5.Matthew Levitt — Direct (Part 1)
146 linesMATTHEW LEVITT, Ph.D., duly sworn
COURT CLERK: State your name and then spell your last name for the record, keep your voice up and speak into the mic so everyone can hear you.
MATTHEW LEVITT: Dr. Matthew Levitt, M-A-T-T-H-E-W L-E V as in "Victor" I-T-T.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Good afternoon.
MATTHEW LEVITT: Good afternoon. Is this okay?
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Yes, please. The microphone both amplifies as well as carries your voice into some other rooms. Thank you for your patience. Where are you currently employed?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I'm employed at a think tank called The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And what do you do there?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I direct a program on counterterrorism and intelligence, and I'm a senior fellow there.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: How long have you been there?
MATTHEW LEVITT: On and off for several years. I've been there now since 2007. My first time there was 1998.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And are you here to talk to the jury about geopolitics and terrorism?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I am.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: What did you do before the Washington Institute?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Before The Washington Institute, I served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis of the U.S. Department of Treasury.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: What does The Washington Institute do?
MATTHEW LEVITT: The Washington Institute is a non-partisan educational think tank, an institute, focused on U.S. policy towards the Middle East.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you have a particular area of specialty?
MATTHEW LEVITT: My area of specialty is counterterrorism and intelligence.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And what did you do at the Department of Treasury?
MATTHEW LEVITT: At the Department of Treasury, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, I was the Deputy Chief of the Treasury Department's intelligence branch. So it was a kind of dual-hatted position. I was a member of the Senior Executive Service within the Department of the Treasury and I was also the deputy chief of one of the U.S. government's intelligence agencies under the kind of rubric of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So that's an arm of the intelligence community?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Yes.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And before you were deputy assistant secretary, what did you do?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Before that I was again with The Washington Institute where I was a senior fellow in the terrorism program, directing the terrorism program. And I was there for, at that time about four years, until I went to the Treasury Department in 2005, I think.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So what did you do before that four-year stint at The Washington Institute?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Before that I was a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation at headquarters in Washington, D.C., in the International Terrorism Analysis Unit focused on Middle East terrorist organizations' activities here in the United States.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Now, in addition to your work experience in this field, have you had any education particularized with this field?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Describe it, please?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I hold a Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts here in Medford, and a master's of law and diplomacy also from the Fletcher School. My concentrations there were international security studies, the Middle East and international conflict resolution, and the Ph.D. was on the impact of terrorism on negotiations. And before that I earned a bachelor's, a BA in political science at Yeshiva University in New York City.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Are you from this area originally?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I am.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Your doctoral thesis, was it ultimately published in a book?
MATTHEW LEVITT: It was.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And what was the topic again?
MATTHEW LEVITT: "Negotiating Under Fire - Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks."
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So can you describe a little bit about how you crafted that thesis?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Well, I spent a good chunk of time on the ground in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It was a series of case studies of terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists and Jewish extremists both, and how those attacks undermined the then nascent, the beginning of the Oslo peace process.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So is that when you first started going about a particular method in order to gather information about terrorism?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Yes. That was the first time I did excessive field research. And that kind of primary field research is only one part, but arguably the most important part of the kind of research I do.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: When you went on to the FBI, the Treasury Department and The Washington Institute, how did you continue to do your work in the area of terrorism and geopolitics?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Well, it's different in each of those circumstances. You can separate into the government service and the think tank academic service when I was at the think tank or teaching at the university. In government I did do some travel and I did meet with others but it wasn't what I would call primary field research, it was liaison, working with others, working on similar issues. There is the element of exchanging ideas and vetting ideas and information that is similar to primary field research, but that wasn't really for research; that was for case work. Also in government you have ongoing education. And so I took a long list of courses, some provided by the FBI, some provided by other parts of the U.S. intelligence community on counterterrorism, counterterrorism analysis and the like, which were required in part for my advancement -- professional advancement within government service, up the government GS scale.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Well, when you were deputy secretary it was no longer on the GS scale. Is that fair to say?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Correct. By the time I was hired at the Treasury Department that was above the GS scale and I was in the senior executive service.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: In addition to your thesis which was later published, have you written other books?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Can you describe what they are?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I've written a book on Hamas which was published by Yale University Press in 2006, and more recently I wrote a book on Hezbollah published by Georgetown University Press here in the United States and by Hurst Publishers in Europe, and now about to be published by a third publisher in Spanish in Argentina; and beyond those outside publications, a variety of monographs published by The Washington Institute and others, peer-reviewed journal articles, popular journal articles things like foreign policy, foreign affairs, op-eds, policy briefs, et cetera.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Is it fair to say you write a lot, is the axiom of publish or perish? Is that true in your field as well?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I wouldn't say publish or perish, which is a term in academia, but part of my job is to publish. And it's not that I have to publish a certain amount of material or in a certain number of places, but if you work in a think tank like the one that I work in, you do it because you enjoy publishing and you enjoy researching and sharing what you learn, and so I do publish a lot.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: You mentioned that some of your articles appeared in peer-reviewed publications. Can you explain what that means?
