A short week off to slow start

We got off to a bit of a late start today, and the first thing on the agenda was the fallout from Thursday. Each side presented its take on Edelson's line of questioning on the NPB appointment during his cross examination of Kilrea. The Judge ruled that Edelson's questions were appropriate and that there was nothing "reckless" about them. The Judge also ruled he couldn't find any evidence in Baird's statements that he told Kilrea he wasn't qualified for the NPB appointment, nor could he find evidence that he mentioned the Accountability Act to Kilrea.

Interestingly, during the review of Baird's statements to police, it seems in the first interview he says the NPB did come up, but in the second interview says it didn't.

Most of the afternoon was devoted to Edelson's analysis of Kilrea's campaign expenses.

Nearing the end of the day Edelson got to Kilrea's affidavit. Edelson went over five drafts of the affidavit leading up to the version that was sworn. There were changes in dates throughout the versions and in the first version there was no mention of Kilrea's meeting with Pantazopolous - that was added in the second version. The focus was also on the date of the first meeting between Kilrea and O'Brien. Edelson told the court that up until March 4 of this year, Kilrea had said the meeting took place on July 5; in his testimony Kilrea says the date is July 12. Kilrea maintained "I always said I could be out by a week."

Edelson tells Kilrea the story wasn't that complicated because it only consisted of a few meetings, emails and phone calls. He said Kilrea could've been more accurate, "This is Mr. Integrity... this is Mr. Affidavit. This is Terry Kilrea, Mr. Accuracy."

Edelson suggests Kilrea was worried about O'Brien contemplating entering the race despite telling the media it was good for democracy... "He [O'Brien] was gonna suck all the air our of your room."

A note... former staffer to O'Brien, Lindsay Valente makes an appearance in the courtroom for the better part of the day.

Also, the Judge decided that tomorrow proceedings will begin a half hour earlier.