philadelphia and
then early on migrated to Minnesota for reasons I don’t quite know. I
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always kid that they were on their way to Hollywood and the wagon broke
down in Minnesota.
My father was one of three children. Interestingly enough, my
father’s father died when my father was fairly young as did my mother’s
father die when she was quite young. My grandfather, my real grandfather,
who was named Charles Green, from which I take my middle name —
Thomas Charles Green — when he died his younger brother, Harry Green,
married my grandmother, which was the tradition in the Jewish religion.
And so my father was really raised by his uncle, Harry Green, but Harry
Green became his father. My father was born in 1910.
MR. BAUMAN: Let me just stop you for a second. When your grandparents came over
from Poland, were they fleeing the pogrom?
MR. GREEN: I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. These are stories that I’ve heard,
which I should have written down.
MR. BAUMAN: We all should have.
MR. GREEN: I didn’t record them at the time. And now they’re all gone, that whole
generation. So I’m left to speculate.
My father went to college in the early years of the Depression, and
he had to leave college because there was not enough money to pay the
tuition at the University of Minnesota. I know that he did a number of odd
jobs; he delivered newspapers and he did this and that, and finally he
ended up in the business world, which I’ll get to in a moment. His older
brother finished college, and so did his younger brother, all at the
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University of Minnesota, but dad had to leave. Ironically, my dad
probably became the most successful brother in later life — by far — by
material measurement.
MR. BAUMAN: Did he ever graduate?
MR. GREEN: No, never graduated. It was a wound that was a serious wound and one
which caused him to be concerned that I paid attention in school and
progressed in school. My mother came from a family that was — after she
lost her father — extraordinarily poor. My mother was sent to live with
relatives in Fargo, North Dakota because there wasn’t enough money —
there were three kids — to support all the children. She spent most of her
young years living with her cousins and relatives in Fargo, North Dakota.
MR. BAUMAN: And where did they come from? They went to Fargo from where?
MR. GREEN: I don’t know. And that was my mother’s scar, if you will. She had a very
tough life. She never really wanted to talk much about it. I never could
draw her out. It was obviously painful for her to talk about her childhood.
MR. BAUMAN: Did you try very much?
MR. GREEN: You know, from time to time, sure. But it was clear that it was kind of a
subject that was off limits.
My earliest memory is of living in a small duplex building where
there were two homes together. I was just two or three years old. I
believe we were just renters, but eventually we moved to a house literally
on the street that divides Minneapolis from the suburb St. Louis Park. If
you were on the south side of France Avenue, you were in Minneapolis; if
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you were on the north side, you were in St. Louis Park. We were on the
north side, so technically we moved to the suburb of St. Louis Park. I
remember later learning that our house cost $17,000, l think, which
probably was a small fortune back then. It was a very modest house, very
small house.
MR. BAUMAN: And we’re talking now ‘40s?
MR. GREEN: I’m about five, six years old, somewhere in that neighborhood, so we’re
talking about 1946, ’47.
MR. BAUMAN: And what was your dad doing then?
MR. GREEN: My dad had kicked around in various jobs. His father, Harry Green —
actually as I said, his uncle — but his father, Harry Green, was in the
jewelry business and I know that my father worked for my grandfather for
a while. But my father was a bit of an entrepreneur and he hooked up with
another businessman, and with an African-American engineer by the name
of Fred Jones, who had an idea. Fred Jones’ idea was to build a
mechanical refrigeration unit that would be mounted in a truck (and later
in a railcar) to preserve perishables and allow them to get to market.
My dad left what he was doing and joined his friend Joe Numero,
and Fred Jones, the engineer, and they put together and founded a
company that was called U.S. Thermo Control Company. Later the name
was changed to Thermo King Corporation. And if you look for them, you
will see them on countless trucks in this country, Thermo King units.
Thermo King units up on the front of the truck-trailer behind the cab, the
5
refrigeration unit; that was the company. It was modest in size and
horizons and aspirations, but when World War II broke out the company
was commissioned by the government to stop what it was doing and make
components for the war effort. What the company was required to make
were knock-down refrigeration units for use by the Army and the Marines
in the field. They also made that little heating unit that would be rolled
out to fighter aircraft that would help ignite the fighter’s engine. I don’t
know the technical workings of all that, but if you see old war movies,
World War II, you see the fighter planes out on the tarmac. You’ll see
these carts that are sitting there and they would take a hose from this unit,
which was basically a heater.
If you’re in the refrigeration business, you can be in the heating
business because refrigeration is just taking heat away, or vice versa, and
so they made thousands and thousands of these units that were used to
ignite the piston engines in the fighter aircraft. My dad was told by the
War Department that he was needed there and to stay there and so he was
declared not eligible for the draft under some classification.
The whole factory was in Minneapolis. His younger brother Ralph
was a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, served with distinction, landed on
several islands in the South Pacific. My dad’s cousin was a navigator,
flying for Jimmy Doolittle, and was actually shot down in a raid over
China and lost. I think my dad would have preferred going into the
service, but he was told he had to sit there and run that company.
6
MR. BAUMAN: Tom, did you hear these stories as you were growing up?
MR. GREEN: Yes and afterwards. These are stories I do remember.
MR. BAUMAN: So your uncle was shot down?
MR. GREEN: Yes. I don’t remember that. I was told that later. I was maybe a teenager
when I came to understand that. But my uncle, my dad’s younger brother,
when he came back from the war, he had a lot of stories that enthralled all
the cousins and the nieces and nephews and so forth. He brought back a
couple of Japanese swords that he had taken off Japanese officers. He was
playing poker on the way back on a Navy ship, and the guys in the Navy
that he was playing poker with lost the game and so they gave him the
ship’s radio, which was a Hallicrafter shortwave radio. I remember he
actually brought that home and he gave that to me. That became a big part
of my life, but that’s a separate story.
MR. BAUMAN: If you look at the economics of your family, would you say you were
middle class, upper middle, lower middle, lower level?
MR. GREEN: I’d say we were probably middle class but after the war the company
turned back to its original purpose and began to flourish. Became a big
business. And when my dad was in his middle to late 60s they sold the
company to Westinghouse, when Westinghouse was still a force in this
country. Thermo King became a subsidiary of Westinghouse. And then
Westinghouse morphed into CBS.
By that time my dad was retired completely. CBS kept it for a
while and then decided to be simply a media company, so it sold off all
7
these other extraneous businesses. Thermo King was sold ultimately to
Ingersoll-Rand in 1997. It was a big business then and an even bigger
business now. My recollection is that we were reasonably well off. By no
means rich, but certainly we were all okay. My parents never moved out
of this little house. My dad died in a sholom house which historically took
in homeless individuals, but over time became more of a hospice space.
My mother died a number of years later in the little house. And then my
sister and I sold the house, which was remarkable because our parents
could have moved almost anywhere.
During our high school years my sister Jane was Miss Popularity
in her public school. My sister, whom I love dearly, always attracted
enormous numbers of friends who all adored her. She was a big
cheerleader at her high school and she had no intention of moving to
another house and another school and certainly that was part of the reason
we never moved. Jane went on to have a very satisfying career. She had a
master’s degree in counseling psychology and for many years worked at a
not-for-profit agency counseling families and disturbed children. In my
mind a rather tough undertaking. She married a wonderful guy whom I
became very close to. He sadly died at a fairly young age from a heart
attack. It was an unbelievable loss. Years later my sister met an extremely
nice widower and they have made a life together. My sister is still at the
center of a large social network. She just attracts all kinds of lovely
individuals. She is just amazing. I am very close to my sister’s children,
8
Richard and Julie, and their families, and all of them are very important in
my life.
MR. BAUMAN: But growing up it was kind of a middle-class environment?
MR. GREEN: Yes, I had a very normal, safe, secure, loving childhood. I went to public
schools. The public schools were great in St. Louis Park. The weather is
now moderating everywhere in the world, but when I was growing up the
winters were horrific. Snow was often piled 12 feet high, and I remember
waiting on the corner for the school bus when it was 25 or 20 below zero.
School never closed. You were bundled up and I had a scarf around my
face and a hat and mittens and you stood out there and you went to school.
Didn’t matter how cold it was. I had a lot of friends; it was a great
childhood.
When I was going into the eighth grade my parents thought — I
didn’t have much to say it about it — that they wanted me to go to a private
school. They applied me to The Blake School in Hopkins, Minnesota,
which was located not far from us. It probably was the most well-known
private school. It was a day school; it’s not a boarding school. I was
accepted. The class was very small, maybe 35, 40 boys, but no larger than
that.
MR. BAUMAN: An all-boys school?
MR. GREEN: All-boys school. There was a girls school that wasn’t part of Blake, but it
was kind of the sister school, called Northrop. I made lifelong friends
there.
9
MR. BAUMAN: People with whom you have remained friendly?
MR. GREEN: Yes. We’ve all drifted to the four corners of the world but we stay
reasonably in touch. Every once in a while we have a rendezvous, which
I’ve got to organize again soon. Sadly, we had a rendezvous at a funeral of
one of our buddies.
School was initially a little difficult because there were no Jewish
kids. I was the first Jewish kid in my class and there were a couple of kids
that gave me a little bit of a rough time, but following my dad’s
admonition of fight your own battles, we all kind of earned each other’s
mutual respect and I went on to have an extraordinarily enjoyable high
school experience. I was on the football team; I was on the track team; I
played hockey. I was on every team. You had to be on the team, so it
doesn’t mean you’re a great athlete.
MR. BAUMAN: Were you a good athlete?
MR. GREEN: No. I played okay. There’s a story about that. I had a good friend who
lived just kind of over my back fence. He was a year older than me. His
name was Bill Gross, and he went to Blake; he was a year ahead of me. I
was very close to him because I’d see him at home and when we were
playing in the street and then at school. He went to Harvard. When he
would come home that first year, he would tell me about Harvard. I really
wanted to go to Harvard. I mean, talk about being an impressionable kid,
I didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’. I should say, correctly, anything about
anything. [laughter] So I got it into my head that I wanted to go to
10
Harvard and I applied to a number of schools, including Harvard and
Dartmouth. I didn’t apply to Yale because so many guys from Blake were
already applying to Yale. A lot of Blake families went to Yale. And I
applied to a number of other schools.
I got on the waiting list to go to Harvard and I was really
disappointed. Really, I wanted to go. And I remember as soon as word
got out that I was on the waiting list, the Dartmouth Alumni Association,
the guy that headed that association locally in Minneapolis, came to see
me and said, “Harvard doesn’t want you, Dartmouth does. We want you at
Dartmouth. We want to send you out there and we want you to see the
place.” Now there were a number of Blake guys further ahead that were at
Dartmouth. And so they sent me out there and those Blake guys at
Dartmouth took me and showed me Dartmouth and when I came home I
wanted to go to Dartmouth.
MR. BAUMAN: Did you think about going to the University of Minnesota?
MR. GREEN: No. I mean, did I think about it? Sure, maybe, but I had got it in my mind
I wanted to try to go to school out east.
MR. BAUMAN: And you wanted to get away from–
MR. GREEN: No, I didn’t want to get away from anything. I just was in a school that
sent a ton of its graduates to the Ivy League every year, and so it was just
kind of expected that you would aim for that – to go to the Ivy League. It
wasn’t any reaction to I don’t like home or don’t like this or that. So
suddenly, miraculously, I was admitted to Dartmouth. Once I came home
11
from Dartmouth and said I loved it, I want to go, boom, I was admitted.
Can’t tell whether anybody did anything, but I was on my way to
Dartmouth.
MR. BAUMAN: And you were class of what at Dartmouth?
MR. GREEN: 1962. I graduated from high school in 1958. Two things happened at
Dartmouth that were — well, a lot of things happened, but two things
happened that kind of have significance for both there and years later. I
went out for freshman football and I had to report early in August. This is
when freshmen didn’t play on the varsity teams as they do now. It was a
separate scheme for freshmen. So by reporting early you meet all the
other guys that are reporting for freshman football and you’re thrown
together and you live, eat and sleep football for I guess probably about
three weeks before school. So you really bond with those guys; this
becomes your group and your buddies.
MR. BAUMAN: Before freshman year actually starts?
MR. GREEN: Yes, before freshman year even starts. You have a community. Funny
story is that on your football helmet they put a big piece of white adhesive
tape on the front and they wrote your name so the coaches knew who you
were, and of course mine said “Green.” So we’re not long into freshman
practice and I hear people on the sidelines watching the practices say
“Let’s go, Big Green. Let’s go, Big Green.” And I actually thought they
were cheering me on until somebody said to me “Hey, schmegeggy, that’s
the name of the team.” I was quite deflated. [laughter]
12
MR. BAUMAN: I was just wondering to what extent Judaism — by feeling Jewish,
whatever — was it an important or not important part of your life at various
points in your education?
MR. GREEN: Well I certainly was conscious of my Jewish identity and heritage. We
belonged to a synagogue, I went to Sunday school, but we weren’t
extraordinarily observant beyond that.
MR. BAUMAN: Were you bar mitzvahed?
MR. GREEN: No, because at that point in time in my life we had a rabbi at Temple Israel
who was committed to confirmation rather than bar mitzvah. He was a
notable rabbi and I think he was attempting something different for a few
years and so I was confirmed. I kind of regret that. I’ve actually thought
about going through that ceremony as an adult, but I haven’t done it yet.
I never felt the sting of antisemitism other than a couple of early
incidents when I went to Blake, but after that they all just kind of
evaporated. In college I never felt the sting of antisemitism. Actually, I’ve
never felt the sting of antisemitism today. Now maybe people would say
that’s because you’re floating too much in the ether and not engaged in
Jewish life enough. I don’t think that’s the case. I’ve never hidden the fact
that I’m Jewish. In fact, I’m very proud of that fact and I’m very assertive.
If I hear somebody saying something that I don’t like, I’ve told them to
shut up or made it very clear that that’s offensive. I would not need more
than the fingers on two hands to count those incidents.
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So I played freshman football and actually went back the second
year as a sophomore for the varsity team, but I quit halfway through. I
just wasn’t of the caliber, and I ended up going into broadcasting at the
local radio station in the college. I ended up doing all the play-by-play for
the radio station. I still have those tapes and they’re fun to listen to. I
traveled to Yale and Penn, Philadelphia and Cornell and everywhere and I
broadcast the games back to Dartmouth. I actually thought about being in
the radio business, but I’m kind of getting ahead of myself.
MR. BAUMAN: It doesn’t have to be linear or chronological.
MR. GREEN: The Korean War ended in 1953 and the draft was still alive and strong. I
made the decision that if l was going to get pulled into the army or into the
military, I’d rather go as an officer.
MR. BAUMAN: And this is when now?
MR. GREEN: At Dartmouth in my freshman year, 1958, 59. So I signed up for Army
ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] and I participated in ROTC.
That was a time when you were not stigmatized for being in ROTC. And
ROTC gave me some spending money. Also I delivered laundry in the
dormitories for some more spending money, because while my parents
were supporting me essentially in college, they said you need to find a
way to make some money yourself. And I worked every summer as well.
I worked construction every summer. My dad knew some guys in the
construction industry and I worked every summer as a construction helper
14
for pretty good pay and that was my spending money in college. Wasn’t a
lot to spend money on in those days. And then I rushed for a fraternity.
A lot of the football players that I was bosom-buddies with were in
the Beta Theta Pi house, which is kind of the jock house and they rushed
me very hard. There were no Jewish guys in that house. There were two
Jewish fraternities at Dartmouth, one of them more prominent than the
other and they really pushed on me to go there. I was torn; I really was
torn. I don’t know that I made the right decision even today, but I opted to
join Pi Lam, which was a Jewish fraternity. Made great friends there, but
spent probably as much time in the Beta house and all the other fraternity
houses as I did at my own fraternity house.
MR. BAUMAN: Was Dartmouth very much a frat school?
MR. GREEN: Yes. Then and probably still today, believe it or not. Very much a frat
school. Very much. The entire social life revolved around fraternities,
and some of that social life got pretty crazy. Animal House, the movie, is,
they say, written and based on fraternity life at one of the fraternity houses
at Dartmouth, and believe me, that movie wasn’t far off.
MR. BAUMAN: What was it like going to — having gone to Yale myself from a co-ed
school in New York — what was it like, what was your social life like?
[Dartmouth and Yale were then all-male schools.]
MR. GREEN: Social life was, you either brought a date, a date came up for the weekend
at Dartmouth, or you took the famous road trip. The stories are legion
about Dartmouth road trips to Smith and Holyoke and Radcliffe and
15
Vassar and Skidmore and you name it. We were on the road almost every
weekend, running down to these girls schools.
Some of those episodes were extraordinarily colorful and a lot of
crazy stuff went on. And often it seemed like all of Vermont and New
Hampshire was engulfed in fog at night and we would be groping our way
back to Dartmouth at the end of the weekend, hung over and driving in the
heaviest fog you can imagine, straddling the little white or yellow line in
the middle of the road. We tried to find our way back and avoid any
oncoming cars — these were all two-lane roads — but anyway, those are
lots of funny stories. And so I had a great time in college.
I had great courses, I studied hard and I did well, at least well
enough. I remember taking a course in philosophy as a freshman and I
found it very difficult to grasp the approach and the analysis, etc., and I
got a D on a final exam. D. First D I had ever had in my entire life from
age two. I probably could have used some therapy at that point I was in
such shock that I got a D, but it inspired me to rededicate myself and that
was the last D I ever got certainly, and I graduated with honors in my
major.
Dartmouth had senior societies, but not like Yale did. Dartmouth
had three senior societies and you get tapped for the senior society in your
junior year. One day I’m just sitting there and minding my own business
and about three or four guys come up to me and they say — I don’t
remember exactly what they said — but they said we’ve elected you to
16
Casque and Gauntlet, can you come with us right now. Now, it had never
crossed my mind in a million years that this would happen to me. First of
all, that particular senior society was filled with the biggest hotshots on
campus and I just never would ever conceive that I would be among that
group.
MR. BAUMAN: Were you a hotshot on campus and just didn’t know it?
MR. GREEN: No, I would never say I was a hotshot, no. You can ask others that. I
don’t know; I’m not a hotshot. So I was quite taken aback, but I went.
MR. BAUMAN: Did you know what these senior societies were all about?
MR. GREEN: Well, I knew what that one was about. There was another one called
Sphinx that was of different character, but “the” senior society was Casque
and Gauntlet. So I went and I was taken through the ritual and anointed
and actually elected as one of the officers, and I lived there my senior
year. Some of these guys were guys that had I bonded with during
freshman football, not a lot, but a few. That’s another group that you get
really tight with, because there’s only about 20 of you or 25 of you living
in this house. It’s almost like a fraternity house, but it’s situated right there
at the campus, right on Main Street. It’s an incredible building, right there.
So that was quite a thrill for me to be a member of that society and to meet
those guys and become close friends with them.
Two other things happened. I was commissioned as a second
lieutenant in the army. Dartmouth had a tradition, being the macho place
that it was, that when you went to select your choices for the branch you
17
wanted to serve in — you got three choices — you’d submit them to the
army and the army tells you which of the three or tries to accommodate
one of your three choices. But the three choices at Dartmouth according
to tradition were the three combat arms. That’s what you put down:
armor, infantry and artillery.
MR. BAUMAN: Whether you like it or not?
MR. GREEN: Like it or not. I was gung-ho so they were okay. All right, that’s what I’ll
put in for. And I expected I would get the infantry because most guys get
the infantry, but instead I was commissioned in the artillery.
MR. BAUMAN: Do you know why?
MR. GREEN: No, no idea. Then I was selected by my classmates to give one of the
addresses at graduation. There’s the valedictorian’s address, which was
not for me because I clearly wasn’t the valedictorian, and then there’s a
couple of other addresses, and then there was something called the
Sachem Oration, which is the humorous oration. Dartmouth was founded
as an Indian school initially for the Sachem Indians. Hence we were
known as the Dartmouth Indians until we got rid of the Indian. But at this
time, the Indian was still the symbol and the guy who gives the Sachem
Oration is required to dress up as an Indian and come to the bema, which
is an area in the woods where everybody gathers for this particular talk.
MR. BAUMAN: The bema like in a synagogue bimah?
MR. GREEN: No, no, it’s a big area, it’s called the bema. And you come in riding a
donkey. That’s the tradition. You’re dressed up as an Indian and you’re
18
riding a donkey and you come into this large open area where all the
graduates and their family are all surrounding. . .
MR. BAUMAN: Is there a resident donkey on the campus that you got? Where did you get
the donkey from?
MR. GREEN: Oh they had a donkey. I didn’t have to worry about getting the donkey.
So I worked on that address and I remember it vividly, being led into the
bema. As I slid off the donkey I grabbed the reins. I had the reins in my
hand and I walked over to a young woman who was standing right there
and I reached out to give her the reins and said, “Would you mind
grabbing my ass?” That was the initial line. It wasn’t a particularly racy
speech from thereon, but it was, I hope, funny.
MR. BAUMAN: It was a good opening line.
MR. GREEN: It got a lot of laughs, and the next day in the college newspaper there was
a big picture of me on the donkey and my speech was on the front page. I
have a copy of that given to me by an old girlfriend who kept it and gave it
to me many years later. [The address is posted on the D.C. Court
Historical Society website as part of this oral history.]
As the end of college was approaching, I had to decide what to do.
I honestly had no notion of what I wanted to do. None. So as college
wound down, I had to think about what else I wanted to do or where I was
going, and I had absolutely no idea. None.
MR. BAUMAN: What had you majored in?
19
MR. GREEN: Economics. And I kind of ran through the various alternatives, discarding
each one in succession.
MR. BAUMAN: Did you have to go into the army after college?
MR. GREEN: No. I mean, I did but I didn’t. I’ll tell you about that in a second. I
thought about being a doctor, but I couldn’t stand the sight of blood. I
thought about being an engineer but I wasn’t very good in math. So I went
through everything like that and rejected it. And then a couple of my
friends said they were applying to law school. I think I had heard
somewhere along the way that a legal education was a good education;
you could use it in a lot of different things. So honestly, almost for lack of
anything else to do, I applied to law school. I applied to very good law
schools, and I was admitted to both Harvard and Yale. Yale’s admission
letter came before Harvard’s. It seemed to me like I had applied on
Monday and it came on Tuesday. Obviously it wasn’t that way, but it was
very fast. Harvard’s wasn’t far behind and I decided that I’d like to go to
Yale Law School. I think my parents were excited. I was excited. I think
my dad was excited. And the decision to go to Yale Law School was
basically predicated on the fact that Harvard had put me on the wait list for
undergraduate, so I was getting back at them. You know, I was going to
show them.
MR. BAUMAN: I was wondering whether that was going to come back.
MR. GREEN: I was going to show Harvard. This is what you did to me, now I’m going
to go to Yale. So I went to Yale. Then I had to write the army and ask
20
them if I could defer my service to go to law school. They wrote me back
and said fine, just don’t forget you’re in the army, and I said okay. And I
went to law school, and again, the Yale Law School is a pretty small law
school compared to a lot of law schools and so I made some really
extraordinary friends there.
MR. BAUMAN: Tom, I went to the Yale Law School. I was graduating when you started.
TOM GREEN: There were very few women in my class, probably in yours too. Like only
about eight or nine out of the 160 of us, or something. I was intimidated at
the Yale Law School for three straight years, by the ability of my
classmates and the analysis and the insight and the things they brought to
the discussion in the classroom. I was just kind of in awe every day and
essentially hid out in the back somewhere. But I had some confederates
who hid out with me. And there are a few stories that survived law
school.
MR. BAUMAN: Were you intimidated by the faculty at all?
MR. GREEN: Sure. Yes, but I got through it. In my first year, everybody used to take
what they called Tax 1 from Boris Bittker, who was a very famous tax
professor. But my freshman year he was not there; he was off doing
something. So everybody waited to take Tax 1. When Bittker came back
the next year his class had lots of the second-year guys and lots of firstyear guys. The class was so large that it had to be held in the Yale Law
School auditorium. There was a seating chart in there so that Bittker
could work off the seating chart. I was like in the second to the last row,
21
about five seats in from the end with my usual group of hideouts and lo
and behold, we’re — I don’t know how far into the class we were — but
Bittker asked a question and he looks over the seating chart and he lands
on my row. So he starts down the row. “Mr. Jones”, and he yells out “Not
prepared, sir.” “Mr. Smith”, “Not prepared, sir.” “Mr. Berman”, “Not
prepared, sir.” Mr. So-and-So, “Not prepared, sir.” “Mr. Green”. I
thought, damnit, I can take this guy on, so I said “Yes, sir,” and I stood up,
and he said, “Recite the facts of Bloomfield v. Smithfield (or whatever it
was),” and I recite them. And then he asks a question and I proceed to
give an answer. And silence then falls on the entire auditorium as Bittker
appears awestruck by the answer. And he suddenly spins around. He has
the eraser in his hand, he throws the eraser to the blackboard and says
“Class dismissed. This time would be better spent obviously in a library
by you gentlemen.” And with that a great roar went up and I was carried
out of the auditorium almost on the shoulders of my classmates and
thereafter known as the man who brought Boris Bittker to tears. I thought
my answer was great. To this day, I don’t know what was wrong with the
answer. And Boris Bittker never told me. But he never called on me
again either, which was all right with me.
When in law school I was kind of on cruise control, getting by –
not marginally getting by, but not distinguishing myself at all — and I
heard about a thing called the Barristers Union and I heard about the Moot
Court Competition and I thought okay, I’ll try that. That seemed to
22
interest me, kind of instinctively, so I entered the Moot Court
Competition. You had to write a brief and all that, but then you had to
stand up and argue as part of the competition. I had a partner and we kept
winning our rounds and I felt very comfortable on my feet. I felt very
comfortable arguing and ultimately made it to the finals of the Yale Moot
Court Competition. That’s a big event where you argue publicly in front
of the whole school and they bring in distinguished judges to hear the
argument. I know Justice White — Whizzer White — was one of the
judges and I think Justice Potter Stewart was there, and then some other
judge. It was quite a big deal. Of course I was scared to death. And I did
not win. I didn’t faint either from fright, so that’s the other big
achievement. But I think I did pretty well.
MR. BAUMAN: And this is your third year now.
MR. GREEN: Yes, I think this must be my third year. I want to go back and say one
thing about Dartmouth that I remember. At Dartmouth I think I
mentioned that I ended up doing the play-by-play for football and I ended
up doing hockey play-by-play. I had grown up playing hockey all my life.
I knew the sport and I ended up doing the play-by-play hockey. I got
contacted right around graduation time from a radio station in Boston.
MR. BAUMAN: You’re talking your Dartmouth graduation?
MR. GREEN: My Dartmouth graduation, and they wanted to hire me to come to Boston
and broadcast play-by-play hockey at some high school league. I was
23
tempted, because the interesting thing is, if I have any other talent, it’s in
that area, believe it or not, as a sports broadcaster.
MR. BAUMAN: If you spent your entire career arguing and being verbal on your feet, why
wouldn’t I believe that?
MR. GREEN: Well anyway I gave it a great deal of thought. I didn’t know where that
career path would take me and so forth and so I turned it down and said I
think I’m going to go to law school. I’ve thought about that. I’ve thought
about that a hundred times, a thousand times, in my life. What my life
would have been had I opted to go down that road. And I’m confident —
without any real reason to be confident — but I’m confident I would have
succeeded and I would have advanced. How far I would have advanced I
don’t know. Would I be the Bob Costas [famous sports announcer] of
those days? I don’t know. But I gave it serious thought.
MR. BAUMAN: Do you have any regrets now?
MR. GREEN: No, I wouldn’t call it regrets. That’s probably too strong a word, but I
certainly have devoted some energy to speculating what life would have
been like had I done that. Anyway, that’s just kind of an aside.
MR. BAUMAN: Have you ever formed a little bit of what you think it might have been
like?
MR. GREEN: Well, yeah, I have, of course, but I have no way of knowing. It’s a
drawing I can’t complete, if you know what I mean.
I did not win the Moot Court Competition, but I liked being on my
feet. And I did well in the Barristers’ Union, getting the case prepared for
24
trial, and I began to think that for me this was stimulating and it was
entertaining. And for that reason, it was somewhat different than law
school. I began to think that this may be something I ought to explore,
this is something I ought to think about doing, being on my feet, being a
trial lawyer.
MR. BAUMAN: Did you find it intellectually challenging, or –
MR. GREEN: Oh, yeah, sure.
MR. BAUMAN: — was it a different kind of skill set that you’d have to –
MR. GREEN: Well, it’s a different kind of skill set but yes, 1 found it very challenging.
But I go back to that word stimulating. It was an exciting challenge.
So then I went home to Minnesota to take the bar exam and while
I’m studying for the bar exam, in the summer of 1965, I get the proverbial
telegram from the United States Army saying it’s now time to serve your
time in the military. I was obligated for two years. I had been promoted
while at law school, so I was now a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army
Artillery. And I was ordered that as soon as I can get there following my
bar exam to travel to Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma to attend Artillery
Officer Basic Training.
MR BAUMAN: Had you ever fired a gun in your life at that point?
MR. GREEN: Sure. As a kid I had been hunting. I had been at a camp as a youngster
where we fired 22s and rifles and that. I had fired a gun. So I finished the
bar and without knowing the results, I got in my car. Another little sad
story is that I had saved up my money while in law school, and with some
25
help from my parents I had bought a Corvette, a 1962 Corvette. All black.
Black interior, black car. It was the sweetest little car a man could ever
have. Loved that car, but decided to leave it at home. I don’t know how I
got to Fort Sill — either a bus or something — and then I went through
artillery school and I graduated at the top of my class in artillery school,
principally because I could do all the math, even though I say I wasn’t
good in math, I could do all that math which was basically all
trigonometry. And every night I had a bunch of my mates in my room and
I was tutoring them on the math so I was kind of half instructor and half
student there.
I thought that because of where I finished in my class I’d get some
choice assignment as an artillery officer. So when they read out the
assignments, guys are going to the First Division, the Big Red One, and
the 82nd Airborne, and this and that and so forth, and they yell out my
name and they say “Lieutenant Green, you’re going to Fort Leonard Wood,
Missouri,” which is an engineer training brigade for combat engineers. I
could not fathom how I was sent there, of all places. So I got there, I
travelled up there, and I report to duty in front of a colonel by the name of
Colonel Rhodes; they called him Dusty Rhodes. And I remember coming
to attention and saying “Reporting for duty, sir,” and he looked at me and
said something like “What the hell is a cannon cocker doing here at this
place?” I said “I don’t know sir, I’ve got the same question.” Then he said
“Well, I’ve only got one job for you, Lieutenant, that’s just training these
26
young engineer cadets,” and he said “What you’ll do is you’ll form them
up in the morning, then you’ll march them to their various training sites,
and you’ll march them back in the afternoon and that’s what you’re going
to do.” I said “Sounds great Colonel, thanks.” So that’s what I did. I got up
at 4:00 in the morning, got cleaned up, got my uniform of the day, went
out and rousted up all these cadets, formed them up, marched them to the
mess hall, then marched them out to the field from training site A to
training site B to training site C and back in the afternoon. I was done at
like 2:00 or 2:30 every day. I went over to the Officers’ Club where all the
other young lieutenants were — another group of guys that you bond with.
We’d drink beer and tell stories and eat dinner at the Officers’ Club
because it was like 10¢ or whatever, it was nothing, and go back and be in
bed by 8:00 p.m. or 8:30, to get up again at 4:00 in the morning.
MR. BAUMAN: And you were in for a two-year tour?
MR. GREEN: Yeah. Eight or nine months of that routine and I’m sleeping one night in
my room in the Bachelors Officers Quarters and it’s the middle of the
night, pound, pound, pound, pound on my door, “Lieutenant Green,
Lieutenant Green! Wake up, wake up!” And of course it was an anxious
moment. I went to the door and the young corporal or private said “You
need to come to headquarters right away. There’s a telephone call for
you.” I thought something had happened to my family. I thought there
had been some tragedy and so I got up and got dressed and went up there
with great trepidation. I got there and got on the phone. I heard this guy
27
say “Lieutenant, this is Major So-and-So, and I’m in JAG Corps
Operations in the Pentagon.” I was like “Okay.”
MR. BAUMAN: About 3:00 in the morning?
MR. GREEN: It’s now about 3:00 in the morning. He said “We were going through the
files and we see that you’re a lawyer and that you graduated from Yale.”
“Yes, sir.” “We want you in the JAG Corps.” I said “Major, I don’t want
to be in the JAG Corps.” He said “Lieutenant, give me five years, we’ll
send you anywhere you want to go in the world.” I said “I don’t want to be
in the JAG Corps Major.” He said “Give me four years.” I said “I don’t
want to be in the JAG Corps.” “Give me three years.” “I don’t want to be
in the JAG Corps.” He said “Well, you know where guys like you are
going?” And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I said “Well,
I don’t know, yeah, I guess so, whatever.” He said “Okay, goodnight.” And
ten days later I was on orders to the 1st Air Calvary Division in Vietnam.
And I’m sure he just walked down the hall, threw my file in and said,
“Here Louis, here’s another one. Take him.” And so I had to report in 30
days or something like that up in Los Angeles or the West Coast to be
flown to Vietnam.
I had some leave coming and so I took that. I went back to
Minneapolis, and because I was going to Vietnam, I had no idea what was
going to happen to me. I sold my Corvette, which is one of the saddest
days of my life. Oh, what l would give for that car right now, to still have
28
that car. I sold my Corvette. That was a little morose, I think, on my part.
I should have been a bit more optimistic.
MR. BAUMAN: As a side bar, are you a car person?
MR. GREEN: Not to the extent a car person is a car person, but I’m a semi car person. I
like historical cars and pickup trucks, that kind of thing. My mother was
hysterical that I was going to Vietnam.
MR. BAUMAN: I dare say.
MR. GREEN: My dad was stoic and I was accepting. So I went to the west coast.
MR. BAUMAN: So you didn’t try to get out of going to Vietnam once the reality was there?
MR. GREEN: No. I think I was in my Hemingway period. A short Hemingway period.
So that’s what happened. I went to the West Coast and then was sent over
in an Air Force troop carrier, strapped in canvas seats for a long haul to the
Philippines and then a jump to Vietnam. And we could stop there if you
want.
29
ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Jeffrey D. Bauman and the
interviewee is Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place at Mr. Green’s office at Sidley
Austin LLP in Washington, DC in 2019. This is the second interview. [Updated 1/2025]
MR. GREEN: I served in Vietnam as an artillery officer, and my tour of duty was a little
bit over a year. It was a combat assignment. We were on hilltops
shooting fire missions for the army and the marines. And when I came
back, I experienced what all of us were experiencing, which was not a
very charitable or hospitable environment with respect to Vietnam
veterans or returning soldiers. It really was much more of a hostile
environment and contrasted with today where there’s kind of widespread
veneration and adoration for the troops, so that’s how it’s kind of stuck in
my mind a little bit.
MR. BAUMAN: How did that play out?
MR. GREEN: You just had to ignore it. Your close personal friends and colleagues of
course were not displaying that kind of behavior. But for the most part,
unless somebody knew, once you were out of uniform and back into
civilian clothes, it was hard to tell whether you were a returning soldier or
not. But sometimes you would be in a situation, social situation, where it
somehow would become known that you had served and there would be
people around and some were very uncomplimentary, not only of the war,
which I can understand, but in a much more personal sense. But I was
able largely to brush it off. It didn’t impinge on my life. It was a
30
disappointment that people felt that way I think, but it wasn’t inhibiting
my existence.
MR. BAUMAN: Where did you come back to?
MR. GREEN: I flew back to Fort Lewis in the state of Washington. I had suffered an
incident in Vietnam where I was standing next to a huge 175-millimeter
gun and a fire mission was called in. I was daydreaming or something and
I forgot to put my earplugs in or to stick my fingers in my ear, and the gun
went off. I was right next to it and I couldn’t hear anything for the next
three days. Finally my hearing started to come back but I have a
substantial hearing deficit in my right ear from that incident, even today.
When I came back, I was examined and they told me that I should
wait for the audiologist, the doctor or technician, because I qualified for
disability because I was having trouble hearing. But I was so anxious to
get home that I signed all the papers and left the service. Because of the
fact that I was in combat for the entire 12 months that I was there, I was
relieved from having to serve in the reserves. I was just mustered out
completely. I came home and I married, in very short order, a woman
who I had been dating for a while before I left for Vietnam.
MR. BAUMAN: From Minnesota?
MR GREEN: From Minnesota. And we moved to Washington together as I began to
look for a job. That marriage floundered. I think in part it was because in
the year that I had been away, actually more than a year — what with the
training and that, actually it was kind of two years — we had become
31
different people. But we lived together for about four years and we had
two children. Wonderful children, a boy and a girl. My son is named
Joshua; my daughter is named Marisa. We separated when those children
were very, very young. We were ultimately divorced a few years later.
But I worked very hard to be a father and to be present in my children’s
lives, and I think, knock on wood, was pretty successful at that.
I ultimately remarried. I’ve now been married almost 46 years to a
wonderful woman by the name of Pam, Pamela Green. She obviously was
introduced to my children at a very young age, and my children grew up
with her, essentially, as their second mother. And one blessing in my life
is that all four children grew up believing that they were literally blood
brothers and sisters. They’re incredibly close, they consider themselves
and with Pam one single family, so that’s been a very fortunate and
wonderful aspect of my life. Now they’re all adults, all are married, and I
now have seven grandchildren and that’s been a very happy and significant
part of my life. The other blessing in my life was meeting Pam. I would be
lost without her love and support and guidance. She is the most wonderful
wife and partner whom I dearly love and an incredibly accomplished
person. I am an imperfect person at times, and I am grateful that Pam, with
her wisdom and insight, has always been there to guide me back to the
better path.
MR. BAUMAN: What do your children do?
32
MR. GREEN: The oldest one, Joshua, is a Harvard Business School graduate. He has
been active in green energy, alternative energy and related financial
services. He has now created a company called Inspiration Mobility
Group, which is in the business of providing and financing fleets of EV
vehicles to large business clients. And then his sister Marisa lives in
Boulder, Colorado with her husband and daughter. After she graduated
from college she had a number of jobs and married when she was about
40, and then they worked on having a child, and they have a beautiful
daughter named Violet. She’s now concentrating on raising Violet, but
also working part-time. Her husband Patrick is what I would call a
software engineer. He is working on a new venture for a trade association
doing all their IT stuff. It’s all a mystery to me. Her younger brother David
went to Wharton Business School. At present he lives in California and is
the CEO of Earnest which is in the business of making and refinancing
student loans and related endeavors. His younger brother Michael, who
lives in the D.C. area, is a graduate of Northwestern Business School and a
Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is very active in their forensic
and governance operations. He was posted in Japan for two years to help
run those components out of the Japanese office.
Before we get too far, I want to mention that I have three
wonderful daughters-in-law, Natalie, Caroline and Kristin, who are all
very accomplished with their own careers. I love all of them very much, to
33
include, of course, my seven grandchildren — Violet, Ajax, Bear, Julian,
Wesley, Axel and Noah. Lots of boys in this family!
MR. BAUMAN: Did any of your children think about becoming lawyers?
MR. GREEN: I don’t think so, and I think I kind of discouraged them, but not in an
active way; I certainly wouldn’t do that. I think they came to the
conclusion that their father was working very hard, a lot of long hours,
was often on the road away traveling on cases, trying cases around the
country. And I think they concluded that that was not exactly what they
wanted to emulate. And just as well. I’m very content that none of them
are lawyers. I have no vested interest in their becoming lawyers. I think
the profession has changed dramatically over the decades that I’ve been
practicing. I think there’s going to be even greater changes. I personally
think it’s a much more difficult profession today than the profession I
entered back in 1967. I think they’ve all made prudent decisions in doing
what they’re doing.
MR. BAUMAN: Let me stay with that for just a second, because, as you know, I graduated
from law school a few years before that, but it was the same kind of
profession. Did you have any idea of what the profession would be like?
MR. GREEN: No.
MR. BAUMAN: What were your ideas when you started?
MR. GREEN: I really was a babe in the woods. As I attempted to explain during the last
session, I became a lawyer almost by serendipity. I was interested in
being on my feet, I found that to be challenging and stimulating, and was
34
kind of drawn to this profession because of a lack of a fascination with
anything else. So I didn’t know. I had a law degree; I had passed the
Minnesota Bar. I now had to come and get a job. I could not have, at that
moment in time, described for you any vision of what it would look like. I
came to Washington in search of a job. I had no leads; I had nothing. I
just came here and said I’m going to try and find a job.
So just to kind of complete the cycle of my extra-curricular
activities, if you will, I had always participated in athletics. And one of
the things that I liked to do when I was a much younger man is that Pam
and I took a number of bicycle trips in Europe, and I found that
extraordinarily enjoyable. I also maintained my latent interest in radio
work and broadcasting that I had mentioned before, and that has
manifested itself, or risen its head here, later in life, because I have
become an amateur radio operator, a ham radio operator. I have sat for all
three exams, so I’m now at the top level of amateur radio, and I have a
ham station down at my house in the country, and when I’m down there,
on the weekends, I’m on the radio. Not all the time, but maybe a few
hours every weekend I’m on the radio, making contacts with fellow hams
around the world.
MR. BAUMAN: What do you talk about in these sessions? What’s it like to be a ham radio
operator?
MR. GREEN: There’s two facets. Some hams like to make conversation. You talk about
your equipment; you talk about your antennas; you talk about your
35
families; you talk about the weather; you can talk about anything. What
you did that day. But there’s a great segment of the amateur radio
community that is simply devoted to logging contacts, to see how many
people they can talk to and find in the various comers of the world, and to
confirm that their signal got through and that they made contact. So those
conversations are often very short. It’s just to acknowledge each other, get
a little bit of data about each other and what equipment they’re using, etc.
It goes into the logbooks, and then they’re on to the next contact.
MR. BAUMAN: So what is it that gives you the most satisfaction?
MR. GREEN: Well I like to talk a little bit. But you have to find a soulmate to do that
because not all ham operators are interested in that.
MR. BAUMAN: Do you find that the hams that you’re talking to – that you’re talking about
your work at all, or is this just a way of getting away from your work life?
MR. GREEN: It’s more or less getting away from working. I really don’t talk about my
work. I don’t think it would be appropriate in most cases to talk about it.
So it’s just friendly conversation, but at the same time, trying to reach out
and talk to someone, let’s say in Italy, or in Argentina; it’s not the guy
next door. There’s an art and science to propagation of radio waves —
when the bands open up, when the troposphere or when the atmosphere
opens and so forth. There’s more than a little science to it as well. So it’s
kind of a fascinating hobby. I do a lot of sailing; I’ve always been a sailor.
MR. BAUMAN: Where is your country house?
36
MR. GREEN: It’s down on the Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, in a small town by
the name of Neavitt.
MR. BAUMAN: And how often do you go there?
MR. GREEN: We go there almost every chance we can. Not so much in the winter now.
We used to go in the winter a lot too but not now. So those have been my
principal hobbies. For a while I had a motorcycle and I rode my
motorcycle around. I don’t do that as much anymore.
MR. BAUMAN: You sail?
MR. GREEN: I sail as often as possible if I can find someone who wants to go.
MR. BAUMAN: You have a boat?
MR. GREEN: I have a sailboat. But I’m a fair-weather sailor. I have no desire to go out
and prove that I can survive in a gale. I prefer fair wind and sunshine.
