Safavian Retrial Gets Underway

Well, they’ve made it to the back nine.

Round two of the David Safavian trial kicked off today at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, with opening arguments from both sides that unsurprisingly, seemed to leave some in the audience with a case of deja vu, and maybe a little fatigue.

The case still hinges on Jack Abramoff’s notorious 2002 golfing trip to Scotland, which Safavian attended while he was chief of staff for the General Services Administration. In 2006, jurors decided Safavian had lied to the government when he said Abramoff “had no business before the GSA” at the time of the trip.

But in June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit tossed his conviction and ordered a new trial.

So what’s new this time around? For starters, Safavian’s attorneys will be allowed to call a key witness to explain the technical meaning of “having business before the GSA.” The Justice Department, meanwhile, has tacked two additional charges onto its indictment, claiming Safavian lied to the FBI and on a financial disclosure form that failed to list the golfing trip as a gift.   Overall, though, the case hasn’t changed a great deal in two years, and the opening statements seemed to reflect as much. In his pitch to the jurors, lead prosecutor Nathaniel Edmunds said Safavian “lied, denied, and misled” the government repeatedly. The rhyming refrain cropped up throughout Edmunds’ remarks, in which he accused Safavian of feeding Abramoff insider information on government properties the lobbyist sought to buy, and later concealing his relationship with the lobbyist from investigators.

Defense attorney Richard Sauber, of Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber, did his best to take the attention off Abramoff, reminding the jury that “he’s not on trial here.” Sauber argued that everything Safavian did and said was within the letter of the law.   For its part, the audience seemed less than enthralled. A couple of the journalists in attendance considered dodging out before the first witnesses came to testify. Even Judge Paul Friedman could be seen gazing around the room, away from the action.