Reply #30: Team Chertoff and the Art of Political Prosecution

[L. Coyote]

Chertoff and the Politics of Prosecution
Team Chertoff and the Art of Political Prosecution
by Scott Horton - 07 Sept. 2007
http://www.pacificfreepress.com/content/view/1640/81


Current and former Justice Department officials I have interviewed have consistently identified Michael Chertoff, his successor Alice Fisher and his protégé Noel Hillman, as figures with a strong interest in political prosecutions. Each apparently took an interest in the Siegelman case for all the wrong reasons, I am told, and each had regular communications with the White House throughout this period.

But the Siegelman case was only one of many cases with political overtones which were closely dogged by loyal Republican Party activists at the top of the criminal process at Justice. Today the Los Angeles Times is offering more evidence linking Chertoff to political vendettas using the prosecutorial resources of the Department of Justice.

David Savage and Tom Hamburger report (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-chertoff4sep04,1,4610879.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true):

Shortly after President Bush took office in 2001, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, met with the conservative group Judicial Watch. It wanted criminal charges brought against Hillary Rodham Clinton ....

The Los Angeles Times report concerning the highly political vendetta prosecution of Rosen greatly strengthens the accusations made by a Michigan attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, in a case with strong parallels and similar political circumstances. It also casts a strong light on the mindset and working relationships within Justice at the time the chase after Alabama Governor Siegelman began.