So those are my principal hobbies, and of course I spend a lot of
time with my kids. We have to travel to see some of our grandchildren.
We’re into that. Also I’m pretty good at fixing things. I can do plumbing.
I can do a little electrical work. I can do a little carpentry, so I enjoy that.
MR. BAUMAN: How did you develop those skills?
MR. GREEN: I don’t know. It just kind of intrigued me. There are a lot of things that I
look at and I want to learn. For a while I was into astronomy, and so I
studied astronomy. I have a telescope, but I don’t have a big telescope. I
vacillate on whether I need to go out and buy a really big telescope. So
something not too complicated goes wrong in the house, I figure I can
learn how to fix this. That kind of approach has served me well.
37
I grew up loving classical music because I had cousin who was an
executive at Deutsche Grammophon, and every time they did a new
classical LP, he would send me a copy. I was 10-12 years old, started
listening to this music and it is what I came to know and love. I’ve always
been a fan of classical music, and if I were ever to come back, to be reborn
in another life, I would like to be a conductor, a maestro conductor of a
symphony orchestra. I’m now on the board of the National Symphony
here in Washington. I love the music so much I decided I wanted to learn
how to read the conductor’s score. I could sit in the auditorium, if you
would, or the concert hall, and if they were playing Beethoven’s Seventh
Symphony, I could have the score and I could actually follow it as the
orchestra is playing it. So I took music lessons from a wonderful teacher,
who tried to teach how to read those scores. The conductor score is, as
you probably know, much more complicated than the score each musician
just looks at for his or her instrument. The conductor is looking at all of
them. I can now follow a score that is not too complicated, but there are
many where I would be lost pretty fast.
MR. BAUMAN: How were you able to integrate all of that into, to put it mildly, an active
practice?
MR. GREEN: Well the practice did slow down as I arrived in my late 70s. But I just
somehow was able to make, find the time, find the opportunities, and then
schedule it in and try to stick to it. Sometimes you can’t. I think one of
the things that’s been most problematic about my career, and what I’ve
38
done through my life, is that I have no schedule. By that I mean it is
subject to change at a moment’s notice, and it does change, all the time.
Used to drive my wife nuts. I have to go here on this day, and then the
judge changes it to this day, or this meeting gets moved. Everything gets
moved — everything, every day, all day long, every week. That’s probably
the most exasperating part of what I did. I try as best I can to carve out the
time that I want and need for myself, and to see if I can preserve that on
my calendar. It’s not always successful but that’s what I tried to do.
MR. BAUMAN: In addition to the National Symphony board, are there any other pro bono
activities that you are involved in?
MR. GREEN: The biggest pro bono activity that I’m involved in is that I am the president
of the International Anti-Corruption Resource Center. This is kind of
getting ahead of things, but about 25 years ago, I was asked by the general
counsel of the World Bank to come on over and talk with him. I had no
idea what he wanted to talk about. When I got there, he explained that the
Bank was trying to get serious about anti-corruption with respect to their
lending program, and wanted to know if I would come help them develop
the architecture for an anti-corruption office, if you will. So for the next
couple years, I and my colleagues at Sidley Austin put together all of the
procedures, rules and regulations and set up the protocols for the sanctions
board and this and that. Then I conducted many of the initial
investigations around the world into fraud in connection with World Bank
loans.
39
Eventually all of that was moved in-house, which was very
appropriate, rather than being outsourced. Thereafter, for a number of
years I continued to be an adviser to the World Bank and its anticorruption efforts. I’ve been over there many times to give instruction to
their investigators about how to investigate and a number of other
assignments over there. In addition, I secured for Sidley a mandate where
Sidley represents the World Bank in every case where the Bank’s
immunity is challenged, which is not what I did, but my partners did that.
So I got very involved in this anti-corruption activity and got to know a
number of people over there very, very well and we would often talk.
The principal problem at the Bank, and it’s no secret, is that the
Bank has about 110 or I don’t know the number now, constituent
members, and the Bank was always reluctant to go after the public
officials who were in office in those countries that were members of the
Bank. They would go after the companies that were doing the bribing,
i.e., the vendors, the architects, the engineering firms, etc. But of course
the real problem is not so much from the vendors offering bribes; it’s the
public officials in these countries that demand the bribes. And nobody was
working the demand side of this corruption equation so we would talk
about that. We decided that we would form an organization that would be
dedicated to training indigenous law enforcement personnel in countries
around the world in how to detect and investigate and prosecute
corruption, principally in connection with large procurement projects
40
because that’s where the big bribes are paid, but with a further emphasis
on training those elements to pursue the public officials in their own
countries who are demanding the bribes. We as an organization are less
active today for a variety of reasons, but in our heyday we would go
around the world and train law enforcement.
MR. BAUMAN: How successful has it been?
MR. GREEN: Everybody asks how successful it has been. And what is the benchmark
that you use for that? That’s the $64,000 question. If you say how many
public officials have been convicted and imprisoned as a result of your
training, I would say we’re going to have a low success number. If you
look at how many countries have changed their rules and regulations to
cover these situations, not all stimulated by us, but also by OECD and the
United Nations, and so forth – if you look at the number of individuals
trained around the world — you could get a pretty high number on the
success index. The point is that you can’t even begin to put a dent into
this problem if the indigenous enforcement personnel don’t even know
what to do. So by simply equipping them, and I know just from my
interaction with these law enforcement units around the world that as they
get better trained, as they enhance their capabilities, the prospects for
doing what we want them to do is greatly increased. So I come away from
what we’re doing gratified.
MR. BAUMAN: What is difficult to measure, of course, is the deterrent effect — what’s not
happening because of the training that you’re giving them.
41
MR. GREEN: You’re absolutely right. There’s been profound advances in the
technology, both in processing bids and in pursuing wrongdoing. Once
you can impose a kind of computer analysis on bids that are submitted
electronically, it’s much easier to detect wrongful manipulation and fraud.
So there is a deterrent effect out there gradually building.
MR. BAUMAN: Are the countries themselves more sensitive as to who becomes the public
official, so that you get fewer bribes?
MR. GREEN: I don’t know; that’s a hard question. I think it’s hard to generalize. Yes in
some countries, but in lots of areas, no. There are still some pretty crude
attempts to put their hand in the till.
MR. BAUMAN: How much time did you spend on this organization? Roughly?
MR. GREEN; It varies, but when we were active, probably a few hours a week. We had
meetings from time to time, but I am disappointed that, given all of the
other things that were on my plate, I didn’t always dedicate as much time
to this as I should.
MR. BAUMAN: What’s the difference in your mind between slowing down and retiring?
MR. GREEN: I think you have to have some continuing stimulation in life. I’ve seen too
many guys who are adversely impacted by complete retirement, where
every day is just sitting on the couch. You can’t do that. And I don’t want
to do that. I am now past being an elder statesmen at Sidley; that status
came to an end when I retired at the end of 2023. So the result is that I
will have to find other outlets to keep busy, and this is a perfect outlet. I
can increase my participation on the Symphony Board.
42
There are other things. I’m not inclined to just join organizations
for the sake of joining organizations. It has to be a situation where I can
make a contribution. So many of these things you just go to meetings and
you go home and that’s not what I want to do. But I’m confident. I’m not
concerned in the least and I have found ways to fill up my time.
MR. BAUMAN: There may not be much of a difference between public service and pro
bono, but to what extent would you think about doing public service?
MR. GREEN: I think public service has probably passed me by and I’m not sure there is
a meeting of the minds on what public service is. I think I’m probably not,
because of my age, I’m probably not an attractive candidate for a host of
things. And most of the things that I would volunteer to do, or be asked to
do, I would be perfectly content to do on a pro bono basis.
MR. BAUMAN: To what extent did you mentor younger lawyers in the firm, shaping their
career paths to include some piece of, call it pro bono or public service, or
call it what you will?
MR. GREEN: My style was to work very, very closely with the lawyers that I’m working
with. There have been a great number of young lawyers who have worked
with me for a number of years and then gone on to their own great careers,
some here in Sidley. Others have left Sidley and gone on to great careers.
I take great pride in the fact that I’ve turned more than a few of them into
pretty effective and accomplished trial lawyers. With respect to pro bono
in particular, Sidley is one of the leading pro bono firms, and demands a
pro bono commitment, so I really haven’t had to mentor anyone too much
43
in that because it’s just kind of part of life there, but all those pro bono
efforts are legal cases of one kind or another.
There was a lot of movement in the firm, between the firm and
outside opportunities, whether they be in government or other
organizations, and a lot of young people took advantage of that. For
reasons I am not fully able to explain, those opportunities did not seem to
present themselves in any stark way to me when I was younger. I was
never invited to leave my law firm, or Sidley’s law firm, and become the
general counsel of x or go here or there. And I never sought it out. I was
just too occupied by what I was doing at Sidley or earlier at my own firm.
MR. BAUMAN: That goes back to what you were saying about how the profession has
changed and what you went through as a younger lawyer. Don’t you think
it’s different now?
MR. GREEN: Yes, it is. It is different, and the whole ethic is different in the sense that I
think that the younger lawyers are looking for something different than
just 30-40 years in the same law firm. I wasn’t necessarily looking for 30
or 40 years in the same law firm either and I did not practice in the same
law firm for all that time. It wasn’t something that was presenting itself to
me as a young lawyer, and I didn’t do it, for one reason or another. Again,
when I was a young lawyer, I was in government. I was an Assistant
United States Attorney, which we haven’t talked about yet, so I was in the
Department of Justice. In those times it was thought when you leave
government you go into private practice.
44
MR. BAUMAN: Don’t you think in those days, like I did this at the FCC, I spent four years
at the FCC, that gets you automatically thinking it’s a form of public
service, and even if you go into private practice, you never lose sight of
what it has been like to be on the other side?
MR. GREEN: I think every one of us who has served in the United States Attorney’s
office and some of my closest, closest, eternal friends were there —
colleagues I met and got to know during that period of my life — I think to
a man and to a woman we would say that was probably the greatest time
we ever had, as lawyers and as colleagues. It was a profound experience.
But even those offices have changed. It’s night and day now because
when I was there, virtually no one, with just few exceptions, no one made
a career out of those opportunities. You went there, you learned your
craft, you absorbed what there was to absorb, and then at some point you
moved on to another life. Today, 50 years later, these offices are
populated by many, many individuals who are making it a career. That
has changed the dynamics of all those offices, the character of all those
offices.
MR. BAUMAN: Do you think that’s for the better or for the worse?
MR. GREEN: I think it’s for the worse. Now many would disagree with me. I think this
phenomenon probably resides in the judiciary as well or it can be seen in
the judiciary as well. I think that when we went into those jobs we were
idealistic, we had compassion, we thought of ourselves as administering
justice. No one was keeping score. You got as much credit for washing
45
out a case as you did for prosecuting the case. For us there were always
three colors in life: there was black and there was white, but there was also
grey, and there was always a lot of grey. And when things were in the
grey area, you had to really use your discretion and decide what was just,
what was right. Over the years, grey has disappeared. That’s my thesis
and I believe it emphatically. When you stay in the prosecutor s office for
years, year after year after year, you get hardened, and grey disappears.
So if you are not lily-white, then you’re black and black is evil, and we
need to take an extraordinary pound of flesh.
It would be interesting to put me on a panel and hear other voices,
but I really do believe what I’m saying. And even on the bench, judges,
when they sit on these cases year after year, for 20, 30, 40 years, whatever,
they get hardened too. Not all of them. I’m not trying to say this is a
universal phenomenon, but when I was a young guy, to become a judge
you had to be a lion of the bar. You had to be in your late ‘50s, early ’60s.
You had to have a little bit of wisdom, or a lot of wisdom. Now the
operative tactic is to put them on the bench when they’re 12 years old and
hope that they’ll be there for the next 60 years. So you get your man and
your philosophy in place and so forth. When I used to travel around the
country I encountered judges who were younger than my children. They
had very little trial experience and I think it’s deplorable. It’s completely
different from when I began this career, and I think we’ve not advanced or
helped the interests of justice through these developments.
46
MR. BAUMAN: One final question that I wanted to move into your career; do you see that
kind of mindset in your young lawyers here? Do they have the same black
and white – the lack of grey?
MR. GREEN: No, not really. It would be pretty hard to work for me if that’s the only
two colors you can see, because I work in the grey 24 hours a day.
MR. BAUMAN: I know you do. But you look at all the other associates who don’t. Or do
they?
MR. GREEN: I think that if they hang around me they kind of either pick up my
harmonics or they move on. But I think it takes some repetitive exposure
to these kinds of cases that slowly works a transformation. I don’t think
any of these guys go on the bench on Monday and by Thursday they’re
just looking to find trouble.
Over the years it been very fashionable for members of Congress
or people running for Congress to be perceived as tough on crime. Well
how do you get tough on crime? You get tough on crime by making more
things criminal, and more significantly, by ratcheting up the sentences for
the existing offenses. So what used to be a five-year offence is now a 20-
year offense. That’s how you get tough on crime. And that’s had a
debilitating impact too. I think a horrible impact. We’ve got too many
people in jail for too long a time. The obvious example of that is the
minor drug offenses, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed the
previous Attorney General’s posture with respect to low-level drug
offenses. Sessions wanted to lock everybody up and throw the key away.
47
So there’s been a lot of changes, and many of them not for the good in my
view.
The world is substantially more complex than it was in the 1960s
when I began my legal career. Today there are really countless
opportunities for young lawyers that were unforeseen. There’s the ability
to move in and out of the private law firm in a much easier and, in many
respects, significant way than was available to us when we were young
lawyers. And I think that many of the young lawyers today do see
themselves as capable of just following the next opportunity; the loyalty to
the firm qua firm is not what it used to be.
MR. BAUMAN: To what extent do you think that’s a two-way street, that the loyalty of the
firm to the young lawyers is not what it used to be?
MR. GREEN: I think firms always have a vested interest in trying to hang on to people
whom they feel are really qualified, competent, classy individuals and I
think there’s always disappointment when a number of them leave, I really
do. I know that Sidley, and I’m sure other firms, works hard at trying to
create an environment that will keep young lawyers interested and on
track to stay. But it’s a world with a lot of competing opportunities out
there and you can’t blame young lawyers. I’ll give you an example. There
was a young partner at Sidley, great lawyer, who left some years ago to go
over and be one of the counselors to the Attorney General. He thought
that that was a sufficiently unique opportunity that he should take it, and
48
he did, and sometime later he was welcomed back to the firm. So it’s a
different world. That was not the world that I grew up in.
MR. BAUMAN: Returning to your career, what happened after the army?
MR. GREEN: When I got back to Minnesota I got married, almost right away. I always
thought I was going to end up in Minnesota. I liked Minnesota.
Minnesota was a wonderful place to grow up, as we’ve talked about, and I
had tons of friends and family and everything there, and always, always
thought I would be in Minnesota. But I wanted to try something different
to begin with, as did my wife, and so we decided that we would come to
Washington and I would look for a job. I had no idea how this was going
to happen by the way. So we came here. We didn’t have a lot of money.
We had little money so we rented an apartment. We had a roof over our
heads but I knew I had to get a job pretty quickly.
MR. BAUMAN: And two small children?
MR. GREEN: No children at the time; our children were born in Washington. So we
came here. I had known a couple of guys that I had met along the way in
college, that lived in D.C., so I kind of reacquainted myself with them.
And in light of my kind of crazy vision that I wanted to be a trial lawyer, I
thought I should go down to the Department of Justice and see what’s
going on down there. I remember going to the Department of Justice —
this is now in the Fall of 1967 — it’s a long time ago, over 50 years ago.
I’m not sure how I got there, but I remember that I walked right in.
There’s was no security. Nothing. Not one drop of security. Contrast that
49
with what goes on today, it’s mindboggling. But anyway, I walked in.
I’m in a long hall filled with office doors, both directions, all closed. A
couple of signs on things that say this-and-that, but nothing that made
sense to me. And I think I stuck my head in one office and said, “Hello,
I’m here, I’d like to talk to someone about a job.” And I remember a
woman said, “Well, we don’t really have an employment office here.” So
the conversation went something like, “Well, how does one get a job at the
Justice Department?” I mean, what did I know? “How does one get a job
here?” And she said, “Well, I’m not sure, but let me call one of the
lawyers I know and see if he can say hello to you.”
This guy whom I met kind of gave me a little tour of the
Department. You could take an elevator right then to the 5th floor, get off
in front of the Attorney General’s office, walk right in, and someone
would say “Can I help you?” It was almost comical. But I talked to this
guy, and we talked for a while and he said, “Listen, I think you’re better
off talking to this guy, let me call him,” and then the second guy talked to
me, and then I think he said, “I think you should talk to this guy,” and he
calls a third guy, and I’m kind of wandering around the halls talking to
these guys. Finally, I think it was the third guy that said you really want to
be at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I didn’t even know what the U.S.
Attorney was, I don’t think. He said let me call down there and see if
somebody will see you. So he made a call, and they said go to this address
and ask for this person and they’ll talk to you.
50
I think that I told them, I’m sure I told them, that I had just come
back from Vietnam, so I was a little bit of an oddity, a rarity. First of all,
1967 was really before the massive buildup, so there weren’t that many
guys that were coming back. There weren’t that many guys that were
lawyers certainly, so it was like wow, we’ve never met a guy who has
come back from Vietnam and who is a lawyer. So I think that helped me
just a little bit, subliminally almost.
MR. BAUMAN: Did the Yale degree help you?
MR. GREEN: Yeah, I think so. So I went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and I was taken
up to meet the First Assistant U.S. Attorney.
MR. BAUMAN: Who was the First Assistant U.S. Attorney?
MR. GREEN: Alfred Hantman.
MR. BAUMAN: Who was the U.S. Attorney?
MR. GREEN: David Bress. Alfred Hantman was around 40 years old, and I was ushered
in and sat across from him. I had a great conversation with him, probably
for about a half hour. He was very nice to me, and he said we’ll think
about this, but let me see if the U.S. Attorney has a moment to talk to you,
to meet you. Again, I think it was because I was different than anyone
else there. So they said if you can just wait a while, the U.S. Attorney will
see you. I was probably waiting around, I don’t know, 15-20 minutes,
whatever, and then I was ushered in to meet David Bress, who was the
U.S. Attorney. And what was supposed to be a 10-minute interview
51
turned out to be a two-hour conversation. We talked about everything
under the sun.
It became clear in the conversation somehow that I was Jewish and
he was Jewish, and so there was a little bit of that; where did you come
from; tell me about your family; what was it like to be in Vietnam; how
did you end up in Vietnam; why do you want to be a lawyer, and so it just
went on and on and on. It was one of those totally serendipitous moments.
They’re few in life, but it was just a connection. And at the end he said to
me, “This has been wonderful, wonderful to get to know you, a wonderful
conversation. I’m sorry to tell you though that I can’t offer you a job.”
And I said, “What do you mean? Why can’t you?” And he said, “Well,
we have a policy that you have to have had a clerkship or been in private
practice for two years; that’s just a Department policy. And I understand
that you’ve had a different exposure but there’s not much I can do about it,
and I’m sorry but let’s stay in touch.” Something like that. And I don’t
know if I went crazy, but I launched into my first, and maybe most
effective closing argument ever. I told him that that was totally unfair,
that all these guys with their bad backs, and their draft deferments, and
their bad knees, they’re all dodging the draft and I’m sitting there fighting
for my country in a war, and I come back and you tell me I can’t have a
job? I’m broke, Mr. Bress, I’m broke, I need a job. I got my clerkship
next to an 8-inch howitzer. You just can’t do this to me, it’s totally unfair.
And I was ranting and raving and stopped and he just looked at me and he
52
said, “You’re absolutely right. It’s totally unfair. I’ll get this waived. You
report for work Monday morning.” And you know, you count your breaks
in life, you don’t get a million breaks in life. But thankfully, you get a few
and that was my first big break in life.
Mind you, there was no Superior Court then in the District of
Columbia. All the street crime was tried in front of federal district judges.
And because I didn’t know my right foot from my left foot, Bress decided
to send me to a section called Special Proceedings, which was run by a
guy by the name of Oscar Altshuler who was one of the most wonderful
guys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a career guy, but an enormously wellrespected and beloved guy. This small section handled 2255s and habeas
and mental health hearings and things like that. When Bress sent me
there, there were two lawyers in that office. I became the third. The two
lawyers were Earl Silbert and Judy Rogers.
MR. BAUMAN: You’re kidding me.
MR. GREEN: Judy Wilson Rogers. So of course Earl later became one of the most wellknown lawyers in the District of Columbia, the U.S. Attorney himself.
Judy Rogers ended up on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. They were
my mentors; I learned at their knee.
I’ll tell you one funny story. I had been there just a couple of days
when I met an Assistant by the name of Nick Nunzio. Nick Nunzio was
also a colorful, wonderful guy — just Mr. Personality. He went on to
become a Superior Court Judge a few years later, was a great judge,
53
passed away a number of years ago. But one day I’m standing in the hall
and he rushes up to me and he says, “Tommy, take this file up to Judge
Alexander Holtzoff’s courtroom. It’s a mental health hearing and the
defendant is going to seek to be released from St. Elizabeth’s Mental
Hospital. All you need to do is say, ‘I object.’ Government objects, that’ll
be it, they’ll send him back to the hospital.” I said, “That’s all I’ve got to
do? Really?” He said, “That’s all you’ve got to do, don’t worry about a
thing. Just take this file, go on up there. When they ask what the
government’s position is, just say ‘Government objects,’ you’ll do fine.” So
I, like a good soldier, take the file.
MR. BAUMAN: Did you know anything about Holtzoff at the time?
MR. GREEN: Knew nothing about Holtzoff at the time. And so for this record we’ll just
say that Holtzoff was a Truman appointee; he stood about five feet one
inches tall. I don’t think he was on senior status at the time, but he was
well into his career. Extraordinarily intelligent, but kind of an irascible
guy. He did not suffer fools well and when he took the bench about all
you could see was his head; he was so small and demure. He had a huge
head, I remember that. But in any event, I go up to that courtroom. I don’t
even know where to sit. Do I sit at this table or that table? The courtroom
clerk said, “No, sit over there, Mr. Green.” I’m up there before anybody;
the courtroom’s empty, and I’m staring at the files in front of me. I figure I
should probably open up this file and look at it. And I opened it and I see,
sitting on top, “Motion of defendant so-and-so to declare the Mental
54
Health Act of the District of Columbia unconstitutional.” And I’m
thinking to myself what’s that doing in here? This couldn’t be about that,
could it? So I start looking at it, it’s about 50 pages long. And now the
bodily functions are starting to percolate.
MR. BAUMAN: Did the defendant have a court-appointed lawyer?
MR. GREEN: I don’t know if he was appointed, but he had a very fine lawyer, a lawyer
by the name of Al Ahern. He probably was appointed. Al, I came to
know later, was a very well-respected lawyer. I didn’t know him at the
time, but I’m looking at this and I’m thinking, what is going on here? I
knew that if there’s a motion there should be an opposition that I could
look at real quickly. There’s no opposition in the file — nothing. And at
about that moment the courtroom fills up, the judge swooshes into the
courtroom and tells the clerk to call the case. They call the case. And
Holtzoff says to Ahern, “I’ll hear your argument Mr. Ahern.” And now
Ahern gets up and argues the unconstitutionality of the mental health
statute for about 45 minutes. I’m sitting there dying a thousand deaths.
Every word of this is true. I was terrified because I had never encountered
anything like this. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I
couldn’t escape. I was kind of like waiting for the guillotine; this is not
going to end well. And what’s going to happen to me? How’s this day
going to end? Am I going to be locked up? Embarrassed? Because this is
not going to end well.
55
Ahern gets done and the judge calls on me, “Now what’s the
government have to say?” He said something about, “I don’t see any
opposition in here, Mr. Green.” I said, “Well, Your Honor, I can’t account
for that. I’m sorry, I was just assigned this file about 15 minutes before
court convened, and I’m just not prepared to address that.” He said, “Well,
what’s the government have to say?” And for a few moments I was just
lost and he’s looking at me. There’s dead silence in the courtroom and
somehow I had the presence of mind to say to him something like this, I
don’t remember the words, but “Your Honor, I am sure that this is not the
first challenge to this Act, and knowing that it has obviously been upheld
previously, I stand on all of those points and authorities in support of
upholding the Act that have been previously considered. Thank you, sir.”
Holtzoff gave me a look like you must be one of the dumbest
Assistants they have ever hired in the office. And so what seemed like
interminable moments passed, but then he removed his glance from me
and just off the top of his head — I couldn’t tell if he had anything written
or whatever — he just said, “This matter having come before the court –”
and off he went delivering his opinion, citing this case and that case. In
the end, after five minutes of flowery speech that mesmerized me to some
degree as I’m standing there, he denies Ahern’s motion.
I can’t remember whether I went back to my chair or what, but as I
was preparing to leave and as Holtzoff pounded the gavel and said, “Court
adjourned” or whatever, he waved me up to the bench and he looked at me
56
and he said, “Mr. Green, don’t ever enter a district court again if you’re not
prepared.” I thought my career was over. I thought he would go into
chambers and call up Dave Bress and say, “You’ve sent a nincompoop up
here, you need to fire him.” So the anxiety followed me around that day,
but apparently he didn’t do that.
I saw Nunzio — I don’t know whether later that day or the next day
— told him the story, told him how ticked off I was at him. And he just
kind of laughed and we became great buddies. That story stayed with us
’til the day he died. Whenever I would give a lecture on trial practice I
told that story. The moral being just what Judge Holtzoff said to me,
“Don’t ever enter a courtroom unprepared.” So that was the propitious start
of my career as an Assistant United States Attorney.
It’s interesting because David Bress reached out to me very early
on and he would invite me to have coffee or this and that. I became a little
bit of a son to him. He had an adopted son but he became very fond of me
and in the ensuing years I was invited to his home for dinner; I was invited
to his home for the Jewish High Holidays. He, I think in all fairness, was
fond of me and I was fond of him. He was a wonderful guy. And the
result of that is that I was soon removed from Special Proceedings and
sent not even to General Sessions, I was sent right to the district court trial
team to try cases in district court.
MR. BAUMAN: Can I go back a step or two? I understand why Judge Holtzoff said what
he did, obviously, but my understanding of the U.S. Attorney’s office, not
57
just here, but everywhere, is that the young lawyers are overloaded, that
they give them files, they don’t have time to prepare, and how could you
do this? Was that not the case at the U.S. Attorney’s office?
MR. GREEN: Well in Special Proceedings, because you handled special cases, special
files, you had more time to prepare and to write oppositions and so forth.
That’s pretty much the picture of how General Sessions operated. The
guys who went to the district trial teams lived a life pretty similar to that.
So the minute I got over there I was assigned a multitude of cases,
bunches of files, and in those days many of these cases were very small in
dimension. There would be an indictment, a police officer would testify,
maybe a complaining witness. Maybe rarely a fingerprint guy or
something like that and then the defendant, and maybe if the defendant
didn’t, maybe there’s one alibi witness, his mother who said they were
home watching television. A lot of these trials were literally one-day
trials. But they were trials. You were up on your feet; you had an
opening; you had a direct examination; you had cross examination; you
had this and that and motions to argue and then closing and whatever. I
don’t want to diminish the experience. Every one was a teaching moment,
a teachable moment and a teaching moment. And because you had so
many of these files you were often preparing your next case out in the hall
waiting for the judge to call you in. It was very hectic. I sometimes tried
three cases in a week. But I also got some choice assignments. There
58
were some big, big cases and David Bress saw that they came my way as I
got to be more experienced.
When you start out, you start out kind of on the lower rung of the
trial team, and then you move up to be the senior member of the trial team.
I kind of took to it like a duck does to water. I mean obviously, without
sounding silly, I have some talent for this. I don’t have a lot of talent for
anything, but I had some talent for this and I was pretty successful. I felt
comfortable talking to these juries. I studied how to do it, learned how to
do examinations, learned how to do cross-examination, learned how to
introduce evidence, and did pretty well.
MR. BAUMAN: Did you get supervision or training at all from people within the –
MR. GREEN: The training really came by watching others. We didn’t have a lot of
formal training. Most of the guys that were coming over into the district
court had been in General Sessions for a year, year and a half – and so
that’s where they got their real teeth, teething over there — General
Sessions. And so they came over, they kind of knew what they were
doing. I was probably the only guy that was ever slotted into the federal
district court trial teams that had not been in General Sessions. And so I
had to really learn on the fly. So every spare moment that I had I would
walk the hall, see if there was a criminal trial going on. I would open the
door and I would just sit there. Often I might be the only spectator in the
courtroom, and I would just sit there and sop it up. I would listen to every
question, watch everything that the lawyers were doing, listen to the judge,
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watch the judge, watch the jury. It was really through that process of kind
of just applying myself to ingest everything that I was seeing and to learn
the techniques. That’s how I trained myself and then I went and got up on
my feet and figured out what worked and didn’t work and so forth.
David Bress sent me some great cases to try or he saw that they
were assigned to me. For example, there was a big anti-war protest case,
called the “D.C. Nine,” which was 1968 or ’69, in which several priests
and nuns invaded the offices of Dow Chemical and threw furniture all
around. He said, “You’re the man, go try that case.”
I tried a lot of really significant, interesting cases that were not day
cases. They went on for a couple of weeks. And I tried a few murder
cases as well, prominent murder cases; there were some big murders at the
time. I had a lot of wonderful experiences. As I said earlier, made a lot of
great friends, knew all the judges well, and it was a most enjoyable time in
my life. It just couldn’t have been better professionally. Probably at home
I was having a few issues. But that’s how I got my training.
David Bress aspired to be on the bench. He wanted to be on the
federal district court and he would’ve been an extraordinary judge. He had
a great mind; he was a great trial lawyer and Lyndon Johnson appointed
him to the bench in 1968. I remember the day that he got appointed to the
bench and he had a grin on his face from ear to ear. I don’t think there was
a day in his life when he was happier. I was happy for him. I remember
giving him a big hug and then he lived to see, or to experience, profound
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disappointment because President Johnson declared that he was not going
to run for office and Hubert Humphrey ran against Richard Nixon. Nixon
won. Nixon withdrew all of the nominations that were pending that
President Johnson had made and Bress lost his judgeship. So David Bress,
not long thereafter, left the office and went to practice with David
Ginsburg and Myer Feldman and the firm became Ginsburg, Feldman and
Bress.
MR. BAUMAN: A good breaking point.
61
ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview was conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee
is Thomas C. Green. The interview took place at the D.C. office of Sidley Austin on May 30,
2024. This is the third interview.
MS. FEIGIN: It has been quite a while since the last two sessions.
MR. GREEN: Indeed.
MS. FEIGIN: And they were taken by someone else. So there are a few things I would
like to ask to add to some of the information that’s in there, if you don’t
mind going back over the old stuff.
MR. GREEN: Quite alright.
MS. FEIGIN: One of the first things I’m curious about, because you didn’t talk too much
about it, is your time in the Army. You’ve got to be one of the only
lawyers that served in the Artillery. I assume there were times that you
were facing danger and quite dramatic moments. I wonder if you can tell
us a little bit about that experience.
MR. GREEN: I previously described how I ended up in the Army and was commissioned
as an artillery officer and then how the Army let me go to law school, and
I have told the story about how the Army tried to convince me to join the
JAG Corps after I had been on duty for almost a year at Fort Leonard
Wood, Missouri. The price I paid for rejecting that offer was a flight to
Vietnam and orders to report to the First Air Cavalry Division in Vietnam.
I was sent to the First Air Cavalry Division and I was a forward observer
which means I went up in two-man helicopters with a pilot who flew over
enemy territory looking for targets. We would call those targets into the
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fire direction center. They would then shoot on those targets. That was
not an extraordinarily secure assignment but it was what I was trained to
do.
Not long into my tour I received what they call a battlefield
promotion to captain. I was then assigned to command an artillery battery.
I was just one of the fortunate. We were fired on every night by the North
Vietnamese — Vietcong. Just one of those things, my number didn’t come
up. I lived through it. One of the funny stories that’s not funny – – it’s
funny but it’s also tragic. Soon after I arrived in Vietnam the Jewish
holiday Rosh Hashanah came up. I’m like the only Jewish guy in the
entire artillery brigade. I knew it was Rosh Hashanah. One day there’s a
helicopter in the sky and it lands and it’s the commanding officer. He’s
looking for Lieutenant Green and I identify myself. He says, “Look, I see
here that you’re Jewish and there’s this holiday, Rosha, Rosha.” He
couldn’t really pronounce it so I helped him pronounce it. I’m not sure
how he knew it or that it was approaching at least. He said “You’re free to
go to those services if you want.”
MS. FEIGIN: So you hadn’t put in a request?
MR. GREEN: Oh no. I said where are the services? He said they’re in Nha Trang and I
said where’s Nha Trang? He said it’s down south of us and I said how do
you get there? He said just have one of the guys call in one of the
helicopters that’s moving south and hitchhike down there. You’ll get to
Nha Trang in time. That didn’t sound very easy either so I said no thank
63
you, I’m fine. Then guilt started to wash over me [laughter] as I thought
about my mother lecturing me “You go to services like a good boy” and
this and that. And so finally I said all right, I’m going to go. I’ll give it a
try. So I did. I hitchhiked in helicopters and got to Nha Trang. It took me
a while to find the rabbi. There was one rabbi in probably all of Vietnam
and I remember services were in a tent. There must have been maybe 12
of us, that’s all. And then I hitchhiked back the same way in other
helicopters.
When I got back I discovered that my unit had been attacked while
I was gone. It suffered a mortar attack. There were a number of casualties
and there was actually a mortar round that went right through my tent. In
my tent there were two of us. The tent was dug into the ground with
sandbags around it. In my tent was my sleeping bag and the first
sergeant’s sleeping bag. He was severely wounded and medevacked out
of there and went ultimately back to the States. I never saw him again.
I don’t know what would have happened to me had I been there as
I was right next to him, but I wasn’t there. That’s just one of a number of
stories where I just seemed to have gotten lucky. I was often in convoys
and the convoy would be attacked and the attack would be at the front of
the convoy and on that day I was at the rear of the convoy. It’s just kind of
one episode after another. I made it through. I got very lucky. When I
got back and when the Vietnam Memorial was built I wrote a piece and
sent it to The Washington Post and they published it. It was short. It was
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about my feelings seeing the wall and having survived. I’ll try to get that
for you. [The piece is posted on the Historical Society for the D.C. Circuit
website as part of this oral history.]
MS. FEIGIN: What were your feelings?
MR. GREEN: Just how fortunate I had been. How serendipitous it is that I’m alive and
these 58,000 are dead. It could have so easily been the other way around.
It was just pure fate or whatever you want to attribute it to. There were a
million guys in Vietnam, maybe even a few more over the years. Fiftyeight thousand died, a huge number of people when you think about it.
There were, of course, many more wounded but most soldiers who went to
Vietnam were lucky like me and came home. Maybe not altogether
emotionally or mentally, but physically.
MS. FEIGIN: Do you think it changed you?
MR. GREEN: Well when you’re there, the only thing you think about is living, seeing the
sun come up the next day. That’s the only thing you think about. We
knew the war was unpopular. We knew that stuff was going on in the
United States. Not to any great extent, but we understood a little bit of
what was happening. But we weren’t in the mood to process that or even
think about it at the time. At the time it was just a raw instinct to survive
and stay alive. When I got home and afterwards, not immediately, but
certainly as the years progressed, I came to understand how senseless a
war that really was and how difficult it would have been to prevail in
Vietnam, assuming we should have prevailed.
65
People would always ask me if I had been back to visit Vietnam. I
never wanted to go. Never ever, ever wanted to go. Finally, many years
later, I went with another guy and his wife who had served in Vietnam.
He was a friend of mine and we went together and there was no trace of
the war at all – just two museums, one in Saigon and one in Hanoi. But
with respect to every place else in Vietnam, every piece of battlefield
debris, every screw, every nut, every bolt was melted down and taken and
removed from the battlefield and used by them in some way so you see
nothing. There’s no battlefield markers, there’s no battlefield cemeteries,
there’s nothing. We had a guide and I asked him to take me up to Khe
Sanh. My artillery battalion was shooting for the marines in Khe Sanh,
and he said to me there’s nothing to see there. He said it’s a long, arduous
drive up there. No great roads or anything. And when you get there, he
said, there’s nothing to see. So I didn’t go.
I could talk about the war for hours and hours. I visited the
Vietnam Memorial once and I was overcome. It was really an emotional
moment. I’ve never gone back again. I certainly would not want any of
my sons to have to ever go off to war.
As far as being in the service, I would still say the service was a
very positive experience in my life. I was in the military at a time when
the military was really a melting pot. Young men — I never came across
women — young men from every walk of life, from every socio-economic
element in our society, unlike the volunteer service today. It’s interesting.
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I always thought that if we still had the draft we wouldn’t be in a lot of
conflicts or have so much social strife. But we don’t have the draft, and I
think it was a healthy experience. I was out in the field as a commanding
officer at 26 years old. I’ve got 122 men under my command and they all
look to me for advice and leadership and problem solving and everything
else. It was quite an experience. But I don’t dwell on it. I rarely talk
about it. I hardly ever talk about it and I guess somewhat deliberately. I
came back and I was able to resume my life. A lot of guys came back and
were unable to resume their life. They were damaged. Sadly damaged.
But I survived.
MS. FEIGIN: Thank you for sharing that. So when you came back, you talked in your
earlier interview about how you got your job at the U.S. Attorney’s Office
in part because you talked about this experience. But I’d like to learn more
about your life at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You made some references
that maybe we can flesh out a bit. I know you did a bunch of high-profile
murder cases. Are there any you would like to share?
MR. GREEN: I didn’t do that many. I did a couple of murder cases where I was
conscripted. One of the cases I was asked to try involved a jewelry store.
There was a famous jewelry store around 14th and T in D.C. Back then
that was an African-American neighborhood and kind of a tough, rough
neighborhood. The jewelry store was called Mosby’s Jewelry Store and
two guys walked into that jewelry store and robbed it and in the process
shot Mrs. Mosby. Apparently she was a very well-respected and admired
67
woman in that community. So there was a bit of an uproar. They
assigned two of us to try the case – me and Luke Moore.
Luke Moore was the U.S. Marshal here. I can’t remember whether
he was the Marshal after he was in the U.S. Attorney’s Office or before he
was in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Then he became a Superior Court
Judge, a very prominent and well-respected guy. They wanted him in this
case for obvious reasons but he hadn’t tried that many cases. So they
wanted someone with him who had tried a number of cases. So we were
assigned that case.
MS. FEIGIN: When you say they wanted him for obvious reasons . . .
MR. GREEN: How should I put it? You’ve got a predominantly African-American jury.
MS. FEIGIN: So he was Black.
MR. GREEN: You have a wonderful and respected African-American victim. And Luke
was African-American and very well-known and respected in the
community. So every one of those jurors in the courtroom saw and said
wow, there’s Luke Moore. I am not sure they saw me. I don’t know
[laughter]. Anyway, we tried the case together and there were a few times
that Luke kind of got a little off track regarding permissible remarks in the
courtroom. Nothing unethical for certain, just a bit too exuberant. He just
would make a comment that a prudent prosecutor wouldn’t make probably
because he hadn’t been doing it for a long time. Then I would kind of
massage it over somehow. We prevailed in that case. I think that was
probably the most significant murder case I tried. I did try the D.C. 9.
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MS. FEIGIN: You mentioned that earlier but you didn’t explain what it was.
MR. GREEN: These were Vietnam war protestors — I think a Catholic priest or two and
maybe a nun and some others. This is after I came back and the war was
still going on and they were protesting the war quite vigorously. As part
of that protest one day, they gathered a group and they broke into the
offices of the Dow Chemical Company. Dow Chemical Company was the
maker of napalm which was used in Vietnam. The office was on the 9th
or 10th floor of an office building right in downtown. They went in and
ransacked the office on March 22, 1969 and threw a blood-like substance
around the office. They also threw furniture through the windows and the
glass plate fell ten stories and could have killed somebody.
They were prosecuted for destruction of property, obviously not
for protesting the war. The aggravating circumstance that the U.S.
Attorney felt warranted prosecution was the fact that they had been so
dismissive of the risk to people down below who were just walking along
the sidewalk. So the decision was made to prosecute.
The defendants were principally a group of Catholic nuns and
priests. There may have been one who was not ordained. Had they just
gone in there and ravaged the office it maybe would have been a
misdemeanor or whatever, but they decided to prosecute them for a felony
or a couple of felonies, and they needed a prosecutor. And so they’re
looking around for someone who had been in the service and there I was.
So they said you’re going to prosecute this case. I might have had some
69
reservations about doing that but given what had happened as I’ve just
described, I didn’t feel that uncomfortable about it at all.
At trial they were appointed counsel, but most of them moved to
represent themselves. One of them was actually represented by Edward
Bennett Williams. He had been appointed to represent one of the
defendants.
Edward Bennett Williams had a young lawyer – a contemporary of
mine age-wise – named Bill McDaniels, who was Mr. Williams’ second, if
you will. The lawyers moved on behalf of the clients to allow the clients
to represent themselves. Judge John Pratt was not disposed to do that. He
was worried about disruptions to the trial and prejudice to the other
defendants from possibilities of loose conduct or lack of expertise and so
forth.
A hearing was held and he ultimately denied the request. It went
to trial and the courtroom was filled with young people who were
protesting the war. He allowed the defendants to give an opening
themselves but he kept counsel in the case. He let Edward Bennett
Williams out and Bill McDaniels took over the representation of that
client.
Judge Pratt – who I was always very fond of — was trying to keep
control of the courtroom. His apprehension was justified because in the
middle of the trial there was a pretty aggressive disruption with spectators
making remarks and standing up and screaming about the Vietnam War.
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It developed into a substantial altercation and the courtroom had to be
cleared. It was a mess. The marshals had to remove Judge Pratt very
quickly because some of the protesters either threw something or started to
approach the bench. I remember going to the front of the bench but I don’t
believe I got involved in any physical confrontation. Eventually we
reconvened.
The defendants also wanted to introduce the concept of jury
nullification. They wanted to argue that the jury was free to ignore the
instructions of the court and follow their conscience and acquit on that
basis. That was another one of the motions they made that was denied by
the judge. Anyway, they were convicted.
It went up on appeal. Their convictions were reversed for a new
trial on the grounds that they had an absolute right to defend themselves
absent some compelling counter-reason that was apparent at the trial. And
there being none when the motion was made, the appellate court
concluded that it had been error to deny them that right and they reversed.
Judge Bazelon, who was on the panel, wrote a concurring opinion
in which he actually suggested they should have been able to argue
nullification as well. But the other two judges did not buy into that. When
they were resentenced they were basically resentenced to time served.
The one thing I don’t have is the initial sentences.
MS. FEIGIN: I think they ranged. There was one that was four years, one that was six
years. Others were less.
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MR. GREEN: But they were resentenced I think for probation and community service
and that was the end of the case.
MS. FEIGIN: Were they retried?
MR. GREEN: They entered a plea.
MS. FEIGIN: In addition to all that, and that’s plenty to go on during a trial, I believe
that one of the defense lawyers, Phil Hirschkop, was held in contempt for
his conduct during the trial.
MR. GREEN: Yes. He was held in contempt but I think his contempt was put aside
eventually when all of us made it clear that we did not think his conduct
was sufficiently unattractive that it required a contempt citation. I think
Judge Pratt dissolved the contempt or rescinded it.