MATTHEW LEVITT: "Peer review" is an academic term in which an author writes something and then it is reviewed by peers, other experts in the field who are unknown to the author, and they will be sought out by the publication or the publisher to make sure that the work meets academic standards. And so the university press books that I published by Yale and Georgetown were certainly peer-reviewed, many of my articles are peer-reviewed in that peer academic sense. And then almost everything I write has some peer review for it but not all of it has that kind of formal, anonymous peer review that many journals and academic presses do.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And have you also conducted peer review of others' articles?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Yes, frequently. I'm often asked by university presses or journals to do peer review -- anonymous peer review of the work of others.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you teach?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I don't right now but I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Where have you taught?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I taught at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; and also at the Zanvyl Krieger School of -- graduate school; and I taught for several years as an adjunct professor a variety of courses on counterterrorism.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you engage in speaking engagements on your topic?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I do.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And how frequently?
MATTHEW LEVITT: If you ask my wife, too frequently. Almost every week there's several lectures.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: In fact, are you scheduled to go to one tomorrow or -- go to one today for tomorrow?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I am.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Where is that?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Berlin.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: How often do you do international lectures?
MATTHEW LEVITT: It varies but it can be frequently, so last week I gave several lectures in Europe, this week I'm scheduled to give several more in Europe. It can be abroad, it can be domestic. Living in Washington, which is the heart of policymaking, many of my lectures are domestic and don't require travel at all.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Have you testified before Congress?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: About what?
MATTHEW LEVITT: International terrorism, illicit finance issues, sanctions issues. Most of the testimony has been about various aspects of international terrorism.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Have you testified in other cases in court?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Sorry. I'm getting over a cold. I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: How often?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I've done it probably a few dozen times. Two or three dozen times total.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Were you qualified as what we call an expert witness in those areas?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Every time.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Has your work been cited by other courts?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I'm sorry. Can you --
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Has your work been cited by other courts?
MATTHEW LEVITT: It has.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Can you name some?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Some of my work was cited by the Supreme Court in the Humanitarian Law Project, a case which upheld the material support statute. That's the most prominent that comes to mind.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Have you received awards and recognitions for your work in this field of terrorism geopolitics?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Can you give a very brief overview?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I received numerous awards and commendations for my work in government at the FBI, and things like the Exceptional Service Award for my work at the Treasury Department. I've received Speaker Specialist Awards by the State Department, selected to be sent by the State Department to give lectures abroad on behalf of the local U.S. embassy; selected by CNN as an up and coming thinker. There are a host of others.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you continue to consult with government agencies?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I do.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And how about non-governmental agencies, or NGO's as we call them?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Yes.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And do you consult with media outlets?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Frequently.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: When you work on a criminal case, what do you do in those cases?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I review the material that is provided, so the case material, and I might put that in context, either historical context or context of issues that come up in the context of that case. Every case is different. Some cases require me to review a tremendous amount of material specific to that case, some very little.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And have you worked as an expert witness in cases in other countries as well?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: What other countries?
