Possible Vindication in Alabama?

Breaking News

A respected Democratic political leader and a former health care business owner who were scalped by the Rove Republican Racket are seeking vindication from the political persecution they suffered during the Rove Bush Cheney years. The Birmingham News reports tonight:

Former Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today to toss out all charges against them, arguing that money Scrushy gave Siegelman's 1999 lottery campaign could not be considered a bribe. The U.S. Supreme Court in June sent the case back to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to review in the wake of a recent order from the high court limiting the use of the "honest services" fraud statute in public corruption cases.
   

The Supreme Court in a case involving disgraced Enron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling curtailed prosecutors' use of the honest services fraud statute, saying it can be applied only in cases involving bribes or kickbacks. A jury convicted Scrushy and Siegelman on charges that Scrushy bribed Siegelman for a seat on the state Certificate of Need Review Board with $500,000 in contributions to Siegelman's lottery campaign.
   

Lawyers for Siegelman and Scrushy wrote in their court filings that there is a significant difference between giving money to someone personally and giving money to an issue advocacy campaign. "Siegelman was not paid anything. The prototypical bribe involves a pay-off," lawyers for Scrushy wrote. "The Eleventh Circuit should dismiss all charges against Governor Siegelman, based on Skilling. That would be the correct legal outcome, based on the law as the Supreme Court has explained it," Siegelman lawyer Sam Heldman said this evening.

Million-Dollar Bingo Jackpot

Almost exactly a year ago, with the aftermath of the prosecutorial misconduct case against former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, we introduced our readers to  Brenda K. Morris (pictured) , a Rove Republican Racket federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice, who was one of the six prosecutors accused of withholding evidence in the Stevens case.

Our post was about how Morris had to settle another prosecutorial misconduct case for $1.34 million and appeared to have had a pattern of engaging in cases shrouded with controversy or misconduct.

Now Morris has reappeared in another case shadowed with controversy and misconduct. Main Justice reports:

The lead prosecutor in the government’s botched case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has resurfaced in  a controversial federal corruption investigation in the Middle District of Alabama.

Brenda Morris, a veteran trial lawyer in the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, was among a group of federal law enforcement officials who met with Alabama legislators on April 1 to inform them of the probe, which is related to a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would legalize electronic bingo.

The investigation has inflamed tensions between state Democrats and Republican-appointed U.S. Attorney Leura Canary, who prosecuted former Gov. Don Siegelman (D) and whose husband has close ties to Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who strongly opposes the amendment. Canary’s office and the Public Integrity Section are jointly investigating bingo proponents’ quest for votes in support of the amendment, which the state Senate passed on March 30.

The state House of Representatives has yet to vote. Alabama Democrats sent a letter to Lanny Breuer, the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, charging that the “unprecedented” disclosure of the investigation was meant to have a “chilling effect” on state legislators who otherwise might have voted for the amendment.

 Who said Democrats weren't still being targeted?

Ass of the Year

Time Magazine may have the Person of the Year, but our blog names the Ass of the Year, a loyal member of the Rove Republican Racket.

This year's honor goes to none other than the witch of Alabama, Queen of the Rove Racket, Alice H. Martin (pictured).

Ms. Martin, the former U.S. Attorney in Northern Alabama, targeted and terrified Democrats and engaged in political prosecutions.

From former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to former State representative Sue Schmitz, Martin ran-over the constitution and applied the dishonest honest services crime against anyone not carrying a Republican registration card.

Martin truly is the Ass of the Year!

Only God can Save the Innocent

Although we have seen examples of prosecutorial misconduct by the Rove Republican Racket based on political vengence and opportunism, one experienced law enforcement officer writes that much of the cases surrounding prosecutorial misconduct arise out of shoddy investigations and unreliable eyewitnesses.

Sunil Dutta (pictured) is a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department. He also holds a PhD and entered the police force after working as a scientist and researcher.

In an opinion piece for the Christian Science Monitor, Dutta writes:

Major harm could result from our reliance on two very fallible tools: eyewitnesses and shoddy forensic science.  Consider a recent example: On Feb. 17, 2004, Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham for the arson deaths of his three daughters. In September, an investigative article in The New Yorker revealed that Mr. Willingham was innocent. It sparked a series of investigations that found he was the victim of shoddy crime scene investigation and outdated theories.