Hirschkop used to come to court dressed with a big peace
medallion hanging around his neck. Phil loved the cameras and Phil loved
the stage and he loved the arena and he loved to make a lot of noise. This
trial gave him an opportunity to do that. But the jury was unimpressed
with all that. They were not deliberating for a long time from what I can
recall.
I think had they taken a different tack at trial, and not tried to be so
aggressive in asserting the moral righteousness of their position, but tried
to explain a bit more calmly, they might have had more success. As a
prosecutor, my objective was simply to make the trial about the
destruction of property and the potential massive injury to innocent
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victims who were walking on the sidewalk, and not about the Vietnam
War.
MS. FEIGIN: I gather that the judge, in some effort to accommodate their request to selfrepresent, also let them testify without questioning by their counsel.
MR. GREEN: Yes. He gave them considerable license and allowed them to say what
they wanted to say on the stand. And I think that almost with every one of
them – probably with every one of them – I had no questions. No crossexamination because I wasn’t going to give them a chance to say it all
over again. Regardless of what I would ask them they would launch into
their preplanned platform. I wasn’t ready to do that. So I think I had
basically no questions for them, or if I did, it was “State your name again”
or something.
In court were the priests wearing their liturgical vestments?
No, I don’t think so.
MS. FEIGIN:
MR. GREEN:
MS. FEIGIN: So jury nullification having been an issue in this case, what is your
opinion on jury nullification?
MR. GREEN: First of all, you’re never going to get an instruction on jury nullification.
They wanted an instruction on jury nullification. I think every federal
district judge would be loath to agree to do that because it would be
directly contrary to the instruction that they’re supposed to follow the law
and so forth. But in your closing argument, if you give it some thought,
there are a number of ways to hint to the jury that they are free to decide
the case as they see fit. When you’re commenting on various witnesses
73
and their testimony, you can tell the jury that they’re free to disbelieve this
witness or that witness and to disregard their testimony in its entirety
because of this or that. There are ways to get them to think they can do
whatever the hell they want to do. And they do. They don’t need to be
told. It’s kind of an instinctive reaction when you get in the jury room.
A lot of these instructions are so complicated that the jurors, even
after they ask to read them in the jury room, and reread them, they still
can’t totally comprehend them and exactly what they’re supposed to do.
And so they decide the case on the basis of their sense of fundamental
fairness. Right from wrong. Good from bad. That’s basically
nullification, or the concept of nullification, integrated into their
deliberations.
MS. FEIGIN: Just one more question about the case. You said Edward Bennett
Williams was replaced so he wasn’t your adversary in this case. But I
assume you must have had other dealings with him. He was one of the
giants of the era.
MR. GREEN: The interesting thing is that when I left the U.S. Attorney’s Office and
went to practice with David Bress, who had been the U.S. Attorney, Bress
was one of the great civil lawyers at the time. Edward Bennett Williams
was a great criminal trial lawyer and a great lawyer. They both were great
lawyers but they had their areas of concentration if you will. Bress and
Williams knew each other quite well and they had lunch together maybe
once every month-and-a-half or every two months. And Bress would take
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me along. Williams never brought anybody so there I was at the table
with Bress and Williams watching these two guys talk. And I got to know
Ed. I wasn’t one of his close personal friends or anything close to that but
I did get to know him.
I have a distinct recollection of sitting in his office. He had a
grand office on the corner of 17th and I. The whole building at that time
was given over to the offices of Williams & Connolly. And he was up on
one of the higher floors. He had a conference room attached to his office.
In his office he sat behind a huge horseshoe desk that was filled with a lot
of tchotchkes around the desk. Often he would say “Let’s go in the
conference room and sit in there and talk.” We’d go in the conference
room which adjoined his office — a sizeable conference room with a long
table — and the walls were just plastered with plaques and commendations
and you name it. Cartoons and everything. It was impressive, no doubt
about that.
We were in a couple of cases together because I have this distinct
recollection of going over to his office and talking about those cases and
so forth. There are just too many cases to remember the details, but he
was always very gracious and very nice to me. I value those moments that
I had with him, for sure.
Anyway, to get back to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I had a great
time there because of my relationship with David Bress, the United States
Attorney. I got some great cases to try. Big bank robberies.
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MS. FEIGIN: Any in particular you want to discuss?
MR. GREEN: I can’t without getting into the nitty gritty of the law books and trying to
figure them out again because it’s so long ago. I think what’s just as
important about the cases I tried is the fact that I made friendships that
have survived through the years and they’ve been critically important to
me throughout my career.
When I left the U.S. Attorney’s office in 1970 there was hardly
anyone practicing on the defense side in white-collar cases. Bob Bennett
may have left shortly before me or shortly after me. He has now passed
away. Dick Hibey as well. But there were very few of us and I always
tell people we were on the front wave of this new practice area. I don’t
know what to chalk that up to — timing, good fortune, luck.
MS. FEIGIN: There was white-collar crime before.
MR. GREEN: There was but you kind of have to trace the history of white-collar crime.
There wasn’t a great focus on white-collar crime earlier than when we
were in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and to the extent there was, individuals
were hardly ever involved; the cases were against companies rather than
individuals. I’m not talking about street crime now. I’m talking about
white-collar crime. There’s plenty of street crime. But the area as an area
of specialized expertise really didn’t begin to grow until Watergate and
after Watergate. Watergate was critically interesting to this whole area
because it wasn’t just a prosecution of a president and his closest advisers.
It gave birth to the FCPA [Federal Corrupt Practices Act]. It gave birth to
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the Independent Counsel Act. It started a revolution in the prosecution of
white-collar crime. We were out and looking for work and the work was
there. Most of it came to this very, very small fraternity of guys.
MS. FEIGIN: And it was guys.
MR. GREEN: There were a couple of women but it was really mostly guys, unlike today.
We stuck together and traded cases; we got each other into cases and we
kind of commandeered the field.
MS. FEIGIN: Before we talk about that, because that’s your post-U.S. Attorney’s Office
life, I’d like to ask you a couple more things about life in the U.S.
Attorney’s office. Did you do ridealongs with cops?
MR. GREEN: A couple of times I did. I had some really nice relationships with
detectives. There were a number of officers who kind of kept coming to
court with cases and I got to know them. I didn’t do a lot of ridealongs
because most of that was in connection with street crime cases, what I call
street crime cases. Every once in a while I did a couple but I don’t
remember anything dramatic happening.
MS. FEIGIN: We should probably make clear for people reading this who might not
know, the U.S. Attorney’s Office did the local crime and the federal crime
in D.C.
MR. GREEN: Did the local crime and the federal crime and still does the local crime and
the federal crime. When I first came here there was a Court of General
Sessions, which was essentially a misdemeanor court. And so the felony
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street crime, like the larger bank robberies and other federal crimes, were
all tried in front of the federal court.
It was the federal judges, George Hart in particular, who felt that
they were being mistreated by being a judge in the District of Columbia
because they had to try local crime as well as federal crime. I don’t know
whether George felt he was overworked or that it was just demeaning in
some way. So it was several of the judges who really pushed for the
creation of a new court for the District of Columbia, federal judges who
were pushing for a new court to get these cases out of their court. That
was the impetus. They wanted to be like every other federal judge and
just try federal crimes, which could translate into they just wanted to work
less, like every other federal judge. I don’t know, but those interests were
aligned with local political interests and home rule interests and all that.
So there was a lot of support for the notion of establishing a superior or a
separate court.
MS. FEIGIN: When did that come into being?
MR. GREEN: I think it happened around the time I was in the U.S. Attorney’s office, so
around 1970.
MS. FEIGIN: You were there at a time that there were some really interesting famous
and infamous judges on the bench. Maybe we can discuss a few of them.
Let me throw out some names. You can tell me others if there are others to
add. Judge Halleck.
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MR. GREEN: Here you’re throwing out names of characters in the Court of General
Sessions or maybe even the Superior Court at that time whom I never
knew. I never was over there. I’ve heard all those stories from all those
guys. Whenever we’re together, I still hear those stories. It’s now 2024
and I’m still hearing those stories. I’ve heard them so many times
[laughter] but I’m going to let them tell those.
MR. FEIGIN: Okay. Let me let me ask you some others that maybe you have your own
stories about. Judge Gesell.
MR. GREEN: Judge Gerhart Gesell. I think he was a Covington lawyer but he was
imperious. I’m not trying to be unkind but he always thought he was the
smartest guy in the room. And he may have been, to give him his due. He
may have been. But he wanted you to know that he thought he was the
smartest guy in the room.
I had a very interesting case where I sued a lawyer for some breach
of contract type violations. I think he had been appointed to be a monitor
or special counsel to ensure that the corporate defendant did not engage in
further securities violations. Instead of giving the company guidance, he
provided the SEC with information on what he thought were new
violations without giving the company any notice and the opportunity to
take corrective action. I think he may have been a former SEC official
actually. He was represented by a well-known lawyer whose name I can’t
remember right now either. They asked for a bench trial. You could see
Gesell was clearly wanting that result. He wanted to try this case. It may
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have been simply because he knew — maybe not well because I think if he
had known him really well Gesell would have said something — but I
think he knew of this guy. The defendant was of some reputation. Gesell
wanted to try the case. I was not about to let him try this case so I
objected and said we invoke our right to a jury trial. He was so visibly
pissed off it was unbelievable. If looks could kill, he gave me a look like
you’re done.
We tried the case and we prevailed. I can’t remember what
happened but from that moment on Gesell would not pay me 2¢ of
attention. We’d be at the Judicial Conference down in Williamsburg or
elsewhere and I’d be walking outside and I’d see him coming. He would
just turn around [laughter]. He carried this grudge for a long time. I don’t
know, maybe I’m misinterpreting him. He thought I had horribly
disrespected him by asking for a jury trial like I’m not going to let you try
this case.
MS. FEIGIN: How about Judge Bryant?
MR. GREEN: Judge Bryant was a prince. Everybody loved Judge Bryant. He was fair.
You might even say fair to an extreme. He kind of bent over backwards to
be fair and to appear fair and sometimes he would appear almost to be
agonizing on the bench over a decision as to what to do. I tried a couple
of cases in front of him. I don’t think they were anything out of the
ordinary; he was so well respected and he let you try your case. I think
every one of us admired him. I don’t think there was any prosecutor that I
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worked with that held any negative views about Bill Bryant. He was a
great guy, wonderful guy.
MS. FEIGIN: Aubrey Robinson?
MR. GREEN: I liked Aubrey, I really did. Aubrey could exude a real tough demeanor
but on balance he was a great guy and I knew his wife. There’s a funny
story about him. Fast forward years later when I’m defending Richard
Secord in the Iran-Contra affair. For a lot of reasons Lawrence Walsh, the
independent counsel, came to focus on me. He was such a jerk.
[laughter]. If you’re reading this Larry, you were a jerk. He put me in
front of the grand jury because they wanted to ask me questions about my
client and about Oliver North, who had been my client, and about
everybody else that I met. When they started questioning me I told them
that I invoke the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and
Ninth amendments of the Constitution and that I refused to answer.
There was a female prosecutor who said “You can’t do that.” I said “What
do you mean? I just did that.” “Well, you can’t do that.” I said “Well I
did it and I’m not answering.” “Okay, I’m going to take you in front of the
chief judge.” I said “Okay, take me in front of the chief judge.”
The proceedings were adjourned. After lunch I was told to report
to Aubrey’s courtroom. So I go in there and Earl Silbert might have been
with me. He was my lawyer I think at that time. I got a lawyer.
Anyway, I went into Aubrey’s courtroom and the lawyer working for
Walsh gets up and she says “Mr. Green took the First, Second, Third,
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Fourth, Sixth, etc. You can’t do that, Your Honor.” Aubrey starts to
laugh.
I had tried half a dozen cases in front of him. We knew each other
pretty well. He’s shaking his head and doing some chuckling. So he looks
over at me and puts up his finger and says “Come here; come to the bench.
Tom come up here, come up here.” She starts to go up and he said “No,
you sit down there. I just want to talk to Mr. Green. Come up here.” So I
go to the bench. He said [laughing] “Listen Tom, we’ve got to get this
over because I want to go home. So here’s what I want you to do for me.
Go back down there, go back in the grand jury and use that other number.
Use that other number and then let’s all go home, okay?” I said “Okay, I’ll
do it.” They put me back in the grand jury and I said “I take the First,
Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth
amendments.” She said “You can’t do that.” I said “I just did that and
that’s what I’m doing.” So she finally said “Okay, you’re excused.”
There was an article in The Washington Post the next morning —
somebody must have leaked it — that said I had been in the grand jury and
taken the Fifth. It’s an occupational hazard, that’s all. It really didn’t faze
me.
MS. FEIGIN: No? It’s so wrong to leak that.
MR. GREEN: Well Walsh was crazy. Before they put me in the grand jury I had gone to
see Walsh with Earl because they asked me to come. They had asked me
whether I would tell them about certain things and I said no. And then
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somehow I said I want to see Walsh. I said to him “Look, these guys were
my clients and I am never going to tell you what the discussions were with
me. Never, ever. So you do what you’ve got to do but I’m not sharing
anything with you.”
MS. FEIGIN: I mentioned some of the district court judges. Are there any others I
should have mentioned?
MR. GREEN: I was there at a time when three prosecutors were assigned to every judge
as a permanent team — a senior, a next junior, and a junior. I had come to
know Judge Pratt. Judge Pratt had served in World War II. We had a very
warm relationship. He was the judge on the D.C. Nine case. He selected
me for his lead prosecutor slot. I tried a lot of cases in front of the judge.
MS. FEIGIN: The judge selected the lead prosecutor?
MR. GREEN: I think the judge had some input. Or maybe the office did and I said I
want to be in front of Pratt. There are guys who still tease me today
because of Judge Pratt. We got to the point where he trusted me a lot. It
was almost like when I started to rise out of my seat to make an objection
he would say “Sustained.” There are guys that still tell stories of being in
Judge Pratt’s courtroom representing a defendant. These guys are good
friends of mine. They’re representing the defendant. They still laugh
about how every time I opened my mouth, it was sustained. I could do no
wrong in that courtroom, which is probably a little bit true. I got very
close to Pratt.
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MS. FEIGIN: I’ve heard reference to his secretary, her role in the courtroom. Can you
tell me about that?
MR. GREEN: I can’t remember her name. She was a character. She didn’t intrude upon
the judicial process but she was very vivacious and assertive and kept
things rolling and under control.
MS. FEIGIN: In the courtroom itself?
MR. GREEN: In the courtroom and out of the courtroom. She kept the cases rolling and
getting things filed on time and so forth. Judge Pratt married Pam and me.
He was the officiant. Judge Pratt conducted the marriage and she was a
witness.
MS. FEIGIN: Any other judges we should discuss in the district court?
MR. GREEN: I tried cases in front of Gasch and Waddy and I think every other judge on
the court at the time but I don’t have any anecdotes to add.
MS. FEIGIN: You were there at a time when there were also giants on the court of
appeals. I know you said in your earlier sessions you didn’t spend that
long in the appellate section but Bazelon, Wright, Leventhal — I think they
were there then. Do you have anything to say about them or others?
MR. GREEN: I probably only argued a dozen cases on appeal. That would be my guess.
Leventhal, I can still see him; I can still kind of hear him talking. I can
still see Bazelon and hear Skelley Wright as he moves his head around.
The people in the office used to call him Skelley Wrong [laughter].
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It was a pretty powerfully gifted court in those days. The one thing
I remember is that although I always felt so unbelievably comfortable in a
trial courtroom, I never felt that comfortable in an appellate courtroom.
I think it’s simply because I never had the confidence that I had prepared
to the point where I felt comfortable in knowing that I had an answer to
any question they might ask me. So I was always like, if I go up there and
they ask me something I don’t know, what’s going to happen? It didn’t
happen very often. I’m not sure it ever happened, but it was just enough.
I do believe that they are separate arts.
Some people say if you can try a case you can go up and argue an
appeal. But I do feel that there’s a talent for each. And I never felt
completely comfortable in an appellate court. Plus the fact that you’ve got
some very bright guys that are peppering you with tough questions.
You’re asking the questions in the trial court. You’re answering the
questions in the appellate court — a little bit of a different protocol. But
being in appellate allowed me to read transcript after transcript after
transcript of trials. That contributed significantly to my development as a
trial lawyer because I could see what these trial lawyers were doing and
how they were asking questions.
When you’re a prosecutor there’s a lot of rote, believe it or not.
How do you introduce a lineup? There’s a certain number of questions
that have to be asked. How do you authenticate a photograph or a chart?
There’s a certain number of questions. How do you authenticate a
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business record? There’s a certain number of questions. The art of, I won’t
say presenting the case, because you’ve got to prepare your witnesses and
then be artful in how you question them, but there’s a lot you can learn by
just reading these transcripts about how to do things and I did it. It was
like putting it in with a syringe for me. It was just going right in.
The other thing I did as a young lawyer, whenever I had a free
moment in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I would walk downstairs and find a
trial that was in progress. I would just sit in the back and listen. And
often I was the only person in the courtroom. There were people from the
street that used to come in and sit in the court room day after day probably
just to get warm and get out of the weather, but often I’d be the only
person and one of my colleagues would be trying the case. I’d just be
watching and writing things down and just absorbing everything I possibly
could. Listening to the objections, how they’re articulated. Listening to
the arguments, watching them, watching their closing argument. Part of
the advice I would give to any lawyer who wants to learn how to try a case
is to watch lawyers try cases. You can learn so much.
MS. FEIGIN: You worked with some amazing colleagues and you mentioned a couple
of them in your earlier interviews. You worked with Judy Rogers and you
worked with Earl Silbert.
MR. GREEN: They were my two initial mentors. I knew nothing about lawyering. I had
gone to law school but then I was in the service so I didn’t know about
lawyering.
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Oscar Altshuler ran Special Proceedings. That’s where I was sent.
Judy and Earl were there and then I was the number three person. Oscar
was an enormously well-respected and admired guy in the U.S. Attorney’s
Office, a career Assistant, one of the few back then. He knew everything
there was to know about mental health commitments — 2255s, habeas
corpuses — whatever Special Proceedings covered. He was a great teacher
and a great mentor. That’s where I got my start, watching them. And they
helped me. I learned how to write by looking at what they were writing.
They were both great friends. I saw a lot of Earl but less of Judy. But
Judy and I were good friends and still are friends.
MS. FEIGIN: In another oral history that was taken for the Historical Society, which was
John Aldock’s, he talked about the U.S. Attorney’s Office a little after
your time. He served under a different U.S. Attorney, Tom Flannery. But
he discussed it as — under Flannery at least — a wonderful, wonderful
experience, but with sort of a Wild West aspect to the office. Did you find
that?
MR. GREEN: When I started there, the office was quite small. There were only 16
lawyers who were trying cases in the federal court. You had, I don’t know
how many judges, probably at least a dozen I would think. We weren’t a
big crew. Before we went to the system of being assigned to a particular
judge you might try two or three cases a week, one after the other. You
would end one case and then go out in the hall to talk to the policeman and
the witnesses for the next case. I remember it as being stimulating and
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inspiring, fun and interesting. It was more Wild West over in the Court of
General Sessions certainly; that was the real Wild West.
MS. FEIGIN: I think he was probably talking about General Sessions.
MR. GREEN: It really was the Wild West. That was crazy land over there from what
they tell me.
MS. FEIGIN: Is there anything else you want to discuss about the U.S. Attorney’s Office
before we begin to talk about what happened when you left and the
beginning of the white-collar bar?
MR. GREEN: As I covered earlier, I went to work with Bress. He had been denied his
judgeship, which was not only a tragedy for him, but I think it was a
tragedy for the court because he would have been a superb federal judge.
He really would have.
MR. FEIGIN: Could you talk a little bit more about him? You didn’t really describe him.
MR. GREEN: I probably in one sense got as close to David as anybody in the office ever
did. Then in the years after we got even closer. He was a gifted trial
lawyer but a civil trial lawyer. His expertise was trying what they call
aircraft cases — when the plane goes down and there are survivors. He did
a fair amount of that. He did a fair amount of tort work and so forth. He
was enormously bright.
He was not an extrovert and he didn’t open himself up to any of us
in any substantial way. I think Flannery probably was much more inviting
of relationships than David was. Bress had two adopted children. I’m not
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sure how close he was to them. He had a great sense of humor but he
wasn’t a warm, fuzzy type of guy. I thought he was a good U.S. Attorney.
He had decisions that he had to make. I wish I could recreate
everything that happened. But there were times — it didn’t happen often –
where he’d invite me into his office and we would just sit there and talk
about everything under the sun. It got to the point where he started
inviting me to his home for the [Jewish] High Holidays and Passover and
so forth. I got to meet his brothers and his brother-in-law and his wife. I
really did like him. Some people found him very kind of severe but he
was always very kind and nice to me. As a result of that, I got to try some
of the more meaningful cases during my tenure there because he would
assign them to me. So I felt fortunate to be able to go to work with him.
He smoked a pipe which eventually killed him from lung cancer. I
remember he used to write everything by longhand, the pleadings back
then. He could write a complaint in ten minutes that would take me ten
days to write. He knew his stuff. When Watergate came along, that’s a
story in and of itself. That was kind of the beginning of everything for
me.
MS. FEIGIN: Let’s start talking about that.
MR. GREEN: Watergate started with a break-in at the Watergate complex with James
McCord and four others and their handlers Howard Hunt and Gordon
Liddy. They entered the Watergate office building seeking to tap Larry
O’Brien’s phone. He was chair of the Democratic National Committee at
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the time and their offices were in the Watergate building. It was a very
famous investigation with Woodward and Bernstein [of The Washington
Post]. There’s a movie. They wrote a book. You could read extensively
about Watergate although I think there’s a lot of people today who
wouldn’t know what the hell you’re talking about — probably right in this
building too [laughter].
As the investigation developed, the prosecution of the burglars
turned into a bit of a cause celèbre when McCord wrote a letter to John
Sirica, the trial judge, that there had been a cover-up and others were
involved and so forth. Eventually the investigation spread to certain
individuals who were close to President Nixon, both on his staff and off
his staff. When that happened, one of them was Robert Mardian, who was
the former assistant attorney general in charge of the Internal Security
Division. I think that division has now been abolished.
Mardian was a lawyer from Phoenix, Arizona, a big-time
Republican. He was a friend of John Mitchell. I think it was through John
Mitchell, who was then the attorney general, that Mardian got his
appointment from the president to the Department of Justice. By the time
that Congress started investigating Mardian, both he and Mitchell, to the
best of my recollection, had resigned from the Department and had gone,
as we say, across the street, to run President Nixon’s campaign for reelection in 1972. They were heading up the office to reelect the president
which they called CREEP, Committee to Reelect the President. Mitchell
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was heading up the reelection effort and Mardian went with him to be his
deputy over there. So in this probe Mardian was somehow referred to
Bress.
I met him early on. He was not a warm and fuzzy guy either,
Mardian. That’s being gracious. But David Bress took him on. Other
lawyers were representing the other gentlemen under investigation –
Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and others. There were many others.
The first major undertaking was to represent them in connection with the
congressional committee that began to investigate the facts and
circumstances surrounding the break-in and the connection to the
Administration.
Sam Dash, a professor from Georgetown, was counsel to the
committee. The chairman was Senator Ervin. I was Dave Bress’s young
lawyer assistant. That was maybe 1972 say, so I’m 31 years old. I’m
sitting in on the interviews and listening to everything. Of course Mardian
claimed he didn’t know anything about anything. We got him prepared for
his appearance before the Ervin committee and I’m pretty sure he testified
before the Ervin committee. I was there.
MS. FEIGIN: Can we talk a little bit about the testimony? Those hearings were
televised on TV. Those were a big deal. What was it like to be there?
MR. GREEN: For a kid it was extraordinarily exciting. I felt like I’m at the center of the
universe right now.
MS. FEIGIN: You were.
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MR. GREEN: But still in the dark about a lot of what really happened. None of us
understood the full scope of the Watergate endeavor, if you will. So I was
just kind of taking it in. I can’t remember specific instances. If I saw the
tape things would probably come back to me. What happens is that
ultimately five of Nixon’s associates get indicted. John Mitchell, John
Erlichman, Ken Parkinson, who was the lawyer to CREEP, Mardian and
Bob Haldeman were indicted.
MS. FEIGIN: Why did they testify before the committee if they were in jeopardy of
being indicted?
MR. GREEN: I think Haldeman and Erlichman probably thought they could bluff their
way through and that would be the end of things. Mardian, on the other
hand, if he were alive today he would be pounding this table. “I did
nothing wrong.” He didn’t feel he had any exposure or anything else. He
felt he was being unjustly accused, unjustly treated; that’s just the way he
was. So after that they’re indicted. We get ready to try the case and I’m
working very hard with Bress to get him ready to try the case. He hadn’t
tried that many criminal cases. He tried a criminal contempt case while he
was the U.S. Attorney but he hadn’t really tried many criminal cases so I
was hard at work getting him ready. There was a younger associate, Jacob
Dweck, who’s now quite an accomplished lawyer in his own right in this
city. He and I are getting everything ready for the trial. The trial opens.
Mitchell is represented by Bill Hundley and Plato Cacheris. Hundley and
Cacheris were good friends of mine by that time. We came to be good
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friends very quickly. They were two wonderful guys. Erlichman was
represented by William Frates. He had this booming voice like this
[mimics voice]. It just reverberated off the walls of the courtroom. But I
thought he was overrated. He had a couple of talented young guys around
my age that were behind him but I didn’t think he had a lot of substance.
Haldeman was represented by John Wilson. He was quite old but
he had a reputation of being this fearless, pugilistic defense lawyer. I
thought he turned out to be overrated as well. More on that in a moment.
Parkinson is represented by Jake Stein — wonderful guy. Then Mardian,
represented by David Bress, backed up by young Tom.
So the trial starts and at some point, I can’t put these things in
sequence unfortunately, but David Bress – not long into the trial —
collapses in the courtroom. An ambulance is called. He’s taken from the
courtroom and to the National Institutes of Health. He made an
appearance late in the trial, maybe while on or after he had chemotherapy;
he just was there for a day or half a day or something to watch the
proceedings. Other than that, he never came back and in all practical
terms he never left the hospital. He died in 1976 from lung cancer which I
think had to be attributable to his smoking and inhaling that pipe all those
years. More to that story in a moment, but before that happened, I’m pretty
sure, one of the government’s principal witnesses had taken the stand,
either Dean or Magruder. I have this recollection of John Wilson saying,
essentially, “Let me at him. I’ll take care of it. Let me at him.” John
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Wilson’s about five feet two inches tall and he is 80 maybe. Looked to be
80, maybe 75, but when you’re young everybody looks old [laughter].
I can’t recreate the cross-examination but I can recreate how he
goes up to the witness and barks at him, the equivalent of saying “What’s
your name? What’s going on? Is it a fact that you were . . .?” [recounted
with a barking voice] It was so inept. It was embarrassing to me. I was
embarrassed for him and it was embarrassing because everyone in the
world is watching this. I’m thinking, What? This guy is supposed to be
some shtarker [Yiddish for a tough guy or enforcer].
Later, when Bress collapses in the courtroom, he is taken from the
courtroom and Judge Sirica says “I’ll see everyone in chambers.” We go
into chambers and I said, “Your Honor” — the most self-effacing thing I’ve
ever done in 55 years of practice – “I move to sever Mr. Mardian from this
trial because he is no longer represented by the counsel of his choice,
which is his entitlement under the Sixth Amendment.” Jimmy Neal was a
great guy.
MS. FEIGIN: He’s the prosecutor.
MR. GREEN: They brought him back. He’d been at the Department. He’s got this drawl
like from Tennessee. “In light of my long relationship with Mr. Bress,
I’ve the utmost respect for him, and because of that the government has no
objection to the severance motion of Mr. Mardian.” [recounted with a
southern drawl] I thought, well, I’m home free. Judge Sirica says “Well I
do have an objection.” He said “I have known Mr. Green. He’s tried
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many cases in front of me. He’s a fine young lawyer. Mr. Mardian, meet
your new lawyer, Mr. Green, and gentlemen, we’ll reconvene in the
courtroom in ten minutes.” That was that. I think Mardian almost had a
heart attack. He may even have tried to say something to Sirica but Sirica
brushed him off.
MS. FEIGIN: Tell me about Judge Sirica.
MR. GREEN: [laughter] He was a piece of work. A good guy but tough guy — a nononsense guy. Ten minutes later, there I am. I’m 31 years old. I’m the
youngest defense lawyer in that case by 100 years.
MS. FEIGIN: There’s not even a recess? You weren’t prepared to be the lead lawyer at
that point.
MR. GREEN: Well I was and I wasn’t. I certainly wasn’t in the sense that you suggest
but was I prepared by virtue of experience to do it? Sure. I knew all the
witnesses better than Bress did, which is not to say anything negative
about him. I knew the case best of all. Probably knew the case better than
many of the other lawyers in the courtroom. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t
going crazy at that moment. I’m 31 and I’ve got a 26-year-old young
associate with me and we’re now Mardian’s counsel and, of course,
Mardian’s pissed and we are in the biggest trial of century. He can’t
believe that now he’s got this young whippersnapper representing him.
But he did. So we went on with the trial.
I spent an amazing amount of time getting Mardian ready to
testify.
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In every session in which we worked together it was obvious that he was
not pleased in having to work with me. I don’t think it was personal, I
think it was situational, but nevertheless, it wasn’t totally comfortable. I
worked hard because he had a volatile temper and he wasn’t by nature a
kind of smiling and affable human being. So I worked hard at trying to
get him to control his demeanor and his emotions as we worked through
the testimony. Finally I put him on the stand. We had a decent shot at
things up to that point because there wasn’t an enormous amount of
testimony about him. What there was wasn’t particularly helpful but by
comparison there wasn’t that much testimony against him.
He did reasonably well on his direct examination — not perfect but
reasonably well. Then comes cross-examination. There was one woman
on the prosecution team — Jill Volner — a lovely woman who has gone on
to have a great career. In those days women dressed in short skirts. She
was dressed in a very short skirt, almost like a mini skirt. In a stroke of
what will go down as one of the most incredible, insightful moves at a
trial, Jimmy Neal sends her out to cross-examine Mardian. Mardian sees
this coming. He cannot abide the fact that they have sent a woman to
cross-examine him. He is visibly ticked off. She begins to question him
and he begins to bark at her. It’s ugly at the outset and it gets uglier by the
moment.
I felt I had to do something. So I stood up and said “Your Honor, I
really need a quick recess to use the restroom.” He knew immediately
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what I was doing. Knowing what I was doing he could have easily said
hold it till this is over. But he didn’t. He looked at me and said “We’ll
take a ten minute recess.” I got Mardian out in the hall and I read the riot
act to him as best I could because mind you, in his view I don’t have the
stature to be lecturing him, but it didn’t deter me. I was certainly as big as
he was physically. I told him what he was doing to himself and that if he
didn’t stop he could just go back out there and put handcuffs on. He took
it all in. He went back. He was better — far from perfect — but better. But
a lot of the damage had been done.
The trial continued. According to newspaper accounts, people
generally felt that Mardian had a shot at acquittal. The jury goes out and
they come back. They acquit Parkinson and convict all the rest. Mardian
is shattered. He was stunned even though we certainly had told him of the
possibility of everything. It took a long time for him to get up from
counsel’s table. He was immobilized for a period of time. He was just so
stunned. So he got up and he left.
I can’t remember day by day after all of that, but my law firm,
Ginsburg Feldman and Bress, handled the appeal. We appealed on two
grounds. One was that the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate his
guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — that no reasonable juror could have
concluded otherwise. And two, the denial of his constitutional right to be
represented by the lawyer of his choice. All the cases go on appeal.
They’re all sentenced to prison I’m pretty sure. Mitchell: conviction
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affirmed. Haldeman: conviction affirmed. Erlichman: conviction
affirmed. Mardian: conviction reversed. The Court of Appeals reverses.
My recollection is that they reverse by holding that the evidence was
pretty much in equipoise. But what pushes it over the cliff is the
constitutional violation. Somewhere they drop a footnote and say this is no
reflection on Mr. Green. There’s some footnote in there that says what he
did was okay. He wasn’t incompetent. He was okay. [laughter] So
Mardian is a free man at that point. From that moment on, to the day he
died, I never heard from him. He never said thank you, never sent a note
of appreciation. Such is life.
MS. FEIGIN: That is quite dramatic. Let me end with one last question because I’ve
seen this quote from you in several places saying that you think the
Watergate trial was the most significant criminal trial in U.S. history.
MR. GREEN: I don’t think there is any doubt about it. If you just think of what it was all
about: the president of the United States actively engaged in a cover-up
with the attorney general resigning and the deputy attorney general
resigning and one thing after another. And the case involving tapes made
in the Oval Office and the subpoena going to the Supreme Court. That
would be enough to make it memorable.
There were crowds outside the courthouse every day — lines that
went for blocks trying to get in. The news, the vans with the antennas up
for blocks. It was extraordinary. I remember preparing for that trial. I
was down in the basement of the courthouse with earphones on listening
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to those tapes between John Dean and Nixon and Nixon and others. I was
flabbergasted. I don’t have the words to describe what I’m listening to —
that this is going on inside our government. I don’t want to get started on
today – what’s going on inside our government. Not so much inside our
government but from this other guy.
MS. FEIGIN: We should put this in context. We are doing this interview in the era of
Trump, and he’s been charged with several serious crimes.
MR. GREEN: The reason why Watergate takes on even a different dimension is what I
mentioned earlier. It was a watershed moment in the development of the
criminal law — the anti-bribery law, independent counsel, investigations
and the regulation of corporate money in campaigns, and on and on. It
was like an explosion that just kept expanding as far as everything that
Watergate created, was the impetus for. It was just amazing to live
through that — really amazing to live through that time.
MS. FEIGIN: You more than lived through it. You were in the center of it.
MR. GREEN: I’m the last surviving defense lawyer. The rest are all gone.
MS. FEIGIN: Thank you so much for sharing these stories. They are important. They
are amazing. I really appreciate it.
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ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee
is Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place over Zoom on June 26, 2024. Tom is at his
home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Judy is at home in D.C. This is the fourth interview.
MS. FEIGIN: Good morning.
MR. GREEN: Good morning.
MS. FEIGIN: When we last spoke we talked a lot about the Mardian case, but there were
a couple of questions I didn’t ask you, so let me just finish up with that
before we plow ahead into something new. I didn’t ask you anything
about either his co-defendants or the prosecutor. They were pretty
notorious co-defendants — Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell. Any
thoughts about how the trial progressed as to them or about them
individually?
MR. GREEN: It was, as you intimated, quite a collection of individuals. Mardian was
very close to Mitchell. Mitchell had brought Mardian into the Justice
Department and then took him with him when he left Justice to go head up
the Committee to Reelect the President [CREEP]. And at the trial, the two
of them kind of, for lack of a better word, hung together.
Mitchell was represented by Bill Hundley and Plato Cacheris, two
wonderful guys whom I was very close to. I spent a lot of time with them
over the years.
Haldeman and Ehrlichman kind of had their own little twosome.
They were White House occupants on Nixon’s staff but their lawyers
weren’t that close, Bill Frates who represented Ehrlichman and John
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Wilson who represented Haldeman. Those two guys were not close, were
not similar in style or age. I don’t know how much togetherness was there
except that the two of them — Haldeman and Ehrlichman — hung around
together.
And Ken Parkinson, the lawyer to the Committee to Reelect, was a
guy that we all knew from our lawyering days in Washington. Very good
guy. Represented by Jake Stein. He was around and certainly friendly and
so forth but we weren’t together with him that much. So that’s kind of a
take on who these guys were.
Haldeman and Ehrlichman were more removed. They were kind
of austere. They were kind of strange dudes anyway. Ehrlichman was
kind of an amateur sketch artist. He made sketches all through the trial.
MS. FEIGIN: Quality sketches?
MR. GREEN: Yes. They were put together in a book and somebody published them. I
have probably one of the few remaining copies on earth. He made a sketch
of me cross-examining Jeb Magruder. I remember that, and he gave it to
me, which was kind of interesting. God knows where it is today. But a
copy of it may be in the book.
Mitchell was living in an apartment up by the Shoreham Hotel. I
remember there were nights when Hundley and Cacheris would invite me,
not my client, but me to come by, and kind of noodle with them about
John’s testimony. And sometimes give a little practice cross-examination
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to John. In the end I don’t think John even testified; I can’t remember. So
those are my quick impressions, if that’ll suffice.
MS. FEIGIN: Certainly. I think that Ehrlichman later on, after all these events, settled in
Santa Fe, New Mexico and lived the life of an artist.
MR. GREEN: Yes, he kind of withdrew from the world a little bit.
MS. FEIGIN: And Neal was the prosecutor?
MR. GREEN: The principal prosecutor was Jimmy Neal. Jimmy Neal had been a really
prominent guy in the Justice Department as a prosecuting attorney. He
was a wonderful guy. They brought him back. He came back from his
firm in Nashville I believe, to take on the prosecution. And he was a real
gentleman. He certainly knew what he was doing and knew where he
wanted to go and had a fervor about his mandate. But he was still a very
nice and wonderful guy, very friendly. As I think I remarked earlier, he
had no objection to my motion for severance when David Bress got sick,
which was a gentlemanly thing to do. A very nice gesture on his part. I
had nothing but admiration for him.
In years following our paths crossed here and there. I don’t think
we were ever in a case together. I do know that our paths crossed, and we
always had warm greetings for each other. He was just a really good guy.
Richard Ben-Veniste was one of his principal deputies, as was Jill Volner,
now Jill Wine-Banks. And then there were some really exquisitely
talented bright men and women in the back doing all their motions.
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It’s funny. This is just a little one of my quirks, but for the last 50
years, I’ll meet people or read about people, and they say they were on the
Watergate case task force. And I scratch my head and say who the hell
were you?
MS. FEIGIN: [Laughter]
MR. GREEN: I mean, I never saw them, never heard of them, but they’re pounding their
chest that they were on the Watergate task force. Maybe there were 150
people stuck in the back room, I don’t know, but it’s just kind of amusing.
MS. FEIGIN: [Laughter] I guess the next big trial that you did, or that I know about, is
Harry Rodgers who was tried with Maryland Governor Mandel. So for
people reading this years from now, who won’t know who either of those
people are, do you want to set the scene and tell us how you came to be
involved?
MR. GREEN: So not too long after the end of the Watergate case and all the appeals, I
got a call from one of my Yale Law School classmates who at that time
was practicing with a big firm up in Baltimore, Weinberg and Green. And
he, unbeknownst to me, had been representing Harry Rodgers in a number
of Harry’s business deals.
Harry Rodgers and his brother, William or Bill Rodgers, owned an
entity called the Tidewater Insurance company. Some of my memory as
to names and that is likely imprecise. But Tidewater Insurance was a huge
insurance brokerage company that wrote insurance for many, many
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companies and may have been writing insurance even for the government,
the Maryland state government.
Anyway, the brothers were big Democratic power brokers. They
were very, very close to Marvin Mandel, the then-Governor of Maryland.
And they were also friendly with Dale Hess. Dale Hess was the former
Democratic Majority Leader in the Maryland House and when he left in
1970 he became a vice-president of Tidewater as well. Dale Hess was
another one of these huge, Democratic fundraiser power brokers very,
very close to Mandel. Harry Rodgers and Dale Hess were kind of
Mandel’s outside confidants. So to make a long story short, my lawyer
friend from law school calls up and says that there’s an investigation
brewing in Baltimore. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Baltimore is looking
into the relationship among the governor, Hess, the two Rodgers brothers,
a lawyer by the name of Ernest Cory, and Irv Kovens. Irv Kovens was an
elderly guy, wasn’t part of Tidewater Insurance, but was a very good
friend of Mandel’s. I don’t know if they were lifelong friends, but a very,
very, very close friend. Mandel was Jewish. Kovens was Jewish, and they
were very tight.
Ernie Cory was just a lawyer on the periphery. The investigation
focused principally on the governor, Harry Rodgers, Dale Hess and Irv
Kovens. Bill Rogers was less involved but still part of the investigation.
Harry Rodgers, Irv Kovens, and Dale Hess were Mandel’s kind of go-to
political guys to raise money and so forth.
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What the grand jury was looking into was whether or not these
guys had – I’ll use the word bribery – whether they had financially
induced or bribed Mandel to assist them in their objective of getting more
racing dates for a racetrack in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. In those days,
the horse racing season in the state of Maryland moved around to various
tracks in the state. Each track was allocated certain days and that was all
done by the legislature. The Rodgers brothers and Kovens had bought the
track at Upper Marlboro, not visibly but in a holding company where
really it was hard to figure out who exactly owned the track. Their
identity was not apparent. The alleged scheme, as it was framed up
eventually in the indictment, was that they had provided the governor with
certain financial benefits in return for his help in increasing the days at
that Upper Marlboro track because each day was a valuable commodity.
At that time Mandel’s salary was $25,000 I believe.
MS. FEIGIN: When we’re talking that time, when was it?
MR. GREEN: We’re talking the mid-’70s. The arraignment took place on December 4
of 1975 so the indictment had to be fairly close to that date, when it came
down. So we’re talking 1975, maybe some of 1974. It was really right on
the heels of the Watergate case. And the allegations were that they had
essentially kind of wined and dined the governor.
This is not a [New Jersey] Senator Menendez [2024] case of cars,
gold bars and cash. They took Mandel to their tailor; they got him five
suits; they took Mandel on a fishing trip. All those guys, the defendants —
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not Cory, but the others — were in a partnership where they bought a
building, and if you’re familiar with the way some of these partnership
transactions work, the partners each put in a relatively small amount of
cash and then they borrow $5 million and buy or construct a building. I
think the venture was formed to construct and then lease a building to the
Social Security Administration. They formed a partnership, and they each
put in $5, not literally, but figuratively. Each put in $5, and Mandel
probably did the same. Then the big boys signed a note. I don’t think
Mandel was liable on the financing but he was in the partnership. As these
kinds of cases go, looking backwards, and I don’t mean to be facetious,
but the benefits received by Mandel were not something extraordinary.
They didn’t buy Mandel a home or take him around the world or funnel
huge amounts of cash to him. On a $25,000 salary he probably needed a
few suits.
In the U.S. Attorneys Office Barney Skolnik was the principal
prosecutor. Ron Liebman was kind of second in command who, as an
aside, I’ve stayed friendly with all these years, and see him somewhat
frequently now. So that was the case and we went to trial.
MS. FEIGIN: Before we get to the trial, let me just say that looking into this a little bit, I
was impressed that you had some really prescient pre-trial motions. You
actually had a motion, which was kind of a McNally argument before
McNally. So you were on top of things before they became the law.
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MR. GREEN: I kind of recall that. But we weren’t the only ones to have thought that the
theory of dishonest services under the mail fraud statute was a little bit of
an exaggerated theory, in that the mail fraud statute was really aimed at
money and defrauding people or entities out of money or property. So I
think the argument that we made had been raised previously. I don’t think
we dreamed it up. But if we did, I’ll take credit for it. But I don’t think we
did. [Laughter]
MS. FEIGIN: You also had a recusal motion that I think was effective.