MATTHEW LEVITT: France, Scotland, twice in Denmark, and Canada.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And for your role in this case, were you asked to write an expert report?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I was.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Okay. Can you describe what that is?
MATTHEW LEVITT: An expert report is the report of the hired expert witness, in this case me, laying out the findings on the issues that the -- in this case prosecution, although it would be the same if I was called by defense, ask the expert to opine on. That can be history as context, it can be terrorist trends as context. And then it can also, of course, be analysis of some of the material that was provided to me specific to the material in this case.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And have you testified in both civil cases as well as criminal cases like this one?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I have.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And did you do a report in this case?
MATTHEW LEVITT: I did.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And what was the purpose of writing a report versus just testifying?
MATTHEW LEVITT: It's for me to be able to kind of make sense of all the material that's being provided to me and for me to be able to provide context for the case for the lawyers who have hired me, in this case the prosecution.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Describe the methodology you use when you analyze evidence for purposes of testimony to a jury.
MATTHEW LEVITT: I have to take the evidence at face value. I'm in no position to be able to vet it, but I'm in a position to be able to comment on it, put it into context -- the larger context of other material like it that I've come across in my own research, again, historical context, the context of different themes, different trends, different modus operandi. Is this something that is unique? Is this something that is common? Does this make sense? Does it not make sense? Does it have historical precedent? Who are key individuals who might have come up in reference, key ideas that might have come up, terms to help explain those for a jury that maybe doesn't spend all of its time focused on these issues.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And did you examine some of the evidence -- did the government provide you with some of the evidence in this case to ask you to do just that?
MATTHEW LEVITT: Yes.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Your Honor, at this point I would ask that the Mr. --
THE COURT: Let me just see you at the side for a minute.
(Discussion at sidebar and out of the hearing of the jury:)
THE COURT: I don't know whether you need to renew it to preserve it but I'll give you an opportunity to renew your objection.
MR. BRUCK: Oh, thank you. I would just like to renew the objection as made in a motion in limine that the Court denied today, and that particularly goes to the background of the various authors and figures, jihadi or radical Islamic figures who are referenced in Dr. Levitt's report and I gather are about to be referenced in his testimony. And the -- and we have a continuing -- wish to have a continuing objection to the biographies of those figures and to the people that influenced -- there's a whole back story of each of these individuals on the grounds that there has been and will be no showing that the defendant was aware of any of them, and even if he was, we think under 403, extraordinary prejudicial effect of essentially putting in the history of Islamic terrorism in the 21st century and burdening this defendant with everything that has gone on since 9/11 and before and after is far -- the prejudicial effects far outweighs its probative value. We also think that it injects an arbitrary factor in violation of the Eighth Amendment in a capital case, and for the rest of it I would like to rest on our papers.
THE COURT: Okay. As I've indicated, I think the testimony is admissible. I do think 403 is an important consideration, and I trust the government won't step too far on this, but it is relevant.
Let me also say for -- a different reason for calling you over here, I've never been attracted by the idea of declaring an expert to be an expert because it has always been my view that it depends on what he gets asked. So I've done it already on a couple of other experts because I just didn't want to offer the resistance, but this guy may be different so I will not give him blanket qualification. But I suspect within the scope of things in his report, he is qualified to testify as an expert.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Thank you.
MR. WEINREB: Your Honor, if I may clarify something, I understand the Court's ruling is a denial of the defense motion in limine that as a categorical matter everything should be excluded on either 401 or 403 grounds, but I don't understand the meaning of a continuing objection of relevance on 403 grounds. I don't think that we should assume that every single question has to be objected to --
THE COURT: No, I agree with that. I guess when I was talking about a continuing, I was thinking of his qualifications to testify under Rule 702. That was the context of that. Other matters I think are more appropriate.
