Like most allegedly corrupt individuals whom have had the unfortunate luck in having their conversations recorded, disgraced eastern Kentucky asphalt magnate Leonard Lawson is doing whatever he can to save as much of his ass as can be saved; from the C-J:

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Defense attorneys for road contractor Leonard Lawson argued during a closed hearing last month to exclude — or at least limit — Lawson’s secretly recorded statements at his bribery and conspiracy trial that begins June 23.

If the recordings are played for a jury, his lawyers asked that statements be deleted in which Lawson says he has been investigated “a million times,” made a mistake when he accepted immunity from prosecution in 1980 and had given money to two past Transportation Cabinet officials.

The tapes consist of a half-dozen conversations Lawson had with former Transportation Cabinet engineer Jim Rummage, whom was working with investigators for the majority of those conversations. They also seem to portray — as prosecuting Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Taylor argues  — a man (Lawson) who is operating on the falsehoods given to him by the bait-giver (Rummage) and whose comments on those falsehoods are as admissible and regretful as those given by sexual predators IM’ing an undercover police officer.

Again, from the C-J:

Taylor said: “Right now, somewhere in this country a 25-year-old female police detective is on the phone saying, ‘I am a 13-year-old. My parents are out of town. Why don’t you come on over, bring me some toys and some booze and we’ll have a party.’ “

Right.

Lawson’s attorneys seem to be waffling on a lot — claiming he was both truthful and full of lies — yet if the tapes are dismissed it will most likely be a result of Lawson’s paranoid gibberish, which presiding Magistrate Judge James B. Todd politely described in a closed-door hearing with both sides as “pretty crafty.” In other words, the tapes could most likely be so full of confusing, Machevellian bullshit that no jury could sift fact from fiction.

Assuming, of course, the lies don’t have any truth in them — the two former cabinet officials the tapes allege he gave money to deny ever recieving the money — then who knows how far and how deep this pothole will go…?