David Brock Impeachment Trial: 2000 - Testimony On Article I

Prosecution witness Clerk Zibel reviewed a memo he wrote to then-justice David Souter in May 1987. It concerned an appeal from a lower-court ruling by then-Senate majority leader Edward Dupont, whose fuel company had been sued in a contract dispute by a competitor, Home Gas. The memo alleged that Chief Justice Brock had made an improper call to Superior Court Judge Douglas Gray to discuss the case.

The prosecution added that investigators found that Brock's call was to remind Gray that Senator Dupont could help pass a bill to raise judges' salaries.

While Brock contended that Gray called him, Gray testified he "never, ever, period" initiated the call and "I think it was a lapse in ethics." But he added, "Is David Brock unethical? No."

Gray also said that, while at the time he thought the call unusual, he did not consider it improper but had changed his mind since then.

Superior Court Judge Kenneth McHugh then testified that Gray told him about the call from Brock just after it occurred.

On the stand himself, Brock said, "I didn't call Judge Gray. Absolutely not." He did admit calling the court clerk about the case's status, but said such calls, while "fraught with risk," were part of his job as administrator of the court.