In case the Pie Ad was too busy distracting everyone, the Justice Department
asked its own witnesses to scale back recommendations for penalizing tobacco companies for, essentially, committing a fraud on the American people. Rather than $130 billion, tobacco companies will pay a mere $10 billion. In terms of government or big business money, that is a proverbial slap on the wrist.
A key quote from the WaPo article:
According to sources involved in the case, high-level officials at Justiceordered the cut despite objections from career lawyers who have worked on the trial, in some cases years.
Read all about it here, and here, and I'm sure there are other places, but you get the drift.
Now, I wear no tin hat, but this stinks. It has smell all over it. And it deserves, in my book, a good deal of outrage and further investigation.
Where is a congressional committee when you need it????