Media Roundup: Orchestrated Appearance

The media reports on the Conrad Black trial, webbed overnight and this morning, had a consensus (if not unanimous) focus on a scheduled, if surprise, appearance of Donald Trump at the 2002 Hollinger International annual meeting, held on 2003:

1. From Andrew Clark of the Guardian, a report that focuses on Mr. Trump's arranged-in-advance appearance. It starts off with: "The fallen press baron Conrad Black stage managed what had seemed a spontaneous show of support from Donald Trump to fend off angry investors at an annual meeting when his Hollinger empire began to unravel, a jury was told yesterday." Near its end, a summary of the cross-examination so far is provided.

2. A slightly different version of the same report has been webbed by Buzzle.com.

3. A report by Paul Waldie, webbed by the Globe and Mail, quotes the E-mail that Conrad Black sent Donald Trump, and Mr. Trump's remarks to the meeting, in full. It ends with this forecast: "During a hearing without the jury yesterday, prosecutors told Judge Amy St. Eve they expect to rest their case next Wednesday. Judge St. Eve told defence lawyers to be ready to call their first witness that day."

4. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's "Business Briefs" has a one-paragraph summary mentioning Donald Trump's appearance. It's item #3, entitled "Black Enlisted Trump."

5. A lengthy report webbed by Bloomberg, entitled "Black's Gems, Servants on Park Avenue May Sour Jurors," has lots of details on the Black's expenditures while Mr. Black still headed up Hollinger Int'l. It also notes that "[i]t is illegal to knowingly authorize a company to pay for an employee's -- or an executive's -- purely personal expenses . Benjamin Brafman, a criminal defense lawyer in New York, says anyone making personal charges to a company is defrauding its investors as well as the government because taxes aren't being paid on the reimbursements." (Unless said expenses are declared as a taxable personal benefit, which makes them part of the pay packet.)

[An updated version of this report, webbed by the Chicago Tribune, ends with a quote from an expert, to the effect that the point behind it all is to show a profile consistent with an executive who either benefits from, or might need to have recourse to, fraud.]

6. The report by Sandro Contenta of the Toronto Star also starts off with the part of the evidence introduced yesterday that dealt with Donald Trump's appearance at the annual meeting. Its second half goes into detail about Edward Genson's cross-examination of Mr. Healy. One excerpt from that cross-examination has Mr. Healy denying that he was an advocate for Richard Breeden while still the subordinate of Mr. Black, and another has him denying that he was paid extra for shafting Mr. Black.

7. CBC News has a brief CP item forecasting what today's testimony will contain. Specifically, the defense will "further question Healy Thursday about the people he talked to before writing a memo detailing the condo's worth." It ends by noting that the prosecutors plan to "call two security guards to testify about Black's removal of boxes from his Toronto office next."

8. The Edmonton Sun has a brief CP summary of the Trump-related evidence presented, and testified to, yesterday.

9. Mary Vallis' latest report, webbed by the Ottawa Citizen, begins with the Trump-related part of yesterday's trial too; it notes that Mr. Healy testified that it was he who arranged the 100-vote proxy for Mr. Trump. It also mentions that during Csr. Genson's cross-examination, he noted that Mr. Healy had already admitted to lying.

10. A column in the Toronto Sun, by Michele Mandel, portrays Mr. Healy as a sleaze. Ms. Mandel casts Mr. Trump as a fellow who was simply doing a favour for a friend.

11. Another report by Mr. Waldie, webbed by the Globe, also notes that the prosecution expects to finish up Wednesday. The defense is expected to take about three weeks. After recounting Csr. Genson's cross-examination (now over,) it contains an excerpt from Patrick Tuite's, in which he "challenged Mr. Healy over the memo and asked him repeatedly to identify the people he contacted. Mr. Tuite finally suggested that Mr. Healy did not want to give up the names for fear that his friends wouldn't back up his story. 'You don't want us to know the names,” he said to Mr. Healy.'" Mr. Healy insisted that he really couldn't recall their names. (Csr. Tuite is counsel for Jack Boultbee.)

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Two blog entries today discuss bias. The first, by Douglas Bell, takes Mark Steyn to task for his pro-vindication bias, and ventures the opinion that plea bargains and immunities are needed to counter smart defense lawyers who charge top dollar for it, which (presumably) only the rich can afford.

(One of the advantages of reading the same opinion expressed over and over again, in different ways, is a threshold effect kicking in as a result. After the umpteenth time, out-of-the-box thoughts appear, such as: "why do the rich with their high-priced lawyers have advantages only when defending themselves against prosecutions based on certain specific laws? If a grown-up Richie Rich hauls off and manages to land one on the jaw of Casper the Ghost, causing injury to the extent that Casper needs a stay in the emergency room, it's hard to see how Counselor Pricetop can rich-lawyer his way out of a conviction for assault, except by taking advantage of one or more procedural error(s) by the arresting officer and/or the prosecution. That don't require a four-figure-an-hour tab; it merely requires scrupulosity. Avoiding an acquittal based on a technicality requires little more than scrupulosity too.

(Of course, mentioning this point tends to induce the true believer into shifting the subject to exciting anecdotes that confute rich businesspeople with the Mafia, or to other tales that really belong on daytime TV...)

Secondly, one from Mr. Steyn himself, about the puzzle that is Paul Healy. He wonders if Mr. Healy violated his fiduciary duty of impartiality by being partial to Tweedy, Browne.

(Mr. Steyn seems to have slipped into an egalitarian mindset with this one. My own guess-interpretation of the duty of impartiality says it refers to procedure, and not to positive action to make sure that one shareholder isn't in a better condition than the others regardless of effort exerted. Tweedy, Browne may have simply bugged Mr. Healy more than the others.)