This Demonstrates that Anti-Smoking Groups Were Wrong in their Attacks on Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum
Jump to full article: The Rest of the Story-Tobacco Analasys and Commentary (Michael Siegel blog), 2009-05-27
Intro: I believe the most important aspect of the appellate court's decision was its upholding of the district court's denial of monetary remedies against the tobacco companies. . . .
What this decision demonstrates is that the anti-smoking groups were wrong in their attack on McCallum and their insistence that the reduction of the $130 billion smoking cessation remedy to $10 billion represented an undermining of the case designed to aid the tobacco companies. As it turns out, that change had no effect on the government's case because, as I argued, no smoking cessation remedy was allowable in the first place.
As I wrote on August 18, 2006: "McCallum's decision to substitute a $10 billion smoking cessation remedy for a $130 billion smoking cessation remedy had no impact whatsoever on the case, because as Judge Gladys Kessler ruled, $0 of smoking cessation remedy was allowable under the D.C. Appeals Court's interpretation of the RICO statute."
If anything, McCallum's insistence on changing the request for a massive $130 billion smoking cessation remedy helped the Department of Justice save face somewhat.
Now it will be interesting to see if the anti-smoking groups apologize to McCallum and retract their political accusations, which have now been shown to have had no reasonable basis or merit. Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR) went so far as calling McCallum a "cancer" in the Justice Department. Certainly, ANR owes Mr. McCallum an apology. It will be interesting to see if ANR retracts its attack and apologizes.
Other groups which had attacked McCallum, accusing him of political interference, and which therefore need to retract their attacks and apologize, include the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the Stan Glantz Announcement List-Serve.
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