The Obama administration and its car-czar group appear to be intent on teaching someone who got in their way a brutal lesson.

If there's another way to interpret what is going on involving the "Old Chrysler," the company's first-lien secured lenders, and the US Treasury, I want to know what it is.

Even if they ultimately lose their last-minute court battle, the Indiana pension funds defending their rights as secured first-lien creditors of Chrysler have done a valuable deed.

We have learned, among many other things, how at least one government lawyer characterized the funds' lawyer, Thomas Lauria.

A $10,000 Democratic Party donor, Lauria, despite clear evidence of intimidation of his originally larger pool of clients by Barack Obama himself (in his April 30 speech announcing the company's bankruptcy filing) and his car guys, has nonetheless bravely pursued the important contract law and fiduciary duty issues involved in the shortchanging of his clients for several weeks.

Wait until you see the word the government lawyer used to describe Lauria.

UPDATE, May 2: ABC’s Political Punch reports that the administration is denying making threats. Uh-huh, Tom Lauria just made it up. My take: Horse manure.

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If the Bush White House had engaged in anything similar to what's being described here (actually, Hank Paulson did; the question is how much Bush knew), there would be calls for impeachment.

Maybe there should be similar talk now. As it is, the establishment media will more than likely work very hard to ignore this.

It should not be ignored. What attorney Tom Lauria describes is nothing short of chilling.

What follows is a rush transcription, omitting the intro and wrap-up niceties, of an interview today between WJR's Frank Beckmann and Tom Lauria, attorney for most of (at the moment) Chrysler's non-TARP creditors (audio is here; NYT link in transcript added by me):