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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 382 Filed 10/29/21 Page 49 of 69 particular “investigative technique” to prepare its case. See United States v. Saldarriaga, 204 F.3d 50, 52-53 (2d Cir. 2000); United States v. Ngono, 801 F. App’x 19, 24 (2d Cir. 2020) (summary order); United States v. Londono, 175 F. App’x 370, 375 (2d Cir. 2006) (summary order); United States v. Duncan, No. 18 Cr. 289 (SHS), 2019 WL 2210663, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. May 22, 2019). We do not intend to violate that rule. Nevertheless, conducting a shoddy investigation is not an “investigative technique.” As previously discussed, the defense is entitled to elicit evidence and argument challenging the “thoroughness and even the good faith of the [government’s] investigation.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 445; see also id. at 446 (citing Bowen, 799 F.2d at 613 (“A common trial tactic of defense lawyers is to discredit the caliber of the investigation or the decision to charge the defendant[.]”) and Lindsey, 769 F.2d at 1042 (exculpatory evidence “carried within it the potential ... for the ... discrediting ... of the police methods employed in assembling the case”). As the people with the most knowledge of the scope and progress of the investigations, the case agents are the most appropriate witnesses for the defense to call to explore these topics. And because the government has assiduously avoided calling them in its case-in-chief, the defense must call them in its own case. It is meritless for the government, at this stage of the case, to try to preclude entire topics or areas of questioning, or to preclude the defense from calling the case agents at all. The Court should not permit this. If particular questions to the case agents are objectionable, those objections can be addressed at trial. E. A Proffer Regarding the Basis for the Case Agents’ Testimony is Unnecessary and Unwarranted The government asserts that the defense should be precluded from calling the case agents as witnesses unless and until it provides a proffer identifying a “proper basis for their testimony.” Gov’t Mot. at 32-33. The defense already did so in its Jouhy letter and the government has cited 41 DOJ-OGR-00005504