“The evidence is mounting that the Justice Department sabotaged its own case for political reasons,” they added.

Waxman and Meehan, who are both prominent House Democrats, also allege a conflict of interest in McCallum’s involvement in the case. They note that McCallum, who is a political appointee, is a former partner of Alston and Bird, an Atlanta-based law firm that has represented R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, one of the defendants in the case.

McCallum, the congressmen write, is believed to be responsible for the government’s decision to cut its demand for penalties against the tobacco industry in a related case from $130 billion to $10 billion, a move that infuriated antismoking activists and members of Congress.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine ’79 wrote in a June 13 statement responding to an earlier letter from Waxman and Meehan that the Office of Professional Responsibility “intends to initiate an investigation” into the claims of political interference in the case. The two congressmen want an inquiry into Bazerman’s statements to be added to that investigation.

In the ongoing case, the government must prove both that there was a conspiracy on the part of the tobacco companies to commit fraud and that such misconduct will continue if the government does not intervene, Bazerman explained.

In early March, the Justice Department asked Bazerman, who is reputed to be an expert on decision making and negotiations, to testify in the case. His testimony was intended to show that there is a conflict of interest between profitability and misconduct in this instance and that tobacco executives are inclined to act in self-serving ways.

In his written testimony, which the Justice Department approved in late March, Bazerman recommended that the court consider several major structural changes in the tobacco industry, including eliminating economic incentives for companies to sell cigarettes to young people, modifying compensation policies for tobacco executives to encourage compliance with the law, removing senior executives, requiring that all research for those companies be contracted out to independent companies monitored by the court, and forcing the companies to sell all their research concerning the manufacturing and marketing of safer cigarettes.

—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.