Please don’t permit him (Nields) to make the rulings.”Īt another point on Wednesday, Sullivan snapped at Nields as he was interrogating North about two letters that North had fabricated to conceal the fact that a $16,000 security system had been installed at his home with arms-sale profits. I make the objections, you make the rulings. Nields Jr., “may decide the pace,” Sullivan said angrily: “I believe you are making the rulings here. When Inouye responded that the interrogator, House committee counsel John W. In one particularly heated exchange, Sullivan objected to Inouye and asked: “Could Counsel please permit the witness to finish his answer and not to interrupt him in mid-answer?” They had been spared his type of legal guerrilla warfare, which is common practice in most courts of law. Sullivan’s confrontational style-he pounds the witness table himself on occasion-seemed to surprise and irritate many members of the investigating committees. “He’s capable of being warm and friendly when it suits his purpose, but an inch below the surface is solid steel.” “He’s a cold, prickly type,” another lawyer said of Sullivan. Sullivan is “a pure attorney,” one who concentrates on the law and his clients rather than polishing a public image, Cacheris added. “He asks no quarter and he gives none,” said Plato Cacheris, another lawyer who is representing Fawn Hall, North’s former secretary. ![]() Like his star client, Sullivan is a Vietnam veteran. Sullivan’s owlish, mild-mannered appearance belies a combative nature that friends and associates say rivals that of the decorated Marine officer and former National Security Council aide whom he represents. Some say that Sullivan, who has a reputation as a “workaholic,” is Williams’ heir apparent. Sullivan, 45, is one of Washington’s best-known lawyers on the rise, a senior partner in the prestigious firm of Williams & Connolly, headed by famed criminal trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams. ![]() Dick Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chairman of the House panel, said with grudging admiration: “If I were in North’s shoes, I would want Sullivan as my lawyer.” For spectators in the Senate Caucus Room and the nationwide television audience watching North testify about the Iran- contra affair, it was just one more interruption to be endured.įor Sullivan, however, it was a deliberate step in a calculated effort to maintain a confrontational style of “protecting the client at any cost.” His approach, which has left some spectators uncomfortable and angered many congressmen, has nevertheless proven to be extremely effective in this instance and several others.Īlthough Inouye noted tartly that Sullivan had caused a significant delay himself with his four-minute protest, the tactic had the effect of gaining North more leeway to explain his conduct without so many rapid-fire questions-exactly the goal of every defense attorney.ĭuring a recess outside the hearing room, Rep.
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