Marlee: Anybody can be gotten to.
Rankin Fitch: Everybody has a secret they don't want you to find.
Rankin Fitch: Gentlemen, trials are too important to be left up to juries.
Rankin Fitch: ...the thing of it is, I don't give a shit. What's more... I never have.
Rankin Fitch: Somebody add "class-clown" to Mr. Easter's ever expanding resume.
Rankin Fitch: What do you hope to achieve if you win? You gonna bring Jacob Wood back to life? No. You just ensure that his wife goes to the cemetery in a better car, and that the heel that she snaps on the way to the graveside belongs to a $1,200 shoe. You get your name in the paper. But Jacob Wood and all the other gun violence victims remain rotting in their crypts.
Judge Harkin: I'm not sure, but I believe I'm buying lunch.
Chosen answer: Hackman's team was closely monitoring what Hoffman was doing in regards to the tampering, as evidenced by their taping of his conversation with Weiss when he decides not to pay. Cusack and Weiss probably anticipated this so were forced to offer the deal to Hoffman to keep up the illusion.