In 2006, when the Rove-Bush-Cheney administration fired nine U.S. Attorneys, the political masters struck the drums: go after Democratic fundraisers, Democratic boosters, Democratic political operatives, and Democratic governors.

Although Dutta writes of police departments, his observations can be applied to U.S. Attorney offices during the Rove years:

Aside from the fallibility of eyewitnesses, our political model of control over the police can lead to inadvertent mistakes. Municipal police departments dance to the tune of their political masters who thrive on the constant drumbeat of "tough on crime" rhetoric. The only evidence that police can measure to tout our tough-on-crime rhetoric is increasing the number of arrests and reducing crime rates.

This pressure to be productive, the lack of personnel and time, and the desire to wrap up an incident, combined with the unreliability of eyewitnesses, increases the odds that an innocent person may be arrested, or worse, convicted. Add to this our system that rates prosecutorial performance on conviction rates and we are on a slippery slope. And when corrupt prosecutors who present false evidence, even in death penalty cases, such as the now disbarred Arizona prosecutor Kenneth Peasley, enter the mix, only God can save the innocent.

It is obvious that the political pressure to be "tough on corruption" by the Rove-Bush Administration led many U.S. Attorney offices to target innocent Democrats and to expand the use of the dishonest "honest services" statute.

Read the full column here.

Too Many Laws

When the Rove Republican Racket went after political operatives, sometimes they would lose during the first trial with a hung jury. They came back again and again, eventually winning and in some cases losing. Prominent Democrats plead out and went to jail. Others, like Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama, are still appealing.

U.S. Attorneys of the Rove-Bush machine were successful in part because of the enormous number of laws on the books. They can pick and choose what law fits the concocted "crime." (Be sure to see yesterday's post on the Dishonest Honest Services Charges.) In an eye-opening post today, Thomas Lifson of American Thinker writes of a new report:

When there are so many laws that are vague, contradictory, and unfathomable, anyone can become a criminal if the state chooses to prosecute. America is too rapidly approaching this state, as a horrifying report from Brian W. Walsh of the Heritage Foundation in the Washington Times indicates. George Norris, an orchid importer, spent two years in prison for paperwork errors in the course of operating his business of importing and distributing orchids. No illegal substances were involved, and so far as I can see there was no tax evasion going on. It was paperwork.

Two years in prison for paperwork errors!

The plain reality is U.S. Attorneys and their assistants wield too much power with too many laws. And if they subjectively feel you haven't cooperated, they can throw the entire penal code at you.

Justice in Birmingham

Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was present for the swearing in of the new U.S. Attorney in Birmingham, Alabama: Joyce Vance (pictured) who takes the reins from Alice Martin, the Rove Republican Racket's dearest political prosecutor of Democrats.

With Vance sworn in, true justice returns to Alabama. As you may recall, Martin was a vicious and extremely partisan prosecutor.

From the Associated Press:

Vance takes over an office that under former U.S. Attorney Alice Martin began an intensive investigation of Alabama's two-year college system. That investigation led to convictions or guilty pleas from three legislators and the former chancellor of the state's two-year-college system.

Some Democratic leaders have said the investigation was partisan and targeted at Democratic office holders. Vance did not mention those cases in her brief remarks, but said her office would dispense justice equally.

Some supporters of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy have pressured Holder to clear the two of their 2006 convictions in a government corruption case.

Siegelman has charged that his prosecution was pushed by the administration of former Republican President George Bush and Bush aide Karl Rove.

There was one reference to the Siegelman case. That came when the master of ceremonies, Birmingham attorney Barry Ragsdale, introduced U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller, the chief judge in the Middle District of Alabama who presided over the trial of Siegelman and Scrushy. "We are pleased that Karl Rove gave you permission to come," Ragsdale joked as he pointed at Fuller.

Read the full article here.

Firing Back at Karl Rove's Lies

The political fallout from Karl Rove's Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal is escalating.

In the piece, the father of the Rove Republican Racket demands an apology from the New York Times, The Washington Post and Congressman John Conyers, and states his role in the 2006 firing of U.S. Attorneys was "minimal."

Now two leading Democrats mentioned in his op-ed are firing back.

