Opinion ID: 469790
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court's Finding on Intention

Text: 21 The question of intention, as this court wrote in its earlier opinion, is an issue of material fact. 731 F.2d at 7. The findings of the District Court on issues of fact must be affirmed by this court unless they are clearly erroneous. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). 22 On remand the District Court held a hearing at which Anderson was the sole witness. Anderson testified that he had forwarded the memorandum to Lindahl both because he wanted Lindahl to know that Sun had pursued the matter and because he thought that the information contained in the memorandum would be helpful to Lindahl and CRS. He said that because congressional aides live on information and facts up there[,] our opinions are worthless, really.    If we hadn't done any work, he [Lindahl] wouldn't have been interested    [and] I wouldn't have sent it. Transcript at 16-17. 23 The District Court's opinion correctly distinguished Anderson's intention--what he meant to do--from his motivation --why he did it: 24 Like any other lobbyist [Anderson acted] with his employer's best interests in mind: he hoped to rehabilitate the reputation of Sun. The presence of that underlying motive does not strip his communication of protection under the legislative process privilege; indeed, to narrow the scope of the privilege on that basis would drastically frustrate the objective of promoting candid legislative input. 731 F.2d at 5. In the real world, altruism is not the rule: most persons providing input into the legislative process do so with some degree of self-interest. 25 Mem.Op. at 7, RE 23. 26 Notwithstanding Anderson's self-serving motive, the District Court found that [t]he credible and convincing evidence demonstrates that Anderson's intention in forwarding the memorandum to Lindahl was to provide information that would be of value to the CRS in its investigation of the Webster-Heise devise. Id. at 6, RE 22 (emphasis added). We cannot say that this factual finding is clearly erroneous.