John D. Cline

John D. Cline represented Elizabeth Holmes as defense counsel, conducting cross-examinations and handling evidentiary disputes concerning pharmaceutical-company assessments and Roger Parloff's reporting. His questioning repeatedly distinguished limited testing or business reviews from broader claims of validation and examined what information had actually been communicated to Holmes.

On Day 13, Cline questioned Victoria Sung about Theranos materials reviewed by Celgene specialists while establishing limits in her expertise, memory and knowledge of milestone payments. On Day 26, his cross-examination of Constance Cullen developed favorable but limited beta-test results and the absence of contemporaneous negative feedback to Theranos; Cullen maintained that the later validation work would not satisfy regulatory requirements.

Cline also contested the use of Shane Weber's internal Pfizer report, arguing that it contained technical or opinion material and criticism that Pfizer had not communicated to Holmes. The court preserved the defense objection, permitted a redacted first page subject to foundation and allowed later pages to be displayed only as a demonstrative. On Day 23, Cline's cross-examination narrowed Weber's work to a document-based business-use assessment, challenged his account of management agreement through a later interview memorandum and used contemporaneous emails to examine Weber's communications with Holmes and Gary Frenzel.

In proceedings concerning Roger Parloff, Cline disputed the permissible scope of testimony about Parloff's understanding of Holmes's statements, the interview recordings and subpoenaed reporting materials. The court kept the subpoena and reporter's privilege issues under submission, set provisional limits and later admitted part of an interview excerpt under Rule 106 for a limited state-of-mind purpose while excluding the remainder. Across Days 35 and 36, Cline played portions of recorded interviews and examined Parloff's source base, reporting constraints, shorthand notes, recollection of an unrecorded Siemens conversation, memory of a military-use claim and wording in the Fortune article. Parloff confirmed that he consulted numerous sources, denied that competitors supplied the criticisms he presented to Holmes and described the limits of his interview records.