MR. GREEN: So when this goes to trial all the judges on the Maryland court recuse
themselves. All the federal judges in Baltimore recuse themselves. And
they brought John Pratt over from Washington to try the case. John Pratt
was a wonderful judge, a wonderful human being as I have described
earlier, and a judge that I knew extraordinarily well from my days in the
U.S. Attorney’s Office. Something came up.
MS. FEIGIN: What I believe it was is that the judge had been a law partner with
someone who was going to be to called as a witness.
MR. GREEN: That kind of rings a bell.
MS. FEIGIN: It’s not important. But it’s just unusual for those things to succeed and I
think yours did.
MR. GREEN: There is more background to this. Judge Pratt had to declare a mistrial in
December of 1976 because some members of the jury, which had been
sequestered in a hotel, heard news reports on TV that someone had tried to
bribe a member of the jury. Thereafter my co-counsel came to me and
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wanted to discuss recusal of Judge Pratt. They wanted a different judge for
the new trial. This is a little bit of a reprise because Hundley and Cacheris
are there representing Dale Hess. It’s kind of like we’re back together
again in another trial. And Arnold Weiner is representing the governor.
Mike Marr and some other lawyer are representing Bill Rodgers. Kovens
had been severed from the trial because of illness, and the plan was that he
would be tried later. My co-counsel felt strongly that there were good
grounds for recusal. I was less convinced that this was a compelling
argument and I particularly was reticent to do anything about it because of
my relationship with Judge Pratt. But they really leaned on me to be the
voice of the motion for the very reason that they felt Pratt would respect
what I said. And I succumbed to that, and I, to this day, I regret that. But I
argued the motion and he didn’t fight it, but I am sure he was disappointed
in me.
Now what goes around comes around, and Warren Burger, who, at
least by virtue of what I had heard, had no love for Marvin Mandel,
reached down to Tennessee to get Judge Robert Taylor to come up and
replace Pratt. And what these guys got, these defense lawyers, in exchange
for a really good, thoughtful, modest judge, they got a real tough son-of-agun.
MS. FEIGIN: Be careful what you wish for.
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MR. GREEN: Be careful what you wish for. And he came up and presided at the new
trial which began in June and ended in August of 1977. By that time
Kovens had recovered and was a defendant in the second trial.
But to make the long story short, we went to trial and the jury was
out a real long time.
MS. FEIGIN: 13 days.
MR. GREEN: Yes, 13 days. We were a little bit apoplectic about that, because
ultimately they were just hammered into a verdict by Taylor.
MS. FEIGIN: With an Allen charge?
MR. GREEN: Yeah, I think there were a couple of Allen charges along the way. Even
Allen would have been impressed with how emphatic the Allen charges
were. [laughter] In any event, the jury came back and I believe convicted
everyone. And then they had to forfeit a lot of stuff, including stock and
this and that. Taylor sentenced the governor, my client, Hess and Kovens
to four years in prison and the other defendants received lesser terms. But
Taylor allowed them to remain free on appeal.
It went up on appeal. The panel of the Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit, as then constituted, reversed, 2-to-1. I think the grounds
for reversal were evidentiary rulings and jury instructions.
The government then moved to have the decision reheard en banc,
and the Court of Appeals split 3-3. In the Fourth Circuit, when the en
banc court splits, it doesn’t uphold the panel decision. It reverses the
panel decision, because, under the Fourth Circuit’s precedents at that time,
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an en banc split is equivalent to no decision. It’s equivalent to no appellate
decision so the original conviction stands. So after that en banc split they
were deemed convicted. Then two more judges were appointed to the
Fourth Circuit, raising it to, I believe, its full complement of eight judges.
I think we then petitioned the appellate court to rehear it with its full
complement and they split four-four.
MS. FEIGIN: That is so dramatic! [laughter]
MR. GREEN: So again, the convictions stand. And so off they go to jail.
MS. FEIGIN: Did you argue the cases in the appellate court?
MR. GREEN: No, I did not. Again, as I said earlier, the talent for being an appellate
advocate and a jury trial advocate are really different. Some guys think
they’re ambidextrous, right hand, left hand. I don’t believe that.
Anyway, after that they are then in prison in minimum security
facilities. Years later, in 1987, McNally [v. U.S.] comes down in the
Supreme Court, holding that the mail fraud dishonest services theory is
facocta [Yiddish word for nuts] which is an old Irish saying.
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: Congress ultimately legislated to put that theory back into the mail fraud
statute. But McNally comes down and says the intangible right to honest
services is not a viable theory under the statute. So now our clients went to
prison for a crime they really didn’t commit.
MS. FEIGIN: Were they still in prison when McNally came down?
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MR. GREEN: No they were not. McNally came down about five years after all the
sentences had been served. After absorbing McNally I drafted a writ of
coram nobis and filed it with the district court. The argument was simply
they were in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. And the district court
agreed, granted the writ.
As a result, all of the financial deprivations that attached to the
conviction were reversed and they got all their money back and all their
stock back, and everything else that they had to forfeit. They walked
away with all of that back in their pockets.
MS. FEIGIN: That is a pretty dramatic sequence of events. If we could just go back to
the trial for a minute, I read that the trial took three months. I wonder if
you could tell me what it’s like to have to go through three months of trial
because that’s quite an adrenaline rush.
MR. GREEN: There were a number of my cases that went three months or more. It’s
probably part of the reason that not one of my three sons or daughter
elected to become a lawyer.
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: I was away so many times for so long. It’s immensely taxing in just about
every way that you could conceive. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
You’re exhausted. You’re in prison because you’re living in a hotel. Even
though the Mandel trial was in Baltimore, it was still too far to go home to
Washington every night. And on the weekends, in these mammoth trials,
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that’s the only time you really had to work with the witnesses, to get them
ready. There was rarely a night off.
The Mandel trial had one significant impact on my life, of a
personal nature. I was separated from my wife at the time. We ultimately
were divorced a couple of years later, but I was separated.
When I came back from Vietnam, I got married right away to a
lovely woman. But it was probably a mistake because I was a different
human being. She was a different person. We were together for like four
years and then we separated. I had been a bachelor, if you will, for some
time.
Anyway, back when I was getting ready and working on the
Mandel case at Ginsburg Feldman & Bress, before we moved to Baltimore
to try the case, I needed some extra help. I talked to the law firm and said I
could use a law clerk to do some things. They sent down this attractive
young woman who was still at GW law school but working at the firm. I
had never met her. She came in one day and introduced herself and began
working on the case. Quite attractive.
So it comes time to go to move to Baltimore. What I am about to
describe was done in a serious vein, no other agenda attached, and I mean
that truthfully. I said to her, “You know, if you want a unique experience,
you should come. You’ve worked on this case now for six months or
whatever. You know it backwards and forwards. You should come and
watch it tried. You’ll learn more through that hands-on experience than
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you’ll ever, ever learn in law school. So you ought to go back and talk to
your mother.” Her father had passed away and her mother had remarried.
“Go back to talk to your parents and to your professors and just leave law
school for a semester. You’ll go back and finish up. Come to this trial,
you can live at your home in Baltimore at night, and frankly I could use
the help because you’ve been of great help to me.” And so she thought
about it. And then I don’t know how much later, but before we went, she
came in and said, “I would like to do that; I think that would be great.” So
she came up and was part of the team.
One of my principal colleagues and buddies from the firm was Bill
Taylor. He was with me at Ginsburg at that time. I brought him to
Ginsburg, Feldman & Bress. Then he went on to Zuckerman, Spaeder,
Taylor and so forth. Really a wonderful guy. And he was kind of my
deputy up there, if you will, or major helper. And a few others were there.
And Pam was there, Pam Kellogg. So we’re up there, and we’re getting
ready for trial and this and that, and we had a lot of contact with each
other and then just biology took over. [laughter] We ended up as a couple
and forty-five years later we’re still married to each other.
MS. FEIGIN: That’s a wonderful story.
MR. GREEN: Yes. Great story. And then she and I had two wonderful kids, and then the
wonderful thing in my life is that they and my two other children were all
raised together. Four of them as a family. And they all treat each other as
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their family. Blood brothers/sister. So that’s been great, and I was very
lucky to have found Pam.
MS. FEIGIN: Let me ask you one more question about the trial. You said there was at
least one, maybe multiple Allen charges. I’m curious what you think of
Allen charges.
MR. GREEN: I don’t think there should be multiple Allen charges to where the jury feels
like if they don’t come back with a verdict the judge is going to lock them
up or something. But an appeal to them to refocus on the facts and put
aside any prejudices they might have, and see if they can come to a
verdict, I don’t have a negative reaction to it. I think in some instances it’s
justified. I don’t think it’s justified in every case.
If judges are really thoughtful, they have a pretty good, or should
have a pretty good, intuition as to whether there’s enough evidence in the
case or whether there isn’t. If a jury reports themselves in conflict and
incapable of reaching a verdict, the judge should have some insight into
whether that’s a reasonable proposition on its face and leave matters be as
they are. Or he could tell the jury to go back in there and try to come to a
conclusion or whatever. But some judges want to hammer home a verdict
and I clearly do not approve of that.
MS. FEIGIN: I hope people reading this understand what an Allen charge is. You sort of
described it, but why don’t you make it a little more specific.
MR. GREEN: It comes out of a case and someone named Allen was in it I’m sure.
[laughter] But basically the judge is imploring the jury – brings the jury
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back in, puts them into the box and reads them what is pretty much a
customary charge, in which he invites them or implores them to return to
the jury room.
So I’m reading from a case here, United States v. Haynes, 729 F.3d
178: “The Allen charge in this case encouraged the jurors to exchange
views with one another, consider each other’s views, work diligently to
reach a verdict.” It’s language along those lines where the judge is saying,
please go back and try harder. One more time.
MS. FEIGIN: I think the next matter of notoriety that I know that you had — and we
don’t have to limit ourselves to cases of notoriety but there are so many —
[laughter] is that you were quite involved in Iran-Contra.
MR. GREEN: To say the least.
MS. FEIGIN: To say the least. But before we talk about any of it, let’s just say what
Iran-Contra was because that’s a short term for a whole bunch of cases
that evolved over a certain –
MR. GREEN: There are a lot of moving pieces to the Iran-Contra affair. I have already
told the story about how Independent Counsel Walsh put me in the grand
jury. So I will now try to provide some context. President Reagan was
elected in 1980 and part of his platform was to oppose communism
wherever. But in the mid-term elections in 1982, the Democrats took over
control of both houses in Congress, and the next year Congress passed the
Boland Amendment. I actually think there was a second Boland
Amendment as well. The amendment was aimed at Nicaragua where anti-
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communist Contras were fighting the communist government. The Boland
Amendment was passed to prohibit the CIA, the Department of Defense,
and other government agencies involved in intelligence from using any
funds whatsoever for the purpose of overthrowing the government of
Nicaragua.
The Contras were not great guys and I think they were very heavy
into dealing drugs. And it will probably remain in doubt in perpetuity to
what extent President Reagan at the time authorized or put into motion an
arrangement to assist the Contras by basically providing them with arms
and money. But the weight of the evidence is that he did.
While all this is happening, terrorists in the Middle East took
several Americans as hostages in Lebanon. Also during this time the IranIraq war was going on and Iran had asked the U.S. if it could purchase
weapons. So a plan was developed inside the administration whereby the
U.S. would surreptitiously sell arms to Iran in the hope that this might free
the hostages and generate funds which could be secretly funneled to the
Contras. The operators, if you will, who were going to oversee this
program, were, principally, a marine lieutenant colonel, Oliver North, who
was assigned I think to the National Security Advisor’s Office, and a
retired two-star, Air Force General Richard V. Secord.
Ultimately when this undercover operation was exposed, there
were investigations both by a joint committee of Congress and by an
independent counsel. Retired judge Lawrence Walsh was appointed as the
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independent counsel. In my mind, the Iran-Contra affair and the
investigations that followed were the most significant crisis in this country
after Watergate because again we have a president and his close aides
involved. One of the allegations investigated was whether any of the funds
generated in this scheme were siphoned off into private bank accounts for
either other authorized covert purposes or to line the pockets of the
operators, who turned out to be my clients.
I think the first time the public came to learn about the possibility
of U.S. involvement in the effort to overthrow the Sandinistas was with
the downing of a plane and the survival of Richard Hasenfus, but I need to
back up a little bit. Some time before the Iran-Contra case blossomed,
which was in 1986, I had met General Secord when he retained me on
another matter. Secord was a quintessential military man and an
enormously gifted combat pilot during Vietnam. He ultimately retired
with two stars on each shoulder.
The Camp David Accords were negotiated by U.S. President
Jimmy Carter, and were agreed to by Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat,
and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in September of 1978. They
established a framework for a historic peace treaty between Israel and
Egypt which was signed in March 1979. In order to induce Egypt to sign
off on this process, the United States had to promise Egypt a ton of
military equipment. Part of the arrangements for that were going to be
conducted through the CIA and the Air Force was going to move all the
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equipment over to Egypt. Secord was in charge of that effort or had a very
principal role to play in that effort.
MS. FEIGIN: So he was still in the Air Force then?
MR. GREEN: Yes and there had to be a freight forwarder. There was an investigation
into the circumstances of the selection of the freight forwarder, which was
owned, I believe, at the time by a former high-ranking official from the
CIA. And there was a suggestion that Secord in selecting that freight
forwarder had received something under the table for doing that.
There was a huge investigation and in the end nothing happened.
There were no charges, nothing happened. But I think that may have
actually been the impetus for General Secord’s retirement. I think he may
have retired at or about that time, and I think that incident played a
substantial role in his retirement. But he wasn’t implicated in anything.
He had a great lawyer. [laughter]
So I knew Secord. And like with almost all the guys I represented,
except for some known crazies like Mardian, they became lifelong friends
of mine. So I knew Secord and come 1986 I’m actually on a hunting trip.
MS. FEIGIN: You’re a hunter? We’ll have to talk about that at some point.
MR. GREEN: Well, not very much anymore. And just waterfowl. I’m not like Don
Trump Jr.
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: *** that he is.
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
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MR. GREEN: So I’m on a hunting trip with my pal Harry Rodgers. And we are up in
Hudson Bay in Canada shooting geese with the Cree Indians. It’s a very
isolated place. I could spend an hour talking about hunting at Cabbage
Willows on the banks of little creeks feeding into Hudson Bay. But
anyway, there’s no phone or anything up there. It’s very primitive. They
do have a radio –
MS. FEIGIN: And we should just say — I’m sorry to interrupt — but people reading this
later will not think this way. There were no cell phones.
MR. GREEN: No cell phones, no landlines, no nothing, but there is a radio. And I’m not
sure who they’re in contact with, but there’s a radio. So we come back one
afternoon after hunting, and you don’t come back when you want to come
back; you have to wait till the tides come in so that you can take your little
canoe down these rivulets and get into Hudson’s Bay. Once you leave in
the morning, you’re out there 12, 13 hours because you have to go in on
the high tide and come out on the high tide.
Anyway, I come back to camp and the guys who run this camp
rush up to me and say that there’s someone on the radio or going to be on
the radio that’s looking for me and it’s like an emergency. And I thought,
oh, you know –
MS. FEIGIN: Was this like a shortwave radio?
MR. GREEN: It’s a two-way radio. I don’t know what frequency they were on, but it’s
like a shortwave radio. And so I go up to the radio room, and then, I don’t
know, maybe they said like at 6:00 someone’s going to call. So I’m there
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in the radio room and through the static I hear Oliver North. I recognized
his voice.
I had met North during the incipient days of the Iran-Contra
operation. I knew nothing about the operation. But Secord would bring
North to my office and I was introduced to him. And then they would in
the most elliptical language try to intimate or suggest to me what they
were doing without telling me what they were doing. It was bizarre. And
then they would ask me “Do you think we have a problem?” To which my
answer was “I don’t even know what you’re doing, because you can’t tell
me.” And I said “It’s hard for me to tell you if you have a problem, but
based on what little you’re telling me, I don’t think you have a problem.
But don’t rely on that because I don’t know what you’re doing.”
Secord probably brought North to my office two or three times.
And we had these short conversations, which are kind of a zero for me
because I really never had any idea what they were doing. So I knew who
North was. I knew that Secord was helping North in some project ordained
by the U.S. government, but God knows what it was and what they were
doing.
So in the radio room I recognized North’s voice. And he tells me
you have to return. There’s been a development. Those aren’t his exact
words because I can’t remember the exact conversation obviously, but you
have to return. There’s been a serious development. Get here as quickly as
you can.
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I said I’m in the middle of nowhere and I don’t know how I can get
anywhere quickly. And he said we’ll send a helicopter. Either he told me
he would send a helicopter or he was going to leave me information how
to get one. I’m not sure which, but within about an hour a helicopter lands.
MS. FEIGIN: “We” being the U.S. government? North was with the government. Who
would be sending the helicopter?
MR. GREEN: I can’t remember whether he said I’m going to send a helicopter or do this
to get a helicopter. Call this number to get it, that kind of thing. Anyway,
a helicopter shows up. I remember Harry Rodgers saying, “Well, if you’re
getting out of here, I’m getting out of here too.” [laughter] He got on the
helicopter also. Certainly it didn’t fly us to Washington, but it flew us to I
think some little town that had an airport. And then we got a commercial
flight I believe to Montreal and flew back to D.C. I can’t remember all the
details.
In the meantime, I had heard that this guy Hasenfus was shot down
in Nicaragua, and we can date this because Hasenfus was shot down on
October 5 of 1986. So this must have been within three, four days of that.
The plane that Hasenfus was in was a CIA-contracted plane that was
delivering weapons to the Contras. It was shot down over Nicaragua by a
surface-to-air missile. Both pilots and the radio operator on the airplane
were killed in the crash of the plane, but this guy, Hasenfus, bailed out,
and he was the only one to survive. He was captured within 24 hours and
he was put on trial, convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 30 years in
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prison. He was pardoned a month later to return to the United States. But
he had revealed, apparently during that process, that his was a CIA flight
and was part of an attempt to arm the Contras. So that hit the press and
that was a big blow up, massive blow up. That is what prompted North to
call me. And why me? Because I probably was the only lawyer he had
met and he was with Secord, and Secord said call Tom. So it could have
been – you know, it could have been Moshe Pupik [amusing Yiddish
name] and history would have been different. [laughter]. Anyway, I had
the misfortune that he called me. [laughter]
I get home and I start to leave messages certainly for Secord, and
maybe I had a number for North, saying I’m back. I expected I’d have a
call from one of them in two seconds saying come here, come there, we’ve
got to meet. The funniest thing is I couldn’t find either one of them. I
don’t think we ever met. I don’t have a recollection of ever talking about
Hasenfus but I was back from my hunting trip. Obviously at some point I
do meet with them. There’s just this massive controversy brewing in the
papers and the world’s going a little bit nuts about what’s going on.
Things start to leak out and so forth.
I remember meeting with North and Secord in my office. I don’t
think these two guys were hiding out but they were not being very
available, so to speak. And there were demands that the government
wanted to talk to them and so forth. I said one option for you guys is to
tell what you know. You’d have to do it fully and truthfully but tell what
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you know to the Department of Justice in hopes of securing immunity
because this thing could lead to all kinds of repercussions if it’s not nipped
off here. And they agreed. I remember calling Attorney General Meese
and telling him that I was representing North and Secord for the time
being and that I wanted to talk to him. And he said come on down.
MS. FEIGIN: The Attorney General directly?
MR. GREEN: Maybe I talked to his deputy who then said hang on. Maybe the deputy
went in. But basically, Meese says come on down.
MS. FEIGIN: That’s not the usual way it works. So you could tell this is high level.
MR. GREEN: I can’t remember whether I talked to him. But I went down there and I did
meet him. And I met Richard Cooper, a fairly prominent lawyer in
Republican circles. I think he’s still practicing. And here is where it gets
imprecise. I can’t remember whether I continue to talk to Meese and
Cooper or Meese said Tom, sit down with Richard and tell him what you
need to tell him, and then we’ll work on it or something like that. But in
any event, I basically said — I think certainly Meese was in for part of this
meeting — I would bring them both in but I want immunity. And their
answer to me was, in essence, we can’t make an immediate decision on
that right now. And I said well let’s agree to preserve the status quo.
You’re not going to reach out and grab these guys and apprehend these
guys while we’re having these discussions. And until you make a decision,
that’s the agreement we’ll have. And they said fine, we’ll do that. So I left
believing that I had implemented essentially a standstill agreement.
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I got in a cab to go back to my office and the cab driver had the
radio on. I’m listening to the radio and it is a broadcast of Reagan holding
a press conference in which he fires North, terminates North. I said to the
driver “Don’t go to my office, take me to the White House.” And by that I
meant the Executive Office Building [EOB]where North was. And so I
went there, and I don’t know what I did to get admitted, but I was finally
into North’s office and I said to him you need to get out of here right now
because in 10 minutes this place is going to be flooded with the press and
you don’t want to be here. And of course he had heard the president fire
him too; he was watching it or listening to it.
So he left with me. And somehow I got a call. I got a message that
General Secord was hanging out in a motel out of town in suburban
Virginia, pretty far out into Virginia, not down at Winchester or anything
like that but out in the far suburbs in some motel. And I remember that we
went out there. He said come out here and we’ll regroup out here. And so
North and I went there, and the three of us hung out in that motel room
basically for the day in an effort to avoid the press. And it was while we
were there Reagan called North. North must have called his office and told
them where he was on a landline. He gets a call back that the president
wants to talk to him. And I remember North literally coming to attention
holding the phone as the president apologizes for having to do it but that
he had no other option and da, da, da, da, da. I wasn’t privy to the full
conversation but that was obviously the gist of it. And that was that.
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Interestingly enough, while I was out there I get a call from my
office telling me that another old lawyer friend of mine was on the line
and that he was representing Admiral Poindexter [National Security
Advisor] and he wanted to send Poindexter to me. I remember telling my
secretary to tell him I’ve got enough trouble as it is, and that I can’t
represent North, Secord, and Poindexter.
So we’re out there all day and comes nightfall and I was starting to
go home and North says how am I going to get back? And I think Secord
said, well, you’re going back in the city Tom, why don’t you just take
North back in?
It’s possible that after I went to the White House to talk to North —
I’m pretty sure it was I who drove him out there. I know he didn’t have his
car. And Secord was already out there, so it must have been I that drove
him out there. So I drive him back to the White House. It’s now dark. It’s
evening. It’s probably around 8:00. There’s no press; it’s quiet around the
White House and the EOB. And he said come on up to my office and we’ll
have a beer. And I said okay. He had talked to Fawn Hall, his principal
administrative assistant or whatever, several times during the day. I wasn’t
privy to what they were talking about but they had a number of
conversations, one of which must have been her asking him to come back
and what do they do about certain documents that they had there. I’m
speculating but I’m guessing that one of the conversations must have been
about that.
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So I drive him back. I park my car right there next to the White
House somewhere. Go up to his office and he gets me a beer. He says stay
here for a couple of minutes, I have to go in the back. So I was in the little
greeting area in his office, sitting on a chair and having this beer. And
some time passes and he comes out with Fawn Hall and he says okay, we
can go now, let’s go. And he said do you mind driving me to my car,
which is parked over here, wherever, and then I’ll take Fawn home. I
think that was the first time I had met her. I said no problem.
When we first got to the office, outside it was kind of calm, quiet.
But posted right outside his office were two National Security Agency
agents kind of sealing the office or protecting the office. So North talked
us all in. I think they opened my briefcase to see what I had going into the
office. And then when we left North and Fawn Hall had nothing on their
persons but the agents again opened up my briefcase to see if I was
removing anything from the office. Because there was nothing in it that
wasn’t in there before, they said okay, you can go. So we left.
As we go down the elevator, Fawn Hall starts talking to North and
saying something like I want to show you this or something like that, and I
said to her, why don’t you wait till we’re outside, okay? I didn’t know
what she wanted to do in the elevator or what. I just said I think it’s best
you just wait till you’re outside. And when we got outside I recall that I
came to understand somehow that she likely had documents on her person
that she wanted to give to North.
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So we walked to my car. North’s in the back, she’s in the seat next
to me in the driver’s seat. And as I go to start the car, she starts pulling
documents out of her clothes, that were underneath her clothing. And she
gives them to North. And I said “What is that? What are you doing?” And
I think it was North who said “She’s just giving me documents that show
that Reagan approved everything we did.”
I said “Jeez” — or maybe something a bit different – “you’ve just
created enormous problems here. Enormous problems. Not the least of
which is I’m going to have to withdraw from your representation now,
right now.”
He and I had had discussions that I was going to withdraw from
this representation anyway because I knew I could not continue to
represent both Secord and North simultaneously. And since Secord was
my historical client, it was, in my mind, more or most appropriate that I
continue to represent Secord, out of a sense of loyalty and whatever. And
North had said we need to talk about a lawyer for him. So North would
have probably had his own lawyer within 24 or 48 hours of this incident
anyway. But it could have been done with a little more luxury of time.
So I said to him “You created a problem for yourself, taking
documents, secreting documents out of your office, and you created a
problem for me because I’m going to have to now get out of the case.”
He couldn’t quite understand that but I had to explain to him that
he, certainly in the view of the government, he’d committed a crime in my
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presence. And so I had only the alternative of marching him back in there
or getting him a new lawyer, let the new lawyer work with the problem.
I took him to his car and then I drove out to my partner Jim
Sharp’s house, told him what had happened. He agreed that we needed a
new lawyer, and we went through a list of names. I don’t think it’s
appropriate to go through that process with you, but I was persuaded to,
and agreed to, send the case to Brendan Sullivan at Williams & Connolly
– send North. So Jim called Brendan that night, late at night. They talked
and we agreed to meet the next morning at some place, I think it was for
breakfast, where we had a more fulsome discussion of what had happened.
MS. FEIGIN: We being who?
MR. GREEN: Jim Sharp, myself, and Brendan. And then I turned over the keys to
North, so to speak, to Brendan and apprised him of everything that had
taken place. And then he began, from that point forward, to undertake the
representation of Oliver North. So that’s how that went down.
After Walsh is appointed as Independent Counsel, he puts together
his staff. Sooner or later Walsh wants to question Fawn Hall. And I think
Plato [Cacheris] negotiates immunity for Fawn Hall. And she goes in there
and among the things she reveals to Walsh is the story I just told you,
insofar as she was party to it. And so Fawn Hall told him everything, that
I was there that night and da, da, da, da, da. Later I came to understand
that Fawn also told Walsh that before we all got to my car I asked her if
she had been shredding any documents that related to North’s activities.
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My recollection is that I asked her that because once we were on the street
I perceived that she had some documents she wanted to give to North. She
assured me that she had not and that any shredding in the office had only
been the kind of stuff, the normal stuff that they shredded every day. And
I said good or great or whatever. And then I went on my way.
So I’m speculating now. When she tells Walsh this, I think his
first instinct was that this was some kind of a contrived conversation by
me with her because he begins a very penetrating investigation of me. He
subpoenas every document in my life for the last 50 years. And he’s just
all over me. I guess he was trying to examine or investigate whether I was
party to obstruction, or to put pressure on me. I retained Earl Silbert.
All these guys that were working for Walsh, like Paul Friedman
and Reid Weingarten — there’s a whole bunch of them – were all friends
of mine, were all good friends of mine. And from time to time we’d have
some brief conversations and I would say to them you know me, just tell
Walsh that he’s barking up a wrong tree. But Walsh was persistent and so
he stayed focused on me.
I remember going down there one time and having a conversation
with him. He was a retired federal judge and a lot of people kept calling
him Judge. I couldn’t abide calling him Judge and I refused to call him
Judge. I called him Mr. Walsh. A couple of times I’d call him Larry,
which would really piss him off but I couldn’t care less.
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I remember going down there and telling him “Look, I don’t know
why you’re messing with me. I didn’t do anything wrong, but if you’re
doing this to pressure me to talk about my relationship with Secord or
North, I want you to know that that’s privileged. You know it’s privileged,
and I’ll never talk about it ever, ever, ever. So if that’s what you’re after,
you might as well quit” and I walked out. That didn’t stop him but I felt
better.
Walsh decided that since they’re not getting anything from me, and
they’re not finding anything in any document or anything, that it’s time to
put me in the grand jury. And I told that story a while back [Oral History,
Session 3] when I related how in the grand jury they asked me questions.
And I said I take the First, Second, Third, fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth,
and Ninth Amendments. I’m not answering. And I think Judy Hetherton
was the prosecutor and they took me to the chief judge, Aubrey Robinson
and he told me to use the other number and so on.
Meanwhile, while I’m under pressure from Walsh, Earl [Silbert]
and I, and maybe even Jim [Sharp], say to Brendan Sullivan Tom’s got a
problem here and your client can clear it up in 32 seconds by confirming
for Walsh that Tom knew nothing about your collaboration with Fawn
Hall in getting those documents out of your White House Office. Why
don’t you just go down there and see Walsh and tell him that, which,
frankly, is what I would have done had the situation been reversed. But
Brendan took the position that he couldn’t afford to let North say
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abracadabra, let alone what I wanted, because it could jeopardize
Brendan’s attempt to get immunity for North. So I was kind of left
twisting in the wind a little bit and it was very uncomfortable. I’ve never
quite come to grips with that. I just didn’t think it was the right thing to do.
As I say, I wouldn’t have done it.
Eventually Brendan said when North appears in front of Congress,
or when he has to testify, if he gets the right question, he’ll immediately
exonerate Tom and tell them that he had nothing to do with it. And I think
even when North testified before Congress, either my situation didn’t
come up or North didn’t quite do that. I’m not sure. I just can’t remember.
But all stories have a happy ending, or at least most of them do, because
Plato Cacheris knew about this and he took Fawn Hall back down to see
Walsh. And she told Walsh that Tom Green had nothing to do with this
and didn’t know anything about it. And Walsh, although he never lost his
interest in me, moved on.
But Walsh was a kind of a vindictive SOB. When he wrote his
report to the Court of Appeals, he devoted two pages to me, or maybe
three pages to me. I think I’m chapter seven in the report to the Court of
Appeals. And he recounts this episode about the documents and then says
something like we didn’t have enough resources to pursue this at the time
or something, so we dropped it. Just really ridiculous stuff but that’s what
he said.
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MS. FEIGIN: Wow. Well let me just end with one question because we’ll do Secord
next time. But the whole idea of independent counsels is controversial.
Having been through what you went through, I wonder your opinion of the
whole concept of this as it was then. It’s obviously changed somewhat
now.
MR. GREEN: I had a role in just about every independent counsel investigation. I either
had one of the targets or I had one of the principal witnesses. I lived with
the Independent Counsel Act from the day it started till the day the statute
expired in 1999. That statute was another part of the fallout from the
Watergate case.
The problem with it – I mean in theory, when you suggest that
there ought to be a way to conduct an investigation free from interference
or influence from the Department of Justice or from other allegedly
invidious sources, you could say I’m not going to quarrel with that. But
the problem is that because they were so independent, they were really
immune to input from experienced hands concerning the conduct of their
investigation and whether they were acting reasonably or unreasonably.
Some of these guys got so carried away that an investigation which
should have lasted two-and-a-half months lasted two-and-a-half-years. I
don’t know whether it was because they enjoyed the notoriety or they
enjoyed the remuneration or what, but some of these investigations just
went on interminably and at great cost where a really experienced
prosecutor would have been able to separate the wheat from the chaff.
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And I think that was the problem with some of these investigations. Some
of them just got crazy but so too can an investigation by the Department of
Justice.
MS. FEIGIN: But the Department of Justice doesn’t write a report if they don’t charge
somebody. If you don’t charge somebody you’re not supposed to talk
about what you might have done. So that the whole concept of a report . . .
MR. GREEN: Yes. What they put in that report is totally up to them. Take my example.
That was just gratuitous, adding a chapter on me that was done out of
spite. Walsh just felt that he had been trivialized by us, and he was mad,
and that’s why he stuck that in there. But that’s just a function of
personality. You’re right. That was not consistent with DOJ policy. But
there wasn’t anybody to slap his fingers.
MS. FEIGIN: Well that’s quite a dramatic story and probably a good place to end. So
thank you very much. Hugely appreciate it. We’ll pick up with Richard
Secord next time.
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ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee
is Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place over Zoom on July 23, 2024. Tom is at his
home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Judy is at home in Washington, D.C. This is the
fifth interview. [updated January, 2025]
MS. FEIGIN: Good morning.
MR. GREEN: Good morning.
MS. FEIGIN: When we ended the last session, we had completed your interactions with
Oliver North as to Iran-Contra and we were ready to talk about General
Secord. There was a lot going on with him, beginning I think with his
testimony before the Iran-Contra committee. Could you tell us about your
representation of him during that time?
MR. GREEN: I earlier described [Session 4] how I came to meet General Richard
Secord, who died in October of 2024. He was one remarkable individual.
He came up through the Air Force to the rank of lieutenant general. He
was a well-known fighter pilot in Vietnam and Laos. A gutsy, brave guy
really. And a tough guy, a lot of courage; I admire him on a number of
levels.
Again, as I related earlier, I met him sometime following the Camp
David Accords when the movement of military equipment to Egypt was
investigated by DOJ. Secord survived that investigation but soon after
retired from the Air Force. Thereafter I maintained my relationship with
him and we saw each other from time to time. He went into some other
business deals and this and that and I had continuing contact with him
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mostly of a social nature. And then in 1985 he re-enters my life so to
speak in connection with the Iran-Contra affair.
When Congress began its investigation in 1987 to unravel just
what happened, Secord was subpoenaed to testify. We both knew that
North would invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify as part of
his strategy to obtain immunity. Secord and I had conversations about
whether he should testify. Without descending into my advice to him, he
made the decision that he wanted to testify. In fact he insisted on being the
lead-off witness at the hearings, and he wanted to appear voluntarily. That
decision was compatible with his personality and with his enormous
confidence. He believed at the time that he and North had done nothing
wrong, that they were acting on the orders of the president. And that if
Congress wanted to know what the hell happened, well then damn it, he
was going to go up there and tell them, without immunity, without any
protection.
MS. FEIGIN: He didn’t want it, or you weren’t able to negotiate it?
MR. GREEN: It was something he didn’t care about. He made it clear that he didn’t
want or need immunity. He was going to tell the truth. He went up there
and I went with him but only after cautioning him about the substantial
risks. And it was a circus, the whole atmosphere. Because he was the
lead-off witness the hearing room was packed and jammed, and the dais
was full of senators. And I’ve got to hand it to him. He walked right in, sat
135
right down and I think we had an opening statement that he probably read.
Then he took questions. He was up there four days and plowed through.
Arthur Liman was the committee’s counsel, a very brilliant guy.
Had his own personality but we’ll leave that aside. Secord did not
anticipate that Liman had access to some very pertinent information
concerning the financial aspects of the Iran-Contra operation — the
movement of the money and accounts that were opened in Switzerland by
North and Secord and Albert Hakim, who was a business partner of
Secord in unrelated respects.
When that came up, my guess is that General Secord was
surprised. I don’t think he registered that at the hearing. I was a bit
surprised because there were things that I was not aware of either. And I
think some of Secord’s answers to some of those questions left a number
of the issues concerning finances unresolved and with a big question mark
after them. I don’t think it was on balance great for him in that regard
because in the end I think Liman was able to tarnish him with some
suggestions about whether he and North had used some of the proceeds
generated in the arms sales for their personal benefit and whether they
intended to enrich themselves. I’d have to reread all those transcripts to
put more meat on that, but in any event, then it was over. He was off the
stand so to speak.
MS. FEIGIN: Let me ask a couple of questions about that and then we can go on. Can
you tell us a little more about Hakim?
136
MR. GREEN: Albert Hakim was kind of a business partner of Secord’s; he was
represented by Dick Janis. He inserted himself into this operation by
asserting that he had expertise on financial matters and how to move
money and send money and so forth. So he was kind of an operative on
the financial side of the money moving.
MS. FEIGIN: And just to place this timewise, when he testified was Secord still in the
Air Force? Was he testifying in uniform?
MR. GREEN: No. He had left the Air Force in or about 1983 after the investigation into
the freight forwarding issues a few years earlier. North was still in the
service but not Richard.
MS. FEIGIN: So you got him through that.
MR. GREEN: I got him through that, and I thought maybe he was safe and all’s well, it
was going to end well. Secord testified in May of 1987. Lawrence Walsh
was appointed independent counsel on December 19 of 1986 so his
investigation had already started. Walsh was continuing his investigation
and ultimately Secord, North, Admiral Poindexter and Hakim were
indicted in 1988.
On November 8th, 1989 Secord pled to lying to Congress; I’ll
explain that in a minute. There were a bunch of counts in the indictment
against Secord, and Reid Weingarten, a good friend of mine, was the
prosecutor. I think it’s fair to say, even though there were very serious
offenses alleged against Secord and North, there were some that I would
call insubstantial or minor offenses, one of which was a count charging
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Secord with lying during the investigation on the Hill, lying during a
deposition to one question.
Nobody really wanted to try this case. The government was not
excited about trying it. Certainly the defendants didn’t want to have it
tried.
MS. FEIGIN: Why do you think the government didn’t want to try it? Because of the
information that might come out?
MR. GREEN: No. Because they were concerned that the immunity given to North to
obtain his congressional testimony would prevent them from using that
testimony at trial, to try North after that grant of immunity. There were
some complicated legal issues in there and that’s ultimately what
happened anyway. So Weingarten and I had long conversations. There
were some interesting defenses that this was all authorized by the
government and so on and so forth. I think just to try to get the case to be
more manageable or whatever, Weingarten was interested in seeing if he
could get Secord and me out of the case.
And so at one point – and maybe without remembering exactly
what was in the indictment — he said to me “Tom, I’ll take a plea to any
count in the indictment.” I said “Any count?” He said “Yes, any count.
I’ll take a plea to any count in the indictment. Get you out of the case, get
Secord out of the case.” I said “Okay, let me consider that.” So I went
back and reread the indictment, found this count that claimed that Secord
lied in answer to a specific question. If it was a lie, it was a lie with a
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small l, but whatever. So I came back to him and I said, okay, we’ll plead
to count whatever it is. And he looked at that and I don’t think he was very
happy, but a deal’s a deal. So we pled to that count and Secord was found
guilty of one count of misrepresentation or lying to Congress. I don’t
know the exact language.
MS. FEIGIN: I believe this was a count of lying about knowing that Oliver North had
used money for a private security system.
MR. GREEN: It was a minor issue that no one seemed to care about.
MS. FEIGIN: We haven’t really laid this out but the original indictment charged a lot of
serious crimes — bribery and heavy duty stuff, theft of government
property, wire fraud –
MR. GREEN: Yeah. There was a lot of stuff packed in there. Judge Aubrey Robinson
took Secord’s plea and sentenced him to two years of unsupervised
probation so it had a reasonably happy ending.
MS. FEIGIN: Hugely in terms of the criminal exposure for sure. Let me just ask you one
more question about the criminal case. Anything about Judge Robinson
during that plea that we should discuss because we discussed him in other
contexts. There was a lot of pretrial stuff going on I think.
MR. GREEN: There was and there was a trial for North and he was convicted. My
recollection is that his conviction was reversed because of these immunity
issues principally. And I think he was tried in front of Gerhard Gesell.
When Aubrey Robinson took Secord’s plea, he wasn’t that impressed with
the government’s position with respect to all of this.
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There is no doubt about the basic plan of operations, so to speak —
arms were moved through Israel and so forth to Iran in return for money
that went to the Nicaraguans. North and Secord were obviously not on a
detour and frolic of their own with respect to that.
I think to the extent that there’s still a cloud hanging over Secord
and North, it probably relates to the accounting for all the money and
whether there was some siphoned off along the way, which all of the
gentlemen involved claim never happened. I’m sure there are others that
think it did. But these guys were kind of run along the railroad tracks for
something that the government wanted to run away from. So when it
came time for Aubrey Robinson to sentence Secord, Secord was hopeful
that he would emerge in one piece.
MS. FEIGIN: There was a coda to the criminal case. He wound up bringing a libel action
against the author of a book called Out of Control, which accused Secord
of the much more serious charges. I know you were involved in that too. I
wonder if you could tell us about it.
MR. GREEN: I think all the principal individuals that were involved with the Iran Contra
situation were very, very sensitive to how they were perceived because
they very much believed that their operation had been sanctioned at the
highest levels of the government. And when it was exposed, and they were
subjected to scrutiny, and then criticism, then prosecution, it created a lot
of anger I’d say. They felt that they were being unfairly mistreated and
misperceived.
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Journalists are always looking for stories. And one woman, Leslie
Cockburn, wrote a book. And in that book she made a number of
allegations about Secord’s conduct. Essentially, they painted Secord and
others in a very unflattering light. The allegations I think centered around
a thesis that there was more private profiteering going on than public
service, if you may.
I remember Richard bringing this book to my attention. And I
remember him being quite upset about it. I had handled a number of
defamation cases on the plaintiff’s side so I was familiar with what it took
to allege a cause of action and what the possible defenses were.
I remember cautioning Richard that these kinds of cases are very
difficult to prevail in because he would be deemed to be a public figure.
And my recollection is he kind of resisted that notion. He didn’t want to
concede that he really was a public figure. But there’s not a perfect match
between being public as a figure and being a public figure under New York
Times v. Sullivan.
He wanted very much to file the lawsuit and I certainly felt there
were sufficient grounds to file the lawsuit. I told him we would need
substantial discovery in order to prove that a number of these allegations
were published with malice, which equates to a known falsity or reckless
disregard for the truth. And he understood that. So we were relying on our
ability to secure sufficient discovery.
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We filed the case and memory dims some of the things that
happened sequentially, but we never really got much discovery. I don’t
know whether we were opposed as a legal matter or whether it was just a
question of fighting and struggling and just not getting the things that we
thought were out there. But eventually the defendants, who were
represented by Floyd Abrams — Mr. First Amendment — brought a motion
for summary judgment. That was argued, and Judge Revercomb, who was
sitting on the federal district court in Washington at the time, concluded
that there just was not enough evidence in the record of malice. Therefore
he granted the motion for summary judgment and dismissed the
complaint.
MS. FEIGIN: Since this is an oral history for The Historical Society of the District of
Columbia Circuit, do you have any observations about Judge Revercomb?
MR. GREEN: I hardly ever appeared before Revercomb. If you had asked me before I
looked at the opinion to refresh my recollection of it, I would not have
remembered that Revercomb sat on the case. I don’t remember ever really
trying any cases in front of Revercomb. But because he ruled against me,
I clearly didn’t like him. [laughter]
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: But I can’t hold that against him.
MS. FEIGIN: Did he have a reputation in the court that you are aware of?
MR. GREEN: Certainly nothing negative. I think he was well thought of.
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MS. FEIGIN: And to the extent that Floyd Abrams was involved in the case – and
perhaps you had other cases with him — do you have a sense of him as a
lawyer, as an adversary?
MR. GREEN: I think Floyd deserved his reputation. He was incredibly well versed in
First Amendment law and in First Amendment decisions. I had
encountered him a couple of times along the way. Again, I’d have to look
into what the cases were. He always came with an entourage.
MS. FEIGIN: From his law firm?
MR. GREEN: Yes. He was a big name in First Amendment litigation.
MS FEIGIN: Still is.
MR. GREEN: Yeah. How old’s Floyd? He’s got to be my age at least I would think.
MS. FEIGIN: Older I believe.
MR. GREEN: But on this day he took me to the cleaners. [laughter] Happily, over the
years I took more guys to the cleaners than took me to the cleaners.
