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WAS SWAINSON FRAMED? Supreme Court Justice Wouldn't Be Convicted Today

Perjury Trap Was Downfall of Popular Double Amputee Former Governor

June 1, 2014       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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John B. Swainson served as Michigan governor 1960-1962.
 

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Perjury trap doctrine refers to a principle that a perjury indictment against a person must be dismissed if the prosecution secures it by calling that person as a grand-jury witness in an effort to obtain evidence for a perjury charge especially when the person's testimony does not relate to issues material to the ongoing grand-jury investigation.)

In the early 1970s, John B. Swainson was a member of the Michigan Supreme Court and was considered a leading candidate for the U.S. Senate should a vacancy occur.

However, Swainson, the "golden boy," would soon go down hard with a conviction for lying to a grand jury.

A double amputee and hero from Army service in World War II, Swainson was a former governor who was highly popular despite several flaws: he was a serial adulterer, a heavy drinker and naive. He was very open with everybody, willing to help all he met, especially other veterans and amputees. He paid the price for being guileless and ingenuous, his biographer wrote.

In his 2010 biography of Swainson, Lawrence M. Glazer, a former assistant Michigan attorney general, chief legal adviser to Gov. James Blanchard and circuit judge, recalls: "more than 30 years later, there are some doubts about his conviction."

When Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky hit the news in the 1990s, Swainson's faithful wife Alice was famously quoted as saying: "Who does Clinton think he is, John Swainson?"

Lots of political turmoil was occurring at the time Swainson was on the bench, especially in Washington where Richard Nixon was on the verge of being impeached.

Eventually, on Aug. 9, 1974, Nixon resigned and was succeeded by his vice president, Gerald R. Ford.

Upon his return from World War II in 1946, Gerald R. Ford had joined his long time friend Philip Buchen at the firm of Butterfield, Keeney and Amberg in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Ford practiced with the firm until he was elected to Congress. In 1961, Buchen became the Vice President of Business Affairs of the fledgling Grand Valley State College. After the college was successfully off the ground, he rejoined the firm where he practiced until August 1974 when Gerald Ford became President and named him as White House Counsel.

Swainson and Donald W. Reigle Jr. were considered the top possibilities for the Senate after Philip A. Hart in 1975 announced his intention to retire at the end of 1976. Riegle was appointed after Hart died in 1976.

Suddenly, out of Washington comes a thunderbolt: the assistant attorney general, John C. Keeney sent a Justice Department "strike force" to Michigan. One of the first targets of the strike force: Supreme Court Justice John B. Swainson.

Spearheading the strike force was Robert Ozer, an assistant U.S. attorney who had boasted he practiced "prosecution by terrorism."

Career criminal John Whalen, a Detroiter incarcerated in 1969 at Jackson awaiting a hearing on parole violation for a burglary of a jewelry store in Adrian, and passing counterfeit bills, contacted the FBI in a desperate bid for freedom. First he "ratted out" the counterfeiter, who got 30 years in prison. Then, with Detroit bail bondsman Harvey Wish, known as "a fixer" running interference, he aimed at the State Supreme Court, that had denied his leave to appeal in 1972.

Wish told Whalen he had a contact at the Supreme Court (Swainson) who would help him get leave to appeal, keeping him out of prison where he feared other inmates would kill him for turning in the counterfeiter. The FBI recorded a conversation in which Wish told Whalen his contact at the court could guarantee leave to appeal, that would keep him from behind bars, for $10,000, and reversal of the conviction for $20,000.

The Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Whalen and continued his bond, although the other justices said they didn't remember Swainson lobbying on Whalen's behalf.

But the FBI had nothing concrete on Swainson, just conversations in which Wish had claimed the justice was in his pocket. To get independent evidence, the strike force would have to interview members of the Supreme Court and reveal the existence of the probe.

Then the Justice Department got bogged down in the Nixon and Watergate investigation.

It was then, in February 1975, that Ozer and the strike force came on the scene in Michigan and "kicked down the doors," in Glazer's words. (See Wounded Warrior: The Rise and Fall of Michigan Governor John Swainson, published by Michigan State University Press.)

What Glazer never addressed was the Michigan "connection" in the Ford White House, with counsel Buchen, Ford's former law partner from Grand Rapids. And what role did Ford's top aides, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, known as political hit men through their careers up to George W. Bush, play in getting an assistant attorney general to appoint Ozer by letter?

Even Detroit mobster Tony Giacalone, who spent some time in a Bay City hospital later and made headlines here, questioned the appointment in a pleading rejected by the Federal Court in 1975. Giacalone was indicted by Ozer for mail fraud.

Did the Ford administration play a political card to get Swainson out of the way for the coming Senate race? Democrats then controlled the Senate 60-37 and Robert Griffin was the Republican senator from Michigan.

One possible clue may be how Ford's Grand Rapids cronies seem to have handled a Congressional investigation launched against an Ann Arbor non-profit, Youth for Understanding, that was the subject of a Congressional investigation and hearings in 1975 after its vice president was caught at an airport heading for South America with $300,000 in cash in a briefcase.

Several important Michigan firms and executives were backers of the non-profit, that newspapers revealed had lavish headquarters and luxury autos for highly paid officers. The probe was mysteriously squashed without explanation. Who but the White House could have that kind of power over Congress?

When the details came out in the news, the organization moved out of Ann Arbor to new quarters in Washington.

Swainson went before Ozer and the grand jury twice; he didn't "take the Fifth" believing that would indicate guilt, and he didn't hire a criminal lawyer, he used a civil case lawyer with minimal experience, apparently for the same reason.

He compounded his errors when he told the tough prosecutor he didn't remember calls from Harvey Wish "the fixer" two years before; then, after consulting his notes, he returned and corrected his testimony.

The News reported: "Glazer suggests Swainson made a mistake when he failed to explain to the grand jury how he spent two days combing through his records to make sure his testimony had been accurate. Instead, the prepared statement he gave when he returned to the grand jury made it sound like Swainson simply decided to come clean and tell the truth after consulting with his attorney."

The bribery case against Swainson was never proven, and the FBI testified they could find no extra cash in any of his accounts. But he was convicted of perjury based on his bumbling about phone calls. He served two months in a halfway house, but his career, and life, for all intents and purposes, was over.

The Detroit News commented: "It was highly unusual for the Detroit organized crime strike force to subpoena Swainson to testify when he was the target of the investigation. A former top federal prosecutor told The Detroit News such a move is now against Justice Department policy and today would most certainly not happen."

Glazer, however, concedes that Swainson was guilty of being clueless about who he associated with and of "extremely bad judgment."

The News recalled: "Ozer, who also handled the early stages of the investigation into the July 1975 disappearance of former Teamsters leader James R. Hoffa, was fired in 1976," just after the Swainson case ended.

"Glazer's book says Ozer was also cited for criminal contempt in 1979 for leaking the names of grand jury targets to a journalist while he headed a Medicaid fraud unit in Colorado." He died in Colorado in 2005.

On March 11, 1976, the Ann Arbor Sun quoted Swainson: "The grand jury system has become a tool of the prosecutor. If it had operated properly, I never would have been convicted."

"Was John Swainson's appearance a 'memory test,' rather than a search for the truth?" the Sun asked.

Swainson was named by Blanchard to the Michigan Historical Commission and spent the last years of his life promoting the history of Manchester, where he lived, and Michigan. The John B. Swainson award is given by the historical commission annually for outstanding service to the state's history.

He died of a heart attack in Manchester in 1994.



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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