Political Prisoner Don Seigelman: Republican Lawyer Set To Speak With House Judiciary Under Oath

Republican Lawyer Set To Speak With House Panel About Siegelman
By Laura McGann - September 7, 2007, 12:14 PM
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004099.php

The Republican lawyer who implicated Karl Rove in the decision to prosecute former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL) will speak privately -- and under oath -- with House Judiciary Committee staff next week about what she knows (http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1189154766315880.xml&coll=2).

The lawyer, Dana Jill Simpson, gave support (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003659.php) to Siegelman's argument that his prosecution and subsequent conviction stemmed from a political vendetta against him.

TPM Don Siegelman Archive: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/don_siegelman/

==================
DU archives:

Abramoff and Kark Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor and Campaign Finances
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1023111

Political Prisoner Don Seigelman: Obstruction Of Justice Accusation Unclear = TPM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1704777

GO TO JAIL NOW: Former AL Dem Governor gets 7 years despite ROVE frame-up claim.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1224046

for your perseverance about this. k&r

name on this Board I get really depressed about his plight at the hands of ugly, mofo fascists but I know he will persevere!

Thanks for keepin' at this, L Coyote!!

Reporting on the reporters is the easy part. Check out how much these great journalists have done since June 1!

TPM Don Siegelman Archive: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/don_siegelman /

HARPERS 41 Blogs by Scott Horton: http://www.harpers.org/subjects/DonSiegelman/SubjectOf/BlogEntry

The letter: Davis asks Judiciary to include Siegelman case
Posted by rsims August 13, 2007
http://blog.al.com/bn/2007/08/the_letter_davis_asks_judiciar.html


CONGRESSMAN DAVIS ASKS JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
TO INCLUDE SIEGELMAN CASE IN REVIEW OF
SELECTIVE PROSECUTIONS

BIRMINGHAM - U.S. Representative Artur Davis (D-Ala.) directed a letter to the House Judiciary Committee requesting that the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman be included in the committee's investigation on selective political prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice.

July 6, 2007

Honorable John Conyers, Jr.
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary
.....

.....

I would give, I think that he is a political prisoner simply becuz he has a (D) after his name, while rascals
run free simply becuz they have an (R) after their name. By the way has the Bugman's trial been scheduled
yet, justice delayed is justice denied.

YOU SAID IT! Consider this. Why isn't Riley being prosecuted for the following, receiving $300,000 in campaign donations? In contrast, Don Seigelman acted to benefit the State of Alabama, not his campaign coffers!

PAC Gives $300K to Riley, After Getting $50 Million State Contract

Friday, January 27, 2006
PAC Gives $300K to Riley, After Getting $50 Million State Contract
http://alelections.blogspot.com/2006/01/pac-gives-300k-to-riley-after-getting.html

Eddie Curran at the Mobile Register has a revelatory piece about Bob Riley's re-election fundraising. According to filings with the Sec. of State, a PAC called Alabamians for Technology donated $300,000 in December to Riley's re-election campaign.

There doesn't seem to be any speculation that anything illegal took place, but there sure are a lot of unseemly details.

-- The PAC was formed, and largely bankrolled, by executives who benefited from a $50 million state contract.
-- The PAC was formed on Dec 16, 2005 and just three days later gave the $300K to Riley.
-- The PAC had taken $325K which means the $300K given to Riley accounts for over 92% of the PAC's monies.

Hey, they control Justice, so they can just throw it in Don Siegelman's face like this!

looked to me that he was schmoozing to cover a shortfall in state spending, since he had no personal benefit, it seemed
to me like a normal thing, also the guy was a Republican and had already been appointed twice from what I heard, I
see very little special favors in the matter unlike the Abramoff suck-ups in our own Congress.

that occurs over and over again in American politics--someone who was appointed to something had made a donation to something.

Unlike Gov. Riley's seemingly quid-pro-quo campaign donations for a large state contract.

and I thought I read that AGs from all over the country got together and demanded that the Siegelman trial and
conviction be investigated.

As for Gov. Riley, remember when the Republicans in Ohio like Mr. Noe and Mr. Taft thought they were
above the law.

And Congressman Ney had no clue his staffer was wearing a wire!

How many Rs are wondering which of their corrupt conversations are on tape??

What they have done since 1994 was wrong, what they did to Clinton was wrong esp. since we now know
that many of those with the greatest moral outrage were also guilty of moral transgressions.
What they did to the constitution, the civil service, the DOJ, the electoral process was
all wrong, every bit of it. I hope investigations are done and those who broke the
law are made accountable for their actions.

Simpson to be questioned by House panel investigators
9/7/2007, 3:54 p.m. CDT
By BOB JOHNSON - The Associated Press
http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-31/118919921274110.xml&storylist=alabamanews


MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Attorneys for a congressional committee will question an Alabama lawyer under oath next week about her claims that a Republican campaign operative talked about White House influence over the investigation of former Alabama Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman.

......... Simpson's attorney, Priscilla Duncan, said Friday.

In a letter to Duncan, House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said the interview with Simpson would be under oath and would be transcribed. Conyers said the transcript would be confidential initially and that a decision on releasing it would be made later by Republican and Democratic committee leaders.

.............

Simpson quoted Canary as saying Siegelman would not be a political worry in the future because Canary "had gotten it worked out with Karl and Karl has spoken with the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice was already pursuing Don Siegelman."

Simpson has said Canary was referring to Karl Rove, the White House political adviser with whom Canary had worked.

Bill Canary and Rob Riley have said they have no recollection of the conversation with Simpson. Butts has denied that the conversation occurred.

I believe her car was totaled and her house burnt to the ground, why would that be?

"Ask Dana Jill Simpson, the Rainsville Republican lawyer who notes that as soon as she told some friends that she had resolved to file an affidavit exposing what was going on in the Siegelman case, unfortunate accidents started happening. Like a fire at her home, and a brush with a motor vehicle operated by an off-duty law enforcement officer that resulted in her car being totaled. Well, maybe these were just accidents. In fact, Simpson seems convinced they were. But it’s clear that she has some vague and lingering doubts."


"Off-duty law enforcement officer?" THUGS, plain and simple. :mad: :nuke:

we want clean elections and the thugs punished. Well, you know us "lefty bloggers" we just make
such unreasonable demands. (sarcasm on)

NYT Weighs in on Siegelman Case
By Laura McGann - September 10, 2007, 11:14 AM
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004114.php


Today The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/opinion/10mon4.html?ex=1347076800&en=afdde88426915529&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)gives a rundown of the controversy surrounding ex-Gov. Don Siegelman's (D-AL) prosecution......

The Op-Ed draws a comparison between Siegelman's prosecution and the case against Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin whose corruption case was thrown out on appeal ....

"The Bush administration insists that the United States attorney scandal is a non-scandal. But the Siegelman and Thompson cases are a reminder that when the power of the state to imprison people is put in the wrong hands, lives can be ruined and democracy can be threatened ......"

====================================
The Strange Case of an Imprisoned Alabama Governor
By ADAM COHEN
Published: September 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/opinion/10mon4.html?ex=1347076800&en=afdde88426915529&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


Alberto Gonzales is out as attorney general, but there is still a lot of questionable Justice Department activity for Congress to sort through. The imprisonment of Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor of Alabama, should be at the top of the list .... The case should be the focus of a probing Congressional hearing this fall.