MS. FEIGIN: For sure. But before we leave that case, New York Times v. Sullivan is a
case that comes up a lot, and there’s a lot of talk that the current Court
might revisit the case. I wonder if you have any feelings about that case.
MR. GREEN: Every time the current Court revisits something, it ends tragically in my
view. I don’t want to get off on a tangent about the current Court, but I’m
so unhappy with some of the things they’re doing. New York Times v.
Sullivan should not be revisited. It is, I think, a profoundly effective
compromise between the competing interests of the publisher, on the one
hand, and the person that is claiming defamation or libel. If you do away
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with it, it’s just going to open up a floodgate of litigation. Every time
someone thinks that somebody said something negative, let’s file suit, let’s
file suit. I’m talking about people that are basically well known and public
figures. So I have no quarrel with it.
If the truth be known, if you’re a lawyer representing an individual
who claims that what was published is absolutely untrue and defamatory,
the odds are that you will be able to demonstrate that the reporter should
have doubted his or her sources or the truthfulness of what they wrote. In
other words, if it’s untrue, it’s untrue. It’s a pretty objective assessment.
The reporter can’t just say I relied on a source; Joe Blow told me this.
They have an obligation to test that assertion before they publish it. And
that’s where they’re exposed. Plus they have a lot of other inputs.
Typically, a plaintiff in a defamation case has advance knowledge that an
article is coming out or that it is underway because the reporter is engaged
in reporting. There are a number of sources of information that come back
to the individual, such that they become aware that an article is going to be
written. And because of the questions that the reporter is asking various
people, the subject matter of the article is usually understood and known.
Lots of lawyers would call the reporter and say I understand you’re
contemplating a story about my client in which you’re going to allege
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Reporters often neither confirm nor deny that.
But the lawyer often goes on to explain that’s absolutely, unquestionably
untrue and here’s why. And there’s no reason that, if you’re trying to
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avoid publication, a lawyer shouldn’t reveal what information they have to
convince the reporter that they’re on the wrong track, or about to make a
fundamental mistake that’s going to create legal peril for them. So I don’t
have a problem with New York Times v. Sullivan. I think it would be a big,
big mistake to retreat from it. I really do.
MS. FEIGIN: In the Secord case, did you reach out before the book came out?
MR. GREEN: I might have reached out. I have a vague recollection of reaching out and
having the reporters just basically tell me to take a hike, which may have
been part of the reason that we ended up suing them. I have a vague
recollection of trying to talk to the Cockburns.
MS. FEIGIN: You are an incredible crisis manager. Wen Ho Lee is obviously another
huge case. Wen Ho Lee is a name that some people down the road may
not recognize, so we should say who he was and how you got involved.
MR. GREEN: Wen Ho Lee was a physicist and ethnic Chinese. He had been working for
the government and Department of Energy for many years, stationed at
Los Alamos in New Mexico.
MS. FEIGIN: U.S. citizen?
MR. GREEN: A U.S. citizen. He was a mid-level guy out there. He didn’t have access to
the nation’s most critical sensitive secrets. But he worked on the military
aspects of armaments and bombs and so forth. Kind of stuff that Los
Alamos was doing ever since World War II ended.
At a point in time in around the late ’90s, people in the
government, in the military, in the industry started to get concerned that
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China had developed a small warhead similar to this country’s apparently
very effective small atomic warhead, that China had cracked the code on
how to make a small warhead and so forth. There was concern that maybe
information had leaked out of the military or scientific establishment.
Wen Ho Lee ultimately came under suspicion, or he was one of the
people looked at, probably because of racial profiling and also probably
because of the fact that he had taken authorized trips to Taiwan and to
China and had met with scientists in both those countries and knew them
and so forth. It got to the point where ultimately he was indicted, I think in
1999. He was represented by a guy by the name of Mark Holscher in
California, in Los Angeles, and he was convicted.
MS. FEIGIN: Was there a trial or did he plead?
MR. GREEN: He ultimately pled guilty to one felony count of illegally gathering and
retaining national security data. He never admitted to intending to harm
the United States or aid a foreign country. And he agreed to a sentence of
time served with no probation and to undergo 60 hours of debriefing.
When he was indicted he was incarcerated. The government said
he had to be jailed. He was jailed for, I think, about nine months. And
then the case fell apart. The government discovered that it just simply
didn’t have the evidence, that they couldn’t prove that he engaged in
espionage or that he mishandled secrets.
There were a lot of questionable aspects to Wen Ho Lee’s conduct.
He had downloaded a lot of information and copied a lot of information
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and so forth, but the government just couldn’t confirm and establish that
he ever actually gave it to anybody. They couldn’t trace it anywhere. They
couldn’t find out that he misused it or did anything with it. The case just
started to unravel. And it got to the point where the chances of proving
anything substantial at a trial were so flimsy that they agreed to this plea.
Because he had been locked up, which was horrible, there was a lot
of consternation and misgiving about the way he had been treated. When
he was indicted, the government went in and made these ridiculous farfetched and exaggerated arguments that if you left him out on bail he was
a serious threat to the security of the country and he had to be locked up.
And the court locked him up.
In the end, when the court finally took the plea, the judge was very
apologetic to Wen Ho Lee, saying it was a mistake to have done it. The
government should never have pushed for it. He apologized to Wen Ho
Lee for the way the prosecutors, the executive branch, had approached the
case. But even today there are suspicions that circulate about Wen Ho Lee.
He was kind of a cipher. They never could prove anything. But I’m sure
there are people walking around even today that were pushing for his
prosecution, who probably believe that he did something. But again, it’s
just never really ever been proved or established.
I had nothing to do with that criminal case. But at the time that all
that was going on, there were incredible leaks to the press. The
government, somebody was leaking to the press about Wen Ho Lee, what
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he did and so on and so on. And that conduct arguably contravenes the
Privacy Act. The government’s not allowed to do that.
So Wen Ho Lee went to a lawyer in California by the name of
Brian Sun. Brian was then, and is now still, a very good friend and buddy
of mine. Brian Sun is of Chinese ethnicity also. Very fine white-collar
lawyer. Great guy. And Brian Sun calls me up and says look, I need you to
help me on this case to sue the government for Privacy Act violations. So
to make a long story short, he comes here and we sit in my office and we
draft the complaint. Of course we had help in doing that. And then we
filed that complaint. I think we filed a second amended complaint.
MS. FEIGIN: Was that filed in D.C.?
MR. GREEN: In D.C., in front of Tom Jackson. The controversy in that case was to get
the reporters’ sources. The reporters had published these leaks, probably
came from the government somewhere. And so there was a lot of litigation
to force the reporters to cough up their sources, which is all very delicate
stuff. District court judge Tom Jackson wrote an opinion and then there
was an appellate court opinion.
To make a long story short, you don’t have a shot at getting the
sources of reporters unless you can show that you tried every other
conceivable avenue to obtain that information. In the interest of justice
you have to show that there’s no other way on the face of the globe to get
that information other than to get it from the reporters.
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The reporters resisted and they were held in contempt. The
contempt was affirmed on appeal. I think they were fined – each reporter
was fined $500 a day. There were a number of reporters, I think six or
seven maybe. The lawsuit was actually brought against the government.
The reporters were not named as defendants in the case. Their depositions
were taken in an effort to discover their sources, and that’s when they
resisted and said no, and then they were, as a result, held in contempt.
The case was scheduled for trial but ultimately the government
didn’t want to go to trial. The government was just too concerned about
their exposure and the release of sensitive information and they needed to
bring it to an end. So there were negotiations with the Department of
Justice. But there were also negotiations with the reporters because the
reporters were exposed as well down the line. They didn’t want any part
and parcel of this if they could avoid it.
I think the way it was settled is the Department of Justice paid
about $800,000 and it was styled as a payment for legal fees rather than
damages. But then we were able to collect another almost $800,000 from
these reporters, from these newspapers. And so the privacy case against
Wen Ho Lee was settled for around $1.6 million, something like that.
I did a lot of the arguments in court on these sources. Interestingly
enough, I had been involved years earlier in a case against The Wall Street
Journal. The Journal had a famous investigative reporter by the name of
Jim Drinkhall. He had written an article about a hood, a Mafia guy in
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Nevada, in Las Vegas. The gist of the article was that two Justice
Department lawyers had set out to persecute this guy. It was a really ugly
story. The two prosecutors wanted to sue for defamation. And the
Department of Justice, I can’t remember who it was, it was many years
ago, called me up and said, would you represent these guys and take their
case against The Wall Street Journal?
Jim Drinkhall was their lead investigative reporter and we had to
get his sources. And so it was the same kind of litigation in front of Chief
Judge Greene in the Superior Court in the District of Columbia. And after
a lot of litigation, he forced The Wall Street Journal to come up with their
sources. The Journal decided to throw in the towel, which they had hardly
ever done, hardly ever settled a case. I was asking for $5 million, which
back then was an enormous sum of money for a libel case. We sued on
behalf of the prosecutors, John Dowd and Michael Kramer. We sued the
Mafia guy and Jim Drinkhall and The Wall Street Journal. It was in 1984,
so it’s a long time ago.
Judge Greene ordered The Journal to cough up the sources,
Drinkhall to cough up his sources. They settled. They didn’t want to settle
for $1 million because they had never, ever settled anything for that much
so they settled for just a bit less, but a substantial victory nevertheless.
That case was one of the principal cases in this field of getting
sources from newspapers. And that case was used all over again later in
the Wen Ho Lee litigation.
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So that’s the quick story of Wen Ho Lee. He was arrested in
December of 1999. He was either fired or resigned from Los Alamos. He’s
now retired and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife.
MS. FEIGIN: Since you referenced both Judge Jackson and Judge Greene in this
reminiscence, is there anything you’d like to say about either of those
judges?
MR. GREEN: Harold Greene was a very deliberative, quiet guy. I didn’t appear before
Harold Greene very much. But he was enormously well respected.
MS. FEIGIN: No relation to you?
MR. GREEN: No relation. In fact, he spelled his name G-R-E-E-N-E.
MS. FEIGIN: We needed to make that clear for the record.
MR. GREEN: Tom Jackson was more of a hail-fellow-well-met, a much more ebullient
personality. I don’t want to get too controversial here, but with respect to
all these judges, there are people that love them and they have their
detractors too. Lawyers either love judges or dislike judges depending on
their decisions. Jackson came out of the plaintiffs’ bar. He was the son of
a very prominent lawyer in Washington of years ago and well-liked. I
think that’s all I should say about it.
MS. FEIGIN: Isn’t he known for Microsoft or some huge antitrust case, that took years?
MR. GREEN: I think he did Microsoft. So that’s the story of Wen Ho Lee.
MS. FEIGIN: Okay. Let me just ask one tangential question about Wen Ho Lee. This
wasn’t the part that you represented him on but it struck me as very
unusual when you said it. You said that one of the things he agreed to was
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to undergo 60 hours of debriefing. I have never heard of a debriefing
limited by time like that. Usually it’s simply debriefing as warranted.
MR. GREEN: It doesn’t happen a lot but it’s not unheard of.
MS. FEIGIN: Knowing there is a limit, you could imagine somebody dragging it out so
that certain information doesn’t come out in the allotted time.
MR. GREEN: According to Wen Ho Lee, he was a simple guy. He was not complex. He
went to China, okay, so he went to China and he had meals at a restaurant,
and he talked to Moe and Joe and Charlie. He came home.
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: He was able to tell them certain things. He had made some mistakes in the
way that he had handled classified information. He described that and he
admitted that I believe. He was forthright. I think he probably could have
been more observant of the typical restraints that attached to this material.
But nothing came out of those interviews. Nothing came out of those 60
hours that was a bombshell and the government suddenly went off to
pursue X or Y. There were no arrests; nothing dramatic happened.
MS. FEIGIN: I think ultimately the president, Clinton at the time, wound up apologizing
to Wen Ho Lee.
MR. GREEN: I know he announced or stated publicly that the case was a concern to him,
but I don’t know whether he ever called the guy up and said I’m sorry.
MS. FEIGIN: I don’t know about that. I think Bill Richardson was the Secretary of
Energy and he was really involved in talking about this case.
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MR. GREEN: Richardson had run his mouth about this case but I think that was to
promote Richardson. He wanted to look like he was saving America as
usual, that kind of thing. But yes, he was a big detractor of Ho and
pushing to have something happen here to Wen Ho Lee.
MS. FEIGIN: This is a good point to end today’s session. Thank you again, always
fascinating cases. Thank you deeply.
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ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee
is Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place at the office of Sidley Austin in Washington,
D.C. on Wednesday, September 25, 2024. This is the sixth interview.
MS. FEIGIN: Good afternoon.
MR. GREEN: And good afternoon to you.
MS. FEIGIN: All the cases we’ve talked about up to now have been front page, criminal
crisis management of the biggest sort. But I want to veer in a different
direction here, because one of the very big cases you did is probably not a
case that is well-known to everybody as a lot of these other cases are.
Nonetheless, it’s a huge case, Tyson Foods. In 2003 The National Law
Journal said it was the most significant defense verdict of the year, which
is quite an accolade.
MR. GREEN: Many years ago.
MS. FEIGIN: Many years ago, but a huge case. I wonder if you could tell me how you
came to be involved.
MR. GREEN: I had a really enjoyable and long-lasting relationship with Don Tyson,
Tyson Foods, and then his son, John Tyson. It all started with the
investigation by a special counsel into the behavior of Mike Espy, who
was then the Secretary of Agriculture.
MS. FEIGIN: So another special counsel case.
MR. GREEN: Another special counsel. I was in I think almost every special counsel
case. The special counsel, Donald Smaltz, was investigating whether
Espy received things of value from Tyson Foods that would compromise
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the decisions he was making as Secretary of Agriculture. I think the
investigation had to do with flying Espy down to a concert in Arkansas
and giving him concert tickets and meals. It wasn’t exactly like gold
bricks in a secret location.
MS. FEIGIN: This is more like Governor Marvin Mandel’s case?
MR. GREEN: Yes. In my mind it was not critically serious stuff.
MS. FEIGIN: And this was during the Clinton administration that Espy was Secretary of
Agriculture?
MR. GREEN: Yes. So I’m sitting in my office one day when I get a call, and it’s from
the general counsel of Tyson Foods, Jim Blair. I think this happened
sometime in the latter part of 1994. I didn’t know anything about Jim
Blair at the time, but it turns out that Jim Blair was a pretty well-known
guy, both in Democratic politics in Arkansas and well known to the
Clintons. He said I’m coming to town and I’d like to talk to you about a
matter we have. So I met him for lunch. And unbeknownst to me at that
time, he was here talking to probably five different lawyers.
We met for lunch, and he told me about a DOJ investigation of
Mike Espy. He said that Don Tyson and the company were either targets
of that investigation or would likely become targets, and he was looking
for counsel for Don Tyson and the company. We had a very nice
conversation. I talked to him generally about things I’d been doing, what
cases I’d been in and so forth, this and that. It was a very nice lunch and
he was non-committal.
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MS. FEIGIN: Did he explain then what the investigation was about?
MR. GREEN: He did, to the extent he knew it. And it related to whether Tyson foods had
given Espy gratuities in return for favorable action at the Department of
Agriculture. So later that day, I’m back in my office. He calls and says I’d
like you to represent Don and Tyson, which was gratifying because Don
Tyson was a very substantial guy in his business and a really interesting
human being too.
I remember meeting Don. I can’t remember whether the first
meeting was here or down in Arkansas, but we enjoyed each other. We
had a very nice cordial relationship. My recollection is that around the
time I got into this case Attorney General Janet Reno had requested the
appointment of a special counsel. That turned out to be Donald Smaltz.
What should have been a somewhat contained investigation became a big
mess as Smaltz kept trying to sensationalize and expand his investigation
beyond the mandate given to him by the appointing panel of the court of
appeals. My relationship with Smaltz got very contentious and I wrote a
long letter to Reno in June of 1995 describing a lot of what I claimed was
misconduct on the part of Smaltz. Ultimately the Attorney General
admonished Smaltz and directed him to focus only on the initial
allegations.
The long and short story is that we were able to extricate Don from
those proceedings without any adverse consequences, but the company
ended up pleading to providing gratuities and paid a six million dollar
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fine. There were others who became implicated in this investigation and
Smaltz did secure other convictions.
That was the beginning of the relationship that I had with Tyson
Foods. I was at Sidley Austin at the time. We started doing a number of
things for Tyson Foods beyond litigation. We were doing securities things
for Tyson Foods. There was a whole list of what we did. Tyson Foods
became one of the biggest clients of Sidley Austin for a number of years;
we handled a lot of matters for the company.
An investigation subsequently began a couple of years later that
was conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
They began quietly investigating whether Tyson Foods was hiring
undocumented immigrants to work at their various chicken poultry
processing plants in Arkansas and a couple of other states. I think Virginia
was involved and maybe Mississippi. I can’t remember them all, but in
that area, down south. It is very difficult work, it’s hard work in a poultry
factory.
The allegation involved coyotes, which is the term used to describe
men who go to the border and round up illegals and then smuggle them
into the country and essentially deliver them to various industrial
operations or commercial operations in return for money. They get paid by
delivering these illegal workers.
The fascinating part of this case and this whole investigation is that
it was an undercover operation. The authorities set up a whole scheme to
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furtively entrap Tyson Foods. They used federal agents to go down to the
border and bring individuals across. This is all being done by the
government. Bring individuals across, and then usually take them to
various bureaus in states where they help them get identification. Then
they took them to various Tyson plants and engaged with the plant
managers who were always in need of personnel, and they enticed or
induced or persuaded or whatever, these plant managers to hire people that
they would bring to them.
It was a very crude operation on the part of the government. Some
of these agents had a camera that was located in their belt buckle, these
big western belt buckles. They would be sitting in an office like we’re in
here and they would be rolling around from side to side with their belt
buckle, taking shots of everybody and recording the conversation.
To the best of my recollection, they never actually delivered these
poor, hapless individuals directly to the factories. They would drop them
off in the town and tell them how to get to the Tyson factory and the
Tyson factory personnel would then hire them.
The undercover operation went on for two-and-one-half years
before the government indicted the case in December of 2001. It was the
most significant criminal immigration case in the country as of that
moment in time. And may still be the most significant criminal
immigration case. I’m not sure there’s been one that’s more significant or
larger but I haven’t done the research to determine that.
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I was asked to represent Tyson Foods in that case. We had plenty
of conversations with the prosecutors in an effort to ward off the
indictment, prevent the company from having to face criminal charges.
But in the end, the prosecutor, John McKoon, decided to bring charges
against Tyson Foods and several former Tyson plant managers and two
corporate officers. The indictment as filed contained 36 counts and was
returned in Chattanooga in front of Chief Judge R. Allan Edgar who was a
fantastic jurist. A great judge who was very fair and even-handed. We
filed a number of pre-trial motions attacking various counts in the
indictment. In October of 2002 Judge Edgar dismissed nine of the counts
while denying all of our other motions.
The trial ensued but the government was undone by several
significant circumstances. First of all, Tyson was able to convince the jury
that the company had very good policies concerning the hiring of
personnel and the vetting of personnel to make sure they were not illegal
and incapable of working in the United States.
MS. FEIGIN: Didn’t Tyson use an INS verification program that enabled them to check
the status of potential workers?
MR. GREEN: That’s right. It was called the Basic Pilot Program and it was used to
verify social security numbers that these undocumented workers were
given by the government agents, and of course they all were verified
because the government had worked to insure that would happen.
So that’s number one, the company had all these policies.
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Number two, the top corporate executives had nothing to do with
what happened. To the extent that Tyson employees were knowingly
hiring undocumented personnel, they were doing it on their own. Each
plant manager decided he would or wouldn’t do it. And there were three or
four of them that did it. But they were on a detour and frolic of their own
and they were acting contrary to corporate policy.
The third big reveal, if you will, at the trial, is that Tyson Foods
had, in prior years, always cooperated with any representative of the
federal government who alerted them to the fact that perhaps their hiring
processes needed to be tightened up or that they suspected illegals were
getting through the vetting process. Tyson Foods had always cooperated
with the government, the immigration service or whatever, whenever any
information of that kind was brought to their attention. They had cleaned
up their act every time.
The next circumstance that worked in favor of Tyson Foods is that
this was an undercover operation; the executives had no knowledge or
foreknowledge of it going to happen or happening, so they couldn’t do
anything. They couldn’t correct, couldn’t do anything.
But it was the way the undercover operation unfolded that created
such an odor about it. It could be portrayed, and it was portrayed by us, as
the government victimizing these poor immigrants. These poor people
who were congregated on the other side of the border waiting for an
opportunity to get into this country to improve their life. They were kind
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of sucked into a theatrical play, manipulated by the government and bused
thousands of miles from the border up to Tyson sites, given fake
identification, and then used as pawns in an entrapment scheme.
And that wasn’t the only odor. The other circumstance that was
just as visibly distasteful is that basically the government, after taking
these people and rounding them up and traveling with them and leaving
them, left them on their own, just floundering in this town that they didn’t
know where they were. They didn’t know anybody. They just dropped
them off without any regard for their well-being or their safety or
anything, just said to these individuals go down the street, there’s a place
that will hire you.
I should also add that right before the case went to the jury, the
judge dismissed around 17 counts that applied to I think every defendant
and a couple of other counts as well. The dismissed counts alleged that it
was the defendants who caused the illegal aliens to be brought into the
country and to possess fraudulent identification documents. The court
agreed with us that it was the government’s agents who caused all of that,
not the defendants, and so the counts were dismissed.
MS. FEIGIN: Those undercover tapes that were played, my understanding is that in
some cases the agent hadn’t turned the recorder off in a timely manner and
there were racist statements by the agents that came out at trial, which
added to the horror of the whole thing.
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MR. GREEN: Yes, there’s a couple of times when they did not turn off the tape recorder
and they made some cracks. And we exploited that. By the time we got
done in the courtroom, marshaling all of that and configuring it in the way
that I’m speaking here, the jury just was ready to lynch the government.
They thought it was unconscionable the way they treated these people.
And so when they retired, it didn’t take long and they came back and
acquitted everybody.
MS. FEIGIN: I believe it was a seven-week trial and the jury came back in five hours
with a verdict, which is incredible.
MR. GREEN: Probably the most dramatic thing that we did during the trial was that at
the table occupied by the government lawyers, they had an ICE agent or
Border Patrol, I can’t remember which, who was helping the government
through all the arrangements to affect this scheme. They were using the
Border Patrol or the ICE or whatever to go down and get these people to
transport them all. That agency, whichever one it was, was very much
involved in the architecture of the scheme. And the case agent was sitting
next to the prosecutor. I think for my last witness in the defense case, I
turn around and I say I call Herbert Jones to the stand, whatever his name
was. The government lawyers almost went crazy.
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: “He can’t do that. Objection.” Da, da, da, da, da. The judge said “Oh yes
he can. He can do that. He’s sitting there in the courtroom, call him to the
stand.” He said Agent McGeggy, take the stand.
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The guy’s up there. He’s got eyes that are like a deer in headlights.
He’s not been prepared for this and his anxiety level is just seeping out of
the top of his head.
So there was some basic cross-examination to establish first — it’s
kind of like icing on the cake — that Tyson Foods had always cooperated
with the immigration service any time the immigration service had called
them to discuss an issue. “That’s the truth, isn’t it?” He had to say that yes,
that’s the truth.
And then I took a quarter out of my pocket and I said “Do you
know what this is?” And he says, “Yeah, that’s a quarter.” I said “How
much does it cost to make a call from a pay telephone?” I think he said a
quarter. And I said “So you could have used this quarter and you could
have gone to the nearest pay telephone and you could have called Tyson
Foods and you could have told them that they have a problem at this plant
or that plant. And based on everything you know about Tyson Foods in
your entire history with the company, they would have corrected it, true?”
I didn’t know what I was going to get, but figured I’d take a shot. The guy
said “Yeah, that’s true.”
MS. FEIGIN: Wow!
MR. GREEN: And then I asked him how much it cost to run the undercover operation
and so forth, and I think I got him to concede that it was at least a couple
of million dollars. “And that’s a lot more than a quarter,” I said. After that
I had no further questions. That was the end of the case. That was a big
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win. Funny, but if I were trying that case today I would have to be talking
about cell phones, not a pay phone.
MS. FEIGIN: I want to go back a little bit. You said you tried to get them not to bring
the case to begin with. One of your colleagues told me you had an
interesting discussion with Michael Chertoff, the head of the Criminal
Division, and that Chertoff told you he thought it was one of the strongest
cases he’d ever seen.
MR. GREEN: Yes, we went over to the Department of Justice. Chertoff was the head of
the Criminal Division. And I kind of previewed everything I was going to
be saying in the courtroom. He said he thought that it was one of the
strongest cases, we’ve got to go forward. This is an incredibly strong case.
I didn’t knock on his door afterwards, but that was a nice win.
MS. FEIGIN: That’s a huge win. My understanding is they wanted to invoke a rarely
used forfeiture provision that would have cost Tyson a fortune.
MR. GREEN: We were going to be the example.
MS. FEIGIN: Can you explain what it was that they were trying to do in terms of the
financial aspect of this?
MR. GREEN: The forfeiture count in essence alleged that Tyson Foods made a great deal
of money by employing all these illegal aliens to work in their poultry
plants and the count sought the forfeiture of all that money. I have no idea
how one would ever compute such a sum, but it all became moot with the
acquittal on all counts.
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MS. FEIGIN: In write-ups of the case, forfeiture is a big deal. They talk about the fact
that this was supposed to be a showcase for using the provision in this
way.
MR. GREEN: The point that they were going to try to drive home is that this was to be a
warning to many, many companies that you are vulnerable because you’re
hiring illegal aliens. This is what can happen to you. The money played a
part of that, but the real threat was just the company being convicted and
its executives being convicted.
MS. FEIGIN: Let me speak for a minute about the executives, because as you may
recall, one of them committed suicide after indictment but before the case
went to trial. I bring it up because we don’t often think of the impact of
what it means to be charged.
MR. GREEN: One of the plant manager defendants, Jimmy Rowland, did commit suicide
and it was a very tragic incident. I am sure this case played a huge part in
that tragedy but there may have been other factors as well. I had never
encountered a situation like that before. Very sad.
Then there were other Tyson cases. I think the next most
significant was a class action brought against Tyson Foods by all the
cattlemen that raise cattle on their feedlots and then sell them to
processors. Tyson Foods had in the interim bought Iowa Beef Processors
which is one of the biggest meat processing companies in the United
States, if not the biggest. There was a big class action brought alleging that
Tyson Foods was manipulating the price of cattle in the feed lots and this
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was essentially an antitrust violation. That was a lawsuit for a few billion
dollars, I think.
So we tried that case. For some reason it got filed in I think
Montgomery, Alabama. We tried that case down there in front of a jury.
This case is also illustrative of the proposition that even if you have a jury
consultant you need to take control of the final selection of the jury. What
has happened in the United States now is that if you’re in a big case that
has serious economic implications, you’re almost forced to use a jury
consultant. Because if you don’t use a jury consultant and you lose the
case, you are exposed to the claim that you were deficient in your
representation. Which is really ridiculous, but it’s now like an
occupational hazard.
Some of these jury consultants do provide value. Others I think
hardly know what they’re doing. I don’t want to get into a huge
digression about how jury consultants work, but in this particular case,
when picking the jury, we got to the point where an individual was called
to the panel, called into the box, and I didn’t like the guy.
MS. FEIGIN: Just a gut feeling?
MR. GREEN: It was based probably on a number of inputs but a lot of it was gut. I think
when you have 250 jury trials under your belt, you’ve got a pretty good
internal mechanism. Your gut’s pretty refined at that point. And I looked
at this guy and I just didn’t like him.
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And the jury consultant said “He’s our man. He’s our man. You’ve
got to put him on that jury. He’s our guy.” I said “I disagree.” And we
went round and round but ultimately, because the jury consultant was so
emphatic — he’s supposed to have the expertise — I let the guy on the jury.
We tried the case. It’s a really long case, a complicated case. But
we had some moments that were similar to my calling the case agent in the
immigration case. We had a guy on the stand, one of the cattlemen, one of
the big cattlemen plaintiffs, who claimed he had a tape of a conversation
where Tyson Foods was saying this or that or that or this. And we had
some experts able to show that the tape wasn’t even manufactured until
after that date. But despite a couple of episodes like that, the jury comes
back after we’ve tried the case and who’s the foreman of the jury but this
guy who I wanted to get rid of and the jury consultant says is our guy.
He gets up and he reads the verdict. And the verdict is for the
plaintiffs in the sum of I think it was like a billion dollars. I was taken
aback. I really thought I had won the case. And so I made a motion before
the trial judge to take the verdict from the jury. We argued that and he
wrote an opinion. He agreed with me. He said no reasonable juror could
have found for the plaintiff and he nullified the jury’s verdict.
They took it up on appeal and the appellate court affirmed the trial
court. They went on to apply for cert and cert was denied. So I won the
case. And I think I should have won the case. But that’s the story of jury
consultants. Years hence, whenever I taught a course or whenever I talked
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to lawyers, I told them to never surrender the total control of jury selection
to the jury consultant. You can take their input, but the final decision has
to be yours. Don’t disregard whatever stimuli is coming to you on that
issue.
MS. FEIGIN: My understanding is that one of the many skills you have with the jury is
humor. There’s obviously a fine line because people have different
reactions. I wonder how you assess a jury.
MR. GREEN: It’s instinctive. I don’t try to be a clown or anything like that. I want to
present myself in the courtroom as a guy who really knows what he’s
doing. No fumbling around. There are no pauses trying to think of what
the next question is. There are no stupid objections that get criticized by
the judge. I want them to look at me and say that guy knows what he’s
doing.
I also want to be liked. Preferably loved if you want to know the
truth, and I do that by just being a regular guy. I don’t dress up. I don’t
wear a flashy watch. If I have a spot on my tie, I leave it there. And I crack
a joke every now and then. I don’t have a wallet full of those jokes.
They’re just opportunities that somehow tickle me and I tickle back and
people laugh. I never present myself as mean or overly angry. I really just
want to be liked.
I think what the jury appreciates is watching someone who knows
what he’s doing. And can follow what he’s doing. And somehow I’ve
been able to do that. Sometimes I’ll just stand in the courtroom and
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invariably a judge asks me, “Mr. Green, why are you standing?” And I
will look at the judge with a deadpan and say “I just need to burn some
more calories, Your Honor.”
MS: FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: I like cracking jokes because the jury needs a little relief, but not to
distract them. One of the things that a trial lawyer has to do is to be able
to stand outside of himself, if you can conceptualize this, stand outside of
himself and take the measure of how he’s coming across in the courtroom.
And the way you do that is to pick up a lot of cues from the jury and some
cues from the judge. And sometimes from your adversary, but mostly
from the jury.
To give an extreme example, if you’re on your feet and you’re
examining a witness and you peer over at the jury and 12 people have a
pillow out and their feet up on the rail and they’re asleep, you would say
to yourself, I don’t think I’m being really horribly effective here. So you
can watch a jury with one or two eyes while you’re on your feet and get a
pretty good indication of how they’re reacting not only to you, but when
someone else is on their feet. I watch the jury a lot. I don’t sit there staring
at the jury, but out of the corner of my eye I watch them a lot. You can see
expressions of surprise or disgust or whatever, and you can then tailor
some of what you’re doing in the courtroom to appeal to those people who
are kind of overtly emoting if you will.
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MS. FEIGIN: One of the things that is so impressive about all this is you were raised
financially secure, you grew up in the Midwest, you went to Yale Law
School. You’re polished. You’re a city boy by this time. And yet you were
able to go down to places in the deep South and relate to juries. That can’t
be that easy.
MR. GREEN: It’s not that hard.
MS. FEIGIN: I think you’re being modest.
MR. GREEN: Juries want to be entertained. And that doesn’t mean that you have to keep
them laughing for 20 straight days. But you have to command their
attention because if you lose that, you’ve lost in the courtroom. You need
to early on command their attention so that they watch you and they say to
themselves, this guy knows what he’s doing. That inures to your benefit,
and if you can do that and just be down to earth, that’s all you’ve got to be
is down to earth. I’m not a pretty boy. I’m not a good-looking, svelte,
movie star type look. So they can look at me and say that guy kind of
looks like me.
MS FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: And particularly if I’m in my one of my deliberately sloppy modes, where
my tie is askew. There’s a little acting that’s going on there. Just to portray
myself as really down to earth without pretension, not too happy with
myself. I’m no great shakes; I’m just a guy in the courtroom trying to help
them understand what’s going on.
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But when you get up to cross-examine, I’ll give you an example if
you can develop that rapport with those people in that courtroom. Let’s
assume there’s a witness on the stand that’s testifying for the other side. If
I stand up at that point and say “Your Honor, I haven’t got any questions
for this guy” and I sit down, the jury – think about this — the jury, Mr.
Green doesn’t have any questions of this guy? He must think this guy is all
baloney. Well, I’m going to think he’s baloney too, because Mr. Green, I
trust Mr. Green. That’s what is at work. Or if I get up and I’m in a crossexamination and I say to the guy, “And after that you went down the street
and went in the drug store and bought 10 bottles of valium, isn’t that
right?” and the guy says, “No, I didn’t do that.” Well, if they believe me, if
they think I know what I’m doing, they actually think I know more than
that guy, and I know that he bought – they trust me more than the witness.
And if I can do that in the courtroom, I’ve got them. And that’s how it
works. You don’t have to be a genius to do this. You’ve got to have a little
sense of human relations so you can get that jury to invest in you.
MS. FEIGIN: Do you think people can develop this or do you have to be born with it?
MR. GREEN: A little bit of both. There is something innate. I don’t think it’s the
dominant part of the equation. The way I became a trial lawyer is to watch
other trial lawyers. I tell people that a lot of this stuff can be taught. I can
teach you how to qualify an expert. I can teach you how to introduce a
photograph. I can teach you how to introduce a business record. I can da,
da, da, da, da, da. I can teach you a lot of things, mechanical things to the
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point where if you ingest them sufficiently you won’t flub it up in a
courtroom. The personal dimension that you bring to it, the personality
you bring into the courtroom, that probably belongs to you. And if you
have it or you can mimic it, great.
I go back to what I said before. I tell people if you want to become
a trial lawyer, go down to a courthouse, walk the halls. Put your nose in
through the door, see if there’s a trial going on. Go in there and sit down
and watch the lawyers. When I was a new Assistant U.S. Attorney and had
time off, I just patrolled that courthouse until I found an interesting trial
and sat down and watched it and watched one after the other after the
other. I think that’s a very effective way to learn a lot about this craft.
MS. FEIGIN: I hope people reading this take that advice.
MR. GREEN: I don’t know that anyone will ever read this.
MS. FEIGIN: Oh, they will. They will. Before we leave your cases, is there anything
more about Tyson we should discuss, any more of your work with them?
MR. GREEN: There were a number of other cases. It was a very gratifying relationship
with Tyson Foods. They’re still a client of Sidley’s, and I think Sidley still
does some substantial work for them. If there were a bet-the-farm
litigation, I’m almost positive Sidley would be intimately involved with it.
But this is not just a story about Tyson Foods, it’s a story about many
corporations. I loved my firm Sidley Austin. I thought it was one of the
great, great firms in America. And we charge legal fees for our work. And
at all the top-tier firms, the legal fees are expensive. And so Tyson Foods,
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while we were doing a number of cases for them, not all of them were
horribly significant. There were some that were more routine than not. The
executives came to the decision that they should build up their own inhouse litigation department so that they could begin to try many of their
own cases, at least the more routine or less significant cases. And that’s
what Tyson did.
MS. FEIGIN: Did they take people from Sidley to come in-house?
MR. GREEN: No. There are lots of good lawyers in this country and they picked up a
number of them. But I kept up my relationship with Don Tyson until the
day he died. And while I don’t see John Tyson, his son, that much, I
consider John Tyson a friend. John Tyson made an extraordinarily
generous contribution on my behalf to the Brady United Group because I
do some work on gun control. That was really, really very nice of him.
And so I have a soft spot in my heart for Tyson Foods. And I eat a lot of
their chicken too.
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter] Okay, that’s a good point to segue into the Brady gun control
work, which I had hoped to talk about today anyway. You told us early on
that you had been a hunter, which was interesting.
MR. GREEN: More importantly though, I think having served in the Army and having
been sent to Vietnam, walking around with an M16 which is a semiautomatic rifle designed to kill a lot of people — I just don’t think
civilians ought to be walking around with guns that were designed for
fighting in a war.
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I could talk about the Second Amendment and how the Supreme
Court has screwed up the Second Amendment for hours. I lay a lot of what
happens and has happened in this country at their feet. I’m not sure they’re
living in the United States. I think maybe every day they take a jet and fly
to sleep in Aruba or somewhere. They are so out of touch on the issue of
gun violence it’s unbelievable.
I don’t want to overstate what I do for Brady. When called upon I
try to help them to think about a case or strategy. They have a very
talented staff and great people. But they know I’m out there. They have
consulted me from time to time. I’m working on a case for them right
now. And maybe one of these days one of these cases will come along and
I’ll help them try the case. I don’t know.
MS. FEIGIN: Can you talk about the case or any of the cases you have worked on for
them?
MR. GREEN: In the case I’m working on right now, I can just basically say that the city
of Gary, Indiana has sued gun dealers in Gary and the principal gun
manufacturers, trying to hold them liable under various theories for the
scourge of guns, many of which show up in Chicago. A lot of the guns in
Chicago come from Gary, Indiana. So they’re trying to shut down the bad
dealers and trying to implicate the manufacturers in this process as well,
because they are as responsible really for the mess in this country as their
dealers who sell the guns to the public.
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It’s tough sledding. And the Indiana legislature, to show you how
crazy this whole thing is, the Indiana legislature, in an effort to try to kill
this case, passed a law which said that cities do not have standing. Cities
do not have standing to sue for gun violence or they can’t sue
manufacturers, and they took jurisdiction away from all the cities in
Indiana just basically to stop this case. But the trial judge — I haven’t read
the opinion — recently ruled that can’t be applied retroactively, so he’s
letting this case go forward. I don’t know how it’s going to end up, but
that’s an example. Tough sledding.
MS. FEIGIN: Before we end today’s session, let’s discuss one other thing that you are
involved in. I know you are involved in many philanthropic pursuits.
Brady is one. The Kennedy Center is another. How did you get involved
with the Kennedy Center?
MR. GREEN: As I discussed earlier [Session 2], I grew up loving classical music. I grew
up in the 40s and 50s before rock and roll. It was country music and that
kind of stuff. But when I was young, I had an older cousin by marriage
who was in the music business. And he eventually went to work with
Deutsche Grammophon, one of the great producers of classical LP, long
playing records back in the day. Deutsche Grammophon is still, I think, a
big force. And every time there was a new pressing of a classical piece he
would send it to me. So I had a record collection, and I just fell in love
with classical music and always have loved classical music.
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When I came to Washington in 1967 following my service in
Vietnam, I got season tickets for the Philadelphia Orchestra that was
playing a six-concert series at the Daughters of the American Revolution
Hall on Constitution Avenue. I went to those concerts for a number of
years. But then the Philadelphia Orchestra stopped coming here so I
switched to the National Symphony Orchestra. And I’ve been going to
National Symphony Orchestra concerts for 40, 45 years.
I’m now on the NSO board, which I joined about ten years ago.
I’m sure I have the longest tenure as a subscriber to the symphony
concerts. A woman I know, a very lovely woman, Cathy McCulloch,
talked to me about joining the board. I joined the board and through one
thing or another, maybe because I love classical music so much and it was
apparent, I was eventually elected to be the treasurer of the symphony
orchestra. I’ve held that position far longer than I’m supposed to be
holding it, but because of COVID and this and that other, they wanted
some continuity. So I’ve been in that position now for almost six years,
but that’s going to come to an end. Probably next summer I’ll wind down
my obligations as treasurer. But I’ve been active. I sit on the Executive
Committee as well. And that’s a labor of love; it takes a lot to keep that
symphony orchestra going. I might have to hit you up for a contribution
here. [laughter] So yeah, I’ll probably just continue to stay on the board.
MS. FEIGIN: You’re on the board of the Symphony Orchestra or the Kennedy Center?
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MR. GREEN: I’m on the board of the National Symphony Orchestra. I’m the treasurer
and chairman of the National Symphony Orchestra Finance Committee.
But by virtue of being the treasurer and the chairman of the Finance
Committee, I sit on the Kennedy Center Finance Committee so I’m privy
to the operations of the Kennedy Center.
MS. FEIGIN: Something you mentioned in an earlier session which I found fascinating
is that you’ve studied conducting.
MR. GREEN: I studied how to read a score, how to read the conductor’s score.
MS. FEIGIN: Is that very complex?
MR. GREEN: It depends on the music. If the conductor is at the podium to conduct a
Shostakovich Symphony let’s say, there could be 10, 12 categories of
instruments all on one page, across the page. It gets pretty complicated. If
it’s a piano sonata, it’s not so complicated.
MS. FEIGIN: When you go to a concert do you take the score with you to try to see how
it works?
MR. GREEN: I have not attempted that yet; it’s too hard. I need to practice. I’m in awe
of the conductors. I don’t have this affinity. They have their own talent.
And putting aside the actual physical conducting that presents cues to the
orchestra, but just to read and synthesize that score. They know the music;
they familiarize themselves with the piece they’re going to conduct. Our
conductor, Giandrea Noseda, an incredibly talented and respected artist,
I’m sure he’s conducted, let’s say Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a hundred
times; he gets to know it. But when you’re looking at a new piece of
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music, more likely than not, they have to look at all these lines of music.
There’s a line for each kind of instrument across the page. And they have
to synthesize that to know which instruments to cue to come on board on
the music. It’s quite remarkable that they can do it.
MS. FEIGIN: And sometimes they do it without the score.
MR. GREEN: Yes. They just know the music so well. As I say, they’ve conducted that
piece over and over in their lifetime.
MS. FEIGIN: I’ve been told that you are such a devotée that you actually go to Europe
for their concerts.
MR. GREEN: When I’m in Europe, I try to go to the concerts. I’ve yet to go to the
Salzburg Music Festival or the Edinburgh Music Festival but that’s kind
of on my agenda to see if I can find a way to get that accomplished.
MS. FEIGIN: I hope you do. So we’ll end today’s session here, and I much look forward
to the next one. Thank you.
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ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee
is Thomas C. Green. The interview is being done over Zoom on December 20, 2024. Tom is at
his home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Judy is at home in Washington, D.C. This is the
seventh interview.
MS. FEIGIN: Good morning.
MR. GREEN: Good morning.
MS. FEIGIN: So up to now, most of the cases we’ve talked about have been headline
news crisis management. But I know there’s one that’s really, really
important to you that most people probably haven’t heard of but is
meaningful for various reasons. Let’s talk about the Lukis case.
MR. GREEN: Yes, the Lukis case is a case that could be turned into a TV series. It was
that interesting and that fascinating. I met Sylvester Lukis when he was
referred to me by a close friend and another Vietnam veteran, Terry
O’Connell, who knew Sylvester very, very well.
When Sylvester came to me, he was under investigation in Florida
by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Fort Myers. This must have been around
1992 or 1993. He began to explain the background to this investigation,
which was really quite unique. He was a lobbyist. Still is a lobbyist. He
was a very prominent lobbyist in Florida. He represented clients both here
in Washington and before the statehouse in Florida.