From Dana Beyerle of the Gadsen (Alabama) Times:

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Rove put his spin on his testimony saying neither Siegelman nor Rainsville lawyer Jill Simpson, who publicly stated allegations about Rove's alleged involvement in events surrounding Siegelman's challenge to Gov. Bob Riley's 2006 re-election. Rove said Siegelman and Simpson "refused to cooperate with the Justice Department's review" while (Rove) willingly testified. Simpson said that's a lie. She gave sworn testimony to committee staffers on Sept. 14, 2007. And Siegelman was never called to testify, although he said he would have. "In fact, there's no indication that the Justice Department has considered the prima facie evidence of lying, concealment of evidence and witness intimidation by federal prosecutors," the Huffington Post reported. Siegelman's attorney, Vince Kilborn, in the Birmingham News, said he doesn't believe Rove's denial.

Rove Denies Siegelman Role

Breaking News from The Birmingham News...

Karl Rove denies having a role in the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Rove arrogantly told congressional investigators that he had "more pressing" matters to attend to.

Here is today's breaking news story:

WASHINGTON -- In an interview with congressional investigators last month, former White House adviser Karl Rove again denied pressing the federal prosecution of former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman as a way of helping to elect current Republican Gov. Bob Riley, according to a transcript released today by the House
Judiciary Committee.

"I had a lot more pressing things on my platter than the Alabama governor's race, and, as a result, a lot more significant things to worry about than the Don Siegelman case," Rove said under questioning by a committee attorney. Although Rove did not testify under oath, it is a crime to lie to Congress.

The deposition took place July 30 as part of the committee's probe into whether that top members of the Bush administration improperly sought to politicize the Justice Department. Siegelman, who served as governor from 1999 to 2003, is free on bond as he battles to overturn his 2006 conviction on federal corruption charges. While no conclusive evidence has so far emerged to support Siegelman's charge that he was the victim of political prosecution, a bi-partisan group of 75 former state attorneys general asked the Justice Department in April to look into the matter. Siegelman defense attorney Vince Kilborn of Mobile could not immediately reached for comment this afternoon on Rove's testimony.

Sex, Drugs, and the Rove Racket

When the Rove Republican Racket targeted former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, they went the extra distance.

Now comes explosive testimony accusing Rove's henchmen of intimidating and possibly blackmailing a witness with an alleged sex and drug scandal.

From the Huffington Post:

The top government witness [Nick Bailey] in the 2006 federal conviction of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges is providing new evidence that prosecutors failed to fulfill their legal obligation to provide the defense with all records documenting witness-coaching....Even more explosive than an alleged failure by prosecutors to comply with federal trial procedures is a sworn statement by Bailey's current employer Luther "Stan" Pate, another Alabama businessman. "Nick was told that the government was working to prevent the publicizing of an alleged sexual relationship between Nick and Don Siegelman," Pate wrote. "Nick also told me that one of the agents working the Siegelman/Scrushy prosecution asked him whether he had ever taken illegal drugs with Governor Siegelman or had a sexual relationship with him. These comments had a dramatic effect on Nick, and, in my observation, added significantly to the pressure he felt to go along with whatever the prosecutors wanted him to say."

Read the entire story here and the sworn statement here.

Alabama Retaliation

July 4th is over but political fireworks were shot into the sky yesterday in Montgomery, Alabama. The whistle-blower for the U.S. Department of Justice who revealed prosecutorial misconduct in the case against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman was fired from her job last month. The action was labeled immediately as retaliation.

She had provided evidence that members of Rove Republican Racket were engaged in repugnant legal conduct. Now the Racket has fired her.

From the Daily Kos:

A U.S. Department of Justice whistleblower has been fired from her job after speaking out about wrongdoing in the Middle District of Alabama. Tamarah Grimes, who served on the prosecution team in the case against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, received notice of her termination on June 9....Grimes provided documents to Justice Department watchdogs showing that Leura Canary, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, had stayed on the Siegelman case long after she had supposedly recused herself. Grimes also provided evidence of improper contacts between jurors and members of the prosecution team.

Read the full story here and the New York Times story here.

Newly Discovered Prosecutorial Misconduct

The New York Times reports today about prosecutorial misconduct by the Rove Republican Racket in the political persecution of Governor Don Siegelman.

