30, 1986, the Trial Committee presented its report to the Senate. Claiborne's defense Former Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev., who had helped convince President Carter to appoint Claiborne in 1978 and who was advising Goodman during the impeachment action, said on July 24, 1986, that Claiborne wanted to use the Senate trial to publicize the misconduct charges. "His objective is to try this matter of prosecutorial and government misconduct. He wants the opportunity to present that full-blown someplace. The only place, obviously, is before the Senate." Claiborne told the senate panel he had been "chased" from the bench by ambitious federal agents and that he had been wrongly convicted for willfully filing false income tax returns. "They have been pursuing me like a pack of wolves would pursue a sick caribou. I know what they have done to my family. I know what they have done to my life. I am innocent. I don't feel innocent merely. I am innocent." Although he acknowledged his 1979 and 1980 tax returns under-reported income, he blamed his tax preparers for the "brutal errors" and said he was only guilty of "neglecting my personal affairs terribly." During the proceedings, senators frequently asked Claiborne how his taxes were prepared and how much he knew about tax law, noting that he ruled as a judge in tax cases. Sen. Warner and Nicholas Chabraja, special House counsel for the Claiborne trial, read many of Claiborne's opinions involving tax cases and indicated skepticism of Claiborne's claims that he did not know much about tax law. But Claiborne noted when he was in private practice, he never handled tax cases and never filled out his own returns. He also countered that although some of the cases he presided over as a judge may have had tax issues, they generally rested on other legal principles. Claiborne's 1979 tax return prepared by his accountant Joseph Wright indicated that his legal fee income for the year was $41,073.93, but the tax return only reported income of $22,332.87 from legal fees. Claiborne insisted that on April 11, 1980, he directed his secretary, Judy Ahlstrom, to send a letter to Wright correcting his fee income. Ahlstrom confirmed that she dropped the letter off at Wright's office. However, Wright and his wife, Connie, who helped manage the office, testified they never got the letter. Claiborne alleged he remembered seeing it on Wright's desk. To bolster the