Crisis Papers: The Gulag Comes to America: The Don Siegelman Case

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman begins his 8th month in federal prison.

It has been 20 months since the trial ended, and no trial transcript has been produced.

Gov. Siegelman cannot appeal his case without a trial transcript.



The Gulag Comes to America:
The Don Siegelman Case

Ernest Partridge
The Crisis Papers.
January 29, 2008


A Political Prisoner

Today, Don Siegelman, former governor of the state of Alabama, sits in a federal prison, sentenced to a seven year term for bribery.

Every day that Siegelman remains in prison every American citizen who openly dissents from the policies and protests the criminality of the Bush/Cheney regime is less free and more vulnerable to politically motivated prosecution.
For the plain fact of the matter is that Don Siegelman is, in effect, a political prisoner. The formal charge against him was bribery. But, practically speaking, his offense was his political success as a Democrat in a "red" Republican state. When Siegelman indicated an interest in reviving his political career, one of his accusers was heard to say, " going to take care of Siegelman." And so they did.


Larisa Alexandrovna, one of the few journalists to investigate this case in depth, writes:
For most Americans, the very concept of political prisoners is remote and exotic, a practice
that is associated with third-world dictatorships but is foreign to the American tradition. The
idea that a prominent politician - a former state governor - could be tried on charges that
many observers consider to be trumped-up, convicted in a trial that involved numerous
questionable procedures, and then hauled off to prison in shackles immediately upon
sentencing would be almost unbelievable.

Less "unbelievable," perhaps, if we reflect upon a dominant Republican mind-set: politics as warfare, the Democrats as "evil" and "the enemy," and not as "the loyal opposition." "You are either with us or with the terrorists," said George Bush -- no compromise, no alternatives, and no middle ground. Thus the goal of the GOP warrior is not merely to defeat the Democrats; the goal is to destroy them.
This was the objective of those who brought charges against Don Siegelman, in a case that stinks from top to bottom of political vendetta and manipulation. It's a rather complicated story, which I cannot recount in detail here. Those details may be found in the Raw Story (Alexandrovna et al) series and the DemocracyNow Scott Horton interview, listed and linked below. However, these are the essential elements:

-snip
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays8p/siegelman.htm



More information can be found at:

www.donsiegelman.com

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A THREAD THAT WILL RUN EVERY WEEK BY SFEXPAT AND ME UNTIL FORMER GOV SIEGELMAN IS RELEASED. PLEASE KICK FOR EXPOSURE!

I have a copy of the Gulag Archipelago on the front patio.

Sounds like this guy was a victim of article 58.

article 58?

accuse anyone of any number of "anti-soviet or anti-state" behavior.

Really terrifying.

The Gulag Archipelago I read was written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Didn't remember Article 58 though, it's been a while.

Just a few of the very bizarre reasoning during Stalin's rule. Article 58 was a catch all for anything the government needed to accuse anyone of anything. here's the link http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~melmoth/ga.html

I'm sure it will come back to you when reading these quotes.

"Who among us has not experienced its all-encompassing embrace? In all truth, there is no step, thought, action, or lack of action under the heavens, which could not be punished by the heavy hand of Article 58."

"The breadth of interpretation of Section 6 (under article 58) lay further in the fact that people were sentenced not only for actual espionage but also for:

PSh - Suspicion of Espionage-
NSh - Unproven Espionage- for which they gave the whole works.
And even SVPSh - Contacts Leading to (!) Suspicion of Espionage."

"Muscovites who had not run away and had not been evacuated but had fearlessly remained in the threatened capital, which had been abandoned by the authorities, were by that very token under suspicion either of subverting governmental authority (58-10), or of staying on to await the Germans."

Worse then a hobbesian nightmare.

Thank you. I think I will read it again.

He's not the first. History is replete w/examples.

Harpers: The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller:

The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller

BY
Scott Horton
PUBLISHED
August 6, 2007

For the last week, we’ve been examining the role played by Judge Mark Everett Fuller in the trial, conviction, and sentencing of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. Today, we examine a post-trial motion, filed in April 2007, asking Fuller to recuse himself based on his extensive private business interests, which turn very heavily on contracts with the United States Government, including the Department of Justice.

The recusal motion rested upon details about Fuller’s personal business interests. On February 22, 2007, defense attorneys obtained information that Judge Fuller held a controlling 43.75% interest in government contractor Doss Aviation, Inc. After investigating these claims for over a month, the attorneys filed a motion for Fuller’s recusal on April 18, 2007. The motion stated that Fuller’s total stake in Doss Aviation was worth between $1-5 million, and that Fuller’s income from his stock for 2004 was between $100,001 and $1 million dollars.