Lawyers for Donald E. Siegelman, the former Alabama governor convicted on corruption charges in 2006, have asked for a new trial based on “newly discovered evidence” of prosecutorial misconduct in the case....The motions argue that the government failed to turn over information that could have helped the defendants’ cases, and that the testimony of an important witness, Nick Bailey, a former Siegelman aide, was shaped by repeated coaching sessions with prosecutors. The brief suggests that prosecutors had threatened him implicitly to “enhance his need to cooperate.”

You can read the full article here.

Goodbye Alice!

Breaking News: Alice H. Martin, U.S. Attorney and the Patron Saint of the Rove Republican Racket in Northern Alabama is resigning this Friday.

Looks like former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman may have a real shot at justice over politics.

Read the full story here. Read our previous post on Alice here.

No Knowledge

When federal prosecutors failed to convict CEO Richard Scrushy on charges related to an accounting scandal at HealthSouth, the Rove Republican Racket went after him in other ways: political persecution.

The Rove Racket appears to have tossed the book at Scrushy and former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman as vengeance and retaliation for losing their original case.

The second case, involving a bogus stretch of law, accused the respected Democratic Governor of offering a regulatory position to Scrushy after Scrushy made a significant public donation. Although there was no quid pro quo, the Rove Racket went after the Democratic leader and CEO, and convicted them.

Yesterday, Scrushy made his first public comments on the HealthSouth scandal. Scrushy was acquitted on all charges in 2005. From The Wall Street Journal:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Richard M. Scrushy, former chairman and chief executive of HealthSouth Corp., said he had "no knowledge" of the $2.6 billion fraud that nearly destroyed the rehabilitation company he founded, in his first public testimony on the matter. Mr. Scrushy, who was acquitted of criminal charges related to the HealthSouth accounting scandal in 2005, took the witness stand Wednesday in the trial of a civil action against him by HealthSouth shareholders. The former CEO, who is serving a prison term in an unrelated case, didn't testify publicly during the five-month HealthSouth criminal trial. In Wednesday's testimony, the 56-year-old Mr. Scrushy sought repeatedly to distance himself from the five chief financial officers who served under him at HealthSouth, all of whom pleaded guilty in connection with the fraud. They have testified that Mr. Scrushy was complicit in systematically overstating HealthSouth's earnings in a scheme that spanned about six years. "I certainly had no knowledge of anything they were doing in terms of moving numbers around in the company," Mr. Scrushy testified Wednesday. The former CEO, who wore a dark-gray suit with a burgundy tie, and occasionally donned wire-rimmed glasses to read financial documents, said HealthSouth employed the auditing company that is now Ernst & Young at great expense, to ensure that its books were properly reviewed. He also underscored measures he said he implemented to ensure "moral and ethical" behavior at HealthSouth, such as creating a compliance program in its early days.

Laughable

Louis V. Franklin, the paid consultant of the U.S. attorneys office of the Middle District of Alabama, has dispatched a letter requesting a longer prison term for wrongly convicted former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman.

According to the Montgomery Advertiser, "Siegelman's attorney, Vince Kilborn, said... it's 'laughable' for prosecut­ors to recommend a tougher sentence than the former governor received before two of the charges he was convicted of were dismissed. 'It's a continuation of gov­ernment overreaching in this case,' Kilborn said."

The Rove Racket is trying to play hardball as they see their political persecution cases weakening in the South and possibly going up in smoke.

Read the full article here.

Siegelman Case Rises Again

The wrongful conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is elevating again, slowly in the news. We expect the spotlight to rise in the forthcoming weeks especially on the heels of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the Paul Minor case.

The MetroWest Daily News of Framingham, Massachusetts has an opinion piece that posted yesterday. Here is an excerpt:

Attorney General Holder must immediately reverse the government's position and ask the court to vacate the convictions of (former Alabama) Gov. Siegelman, and failing all else, President Obama must pardon Gov.
Siegelman to stop a gross miscarriage of justice. Not only that, Congress must, as a first priority, finally enforce the subpoenas that Karl Rove has been thumbing his nose at for over a year, and he must be compelled to testify about his role in politically motivated persecution of Gov. Don Siegelman.

Tiresome Racket Mouthpiece

The Birmingham News had an editorial yesterday complaining of the repeated and "tiresome"call for justice by former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman who was targeted by the Rove Republican Racket after he left office.



