Opinion ID: 614361
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hawley's Perjury

Text: The documents uncovered by Taxpayers through their FOIA requests demonstrate that Hawley lied in his deposition about his knowledge of the raid. In his deposition, Hawley testified that no one told him that the raid would be postponed to March 3 from its originally scheduled date of February 24. He also testified that he was not informed in advance that the raid would be carried out on March 3, and that he found out that the raid had been carried out only when he read about it in the paper the next morning. He concocted a story about how he was sure that he had not known about the rescheduling to March 3 because of a party he had hosted on March 4. The documents uncovered through FOIA show that Hawley sent a memorandum to Hoover on February 23 informing him that the raid had been postponed. He sent another memorandum to Hoover on March 2 informing him that the raid had been rescheduled for March 3. However, perjury by a witness does not necessarily constitute fraud on the court. Levander, 180 F.3d at 1119. Even under the facts revealed by the FOIA documents, Hawley's involvement in the raid was much less substantial than Chandler's. Hawley's role was largely that of an interested observer, relaying information to Washington. It was Chandler's much more active participation in the lead-up to the raid, and in the raid itself, that posed the largest problem for the government in defending against the motion to suppress. Hawley's lie concerning what he knew, and when he knew it, likely did not affect the outcome of the case.