MR. BRUCK: So I will have to object each time he goes into these back story details about -- I mean, we gave --
THE COURT: No, I don't -- I mean, to the extent he wants to talk about a particular source of jihadi encouragement, I don't think you have to object to each question.
MR. WEINREB: Yeah, I guess the motion in limine addresses categories of evidence. And the Court has denied it and at the same time cautioned the government to be prudent in its questioning. But the parties and the Court could all be of different minds about what crosses the line into irrelevance of 403, and without an objection we're not going to have a ruling and the defense will be in a position to say that there's no plain error review here because it has a standing objection to every single question being asked on relevance of 403 grounds. That's just not appropriate.
The defense may wish that it didn't have to get up and object to things, but that's the way trials work so the Court can focus on a particular question. And whether it, in fact, asks for irrelevant or unduly prejudicial evidence, there's no way to make that ruling one way or the other with respect to an entire line of questions.
THE COURT: Well, I think there are some categorical qualities to what I meant by the ruling, which is he can testify about the history of recent terrorist activity, particularly the encouragement of jihadi actions by particular prominent figures. I don't think every time a question gets asked about al-Awlaki, that he has to stand up and object to that.
MR. WEINREB: Well, I understand. So I understand there's a continuing objection to certain categories of evidence, but if it is the view of the defense that the government has gone beyond what the Court has permitted, then I think it needs to get up and object so the Court can decide if it's on this side of the line or the far side of the line, especially since many questions may be in a blurry area.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. BRUCK: Well, it's going to become unwieldy. And I don't know what the government intends to do, but his report -- Dr. Levitt's report goes into areas like -- there's al-Maqdisi. He's a Jordanian jihadi figure -- was the mentor to al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. And of course people will recall the American war to try to -- and they were eventually successful in killing al-Zarqawi.
Now, you know, to our way of thinking, that way crosses the line. It's -- that's the back story. Now, do I -- you know, I feel like we should have a continuing objection to things like that.
THE COURT: It's that kind of evidence. But I think -- I guess understanding that I will permit it to some degree, I guess the 403 objection has to be that you think it's gone beyond the degree to which I will permit it. I don't know how else to say it.
MR. BRUCK: I would just object. I would like the record to reflect, if it may, when I make a 403 objection, I intend that to include an Eighth Amendment constitutional and due process constitutional objection, this being a death penalty case especially. I mean, I could recite the entire legal litany each time I get to my feet but I would rather just have that be a shorthand for Fifth and Eighth Amendment and 403 when I say "403," if that satisfies the Court.
MR. WEINREB: That I think isn't problematic as long as we have the objections and the rulings in real time so the government can perhaps rephrase a question, ask a different question --
THE COURT: Yeah.
MR. WEINREB: -- or knows that it's now going into an area that the Court thinks has crossed the line; otherwise, we have no idea. We could create an error without even knowing it.
MR. BRUCK: One last thing. I trust your witness is on a short leash about this and will not simply give -- in response to a simple question about al-Maqdisi, will give the entire back story without another question, because then it's extremely hard to know where you're going.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: We've been very sensitive to Mr. Bruck's concerns from the motion in limine. I don't anticipate there will be many back stories at all. Those back stories that will be testified about are going to be relevant to people like Awlaki, like Maqdisi, other people who are the authors of the documents on his computer that further suggest were both either accessed or otherwise relevant to his actions that he later cited. There's going to be a lot of reading from those documents and not a lot of -- you know, maybe a sentence or two into background about those people.
MR. MELLIN: Your Honor, while we're here, may I suggest that when we take the break for lunch, that everyone be given a little bit of leeway to talk to this expert, if we get a sense of -- 10 or 15 minutes, kind of where he -- how he's handling the situation and how best to avoid these concerns?
THE COURT: Do you have a problem with that?
MR. BRUCK: Do you have a problem with my being present for that?
MR. MELLIN: No.
MR. BRUCK: All right. Then let's do that.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Not for the admonishment, no.
THE COURT: I'm not sure that I understood what the answer was. But, yes, to encourage him to stay focused on the question and answer the question in a direct way, not expand.