Apple Lawyers say Steve Jobs’ Remarks Taken Out of Context by DoJ

Both the U.S. Justice Department and Apple lawyers presented their case yesterday in a “bizarre” antitrust case against the Cupertino, California company. The DOJ lawyers have pointed to a Steve Jobs’ e-mails sent to publishers and they claim he was “the chief ringmaster” in the e-book price fixing.

Apple’s lawyer on the other hand questioned the fairness of the government’s use of Jobs’ remarks (via AllThingsD). They are saying the government has taken the former Apple co-founder’s words out of context.

“There’s something inherently unfair and uncomfortable about placing such reliance on the out-of-court statements of someone who’s not here to explain them or place them into context — particularly when in almost every instance the government either omits key language to draw an inference, or blatantly mischaracterizes what the statements mean,” said Snyder.

Apple attorney Orin Snyder pointed out that the DOJ is unfairly twisting Steve Jobs’ words, because Jobs never was so foolish as to make a damaging comment publicly.

What is interesting is that the DOJ highlights Steve Jobs’ words as direct and unambiguous evidence and as admission of a conspiracy.

“To believe that [Jobs’s] statements are direct, unambiguous evidence, admissions of a conspiracy, you have to credit the notion that he, in full public view and to his authorized biographer [whose book] he knew would be read by millions of people, made statements that can be interpreted in no other way than as unambiguous admissions of the price-fixing conspiracy charged in this case,” pointed out Snyder.

Now, can you imagine Steve Jobs — CEO at the time — publicly sharing Apple’s interest in an e-book price fixing scheme? It sounds a bit out of range.