BY EUN-KYUNG KIM
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The judge in the Microsoft antitrust trial - in a contentious, private meeting with lawyers Thursday - criticized Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates as being evasive during his sworn depositions last summer with government lawyers.
The meeting in the judge's chambers came after Microsoft's lawyer complained about the government playing many short videotaped excerpts - rather than a single, long excerpt - from the 20 hours that lawyers questioned Mr. Gates.
The videotape shows Mr. Gates frequently saying he can't remember key events.
Microsoft's lawyer, John Warden, told U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that the government was using the video "for the purpose of an audience outside the courtroom and for the purpose of creating news stories day after day."
"If anything, I think the problem is with your witness, not with the way in which his testimony is being presented," Judge Jackson told Mr. Warden.
"I think it's evident to every spectator that, for whatever reasons, in many respects, Mr. Gates has not been particularly responsive to his deposition interrogation," the judge said. Tempering his criticism, the judge then promised he is "making no judgment" about Mr. Gates on the video.
Justice Department lawyer David Boies defended the government's presentation of the excerpts, saying: "We have, I think, an absolute right to play Mr. Gates' deposition."
Latest update on Microsoft trial from Associated Press
