"If this witness is allowed to testify in his opinion that Mr. Bulger was an informant, then I will need to test his credibility," Brennan said in arguments held outside the jury's' hearing.
Prosecutors voiced exasperation that the defense would question a file they said was the result of many meetings between Bulger and FBI officials, including Connolly, his boss John Morris, who is scheduled to take the witness stand on Tuesday, and other FBI investigators.
"He was an informant who corrupted his handler and the department. The FBI shares some responsibility for continuing to operate Mr. Bulger as an informant over the years," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak. "It does not mean that Mr. Bulger was not an informant."
Bulger's story has fascinated Boston for decades. He was one of two brothers to rise from gritty South Boston to positions of power - James as a feared gangster, his brother William as the powerful speaker of the state senate.
"Whitey" Bulger fled the city after a 1994 tip from Connolly that arrest was imminent. He spent 16 years evading arrest, many of them on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list, before authorities arrested him in a seaside apartment in Santa Monica, California, a little more than two years ago.
His story inspired Martin Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award-winning film "The Departed," in which Jack Nicholson played a character loosely based on Bulger.
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Andre Grenon)
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