In or around 1990 a young woman by the name of Vicki Lopez
was elected to the Lee County Board of County Commissioners. Sylvester
explained to me that they had met and a romance ensued, and that he was
very much enamored of her. He explained that during the course of their
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relationship he did give her things. Nothing of dramatic value, but he took
her out to dinner; he gave her flowers. I think they went away on a couple
of vacations together. They were a couple and I think they may have
moved in together.
At the same time, a couple of issues that he had been retained to
pursue by clients came before the County Commission. I believe the
principal transaction under investigation was whether the county would
construct an incinerator. Vicki’s initial position as a County Commissioner
was in opposition to the incinerator. At that point in time she was dating
Waste Management’s lobbyist, and of course Waste Management, which
had the contract for trash removal in the county, was very much opposed
to the incinerator project. Around this time their relationship was exposed
in the press and Vicki ended it.
Lukis had been retained by the incinerator company, and after he
started dating Vicki her views about the incinerator began to moderate.
Ultimately, she voted to support the incinerator without ever revealing her
relationship with Lukis and without recusing herself. That conflict
became the stuff of the criminal investigation. Sylvester always insisted
that he never tried to influence her vote, and she always insisted that she
voted her conscience. And in substantial respects, her votes were arguably
consistent with positions she had taken on these issues before they ever
met. But this only touches on the scope of the trial which involved related
votes having to do with the selection of the bond underwriter for the
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financing of the project and lots of other crazy stuff such as videotaping
people having affairs and so forth.
Sylvester and Vicki even broke up for a while but ultimately
continued their relationship. The press, at some point during this
relationship, smoked out that they were seeing each other, and she was
questioned a couple of times by the press to acknowledge or concede that
she was in a romantic relationship with Sylvester Lukis. She did not
acknowledge that. In fact she was not truthful in answering several of
those questions.
Now you could say to yourself, so what? But then, when that
became clear, the local prosecutor, I think he was even head of the office
down there, Douglas Malloy, decided to pursue an indictment, knowing
that it would be a big headline case in Fort Myers. A reporter in an article
that was written about this case years later had this to say about Douglas
Malloy as he entered the courtroom. “Two of the men, managing Assistant
U.S. Attorney Douglas Malloy and Brian Kelly, investigator for the Lee
County State Attorney’s office, wore black cowboy boots, a sartorial fillip
that added to their already imposing nature.”
They were cowboys in every sense of the word, overdramatizing
everything and making this relationship between Sylvester Lukis and
Vicki Lopez look like it was the epitome of bribery and corruption and the
biggest thing that ever hit the entire west coast of Florida. Eventually I
was forced to trial and Sylvester and Vicki both wanted me to represent
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them, which is unusual.
MS. FEIGIN: So they were both indicted?
MR. GREEN: They were both indicted. They were indicted on 32 counts. They were
kind of cross counts, reciprocal. He bribed, she received the bribe. And of
the 32 counts, one count in each indictment was what they call honest
services mail fraud. The other 31 counts were bribery counts where he
takes her for a meal or whatever. From my perspective, it was much ado
about nothing.
It was an indictment that was just overweight with insubstantial
charges. Malloy wanted to make a big name and a big splash. He was
intent on bringing this case to trial so there was no way to even begin to
negotiate any kind of a resolution. But my clients weren’t in the mood for
that either. She’s a public figure; she didn’t want to concede anything.
Both Vicki and Sylvester were in perfect unison on what happened and in
their explanation for how it happened — they were in love in contrast to a
corrupt relationship.
By the time they came to me to defend them they had married. She
ultimately resigned from the Commission before the criminal case was
brought and they were married.
MS. FEIGIN: Did she have to resign? Did she feel she had to?
MR. GREEN: No, I think she just resigned. So when they came to me they were a
married couple, a happily married couple. And so I thought about it and I
felt their defenses were so interrelated, so consistent, so constructed
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around the same facts, that it would be one of those instances where I
could indeed represent both of them. Their interests weren’t antagonistic
in any respect whatsoever. They were both on the same page saying the
same thing about everything that happened.
The trial judge was a guy named Lee Gagliardi, an older judge; he
may have been a senior judge at the time. He typically sat in Albany, but
every winter he came down to sit in Fort Myers. That was his vacation.
He has now passed away. He was a tough cookie, and he appeared to have
made up his mind from the first day of trial that my clients were guilty.
And that is the way he treated us.
He and I were at odds right from the beginning. He didn’t like me;
I didn’t like him. And neither one of us was hesitant to display that. He
ruled against me all the time. He was just all over me during the trial. He
stopped me in my opening statement which is virtually unheard of and he
curtailed my cross-examinations. I would say “I’m not done yet, Judge. I
have a few more questions.” “I think you’ve asked enough questions. Sit
down.”
But what these judges never realize is the impact that has on juries
that are watching that. They want to hear the story. If you’ve teased them
into believing that there’s something there they should hear, they want to
hear it. And when a judge cuts me off, or another lawyer, they’re not
happy about that. And they don’t forget that. If I make enough faces at the
judge, they really don’t forget that.
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We felt very comfortable during the trial. We felt the jury was
understanding that this was basically a romantic relationship. There were
so many details to the evidence. It was, in that respect, kind of intricate
and filled with intrigue, so the whole trial was quite entertaining. In the
press, big articles every day on what’s happening in court and so forth.
So we get down to the end of the trial, and Gagliardi has been
consistent in trying to beat up on me and I’m wrestling back with him in a
very obvious way. We get to closing arguments and Malloy, the
prosecutor, his principal argument after all of this evidence was that she
lied in answer to reporters’ questions about whether or not she had a
relationship with Sylvester Lukis. He also said things that smacked of
bribery, claiming that she was bribed and voted the wrong way, but we
had really, I think, basically disabused the jury of all that. She was a very
good witness. She was able to explain her votes and why she voted this
way or that way in a very compelling way.
At the end of Malloy’s closing I approached the judge and said that
that’s not a crime. It’s not a crime to lie; that’s not mail fraud. It’s not a
crime to lie to a reporter, as unfortunate as it was. And he told me he
disagreed, so just go make your closing. I didn’t formally object. I’m now
admitting to something that I should have done in the moment. I talked to
the judge about it but I didn’t formally object.
MS. FEIGIN: So it was a sidebar?
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MR. GREEN: Yes, it was kind of a sidebar. So I went back, I made my closing. Then the
jury immediately retired, not to deliberate but to go home. There were no
deliberations that day.
I go back, and I’m trying this case with a younger associate, Brad
Berenson, who was an extraordinary colleague, a Supreme Court law clerk
and a brilliant guy. I think he was a Yale undergrad, Harvard Law School.
He was so bright and so incredibly insightful, a tremendous advocate and
individual to have with me as my sidekick in the courtroom.
That night when we’re at dinner I’m thinking more and more about
this and Malloy’s argument to the jury. So when we come back, before the
jury is even sent to deliberate, I asked the clerk to bring in the judge. He
comes in, and that is when I said I object to that argument. There’s no foul
here because the jury has not even deliberated yet and this needs to be
corrected. We need a correction in the instructions to inform the jury that
lying to a reporter is not part of an honest services mail fraud violation.
And we get into an argument and he tells me forget it.
MS. FEIGIN: Forget it because it’s too late or forget it because you’re wrong?
MR. GREEN: He said both. You’re wrong and it’s a day late and a dollar short. So the
jury begins their deliberations. I think they deliberated a couple of days.
They come back. They acquit Sylvester Lukis of all 32 counts. They
acquit Vicki Lopez of 31 of 32 counts. They convict her of the one mail
fraud count. How they can convict her and not him, because they’re just
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ones that are reciprocal of the other, is a mystery. But that’s the way it can
be with juries.
I brought that up to the judge. This is totally inconsistent. And he
said forget it. So she stood convicted. And when she came up for
sentencing, whether he was taking his animosity out on me or her or
whatever, or whether he was ticked off that the jury had acquitted
everybody, he sentenced her to 27 months in prison.
MS. FEIGIN: Wow.
MR. GREEN: Which was just horrible. I’m positive that he let her out pending appeal.
The appeal was to the 11th Circuit. I decided I was going to argue this
case in the Court of Appeals. Now, as you know, I’m one of these guys
that believes that appellate advocacy and district court representation call
for different expertise; they’re not the same. I was not an appellate
lawyer and probably should not have argued the appeal. Now I’m kind of
beating myself up here, but I went down to the 11th Circuit. I think it was
in Miami. There were like five cases or six cases on the docket that day
and I’m last. So I’m sitting in the appellate courtroom, probably from
9:30, and listening to each of these cases. The court does not break for
lunch. So it is now about 2:30, quarter of 3:00 when they call my case.
MS. FEIGIN: So they’re hungry and grouchy.
MR. GREEN: Hungry, grouchy and so disinclined to hear, to even listen to anything.
They give me 15 minutes and I had a lot of issues. Among the issues I had
a really interesting recusal motion that the court had denied because
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Gagliardi had been under investigation for perjury in an unrelated matter.
There were reasons why I said he should recuse himself. I can’t remember
all of them, but that was a big issue as well.
So I’m arguing that. I’m arguing the evidence. I’m arguing the
mail fraud. No one is asking me a question. They’re just sitting up there
stone-faced. My principal argument is that what she did is not a crime. It’s
not prohibited by the mail fraud statute. That’s not dishonest services.
That’s not what that statute is about.
And in 15 minutes the bell goes off and they say “Thank you
counsel. We’ll take it under advisement.” I was so discouraged when I left
there. I felt that I had let her down because I had simply been incapable of
impacting the judges. I could have been reading a book up there for 15
minutes.
MS. FEIGIN: Did they ask questions of the other side?
MR. GREEN: That’s a good question, Judy. I can’t really remember, but I think they did.
I think they asked a few questions. They didn’t ask me a thing. And it
came out per curiam, a one-line opinion. The decision of the district court
is affirmed, period. I was really dejected.
So she went off to prison. And because she was kind of a celebrity
outside prison, she became a celebrity in prison. And she, while in prison,
started helping women with whom she was incarcerated solve their
problems, whether they be legal or personal or whatever. She became like
a counselor inside the prison.
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We went to work immediately to try to get her sentence commuted.
We had the help of a lot of members of Congress in Florida and people in
Washington. Ultimately, President Clinton did commute her sentence, but
by that time she had served 15 months.
There is actually a happier ending to Vicki’s case. The
jurisprudence surrounding the government’s prosecution theory pertaining
to “honest services fraud” was undergoing scrutiny by the Supreme Court
starting in 1987 with the McNally case, and then with later opinions in
2010 the theory was totally rejected. So very early in 2011 we filed on
Vicki’s behalf a petition for writ of error coram nobis seeking to have her
conviction vacated. The government agreed with our request for relief, and
on February 14, 2011, the district court entered an order vacating her
conviction. So in the final analysis, both Vicki and Sylvester committed
no crime.
She came out of prison as an advocate for incarcerated women and
went on to gain some considerable notoriety in that undertaking. She
created a couple of organizations. And to this day she would consider
herself an advocate for them, and I think still engages in that work.
When she came out they were still married, but years later they
divorced, which was sad for me to hear. I think that she is now a member
of the Florida state legislature but she’s continued in this work as well.
And while I haven’t kept up with her — every once in a while I touch base
— Sylvester Lukis, it turns out, is now here in Washington. He’s still a
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lobbyist, doing representation work, very much a Republican. By the way,
these are all Republicans that I’m talking about. He’s had a very
successful career.
So that’s the story of the Lukis case. If we had the kind of time to
tell the whole story of their relationships that is what would make for an
interesting screenplay because there was a lot of intrigue and discussions
about votes and so forth. But in the end, it all came out well.
MS. FEIGIN: It sounds like a case that you were particularly emotionally invested in.
MR. GREEN: I think that if you’re not emotionally invested in every case that you bring
to trial you can’t possibly be as effective as you could be. I think you have
to be emotionally invested and you have to believe in your clients. I’ve
never put on a defense where I didn’t believe in the defense. Now whether
that’s a defect, a mental defect of mine, I don’t know. But I don’t know
how else you would do it because if you walk into that courtroom and
you’re not enamored with what you’re going to say, then you might
rethink whether you should be in that courtroom. I don’t think you can be
persuasive. I don’t think you can communicate to the jury your belief in
the innocence of your client if you’re not emotionally invested.
I think, going back to things I’ve touched on before, juries take so
many cues from the lawyer. And if they think the lawyer is just peddling a
bike around the courtroom to get exercise, it isn’t going to be very
effective. But if they come to believe in you, and accept that you know
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what you’re doing, then what you’re saying in the courtroom, the defense
you’re putting on, you’re in a healthy position.
MS. FEIGIN: Let’s talk about another Republican you defended, but a more notable one
I would say, or more broadly known, Senator Durenberger.
MR. GREEN: I grew up in Minnesota and I was a good Democrat, as almost everyone in
Minnesota was back then, so I knew who David Durenberger was. I had
met David Durenberger here and there but I didn’t know him well. And
it’s very funny because David Durenberger was a model of probity. He
just exuded integrity. And for him to get kind caught up in some of what
I’ll describe here in a moment was seemingly inconsistent with who he
was and how he had led his life. He was very well respected and
particularly respected and admired in Minnesota.
Before he ever came to me, he got into some trouble with speaking
fees that he collected, largely in an effort to promote a book he had
written, but other speeches as well. He apparently sought and accepted
speaking fees in excess of the limit that the Senate had set for its members.
He was the subject of an Ethics Committee hearing and admonishment by
them. He was actually censured, which is pretty dramatic. I think he was
forced to pay back or somehow return $120,000. So his portrait had been
tarnished a little bit before he came to me.
While it’s not an excuse, I think it’s fair to say Durenberger was
one of those individuals in public life who came from an extraordinarily
modest background. Today in Congress there are many who are really
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very wealthy, well-to-do, financially secure. He was not. Whether his need
for support or whatever played into his motivation I really don’t know, but
my guess is it had some impact.
A few years later he was again investigated, but this time by the
Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice. It was over
allegations of misbilling or improper billing of the government for a
condominium which he claimed he was renting, when in fact he owned the
condominium and was using those monies to underwrite the mortgage.
Where I’m a little bit confused, even to this day, is whether the
condominium was in D.C. or in Minnesota. I have two recollections
banging around in my mind. One is that one day when I was back in
Minneapolis, a good friend of mine, who’s very active in the Democratic
party, as we drove by a condominium building, said “That’s the famous
condominium building that Durenberger got in trouble for,” so that would
be Minneapolis. And I think there was some initial discussion when the
Department of Justice was going to indict the case, whether it was going to
be indicted in Minnesota or indicted here in Washington. That’s kind of
coming back to me. So I think the condominium was in Minnesota and I
think that we may have wanted the case indicted, if it was going to be
indicted, here in D.C. rather than Minnesota, but I can’t piece that
together.
The interesting thing is that while he was indicted in April of 1993,
the case didn’t get resolved until some time in 1995. And during that
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period we had motions practice concerning discovery that the government
was or was not giving us, and a lot of discussions about the evidence. He
was indicted with two other guys; there were three of them indicted. I
think one was his lawyer and the other was some kind of friend and
confidant and advisor who was party to the scheme.
He was initially represented by another lawyer, but he came to be
concerned about the efforts by that lawyer to assist him, and so he wanted
to change lawyers and he was referred to me. That’s how we got together.
There was a lot of back and forth with the Department. I remember
I even went to see Janet Reno about this. I wish I could remember exactly
the arguments that I made in front of her but she was not moved by my
eloquence and the case continued on.
Somehow we were able to rope-a-dope the government for a lot of
months until finally there was an ultimatum from them and they said we’re
going to indict this case and we’re going to take this case to trial unless
there’s a plea. We ultimately decided better off not going to trial. But we
were able to negotiate I think what was a satisfactory outcome. He pled to
misdemeanors, I think two misdemeanors.
The money was not much, it was like $3,500. In the scheme of
things it was nothing, which was part of the reason that I think the
government was concerned, and we had other things to say about the
arrangement which were mitigating. But in the final analysis we ended up
pleading.
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He was at that time, because of the problems he had, constantly
evaluating whether or not he was going to run for reelection. Pleading to
the misdemeanors was probably the knockout punch on that decision and
he ultimately did not run. So that was the end of his career. I think he went
back to Minnesota, became a professor at the University of St. Thomas,
and I would see him every once in a while. We kept in touch.
Funny story in that regard, and that is that back in the mid 90s, my
two youngest children were still youngsters and they were on an airplane.
They had to be old enough to fly but they weren’t very old. I think they
were flying to Minnesota to go to camp. Durenberger was on the plane and
they sat together. It was three seats so the kids were in the window and
middle seats and Durenberger was in the aisle seat. And as my children
tell the story, they’re looking at him, and looking and at him, and finally
the older one gets his courage up and says to Durenberger, “I think my dad
knows you.” [laughter] And Durenberger said, “Well, who’s your dad?”
He said “My dad’s Tom Green.” And Durenberger said “Oh my God.” He
was very gracious and apparently they had a great time flying with him to
Minneapolis.
MS. FEIGIN: Just one anecdote that I think really affirms everything you’ve said. I read
a Washington Post article about his hearing, which I know you were not
involved with, but the hearing when he got censured. As you know, it was
96-0, so that’s pretty dramatic. But what they said in The Washington Post
is that when it was over, the senators came in a steady stream to shake his
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hand. Some of them were near tears and they embraced him. I think that
says a lot about how they felt about the whole thing.
MR. GREEN: How they felt about him, yes. He was quite a remarkable guy and a damn
good senator. His heart and soul were in the right place almost always. I
think this is a personal tragedy. It’s a tragedy of circumstance and it’s
unfortunate.
MS. FEIGIN: So maybe we can start on the Keating Five, which, unlike all these others,
was a case in which you represented a Democrat.
MR. GREEN: A Democrat who became a very good friend as well, Senator Don Riegle
from the State of Michigan. Where do we start with the Keating Five?
First of all, Charles Keating. Charles Keating was a big-time Republican, a
guy who was in the savings and loan business and in other related
financial enterprises. In 1984 Keating acquired Lincoln Savings and Loan
in California and over the next few years increased the assets of that bank
very significantly with investments in high-risk real estate and junk bonds.
That caught the attention of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and it
began to focus on Lincoln’s practices, and I think in 1987 it actually began
moves to seize the bank.
Senator Riegle and other senators had received political
contributions from Keating, and ultimately Keating prevailed upon these
senators to try to facilitate and then attend meetings with the regulators in
Washington. Despite these meetings, the details of which now escape me,
the regulators did impose restrictions on the bank. Then a couple of years
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later, the meetings were exposed in press articles and eventually the
Senate Ethics Committee conducted an investigation and held public
hearings to examine the conduct of five senators, including Riegle. The
others were Alan Cranston from California, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona,
John Glenn from Ohio and John McCain from Arizona. They’re all
Democrats, except for McCain.
The Committee selected Bob Bennett as its lawyer. Bennett and I
were extraordinarily good friends at that time and right up to Bob’s
unfortunate death in 2024. This was the first time we had ever been
adversaries. The others were also represented by guys that I knew very
well. John McCain was represented by John Dowd, and Alan Cranston . . .
MS. FEIGIN: I think by Alan Dershowitz.
MR. GREEN: But he never showed. John Glenn was represented by Chuck Ruff. Don
Riegle had me. Alan Cranston had Bill Taylor. And Dennis DeConcini
had Jim Hamilton, I believe. All these are guys I knew quite well. There
were extensive hearings and investigations and the government presented
its evidence.
Cranston was formally reprimanded. Riegle and DeConcini were
found to have acted improperly while Glenn and McCain were cleared of
impropriety but found to have exercised poor judgment. Riegle attended a
couple of meetings but it was really not much.
Keating was ultimately indicted for fraud and racketeering and so
forth. He endured a number of trials in both state and federal courts, and
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then in 1991 he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison and
then convicted again. He was forced to pay $156 million in fines.
MS. FEIGIN: Did he ultimately get that commuted?
MR. GREEN: In 1996 a judge set aside his state convictions, finding the jury had been
prejudiced by prior knowledge of Keating’s affairs. Then later that year
his federal convictions were also overturned on technical grounds. And
then in 1999, he pleaded guilty to wire and bankruptcy fraud but wasn’t
sentenced to prison time.
It was always believed by those of us representing the Democratic
senators that there was kind of a trade-off on John Glenn and John
McCain. They found nothing wrong with Glenn’s behavior. I think they
traded Glenn for McCain and imposed some sanctions on the other three.
So essentially they gave them tit-for-tat, one Republican for one
Democrat. We’ll essentially give them a slap on the wrist and then we’ll
sanction more heavily the other three, which all of us, as lawyers
representing the senators, felt was kind of a contrived outcome. It’s
infected by some political considerations.
MS. FEIGIN: For McCain, even though he was very lightly criticized, it had a huge
impact.
MR. GREEN: Yes. McCain was very active on behalf of Keating. I can’t penetrate the
machinations that led them to this arrangement, but it was absolutely clear
that Glenn had very little to do with it and was essentially going to be
exonerated. But I think the Republicans on the Committee weren’t willing
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to exonerate him without at least one Republican getting exonerated. And
there was only one Republican, McCain. That’s the way I think it worked.
MS. FEIGIN: I think McCain over the years though, said it was a very humiliating thing.
And I think, as he would explain it, it was part of his motivation for
getting so involved in campaign finance, the McCain-Feingold legislation.
MR. GREEN: McCain was wined and dined by Keating. McCain was very close to
Keating. I’m having a little trouble remembering the relative culpability,
but McCain, of all of them, had the closest, most ongoing and supportive
relationship with Keating.
MS. FEIGIN: His wife too was involved in some Keating business things I think. I am
not suggesting anything was illegal, but she was involved with Keating in
some of his business affairs.
MR. GREEN: I remember that now. I made a passionate appeal for Riegle. I really don’t
know how they decided to do this. It is true that Riegle attended a couple
of meetings with the bank board officials. But I don’t believe he ever
orchestrated any meetings. He was asked to attend because he was
chairman of the Banking Committee in the Senate.
MS. FEIGIN: Do you have memories of how the hearings went and how the senators
treated your client?
MR. GREEN: The members of the Committee were never aggressive with their
colleagues. It was almost like we have to go through these paces. [New
Hampshire Senator] Warren Rudman was a little bit more animated than
the others. I can picture them up there — [Mississippi Senator] Trent Lott;
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[North Carolina Senators] Jesse Helms and Terry Sanford; [Arkansas
Senator] Mark Pryor; and [Alabama Senator] Howell Heflin. They weren’t
aggressive.
What I’m really trying to remember is the evidence that Bennett
put on. I’m sure there was evidence to show that meetings were requested
and meetings were held and they probably had some bank board people
come in and give their recollections to what was said in those meetings.
But again, I don’t think much of the evidence really pertained to Don
Riegle at all. I thought it was an unfortunate outcome for him.
MS. FEIGIN: I think you can take a lot of satisfaction in knowing that if you do a
Wikipedia search for Don Riegle today, they don’t even mention this.
MR. GREEN: Oh really?
MS. FEIGIN: That’s quite astonishing because this was a hugely publicized scandal.
MR. GREEN: It was on TV, broadcast on C-SPAN. In the end, I think this is one of
those situations where it became impossible for the Senate to avoid. If the
press gets on something like this and they dwell on it, and they make it
sound as if there was a horrible and impermissible intervention and
assistance given to Keating that he otherwise didn’t deserve, then as a
political matter they’re left with this egg, and they’re going to do
something about it.
And so they refer it to the Ethics Committee. And now the Ethics
Committee can’t just sweep it under the carpet, so they need to hold a
hearing and then they have to have a resolution to the hearing and this is
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what happened. This kind of took on a life of its own as far as the hearing
involving the five senators. It was unfortunate. Do you get a feel for what
I’m trying to say?
MS. FEIGIN: I do but I think we also should say that there was a huge amount of money
lost in the savings and loan scandal. So that made it quite dramatic
because so many people lost money and it wasn’t just that an improper
meeting was held, but a lot of things resulted from that.
MR. GREEN: Now you see how a defense lawyer can forget the salient facts or
minimize salient facts. [laughter] Yeah, that’s true. But the savings and
loan scandal pretty much predated all of this, although what Keating did
with Lincoln Savings and Loan really epitomized that scandal, and
Keating was one of the worst, so that added to the whole situation as well.
MS. FEIGIN: Getting back to all of them, one of the lawyers, as you said, was Charles
Ruff. The D.C. Court Historical Society started his oral history but he
unfortunately died before it was completed. He died quite young. I
wonder if you have any memories of him that you might be able to add to
the Society’s account.
MR. GREEN: Chuck was a very prominent lawyer. He was not what I would call a
journeyman defense lawyer. He served in positions in the government and
I’m sure he gave advice in criminal cases or white-collar cases when he
was out of the government. But I didn’t run across Chuck Ruff very much
in the kinds of cases I was handling. He didn’t have a client in lots of these
cases. Having said that though, every one of us was an admirer of Chuck
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Ruff just for who he was, how he conducted himself, what he did while he
was in the government. He was deserving of a great deal of respect.
The Keating Five was the first time I essentially sat next to him as counsel
for a co-defendant, so to speak, co-respondent, whatever. He was very
effective. He got a very good result. But I didn’t have a kind of day-to-day
courtroom relationship with him.
MS. FEIGIN: And what about John Dowd?
MR. GREEN: Dowd I’ve known forever and ever. He’s a fine lawyer. He was a close
friend. I represented Dowd and another individual on their behalf when
John was in the Department of Justice. He and another Department of
Justice lawyer, Mike Kramer, investigated and pursued a Las Vegas crook
I guess you could say, or hood, named Calabrese.
MS. FEIGIN: We talked about that [Session 5]. So that’s the same John Dowd?
MR. GREEN: Same John Dowd. Over the years, John Dowd and I were in a number of
cases together. He was a very effective lawyer and fun to watch. I
remember at one point in the Keating Five case we were cross-examining
a witness. John preceded me. I can’t remember which witness it was, but
John can be quite intimidating and aggressive. He can raise his voice and
frighten a witness.
I remember after he sat down, even maybe some of the committee
members were somewhat taken aback watching John. He may have been
told to lighten up a bit. I can’t remember. But I remember that when I got
up, I approached the witness and I opened up my sport coat. I just kind of
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opened up the sides of it and said “Just want you to know I’m not armed.”
[laughter] And the Senators kind of broke up, got a nice little comic relief.
I’ve known John a long time.
MS. FEIGIN: Is this the same John Dowd who did the report for Major League
Baseball on Pete Rose?
MR. GREEN: It is the same John Dowd, and it’s also the same John Dowd that for a time
represented the president, Trump.
MS. FEIGIN: In what case of the many?
MR. GREEN: Trump hired John in June of 2017 during the Mueller investigation when
Bob was investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the
firing of then FBI Director James Comey.
MS. FEIGIN: So the first term?
MR. GREEN: Yes, back in first term days. John has had a remarkable career. He’s a fine
white-collar lawyer and a tough guy. He apparently had a falling out with
Trump. I don’t know the details surrounding that. But today John is pretty
much retired and lives with his wife up on Cape Cod.
Bill Taylor used to work for me. Came to work for me when he left
I think the Public Defender’s office. Tried the Governor Mandel case with
me, then went on to have a tremendous career himself. Great lawyer.
Good, good, friend. We’ve been in cases together.
MS. FEIGIN: I think the Society is taking his oral history as well.
MR. GREEN: And then Jim Hamilton I knew well too. Jim I knew from Ginsburg,
Feldman and Bress way back then. Jim wrote a book called The Power to
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Probe about congressional investigations, which was the bible for some
time. I don’t know whether there are now later versions or different books,
but I remember consulting The Power to Probe on many occasions to
figure out arcane congressional rules and so forth. He’s had a lot of
interesting cases. So it was a group of really fine lawyers up in the Senate
hearing room.
I always took pleasure reminding Bennett of how tough he looked.
It’s interesting to see us in a film that was sent me of my closing argument
in the Keating case. We’re all so young; oh my God, just look at us there.
We’re like kids back then, and now we’re a bunch of old guys. It was a
fascinating case.
MS. FEIGIN: So speaking of your trying to diffuse the tension after a tough examination
by John Dowd, I have to ask, because you obviously bring humor and flair
to your presentations, but The Washington Post wrote a piece about you in
1997 questioning whether you were “the meanest lawyer in Washington.”
1

[laughter] How did that come about?
MR. GREEN: That was probably one of the nicer things written about me. But the way
they do things in the newspaper world is a reporter writes the article, and
then there’s a headline writer and then they put the headline on. Of course
I had nothing to do with that, and I still think I was a teddy bear.
One of the interesting tidbits about the Keating Five case is that
1 David Segal, Is This the Meanest Lawyer in Washington? The Washington Post, Feb.
17, 1997.
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one of the lawyers that had been earlier representing Keating in his
banking matters was a Sidley Austin partner in the firm, a woman by the
name of Margery Waxman . In the course of representing Riegle, I went
to another hearing. A witness got on the stand and was very insulting of
Margery Waxman and her representation. He tried to suggest that she was
responsible for certain bank transactions and he had unkind words to say
about her.
As the hearing broke, this witness is walking up the aisle past me
and I get up. I don’t know what stimulated me to do this, but I got up and I
said to him, essentially, if you want to pick on somebody, pick on
somebody your own size and if you want to pick on somebody, let’s go
outside. You can try to pick on me. Seated behind me was the reporter
Jack Anderson and he’s overhearing this and watching this. And the next
day there’s a blurb in The Post about my standing up and threatening this
guy or whatever. I don’t know if they used the word threatening. I didn’t
threaten him, I just invited him to come out into the street
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: Because he was really awful on Margery. He was just awful. So that made
me look pugnacious, when really I’m just a sweet kid. [laughter] And I
think that may have been some inspiration for the headline because the
articles were pretty close together as to when that came out. But I got a lot
of mileage out of that article. [laughter]
MS. FEIGIN: I’m sure for a lot of people that was a very positive thing.
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MR. GREEN: Yeah. That was an interesting little moment.
MS. FEIGIN: Anything else we should discuss about the Keating Five?
MR. GREEN: I think the sad thing is that the public career of Riegle was brought to an
end. Riegle didn’t run for reelection. McCain was fine and I think Glenn
was fine, but DeConcini retired from the Senate in 1995. He announced
that he wouldn’t run for reelection in 1993. I’m pretty sure that had
something to do with the Keating hearings. And Cranston announced in
1991 that he would not seek reelection. It was widely speculated that his
decision was strongly influenced by the fallout from the savings and loan
scandal. It basically ended three of their careers and so it was a significant
moment.
MS. FEIGIN: Instead of talking about another case, why don’t we end by your telling us
a little bit about your wife. Although you’ve mentioned how you met, I
know she had an interesting career too. So let’s use the time we have left
today to fill us in on her.
MR. GREEN: I have the most wonderful wife and we have been married now almost 46
years. She is my confidante, my rock, my supporter, my sounding board
and my best friend. She constantly encourages me to be a better person
and I am thankful for that. If I have enjoyed any success in my career,
much of it goes to her. And my imperfections as a father traveling from
one case to another were more than overcome by her love and attention to
all our children.
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Adding to my earlier remarks, when I first met Pam she was still in
law school working as a law clerk at Ginsburg, Feldman and Bress where I
was practicing. I needed some additional help with preparation for
Governor Mandel’s case and in response to my request she popped in my
office one day to volunteer. She quickly became indispensable and I
convinced her to take a break from law school and join the trial team in
Baltimore, which she thankfully agreed to do. And then in the course of
that time in Baltimore we fell in love and eventually married.
Following the trial both Pam and I returned to Ginsburg Feldman
and Bress, but not long after she left to join Arnold and Porter. But she
wasn’t in love with the profession and she wanted to do something else.
She was always interested a bit in design, and so one day she announced
that she wanted to go to India to buy some dhurrie rugs. Dhurrie rugs were
all the fashion back then. This had to be early 80s I would guess. They
were in all the famous magazines that people look at, Town and Country
or whatever they are, Vogue. I don’t know the magazines but they’re on
every floor. So she goes to India and she buys a bunch of dhurrie rugs.
And she comes back and puts them in our garage and tells her girlfriends
and word of mouth. I’m probably exaggerating, but like in two days
they’re all sold.
MS. FEIGIN: When you say a bunch, are we talking 10, 20, or huge numbers?
MR. GREEN: Good question, maybe 30, something like that. If she were here, she
would quickly correct me. [laughter] She was intending to sell them.
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MS. FEIGIN: So she didn’t go over just to furnish your home?
MR. GREEN: No. And boom, they’re gone. I think she took a girlfriend with her. Pretty
sure she took Barbara McConagha with her. And then I think she goes
back. I’m so sad that she’s going to read this someday and say your
memory is such a piece of Swiss cheese [laughter]. She goes back and
comes back with another load. And I don’t know whether this time she put
them in the garage but she felt maybe she should start looking for some
place to work out of. I remember touring northwest Washington. She
finally found a place over on Wisconsin Avenue, near Wisconsin and
Macomb, I guess in the area of Newark. We rented that space and she
started selling these rugs.
She had a friend by the name of Ann West, who was kind of her
collaborator in business for a while. Ann had an extraordinary background
in decorating and really, really exquisite taste. Together they started
putting other things in the store or shop. She called it the Kellogg
Collection.
I’ve always joked that when I married her her name was Pam
Kellogg, and I thought she was one of the Kelloggs of the Michigan
fortune. And I found out later that she was only a Kellogg of Baltimore,
not quite the same, and it was like false advertising on her part. [laughter]
So her business blossomed into a substantial business that at one
point I think had six stores around the metropolitan area. She retired and
sold the business as of the end of last year, December 2023. It’s still
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operating as the Kellogg Collection. She’s hopeful that the new owner will
be able to carry on the tradition successfully, but it’s becoming harder and
harder to operate a brick-and-mortar store so the jury’s out. But she’s
retired and she’s happy about that. She had a long run. I don’t think any
store specializing in home furnishing or anything like that has ever existed
as long as her store did, 42 years.
MS. FEIGIN: You mean a record in Washington or anywhere?
MR. GREEN: In Washington. She outlasted all of her competitors, perhaps save one. She
really built an incredible business, and it’s kind of a testament to her
vision and her capabilities. I’m enormously proud of what she
accomplished and often got to bask in her sunshine. But now we’re two
kind of wild and crazy kids just doing what we want to do when we want
to do it. [laughter]
MS. FEIGIN: That’s a nice note to end on. Next time we’ll go into some other cases that
you’ve had and I look forward to that.
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ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee is
Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place at the office of Sidley Austin in Washington, D.
C. on March 21, 2025. This is the eighth interview.
MS. FEIGIN: Good afternoon.
MR. GREEN: Good afternoon.
MS. FEIGIN: Returning to your career, I know one of the cases that you consider
important in your long inventory of interesting and fascinating cases is the
Poyiadjis case.
MR. GREEN: Yes. Roys Poyiadjis is an enormously interesting guy. A very bright guy
and in many ways accomplished. He was born in Cyprus, I think around
1974. His family was caught up in the kind of tensions and actually kind
of warfare between the Greeks and the Cypriots on the island of Cyprus.
For a while I think he lived in a refugee camp.
He was very committed to getting an education. He received a
degree from the University of Kent in England and he got an MBA from
London Business School, so he became a very accomplished guy. He
worked for Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers in the United Kingdom
in the early and mid-1990s. He was working in the financial world and in
the late ’90s he met a fellow by the name of Lycourgos Kyprianou.
Kyprianou was a fellow Greek. They formed a company called
AremisSoft. They took the company public on the NASDAQ in around
1999 or 2000.
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Then they embarked on what turned out to be an incredible scheme
if you will, in which they bought other companies and pumped up the
stock. It turned out that there was a lot of fraud in connection with these
acquisitions and the public statements concerning the earnings of the
acquired companies and so forth. In 2001 the SEC began to investigate
AremisSoft based on press reports that AremisSoft had overstated the
value of certain of its business dealings and contracts.
In October of 2001, the SEC filed a civil enforcement action
against AremisSoft. And a grand jury on December 19th of 2001 returned
an indictment against Poyiadjis and Kyprianou charging a lot of counts
relating to securities fraud. There were, I think, also forfeiture counts in
the criminal indictment that sought the return of millions and millions, if
not hundreds of millions of dollars. So that’s kind of the background.
I’m sitting in my office one day and I get a call from Roys
Poyiadjis. This call must have come to me right around that time, 2001,
2002, somewhere in that time frame. Roys gave me a brief description of
the problem that was confronting him. He said he was in Cyprus and it
was his intention to remain in Cyprus because there’s no extradition from
Cyprus but that he’d like to talk to me. And I said the typical thing that
lawyers do, engaged in some further conversation and then said I’m
intrigued enough to be willing to fly over to talk to you, but you’ll have to
send me X amount. I don’t know how much money I asked for, but I said
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you’ll have to send me X amount of money and if it hits the bank here, I’ll
come.
He said fine. And whatever it was, I’m sure it was a sufficiently
abundant number, he sent it. So I got on a plane, along with a younger
lawyer by the name of Brad Berenson. I think I mentioned Brad’s name
before [Session 7]. Brad practiced at Sidley for a number of years. He was
an enormously gifted young lawyer. I played a small role in recruiting him
to Sidley, which is one of the best things I ever did in my life. He stayed at
Sidley for a number of years, then went to General Electric, I think as head
of litigation, and then moved on to become the general counsel of I think
it’s TPG out in California. He’s had a great career.
Brad’s been with me on a number of cases. He was with me on the
Poyiadjis matter and he was with me in Governor Aníbal Acevedo’s case
that we’re going to talk about. He was also with me when we together
tried Sylvester Lukis and Vicki Lukis’s case in Florida. And I’m grateful
that he was beside me in all those cases because he’s an extraordinarily
talented guy. He took a lot of the laboring oars, if you will. I’m just very,
very fond of him.
So the two of us got on an airplane and we flew to Cyprus. We
went to a hotel where Roys had commandeered a huge conference room.
That’s where we were scheduled to meet with him. So we find ourselves
in the conference room before Roys arrives, but soon after he comes in
and he’s tugging and pulling three of the biggest suitcases I’ve ever seen.
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Pulling them into the conference room. And of course I was dumb enough
to ask what are you bringing us, lunch or what? [laughter] And he said
“These are all my documents.” So to shorten this story, because this all
could go on for a long time, he lays all these documents out on the table.
And essentially the first day’s efforts are devoted to Roys’s explaining to
us how he’s innocent of everything.
MS. FEIGIN: Is that the typical first day with a client?
MR. GREEN: It’s not atypical. It happens a fair amount. We had prepared ourselves,
just given the public documents that were out there, so we knew
something about this case. And I don’t want to be too critical of Roys
because what he was doing is kind of a natural facet of behavior for men
in these situations. But as we sat there listening to him hour after hour, the
needle on my bullshit meter is percolating and it finally rises to a level
where I needed to enter into a bit of a debate with him.
My recollection is that over a period of either two or three days,
through a process of confronting him with this question and then that
question and perhaps this document and that document, the story began to
change and fall apart. And it finally migrates to the point where I told him
that regardless of what he thinks, he’s got big problems.
If I had to guess, and this is now over 20 years ago, I think he
acknowledged it. And I think we told him that the best course of action
would be to start talking to the prosecutors in New York City where the
U.S. Attorney’s office was. That’s the office that had indicted him. To
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start talking to them and seeing just what we could do, if there’s any
possibility to do something for Roys.
We also began to discuss with Roys that something would have to
happen to the money that the government claimed was socked away. I
think in the process of talking to him, either in Cyprus or by telephone in
the couple of months that ensued, we got pretty much of a handle on how
much money there was. It was over $200 million.
We began to visit with Ray Lohier in the U.S. Attorney’s Office,
who’s now on the Second Circuit. Not too long after this case was over, he
was elevated to the Second Circuit from Assistant U.S. Attorney. Their
opening position was that it was really a pretty open and shut case. They
had Roys kind of in the crosshairs where they wanted him and they were
not in a mood to be generous with him.
The government’s position was pretty draconian in the beginning
with respect to what would have to be a settlement with them or the
outlines of a plea agreement with them. But we worked through a lot of
proposals and counter proposals, and we had the SEC in there as well
because the SEC had this dramatically tough complaint on file.
We ultimately settled with the SEC in a civil settlement and we
worked out a plea agreement where he would plead to one count of
securities fraud. That was a plea that was taken in July of 2010 so this
went on for that long.
MS. FEIGIN: Wow. Eight or nine years.
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MR. GREEN: There was a superseding indictment filed in June of 2002 and the SEC
entered judgment in April of 2005. These are the negotiations that are
going on. Ultimately Roys had to come back to the country. He was
paroled in for purposes of entering his plea and then I think remaining for
sentencing. Lohier also wanted Roys to cooperate in the government’s
continuing pursuit of Kypriano, the other defendant. So we reached what
you could say amounted to kind of a global settlement with the SEC and
the U.S. Attorney’s office.
The reason that the sentencing was delayed for so long is that the
government was trying to find and get hold of Kyprianou. There were a
number of attempts to apprehend him, but I think Kyprianou was never
apprehended and remains a fugitive today. But ultimately the case had to
be resolved and brought to conclusion. Roys agreed to forfeit or pay $200
million to the United States. That was the largest SEC recovery, certainly
at that time. I don’t know whether it remains the largest SEC recovery, but
it was an enormous disgorgement.
In the process of negotiating that case, we were able to reach
agreement with the government whereby Roys was able to keep a fairly
sizable amount of money himself. Some of that was because we were able
to establish it was unrelated to this larger insider trading and false
statement case and so forth. So he was able certainly to survive
comfortably. He was married to an American woman.
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It came time for sentencing. I asked that he be placed on probation.
And the judge sentenced him to three years of probation in large part
because of his cooperation, which had been ongoing for a substantial
period of time. He was very, very fortunate. He had to return an enormous
amount of money which was appropriate under the circumstances, but he
never went to jail.
But the story doesn’t end there because Roys was allowed to
remain in the United States. He’s still in the United States, living in New
York. He became a very philanthropic guy. If you’re talking about making
amends for the things you’ve done, he certainly has made amends.
He became involved with the New York University School of
Medicine and he donated at least several millions of dollars to their
Department of Physiology and Neuroscience in support of research. And
he has formed companies to support continuing research.
He established a scholarship fund at the University of Cyprus to
provide scholarships to students who were excelling in economics and
were in need of financial assistance. He’s done a number of things like
that. He’s been a really good citizen. When I say that, I actually don’t
know whether he’s a citizen of the United States yet, but I mean citizen in
the broader sense. He’s just been remarkable in that way.
The interesting thing about Roys Poyiadjis is he was an
extraordinarily talented and well-educated and bright guy, who kind of got
sucked off into this vortex with this guy Kyprianou, who I think for the
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most part probably is the one who kind of mesmerized Roys. I’ve never
understood exactly how that happened. But Roys ultimately came to
confront it and do the right thing and move through it. I haven’t talked to
him at length in some time but I think he’s getting along fine. And I hope
he’s, knock on wood, here. I hope he’s here in this country for a long time.
So that’s a little bit of the Poyiadjis case.
MS. FEIGIN: I know you’ve said that among your panoply of fascinating cases, one of
the most fascinating was the governor of Puerto Rico. That’s probably not
a case that most people know about because I don’t think he’s a household
name, so could you tell us about him.