As we reported earlier, 75 former State Attorney Generals have called on Attorney General Eric Holder to review Siegelman's case. The highly critical editorial page of the newspaper notes that none of the 75 are from Alabama (like that really would make a difference) and says that the Siegelman case should not be treated with political favoritism and must go through the regular legal channels.



No offense but having a review, like Holder did for former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, is part of the regular legal process, espècially when U.S. Attorney Offices act blatantly wrong.



The Birmingham News is a tiresome Rove Racket mouthpiece that did nothing to protect the legal integrity of Alabama's judicial system and has consistently paid political favorites with the Rove Republican Racket.



A political swine flu appears to have infected their brains.

Seventy-Five

From today's wires:

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A bipartisan group of 75 former state attorneys general from across the country has asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. They want Holder to conduct an investigation similar to the one that led the Justice Department to drop its case against former Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Holder asked a judge to toss out Stevens' corruption conviction because prosecutors withheld evidence from his defense team during the trial. The attorneys general say in their letter that if similar misconduct is found in the Siegelman case, the once-popular Democrat's corruption conviction should be dismissed. Siegelman was sentenced to more than seven years in prison and is free on bond while he appeals.

A Very Good Question, Indeed

In today's Montgomery Advertiser, a leading article focused on the debate over Alabama's ethics law. Both Republicans and Democrats seem to disagree with Republican Alabama Governor Bob Riley's interpretation.

There is quite an interesting passage inside the article:

"People, including those watching the case of former Gov. Don Siegelman, know that there are laws against quid pro quo, exchanging something of value for an official action. They argue prosecutors did not prove quid pro quo against Siegelman, but he was convicted of appointing Richard Scrushy to a state board in exchange for a large donation to a failed lottery campaign."

The governor's spokesperson then "asked who is supposed to determine whether a gift was given to influence."

A very good question, indeed! Maybe he and his boss should look in the mirror.

Riley's friends at the Rove Republican Racket targeted Siegelman. The Rove Republican Racket "determined"by their almighty wisdom that Siegelman was being influenced by a gift.

The Rove Racket now acts like the Puritans of Clean Politics when the whole case was nothing more than a political prosecution by the U.S. Attorneys Office used to destabilize the Democratic Party in Alabama.

Rove´s Advice

Karl Rove was in Northeastern Pennsylvania yesterday. Here's what the Times Leader wrote:

"From the simple dining room of Tony’s Restaurant in Kingston to the academic surrounds of Wilkes University, Republican strategist Karl Rove on Wednesday discussed the art of political campaigning. He discounted the importance of superior fundraising and warned against over-reliance on attacking an opponent....Rove told the students good campaigns are persistent, have lots of good data and achievable goals. He said there is a right way and a wrong way to criticize opponents."

Rove disingenuously discounted the importance of superior fundraising. Both Bush and Obama have broken fundraising records to win the presidency.

It appears now that the "right way" to criticize opponents is to politicize the U.S. Department of Justice and simply prosecute your opponents and their top fundraisers.

The achievable goals have been Siegelman, Minor, Schmitz, etc. So persistent were these prosecutors, that many folks were prosecuted TWICE after the DOJ initially failed to prove their guilt in round one of a bogus political witch hunt.

Coalition Against the Rove Racket

Breaking news from the news wires today:

Today a broad coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to an honest and accountable government launched "Restore Justice At Justice," www.RestoreJusticeAtJustice.com, a campaign to clean up the Department of Justice's sad record of political prosecutions under the Bush Administration.

These organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of members, have a strong track record of spurring action on crucial issues. The coalition has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, available on the Restore Justice At Justice website, requesting that he quickly investigate and identify those targeted, and vacate their convictions, beginning with Alabama ex-Governor Don Siegelman and Attorney Paul Minor.

The coalition asserts that under the Bush administration, the Department of Justice was driven by ideology, and prosecutions were often used to settle scores and intimidate the opposition. The GOP, at the direction of Karl Rove, used the DOJ to target political enemies including Democratic contributors and those who were a threat to GOP electoral gains and big business interests. The Department was used as an arm of the White House to destroy these Democrats. This political profiling resulted in the criminal prosecution of many on the GOP list, including Don Siegelman and Paul Minor.