Mr. Siegelman was a major frustration to Alabama Republicans. The state is bright red, but Mr. Siegelman managed to win the governorship in 1998 with 57 percent of the vote. He was defeated for re-election in 2002 under suspicious circumstances. In the initial returns, Mr. Siegelman appeared to have won by a razor-thin margin. But a late-night change in the tallies in Republican Baldwin County gave the current governor, Bob Riley, a victory of a little more than 3,000 votes out of 1.3 million cast.

Mr. Siegelman has charged that the votes were intentionally shifted by a Republican operative. James Gundlach, an Auburn University professor, did a statistical analysis of the returns and found that the final numbers were clearly the result of intentional manipulation. Mr. Siegelman wanted to take back the governorship in 2006, but his indictment made it impossible.

...............

War it necessary to prevent Gov. Don Siegelman's re-election to perpetuate the cover-up of rigging the 2002 vote?

Gov. Siegelman was defeated for re-election in 2002 after, in the initial returns, Siegelman won followed by late-night change in the tallies in Republican Baldwin County awarding Riley the victory with just over 3,000 votes out of 1.3 million. The details of these events is unbelievable.

Would those events have been investigated if Siegelman were elected in 2006? Did this concern force the sandbagging of the 2006 election?

FROM: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1023111#1025944

"...... Riley and pals LOCKED down the courthouse (and I've been in there many times), kicked out ALL the Poll workers, media, etc, and then MOVED thousands of votes electronically from Siegelman's column to HIS. Tried to blame it on a lightning strike in one area, only problem is that there weren't 6500 PEOPLE living in that area, and NO OTHER NUMBERS MOVED.

"It was and is the MOST OBVIOUS Voting Fraud ever seen, and it's a FACT. Siegelman went to bed as the winner, and woke up as the loser of the election. When he demanded a recount the corrupt fucks down there threw a Catch 22 at him. In order to Prove Fraud he needed to open the Box, but they wouldn't let him Open the Box, unless he could Prove there was FRAUD. ............."

Friday, August 24th, 2007
Political Prosecution? Justice Dept Holds onto Docs in Case of Jailed Alabama Governor Siegelman
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/24/1322201

Listen to Segment
Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream
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We look at the case of jailed former Governor Don Siegelman. He is currently serving a seven-year, four-month prison sentence on charges of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. We speak with attorney and Harper's Magazine contributor, Scott Horton. We turn to Alabama and to the case of jailed former Governor Don Siegelman. He is currently serving a seven-year, four-month prison sentence on charges of bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud.

Jurors last year ruled that Governor Siegelman was bribed by HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy for a seat on the state health board. Prosecutors said Siegelman was bribed with $500,000 in contributions to his 1999 lottery campaign. Siegelman also was convicted on a separate obstruction of justice charge.

But critics say Siegelman is the target of a political witch hunt. The Justice Department has yet to comply with a request from Congress to release documents about the case. ...............

cabal takeover with judges justice department officials all in coordination to shut a man up

the history books will look back and go

"how did it come to this"

past atrocities of justice, or we will not know justice.

It is important to remember that courts were the instruments of the Inquisition, and governments wrote new rules for the Justice system to enable the Inquisition. That is how it came to pass that infidels were graced with dunce caps and paraded around he plaza before being burned to death,through official actions in official proceedings.

Do not think such actions are the workings of mobs. They are actions to terrorize people and control their behavior.

so that everything that Hitler did was basically legal -- !!!

This is an already classic case of bending the law to meet the methods.

Consider also laws passed to assure retroactively that those who tortured will not be held to account under American law.

We all thought it was silly that they would pull somebody off the street and torture them becuz they were
supposedly a witch, how is that any different than pulling somebody off the street and calling them a
terrorist, many innocent people have been "renditioned" when their only crime was to use an airport.

Every age has it's own definitions of "out-groups" such as heliocentrists, pagans, Jews, leftists, cannibals, hippies, etc.

I found an article that relates to this, on paranoid politics. Paranoid politics was the stuff of humor in the sixties, derision directed at McCarthyism and the John Birchers mostly. Today's politicos make the pinko-fearing Birchers look sane, to say nothing of how the 600,000 humans on the terror watch list out-number those old commies in Hollywood!

I started this thread that did not float,
The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Terror, Terror, Terrorists are Coming
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1787109

after stumbling onto this great article while looking through Scott Horton's writings on Siegelman.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics
BY Scott Horton - Aug. 16, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000908

I agree with your point, I think what people miss in this whole debate is the emotive thing, Bush and the neocons appeal on a gut
level, they are able to appeal to our fears, our instincts, our desire for security. It is like what happened with the
Congress before the recess. It did not succeed on a logical level, it was the result of an atmosphere of threat,
the beating of the drum against the unseen enemy that circles the camp fire in the dark, he's out there just beyond
the fire, we can't see him but he can see us, he is ready and if you don't give us all this power, people will die
and you will be blamed. We can't wait for the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud, beat the drum soft cadence
here: booom, boom, boom, boom.

It was a local myth and people feared the "sunchi" bird. They equated a rare insect chirp with the bird's call. The sunchi would make it's call if something of dread was happening, as she believed it. The sound would upset her, and I tried to quiet her dread.

I had forgotten this when, quite unexpectedly when we spent time together again after 20 years, she suddenly said, "There's no sunchi bird, I know that now." There are no "terrorists" either, just fellow humans.

the the neocons would have had to draw down the military and put money back into neglected social
programs and the infrastructure, they will NEVER do this. So now they have a new bogeyman,
the terrorist, war on terror, more bombs, boom, boom, boom, more cash for defense contractors,
more gifts from grateful defense contracts to senators who support the war boom, boom, boom.

AMAZING. The Executive of Alabama defined as "an Enterprise" under RICO statutes .....

Siegelman Grand Jury Charges
http://judiciary.house.gov/Media/PDFS/Sieg1-61.pdf


Grand Jury Charges Against Thompson
http://judiciary.house.gov/Media/PDFS/Thom1-27.pdf

I know some good links to Inquisition trials too, in case there are any comparative persecution students reading this.

ALABAMA GOVERNOR Don Siegelman
1999-2003

AL Archives: http://www.archives.state.al.us/lg_seigl.html

Governor Don Siegelman is noted for his work in improving education, children’s services, economic development and promoting anticrime initiatives including drunk driving and domestic violence prevention. Governor Siegelman is committed to changing education in Alabama for the better and changing education forever. Siegelman’s first act as governor was to sign an executive order to eliminate portable classrooms in public schools and to build safe new classrooms for school children. He also signed a bill into law to raise teacher salaries to the national average and removed tenure for principals. He has implemented the nationally recognized Alabama Reading Initiative in 429 schools and has provided rewards for schools that meet and exceed Alabama’s standards for education. The Fordham Foundation has recognized Alabama for being among the top five states in the nation with academic and accountability standards. Governor Siegelman proved his commitment to children ........

