One of Andersen's top accountants testified last Friday he kept memos chronicling an internal dispute over Enron transactions, as the defence neared the end of its case in the accounting firm's criminal obstruction of justice trial.
In his second day on the stand, senior partner John Stewart testified that he gave to Andersen lawyer Nancy Temple memos recounting the internal debate between his unit and the Enron audit team about off-balance sheet deals that led to Enron's unravelling.
Stewart is an accounting guru and senior member of the Andersen unit which provides internal opinions on tricky transactions to its auditors.
Hammering home a key defense theme, lead Andersen lawyer Rusty Hardin tried to use the fact that the firm retained many documents about the disputed deals as proof it had no intention to impede federal investigators.
"Are there several documents in there you believe in here are unflattering to the company?" Hardin asked.
"Yes," Stewart replied. "Those would not be particularly flattering to the engagement team."
"Did you later ultimately determine that Ms Temple had in fact kept those documents?" Hardin asked, before a sustained prosecution objection precluded his answer. Andersen lawyers have said the documents still exist.
Prosecutors have painted Temple as one of the "corrupt persuaders", a term they define as the Andersen officials who allegedly caused others to illegally destroy Enron audit records to keep them away from a US Securities and Exchange investigation.
The SEC began investigating the Houston energy trader's murky finances in mid-October, and the disputed transactions - the so-called Raptors - led to an earnings restatement of more than $600 million. Stewart's unit and the Enron audit team disagreed heartily on how the deals should be accounted for, and their view ultimately reigned, resulting in the restatement.
After Stewart, Andersen plans to call three more witness, including Shannon Adlong, the administrative assistant to fired top Enron audit partner David Duncan. Duncan, who pleaded guilty in April to obstruction of justice and gave equivocal testimony for the prosecution, is said to be another corrupt persuader for ordering his team on October 23 to clean up their Enron files.
Prosecutors say they will present some rebuttal testimony today. Closing arguments could come as early as tomorrow.
Up in the air is whether Andersen will be allowed to call a records clerk to testify that 1,600 boxes of Enron documents are still being kept and were never shredded.
Andersen lawyer Denis McInerney argued to US District Judge Melinda Harmon that the witness was necessary to provide perspective and context to the government's allegations of voluminous shredding.
Prosecutors, who have said that about 100 boxes of Enron records were shredded, strongly objected.
"It has nothing to do with comparing that to what's remaining. It's comparing it to what was destroyed earlier, which was almost nothing," assistant US Attorney Andrew Weissmann complained.
Judge Harmon did not rule on the admissibility of the witness.
Enron collapsed into the largest-ever US bankruptcy on December 2 amid questions about its accounting of off-balance-sheet partnerships that hid about $1 billion in losses. Andersen began to feel the burn of Enron's flameout after it admitted destroying Enron records in January.
Andersen, which has since lost hundreds of clients and has been forced to sell off many profitable units, is now fighting for survival. A conviction would result in the revocation of the firm's right to audit publicly traded companies.