"All hell just broke loose in the Minnesota courtroom . . ."

Oh dear dear dear. It appears that Team Coleman's lawyers have been naughty, and that their case may be in very deep doody! From Talking Points Memo:

Secret Coleman-Lawyer Emails Reveal Intentional Hiding of Witness - Franken Camp Wants Double-Count Claim Thrown Out

"All hell just broke loose in the Minnesota courtroom, with Al Franken's lawyers catching Team Coleman in the act of yet more concealing of evidence -- and they've now made a motion to totally strike the Coleman camp's claims about double-counting of ballots, which the Coleman camp has hoped to use to subtract over 100 votes from Franken's lead.

You might remember that on Wednesday, the Coleman team was caught having withheld notes given to them in early January by Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis. (Note: Minnesota precinct workers are selected by partisan identification, and then buddied up across party lines to keep it running smoothly and honestly.) The court then struck the witness' testimony, relating to double-counting of votes -- but then turned around yesterday and reversed themselves, after the Coleman team said it had been an honest oversight -- that there was no bad faith involved. . . .

This morning, Franken lawyer David Lillehaug was restarting his cross-examination of Howell, and inquired as to whether there had been any further communications between herself and Coleman. The answer was yes -- and Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble then had to cough up some private e-mails he'd sent to Howell in early January.

"Pam, the legal team and campaign have made a strategic litigation decision to hold off from having you sign and us file your affidavit at this time," Trimble (or possibly his assistant, Matt Hapooja) wrote on January 6, "to avoid tying you down to any particular testimony and to avoid having to disclose your name and statement."

So, I'm no lawyer but suffice to say that this doesn't look very good for Former Sen. Norm "Big Asshole" Coleman and his crack legal team. Intentionally hiding witnesses? Gosharoonies, I don't think that's allowed!

Oh dear dear dear.

At any rate, Team Big Asshole tried to claim that this was an honest mistake. In typical RepubliCon fashion, one of Team Coleman's lead lawyers, Tony Trimble, suggested that one of his employees was to blame, and made the all-too-familiar "We weren't tryin to do no wrong it's just that we ain't all that smart" defense. It's incompetence, not malfeasance.

Riiiiight.

Musta been kinda uncomfortable for Team Coleman when another of his lead lawyers, Joe Friedberg, then . . . .

"got up to mount a defense -- and totally threw Trimble, Hapooja, and fellow lawyer James Langdon under the bus. He said he'd asked them on Wednesday if there were other things going on, and he didn't know about it: "I can tell you that if I'd have known these things existed, I would have disclosed them."

Naughty, awful, spiteful Team Coleman!

They have been very bad. A ruling hasn't been issued yet, but the upshot here is that Team Franken is now demanding that the entire double-count claim be thrown out . . .

. . . apparently the good people of Minnesota have already made their ruling about Former Senator Norm Coleman.

Hasta la pasta, jerkoff!