Archive for Researchers, Media and Scholars
http://www.donsiegelman.org/

TONIGHT! http://www.donsiegelman.org/pages/press/September/sep_09_07.html
Monday - 8 p.m. EST, 7 p.m. CST, 5 p.m. Pacific
Scott Horton will be interviewed on one of the hottest topics on Canadian news radio:
the political prosecution of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

QUICK START http://www.donsiegelman.org/pages/QUICK_START.html
Get up to speed fast on the Siegelman Case

WHY?
Recently the nation has become concerned with the apparent corruption within the Department
of Justice, especially concerning the abuse of Federal Jurisprudence for political ends. In
particular, the concern that Attorney's General are under pressure to aggressively prosecute
politicians like Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama, while stonewalling prosecution of (in this
case*) Republican politicians. These questions have recently resulted in action by US Attorney's
General from forty of the fifty states of the Union demanding a formal inquiry into the
prosecution of the former Governor of Alabama. Responding to that request, Congress has
asked the Department of Justice for documents concerning the case of Don Siegelman and
others. The documents were due on July 28, 2007. At this point in time, the DOJ has not
complied with Congress' request.

..............

E N T E R S I T E === http://www.donsiegelman.org/pages/home.html

Call For Kaaaaaaarrrrrrrrl Roooooooooooooooooooooove

Don Siegelman, Subject of 41 Blog Posts by Scott Horton
ALL: http://www.harpers.org/subjects/DonSiegelman/SubjectOf/BlogEntry

Latest: August 8, 2007
The Partisan and the Judge
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000805
For the last ten days we have examined Mark Everett Fuller, the judge who presided over the trial of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. The case has now attracted attention across the United States and around the world. Forty-four former attorney . . .

Scott Horton is a contributor to Harper's Magazine and writes No Comment for this website.
A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, ....

Scott Horton wrote:
State of exception: Bush's war on the rule of law
PUBLISHED July 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/0081595

Noel Hillman and the Siegelman Case
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED July 13, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000509

Early in 2007, the Bush White House decided to appoint Hillman to a coveted seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Again, Congressional support was lined up and Hillman’s confirmation seemed all but a “done deal.” And then something happened....

Did Hillman’s deep involvement with the prosecution of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, Wisconsin administrator Georgia Thompson, and a growing number of other cases in which political manipulation of prosecutions are involved cost him a court of appeals judgeship? This is what sources close to the process on Capitol Hill are telling me.

Hillman is a “loyal Bushie,” and a long-time protégé of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, with whom he served in the New Jersey United States Attorney’s office. Hillman followed Chertoff to the DOJ’s Criminal Division in 2001, and was later selected by Chertoff to head the Public Integrity Section (PIN), one of the most sensitive, and also one of the most intrinsically political positions in the Department of Justice. Reduced to its essence, PIN decides who and what is corrupt in the American political landscape.

Four Judges

Hillman is also one of four sitting federal judges who have played roles in connection with the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. The quartet consists of .............

Abramoff and “Justice” in the Heart of Dixie
BY Scott Horton - June 9, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/06/hbc-90000257


... an article in the Birmingham News (http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1181377229254450.xml&coll=2&thispage=1) ... is itself the story ... the News reports:

"The two people alleging that former Gov. Don Siegelman’s prosecution was tainted by politics are tied to a company that did not win a state contract from Gov. Bob Riley’s administration ..."

...instincts tell me that this story was been peddled by Toby Roth ... a former chief of staff for Governor Riley ...

Might there be any relationship between Toby Roth and Karl Rove? ... Well, before Mr. Roth served Bob Riley as chief of staff, he had a very long engagement in Alabama GOP politics. And among his clients was Harold See, a candidate for the Alabama Supreme Court. With whom did he collaborate in that long and hard-fought battle? ... William Canary and Karl Rove.

... Where exactly did Toby Roth go when he left Governor Riley’s service? Roth is one of an entire platoon of Riley staffers who departed in order to take up work for Indian gaming interests. Others are: Michael Scanlon, Dan Gans, Dax Swatek, Twinkle Andress. Roth went to work with former Trent Lott chief-of-staff John Lundy at a Jackson, Mississippi-based lobbying firm named Capitol Resources. Among the firm’s principal clients are the casinos owned and operated by the Mississippi Choctaw Indian, whom they represented jointly with Jack Abramoff.

Considering the fact that the Siegelman prosecution springs out of allegations of Siegelman’s involvement supporting a gambling initiative, that’s a very curious fact, especially when juxtaposed with Jack Abramoff and what we know about Mr. Abramoff’s practice of trying to suppress one gambling interest supposedly to benefit another ....

The changing of the guards: Bay Minette, election night
By Steve McConnell Staff Reporter Gulf Coast Newspapers
smcconnell @ gulfcoastnewspapers.com (July 20, 2007)
http://www.donsiegelman.org/pages/topics/fixed_elections.html

..............

Election Fraud in Baldwin County

...Sometime during the night after everyone else went home, a Riley
campaign worker by the name of Dan Gans - who had served as Riley’s
chief of staff both in Montgomery and Washington and went on to work
with Abramoff lobbying firm - set up a laptop computer in the Baldwin
County courthouse and changed the results, sources say.

In other words, he committed "electronic ballot stuffing" by changing the
vote totals digitally, subtracting 6,334 votes from the Siegelman column.

Gans bills himself as a Republican “voting technology expert" and brags
on a now defunct Website about his role in implementing "a state of the
art ballot security system that was critical to securing Governor-elect
Rileys narrow margin of victory (3,120 votes)."

Auburn University’s Professor James Gundlach studied the 2002 returns
in Baldwin County and found all clues pointing to the same result:

Someone is controlling the computer to produce the different results.
Once any computer produces different election results, any results
produced by the same equipment operated by the same people should
be considered too suspect to certify without an independently
supervised recount.

22. James H. Gundlach, A Statistical Analysis of Possible Electronic Ballot
Stuffing: The Case of the Baldwin County, Alabama Governor’s Race in 2002
(Apr. 11, 2003).

Dan Gans served as Riley’s chief of staff in DC and Montgomery. He left Riley to work at the Alexander Strategy Group (repeatedly implicated in the Abramoff Scandal). Gans, a Republican “voting technology expert,” played a mysterious role in the 2002 election – he was in the Baldwin county seat when 6,000 votes inexplicably shifted from Siegelman’s column to Riley’s. (Source: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/06/hbc-90000257)
Election Fraud in Baldwin County

..... Now this is significant for a number of reasons. The likelihood that this was an innocent “computer glitch” in which only one single candidate—Don Siegelman—lost votes is approximately zero. “Glitches” do occur in computer vote processing, but they do not produce a shift in a single, photo-finish election contest, and not affecting any other race. The only explanation for this is willful manipulation of the voting equipment, and that is a very serious crime. Indeed, Auburn University’s Professor James Gundlach studied the 2002 returns in Baldwin County and found all clues pointing to the same result:

"Someone is controlling the computer to produce the different results. ...."

(Source: Noel Hillman and the Siegelman Case - BY Scott Horton - July 13, 2007 - http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000509)

.... how did the law enforcement authorities with responsibility for this issue behave?