MR. GREEN: It was a remarkable case for a number of reasons. Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá
was the Resident Commissioner for Puerto Rico in the early 2000s. The
Resident Commissioner is Puerto Rico’s representative to the U.S.
government. They have an office here in Washington.
He’s a non-voting Representative in the U.S. House of
Representatives, like the District of Columbia has Eleanor Holmes Norton
as a non-voting Representative. He is the figurehead for the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in Washington, but unlike other members
of the House, his term is for four years.
Then he was elected governor. In Puerto Rico there are basically
two different parties. At the risk of summarizing too succinctly, one party
advocates statehood status for Puerto Rico and the other party is more
wedded to commonwealth status. The party that Acevedo-Vilá was
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affiliated with is the party that wants commonwealth status and not
statehood. He became that party’s candidate. The party is, I think, called
the Popular Democratic Party. He became their candidate for governor and
he was elected governor in 2004.
He was elected after a pretty severely contested election. The
results were unknown for a very long period of time while the Elections
Commission went through recounts. But finally, on December 28th of
2004, he’s declared the elected governor of Puerto Rico.
An investigation of the governor starts somewhere around 2006 or
2007. And so again, I’m always just sitting in my office minding my own
business [laughter]. I get a call and it’s from the governor of Puerto Rico; I
thought, that’s kind of interesting.
He was referred to me through some of Puerto Rico’s lobbyists in
Washington. I think Charlie Black in particular and maybe Scott Pastrick.
I think it’s likely that the referral came through them. Charlie Black is a
well-known guy, a very fantastic guy, and Scott Pastrick was a very
talented public relations lobbyist, Democratic operative in Washington. I
think they’re both now essentially retired.
The governor told me about this investigation. And the next thing
you know, Brad and I are down in Puerto Rico talking to the governor. We
spent quite a bit of time familiarizing ourselves with what’s going on.
From what we could determine, the governor was under
investigation both by the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Juan and the Public
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Integrity section here at DOJ in Washington, for essentially campaign
violations. For a series of transactions where third parties were solicited
one way or another to pay off campaign debt from the governor’s
campaign in ways that were not permitted by Puerto Rican law. When
they look at things like that, they look at money laundering and honest
services fraud and everything else. But it was basically a case that grew
out of campaign violations.
I remember we had a number of meetings at the Department of
Justice to try to talk them out of indicting the governor. I thought we had
compelling arguments to make because essentially the governor’s defense
was honestly, if that happened, in truth, I didn’t know anything about it. I
really didn’t.
In this case, I believed the governor. In all of our investigation and
from everything we could determine, while the Department of Justice was
committed to their theory, their theory was basically predicated — when
you strip everything away and look at what so-called evidence they
actually accumulated — really they were relying on the old adage he had to
know, how could he not know? All this is going on around him. This
elaborate scheme. His closest advisors are engaged in it. How could he not
know? And again, in simplification a bit, our proposition was that’s sweet,
that’s great you want to say that, but you can’t win on that theory. You’re
going to have to back that up.
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So he’s ultimately indicted. He actually was indicted twice. The
first indictment was in March of 2008. The governor was running for
reelection through this entire investigation and the pages were filled with
stories about the investigation in Puerto Rico. Page after page after page.
Everyone in that geographic area knew there was a huge investigation
going on.
The election was going to be in the fall of 2008. I told the
Department of Justice, among the arguments I was making, that you
should not indict a sitting public official so close to an election. There is
an unwritten rule, maybe it’s even written. It could be in the U.S.
Attorney’s Manual, I don’t know. But there’s a rule of which we were all
familiar that it’s too close to an election. They just ignored that and they
went ahead and indicted him.
But to make matters worse, they indicted him again. They added
some more counts to the indictment which were related to this scheme.
They charged honest services fraud and so forth. They added five counts
in August of 2008, even closer to the election. And of course I was just
furious about that.
Certainly during our conversations with the judge I brought all this
up, but the judge was unwilling to do anything about it. All the judges in
Puerto Rico recused themselves from this case, every single judge. So they
brought down Judge Barbadoro from New Hampshire. And I will say this
about Judge Barbadoro, he was a tough cookie. I don’t say this lightly, and
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I’m sure if he were ever to read this he might not be real happy with me.
But I believe that he believed that the governor was guilty. He was going
to give him a fair trial, but I think he believed the governor was guilty. At
least that’s my opinion. And Judge Barbadoro, if you’re reading this and
I’ve offended you, I apologize.
So we’re faced with going to trial. Interestingly, a couple of things
happened before trial. When you add up the counts from the early
indictment and then the later indictment, Judge Barbadoro did consolidate
them into one trial. So they effectively became like one indictment. We
probably requested that. We didn’t want to have two trials. The factual
underpinning of all these charges was the same universe of fact. How was
this money actually raised to pay off the campaign debt? Who knew? Who
did it? Did the governor know about it? That’s kind of the core framework
for this whole controversy.
I think when you get both cases together, he’s ultimately charged
with like 19 counts of misconduct. Campaign violations, some IRS
charges that he took some of this campaign money and spent it on himself
without declaring it. Silly charges, but they were there, honest services
fraud. We filed a motion to dismiss a lot of the counts. A substantial
number of the counts were predicated on violations of local electoral law,
Puerto Rico law.
And now I’ll give Judge Barbadoro credit because Brad Berenson
thought up the theory as to why all of those counts predicated on Puerto
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Rico electoral law were baloney. He crafted a beautiful and compelling
motion and he argued it, and Judge Barbadoro threw out all those counts.
You could say on a technicality, but nevertheless, they were thrown out.
So in the final analysis, the governor is going to go to trial only on nine
counts.
What’s interesting here is that 13 people were indicted. The
governor was indicted and a woman by the name of Louisa Inclan. Louisa
Inclan was a big part of his campaign. She was a legal advisor for the
governor’s San Juan office and volunteered in his 2004 gubernatorial
campaign’s finance department. So that’s two of the 13. All of the others
are basically businessmen or campaign officials who were charged with
helping to raise these funds to pay off this debt.
A number of the defendants were related to the campaign, the
campaign’s finance department or finance director in the political party.
They were kind of local political officials and businessmen in this alleged
massive conspiracy which was count one. The rest of the counts were a lot
of individual violations.
Of the 13, eight pled guilty before trial. And three, essentially
businessmen from Philadelphia, where much of this money was raised,
were severed. Their cases were transferred to the U.S. district court in
Philadelphia. They ultimately pled guilty as well. Some of those pleas, I
think, were taken after the governor’s trial concluded.
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One of those three was a gentleman by the name of Candido
Negron Mella. We believed that he would provide exculpatory testimony,
notwithstanding he was a co-defendant. So we went to the court and we
basically said unless you sever him from this trial, he won’t be able to
provide that exculpatory testimony. The judge took that under advisement
and again, I’ll give Judge Barbadoro a shout out. He agreed with us that
the equities were more on our side than on the government’s side, and he
granted a severance which resulted in a delayed trial which allowed
Negron Mella to come to court in Puerto Rico and testify on behalf of the
governor and not be reticent in invoking the Fifth. So we did get his
testimony ultimately.
In discovery, we were able to ascertain the government’s likely
witnesses. Part of the scheme that they charged the governor with was that
in return for these political contributions, the governor facilitated certain
meetings between the indicted businessmen and officials in the Puerto
Rican government. It was alleged that he facilitated these meetings
between those parties to help or assist the businessmen to obtain contracts
with the Puerto Rican government.
So we had access to everyone who was indicted with our client.
Our co-defendants were happy to talk to us, lawyers for the governor,
because we’re going to represent the lead defendant in the trial. And it
would only inure to their advantage if we could bang on the government’s
case. But equally important in discovery, we were able to identify who the
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government would likely call to testify at trial. Some of it was very
explicit because you could just read the FBI interviews and so forth. Some
of it was just through intuition and educated guesses. They ended up
calling 30 witnesses at trial. We may have missed one, but I think we
either talked to 29 or all 30.
So let’s assume there’s 30; 28 talked to us. For instance, I would
go to the director of the Department of Health, or whatever, because some
of these businessmen were trying to sell medical insurance to Puerto Rican
citizens and they had to be licensed to do that and so forth. So I would go
to the director of the Department of Health and I would say, just as an
example, “Did you have a meeting with Candido Negron?” “Yeah, I did.”
“And why did you meet with him?” “Well, he wanted to meet with me to
try to interest me in their medical insurance product for Puerto Rico.”
“And you met with him?” “Yes.” “And did you ultimately contract with
him to provide insurance?” “ No we didn’t.” And I said, “More
importantly, did the governor ever call up and beseech you to meet with
Negron? Did he ask you?” “No. I never, never, never heard from the
governor.”
That’s kind of a fair representation of what we were hearing. And
we’re down there, we’re living in Puerto Rico for a substantial period of
time. The whole thing just didn’t make sense to us. But in cruising around
to speak to everybody, two prospective witnesses refused to talk to us.
Which was, under the circumstances, kind of remarkable because
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everybody was trying to be helpful. They had lawyers and their lawyers
would not let me talk to them.
What do I take from that? What I take from that is that they have
evidence that is potentially hurtful to the governor. I don’t know what it is
because their lawyers aren’t going to tell me and they’re not telling me. Or
it’s evidence that they think is hurtful or whatever, but that they’re
cooperating with the prosecutors and for that reason they don’t want to
talk to me. All right, they don’t want to talk to me.
So now we go to trial. And the trial is going, I would say,
relatively comfortably. Although there’s a lot of witnesses, after crossexamination, we’re able to neutralize essentially every one of them.
These two guys that didn’t talk to me, they’re not called by the
government. As the case is progressing, I’m working with the governor at
night to get him ready to testify. And we are really putting in a lot of hours
because the governor needs a lot of hours to get ready to testify.
At some point, as we got closer and closer to the end of the case, I
began to believe that the better tactic would be to leave the governor off
the stand. I rarely have done that in a public corruption case. In almost
every public corruption case I’ve ever tried, I put the public official on the
stand because juries expect an explanation. They want to hear from the
public official. They don’t want the public official remaining silent in the
face of serious accusations; that’s like a death blow. So absent the most
remarkable of circumstances, I would put a public official on the stand
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unless they can’t even pronounce their name and remember the days of the
week.
So we get down towards the end of the trial and the government
rests. Now by this time, I pretty much figured out what’s happening
because of an additional fact. As the trial was coming to a close, one
member of the prosecution team every day would come over to my table
and ask me “Is the governor going to testify?” on the pretext that they
want to make sure they’re prepared if he’s going to testify. And I would
say, on every occasion, “Of course he’s going to testify. And when he
does, he’s going to blow a hole the size of Yankee Stadium through your
case, and you better be ready for him because he’s coming.”
The next day another guy would guy walk over. “Is the governor
going to testify?” I said “Goddamn right he’s going to testify, and he’s
getting ready and he’s going to blow your case to bits.” This went on for
about five days. And it’s very clear to me – and this is almost right at the
end of the trial – what’s happening here. They are believing me that the
governor is going to testify. And so they are holding those two witnesses
back for rebuttal. They never should have exposed their tactics like that.
But it’s clear to me that that’s exactly what they’re doing.
So in those waning days I go to the governor and say “Governor,
you’re not going to testify.” He was disappointed because he had worked
like a dog to get ready. He asked why and I explained to him. He still
thought he should testify. I said “You can’t testify. We’re going to cut
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those guys off at the knees.” Because if he doesn’t testify, they have no
rebuttal.
So we’re getting down to the end of the trial and the government
rests. And then the chief trial lawyer for the government, Maria
Dominguez, stands up and says “I want to keep the record open Your
Honor because we may want to put in some documents. We just want to
run a checklist, put some documents in.”
I get up. I say “No deal. I’m not moving forward until the
government rests” because I didn’t want to take a chance that anything
was going to unravel. Judge Barbadoro now is getting progressively more
unhappy with me in the trial because I am who I am. He’s losing his
patience with me. I’ve lost mine with him days ago, but he’s losing his
patience with me.
He said “I’m going to let them.” I said “I am not going to start my
case until the government rests. Under the rules, I’m not obliged to move
forward with my defense till the government rests. Now we can take five
days and sit around on the beach while they go through their documents
and decide if there’s anything else they want to put into evidence. But I
want to know the totality of their case before my case starts.” And he
knew I was right. So back and forth conversation with the prosecutor.
Finally I think they tendered one other document to the court. Then they
rest.
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I had played some more charades by this time. Judge Barbadoro
made me give the prosecutors my witness list days before they rested. I
structured the witness list so that the first three guys on the witness list
were really good buddies of the governor. We’re in heavy gamesmanship
right here. I call those three guys up. I say “Look, I need you guys to do
me a favor. You need to come to the courthouse. The government’s case is
not over yet and it won’t be over for maybe three days. I need you to sit in
the witness room for three days. You understand? Will you do it?” “Yes
sir. We’ll do it.”
They come down. I put them in the witness room. I leave the door
of the witness room open with a little doorstop. I explained to them what
we’re doing, I said “I want this door open so that every time anyone from
the prosecution team walks down this hall, they pass this door and they see
you three characters in here waiting to testify. You understand that?”
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: They said “Yes, okay.” “Just bring a book. Bring newspapers, whatever
you need.” They do it. They sit right there. Meanwhile, back in the
courtroom, finally the government rests. And Barbadoro says to me, “Mr.
Green, call your first witness.” So I gathered up all my books and went to
the podium. Then I went back and got more books to put on the side table.
The courtroom is in a hush. It’s just in a hush. And I’m moving the papers
here, adjusting them here. And then I look up, and I look right at
Barbadoro and I say “The defense rests.”
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MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: He went batshit. Can’t use those terms, you know, taking an oral history
but he says “Come to the bench.”
As we’re going up to the bench, one of the lawyers on the
prosecution team sidles up to me. And he says “Boy you’ve got big balls.”
I said “Big balls? I’m just doing my job.”
MS. FEIGIN: [laughter]
MR. GREEN: We get up to the bench and Barbadoro has about had it with me. “Why
didn’t you tell me you were going to rest your case?” and da, da, da, da. I
said “Judge, I didn’t know whether I was going to rest my case until I
could evaluate the entirety of the prosecution’s case. That’s why I wanted
to know when their case was over. That’s when I made my assessment.
And Your Honor, you have called us back to chambers every day
after trial” – which he did – “to discuss with us the next day’s
proceedings, and you have asked me more than once, many more times
than once, whether I was going to put on a defense in this case. And I told
you each time that I’m considering all my options. I said that to you not
once, but probably a dozen times. Every time you asked, I said I’m
considering all my options. I’ve been totally candid with you.” I was
considering all my options right up to the end. And that was that.
He said “All right, we’ll adjourn for a day and a half” — whatever
– “to get jury instructions and all that.” So we got the jury instructions
done. We came back and we argued the case. I argued for a couple of
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hours. Government argued a couple of hours. Then we left the courthouse
because it was kind of late in the afternoon. I never could imagine that
there’d be a verdict, and we got in our car. We had a car or a small van to
take the whole crew back to the hotel. Halfway back to the hotel, my
phone rings and the clerk says “Mr. Green, where are you? We have a
verdict.” I said “We are on our way back to the hotel.” And the clerk said
“Can you turn around and come back to the courthouse?”
MS. FEIGIN: How long had the trial taken?
MR. GREEN: A little over a month, I think.
MS. FEIGIN: What did you think such a speedy verdict indicated?
MR. GREEN: Normally that would not be a propitious sign. I think most quick verdicts
are verdicts of guilty. Most. I mean, generalizing. But I kind of had a
feeling we were making pretty good points. I had a pretty good record to
play with in closing argument because nothing really bad had come in on
the governor. Almost every single witness said I never talked to him, he
didn’t know anything.
So we come back and the jury comes in not guilty. And the
courtroom just erupts. It also erupted when I said I rest. Barbadoro’s
pounding his gavel. But it really erupted when the jury said not guilty.
There’s a film of the crowd outside the courthouse, and then when I come
out to get into our car they’re chanting “Green, Green, Green.” It’s crazy
to look at. And that’s basically most of the story about Governor Acevedo
Vilá’s case.
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MS. FEIGIN: Was that was the end of his political career?
MR. GREEN: It was. I think he tried a comeback, to be Resident Commissioner again,
and was defeated. He’s a good guy. His wife was a wonderful lady. She
contracted cancer I think sometime after the trial and she passed away a
couple of years ago, lovely woman. I think he’s doing okay. Every once in
a while I show up in Puerto Rico and we visit. It was an amazing trial.
MS. FEIGIN: I read that he was an Obama supporter and Obama tried to distance
himself.
MR. GREEN: I don’t know. I don’t remember that. But I’ve always admired him. I think
he’s a really good guy. I was very happy I was able to help him survive
through this.
MS. FEIGIN: That is quite dramatic. Let’s talk about one more dramatic case, Dennis
Hastert.
MR. GREEN: Dennis Hastert is a sad episode. Dennis was Speaker of the House of
Representatives. When he resigned, he was at that time the longest-serving
Republican Speaker ever. I think he probably still is.
Then he joined Dickstein Shapiro as kind of a lobbyist or
rainmaker. There were some newspaper articles that reported on his
success and that he was making a nice living. I don’t know whether the
amounts of money he was making were actually specified or not. But as a
result, he gets a call from a guy who claims that he was abused by Dennis
when he was a younger boy, young man. And he threatens to expose that
unless Dennis pays him. I think he demanded about $3 million. You can
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probably imagine the emotions that run through Dennis at that moment in
time. I’m guessing this is around 2010.
MS. FEIGIN: The abuse allegedly had occurred how long ago? Decades?
MR. GREEN: Decades, yes. Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach
beginning in I think around 1965 and that continued through to 1981. 1981
is when he was first elected as a public official, as a Representative from
Illinois. So this stuff is probably late ’60s, early ’70s. And the call is
coming in 2010, more than 30 years later.
Hastert is overwrought and extremely upset at all this and he
essentially agrees to begin to pay this guy. He ends up paying him almost
$2 million. But he had to get the money. He had to get the cash to pay this
guy. So he began a series of cash withdrawals from his bank, first without
regard to the so-called currency transaction reporting, the $10,000 limit.
He starts taking like tranches of $50,000 out of the bank. And the bank
begins to ask a series of questions as to what’s going on. Why are you
taking this money out? And of course he’s not forthcoming with respect to
why he is actually taking the money out. I don’t know what he told them
but it wasn’t true.
I think he even took withdrawals of maybe $100,000 out initially.
So the bank has questions. I can’t recall whether the bank alerted the FBI
or they came onto it through some other way. But I think that $1.7 million
was paid over the period of 2010 to 2014. In 2013 the FBI starts an
investigation into whether there’s possible structuring of currency
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transactions to evade the reporting requirements. They go to interview
Hastert and they show up at his house wearing a wire. They give Hastert a
story that they want to know whether he’s okay. They’re there on a pretext
of trying to protect him and Hastert talks to them without a lawyer. He
tells them that he’s using the money for investments and he denies that
he’s being harassed or extorted and so forth.
Sometime around this time, I get a call from a really good friend of
mine by the name of Barry Levine over at Dickstein Shapiro, who has
been representing Hastert. The firm developed a conflict with another
client and he asked me if I would be willing to talk to Dennis. So I go over
to Dickstein Shapiro and have an initial conversation with him. And then
we had a couple of more conversations. I don’t want to get into what those
conversations were. But I’ll leave it at this, I told Hastert that I needed to
know the truth. And I embarked on the representation so probably one
could infer I got the truth, whatever that may be.
We made a presentation at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. I
thought we had made a good presentation. The allegations were clearly
unattractive. But even taking the allegations in their most incriminating
interpretation, whatever happened stopped also. It occurred many years
ago but stopped many years ago. And then he went on to have a
remarkably productive life in which you could argue credibly that he
contributed much to this country’s success.
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By all accounts he was a respected Speaker of the House and a guy
of many accomplishments. He was the recipient of many awards and other
honors — buildings named for him and so forth. He was by all appearances
a really respected and responsible individual.
We were unable to persuade the Department to make any kind of
pre-indictment settlement. They were determined to bring this case. I don’t
want to be overly critical, but sometimes when lawyers in the U.S.
Attorney’s office come across what is a high-profile case, it just kind of
takes on a life of its own and the ability to reason with them or to
effectuate some kind of accommodation which takes everyone’s interests
into account – they don’t want that. They prefer to make a splash of sorts.
This might not have been the case where from the government’s
perspective a settlement would have been appropriate. I understand that
from their perspective. But anyway, he’s indicted on May 28, 2015. And I
will say one thing to the credit of the prosecutors. In the indictment they
did avoid getting horribly specific about any of the background or
backdrop to this. He was actually indicted for currency violations for the
way he took the money out of the bank and for lying to the FBI. The
statute of limitations had long expired on any offenses associated with
molestation or anything like that. So this was strictly a financial crimes
case, if you want to call it that. They did not lard it up with a lot of the
background information.
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So we were left to try this case, and I had long talks with Dennis
Hastert, long, long talks. I’m not trying to state anything other than the
obvious. This would have been a horrible case to try even though I suspect
that some of the alleged victims would not be that comfortable coming to
the courtroom.
MS. FEIGIN: So there was more than one victim?
MR. GREEN: There were allegations of more than one victim, yes. There was only one,
so far as I understand the facts, that’s alleged to have tried to extort him.
So we had to work out some kind of deal here and then hope that
we could put together a compelling presentation when it came to
sentencing. During the negotiations with the prosecutors I insisted that I
had a meritorious motion to dismiss the case because of the way the FBI
had come and interviewed Dennis on a pretext, which really wasn’t a
completely candid statement on the FBI’s part. Also they talked to him
without a lawyer and there was enough that I could make a fair amount of
noise with a motion. I told the government that I would file the motion
unless the government agreed to a plea to one count and a
recommendation of no jail time.
I didn’t get everything I wanted but they agreed that he could plead
guilty to a two-count indictment and they would recommend a guideline
calculation of zero to six months and would ask for a sentence within that
guideline range. So that became the basis of Dennis’s plea which occurred
on October 28, 2015. Then in the first week of November, the week after
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entering his plea, Denis suffered a stroke with serious complications. He
was hospitalized until January of 2016. And then I think there appeared in
print unattractive statements from one of his victims and the sister of
another victim who I believe had passed away. When we got to sentencing
on April 27, 2016, those two individuals appeared and addressed the court.
I had written a long presentation on Hastert’s behalf in which I
essentially implored the court to take into consideration the entirety of his
life, the good as well as the bad, and to balance them. And in so doing, I
felt that because of Hastert’s admissions of misconduct and the passage of
time and all of the things he did on the plus side of the scale, he was
deserving of a sentence of probation.
The Judge, Thomas Durkin, not only ignored the plea deal and the
guidelines calculation, but during the sentencing proceeding read from
what appeared to be maybe as many as 30 pages that he had put together
to explain an upward departure sentence of 15 months. He really took after
Dennis and forcefully questioned him about whether or not he had
molested this victim or that victim, labeled him a predator and serial child
molester several times. He was just wound up on this. I don’t know where
all that came from, let me put it that way.
It was unexpected. And I know I was very uncomfortable while he
was on the bench. I don’t know exactly what words to use, but there was
no mistaking his disgust at what went on without any inkling of credit for
any part of Dennis’s life. He just focused on what was really unfortunate,
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and I thought he was unnecessarily aggressive with his remarks. But Judge
Durkin did allow Hastert to serve his fifteen-month sentence at the federal
medical facility attached to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota
because Dennis was quite frail at that time. He came to the sentencing in a
wheelchair. That was not a charade; he was in poor health.
In addition to the sentence of fifteen months in a prison medical
facility, Judge Durkin sentenced Dennis to two years supervised release
and a $250,000 fine. Hastert was released after serving 13 months. Highest
ranking elected official in U.S. history to serve a prison sentence.
So that ended the saga. But it was sad. It was a sad experience. But
Dennis made it through his sentence and to the best of my knowledge he’s
still living in Illinois.
MS. FEIGIN: That’s all quite dramatic. There were some cases, I believe, following the
criminal case. Civil lawsuits by some alleged victims and also a question
about his eligibility to continue to receive retirement funds from his
teaching job. Did you represent him in any of those cases?
MR. GREEN: I did not.
MS. FEIGIN: Did you stay in touch with him?
MR. GREEN: A little bit for a little while, but I haven’t stayed in touch with him after
that.
MS. FEIGIN: We’ve covered a lot of important cases and probably next time we’ll
finish up. I really appreciate the time you spent today. Thank you.
235
ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee is
Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place at the office of Sidley Austin in Washington, D.
C. on April 10, 2025. This is the ninth interview.
MS. FEIGIN: Good morning.
MR. GREEN: Good morning.
MS. FEIGIN: So in the pantheon of your page one political crisis cases, one of the ones
that we have yet to cover is Richard Gates. I’m not sure he’s a household
name, so why don’t you explain who he was and then how he fit into the
panoply of important political cases.
MR. GREEN: Richard Gates, or Rick Gates, is another example of a client who I came to
really like. I’ve had affection for almost all of my clients. But it’s also
another example of a client whose political views and political affiliation
were contrary to mine.
That circumstance has never really impacted my representation of
Rick or anyone else. I was always open to accepting a case on the merits
without regard to what I thought were extraneous factors. If the case had
merit, I felt it was part of my obligation as a lawyer to take on the case.
I’m excluding the case where the issues or conduct were repulsive to me
or something like that. But in a normal criminal investigation, although it
may be newsworthy, and it may be something that people were generally
interested in, it was simply my representation of an individual client. If I
felt the client was deserving of representation, I would move forward.
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I was sitting in my office one day, this must have been around
2017, when I got a call from Charlie Black, one of the most well-known
Republican lobbyists, operatives, whatever you want to say. A really fine
individual who had been a partner in the past with Paul Manafort. Charlie
explained to me that Gates was someone who was associated and had
worked with Paul Manafort. He said Gates had lawyers but both he and
Rick felt that Rick was not getting the kind of advice that he needed.
Charlie asked me if I would take over Rick’s representation.
When someone opens a conversation like that I am a bit tentative
because it’s not been my practice to replace other lawyers in a case; that
can often be problematic. It would take time for me to assess something
like that. So I told him that I would certainly talk to Rick Gates and we
would go from there; we’d see what eventuated.
So Rick Gates came to see me. I can’t pin the date, but it was, I
would say, in the late fall of 2017. He was a very engaging individual. He
explained to me that he was under investigation in connection with Bob
Mueller’s investigation into whether or not the election had been
influenced by the Russians. Had there been Russian interference in the
2016 election of Trump.
We spent a couple of hours together and he fleshed out for me
what the concern was. He explained that Manafort had been a long-time
lobbyist for the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych and that
the investigation was into whether or not there had been inappropriate
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lobbying on behalf of a political party without disclosure to the
Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known
as FARA.
There were a host of issues surrounding all of that. So let me back
up and put some of this in context. Paul Manafort I did not know. I knew
of him. Paul Manafort was, in my estimation, kind of a big-time
Republican, a guy who was instrumental in the political operation of the
Republican Party. He had represented, I think, a number of Republican
candidates in high profile elections and he was appointed by Trump to be
manager of the Republican convention. He was appointed in March of
2016 and he was ultimately promoted and became chair of the campaign
in May of 2016. That didn’t last very long because he was bounced out of
the campaign. He resigned from the campaign in August of 2016, when he
was replaced by Steve Bannon.
Rick Gates served as Manafort’s deputy when he was chair of the
campaign. In the summer of 2016, press accounts started to appear and
Manafort came under fire over his past lobbying work for pro-Russian
Ukrainian oligarchs. There was a big article in August of 2016 in The New
York Times. It reported that Manafort had received millions of dollars
worth of cash payments from Yanukovych’s political party. The paper
alleged that Manafort had received upwards of $12 million or $13 million
in undisclosed cash payments from Yanukovych’s political party prior to
238
2012 and it was all off the books. This was a big, big revelation and this
was basically what forced his resignation from the Trump campaign.
Interestingly enough, Gates stayed on for a while and became the
campaign’s liaison to the RNC. And then Rick became deputy chairman of
the inaugural committee. I think he was working here in D.C. But if my
memory serves me right, he was ultimately forced out of that position too,
as more information about Manafort/Gates activities was publicized.
Bob Mueller was appointed in May of 2017 to look into Russian
interference in the presidential election. Bob Mueller at that time was a
good friend of mine. I knew him from basically the first day he came to
Washington to become director of the FBI.
He had a close friend who was also a close friend of mine and that
friend brought us together. The four of us, Bob and his wife Ann, and I
and my wife Pam, enjoyed a close social relationship from that point
forward. So I knew Bob really well. In all the visits that I made to the
Office of the Special Counsel down in southwest Washington, Bob was
very careful to kind of stay away from me; he didn’t want to appear to his
staff as if we were friends or anything. So when we saw each other, it was
just kind of a “Hi, Bob.” “Hi, Tom.” And see you later alligator.
[laughter] He left me to handling by Andrew Weissmann and Greg Andres
who handled the investigation into Manafort and Gates.
The investigation into both those guys got very hot over the
summer of 2017, and then in October of 2017 Manafort and Gates get
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indicted, the first indictment. That’s filed in front of Judge Amy Berman
Jackson in federal district court in D.C. That indictment had conspiracy
counts and allegations that they failed to disclose signature authority over
foreign bank accounts, failure to file as foreign agents, and lying to the
DOJ.
Basically, the allegations were that Manafort was making tons of
money working for these interests in Ukraine and he was funneling all that
money offshore, mostly into undisclosed accounts that I think were in
Cyprus. Enormous sums of money were parked offshore and never
declared on his tax returns. And to a much less substantial extent, Gates
was alleged to have parked some money there too, and didn’t disclose it
on his tax returns. But his relative culpability, if you will, was a lot less
than Manafort’s. Manafort was really the principal target.
So you wonder what possessed Manafort to do this. He’s a guy of
some stature, very well respected as far as I can tell. But according to the
press reports he had an enormous appetite for money. And these funds that
were parked offshore were used to fund everything. He had clothing bills
that were in the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and
landscaping and everything. It would all be filtered out of Cyprus back
into the United States. None of it was ever declared. So it’s against that
background that Charlie Black calls me in late fall, while Gates is under
indictment with Manafort, and says will you talk to him.
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We had a number of meetings. I’m trying to distill this to its
simplest. This was an overwhelming case. The government had both these
guys in the crosshairs. Much of it was based on documents. Once you get
the records out of Cyprus, once you get the payments coming to the
United States, once you look at the tax returns, and no foreign accounts
are disclosed, and the income isn’t on the tax returns, it was hard to figure
out a rejoinder to all this.
It wasn’t long before I began to talk to Rick about whether the best
outcome for him was to consider a negotiation with the government for a
plea deal, along with cooperation, which would best minimize his
exposure. My recollection is he was initially resistant to that.
MS. FEIGIN: That’s probably typical, I imagine.
MR. GREEN: Yes, in varying degrees. Often everyone starts out being resistant to that.
He had a number of reasons why he was resistant — reputational harm,
family harm, and everything else. There’s a process that that entails. I
wrote an article about this, or I was asked to write something which got
published, in which I described the process that I and the client go through
in trying to assess whether or not to enter into an arrangement like this and
what those considerations are.
I started out in this article by saying that because I’m the defense
lawyer and I have access to my client, if I can encourage my client to tell
me the truth, or if I can induce him to tell the truth by showing him the
government’s discovery and so forth, I should have a pretty good idea of
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what happened because my client is the one who engaged in the conduct
and he should be able to tell me.
So through that process of encouraging my client to confide in me,
I slowly become equipped to make an assessment of where we are and
what is the likelihood of having a viable defense in a courtroom. And I’m
in a position, based on all the years I’ve been doing this, I think to really
tell a client whether we have the ability to survive the charges and what
the risks are for him. But that isn’t the end of the line because I can do that
forcefully, eloquently and still have a client who is resistant to sitting
down with the government. There’s a threshold there that they have to
cross where they become comfortable with the notion that they’re going to
admit to wrongdoing. That’s a big part of this. It’s psychological and it’s
emotional, and it’s everything else. So here’s a little bit of what I wrote
about this in this article:
Still, the overriding consideration in my calculus is whether I have
reached the conclusion that we are so unlikely to prevail at trial that the
only way for the client to improve his position is to consider pleading
guilty under a heavily negotiated agreement. Nevertheless, my assessment
never controls; the decision belongs to the client or to the client and his
family. As difficult as the process may have been to secure the truth from
the client, it often pales by comparison to the process of bringing the client
to stand before the court and admit his guilt. There are times at this
moment when everything breaks down, and whether Humpty Dumpty can
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be put together again is often in doubt. Extraordinary hand holding by the
lawyer may be required, and long discussion about the client’s need to
focus on his own destiny (and that of his family) rather than misguided
notions of loyalty are part of the process to try to revive the plea process.
Throughout all of this, I am acutely aware that all I can do is to give
advice. More often than not, my advice is ultimately embraced by my
client.2
MS. FEIGIN: Do you get the family to help you with this?
MR. GREEN: I encourage the client to talk to his family. I have met with family. I’ve
met with the client and his family and laid out the facts. And yes, clients,
family, I would say almost every single time. The family is concerned
about the health and welfare of the family member and is supportive of the
outcome that will have the least serious or unfortunate consequences on
that family member.
So back to Rick. We had these conversations. I alerted his lawyers
that he had come to me. I called them and I alerted them. My recollection
is that they may have already been in some preliminary discussions with
Mueller’s office, and I told them to cease and desist.
There was a little tension between me and them, but eventually I
think Rick made it clear to them that he wanted to proceed with me rather
than them and they ultimately filed a motion to withdraw. There was some
2
https://www.justsecurity.org/88087/the-best-defense-how-attorneys-advise-clients-through-themental-process-of-a-plea-bargain/
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friction surrounding that; it’s hard for me to pull all that together right
now. But they ultimately did withdraw and then I took over Rick’s
representation.
Word leaked out, I think in early 2018, that he had retained me. I
don’t know how the press picks this up. I think actually what it is is that
there was a ton of press posted outside Mueller’s office just waiting to see
who was going in and out. And I think they saw me going in and out a
couple of times and I don’t know how they figured out, but they published
a couple of articles that said I had been added to his team.
Basically, I went in to feel the government out on the outlines of an
arrangement that we could have. They said if he was willing to plead
guilty – I think the initial conversations were about one count of perhaps
conspiracy. Those documents are probably somewhere; they would be in
files that might still be at Sidley, but I don’t know.
MS. FEIGIN: They should be in Mueller’s files also.
MR. GREEN: They’d be in Mueller’s files, certainly. But of course the reciprocal
obligation was that Rick had to come in and subject himself to some
fulsome interviews. There were a lot of sessions with Andrew Weissman,
Greg Andres and FBI agents. They were long days and tedious interviews.
I think they were initially impressed with Rick’s cooperation. Rick was
forthright, but as is the case with a lot of men in his situation, even though
they’re sitting in a room under the circumstances that we’ve just
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described, what happens to them is really dependent on their performance,
if you will, their truth-telling in these interviews.
There’s often, I think it’s just human nature, there’s often a bit of
resistance that’s still internalized about telling 110% and what is going on
inside an individual’s mind as to how he states something. Whether
consciously or subconsciously, he’s shaving just two degrees off; it is hard
to know and often hard to discern.
There came a point where Rick was asked a question about what
happened at a particular meeting, when Andrew Weissmann accused him
basically of lying or withholding some of the details. And this became a
stumbling block. Some of this is a bit hazy for me but I think that these
discussions were suspended for a bit. Whether the government was willing
to continue depended on their belief that Rick was willing to tell the whole
truth, in particular about this meeting. And I went through this process
again with him. Finally there was a concession that he had not quite
remembered correctly and he went back in and told them a slightly
different version of this particular meeting.
This happened around the 1st of February, and the government
said, well you kind of screwed yourself here because we’re going to add
another count to this information that you’re going to plead to if we go
forward with all this. So subsequent to this incident they filed a two-count
superseding information in front of Judge Amy Berman Jackson which
charged, I think, conspiracy and lying to the government. That was on
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February 2nd, and it was right after that actually that Gates’s counsel filed
their motion to withdraw, which was granted.
And then on February 22nd of 2018, Manafort and Gates were
indicted again in Virginia in 32 counts. This was basically to put more
pressure on Gates.
MS. FEIGIN: Was this a state indictment?
MR. GREEN: No, this is a federal indictment, essentially embellishing the charges and
adding to the charges that were contained in the October 17 indictment of
2017 in D.C. before Judge Jackson. So it was part of the pressure because
basically what they were saying to Rick is that if you reject a deal, we’re
going to make your life more difficult because we are going to indict you
in Virginia with Manafort. But if you do the deal, we’ll dismiss the
Virginia indictment against you and Manafort will be left alone to stand
trial.
So that’s what happened. Basically like the next day, I think it was
February 23rd, Gates went before Judge Amy Berman Jackson and pled
guilty to one count of false statement and one count of conspiracy.
The government wanted his sentence deferred. They didn’t want
any date because they said he’s now cooperating, he’s going to be a
witness in ongoing trials, and we want to defer the sentencing. And Amy
Berman Jackson said fine, I’ll defer the sentencing. And that sentencing
got deferred for some period of time. I’ll get to that in a minute.
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So they dismissed the Virginia case against Gates as part of the
plea deal. Manafort is now facing two indictments. The case that went to
trial first is the second indictment filed in Virginia, rather than the earlier
indictment filed in the fall of ‘17, which was the initial charge. Manafort
goes to trial in July of 2018. I think his trial starts on July 31. Gates is
going to be the star witness. Everybody knows that and everybody’s
waiting for him to testify. He didn’t testify immediately, but not that long
after. Gates came, I think, to the trial on August 6th. So maybe at the end
of the first week of the trial we show up. He was prepared. I think Andres
interrogated him.
I went over to watch him testify. He told the jury that he himself
had siphoned off some of the money that was in these Cyprus accounts
without Manafort’s knowledge, by filing false expense reports with
Manafort’s entity. He also admitted to concealing millions of dollars in
foreign bank accounts on Manafort’s behalf and to falsifying loan
applications and other documents to help Manafort get even more bank
loans which Manafort used I think basically to buy real estate in
Manhattan and Virginia. Gates had to admit that the two of them did not
report income or the foreign bank accounts and that he knew they were
engaging in misconduct.
Just to give you more of a feel for it, he read off the names of more
than a dozen shell companies that they had set up in Cyprus and in St.
Vincent and the Grenadines, et cetera, to stash the proceeds of Manafort’s
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consulting work and so forth. He said that he was very sorry for what he
had done. That was a tough experience for him, it really was. It was an
ordeal but it would be an ordeal for anyone in that situation, having to get
up on the witness stand in a public forum and admit to that amount of
misconduct. The jury found Manafort guilty of 8 of the 18 charges in the
case later in August of 2018.
MS. FEIGIN: Actually some of the money Gates siphoned off was from Manafort’s
money, right?
MR. GREEN: It was Manafort’s money.
MS. FEIGIN: Not just the money he put aside for himself.
MR. GREEN: Not just the money he put aside for himself, correct. So Rick is, in a sense,
done for a while, having been the principal witness in that trial. But
Manafort is facing another trial. He’s facing trial on the earlier 2017
indictment in front of Amy Berman Jackson. And although I don’t want to
dwell on Manafort, in order to escape a second trial, he pleads guilty in
front of Amy Berman Jackson.
In September of 2018, he pleads guilty to two felony counts along
with a promise to fully cooperate. Then in the course of his cooperation, a
couple of months later, the government contends that he’s lied in his
interviews.
The following year, we’re now in 2019, in March, Manafort gets
sentenced by Judge Ellis in Virginia to 47 months, which everyone
thought was a break for him. The government had asked for a pretty
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severe sentence so they thought Ellis really gave him a pass on some of
this misconduct.
Now we come a week later, in March of 2019. Manafort, having
pled guilty in front of Amy Berman Jackson, is going to get sentenced and
she adds another 3 1/2 years to his sentence on his plea. So that’s
Manafort. I think his lying to the government during his cooperation
played some part in the sentence that she imposed but I can’t remember
just how it did. I think it may have been factored into the government’s
recommended sentence.
But Gates is called upon to testify again. In November of 2019, he
testifies in Roger Stone’s trial.
MS. FEIGIN: We should say what Roger Stone was charged with.
MR. GREEN: Stone was charged with obstructing Congressional investigations by
testifying falsely and failing to turn over records. He was also charged in
five counts of making false statements and one count of witness
tampering.
Rick described Stone’s interest in the release of the so-called stolen
emails from Hillary Clinton prior to the 2016 election. There were a bunch
of brainstorming sessions on what to do with that information. He was not
the principal witness in Stone’s trial but they used him in that trial.
Then on December 17th, Gates comes up for sentencing on his
own plea. This is December 17th of 2019. By that time the government,
notwithstanding his little hiccup when he was being interrogated, was
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appreciative of his cooperation. They felt that he walked the walk and was
deserving of a great deal of consideration. They wrote a sentencing
recommendation where they asked the court to sentence Gates to
probation.
MS. FEIGIN: Wow!
MR. GREEN: Yeah. Which was quite a concession on their part. I thought Judge Berman
Jackson would do that because she was aware of his cooperation. We
made her aware and I think she believed it to have been significant and to
credit the government’s description of what Rick accomplished for them
and so forth. So I anticipated that she would sentence him to probation.
And of course I endorsed that in my statement to the court.
To my surprise, she said right off the bat I don’t think I’m going to
be inclined to sentence Mr. Gates in the way you anticipate, which sent a
little tremor through me. I didn’t know what she was going to do. In the
end, she sentenced him to 45 days of incarceration along with 300 hours of
community service and a modest fine. She allowed the 45 days to be spent
on intermittent weekends, and there was a three-year period of probation.
I then embarked on an effort to find a reasonably hospitable place
for Rick to serve his weekend time. The probation officer was willing to
work with us and there was some facility in Virginia not too far from his
home. It could even have been a state facility.
But we were now in COVID time. As a result, I went back to
Judge Jackson and asked for relief to suspend Rick’s sentence. I think he
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had served about 15 days of the 45 days but because COVID was rampant
everywhere, to suspend the sentence on account of the danger to him in
the jail.
She suspended the sentence and that ended it. He never went back.
He never served another day. It was kind of unclear whether it was a
temporary suspension or a final suspension, but it was treated by the
probation officer as a final suspension.
MS. FEIGIN: I think I recall that his wife was undergoing medical treatment and that
was part of the reason they were concerned about his possible exposure
there. She was immunosuppressed and therefore more vulnerable to
complications.
MR. GREEN: That could well be the case. She did have medical issues. I don’t have
access to what I wrote at the time but that was the story. He and I have
stayed friends. I see him from time to time and I have great affection for
him. I’m sure he’s probably very active in this administration somewhere
doing something.
MS. FEIGIN: You began this session by saying – and this is another example of it — that
you generally find yourself having a lot of affection for your clients even
if you’re politically in disagreement. But what happens when you don’t
like your client? Is it a problem?
MR. GREEN: No. I’m going to tell you something pretty remarkable. It would be hard
for me to remember a situation where I didn’t like my client because in the
initial interviews, a certain degree of chemistry has to emerge, and if I’m
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looking at someone and I just think, golly, this is not someone I want to
spend time with, I will make up some reason and I won’t take them on. I
wouldn’t need five fingers to count the times that happened.