In other words, Judge Fuller likely made more from his business income, derived from U.S. Government contracts, than as a judge. Fuller is shown on one filing as President of the principal business, Doss Aviation, and his address is shown as One Church Street, Montgomery, Alabama, the address of the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse, in which his chambers are located.
?Annual report details, Doss Aviation, 2002

Doss Aviation, Inc. (motto: “Total Quality Service Isn’t Expensive, It’s Priceless”) and its subsidiary, Aureus International, hold contracts with a number of government agencies. Quoting from defense counsel’s motion for recusal (emphasis in the original):

Doss Aviation, Inc. has been awarded numerous federal military contracts from the United States government worth over $258,000,000, including but not limited to: An August 2002 contract with the Air Force for $30,474,875 for Helicopter Maintenance, a November 2003 contract with the Navy for $5,190,960 for aircraft refueling, a February 2006 contract with the Air Force for over $178,000,000 for training pilots and navigators, and a March 2006 contract with the Air Force for $4,990,541.28 for training at the United States Air Force Academy. The February 2006 contract with the Air Force for over $178,000,000 is for 10 ½ years, but is renewable from year to year . . .

-snip
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000762

Did you know the RICO statute was unjustly used in Siegelman's case:

The third question is why the prosecution was permitted to use the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) as the basis for its case against Siegelman. RICO was developed in the late 1960s to provide prosecutors more reach to fight organized crime. The use of this statute in cases involving political corruption charges is problematic for a number of reasons, among them because it begins a process of marking government functions as organized crime—which in itself undermines public confidence in government. As Harvard’s Arthur Maass said, applying RICO in such cases is “unauthorized, out of control, and overall questionable.” For this reason, it has often been urged that the RICO statute be used extremely sparingly, if at all, in political cases. Procedures are in place which limit its use and require approval at a very high level in the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. In the Siegelman trial, the essence of the prosecution’s case was what Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey, a former prosecutor who wrote the RICO statute, calls the “trashcan theory of prosecution.” The prosecution’s case was, essentially, a dog-and-pony show: countless facts were presented, and the jury was asked to see corruption behind every deed. As Alexander Hamilton once observed, when a prosecutor makes enough claims of wrongdoing against an innocent man, he is very likely to get a conviction on something. The use of RICO in this case is one of the telltale signs that the prosecution is politically motivated and driven. In fact, a former senior Justice Department lawyer who requested anonymity told me:

Congressional investigators need to probe into the process by which the RICO charges were brought in this case. I believe they will find a trail of politically incendiary decision-making in which established practices and procedures were cast to the wayside in a vendetta-like prosecutorial effort.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000714

promoting anticrime initiatives!

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 by appointing the state’s first children’s commissioner and children’s cabinet. Additionally, the governor created the Office of School Readiness to begin providing early learning opportunities to four-year olds throughout the state. Governor Siegelman believes in making Alabama’s homes, streets and schools safer, and has signed a number of domestic violence bills into law including one making domestic violence a crime in Alabama. Siegelman has continued to push for tougher DUI laws including increasing penalties for adults driving drunk with a child in the car. Since becoming governor, Siegelman has expanded industry across the state by announcing the location of businesses including Honda, Navistar, Fiat and Boeing and expansion of Mercedes in Alabama. Siegelman was also instrumental in enacting tort reform, including caps on punitive damages and established a task force charged with developing the State’s first long-term strategic plan for economic growth. Governor Siegelman was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1946. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1968, Georgetown University School of Law in 1972 and studied International Law at Oxford University in Oxford, England from 1972 to 1973. He and his wife Lori lived in Montgomery with their two children, Dana and Joseph.

-snip
http://www.archives.state.al.us/lg_seigl.html

Rove Named in Alabama Controversy
Friday, Jun. 01, 2007 By ADAM ZAGORIN/WASHINGTON

In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A longtime Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys.

The allegation was made by Dana Jill Simpson, a lifelong Republican and lawyer who practices in Alabama. She made the charges in a May 21 affidavit, obtained by TIME, in which she describes a conference call on November 18, 2002, which involved a group of senior aides to Bob Riley, who had just narrowly defeated Siegelman in a bitterly contested election for governor. Though Republican Riley, a former Congressman, initially found himself behind by several thousand votes, he had pulled ahead at the last minute when disputed ballots were tallied in his favor. After the abrupt vote turnaround, Siegelman sought a recount. The Simpson affidavit says the conference call focused on how the Riley campaign could get Siegelman to withdraw his challenge.

According to Simpson's statement, William Canary, a senior G.O.P. political operative and Riley adviser who was on the conference call, said "not to worry about Don Siegelman" because "'his girls' would take care of" the governor. Canary then made clear that "his girls" was a reference to his wife, Leura Canary, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and Alice Martin, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

-snip

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1627427,00.html

Timeline: The prosecution of Don Siegelman
Muriel Kane and Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Monday November 26, 2007





This timeline adjoins a longer article, "The permanent Republican majority:
How a coterie of Republican heavyweights sent a Democratic governor to jail." Click here to read the article.