Well, that would be two gentlemen who are now both federal judges. One, then-Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, intervened in opposition to Siegelman’s demands for a recount connected with this serious irregularity—essentially shutting the process down. Indeed, Pryor seems to have done everything within his power to obscure the matter and to insure that Siegelman was defeated.

.....

That left the Justice Department in Washington, which had a long and highly respected record of intervention in the Deep South when questions of voting fraud have arisen. This record, however, came to an abrupt end in 2001. The Justice Department official responsible for a question of voting fraud which directly involved the conduct of voting officials—as was the case in the Bay Minette incident—was Noel Hillman. Hillman should have looked at the case and acted upon it. However, Hillman did nothing.

..............

This one's for you babe.
BHN:hug:

DoJ Refuses Turnover of Internal Docs for Controversial Cases
By Paul Kiel - September 10, 2007, 7:10 PM
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004126.php


Back in July, Democrats asked (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003707.php) the Justice Department for internal documents relating to a trio of controversial prosecutions -- cases where suspicions were high of political interference. They were the prosecution of Georgia Thompson in Wisconsin, former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL), and Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Democratic coroner in Pennsylvania.

Last week, the Justice Department replied by providing documents (http://judiciary.house.gov/Printshop.aspx?Section=678) -- most of them already public case filings (although there was one telling email http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004081.php). The Department did not turn over documents that Congress was really after, internal memoranda discussing the cases. Such "deliberative" material, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski wrote in a letter, could not be turned over, because it would have a chilling effect on "candid internal deliberations." In a letter today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and other members called that response "unacceptable" and asked to work out some arrangement to view the documents (see below).

The Dems also pounced on Benczkowski's assertion (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/conyers-siegelman/?resultpage=2&) in the letter that the Department didn't want to turn over the documents because "We want to avoid any perception that the conduct of our criminal investigations and prosecutions is subject to political influence." That's precisely why the Department should turn over the documents, they wrote.

Here's the full text of their letter: ..............

Opinion: Cynthia Tucker
STENCH STILL LINGERS IN HALLS OF JUSTICE
Sat Sep 15, 7:56 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucas/20070915/cm_ucas/stenchstilllingersinhallsofjustice

It's easy to smear a reputation, hard to restore it.

The U.S. Department of Justice has a long way to go before it can overcome the lapdog legacy of Alberto Gonzales. Even if President Bush overcomes his tendency to appoint yes-men (and women) and finds an attorney general with a sterling reputation, it will be years before Justice restores morale and regains public confidence.

While other government agencies may be blatantly politicized without corroding public trust, the Justice Department is different. It is supposed to embody American constitutional principles and protect the basic premise of our republic: that ours is a government of laws, not men.

It ought to be the one place where citizens can be certain that they are not judged according to race or religion, party or politics. Its investigations should never have the odor of partisan gamesmanship -- the stench most commonly associated with the Gonzales Justice Department. That's especially true where investigations into public officials are concerned.

...........

the case against a former Democratic governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman. That prosecution carries the whiff of partisan excess. Since federal prosecutors have broad discretion, many observers doubt Siegelman would have been prosecuted if he were a Republican.......

TITLE Exposing a Corrupt Prosecution and Trial in Alabama
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED September 10, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001166

In Oakdale Federal Detention Center in central Louisiana sits America’s most prominent political prisoner: former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to serve 7 years and 4 months in prison. His crime? At this point, it’s reasonably clear that the crime of which he was charged and convicted, and for which he was sentenced with unprecedented severity, was being a successful Democratic candidate in a state which Karl Rove had slated for a G.O.P. makeover. The charges against him, on a handful of which he was convicted, disintegrate in nothingness under inspection. No independent, objective prosecutor would ever have brought them.

But the Siegelman case is one of the hallmarks of the Bush Administration’s justice concept. Like tin-horned Central American dictators of old, the Bush crew believes that it can and should use the criminal justice system to take out its political enemies. It does this in a brazen way. And it has no shortage of ostensibly independent helpers to see its schemes along on their merry way. ..............

Holy shit. MKJ

when they wanted to put the honorable Governor away for THIRTY years. That was too much for the proverbial "camel's back" and an honest Republican told the inside story.

I may have to call them, yet again.

This should be a no brainer. MKJ

on edit, never mind "may". I'm calling my Dem reps tomorrow and I'm calling my Repub reps, too.

BTW, anyone can call one of these numbers and be connected to any Congressperson or Senator's office immediately.

1-877 851-6437
1-800 828-0498

MKJ

There’s No News in the ‘Birmingham News’
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED September 10, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001174

The Russian newspaper Pravda, which laughingly means truth, used to have a banner under the masthead that read “Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” So at least there was some truth in labeling: you could see pretty quickly exactly whose “truth” it was disseminating.

But Pravda is so easily upstaged by the Birmingham News, which offers no fair warning. It should say “Organ of the Executive Committee of the Alabama G.O.P.” This evening offers us a wonderful opportunity to see how they shovel lies, lies and more lies about the Siegelman case. Are they even conscious of the dissembling? Sometimes I wonder.

Today, the Justice Department’s decision to stonewall the request of the Judiciary Committee for documents concerning the politically tinged prosecution of Governor Don E. Siegelman was announced publicly. ....

I gave up on them years ago.

Leura Canary’s Stonewall is Exposed
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED September 10, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001173


Congressman Artur Davis has just issued a press release making clear for the first time that the Department of Justice is defying the House Judiciary Committee’s probe into misconduct in connection with the political prosecution of former Governor Don E. Siegelman. Davis is a former career prosecutor with the Middle District of Alabama, the office that handled the Siegelman prosecution, and he clearly has good insight into the skullduggery that has been practiced in that office. Here’s the text of the Davis statement:

“On September 4, 2007, the Department of Justice informed the House Judiciary Committee that it would not honor the Committee’s request for internal documents related to the prosecution of Don Siegelman. In my opinion, the Department’s position is too broad and has no sound legal basis.

“None of these documents implicate privacy concerns of any known individuals. There has already been an extensive public airing of the allegations around Siegelman and his alleged co-conspirators, and it strains credulity to think that the protection of Siegelman’s reputation is a concern of the Department. Nor is there any statutory provision that ensures the confidentiality of internal Department of Justice deliberations. To the contrary ...........

I was living in an old sharecroppers house a quarter mile from the road, past two cattle gaps.

A wonderful man running for judge came by to discuss the election. As soon as he realized I was alone he couldn't take off fast enough.

Five minutes later our very elderly landlady came by to reassure herself that we "white folks" would stick together and vote to keep "them" out of office.

I learned not to be rude to elders, especially when they are 87.

I just said, yes I was voting for him and excused myself.

Funny though, a friend of ours that owned a junkyard said landlady was "part black and his cousin".

People. :crazy:

Are you near Montgomery, L.C? :hi:

This is outright shocking!!!
The Dept of Justice and the white house and the FBI has run amock and has gone absolutely rougue.

to do the detailed time line, starting with the Time magazine bombshell? Follow the links in the OP.

with shades of Watergate, Nixon, and some disturbing mafia-like shenanigans ...