MS. FEIGIN: So it’s like a first date? [laughter]
MR. GREEN: Like a first date. Yeah, it’s like one of those things where you do it now
online [laughter]. You’ve got to like each other. I don’t know, maybe it’s
part of my personality. It takes a lot for me not to like someone, or to put it
the other way, it takes a lot for me to dislike someone.
What is interesting is that in many of these major cases that I
handled, my clients were Republicans. I’ve always been a Democrat, but
I’m a moderate. I’m a centrist. I’m not a way-out Democrat. And most of
the guys I represented who were Republicans were not way-out
Republicans either. They were all just individuals who had a serious
problem to me.
MS. FEIGIN: This case put you in contact with a lot of people whose names were then,
and actually to this day are still, in the news. Do you have any sense of
Manafort as a person? And of course, we should say he was ultimately
pardoned.
MR. GREEN: Yes, ultimately pardoned by the president of the United States of America.
Manafort was pardoned on December 23, 2020. So lucky Manafort, yeah.
Trump’s got his finger on the pardon button. He’s pardoned a lot of
people.
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The only observations I can make about Manafort stem from the
objective facts. I never sat down to have a conversation with him, but what
he did, the enormity and the circumference of his financial crimes, was
huge. And that says something about your personality. It says something
about your outlook on life to do that, while at the same time, you then take
those enormous funds that you’ve secreted so to speak, and then spend
them lavishly on entertainment and clothes and home. In my value system,
that doesn’t speak well of someone.
I don’t know what his family thought. When this investigation
arose, there were press reports that he had obtained one of these loans for
a piece of real estate in New York, in I think lower Manhattan, that was
basically an investment property. In order to get the loan, I think he had to
tell the bank that his children lived in the facility. In other words, it was a
residence. And he told them that if anyone ever inquired, they had to say
that. I don’t know what his family thought of what was going on. But he
had his issues.
MS. FEIGIN: You mentioned that when Manafort left the campaign, Rick Gates worked
under Steve Bannon. Do you have a sense of Bannon?
MR. GREEN: He may have worked for Bannon for a bit, but then I think he moved
because the election came soon thereafter. Manafort left in August of 2016
and the election was in November so I think he worked there for just a bit.
I probably knew something about his relationship with Bannon at the time.
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But then I think he went to Washington to work, and he may even have
gone right before the election to Washington to work on the inaugural.
MS. FEIGIN: Did he also work with Kellyanne Conway?
MR. GREEN: I’m sure he knew her. I’m sure he knew all these people. But I’ve never
had occasion to really drill down on any of that.
MS. FEIGIN: As this is a history for the D.C. Court Society, can you tell us a little bit
about Judge Amy Berman Jackson?
MR. GREEN: I admire Amy Jackson. I think she’s a tough, courageous, fair-minded
judge. And I have admiration for her. I think she got reversed here
recently on something to do with the Office of Special Counsel, who had
been fired. She brought him back on, I think under a temporary injunction,
pending the outcome of the case. She wrote I thought a really compelling
opinion as to why it makes no sense to fire a special counsel who’s there
to assess the merits of certain controversies. But I think she was reversed
which I thought was kind of silly. I haven’t had a lot of cases in front of
her. She’s had some interesting cases which I’ve read about. I think she’s
a really good judge.
MS. FEIGIN: We could probably go on for weeks and weeks about all your cases, but
those being the highlights, before we conclude this oral history, maybe we
can just wrap up a couple of things that we touched on earlier.
We talked about your work as treasurer for the National Symphony
[Session 6]. Since that discussion things at the Kennedy Center have
changed. President Trump has taken over leadership of the Kennedy
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Center. I wonder if there’s been any impact on the National Symphony or
you have any comments about that.
MR. GREEN: The Kennedy Center is a national memorial, like the Lincoln Monument
or the Washington Monument. It is a memorial to President John
Kennedy. The federal government, as it is obligated with every other
monument or memorial, particularly to a president, pays for the upkeep
and maintenance of the building. That’s the limit of the government’s
contribution to the Kennedy Center.
The Kennedy Center is a national forum for the arts or the
performing arts. It survives on two sources of income. One, income from
the productions that appear on stage there, and two, charitable
contributions. That’s it. The Kennedy Center has always been operating
with a difficult budget. It’s always in search of funds to cover the costs of
putting on these productions, so to speak.
The symphony and the opera each have their own boards and their
own sources of income which again are revenue from the performances
and charitable contributions. Both the opera and the symphony have
historically operated with a deficit and that deficit has been covered by the
Kennedy Center budget.
Deborah Rutter, the long-time president of the Kennedy Center,
announced that she was going to leave in the fall of this year. I admire
Deborah Rutter very much. I think she’s been great for the Kennedy
Center. Not to say that we didn’t have some discussions about the
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operations of the symphony and the amount of any subsidy from the
Kennedy Center itself. But I have great respect for her and was sorry to
hear that she was going to retire after I think about 10 or 11 years at the
Kennedy Center, and then even more sorry to hear that Trump had
terminated her.
What inspired Mr. Trump to focus on the Kennedy Center I will
not know. I do not know. But with one sweep of his arm, he cleaned out
the entire Kennedy Center board except for a few people that were already
on that board that were related or within his camp, so to speak. Threw
David Rubenstein off the board and terminated his tenure as chairman, one
of the most remarkable guys living today. And filled it up with some of his
favorites.
It’s interesting because obviously Trump may know a lot of
people. I’m guessing now, he may know a lot of people. But I don’t know
that he has real friends or connections or whatever. He watches a lot of
TV. He watches Fox, so Fox becomes the source of everything, Cabinet
officers, Kennedy Center board members and so forth. It’s really kind of
unbelievable.
He has placed in charge at the Kennedy Center Ambassador
Richard Grenell. I think he was the former ambassador to Germany. I’ve
never met him, but I would anticipate that in time he may be terminating
the employment of a lot of individuals who have given a great deal of
service to the Kennedy Center.
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There have been some performances and performers that have
canceled at the Kennedy Center. If I were talking to them, I think that’s
short-sighted. I understand why you’re doing it, but you’re depriving the
Kennedy Center of operating funds, of revenue, and putting jobs in
jeopardy, and a lot of people have bought tickets and want to see you and
it’s just an unnecessary impact and disappointment to them.
Hamilton canceled, which is the biggest. I think it’s the biggest
revenue producing production at the Kennedy Center in the past and
probably in the future. That’s not helping the Kennedy Center. A lot of
people wanted to go see it and so forth. So I don’t know what they’re
going to do about the programming. The programming may change a
little bit because there may be shows that don’t want to appear at the
Kennedy Center, but so far the operations of the orchestra have not been
really impacted.
MS. FEIGIN: Good.
MR. GREEN: We’ll see. Time will tell; the jury is still out. Ambassador Grenell and
those who work with him have been very open with us and have assured
us of their interest in promoting and maintaining the orchestra as one of
the jewels of the Kennedy Center. So I’m hopeful and optimistic that we
will be able to continue and produce wonderful music for the Washington,
D.C. community.
MS. FEIGIN: I hope so. These are tumultuous times and people reading this later on
may not be able to appreciate quite how tumultuous, but if there’s
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anything you want to comment about the current situation, I’d welcome
your views.
MR. GREEN: We could sit here for a long time and talk about what is going on here.
Trump and those around him like to talk in terms of having received a
mandate from the American people in the last election. It is true that he
won the popular vote by I think less than a percentage point; he did not
obtain 50% of the total vote. His vote total was below 50%. I think the two
candidates were maybe 1% apart. Hardly a mandate.
He’s surrounded himself, particularly with members of his
Cabinet, not every single one, but most of them are, I think, marginally
qualified, if at all. And the Supreme Court did him an enormous favor and
in my opinion created an enormous injury to our democracy and to the
way our country runs when they held that the president has a certain
degree of immunity even for criminal conduct while in office.
A number of people have expressed the view that Trump ran for
president in order to escape his indictments and to work retribution on all
of his enemies, perceived enemies. His list of perceived enemies is
enormous and I think he adds to it every day. So it’s a deplorable situation.
Without burdening these pages with too much elaboration, I think
eventually his administration is going to implode. I think it’s going to
implode even prior to the midterms.
In recent days, with these tariffs, he became subject to enormous
pressure from a variety of sources. Most of the time he’s impervious to it;
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he believes that he alone knows what’s best. But as in other cases, prior
instances, he succumbed to that pressure and announced a 90-day pause in
the tariffs. It would be great if the Congress were to take the tariff
prerogative back from the president and return it to the Congress, where it
belongs under the Constitution.
I think he saw some of that handwriting on the wall. I don’t know
what’s going to happen because if he was indeed that sensible for 30
seconds, he may change his mind 22 times between now and the
expiration of this 90-day period. We shall see.
Layer that on top of what he’s trying to do to certain law firms.
The reaction of certain law firms to succumb to that pressure is sad on
both accounts, sad that he’s trying to seek retribution against law firms.
The fact that he’s ordered the attorney general to pursue any law firm that
files any action which he deems to be without merit and vexatious and so
forth is absurd. But some law firms then come and kowtow to him and
enter into these arrangements; it’s awful.
Do I understand it? On one level, sure. The only motivating force
that drives these law firms to make these deals has to do with money. It’s
only money. But then you say, what’s the average partner make at some of
these firms that we’ve heard about? Maybe I don’t know anymore because
I’ve been away from it, but it could be $5 million. It could be more, really
it could be more. So if they stood up to Trump and they lost a few clients,
maybe the average partner would have to only make $4 million or $3
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million. It’s not as if they’re not going to be able to buy eggs, which are
expensive, I admit. But there’s a resistance. The resistance is forming.
And Trump will hear from the resistance sooner or later.
MS. FEIGIN: Before we wrap it up entirely, are there any loose ends that you would like
to reference?
MR. GREEN: I note with some sadness that my friend General Secord passed away not
too long ago. It was very sad. He’s going to be buried at Arlington
National Cemetery at some point in the future and I plan to attend that
ceremony. I have great admiration for him. He was a gutsy guy in so many
respects. As you know, I’ve written a little thing I’d like to append to the
end of my interviews.
MS. FEIGIN: Good. We’ll do it.
MR. GREEN: And then the powers that be can decide whether it’s inappropriate or not,
but I also want to thank you, as I will in that little appendix, if I may, for
all the time that you’ve devoted to this. I’ve gotten to know you, and that’s
been a great pleasure and joy.
MS. FEIGIN: It’s been my privilege to do this.
MR. GREEN: So there’s where we are. I apologize to anyone who reads this for the fact
that time has dimmed my memory about some of the details on some of
these cases. But it’s been a hell of a journey for me and quite rewarding.
MS. FEIGIN: Thank you so much. It’s going to be a wonderful addition to the Historical
Society’s inventory of interviews.
260
ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical
Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewer is Judy Feigin and the interviewee
is Thomas C. Green. The interview is taking place by zoom on September 27, 2025. Tom is at
his weekend home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Judy is at her home in Washington, D.C.
This is the tenth interview.
MS. FEIGIN: Welcome.
MR. GREEN: Good morning, my dear friend.
MS. FEIGIN: For anyone who’s been reading your oral history chronologically, when
they got to the end of the last session they would have thought it was over.
So they may be surprised to see there is yet another session, but I
requested this because since we ended you have opened up a new chapter,
and it’s important. I think it should be part of this history even though we
can’t tell the whole story yet because it’s too early, but at least people
should know this is happening and they can follow up. So Tom tell us the
big news in your life professionally.
MR. GREEN: What happened is I went a little crazy [laughter]. After Mr. Trump was
reelected, just reading the papers and watching the news and seeing how
he was exercising his presumed prerogatives in office was very
disappointing to me. And worse than that, it was horribly upsetting
because so many people were being hurt and injured and disadvantaged
who did not deserve any treatment like that. And of course things have
gotten, in my view, considerably worse over time, to where we have kind
of a runaway administration here with respect to its claim to power and
prerogatives and unbridled executive capability. I can’t tell you how
disconcerting it is.
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Anyway, having absorbed enough of this, I felt I had to try to do
something, notwithstanding the fact that I was retired and enjoying my
retirement. And so I started vocalizing with some close friends my
concerns and my desire to try to find something that I or we could do
collectively to help ameliorate things. I had no idea what we would do.
Among those I spoke with are your good friend John Aldock and Barry
Levine. And the reaction I got was kind of, on the one hand, gee, all that
sounds cool and great. And on the other hand, we’re all in our 80s, are you
nuts to try to do something like this? And I said I think we can pull this
off. What I was alluding to was actually to start a small law firm.
The thing that made it opportunistic in the moment was there were
just huge numbers of lawyers being terminated at the Department of
Justice, being pushed out of the DOJ, being pushed out of U.S. Attorney’s
offices. And then we got into that phase where many of the big law firms
were making agreements with Trump, which were unholy and hard to
comprehend. And so there were lots of younger lawyers in these firms
who were disillusioned. And there was just an enormous amount of
talented and skillful and motivated individuals who wanted to try to do
something. And so there was an opportunity there to try to grab a few of
them. And so that’s what I did.
I said we really need to get a larger group here to put this together.
We’ve got to reach out and get ourselves a steering committee. We need to
form a corporation. So we went on to do that. We organized as the
262
Washington Law Firm, and then were told by the D.C. government they
made a mistake because there is already an entity by that name. So we
became the Washington Litigation Group. We are a non-profit public
welfare law firm organized in the District of Columbia and have now been
granted 501(c)(3) status to do essentially charitable work, which is
roughly defined as representing those who have been disadvantaged by
actions of the administration and who have meritorious claims and who
are unable to defray the cost of representation.
The model is simply that we exist by virtue of donations. The
donations are used to defray principally the salaries of the lawyers whom
we have hired and continue to hire, and the costs of running our operation.
Those on the committee serve without compensation. We now have nine
members on the steering committee, and they’re all very extraordinary
individuals and prominent lawyers. Retired, but many of them are doing a
lot of things. For instance, Judge John Mott, while he’s retired from the
court, is now a well-known mediator. They’re doing their own things,
many of them. And now I think we’re up to five lawyers and we get
knocks on the door every day. Can I come and volunteer? Can I join you?
We are probably in about 10 cases right now, across the board on various
issues. But I’ll tell you something. It was hard enough to create a law firm,
but it’s even harder in one sense to find the cases that can be impactful.
Because the whole idea here is to try to promote the rule of law and find
cases that will accomplish that.
263
And we’re not getting any help from the Supreme Court, which is
kind of eroding the underpinning of a number of possible claims. They
don’t seem interested at this moment in putting any real restraints on
executive power. And we’ve got issues of standing and this and that. So
we’re in there, doing what we can.
I think it’s good that we’re there, but it’s challenging. It’s not
challenging to find the donations. It’s not challenging really to find
lawyers to do the work. It’s challenging really to find the impactful cases.
There are thousands and thousands of government employees out of work.
First of all, you can’t represent them all. Secondly, we’re not an
employment law firm. And third, 99% of them, sadly, don’t have a claim
because they’re employees at-will. That’s just one little segment of all of
this.
So that’s what we’re doing. We’ve got an office downtown. We’re
washingtonlitigationgroup.org. And anyone reading this who is inspired,
please feel free to check the website. And that’s what I’m doing. So far,
it’s taking a lot of time. We hired an office manager a little while ago, and
she is relieving me of my administrative burdens here little by little. So
that’s all great.
MS. FEIGIN: Do you want to talk about any of the cases? Have they been filed?
MR. GREEN: It’s just like being in a normal law firm. A lot of the cases, let’s call them
matters, a number of the matters we’re handling are with people where
there’s not active litigation, public active litigation surrounding the issues.
264
We are representing them in anticipation of this or that, just as lawyers
frequently do. However other matters are in active litigation. For example,
we represent Cathy Harris. On February 10, 2025, the President removed
Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board prior to her term’s
expiration in 2028. Harris sued for reinstatement on February 11, 2025.
Seven days later, the district court granted her request for a temporary
restraining order, effectively reinstating her to the MSPB. The case then
moved to the D.C. Circuit Court where Ms. Harris was represented by our
law firm. We and co-counsel have filed a conditional petition for certiorari
before judgment in the Supreme Court on behalf of Cathy. The petition
asks the Court to review Harris v. Bessent, but only if the Court grants
review in Trump v. Slaughter, which presents similar issues testing the
President’s entitlement to remove ostensibly protected government
officials.
I should add too, that if anyone’s familiar with the litigation that’s
been ongoing since the president came back to office, much of it has been
to enjoin executive action, enjoin this or to enjoin that. None of that has
really gone to trial. It’s all kind of what I’ll call almost like appellate work.
It’s all briefing and going up to the Court of Appeals and then maybe
hitting the Supreme Court on the emergency docket.
So we do a lot of what I’ll call appellate representation, where
we’re writing briefs, whether they be amicus or whether we’re
representing the client directly. We’re in a couple of cases that may get up
265
to the Supreme Court, that will finally settle whether or not the president
has the prerogative to fire anyone in the executive branch at any time, for
any reason whatsoever. Those cases are working their way through the
appellate courts right now.
And then we have some related First Amendment type cases that
are going to come to fruition pretty quickly, where our clients would take
the position that what they were doing or saying was protected by the First
Amendment, and that instead they were retaliated against or terminated.
So we’re in that area as well.
We’re also representing a number of the individuals on the Puerto
Rican Financial Oversight Board who were fired by Trump and who are
territorial officers, and our contention is that under the Constitution the
president doesn’t have the right to remove territorial officers. This case
has implications for officials here in the District who are likely territorial
officers as well and could be subject to removal by the president. The
District Court in Puerto Rico enjoined their removal and the government
has not taken an appeal. So those are some of the cases we are handling.
There are so many other areas out there having to do with conflicts
of interest and corruption and pay-to-play and things like that. But you
have to take the facts as they come. You have to take the clients as they
come and we’ll see what develops.
MS. FEIGIN: Are you working with any other groups? Because there are other groups
doing this, but is each of you operating separately?
266
MR. GREEN: There’s collaboration. I like to think that we’re unique because of the
talent that we have that’s working on our matters. I don’t think in general
the appetite at Big Law has changed dramatically to take on these kinds of
cases. But there are lawyers, certainly individual lawyers out there willing
to do pro bono work. Usually they don’t have unlimited capacity to do
that. And so that impacts what they can do and how they can do it. We’re
trying to get over that hump by devoting all our capacity to that.
MS. FEIGIN: And how did you go about raising the funds?
MR. GREEN: I would tackle everybody I saw. [laughter] Go for their wallet. That’s hard
work. The undertaking involves contacting as many individuals as you
possibly can to talk about your mission. And they in turn suggest others,
and you talk to them and you talk to foundations, and you talk, talk, talk,
talk, talk, talk. And eventually you find some people who are sympathetic
to what you’re doing and have the means with which to help you. There’s
no magic to it. It’s all kind of a very personal, person-to-person approach.
MS. FEIGIN: Well, I wish you, I wish the firm all the best. It’s a huge project. Anything
else you want to say about it before we end?
MR. GREEN: I just want to leave on this note: We’re not anti-anything. This law firm is
simply designed to be a real law firm and provide people a defense, if
they’re deserving of a defense, and in certain cases, to initiate litigation on
behalf of a plaintiff where there is a viable and meaningful claim. There’s
no attempt to do anything other than to be extraordinarily professional in
our approach to all of this. We’re not doing silly things. Or as the current
267
Attorney General or the President once said, we’re not doing things to be
vexatious. We are real lawyers engaged in lawyering.
MS. FEIGIN: I think anybody who knows you and knows the people on that team would
absolutely presume that. But thank you so much for following up. I will
also have a follow-up a little bit further down the road with John Aldock,
whose oral history is also part of the D.C. Court Historical Society’s
library. And if I do his a bit later on, there may be more details to fill in so
that will be good. Obviously this is something where the litigation can go
on for years. But it’s important that people know it’s happening and they
can follow up. So thank you very, very much for this coda.
268
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I could not have completed this history without the kind and immense help of Judy
Feigin, my interviewer. She is a most remarkable woman, who is as sharp as a tack and who
asked all the right questions, jogged and corrected my memory when necessary and then edited
into coherence all of my ramblings. She also laughed at all appropriate times. We are now great
friends, and I hope she understands the depth of my gratitude.
I agreed to this project largely because of my children. I wanted them to have a better
understanding of what I was doing during those days and weeks when I was missing in action. I
am hopeful that in retrospect they will feel, as I did, that I was engaged in meaningful and
worthy work.
I want to emphasize that at no time during my long career as a lawyer did I accomplish
much alone. At every step in my journey I was assisted by extraordinary lawyers, many of
whom became dear friends. Many young lawyers worked with me on cases and then moved on
in pursuit of their own careers to engage in public service or other fulfilling adventures outside
the practice of law. While they worked with me, I tried always to be their teacher and to impart
to them a feel for lawyering. Many hours were spent in discussions about how to prepare a case
for trial and the strategy and tactics needed to prevail in the courtroom. For me this was as
rewarding as any victory at trial.
It is a long list of those with whom I had a very special relationship, and by mentioning
their names I want them to know the enormous respect and affection I have for each of them.
Having now reached 84 years, I know I will fail to remember many who are deserving of my
recognition and for that I ask for your understanding.
269
While an Assistant United States Attorney I learned my craft by watching Robert Bennett
among others. Roger Zuckerman taught me how to write an appellate brief and not to be afraid
while arguing it. Richard Hibey was a close friend and a very talented trial lawyer. All three
became lifelong friends, and it was a sad moment in my life when Richard and Bob passed away.
And without David Bress breaking with tradition and offering me a job as an AUSA after
coming home from Vietnam, Lord knows where I would be today.
And it was David Bress who convinced me that I should leave that office, having fulfilled
my AUSA obligation, to come to the firm of Ginsburg, Feldman & Bress in 1970 where working
for him I learned so much more about how to be a lawyer. The cancer that took him from the
Watergate trial, as sad as that was, resulted in the most undeserved and luckiest break a young
lawyer has ever received. Again, without that break, I know not where I would be. Thanks to
even younger Jake Dweck for helping me to survive to the end of what is still the most
significant criminal trial in the last 100 years. While at the Ginsburg firm I became close pals
with Bill Taylor and Phil Cohan, two more of my enduring friendships with extremely talented
lawyers. Bill was with me when we represented Harry Rodgers in the trial of Governor Mandel,
and in time he left Ginsburg to found his own firm with Roger Zuckerman and others. Bill,
Roger and the firm, they have all had a great run.
After David Bress passed away, Jim Sharp, who had started his own white collar
boutique following his service as an AUSA, convinced me to join him, and off I went for the
next eleven years. We had a lot of fun together, worked on significant cases, and watched a few
movies in the afternoon. In 1990 I felt I needed a larger platform and more person power as the
cases we were attracting were significantly larger in scope. So I opened the door to look around.
Ruff Fant, a Sidley Austin partner, found me on the street one day and literally dragged me into
270
the DC office to meet the managing partner Bob McLean. I think within minutes I was on my
way to becoming a Sidley Partner. Both Bob and Ruff were instrumental in the success I have
enjoyed at Sidley. Both have now passed on and way too early in their lives. I miss them both.
For the next thirty years I practiced law at Sidley. Dorie Finnerman came with me when I moved
to Sidley. She was a wonderful colleague. The years at Sidley were great years filled with
interesting cases and many, many friendships, some of which were and remain extraordinarily
meaningful and close. Mark Hopson, my dear colleague, has been my trial sidekick from the
moment I walked in the door. Nothing was achieved without his contribution, and as he sat with
me during trials he inhaled the craft of standing on his own feet and became an amazingly
talented trial lawyer in his own right. There are so many Sidley lawyers who contributed to our
success and to whom I am indebted but Kristin Koehler, Colleen Lauerman, Jeffrey T. Green and
Brad Berenson deserve special mention. Finally a shout out to my assistant of many years Steve
O’Kieffe. With great skill she kept me and my case files organized and ensured that I was on
time and in the right place whether in a courtroom or a meeting overseas. All of that was
invaluable.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
A-1
Oral History of Thomas C. Green
Index
Abrams, Floyd, 141, 142
Acevedo-Vilá case, 209, 214–28
Ahern, Al, 54–55
Aldock, John, 86, 261, 267
Allen charges, 108, 113–14
Altshuler, Oscar, 52, 86
Andres, Greg, 238, 243, 246
anti-corruption, 38–41
appellate cases, 83, 84, 185
AremisSoft, 207–8
Army service, 16–17, 18, 19–20, 24–65; ROTC, 13
Bannon, Steve, 237, 252–53
Barbadoro, Judge Paul, 217–19, 220, 224–26, 227
Bennett, Robert, 75, 194, 269
Ben-Vieniste, Richard, 101
Berenson, Brad, 184, 209, 215, 218–19, 270
Beta Theta Pi, 14
Bittker, Boris, 20–21
Black, Charlie, 215, 236, 239
Blair, Jim, 154–55
Blake School, The, 8–9, 10, 12
Boland Amendment, 114–15
Brady United Group, 172–74
Breach of contract violations case, 78–79
Bress, U.S. Attorney David, 50–52, 56, 58, 59–60, 73–74, 75, 87–88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 101,
200, 204, 269; See also Mardian case
Bryant, Judge Bill, 79–80
Burger, Warren, 107
Cacheris, Plato, 91–92, 99, 100, 107, 127, 130
Camp David Accords, 116–17, 133
Carter, President Jimmy, 116
Casque & Gauntlet, 16
Chertoff, Michael, 163
Clinton, Hillary, 248
Clinton, President Bill, 151, 154, 187
A-2
Cockburn, Leslie, 140, 144
Cohan, Phil, 269
Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), 89–90, 99–100
Conway, Kellyanne, 253
Cooper, Richard, 122
Cory, Ernest, 103, 104–5
Cranston, Alan, 194, 203
Dartmouth, 10–11, 13–19, 22–23
Dash, Sam, 90
D.C. Nine case, 59, 67–72, 82
Dean, John, 92, 98
DeConcini, Dennis, 194, 203
Democratic National Committee, 88–89
Department of Justice (DOJ), 43–45, 48–52, 89, 121–120, 131–33, 148–49, 154, 163, 190, 199,
216–17, 236, 239, 261; first job at, 48–52; Court of General Sessions at, 56–57, 58, 77–78, 86–
87; Court of Special Proceedings at, 52, 56–57, 85–86; See also U.S. Attorney’s office
Department of Justice (DOJ) firings, 261
Dickstein Shapiro, 228, 230
Dominguez, Maria, 224
Dowd, John, 149, 194, 199–200, 201
Drinkhall, Jim, 148–49
Durenberger case, 189–93
Durkin, Judge Thomas, 233–34
Dweck, Jacob, 91, 269
early life, 1–5, 6–7, 8–9
Edgar, Chief Judge R. Allan, 158
education. see Black School, The; Dartmouth; Yale Law School. see also lawyer training
election interference, 236, 237, 238
Ellis, Judge, 247–48
Erlichman, John, 90–92, 97
Ervin, Senator, 90
Espy, Mike, 153–155
Fant, Ruff, 269
Fargo, North Dakota, 3
father, 2–3, 4–5, 7
Federal Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), 75
Feigin, Judy, 268
A-3
Finnerman, Dorie, 270
First Amendment, 141, 142, 265
Flannery, U.S. Attorney Tom, 86–87
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), 237
Fort Lewis, 30
Fort Sill, 24–25
Frates, William, 92, 99
Friedman, Paul, 128
Gagliardi, Judge Lee, 182–83, 185–86
Gates, Richard, case, 235–50, 252. See also Manafort, Paul
Gesell, Judge Gerhart, 78–79, 138
Ginsburg, Feldman & Bress, 60, 96, 111, 112, 200–1, 204, 269
Glenn, John, 194–95, 203
Green, Charles (grandfather), 2
Green, David (son), 32
Green, Harry (step-grandfather), 2, 4
Green, Jane Louise (sister), 1, 7–8
Green, Jeffrey T., 270
Green, Joshua (son), 31, 32
Green, Marisa (daughter), 31, 32
Green, Michael (son), 32
Green, Pamela Kellogg (wife), 31, 83, 111–12, 113, 203–6, 238
Green, Ralph (uncle), 5, 6
Greene, Judge Harold, 149–50
Grenell, Richard, 255, 256
Gross, Bill, 9
gun control. See Indiana gun case; Brady United Group
Hakim, Albert, 135–36
Haldeman, Bob, 90–92, 97, 99–100
Hall, Fawn, 124, 125–26, 127–28, 129, 130
Hamilton, Jim, 194, 200
Hantman, Alfred, 50
Harris, Cathy, 264
Harris v. Bessent, 264
Hart, Judge George, 77
Harvard, 9–10, 19
Hasenfus, Richard, 116, 120–21
Hastert, Dennis, case, 228–34
A-4
Hess, Dale, 103–4, 107, 108
Hibey, Richard, 75, 269
Hirschkop, Phil, 71
hobbies, 34–37, 117; cars, 27–28; classical music, 37–38, 174, 175, 176–77; sailing, 35–36. see
also radio broadcasting
Holscher, Mark, 145
Holtzoff, Judge Alexander, 53–56
Hopson, Mark, 270
Hundley, Bill, 91–92, 99
Hunt, Howard, 88
Inclan, Louisa, 219
Independent Counsel Act, 75, 80, 98, 114–16, 127, 131, 136
Indiana gun case, 173–74
International Anti-Corruption Resource Center, 38. see also anti-corruption
Iran-Contra, 80–81, 114–16, 119, 133–35, 139. See also North, Oliver
Jackson, Judge Amy Berman, 239, 244–45, 247, 248, 249–50, 253
Jackson, Judge Tom, 147, 150
JAG Corp, 27, 61
Janis, Dick, 136
Jones, Fred, 4
juries, 57–58, 67, 71, 79, 81–82, 96, 104, 106, 107, 109, 113–14, 129, 165–70, 183–85, 188–89,
195, 208, 246, 247; jury consultants, 165–67; jury instructions, 108, 226–27; jury nullification,
70, 72–73, 82
Keating, Charles. See Keating Five case
Keating Five case, 193–199, 201–2, 203
Kelly, Brian, 180
Kennedy Center, 174–75, 176, 253–56
Koehler, Kristin, 270
Korean War, 13
Kovens, Irv, 103–4, 107–8
Kramer, Michael, 149, 199
Kyprianou, Lycourgos, 207–8, 212, 213–14
Lauerman, Colleen, 270
law school. see Yale Law School
lawyer training, 165–71, 182–83, 188–89
Levine, Barry, 230, 261
A-5
Liddy, Gordon, 88
Liebman, Ron, 105
Liman, Arthur, 135
Lohier, Ray, 211–12
Lopez, Vicki, 178–81 183, 184–85, 186–87
Lukis, Sylvester, case, 178–88; mail fraud violation in, 183–84, 186, 187–88; appeal of, 184–85.
See also Lopez, Vicki
Magruder, Jeb, 92, 100
Malloy, Douglas, 180–81, 183, 184
Manafort, Paul, 236–40, 245–48, 251–52
Mandel, Governor Marvin case, 102–11, 154, 200, 203, 269; pretrial motions, 105–6; mistrial of,
106–7; second trial, 107–8; appeal, 108–9; writ of coram nobis, 110
Mardian, Robert, case, 89–97, 99, 117; conviction appeal of, 96–97
Marr, Mike, 107
marriage, first, 30–31, 48, 111; see also Green, Pamela Kellogg
McCain, John, 194–96, 203
McCord, James, 88–89
McDaniels, Bill, 69
McKoon, John, 158
McLean, Bob, 270
McNally v. U.S., 105–6, 109–10, 187
Meese, Attorney General, 122
Mella, Candido Negron, 220
Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), 264
Mitchell, John, 89–90, 9192, 96–97, 99–100
Moore, Luke, 67
Moot Court Competition, 21–22, 23–24
Mosby’s Jewelry Store case, 66–67
mother, 3, 7
Mott, Judge John, 262
Mueller, Robert, 200, 236, 238, 242–43
National Law Journal, The, 153
National Symphony Orchestra, 37, 41, 175–76, 253–55
Neal, Jimmy, 93, 95, 101
New York Times, The, 237
New York Times v. Sullivan, 140, 142–44
Nixon, President Richard, 60, 89, 91, 97–98
A-6
North, Oliver, case, 80, 115, 119–30; 133–35, 136–37, 138–39; congressional testimony of, 130;
Reagan papers and, 124–30; See also Hall, Fawn
Noseda, Giandrea, 176
Numero, Joe, 4
Nunzio, Nick, 52–53, 56
O’Brien, Larry, 88
O’Connell, Terry, 178
Out of Control (Cockburn), 139
Parkinson, Ken, 91, 92, 96, 100
Pastrick, Scott, 215
picking cases, 235–36
plea deals, 240–42
Poindexter, Admiral John, 124, 136
Power to Probe, The (Hamilton), 200–1
Poyiadjis, Roys, case, 207–14. See also SEC civil settlement
Pratt, Judge John, 69–70, 71, 72, 82, 83, 106–7
presidential immunity decision, 257
Privacy Act, 147–48
pro bono activities, 38, 42–43, 266; see also National Symphony Orchestra
Public Integrity section of U.S. Attorney’s office, 216
public official on stand, 222–23
Puerto Rican Financial Oversight Board, 265
Puerto Rico politics, 214–15
radio broadcasting, 13, 22–23
Reagan, President Ronald, 114–15, 123, 126
Reno, Attorney General Janet, 155
Revercomb, Judge, 141
Rhodes, Colonel Dusty, 25
Richardson, Bill, 151–52
Riegle, Senator Don, 193–94, 196, 197, 202–3
Robinson, Judge Aubrey, 80–81, 138–39
Rodgers, Harry, 102–4, 118–20, 129, 269
Rodgers, William, 102, 107
Rogers, Judge Judy Wilson, 52, 85, 86
Rowland, Jimmy, 164
Rubenstein, David, 255
Ruff, Charles, 194, 198–99
A-7
Rutter, Deborah, 254
Sachem Oration, 17–18
SEC civil settlement 211–12
Second Amendment, 173-74
Secord, General Richard, 80, 116–17; 133–35, 136–38, 139, 140; plea deal of, 137–38;
defamation case, 139–41, 144
Sessions, Attorney General Jeff, 46–47
Sharp, Jim, 127, 129, 269
Sidley Austin, 38, 39, 156, 269–70, 171, 202
Silbert, U.S. Attorney Earl, 52, 85, 86
Sirica, Judge John, 89, 93–94
Skolnik, Barney, 105
Smaltz, Donald, 153–56
Stein, Jake, 92, 100
Stewart, Justice Potter, 22
Stone, Roger, 248
Sullivan, Brendan, 127, 129,
Sun, Brian, 147
Superior Court of District Columbia, 52, 77, 78, 149
Supreme Court, current, 263, 264–65
Taylor, Bill, 112, 194, 200, 269
Tayor, Judge Robert, 107, 108
Thermo King Corporation, 4–5
Tidewater Insurance, 102–3
tough on crime, 46–47
Trump, President Donald, 98, 200, 236, 237–38, 251, 253, 255, 257, 258–59, 260–61, 265; and
law firms, 258, 261
Trump v. Slaughter, 264
Tyson, Don, 153, 154, 155, 172
Tyson, John, 153, 172
Tyson Foods case, 153–163, 171–72; forfeiture count, 163–64; cattlemen class action, 164
U.S. Attorney’s Office, 43, 66, 74–75, 76, 77, 86; district court trial team at, 56–59; See also
Department of Justice (DOJ)
Vietnam, 29–30, 61–65; Rosh Hashanah in, 62–63. See also JAG Corp
Volner, Jill, 95, 101
A-8
Wall Street Journal, The, 148–49
Walsh, Lawrence, 80–82, 114, 115–16, 127–29, 130, 132, 136
Washington Litigation Group, 262–67
Washington Post, The, 201, 202
Washington, move to, 48
Waste Management, 179
Watergate, 75–76, 88–92, 97–98, 102, 104, 116, 131, 269
Waxman, Margery, 202
Weiner, Arnold, 107
Weingarten, Reid, 128, 136, 137
Weissmann, Andrew, 238, 244
Wen Ho Lee case, 144–48, 149–50, 150–52
West, Ann, 205
White, Justice Whizzer, 22
white collar crime defense, 75–76
Williams, Edward Bennett, 69, 73–74
Wilson, John, 92–93
World Bank, 38–39
Wright, Skelley, 83
Yale Law School, 14, 19–20, 22, 27, 50, 102, 168
Yanukovych, Viktor, 236, 237–38
Zuckerman, Roger, 112, 269
B-1
ORAL HISTORY OF THOMAS C. GREEN
TABLE OF CASES
Dowd v. Calabrese, 577 F. Supp. 238 (D.D.C. 1983)
Session 5, pp. 148-149
Gonzalez v. Gor, No. 25-CV 25-1508, 2025 WL 2813829 (D.P.R. Oct. 3, 2025).
Session 10, p. 265
Harris v. Bessent, 775 F. Supp. 3rd 164 (D.D.C. 2025), stay pending appeal, 2025 WL 980278 (D.C. Cir.
2025), stay vacated upon en banc reconsideration, 2025 WL 1021435 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (en banc), stay
granted, Trump v. Wilcox, 145 S. Ct. 1415 (2025) (per curiam) (consolidated case)
Session 10, p.64
Lee v. Department of Justice, 287 F. Supp.2nd 15 (D.D.C. 2003)
Lee v. Department of Justice, 327 F. Supp. 2nd 26 (D.D.C. 2004, aff’d in part, rev’d in part, 413 F.3d 53
(D.C. Cir. 2005), rehrg. en banc denied, 428 F.3d 299 (D.C. Cir. 2005), cert.denied, 547 U.S. 1187
(2006)
Session 5, pp. 147-148
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)
Session 8, pp. 216-218
U.S. v. Durenberger, 48 F.3d 1239 (D.C. Cir. 1995)
Session 8, pp. 219-221
U.S. v. Lopez-Lukis, 102 F.3d 1164) (11th Cir. 1997)
In re Lopez-Lukis, et al., 113 F.3d 1187 (11th Cir. 1997)
U.S. v. Lopez-Lukis, 170 F.3d 186 (11th Cir. 1999)
Session 8, pp. 207-215
U.S. v. Mardian, 546 F.2d 973 (D.C. Cir. 1976)
Session 3, pp. 89-98
U.S. v. Secord, 726 F. Supp. 845 (D.D.C. 1989); Session 4, pp. 116-132 Session 5, pp. 133-138
Secord v. Cockburn, 747 F. Supp. 779 (D.D.C. 1990)
Session 5, 139-140
In re Harry W. Rogers, III et al, 537 F.2d 1196 (4th Cir. 1976)
U.S. v. Mandel, 415 F. Supp. 997 (D. Md. 1976)
U.S. v. Mandel, 602 F2d 653 (4th Cir. 1979) (en banc), modifying and rev’g, 591 F.2d 1347 (4th Cir. 1979)
U.S v. Mandel, 672 F. Supp. 864 (D. Md. 1987), aff’d, 862 F.2d 1067 (4th Cir. 1989
Session 4, pp. 102-110
United States v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 258 F. Supp. 2nd 809 (E.D. Tenn. 2003)
Pickett v. Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., 315 F. Supp. 2nd 1172 (M.D. Ala. 2004), aff’d 420 F.3d 1272 (11th Cir.
2005)
Session 6, pp. 156-166
Thomas C. Green
THOMAS C. GREEN, before his retirement in 2023 from Sidley Austin, managed the firm’s
criminal defense practice group. He became a nationally recognized trial lawyer who represented
members of Congress and other public and corporate officials in connection with many of the
most well-known and significant federal criminal trials and investigations beginning with the
Watergate case.
Mr. Green is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and he practiced law
in Washington, D.C., for more than 55 years. Throughout his career, he taught civil and criminal
trial practice at clinical programs sponsored by law schools, bar associations and the National
Institute of Trial Advocacy, and he was a frequent lecturer and panelist at professional programs
for lawyers conducted by organizations such as the American Bar Association and the American
Law Institute.
Mr. Green is a graduate of Dartmouth College and received his law degree from Yale University.
He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a past president of the Assistant
United States Attorneys Association of Washington, D.C. Mr. Green is also a former U.S. Army
Captain and artillery battery commander and was attached to the 1st Air Cavalry Division in
Vietnam.
He serves as President of the not-for-profit International Anti-Corruption Resource Center whose
principal mission is to train law enforcement personnel and anti-corruption commissions
throughout the world to enhance their capability to detect, investigate and prosecute corruption
in connection with major procurement projects. He is a Board Member of Winrock International,
and in 2025 he came out of retirement to create the Washington Litigation Group, a law firm
dedicated to protecting the rule of law in the United States.
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D-1
JUDITH S. FEIGIN
Retired, U.S. Department of Justice
Member, New York and California Bars
EMPLOYMENT
Legal Historian, Office of Special Investigations, Department of Justice
Sept. 1999 – May 2005
Deputy Chief, Department of Justice Campaign Finance Task Force
Sept. 1997 – Sept. 1999
Counsel to the Director, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys
Jan. 1997 – Sept. 1997
Assistant U.S. Attorney, Southern District of California
Senior Legal Counsel & Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney
Jan. 1994 – Jan. 1997
Appellate Attorney (11 years); Trial Counsel (4 ½ years)
Sept. 1978 – Jan. 1994
Appellate Attorney, Department of Justice, Civil Division
July 1971 – May 1978
Associate, Rosenman & Colin (New York, NY)
Aug. 1970 – May 1971
PUBLICATIONS
The Office of Special Investigations: Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the
Holocaust, http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/dig/pres/2015-0270
The Rule of Law at the Margin: Reinventing Prosecution Policy in the Southern
District of California, 12 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 285 (1998) (co-authored with Alan D.
Bersin, U.S. Attorney, Southern District of California)
Comment, Right to Counsel: Alleged Incompetent Held Entitled to Counsel at Civil
Commitment Hearing, 43 N.Y.U.L. REV. 1004 (1968)
The New Rules, San Diego Daily Transcript, Oct. 3, 1994 (co-authored with U.S.
Attorney Alan D. Bersin)
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Judge Challenges Popular Beliefs on Reducing Crime, San Diego Daily Transcript,
Dec. 29, 1988 (book review)
Solicitor General Story is Far from Dry, San Diego Daily Transcript, Jan. 20, 1988
(book review)
A Mother’s Dilemma: What to Do About Possible Case of Political Discrimination,
Los Angeles Times (San Diego County edition), Oct. 18, 1987
How Infrequent Injustice in Courts?, San Diego Daily Transcript, Mar. 10, 1987
(written under pseudonym)
Separation of Church and State at Issue in Child’s Refusal to Read Poem, L. A. Times
(San Diego County edition), Dec. 29, 1985
Family Holiday Concert Was Child’s Secret Hour of Dread, Los Angeles Times
(San Diego County edition), Nov. 28, 1985
A Prosecutor’s Awesome Power, San Diego Daily Transcript, Aug. 20, 1985
(written under pseudonym)
Complexities My Sabbatical Taught Me, San Diego Daily Transcript, May 21, 1985
Sting of Sexism is Soothed by Innocent Motives, Los Angeles Times
(San Diego County edition), May 6, 1985
EDUCATION
New York University School of Law J.D. 1970
Barnard College B.A. 1967