Congress asked to probe Siegelman case

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Last updated July 16, 2007 7:25 a.m. PT

Congress asked to probe Siegelman case

By BEN EVANS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- Forty-four former state attorneys general have
asked Congress to investigate whether politics at the Justice
Department influenced the prosecution of former Alabama Gov.
Don Siegelman on corruption charges.

Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted last year of bribery and
other charges. He was sentenced last month to more than seven
years in prison.

Democrats have long maintained that his prosecution was politically
motivated, and recent allegations that White House officials were
steering decisions at the Justice Department have added weight to
the claims.

-snip-

"The only way to convince the public that the governor is not the
victim of a politically motivated double-standard is for Congress
to investigate all aspects of the case thoroughly," the former
attorneys general wrote to the chairmen of the House and Senate
judiciary committees.

-snip-

Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1155AP_Fired_Pro...

[Highway61]

1. Yeah, they can do that

AFTER THEY START IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS!!! WTF...Didn't any of them watch Bill Moyers????????

[Joanne98]

2. Congress May Get Alabama Corruption Case

Source: AP

Forty-four former state attorneys general have asked Congress to investigate whether politics at the Justice Department influenced the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges.


Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted last year of bribery and other charges. He was sentenced last month to more than seven years in prison.


Democrats have long maintained that his prosecution was politically motivated, and recent allegations that White House officials were steering decisions at the Justice Department have added weight to the claims.


Last month, a Republican lawyer who worked on the campaign of Siegelman's opponent in 2006 signed a sworn affidavit saying that she overheard conversations among GOP operatives suggesting that the White House was involved in Siegelman's prosecution.





Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/0...

[CottonBear]

3. Rove would do anything to get rid of a Democratic governor in a Southern state.

The Bush whitehouse tried to politically destroy Blanco in LA.

You know Rove had to have been behind the push to prosecute Siegelman.

[wondermanus]

7. He was

Time is reporting that Rove has been named in this. From what I understand about this, it sounds more like a conflict of interest issue than bribery.

[wondermanus]

8. Link

sorry - here's the link to the Time story

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

[CottonBear]

9. Thank you and welcome to DU wondermanus!

edit: You've been around a long time and only posted 10 times! Thanks for posting the link!

[rodeodance]

4. Did Siegelman do nasty things?---anyone follow the trial?

[Schema Thing]

5. From my limited knowledge

he did not.

I don't want to see any corrupt politician get off scott free, but it really sounds as if the government did not have a real case against him.... and certainly nothing that would warrant long jail time.

[rodeodance]

6. Thanks, I do hope they at least look into it.

[trof]

10. I live in Alabama and have been watching this closely.

You can read a lot about it here:
http://www.locustfork.net/blog/jill_simpsons_affidavit/...

I keep hoping this story will 'get legs', but not much of anything in MSM.

The main 'crime' appears to be that Siegelman re-appointed Scrushy to a hospital oversight board where he had already served under 3 previous governors. At some point Scrushy gave $500,000, NOT to Siegelman, but to his campaign to establish a state lottery here.
For many of us there's a BIG question whether there was any quid pro quo here.

BTW, the lottery was defeated in a statewide referendum mainly due to massive amounts of money put into really sleazy TV commercials from the AL Christian Coalition. Money we later learned that came from Mississippi gambling interests through the now infamous Jack Abramoff.
Interestingly, the AL C.C. has now disbanded in disgrace.

The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

A previous governor, Guy Hunt (R), was convicted of putting $100,000 of campaign funds into his own pocket. He got 5 years PROBATION. Didn't spend a night in jail.

Siegelman, who certainly didn't personally profit from whatever happened, was sentenced to 7+ years. At his sentencing he was sent DIRECTLY to jail. Bond pending appeal denied. No time to get his affairs taken care of. His belt and shoelaces were removed and he was handcuffed and shackled and led away. The only think they didn't do was make him strip and don the orange jumpsuit.

And I am PISSED!

[Gayla]

11. Me too, Trof.

I did follow the trial, read the pleas, transcripts, etc. and I don't
believe Don did a thing wrong. I also asked him directly. He looked me right in the eye and said he had never ever done anything wrong to put a penny in his pocket.

This was/is nothing but a Republican/Rove tactic to ensure that Bob Riley
remained as Governor.

Don Siegelman is a good man.

[southlandshari]

13. I'm curious...

How would you rank Siegelman's record on progressive issues?

What makes him worth championing by our side, other than a "D" after his name?

[southlandshari]

20. The Alabama Christian Coalition

also led the charge against Republican governor Riley's attempt to reform our antiquated and oppressive tax code here in Alabama.

Just saying that being on the receiving end of nastiness of that group doesn't automatically qualify someone as a righteous progressive.

One thing on which you and I definitely agree is that the marginalization of John Giles and his ilk is nothing but good for Alabama.

[southlandshari]

12. Yes, he did

I followed the trial just as I've followed Siegelman's misadventures for the past several years.

Rove and his minions needn't have bothered in this case. Siegelman was crooked and corrupt and deserved to be convicted without any help from them.