===============
Curious Crime Spree in Alabama
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED July 3, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000437

Seems that people who raise their voice in support of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman are often the victims of unfortunate accidents. Ask Dana Jill Simpson, the Rainsville Republican lawyer who notes that as soon as she told some friends that she had resolved to file an affidavit exposing what was going on in the Siegelman case, unfortunate accidents started happening. Like a fire at her home, and a brush with a motor vehicle operated by an off-duty law enforcement officer that resulted in her car being totaled. Well, maybe these were just accidents. In fact, Simpson seems convinced they were. But it’s clear that she has some vague and lingering doubts.

And then, following the sentencing phase of the Siegelman trial, his lawyer, Susan James, reports that her office was ransacked. These weren’t your ordinary vandals, it seems. They left computers, television sets, champagne and bottles of alcohol untouched. And they focused with laser-like intensity on her client files.

They probably didn’t find what they were looking for: the files relating to the Siegelman case. James, who had gone to visit her client in prison, had taken the files along with her.

Of course, this is certainly just a third-rate burglary. ......

Dana Jill Simpson has conscience and should be protected --
this is like fighting the Mafia --

Not all Italians are La Cosa Nostra, not all Rs are La Coltura Corruzione. And, lots more of them are voting DEM!

Jill Simpson's Affidavit May Help Justice Prevail in the Siegelman, Scrushy Case
It also lifts the veil on how politics subverts justice and dirty tricks sully politics...
http://www.locustfork.net/blog/jill_simpsons_affidavit/jill_simpsons_famous_affidavit.html

An Introduction to North Alabama Law and Politics

by Glynn Wilson

RAINSVILLE, Ala., June 17 - Dana Jill Simpson is faxing documents on a Sunday and waiting for me - to my surprise - with the front door unlocked in her modest red brick law office. It's at the halfway point between Ft. Payne and Scottsboro along Highway 35, which also happens to double as Main Street in the small town of Rainsville, Alabama, in this rural, mountainous Northeast corner of the state near the borders of Georgia and Tennessee.

Her house has already been burned down and one of her vehicles has been run off the road and totaled since she decided to seek justice and come out against the Bush and Riley political machines in the case of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and deposed HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy. While there may be no proof of a connection and there may be no connection at all, knowing the history of how hard the Bush's are willing to play in their pursuit of power, it has to make a person just a tad concerned - under the circumstances.

[A slight clarification here: Ms. Simpson had been communicating with a number of people about her research, including Scrushy and Siegelman lawyers, although she had not yet written the affidavit. Some blogs have reported that these events occured since the affidavit was signed in May. Not true. .........

serious shit! Why isn't she under protective custody?????

Justice in Alabama
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED June 24, 2007
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/06/hbc-90000351

.....

Under the direction of the White House, and particularly Karl Rove, the Justice Department undertook a series of prosecutions designed to undermine the positions of elected Democratic officeholders and help the Republican Party take their positions. In this space over the last two months, I have catalogued a series of cases which suggest White House-driven manipulation of criminal prosecutions. Sometimes the White House has intervened to shut down or obstruct prosecutions of Republicans – a process that started certainly by the spring of 2002, when Jack Abramoff, a protégé of Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, sought White House intervention to fire the U.S. Attorney in Guam. “I don’t care if they appoint bozo the clown, we need to get rid of Fred Black,” Abramoff wrote in March 2002.. And indeed, following White House intervention, the U.S. attorney was fired, a Republican party functionary was appointed in his place, and the investigation that threatened to expose a seedy Abramoff operation involving human trafficking was shut down. .....

And then, still more troubling, there is White House intervention to persecute their political opponents: the telltale sign of tyranny. Georgia Thompson was a state contracting officer in Wisconsin prosecuted for corruption when she awarded a bid to a contractor that had made campaign contributions to the state’s Democratic governor. The fact that the contractor was the low bidder was apparently considered irrelevant to the prosecutor. Records later established that the prosecutor in question had been slated for firing by Karl Rove because he was not doing enough to help the Republican Party. However, the Thompson prosecution was hyped to the media throughout the 2006 election campaign in a transparent effort to bolster the GOP’s election chances. And in the end, the prosecutor’s name disappeared from the list of those to be canned. The case resulted in a conviction. Then it came before an all-Republican panel from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which immediately ordered Thompson’s release and dismissed the whole conviction with a word: “preposterous.” But note: it was a conviction. The U.S. Attorney in Milwaukee actually hoodwinked a group of jurors and a federal district court judge into accepting a ridiculous bucket of slop as a criminal case. It’s a strong testimonial to the fact that in America today, a jury will readily accept that accusations of corruption against a political figure are true, even when there is no evidence, and no corruption.

...........

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Scott Horton, Sept. 10, 2007
http://atlanticfreepress.com/loudblog/index.php?id=131

Podcast, Listen, or Download MP3
(58 MB | 63:28 min) First 30 minutes is the Horton interview
MP3 = http://atlanticfreepress.com/loudblog/get.php?web=AFP-2007-09-11-30686.mp3

This week on GR, American Human Rights lawyer and Harper's Magazine contributor,
Scott Horton on the strange case of the railroaded governor, Don Siegelman.

Democrats See Politics in a Governor’s Jailing
By ADAM NOSSITER - Sept. 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/us/11siegelman.html?ex=1347163200&en=01a2cc1d898586d2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — House leaders are beginning an investigation this week of the prosecution of Don Siegelman .... John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, has asked the Justice Department to turn over its documents in the case.

The department has refused his request, saying in a letter last week to the committee that “we want to avoid any perception that the conduct of our criminal investigations and prosecutions is subject to political influence.”

On Monday, Mr. Conyers called the department’s position “unacceptable,” saying of its reasoning, “This concern should lead to precisely the opposite result.”

The case is considered unusual by many legal experts because actions like those Mr. Siegelman was accused of — exchanging a seat on the state hospital licensing board for a contribution to an education lottery campaign he was pushing — are hardly uncommon in state capitals around the country.

“It’s unusual to see a bribery prosecution where the payment wasn’t to the defendant,” said David A. Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It seems to me the conduct in this case was similar to a lot of what we take as normal for politics.”

.............. Mr. Siegelman, meanwhile,.... said his case would will eventually be seen as the “Watergate of 2008.” .........

methinks they are more worried about possible fallout than politics, so far they have jumped into politics up to their
eyebrows. Reminds me of James Thurber's story about the dog that bit people. "He was always sorry afterwards."

The Benczkowski-Siegelman Letter
BY Scott Horton - Sept. 13, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001208


On September 4, the Justice Department responded to the request of House Judiciary Chair John Conyers and three other members requesting information surrounding three cases—in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—in which substantial evidence has been presented to the effect that the prosecution was politically motivated. The core of the response by Brian A. Benczkowski, who is the Justice Department’s principal Congressional liaison, is that the Department will not furnish the documents sought because to do so would “chill the candid internal deliberations” that go into a decision to prosecute. In sum, Justice is claiming prosecutorial immunity.

This claim is outrageous for two reasons: first, the prosecutions in these cases are concluded; and second, because this rule is conceived not—as Benczkowski suggests—to let prosecutors act in the shadows, but rather to protect innocent citizens who become the subject of Justice Department considerations and whose reputations would be ruined by disclosure. And that consideration actually supports disclosure of the documents here ............

