Thomas C. Green Interview 7

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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.