Opinion ID: 418126
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Kitchen's Testimony

Text: 6 Kitchen has maintained from the time of his first testimony before the grand jury on the subject, in January 1982, until his final appearance on March 22, 1983, that he remembers very few details of the meeting in February 1977. He has testified repeatedly and unequivocally, however, that although the tax situation was discussed, no bribe or payoff was mentioned. He testified that he first learned that a bribe might be paid from a subsequent discussion with his subordinate, B, who informed him that B had received authorization to pay a bribe at the February meeting. Kitchen stated that he was shocked by this information, and that he wanted to stay away from [the bribe]. Kitchen has also repeatedly testified that he does not recall discussing the bribe with A. After being confronted with C's testimony and notes about the interview on October 18, 1977, he admitted that he was convinced that he must have talked to A, but continued to maintain that I am telling the truth, I cannot recall whether I did or not. 7 Finally, Kitchen has testified that he does not remember any details of his interview with C, except that he would have told him the truth and that he was asked to amend his Business Ethics questionnaire. He explained that he originally did not mention the bribe on his questionnaire because he wanted to avoid involvement with the affair. When he did amend the questionnaire at C's prompting, the statement he gave was, he told the grand jury, inaccurate in two respects: first, in stating that the February meeting took place in May, a mistake he made in consulting his expense vouchers to fix the date; and second, in failing to explain that his surmise about what went on at the meeting was prompted by his discussion with B, in which B told him explicitly that a bribe was authorized at the meeting.