The letter racks up an amazing tally of rank falsehoods. I’ll look at just two paragraphs: ..........

The smell of arrogance
In our opinion
09-12-2007
http://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/2007/as-editorials-0912-editorial-7i11t1421.htm

The Department of Justice has a lot of explaining to do. It also has a lot to prove — mainly its credibility.

The wreckage left behind at the DOJ by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is widespread. It reaches deep into the bureaucracy. It has adversely altered a culture that stood for professionalism and its independence from politics.

But because of the Bush White House and Gonzales' tenure, everything from this DOJ must be taken with a dose of skepticism. Its motivations, especially political ones, must be questioned.

And so it is with the DOJ's decision not to offer up any meaningful documents to the House Judiciary Committee dealing with the criminal prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. ..........

isn't this supposed to be the Justice Department, what is just about falsehoods and deliberately ignoring the facts.

.... the response by Brian A. Benczkowski ... the Justice Department’s principal Congressional liaison ...

... is replete with clearly false statements ... demonstrably, untrue ... heavily larded with conscious lies ... an amazing tally of rank falsehoods ...

... William Canary and Karl Rove have a long-running and well-documented personal friendship. The attempt to suggest that it might be something else is a desperate ploy...

... purpose of this statement is to mislead and distort ... one responded to the allegations by immediately lawyering up and halting communications with the media

... Justice ... has repeatedly made false statements ... a typical example of disregard for the truth and the gross and conscious distortions


This statement is false ... falsely reports ... twists and distorts ... false statements line up, item for item, with false statements made by Leura Canary’s office ....

... there is much here that the Justice Department desperately wants to obscure ... consistent with a wide-ranging cover-up ... the internal rot at Justice lies in the head and reaches down ...

they need people with real resumes who have had to put away hard core drug dealers and thugs of every description,
those people are not going to sell the integrity of the justice department for a bunch of political hacks. Once you
have people that ask the hard questions, the cronies will leave. They cannot exist where there is oversight.

Or leaks? :rofl:

GOP Lawyer Deposed on Alabama Case
Friday September 14, 2007 11:16 PM
By BEN EVANS AP
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6922703,00.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican lawyer who says Karl Rove may have been involved in the prosecution of former Democratic Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman emerged without comment Friday from four hours of questioning at the House Judiciary Committee.

Jill Simpson was called to the Capitol to provide sworn testimony about her claim that she heard discussions in 2002 suggesting that Rove, a former top White House political adviser, may have played a role in the corruption case against Siegelman. At the time of the alleged conversation, Simpson was a campaign worker for Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who defeated Siegelman in that year's gubernatorial race.

``We answered their questions,'' Simpson's attorney Priscilla Duncan told reporters after the deposition, declining to elaborate......

As part of a broader investigation into political influence at the Justice Department, the Judiciary Committee recently asked the department to turn over its documents involving the case. More than forty former state attorneys general also have asked Congress to investigate.

In a letter to the committee last week, the Justice Department said it has not found any communications regarding Siegelman with the White House, members of Congress, or political party officials. The department denied the committee's request for internal documents, however.....

The department - and the career prosecutors who handled the case - have insisted that politics played no role in the decisions to pursue the prosecution and have emphasized that he was convicted by a jury.

A Judiciary Committee spokeswoman said it could be weeks before the parties involved decide whether to release a transcript of Friday's interview, conducted by Democratic and Republican attorneys for the committee.

The ‘B’ham News’ Revs Up the Slime Machine
BY Scott Horton - Sept. 15, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001220

A No Comment reader who works at the Birmingham News tells us that a certain editor and writer at the illustrious Pravda of the South are royally pissed off at Representative Artur Davis. It seems that Davis’s questions and press releases on the Siegelman case are making a decisive difference in pushing the matter forward. And the reputation of the News, which has played a key role in the anti-Siegelman campaign by giving press cover to the cabal and by disseminating and lending unwarranted credibility to claims of the prosecutors who front for it, is on the line. So what’s the answer? According to my source, the word went out: Slime Artur Davis. If you can’t hit him personally, at least slime some senior aide who works for him. Do it quickly.

I am told that the News will use one its marquee writers for this, probably one who has been deep in the anti-Siegelman vendetta. Also, the News has been busily pouring over the list of Davis’s staffers, family and other associates to find someone it can land a blow against, hopefully in time for the Sunday edition.

The message that the News wants to deliver is simple: Davis, you’ll shut up if you know what’s good for you. ....

It brought back some old memories. Back in the late Soviet period, ........ tomorrow let us scrutinize the News closely and see if we don’t find the echo of Pravda that I fully anticipate will appear in its pages.

I want every news outlet in the country screaming this story at the top of their lungs. Meanwhile, Tom Delay is still free, and making guest appearances on national news shows. Go figure.....

Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying/public relations firm, was formed in 1997 by Rep. Tom DeLay, the Enron Corporation, DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham and DeLay aide Karl Gallant. Enron reportedly provided a $750,000 contract for the new firm to start by promoting deregulation. Who was involved in this enterprise. Many of the same characters as we find in the Siegelman story.

Ed Buckham, chairman; former DeLay chief of staff, Enron employee, and Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC) employee.
Christine (Mrs. Tom) DeLay.
Karl Gallant, 1995-1999 aide to Tom DeLay, executive director of ARMPAC.
Tony Rudy, former aide to Tom DeLay, former partner of Jack Abramoff.
Mike Mihalke, former counsel to Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa), Senate leader of the K Street Project.
Dan Gans, former chief of staff, Bob Riley (R-Ala), chief of staff to Gov. Riley, senior advisor to Riley's campaign for Governor

Riley received $600,000 from the Republican National State Elections Committee (RSEC), right after Michael Scanlon, Abramoff's partner, former aide to Rep. Bob Riley and DeLay's staffer, contributed $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association, all this a few days before the 2002 election. The Scanlon half-million was evidently Abramoff-Scanlon-Ralph Reed money from Mississippi Choctaw gambling, paid to Reed's Christian Coalition.

Alexander Strategy Group Clients, other than Enron: Blackwater mercenary military and the Roy Blunt Project.

Scottsboro Klan Video Proves Simpson's Case in Siegelman Prosecution
http://www.locustfork.net/blog/healthsouths_richard_scrushy_on_trial/scottsboro_klan_video_proves_s.html

This video courtesy of the Scottsboro Police Department in North Alabama shows former head of the Jackson County Democratic Party, Parker Edmistons, "knocking up" Bob Riley for Governor signs at a Ku Klux Klan rally on the Jackson County Courthouse lawn Nov. 16, 2002, just days after the election while a legal recount fight proceeded. He's the one in the black sweat shirt and jeans also seen hobnobbing with members of the Klan and Jackson County Sheriff's deputies. Sources say this double-barrelled political dirty trick may have been set up or leaked by another lawyer who was a member of the same machine fraternity at the University of Alabama as the governor's son Rob Riley - working both sides of the political fence. Since Jill Simpson was on assignment for the Riley campaign taking photos of this dirty trick to use against Democrats, including Siegelman.......

