Defense says Safavian made ‘innocent errors’ as trial ends

The trial of former Office of Management and Budget procurement policy chief David Safavian drew to a close Monday, with defense lawyers filing numerous objections to lay the groundwork for a possible future appeal, and lawyers from both sides offering closing statements.

In the morning, D.C. District Judge Paul Friedman settled on a format the jury will use to consider the five counts Safavian faces of lying and obstructing investigations by the General Services Administration, where he served as chief of staff during the period in question, and by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, into his dealings with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The defense presented numerous objections to the format, which laid out the logic that jurors would have to follow to find Safavian guilty.

Friedman overruled most of those objections, the formal presentation of which was largely pro forma because the document had been the subject of extensive wrangling between the two sides, at one point noting that a particular objection would be excellent grounds for a later appeal.

In an extended afternoon session, jurors heard closing statements from both sides that reiterated the positions taken over the course of nine days of arguments.

"No man can serve two masters," federal prosecutor Nathaniel Edmonds said. "[Safavian] was appointed by the president to service the people of the United States, but he chose to serve Jack Abramoff."

Edmonds portrayed Safavian as morally weak -- an official who, at the "moments of truth" when he was called on to use his office in the public interest, consistently chose instead to help advance his friend's interests. After initially lying to a GSA ethics officer to obtain permission to join Abramoff on an exclusive golf trip, Edmonds said, Safavian had opportunities to come clean but he declined to do so.

The prosecution also used the opportunity to summarize costs of the 2002 trip. Breaking out costs for hotels, golf and meals, Edmonds showed that Safavian's proportional cost, counting his flight on a private jet, was more than $17,000, or with substitution of commercial airfare, about $7,300. Even the lower estimate is more than double the $3,100 that Safavian paid Abramoff and later said he believed covered the full trip cost.

In her closing arguments, Safavian's lawyer Barbara Van Gelder said the charges relate to "innocent errors, that if someone had bothered to clear up, we wouldn't be here."

She said that rather than conceal his relationship with the lobbyist, Safavian spoke freely of it with his colleagues and boss, and that the instances of concealment and lying alleged by the government were situations in which her client had not mentioned information because he hadn't deemed it relevant. He would have revealed it if asked, she said, calling the evidence against Safavian "poppycock, hooey and baloney."

Van Gelder highlighted an instruction from the judge that if Safavian's conduct was found to have stemmed from mistakes made in "good faith belief" that he should not be found guilty on particular charges, and said the instruction amounted to a complete defense for each count in the indictment.

"Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, a cigar is just a cigar," she told the jury.

Van Gelder also suggested that proving Safavian's guilt would have required putting Abramoff on the stand.

The prosecution has not publicly offered an explanation for the decision not to put the lobbyist on the stand, and Van Gelder implied Monday that she did not have full access to him. With regard to Neil Volz, the former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who testified during the trial for the prosecution after pleading guilty on Abramoff-related charges, Van Gelder said she had made several requests to interview him that he later said he had not received.

Safavian "is an innocent man who tried to do the right thing and it turned out very, very wrong," Van Gelder said in closing.

Following the arguments, Van Gelder said her client would appeal if found guilty, but she could not predict his decision if the jury returns a mixed verdict on the five counts. She said he never considered plea bargaining because he believed he was innocent, and would not have been able to live with himself if he had pleaded guilty.

"I still believe there's a place for this, in this building, for innocent guys," Van Gelder said.