Kevin Ring @ Barnes & Thornburg

In a recent entry, we reviewed some items from the Government's Sixth Notice of Discovery Status (.pdf). There's one more thing the ACR Blog finds interesting.

On page two of the Sixth Notice, the Justice Department enumerates discoverable material that it has provided or will provide to Kevin Ring and his defense team. There's one item on that list that the ACR Blog would like examine more carefully:

(2) Ring's emails in the government's possession,<sup>1

1</sup> The government neither subpoenaed nor possesses all of Ring's emails, but rather limited its subpoenas, including by date ranges an search terms.

Since we know that Mr. Ring's defense team has a flair for the theatrical, they no doubt would claim that the Justice Department subpoenas were too broad. However, there is no denying that the government attempted to limit the scope of its subpoena(s).

Mr. Ring worked at two different lobbying firms during the events described in the indictment. From December 1999 until January 2001, Mr. Ring worked with Jack Abramoff at lobbying shop of Preston Gates. From January 2001 until 2004, Mr. Ring worked for Greenberg Traurig.

After leaving Greenberg, Mr. Ring surfaced at yet a third lobbying firm, Barnes & Thornburg. None of the events in the indictment occurred during Mr. Ring's tenure at Barnes & Thornburg. Mr. Ring abruptly resigned from Barnes & Thornburg in April 2007.

Despite the fact that none of the events described in the indictment happened while Mr. Ring was at Barnes & Thornburg, the Justice Department is still interested in some of Mr. Ring's activities there. Here is how the government describes its process to identify potentially discoverable material

Government's Fourth Notice of Discovery Status (.pdf)

First, the DOJ OIG searched the vaults of all fourteen officials for the following words and phrases in order to identify statements by or communications with Ring: (1) "gtlaw" (the domain name for Greenberg Traurig LLP); (2) "btlaw" (the domain name for Barnes & Thornburg LLP); (3) "ringke" (the user-name of one of Ring's personal email accounts): and (4) "kerrieandkevin" (the username of another of Ring's personal email accounts).

Emphasis Added

The emails described in the above paragraph were sent/received by DOJ officials -- they are not the product of a subpoena.

The fact that the DOJ OIG is involved in this aspect of the investigation tells us that these emails to/from DOJ officials likely refer to events in the Honest Services Fraud Relating to the DOJ section of the Ring Indictment (paragraphs 164-198).

Clearly, the Department of Justice alleges that Mr. Ring engaged in Honest Services Fraud with DOJ officials while he was at Greenberg Traurig. But why are emails to/from Mr. Ring's Barnes & Thornburg account relevant to the indictment? What did Mr. Ring and the DOJ officials discuss via email? Here are a couple of plausible explanations:

1. The alleged conspiracy to commit Honest Services Fraud continued even while Mr. Ring worked for Barnes & Thornburg.

2. Mr. Ring and his alleged co-conspirators discussed via email their plans to conceal acts committed during Mr. Ring's tenure at Greenberg Traurig.

The ACR Blog leans toward explanation #2. Perhaps Mr. Ring and the DOJ officials were trying to coordinate their responses to investigators.

Please suggest any other plausible explanations as to why Mr. Ring continued to communicate with his alleged DOJ co-conspirators while he worked at Barnes & Thornburg in the comments