Legal Times:
And then Mukasey dropped the bombshell: The McNulty memo may be revised and is likely to be replaced by a new set of guidelines for the handling of attorney-client privilege in corporate fraud investigations.
Responding to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking minority member, Mukasey revealed that Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip is drafting a letter to Specter addressing "real significant proposed changes" that could replace the policy named after former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.
"There's no such as thing as a memo that achieves perfection...There are adjustments in the McNulty memo that can and will be made," Mukasey said. "In particular, we will no longer measure cooperation by waiver of the attorney-client privilege."
Mukasey said Filip's letter can be used to discuss changes "that may very well produce a memorandum in short order."
Specter, the lead sponsor of a bill in the Senate to modify the McNulty guidelines, had asked Mukasey what justified “coercing a waiver of the attorney-client privilege” and whether legislation is necessary.
The McNulty memo, which addresses how prosecutors should treat suspected corporate wrongdoers and their invocation of the privilege, is one of several in a succession of Justice directives that have been criticized as far-reaching and unfair to corporations.
Last month, Mukasey hinted that the memo could be tweaked.
Now you know how and why Mukasey and Filip were chosen in the Attorney General office at the Department of Justice: They both are judges, loyal Bushies, and they know how to tweak certain guidelines that will make it differcult in court to fight.
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