The Rove-Canary-Pryor Connection

Karl Rove became involved in Alabama politics in 1994, when he joined with veteran GOP operative Bill Canary to help elect pro-corporate Republican judges to the Alabama state supreme court.

A further ally of Rove's and Canary's was Alabama Attorney General William Pryor. Both Rove in Texas and Pryor in Alabama tried to discourage their respective states from actively pursuing the 1996-97 state lawsuits against the tobacco industry, which formed an important aspect of their pro-corporate agenda. However, Alabama's Democratic Lieutanant Governor Don Siegelman was a strong supporter of the tobacco lawsuits.

In November 1998, Siegelman was elected Alabama governor, defeating the Republican incumbent, at the same time that Pryor was re-elected attorney general. Just a few weeks after Siegelman took office, Pryor began an investigation of his administration. It was this investigation that would lead many years later to Siegelman's conviction and imprisonment.

-snip
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/timeline_don_siegelman_1126.htm

Davis: Phone Records Support GOP Lawyer's Story on Siegelman Case
By Laura McGann - October 23, 2007, 3:30PM
Many Democratic members deferred their time to Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) during today's Judiciary Committee hearing on allegations of political prosecutions so that he could dig into the case of ex-Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL).

Davis, who is convinced that the system worked against Siegelman for political reasons, took a stand for Republican lawyer Dana Jill Simpson this afternoon, responding to Rep. Randy Forbes' (R-VA) assertion that the Department of Justice should investigate her. Davis argued that there is no evidence directly disproving testimony Simpson gave House investigators.

In fact, Davis points out, Simpson offered evidence that undermines the three affidavits Forbes produced this morning. In her original affidavit and in testimony to House investigators, Simpson claimed that she was on a call in 2002 where a local Republican operative, Bill Canary, said Rove had been in touch with the Justice Department about a Siegelman investigation. The three sworn statements from men who Simpson says were also on that call, the son of Gov. Bob Riley (R-AL), Riley's 2002 campaign lawyer and an Alabama Republican, Terry Butts, all claim that the call never happened. But Davis pointed to the phone record (available here) Simspon gave House investigators showing she had made an 11-minute call to Riley's law offices on the day she claims.

Six months ago, Davis said towards the end of the hearing, he had faith in the justice system. But following the revelations of the U.S. attorney scandal and those from the Siegelman case, he said he's no longer so sure politics didn't come to play an important role in prosecutorial decisions under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

-snip

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004533.php


Video: Siegelmania!
By Paul Kiel - October 24, 2007, 12:40PM
Here's video from yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on selective prosecutions, where ex-Gov. Don Siegelman's (D-AL) was the marquee case:

As we reported yesterday, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) made a hard run at Jill Simpson, the Republican lawyer who's testified that Alabama Republicans often chattered about how the Justice Department and local U.S. attorneys would take Siegelman down. Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) rose to her defense, and Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney himself and lawyer for Siegelman, testified that the case took on a new life in 2005 after officials in Washington got involved.

You can see video of former attorney general Dick Thornburgh's testimony here.

-snip

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004544.php

K&R

like Cleland and Barnes had their elections stolen?

Many of us were on this sending DNC any scrap of information that could make a difference - but DNC refused to accept any idea of election fraud.

They were willing to let Siegelman be hung out to dry just to keep the hush going on election fraud.

Why on earth would Terry McAuliffe have done this to Siegelman and our party? It just helped the RNC for their next theft of 2004.

Unless we are looking at a joint effort to manipulate outcomes-and neither party wants corrections or wants to face exposing it.

My supposition.

Riley eyes ousting Democrats from legislature (Siegleman update about mid article)


(Updated: Thursday, January 24, 2008 9:12 AM CST)
Bob Martin, The Alabama Scene

Gov. Bob Riley wants to rid the state legislative halls of Democrats and he’s leading the charge to raise $7 million to start the job in the 2010 elections.

Last Wednesday, Riley announced he will chair the fundraising campaign and has already secured the pledges of 68 people to contribute $10,000-a-year over the next four years to eradicate all those pesky “yellow dawgs” from the House and Senate chambers in Montgomery.

*
But Democratic Chairman Joe Turnham says that money can’t buy Alabama voters and wonders what kind of favors those who pony up the huge amounts of cash will get from the governor.

“I predict these folks will become the most expensive cronies in Alabama history,” he said.

http://www.hartselleenquirer.com/articles/2008/01/30/opinion/oped4.txt

:hi:

:hi:

you and SFexpat post about Don Siegelman!

:woohoo:

in writing to Governor Siegelman while he is being held hostage.

Thanks so much. :loveya:

Whoever wins for us in November, they must correct this wrong against a good and decent Democrat of longstanding.

Read all about it here:
http://blog.locustfork.net/index.php/category/healthsouths-richard-scrushy-on-trial/