Political Imprisonment In America In The Age Of Rove
Cliff Schecter - Sept. 12, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cliff-schecter/political-imprisonment-in_b_64132.html


Is there anything you grew up believing about this country that this venal, vicious, amoral cluster of bleached, hair-club-for-men victims known as "neoconservatives" and "GOP operatives" haven't destroyed?

Seriously, whether it's preemptive war, illegal wiretapping, torture, destruction of an independent press, politicization of the military and bureaucracy of government, etc., they have successfully eradicated so much of what makes this republic great, that God only knows how we will recover.

But this story is particularly sickening. It is something you might expect in the old Soviet Union, China (the GOP's favorite trading partner) or a variety of other totalitarian nations, but I never thought would happen here. .........

The gist is this: The Republicans couldn't beat Governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat in blood-red Alabama. So they imprisoned him. ......

The person who needs to be in prison is Rove. If we are to have any healing and move our system back to resembling one of equality under the law and due process--you know those oh-so-unimportant aspects of the democratic process. ........

Horton continues his unrelenting reportage.
I'm thinking first-ever Pulitzer for a blog!

=========================
The King of Political Prosecutions
BY Scott Horton - Sept. 17, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001228

As Robert Jackson noted in his speech, “The Federal Prosecutor,” the idea of a prosecutor who wields his office as a political tool, targeting and taking out enemies is one of the persistent nightmares of our democracy:

"If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes...."

...........

In the presidency of John Adams, Federalists wielded the prosecutorial power brutally to silence and lock up their most effective adversaries. In a private letter from Thomas Jefferson during this period which I reproduced here, Jefferson termed this practice the “reign of witches,” ...

Over time, a series of practices were developed to preclude this congenital abuse ... assuming that the Bush Justice Department is engaged in a rampant process of political prosecutions, how are these safeguards defeated? ....

........ scenario they set out to me corresponded perfectly to what actually happened in the prosecution of Governor Siegelman. ...

Siegelman lawyers await word on release request
By BRIAN LYMAN - Capital Bureau - Sept. 12, 2007
http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1189605116101190.xml&coll=3


MONTGOMERY -- Attorneys for Don Siegelman are awaiting word on an emergency appeal that, if granted, would free the former Alabama governor from a federal prison while he fights his conviction on corruption charges.

Meanwhile, a former campaign worker for Republican Gov. Bob Riley is preparing to travel to Washington, D.C., later this week, when she will speak with staff members of the House Judiciary Committee about allegations of political interference in the prosecution of Siegelman, a Democrat.

The emergency appeal was filed with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta. It's unclear when the court will make a decision. "It's an emergency-type motion, and all I can say is they will treat it as such," said Mobile attorney Vince Kilborn, who represents Siegelman. "They would certainly rule sooner rather than later."

..........

The attorney said Siegelman has been assigned to janitorial duty in prison. "He's hopeful that the 11th Circuit will let him out pending appeal," Kilborn said. "He's done an awful lot of push-ups, and his job is to keep his wing of the prison clean."

Justice in Mississippi
BY Scott Horton - Sept. 18, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001232


In the last several months, we have looked in some detail at the prosecution of Democratic Governor Don E. Siegelman in Alabama. There is now substantial evidence that this prosecution was politically motivated, involving a number of key figures in the Alabama G.O.P., Karl Rove, U.S. attorneys in Birmingham and Montgomery, and political appointees at the Justice Department in Washington. This fall, the House Judiciary Committee will conduct hearings into the Siegelman prosecution at which substantial further details will emerge including a series of further incidents tying the matter to Karl Rove and senior Alabama Republicans. But while studying the Siegelman case, I have been looking over a series of cases in Mississippi which are remarkably similar to the Siegelman case in many ways. At this point I believe based on documents and evidence which have come to me, that the Mississippi prosecutions will also shortly be exposed as being politically motivated and directed. In any event it is clear that they were designed to, and did, have a key role in influencing elections in Mississippi for the benefit of the Republican Party.

Today, I want to look at one of the Mississippi cases, involving Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz. ...........

... In 2002, Haley Barbour, one of the key figures in recent Republican party history, told friends and supporters that he had decided to return to Mississippi and seek to capture the Jackson statehouse for the G.O.P. in 2003. Under Barbour’s leadership, the G.O.P. captured both houses of Congress—a red letter event since the G.O.P. had not controlled the House of Representatives for forty years. Along with Newt Gingrich, Barbour was one of the architects of the new Republican majority that wielded great influence in Congress even during the Clinton years, and emerged as a real powerhouse after Bush brought the G.O.P. back into the White House in 2001.

Barbour ran the G.O.P. as its chair from 1993-97. But on the side, lobbying work was his passion and he quickly became a fixture of the K Street community. In 1991 he founded Barbour Griffith & Rogers LLC, (BGR) which Fortune magazine labeled the most powerful lobbying firm in the United States ...........

Jailed Governor Needs Another Day in Court: Margaret Carlson
By Margaret Carlson - Sept. 19 (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_carlson&sid=azywIwI72TfE

With the nomination of retired federal judge Michael Mukasey, there's fresh hope that the U.S. Justice Department can be cleansed before the end of the Bush administration.

Veteran lawyers without a leader they respect at Justice say it may be sunny and 80 degrees outside, but it feels like a morgue inside. They feared that the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, defended by Bush to his last ``I don't recall,'' would put the president in his bring-it-on mode. And for a while it did, as Bush floated the names of movement conservatives caught up in party politics. ....

......

But there's one issue he could address swiftly that would send a clear message that the department will no longer be driven by narrow ideology and the worst sort of politics. I refer to the case of the former Democratic governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman.

Typical Backscratching

Siegelman, 61, was prosecuted for what some would say was run-of-the-mill political backscratching and now sits in jail serving a seven-year sentence. His prosecution looked to many like a Republican attempt to bag a popular Democrat who might win back the statehouse.

The case bore many of the markings of a show trial including the ugly and gratuitous scene at the end: Rather than be allowed to post bond and remain free on appeal, or even speak to his wife or gather his belongings, Siegelman was immediately led off in shackles to begin serving his sentence. That isn't justice, it's the lead on the 6 o'clock news. .........

Geoffrey Fieger and the Rise of the Selective Prosecution Defense
21 Corporate Crime Reporter 36, September 11, 2007
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/fieger091107.htm


Up until recently, it was an almost unanimous view among prosecutors and former prosecutors – be they liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican – politics has nothing to do with the prosecution of corporate and white-collar crime.

That day is now long gone.

Former Alabama Governor Donald Siegelman, Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, and Michigan lawyer Geoffrey Fieger – all are now claiming they are victims of what the Justice Department and a long list of former prosecutors say rarely if ever happens – politically motivated criminal prosecutions.....
The lawyers argue that the Justice Department has been “hijacked” by Republican political operatives and “turned into a weapon to silence political dissidents like Mr. Fieger and others threatening the Republican stronghold in this country.”

Fieger’s attorneys say they plan to prove that the Department has been converted into “a militia arm of the White House.”

