Fumo testifies he saw '04 surveillance as politically motivated

Former State Sen. Vince Fumo tried to suggest to the jury yesterday at his federal corruption trial that his concerns about federal surveillance and the FBI in 2004 were not because the government was investigating him but because he was a political "target" of a Bush White House desperate to win Pennsylvania in the 2004 election.

Fumo testified that he was the "most prominent Democrat in Pennsylvania" and was a prolific fundraiser.

"We're talking about Karl Rove here, we're talking about Alberto Gonzales, who asked about me at the White House, specifically me," Fumo said. "I had my concerns."

Fumo's comments echoed earlier comments in 2007 at a press conference by Fumo's former lawyer, Richard A. Sprague, shortly after the former senator was indicted, that the prosecution was politically motivated.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Pease said that Fumo had concerns, all right, but it was about the feds observing his activities.

The government has accused Fumo of misusing Senate staffers and the resources of two nonprofits for his own personal benefit and then attempting to cover it all up.

The focus of most of yesterday's cross-examination was Pease's painstaking effort to chronologically link news reports of the Fumo investigation and the serving of subpoenas and search warrants by FBI agents to Fumo's systematic campaign to purge e-mails and wipe the hard drives of staffers' computers.

For the most part, Fumo gave little ground.

For example, Pease asked Fumo about two front-page stories in the Inquirer in late November 2003 about Citizens Alliance, one of the nonprofits, and why Fumo computer aide Leonard Luchko sent an e-mail to 24 staffers on December 1, 2003, instructing them not to save e-mails to and from Fumo "under ANY circumstances."

Fumo testified that he didn't think that it was "necessarily true" that there was a connection between the publication of the two stories and Luchko's subsequent e-mail.

"So, then, it's a coincidence?" Pease asked.

"This is what happened and that's the time sequence," Fumo replied, adding: "You can characterize it any way you want."

Fumo repeated earlier testimony from last week about advice he had been given by former lawyers Richard A. Sprague and Robert Scandone, and about the retention of e-mails after the feds' investigation of Fumo became public in January 2004.

The ex-senator said that both men had told him that as long as he had not been served with a subpoena, he was free to conduct business as normal.

Pease suggested yesterday that Fumo was not forthcoming with either lawyer.

Scandone, for example, had been copied by Luchko on an e-mail sent to Fumo staffers and contractors on January 25, 2004, instructing them to send e-mails to Fumo only via encrypted mail, and to bring their BlackBerry devices and laptops into the office to be wiped.

But Pease said that Fumo never sat down and had a conversation with Scandone about the substance of the January 25, 2004, e-mail.

"I didn't do that with anybody," Fumo replied.

Pease said that Fumo also did not tell Sprague about deleting e-mails or wiping BlackBerry devices.

Fumo had testified last week that he called Sprague after the Inquirer wrote in January 2004 that the feds were investigating Fumo. Fumo was concerned, he said, because a former staffer told him that many old e-mails were lost because his office had replaced its old server in 2002.

Fumo said that Sprague told him that as long as he hadn't been subpoenaed, he could do whatever he wanted. Fumo admitted yesterday that he "didn't specifically" tell Sprague his office was deleting e-mails and wiping hard drives, "but I certainly told him there were no e-mails."

Pease said that that conversation was in the context of the e-mails lost on the old server, which predated the federal investigation. "You never asked him for that advice [that it was proper to delete e-mails and wipe BlackBerries and hard drives] and he never gave it to you," Pease chided.

Sprague and Scandone could be called to the witness stand sometime today to rebut Fumo's testimony. *