Report: Rove wanted dirt on Alabama governor. TPM

[madfloridian]

This topic is getting out more and more. I hope the 60 Minutes segment lives up to its promise Sunday night. I hope heads roll, many of them.

Ex-Republican Operative Says Bush Adviser Karl Rove Pushed for Dirt on Alabama's Governor

A former Republican campaign worker claims that President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, asked her to find evidence that the Democratic governor of Alabama at the time was cheating on his wife, according to an upcoming broadcast of "60 Minutes."

Jill Simpson, who has long alleged that Rove may have influenced the corruption prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman, makes the claim against Rove in a broadcast scheduled to be aired Sunday, according to a statement from CBS.

Simpson testified to congressional investigators last year that she overheard conversations among Republicans in 2002 indicating that Rove was involved in the Justice Department's prosecution of Siegelman. She has never before said that Rove pressed her for evidence of marital infidelity in spite of testifying to congressional lawyers last year, submitting a sworn affidavit and speaking extensively with reporters.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, denied the allegation.

She was asked to take compromising pictures if the occasion occurred.

According to the CBS statement, Simpson says Rove approached her at a 2001 meeting, when Siegelman was still governor.

"Karl Rove asked you to take pictures of Siegelman?" reporter Scott Pelley asks.

"Yes," Simpson replies.

"In a compromising sexual position with one of his aides," Pelley says.

"Yes, if I could," she responds.

This whole situation has been horribly wrong. Karl Rove is now a Fox talking head, while Don Siegelman sits in jail.

"A Stain on Lady Justice"..Siegelman in jail, Rove writing for Newsweek.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has again asked the judge who sentenced former Gov. Don Siegelman for a more detailed explanation of why he refused to let Siegelman remain free on bond while the former governor appeals his conviction. In an apparent rush to throw Siegelman in shackles and denying the former governor the ability to even say goodbye to his family following his sentencing, the judge, Mark E. Fuller, a district judge in the Middle District of Alabama, failed to rule on the motion for release, gaveling down Siegelman's lawyer when she pressed him for a ruling.

Siegelman has applied to the appeals court for his release pending appeal and the appellate judges in reviewing the record, found that Fuller had never even made a ruling on the lawyer's motion. They sent the matter back to him for a ruling, asking an explanation for his decision. The two judges who wrote Fuller for the explanation were Stanley Marcus, a Clinton appointee and Susan Black, an appointee of George H. W. Bush.

..."While Judge Fuller was presiding over the Siegelman/Scrushy trial, a business, Doss Aviation, Inc., in which he holds a 43.75% interest as he sits as a federal jurist, received $200 million in contracts from the Department of Defense.

One, a ten-year contract which totals $178.22 million contains an annual renewal clause, which makes his company totally dependent on the U. S. Government, Recently I disclosed this contract, but since then I have found that Doss Aviation added an additional $21 million in DOD contracts during the time he was sitting as the judge in the Siegelman/Scrushy case.

This is going to get so much uglier, I fear.

[madokie]

1. theres a man who needs to be talking to his lawyer by wire

setting face to face on opposite sides of a wall with a small window between them

[madfloridian]

3. He's still working with impunity...talking head...reporter...

while Siegelman sits in jail.

[bagrman]

14. Todays mission if you choose to except.

Find a copy of Newsweek and take the subscription mailer out and tape it to a brick. Tell them that they should rethink their editorial staff.

[madokie]

16. a good Idea and as I will prolly get a chance today to get one of the cards I plan to do just that

gotta' go to the docs this morning and they always have a newsweek laying around.

[bonito]

2. K&R !

[bleever]

4. K and freakin' R!

Rove and Siegelman will change places, someday soon.

[madfloridian]

5. I sure do hope so.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

6. I wonder how many in Alabama realize how long Rove has messed with their state?

At least since 1994, maybe earlier. His destructive tactics have apparently turned over the Supreme Court there from Democratic to Republican. Questionable methods.

Karl Rove's ruthless tactics helped a judge win in Alabama in 1994. Involved a recount.

Very long. Part of this is from an Atlantic Monthly article called Karl Rove in a Corner.

In 1994 a group called the Business Council of Alabama appealed to Rove to help run a slate of Republican candidates for the state supreme court. This would not have seemed a plum assignment to most consultants. No Republican had been elected to that court in more than a century. But the council was hopeful, in large part because Rove had faced precisely this scenario in Texas several years before, and had managed to get elected, in rapid succession, a Republican chief justice and a number of associate justices, and was well on his way to turning an all-Democratic court all Republican. Rove took the job.

..."The recount stretched into the following year. On Inauguration Day both candidates appeared for the ceremonies. By March the all-Democratic Alabama Supreme Court had ordered that the absentee ballots be counted. By April the matter was before the Eleventh Federal Circuit Court. The byzantine legal maneuvering continued for months. In mid-October a federal appeals-court judge finally ruled that the ballots could not be counted, and ordered the secretary of state to certify Hooper as the winner—only to have Hornsby's legal team appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which temporarily stayed the case. By now the recount had dragged on for almost a year.

One more paragraph:

In the decade since, the recount and the court battle have faded into obscurity, save for one brief period, late in 2000, when they suddenly became relevant again. Almost as if to remind Al Gore's campaign of Rove's skill when faced with a recount, the case was revived in a flurry of legal briefs in the Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore—including one filed by the State of Alabama on behalf of George W. Bush.

He is a smug and unpleasant little man. Even my Republican family detests his methods.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. K&R!

[madfloridian]

8. Thanks for the K&R...Let's make them switch places.

I detest that man.

[AzDar]

9. K & R...

[Hissyspit]

10. Time for a kick.

Let's hope Gov. Siegelman is out within the year.

[McCamy Taylor]

11. Oh man! Is the corporate media finally going to turn on Karl Rove?

Did it take them 8 years to figure out that he never intended to keep any of the promises he made back in 2000?

The part about the dirty pictures is what makes me think they will air it. Sex sells.

[tbyg52]

12. >>Rove writing for Newsweek.

Yeah, and *I'm* not reading him.

I called them about my subscription when his first piece appeared and told them "one more time and I'm gone."

Haven't seen him in the dead tree edition again, but he showed up in their "top ten web pieces" deal that they run at the front of the magazine, so I called and told them that the web counted too and I would not be giving my money and advertising eyes to any publication that gave that scumbag a platform.

[mod mom]

13. PLS send this to media folks you have contact with. rec'd

[mnmoderatedem]

15. what does Rove have on Lieberman?

I've been uttlerly convinced for quite some time that they've got some dirt on Lie-berman in order to make him sppear to suddenly lose his mind...

edit: spelling