DOJ on Siegelman: Nothing to See Here
By Laura McGann - September 11, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004130.php


The Justice Department doesn't think much of Dana Jill Simpson's affidavit implicating Karl Rove in the decision to prosecute former Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL), according to a letter Paul discussed yesterday (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004126.php). In the letter (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/conyers-siegelman/?resultpage=6&), Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski took a number of swipes at Simpson's credibility.

...........

A couple of things to note about this. It says Simpson claims she "overheard" statements, though she actually says she was an active member on a campaign strategy call. And more importantly, Simpson said in her affidavit that the investigation of Siegelman was already underway. DOJ's insistence that the Siegelman probe began before the call does not contradict her set of facts. The question about the seed of that probe remains.

Rep. Davis takes exception to Gov. Riley's remarks
9/19/2007, AP
http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1190245564242880.xml&storylist=alabamanews

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Artur Davis took exception Wednesday to Gov. Bob Riley's remarks about Davis' use of an employee paid by Alabama's two-year college system.

"While the junior college system has become the subject of a partisan political turf war, it is surprising to me that your administration has sought to drag my office into the fray," the Birmingham Democrat wrote in a letter to the governor that Davis released to the media.

In response, Riley spokesman Jeff Emerson said, "We don't understand why U.S. Rep. Davis somehow believes the governor had anything to do with the revelation that his office employed someone who was paid by a community college. ... The governor does, however, disagree with U.S. Rep. Davis that the scandals in the two-year system are merely a partisan political turf war."

............

===============================
Ex-aide to Siegelman, Rep. Davis was on 2-year colleges payroll
9/16/2007, AP
http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1189970955295950.xml&storylist=alabamanews

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — While working for former Gov. Don Siegelman and U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, Gina Bailey McKell drew a paycheck from Alabama's two-year college system, The Birmingham News reported Sunday.

McKell received nearly $73,000 a year from one college to work in the governor's office and later more than $76,000 a year to work in Davis' office until she resigned last year, according to the report.

...............

===============================
The ‘B’ham News’ Revs Up the Slime Machine
BY Scott Horton - Sept. 15, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001220

A No Comment reader who works at the Birmingham News tells us that a certain editor and writer at the illustrious Pravda of the South are royally pissed off at Representative Artur Davis. It seems that Davis’s questions and press releases on the Siegelman case are making a decisive difference in pushing the matter forward. And the reputation of the News, which has played a key role in the anti-Siegelman campaign by giving press cover to the cabal and by disseminating and lending unwarranted credibility to claims of the prosecutors who front for it, is on the line. So what’s the answer? According to my source, the word went out: Slime Artur Davis. If you can’t hit him personally, at least slime some senior aide who works for him. Do it quickly.

.........

Hundreds of pages denied to lawyer
After initially denying requested documents existed, Justice Department allows attorney who has worked with former governor to see only two of 516 pages
By BRIAN LYMAN - Capital Bureau - Sept. 21, 2007
http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/119036649820780.xml&coll=3

MONTGOMERY -- The Justice Department is withholding 514 pages of documents related to the recusal of U.S. Middle District Attorney Leura Canary from her office's criminal investigation of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, according to correspondence between the department and an Alabaster attorney.

The Department of Justice initially told John Aaron, the Alabaster attorney who worked on Siegelman's 2006 gubernatorial campaign and requested the documents under the Freedom of Information Act, that it had no documents related to the recusal.

After Aaron appealed, the Justice Department's Executive Office for United States' Attorneys said it had 516 pages related to the case but would only release two -- Canary's 2002 news release announcing her recusal for personnel and privacy issues.

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Tracking Political Prosecutions
BY Scott Horton - Sept. 22, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001266

In the last two weeks, two sources, one of them inside of the Justice Department, have told me that a scheme was hatched in the upper echelons of the Bush Administration shortly after it took office in 2001 or early in 2002. The project identified John Edwards and Hillary Clinton as likely Democratic challengers to President Bush, and identified prominent trial lawyers around the United States as the likely financial vehicle for Edward’s rise. It directed that their campaign finance records be fly-specked, and that offenses not be treated as administrative matters but rather as serious criminal offenses.

The scheme contemplated among other things that raids be staged on the law offices involved, and that the records seized not be limited to campaign finance—there was an acute interest in all politically oriented document......

This looks very suspiciously like a Rove strategy ... His fingerprints are all over the prosecution of Governor Siegelman in Alabama, and further substantial evidence of that will shortly be public, linking him both to federal and state prosecutors and to the principal figures in the Alabama G.O.P. in connection with the scheme to “get Siegelman.” It strikes me as probable that the plot to take out the trial lawyers and to use the Justice Department as the vehicle was also hatched by Rove.

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If the scheme to get the Edwards trial lawyer supporters is as described to me, then it was a criminal conspiracy and those involved in it need to be tracked down, removed from office for their abuses, and punished.

More from the World of the ‘Bama Press
BY Scott Horton Sept. 22, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001267

Leura Canary’s Remarkable ‘Recusal’
Back on September 14, I ran “The Remarkable ‘Recusal’ of Leura Canary,” an examination of the very strange tap dance that the Montgomery U.S. Attorney’s office has made around the question of Leura Canary’s recusal from oversight of the Siegelman matter. It included discussions with several Department of Justice sources who all concurred that nothing about Mrs. William Canary’s “recusal” was normal, that is, it didn’t stack up with the standard procedures followed by U.S. Attorneys when they recuse themselves.

In the course of the week that followed some more rather odd things happened. One is that the Department of Justice, which had denied a FOIA request brought by an Alabaster, Alabama attorney named John Aaron, decided to turn over a key document to the Mobile Press-Register. As we have noted before, the Press-Register seems to have an extraordinarily cozy relationship with the Montgomery U.S. Attorney’s office. In particular, it seemed to find out just about everything that transpired in the grand jury investigations surrounding the Siegelman case. That reflected either quite extraordinary journalistic work on the part of Press-Register reporters or a breach of Rule 6(e) by staffers at the U.S. Attorney’s office (or possibly both). Still, let’s put aside for the moment why the attorney raising a FOIA request doesn’t get the letter, but the Press-Register does. Let’s just take a look at the letter.

It’s written on May 15, 2002 from David Margolis to David Cromwell Johnson ... Margolis gave an opinion that Leura Canary had no conflict. But a number of amazing things emerge from the Margolis letter

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Just to recap: as this matter was proceeding, Siegelman was running for re-election as Governor. (1) Leura Canary’s husband, William Canary, was serving as advisor to Steve Windom, a man running against Siegelman, who used the pendency of the investigation managed by Leura Canary as his principal campaign grist. William Canary receives $38,000 for this engagement, which flows into the matrimonial partnership shared by Leura Canary. (2) At the same time, a person Johnson links to William Canary is, according to Johnson, leaking confidential grand jury materials relating to the Siegelman case, to the press. (3) Mr. Canary then also signs up as campaign consultant for Bob Riley, the current governor, and steers him through to a successful campaign against Siegelman, drawing heavily on the federal investigation for campaign advertising. I don’t yet know how much Mr. Canary was paid for this, but it was certainly a substantial five-figure sum. (4) Mr. Canary was advising Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, the man who instigated the criminal investigation of Siegelman, and was taking home $40,000 for the engagement.......