Editor's note: Read Claudia's trial wrap-up here .

It just doesn't stop. Today, yet another witness testified about yet more cash. This time it was $100,000, not in an envelope, not in a bag, not in a sack, and definitely not in anyone's underwear — but this time in a "small, medium-sized suitcase."

This new witness was businessman Jack Sabanosh, a former employee of Phoenix International, the company owned by cooperating government witness and self-described former agent of Saddam Hussein, Samir Vincent. Sabanosh has not been accused of anything. He was called by the prosecution to testify about various episodes he had witnessed while working from 1996-1998 for Vincent at the McLean, Virginia office of Phoenix. Among other things, Sabanosh described how he and Vincent decided in January, 1997 to invest in an internet-based trading company. Sabanosh said that he found the company, and Vincent came up with the money — $100,000 packed in a suitcase.

Prosecutor Michael Farbiarz: "What if anything did Mr. Vincent tell you about how and when he got that cash?"

Sabanosh: "Nothing."

Not to forget that in the current North Korean missile crisis, the Tongsun Park case has played at least a modest part. Recall that from 2003 until July, 2005, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan employed as his personal envoy to the Korean peninsula a Canadian businessman, Maurice Strong.

Strong, by his own admission (see post below) had for years maintained a relationship with Park, and stated last year that among other things, Tongsun Park “has advised me on North Korean issues in my role as U.N. envoy.”

Strong, who enjoyed the rank of U.N. Under-Secretary-General, stepped aside from his U.N. post last year when he was identified as the mysterious “high-ranking U.N. official #2” mentioned—though not accused of any wrongdoing — in a federal indictment last April that named, among others, Tongsun Park. It then emerged in the Sept. 7, 2005 Volcker report on Oil-for-Food that Strong, while serving in an earlier incarnation as the chief architect of Annan’s 1997 U.N. reforms, had accepted a bank check for $988,885, made out to him as “Mr. M Strong,” given to him by Tongsun Park, and allegedly bankrolled by Saddam Hussein.

Strong when confronted with this said first that he did not remember the check, then remembered it but said he did not know the source of the funds, then explained that Park had merely wished to invest a million bucks or so in a Strong family company, which, as it happened, soon after went bankrupt.

Strong has denied any wrongdoing. Park has pleaded “not guilty” to the federal charge of acting as an agent of Saddam. But assuming that all are innocent, there’s still a case to be made that the rest of us are all better off. With that kind of memory, insight and judgment, maybe it’s just as well Maurice Strong is not right now Kofi Annan’s official inside man for the Korean peninsula.

How much cash can you stuff in a 10” X 13” manila envelope? Jurors got a graphic display today, when defense lawyer Michael Kim stacked bricks of banknotes on the edge of the witness stand, handed cooperating government witness Samir Vincent an envelope, and invited him to start stuffing.

Kim has begun his cross-examination of self-confessed former Iraqi agent Vincent, alleging that Vincent has been telling “half-truths” and fabricating stories of passing cash to Tongsun Park during 1996, a crucial year in which the U.N. and Iraq dickered their way toward getting Oil-for-Food up and running. Today, Kim homed in on two episodes described by Vincent under direct questioning: one occasion on which, Vincent testified, he picked up from Iraq’s U.N. ambassador in N.Y. an envelope filled with $500,000 in cash, which he said he then repacked and gave to Park in a grocery bag; and another occasion on which, Vincent testified, he met Park in a Manhattan coffee shop and gave him $100,000, plus an Iraqi contract for millions more to come once Oil-for-Food began, all in a large white envelope. Asked by Kim about the size of the envelope, Vincent gestured to show dimensions of very roughly 10” X 14”.

Suggesting Vincent’s version never could have happened that way because the cash simply wouldn’t fit, Kim brought a big cardboard file box over to the witness stand, opened it and handed Vincent a 10” X 13” manila envelope, to approximate the dimensions Vincent had described. Then, using $1 bills in place of the $100s that were apparently standard in Iraqi backdoor deals, Kim began unpacking from the box, one after another, neatly wrapped bundles of 100 banknotes apiece, 50 cash bricks in all, the same approximate volume as half a million bucks in $100 bills — stacking them in a small wall in front of Vincent on the edge of the witness stand.

“It was a much bigger envelope than this,” said Vincent, apparently alluding to the $500,000, and surveying the envelope and the stacks of money next to him. “It was $100,000” — the lesser sum — “enclosed in a envelope like this,” — holding up the one Kim had given him.

“Please put the money in the envelope and close it,” Kim told Vincent.

There followed a moment with eerie echoes of the O. J. glove scene, in which Vincent struggled to pack into the envelope the volume-equivalent of $100,000, finally saying, “I can’t close it.”

In the interest of fairness, Kim then offered a slightly larger envelope, 10” X 15”, with the same challenge. That turned out to be big enough. Vincent neatly packed it with the volume equivalent of $100,000 in banknotes, and closed it.

Undaunted, Kim turned to the pile of cash still stacked on the witness stand, and challenged Vincent: “Sir, isn’t it true that you’ve never even seen $4-or-$500,000 in cash before?”

Vincent protested that indeed he had, citing $450,000 he said he had received on one occasion in Baghdad.

In that surreal vein, with Vincent sitting next to piles of banknotes and protesting he was indeed acquainted with large stacks of cash, Kim continued his questioning. Finally Judge Chin finally jumped in, asking the defense, ”Are you done with the cash?... Why don’t you have one of your colleagues box it up.”

So, we now know that you can cram $100,000 into a 10”X15” envelope, but if it’s $500,000 we’re talking about, you need either a much, much bigger envelope or a grocery bag. And we are hearing all this thanks to what was supposed to be a United Nations relief program to bring food and medicine to the people of U.N.-sanctioned Iraq.

In response to questions raised concerning my relationship with Mr. Tongsun Park and allegations to his role in respect of the United Nation’s Iraqi oil-for-food program I want to make clear that:

 

-         Having served UN Secretaries-General since 1970 in several advisory and executive capacities I have had no involvement or connection whatsoever with the UN’s Iraqi oil-for-food program or any other of its Iraqi activities.  Indeed I cannot recall a single instance in which I had any contact or discussion on the program with any of the officials responsible.

 

-         In 1997, Mr. Park invested on a normal commercial basis in an energy company with which I was associated that had no relationship with Iraq.

 

-         I have continued to maintain a relationship with Mr. Park.  Indeed, as a native of North Korea he has advised me on North Korean issues in my role as UN Envoy.

 

-         I will make myself available to both the Volcker Commission and the US Attorney’s Office to provide any further information which would assist in the expeditious resolution of this matter so as to have this cloud removed as soon as possible.