Rove and the Conspiracy Buffs

In yesterday's Washington Post, we finally obtained some understanding on what Karl Rove feels about the unwarranted dismissals of seven U.S. Attorneys in 2006 and the Rove Republican Racket that has politically prosecuted, incarcerated, and humiliated Democrats of all shapes and sizes from coast to coast.

"In a tone of obvious irritation, [Rove] asserts that he did not have any role in the Justice Department's 2005 decision to prosecute the Democratic former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, on bribery and other charges, an accusation Rove fought for years. He also takes on what he calls a "bunch of conspiracy buffs" who accused him of ordering the removal of seven U.S attorneys for their failure to prosecute Democrats. The Justice Department, he says, had grounds for all of the dismissals."

Karl Rove has excused himself from the obvious: the U.S. Department of Justice became a political arm of the Republican Party during the Bush years and wrongly went after political enemies.

Besides Siegelman, there is Paul Minor, there is Pierce O'Donnell, there is Ted Stevens, there is Sue Schmitz, there is Jim Tobin, and there is a list that goes on and on and on.

We are not conspiracy buffs. From the inside of law enforcement to the backrooms of Congress, we are professionals from Washington, D.C. and have blown open the truth about DOJ scoundrels that paid political homage to Karl Rove. We have exposed the political cronyism of Acting U.S. Attorney Timothy M. Morrison, to the wasteful spending habits of former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, to the shameful and disgraceful “secret contract” of former U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee. We have brought about national exposure on prosecutorial misconduct from the Silicon Valley to Western Michigan.

Karl Rove knew he was the "architect" during the Bush-Cheney Adminstration and now he tries to play it down on the eve of his book release.

The reality is political prisoners sit in prison not because of "conspiracy buffs" but because of  the uncontrolled lust for power by Karl Rove and his henchmen in the Rove Republican Racket.

The Endgame in Alabama

From 2001 through 2009, the Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration and left-over members of the Rove Republican Racket have successfully targeted leading political operatives across the country for political crimes against the state.

From Pierce O'Donnell in Los Angeles to Jim Tobin in Maine, politicians have been dragged through a deep puddle of vengence with a strong stench of injustice by U.S. Attorneys.

So what is the endgame? In other words, what pieces are left after all this turmoil?

In Alabama, the question has been answered. From the Associated Press:

The Alabama Republican Party has a new campaign video filled with lots of Democrats — the convicted kind. State Republican Party officials unveiled a video Tuesday that they plan to use in campaign ads and online during the campaign for the 2010 legislative elections as they push for GOP majorities in the House and Senate, which Democrats have controlled for more than a century.

The video includes images of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman; former state Reps. Bryant Melton and Sue Schmitz; former Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford; former Democratic Party chairman Bill Blount; former Democratic Party executive director Al LaPierre; former state two-year-college chancellor Roy Johnson; and former state Sen. E.B. McClain. All are Democrats, and all have been convicted or pleaded guilty to government corruption charges.

The sound of jail doors closing can be heard in the background of the video, which then shows screens with the words “Alabama Democratic Party leaders. Scandal, corruption, crime.”

Hardball Legal Tactics

When the Rove Republican Racket went after political operatives and other alleged "criminals" though the U.S. Department of Justice, it appears they used hardball tactics.

Two popular hardball tactics during the Bush Administration were 1.) the forced waiver of the attorney-client privilege and the other was 2.) the objection to corporate payment of attorney fees.

Can you imagine that innocent people could not talk with their attorneys in confidence? Can you imagine innocent political operatives forced to pay for their legal fees without the help of their political party or business?

Under these hardball rules, Jim Tobin of Maine would have been forced to pay his multi-million-dollar legal fees on his own, leading to his own bankruptcy and leaving his family in ruins.

According to former Chief Assitant U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of New York, Paul H. Schoeman, "There has been a steady retreat from those practices resulting about a year ago in a revised set of policies that are now part of the U.S. Attorney's Manual and basically reflect that, in all but extraordinary circumstances, the DOJ will not seek waiver of attorney client privilege and will not hold the failure to waive or the payment of individual defendants' legal expenses against corporations that are trying to cooperate."

Thank Goodness!

Maine's Vindictive Prosecution Ends

James Tobin, a Republican operative, was targeted in 2004 by ambitious U.S. Attorneys. The agents of the Rove Republican Racket prosecuted him for being involved in an alleged election-night phone jamming scheme. In appeal, Tobin was completely vindicated when the court said Tobin was wrongly convicted of a crime where the statute simply didn't apply.

Federal prosecutors had egg all over their faces!

Three years after being vindicated, the U.S. Attorney went after Tobin again hours before the statute of limitations was to expire. The case was tossed out as "vindictive prosecution." From the Bangor Daily News:

Tobin, 48, was indicted in October by a federal grand jury in Portland on charges of lying to the FBI during an interview on Oct. 14, 2003, about the phone jamming. Those charges were brought just days before the statute of limitations would have prevented prosecutors from making them and nearly three years after Tobin was vindicated on far more serious charges in New Hampshire. U.S. District Judge George Z. Singal in February dismissed the Maine charges on the basis of vindictive prosecution. Federal prosecutors on March 17 appealed Singal’s decision but on May 1 filed a motion to dismiss it.

The Associated Press adds:

The case against Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, came to a quiet conclusion last week when a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston dismissed an appeal by prosecutors. The hang-up calls jammed phone lines set up by the state Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters' union for more than an hour on Election Day, when Republican John Sununu won a Senate race against then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat. Sununu won by nearly 20,000 votes in 2002, so the jammed phone lines probably had little impact on the outcome of the race. Tobin was cleared in federal court in New Hampshire of taking part in the plot. Then the government brought charges in Maine of lying to investigators, and a judge dismissed those before the case went on to the federal appeals court.