Wealth & Money Quote by Jim Garrison

Calling an allegation "naive" is a neat rhetorical feint: it shrinks a moral charge into an intelligence test. Jim Garrison isn’t just denying wrongdoing; he’s recasting the accuser as unsophisticated, someone whose Hollywood version of corruption involves "bags of money" and cartoonish strong-arming. The phrase "apart from being ethically objectionable" nods toward principle, but it’s secondary. The real work happens in the imagery. By mocking the logistics of bribery, he invites the audience to laugh at the premise instead of scrutinizing the power dynamics that make coercion possible without cash-filled luggage.

The subtext is institutional self-protection. "Our investigators" and "we" establish a collective identity meant to borrow credibility from the office itself, not from evidence. "We just don't operate that way" is carefully non-specific: it denies a method, not necessarily an outcome. In political language, that’s a classic dodge. If influence was exerted through pressure, favors, reputation, or selective prosecution, the statement can remain technically intact while the ethical question stays unresolved.

Context matters because Garrison’s public persona sits at the intersection of law, spectacle, and conspiracy-era distrust. When confidence in institutions wobbles, officials lean on tone and plausibility arguments to restore order. Garrison’s intent is to reassert procedural legitimacy by ridiculing the accusation’s theater, betting that the public will choose the familiar authority of "how we operate" over the messy possibility that misconduct rarely looks like a bribe in a briefcase.