(Mike Zahara) – I’m not a lawyer, I don’t even play a lawyer on TV, but I have been a juror and assessing all that is and isn’t in the State of Nevada’s case against Lieutenant Governor, Brian Krolicki—unless some new bombshell drops—I’d vote to acquit.
I’ve never met the Lt Gov, but I have to admit, I think the guy did get screwed and I think the voting public, in a 2010 anti-Harry Reid tsunami, are going to process the mishandling of the case as personally Harry Reid Inc directed.
How does the AG’s office indict a constitutional officer, who’s claiming he received advice and consent from that same AG’s office for his conduct, and then not recuse itself and appoint special counsel to represent the state, immediately?
That alone will not sit well with a jury; not one dime of public money missing won’t either. Certainly, Krolick’s top-shelf counsel Richard Wright, will call everyone involved in the AG’s office as witnesses for the defense!
How does the state prosecute a case and have its own AG Division’s employees as defense witnesses?
Did we allow Harry Reid Inc to ruin a man’s reputation for political expediency via toady Catherine Cortez-Masto?
I really don’t see how Judge Adair has any other choice but to toss the case out because of Cortez Masto’s exceptionally poor handling of it, and her completely unethical conduct throughout the whole ordeal.
To add insult to grievous injury, her husband former NV Secret Service Chief Paul Masto, decided to host a fundraiser four days before the trial is expected to begin for a Democratic Lt Gov candidate, Robert Randazzo.
Incredibly, SMCCM is quoted as saying ‘there is no legal conflict of interest in having her husband hold a fundraiser for Randazzo or anyone else.’
Really Madame AG?
What about legal canons and ethics dear? You alone are the state’s top lawyer expected to uphold the Nevada and US Constitutions and to ensure that any and all appearance of conflicts are extinguished to ensure any defendant has a fair trial.
You’ve failed spectacularly in that regard!
Appearances matter, ethical considerations matter, but Mrs Cortez-Masto is publicly declaring—in an exceptionally weak argument—that there is no ‘legal conflict of interest’ in her husband hosting an event for a Krolicki challenger.
The jury, should this get that far, will acquit just based on that arrogant proclamation. It goes to fundamental fairness and how regular people as jurors perceive these things; not to mention ancient legal canons dating back to the Magna Carta era.
Catherine Cortez-Masto has badly damaged her brand and her legal reputation with that arrogant utterance and the event has been canceled.
Judge Adair has no choice but to consider that too because Mr Wright will ensure the jury knows all of the details. The Attorney General and her office have placed the judge in a very uncomfortable position, and poor Robert Randazzo, was played by ‘supposed friend’ Paul Masto for political cover for his wife. He’s too new in politics to know what Mr and Mrs Masto have done to him, but they very clearly both used him to take some heat off of the AG.
With friends like the Mastos, oh who are we kidding; friends wouldn’t do this kind of thing to a friend! Robert Randazzo got publicly screwed over by Nevada’s power couple and was used by both to throw fundamental fairness and legal ethics out the window regarding Krolicki.
SMCCM has been personally inviting the judge to toss the case since at least August. She’s not stupid, she knows her Deputy, Conrad Hafen, can’t win this case, she knows her own office will be called to testify, but deliberately chose not to remove said office from the prosecution.
What other choice does Judge Adair have here? Richard Wright will annihilate the Attorney General’s office and scar the office’s integrity itself, forever leaving the impression with the public that it’s a dirty office absent any ethics, honor, and most of all, any semblance of professional integrity at all.
Paul Masto is a good person who served us well in the Secret Service. However, Paul has always stood back from overt politics—even his own wife’s campaign in 2006—so his interest in pushing Randazzo stands out even more. Paul, being very familiar with the law, should have known better than to host the fundraiser at that particular time.
He did know better; Paul Masto knew exactly what he was doing.
Paul Masto deliberately threw his friend under the bus as political cover for his old lady. That SMCCM didn’t know of her own husband’s activities is as belly-laughable as it is disingenuous.
Of course she knew! She told him to do it!
The Mastos belong to the same parish that I do. Paul gave the best eulogy I’ve ever heard at his father-in-law, the late Commissioner Manny Cortez’s funeral mass, but Manny must be looking down and shaking his head that he would have never thrown a friend under the bus the way that Paul and Catherine have done to newcomer Robert Randazzo.
The case is a legal catastrophe a classic cluster F, with a capital F, and through all the background machinations, we may have allowed Catherine Cortez-Masto to do the bidding of Harry Reid Inc, totally bastardizing the Constitution.
It’s just another ugly chapter in Nevada politics and Judge Valerie Adair should do the correct thing and dismiss the case, post haste, and Paul and Catherine Masto should hang their heads in shame.
(Mr. Zahara publishes the WatchdogWag.com blog)
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