If the opinion of a born and raised Alabama liberal means anything here, folks might want to rethink championing Don Siegelman as some sort of victim. He was and is an embarrassment to progressives in Alabama.

To be fair, he was just another in a long line of embarrassing leaders in our state - most of whom were conservative Republicans. But the sins of buffoons like Guy Hunt and Fob James don't give our side license to be equally stupid, IMHO.

Don't believe the hype of a national press corps that wouldn't know the truth if it bit them on the ass. This is opportunistic sniping at an administration that should have been held accountable long ago. And for crimes far worse than what is being suggested in this case.

[trof]

21. I understand that you don't like Don Siegelman.

You've made that quite clear here and in the Alabama Forum.
I'm sure you have your reasons.
Regardless, I think Siegelman was the victim of a DOJ/Rove hit and I hope that this investigation will help bring Gonzales down.
This goes far beyond political shenanagins and dirty tricks.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Not knowing anything about the case, I looked it up in a quick run to google.

Wikipedia often reflects what the last editors got into it just before you looked, but here's what they have today:

In June 2007 a Republican lawyer signed a sworn statement that she had heard five years ago that Karl Rove was preparing to politically neutralize Siegelman with an investigation headed by the U.S. Department of Justice.<7> Siegelman defenders point out that over 100 charges were thrown out by three different judges, and the investigating U.S. Attorney was the wife of his political opponent's campaign manager.<7> The Republican activist, lawyer Dana Jill Simpson of Rainsville, Alabama, filed a sworn statement saying that she was on a Republican campaign conference call in 2002 when she heard Bill Canary tell other campaign workers not to worry about Siegelman because Canary's "girls" and "Karl" would make sure the Justice Department pursued the Democrat so he was not a political threat in the future.<7> "Canary's girls" included his wife, Leura Canary, who is United States Attorney for United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.<7> Leura Canary only submitted recusal paperwork after Siegelman Attorney David Cromwell Johnson's press conference in March of 2002. Then two months after the press conference she "voluntarily recused herself."

Jill Simpson later stated that she did not infer that Karl rove was involved in a plot: 'Jill Simpson, the Republican Rainsville lawyer who wrote the affidavit, said in an interview that she is not responsible for how others interpret her sworn statement. She said she tried to accurately represent a conference call she heard in which Rove's name came up, and she said no one definitively said in that call that Rove arranged for Siegelman's investigation. It's not clear if Rove was being identified in the call as the person behind the investigation or as someone who heard Siegelman already was under investigation.'.<8>"Affidavit about Siegelman case open to debate", The Birmingham News, July 8, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-07-08. </ref>

Siegelman defenders noted the sentence and fine are unusual because, for example, former Alabama Governor Guy Hunt, a Republican, was found guilty in state court of personally pocketing $200,000, and state prosecutors sought probation, not jail time, in the Hunt case.<7>

The New York Times noted, "The United States attorneys scandal has made clear that partisan politics is a driving force in the Bush Justice Department," and "There is reason to believe prosecution may have been a political hit, intended to take out the state’s most prominent Democrat, a serious charge that has not been adequately investigated."<9> Further, "We hope that the appeals court that hears Mr. Siegelman’s case will give it the same hard look that another appeals court recently gave the case of Georgia Thompson. Ms. Thompson, a low-level employee in a Democratic administration in Wisconsin, was found to have been wrongly convicted of corruption by another United States attorney."<9>
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Siegelman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sounds as if there's a hell of a lot more to find out, to someone who lives far out of state.

Looking forward to more real information.

[southlandshari]

15. Where was Ms. Simpson

all the years that Siegelman has been embroiled in bitter legal battles and public controversy?




If Rove was involved at the end - and I have no reason to believe he wasn't - we would be well-advised not to embrace the obvious in our reactions. It does nothing but play right into the Bush administration's hands for us to wail and gnash our teeth over the conviction of a Democrat who was plainly guilty of the charges against him.

Think about it.

[Judi Lynn]

16. How would I know? As I said, I must read more about this myself.

I expressed ignorance. I don't live there. I'm curious, as a Democrat.

I intend to find out more.

Allow us to proceed at our own speed, unimpeded by pushing and shoving. Works better that way.

[southlandshari]

17. I apologize

if it felt like I was attacking you. I truly wasn't.

This issue is very near and dear to my heart. I don't want liberals in general and in Alabama in particular to fall for a cleverly laid trap by Rove or to embrace propaganda disguised as late breaking news favorable to our side by a national media that we all know good and well whored itself out to corporate interests and abandoned truth-telling long ago.

I am not trying to push or shove or impede anyone else's thought process on this issue. Only to express my own opinions on news that isn't news to me as a fellow liberal in Alabama.

Forgive me if my passion came across as acrimony towards you or anyone else here.

[Auntie Bush]

18. Man, I smell some rotten dead fish around here.

Smells like Rove has stunk up the justice department.

[southlandshari]

19. That's the one thing in all this

that isn't breaking news.