The insider trading trial of Galleon boss Raj Rajaratnam is finally hitting its stride, with Ashby Jones at the  WSJ Law Blog chronicling every burp and yawn.  Coverage has been “colorful.”

Akin Gump’s John Dowd can be an aggressive lawyer. In fact, the WSJ described his tactics in his current defense of Raj Rajaratnam as “combative” just a little over a week ago.

After the government completed its direct of cooperator Anil Kumar, the former McKinsey & Co. director who claims he fed Raj inside information in exchange for hundreds of thousand of dollars, it was time for cross.  Finally, a chance to see Dowd use his CDL-fu.

Dowd Tuesday focused on the payments Kumar was alleged to have received in exchange for the information he paid to Rajaratnam. Dowd first highlighted his failure to report them on his tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service.

“In fact they were fraudulent,” Dowd said during one of several exchanges.

“Is that a question?” countered Kumar, who testified that he had turned over his income from Rajaratnam to the government and recently paid an additional $1 million to cover his potential tax liability.

A feisty witness, which is a critical lesson to a cross-examiner, who now knows that the witness is going to spar with him from the stand.  This adds a weapon to the cross-examiner’s arsenal, the ability to use the witness’ resistance to admit the obvious, to agree with what he’s already conceded, to show how he’s not there to tell the truth, or to vindicate his past criminal conduct, but to fight for his team.

With this knowledge in hand, Dowd goes in for the kill.

Dowd later asked what promises  Kumar had received in exchange for his cooperation to avoid prosecution on additional crimes and potentially receive a lighter sentence. Earlier, in his opening statement, Dowd had said government witnesses were testifying to “save their own skins.”

“It’s important to testify in this court to make [Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan] Streeter happy, correct?” Dowd said, referring to the lead prosecutor, Jonathan Streeter.

“Wrong,” Mr. Kumar responded. He said he was testifying to “uphold the law” and let the jury decide whether Rajaratnam should be convicted.

“Don’t you agree that the government’s objective is to convict Mr. Rajaratnam?” Dowd continued.

“Wrong,” Kumar said.

Wrong.  Wrong?  Of course, this isn’t a complete, or necessarily accurate, transcript of the cross-examination, but it appears to be highlights. 

Given that Raj has put his billions to use retaining Akin Gump’s Dowd, with a dozen additional minions to sit around the courtroom with their blackberrys aflutter, it’s a little surprising that the battle was joined with such a pedestrian cross, more along the lines of Cross of the Snitch 101 than a master class.

When you get an answer like Kumar’s “uphold the law” crap, that’s the time to go to town.  Smurf every crime Kumar committed, and conceded on direct, and end each question, “Did you do that to ‘uphold the law’?”  When you’re done, point out the intervening events that gave rise to his epiphany that he is now deeply concerned about upholding the law whereas before, he was deeply concerned that the cash was green. 

What are those intervening events?  Oh yes, you got caught.  Then you were prosecuted.  Then you decided to flip sides and cooperate.  Then you decided to leave your fate, your  sentence, in the hands of the prosecutor who would assess the value of your cooperation.  Then you came here to testify against Raj.  And now, your deepest concern is for “upholding the law.” 

“And you don’t care at all whether your testimony in this case means that you spend no time in prison or 30 years in prison, do you?”

“Now it’s all about upholding the law, and you would be happy to go to prison for the rest of your natural life, if it means upholding the law, right?”

“And you came to this realization, that your deepest, most sincere concern is for upholding the law, only after you were caught, prosecuted?”

“And that, you say, is the reason you are now cooperating with the prosecution, because your real interest is in upholding the law?”

“And you aren’t interest in saving yourself from a life in prison?”

No doubt the transcript of Kumar’s cross will reveal that Dowd ripped him a new one after Kumar tried to mess with him.  After all, the rat’s testimony that he’s doing it to “uphold the law” is as ripe a response as it gets, and opens the door to all sort of great mischief.  And you certainly can’t rely on Ashby to put all the really good stuff in a post, so the chance of Dowd’s having neglected to hammer Kumar on cross as would appear from the post is slim.

But just in case, maybe some criminal defense lawyers can offer him a bit of help in crossing the snitch who is testifying because he wants to “uphold the law.” As a courtesy to our Akin Gump brother, feel free to offer your version of cross in the comments.  Would that be wrong?