"Immense Relief" in Kansas

The backlash against the Rove Republican Racket persecution of political opponents and its use of the broad Honest Services crime statute has come  now come to fruition.

In Kansas last Friday, just hours after Barry Grissom (pictured) a new, Obama appointed U.S. Attorney took office, the case against two men who have endured two-trials, a third one in the works, saw a seven-year nightmare come to an end. As readers recall, the dishonest "Honest Services" crime was severely narrowed by the U.S. Supreme Court this past June.

The Associated Press reports:

A federal judge Friday dismissed all charges against two former Westar Energy executives who were accused of looting the Kansas utility, granting a request by prosecutors that came just hours after the state's new U.S. attorney was sworn in. Former Westar chief executive David Wittig and his top strategy officer, Douglas Lake, were charged with conspiring to inflate their compensation from the Topeka-based company and taking steps to hide their actions. A third trial date for the men, who were forced out of Westar in late 2002, was pending. Their first trial ended in a hung jury and a conviction in their second was overturned.

"I credit the Justice Department for recognizing how flawed this case was," said Patrick McInerney, an attorney for Lake. McInerney said a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling narrowing the scope of the "honest services" law — which made it a crime to "deprive another of the intangible right to honest services" — crippled the government's case against Wittig and Lake. The high court's ruling in the case against former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling found that theft of honest services is only relevant in cases involving bribes and kickbacks.

Lake, 60, of New Canaan, Conn., and his family have been living with the charges for more than seven years. "It was an immense relief," McInerney said of his client's reaction upon learning of the motion to dismiss. "It vindicates him and what he has said since the very beginning of this that he is innocent. He committed no crime and at long last it has been recognized."

Kansas Khaos

Last June, we took an inside look at the embarrassing Kansas scandal of Rove Republican Racket member and former Attorney General of Kansas, Phill Kline (pictured), who used his position to criminally target an abortion doctor and was influenced to do so by the mistress of his arch-enemy.

George Tiller, the abortion dctor, had been shot and killed the weekend before our post last June.

Now comes news that Kline used the state's highest law enforcement office to engage in a witchhunt of women who had abortions. Kline and some of his former Deputy Attorney Generals are facing state disiplinary hearings this spring for misconduct.

Why? In brief, using the issue of illegal abortions of underage girls as a front, Kline and company obtained medical records of adult women trying to obtain an abortion.

Kline's former Deputy Attorney General Eric Rucker made headlines late last night after responding to the detailed accusations which are eye-popping. The Topeka Capital-Journal writes:

The state's disciplinary board pointed to complaints Rucker was involved in obtaining state medical files under false pretenses, misleading court officials to retain possession of records, dispatching staff to record license plates of women entering the Wichita office of physician George Tiller and securing records from a motel where some of Tiller's patients stayed. Specifically, Rucker is accused of misleading the Kansas Supreme Court when he said the state attorney general's office wasn't pursuing the identity of any adult women who had obtained medical services at Tiller's clinic. The ethics board indicated there was evidence of an effort to obtain names of adult clients.

Holder Seeks Pain Relief in Kansas

When federal prosecutors targeted a pain relief physician in Kansas, they never thought a freedom-loving political activist, Siobhan Reynolds, and her group, the Pain Relief Network, would come to his defense with legal aid and a grassroots media blitz.

Playing hardball, members of the Rove Republican Racket at the U.S. Attorney's office in Wichita then went after Reynolds and her group, based in New Mexico.

Now Reynolds has fought back and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is listening. From last week's Kansas City Star:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has referred to the Justice Department's internal watchdog a complaint alleging prosecutorial misconduct filed by a political activist targeted in a federal obstruction investigation in Kansas.

Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Pain Relief Network, is being investigated by a federal grand jury in Topeka for her role in the case of a Kansas doctor whose clinic has been linked by prosecutors to 59 overdose deaths.

Reynolds told The Associated Press on Friday that she has been informed that Holder read her complaint June 22 against Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway, and that it was referred to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility. The office examines possible ethics violations by Justice Department employees....

Reynolds' group has supported Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, who were indicted in December 2007 on 34 counts accusing them of unlawfully prescribing painkillers and overbilling for services at their clinic in the Wichita suburb of Haysville.

The Pain Relief Network, which opposes what it sees as federal efforts to crack down on chronic pain treatment, has helped the Schneiders line up attorneys and expert witnesses, and has put up billboards supporting them.

The Justice Department has issued a grand jury subpoena for Reynolds and her group seeking all correspondence and other documents related to the Schneider case, including Reynolds' interactions with attorneys, patients, Schneider family members, doctors and others.

Reynolds has refused to comply with the subpoena. She said Friday that she has not yet been found in contempt of court.

"Ms. Treadway's conduct in the case has been nothing short of shocking and ruthless; she has in fact displayed the kind of 'win at all costs' mentality that you have publicly stated your department will no longer tolerate," Reynolds wrote in her June 18 letter to Holder.

An Inside Look at Kansas

The news from this weekend focused on the murder of physician George Tiller, who performed abortions in Kansas.

We found an article from the Kansas City Star from January that was re-posted on Sunday in South Carolina by The State. Although the story focused on the trial of Tiller, it also contained an inside look into the politics of Kansas' legal establishment.

Both Paul Morrison and Phil Kline served as Kansas Attorney General.

The deeds and misdeeds of Paul Morrison and Phill Kline, both former Kansas attorneys general, proved to be the subject of a lengthy — and at times, salacious — legal drama Tuesday.

The day's star witness? Linda Carter, the former staffer in the Johnson County district attorney’s office whose affair with Morrison led to his resignation as attorney general a year ago. Tuesday was the first time Carter had spoken publicly about the relationship. She said Morrison and Kline were "arch-enemies" and that she and Morrison often argued about her employment in Kline’s office after he replaced Morrison as district attorney. They also fought about the Tiller investigation and late-term abortion, which Carter said she opposes.

Morrison, she said, "was increasingly becoming more verbally abusive, angry towards me. That was always because I continued my employment with Phil Kline."

Tiller is accused of having an improper financial relationship with a second physician who signed off on late-term abortions he performed. Tiller maintains his innocence, but his attorneys argue that the 19 misdemeanor charges should be dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct from the start of the investigation.

They accuse Kline, the Republican who began the investigation of Tiller, of letting his opposition to abortion influence his decision to pursue charges. And they say Kline mishandled medical files retrieved from Tiller's office.

Tiller's lawyers contend that Morrison, who changed parties to run as a Democrat against Kline in 2006, later filed the charges under pressure from Carter. She began working for Kline after the election, when he was appointed to fill out Morrison's term as Johnson County district attorney.