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.

Manipulating the Jury Pool

Our post from yesterday was right on target. We concluded that federal prosecutors in Mississippi appear to be leaking information out to the media to manipulate the jury pool in a judicial bribery case.

Our take on the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi was reaffirmed today in the Jackson Clarion Ledger.

As you may recall, that particular office in Mississippi is a hillbilly branch of the Rove Republican Racket and has successfully prosecuted "them Democrats" like the segregationists before them prosecuted "them colored folks."

One way is to stack the jury.

The Ledger writes:

Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter wants the jury pool for his federal corruption trial pulled from the entire northern half of Mississippi so he has a better chance of finding jurors not tainted by media coverage....Jurors for federal trials in Oxford usually come from a 17-county area, but DeLaughter wants that expanded to the entire 37-county northern district because of media attention in the case.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder should use his power over the U.S. Attorney's Office in Northern Mississippi and end the prosecutorial misconduct and gross injustice by Rove and his hillbilly friends.

Read the full article here.

Leaky Feds in Mississippi?

Last week's filing in the bribery case against Judge Bobby DeLaughter in Mississippi, an interesting footnote is found. DeLaughter's attorneys allude to irregularities and possible prosecutorial misconduct by remnants of the Rove-Bush-Cheney racket.

The brief states:

In addition, it has recently come to undersigned counsel’s attention based upon prejudicial articles published in the Jackson Clarion Ledger, that further irregularities may well have occurred in the conduct and supervision of the grand jury in this matter.

The footnote states:

These articles are: (1) an extremely misleading and inaccurate June 10, 2009, story regarding the existence of plea negotiations between Defendant and the government attorneys; (2) an ad hominem July 5, 2009 story regarding the fact that Judge DeLaughter remains suspended with pay that incorrectly suggests that this is the doing of Judge DeLaughter; and, (3) a July 9, 2009, article detailing a deposition transcript of Co-Schemer Timothy Balducci taken by the lawyers for the Frisby Corporation in the matter of Eaton orporation, et al., v. Jeffrey D. Frisby, et al., Civil Action No. 251-04-642-CIV, currently pending in the Hinds County Circuit Court.

This suggests that federal prosecutors or staffers from the U.S. Attorney's office have been leaking internal or circumstantial facts to manipulate the jury pool.

This kind of media manipulation caused a federal judge in Boston recently to grill prosecutors and demand detailed briefs on the "public relations" effort by the Boston U.S. attorney's office.

Is this slew of anti-DeLaughter media coverage part and parcel of a orchestrated media relations campaign from the good old boys in backwards Mississippi? Sho' looks like it.

Read the full brief 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.

Bean Town Bra Bribes

The Rove Republican Racket thought they were clever. In 2007 and 2008, they targeted two allegedly corrupt Democratic politicians in Boston. Investigators caught the politicians on tape and on film stuffing bribes in a bra.

Then came the grand standing!

Now a federal judge wants to know why a high profile news conference was held right after the arrests and photos from the investigation released. The news conference and photo incidents happened last year.

From the Associated Press:

A federal judge has ordered prosecutors to produce affidavits explaining why photographs were released and any news conferences held following the arrests of two Boston politicians on corruption charges. Judge Douglas Woodlock said Thursday at a pretrial hearing that he wants to evaluate whether prosecutors tried to "gin things up" among the public following the arrests last year of former Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and Boston city councilor Chuck Turner. Woodlock said he wanted affidavits by July 16 from anyone involved in the decision-making process, potentially including former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan.

Sullivan is part of the Rove-Bush-Cheney machine and now has a well-paying job with former Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft. The indicted and arrested politicians, Turner and Wilkerson, both prominent Democrats are also alleging they were targeted for being high-profile leaders in the African-American community.

Although both these politicians may go to jail, the Rove Racket arrogantly showed-off.

Rove Deposed by House Judiciary Committee

Breaking news from Politico:

Rove deposed in U.S. attorney probe

By: John Bresnahan and Josh Gerstein July 7, 2009 07:29 PM EST

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was deposed Tuesday by attorneys for the House Judiciary Committee, according to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman. Rove’s deposition began at 10 a.m. and ended around 6:30 p.m, with several breaks, Conyers said. Conyers would not comment on what Rove told congressional investigators, what the next step in the long-running Judiciary Committee investigation would be or whether Rove would face additional questioning. “He was deposed today,” Conyers said in an interview. “That’s all I can tell you.”

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, declined to confirm or deny that his client had appeared before the committee. Luskin said there was an agreement that the depositions would remain confidential until they were completed. However, in a court filing Monday, the Justice Department indicated that the deposition set for this week would be the committee's last.Conyers’ panel had first subpoenaed Rove in 2007 as part of its probe into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.

But the Bush White House, citing executive privilege, refused to make Rove or White House Counsel Harriet Miers available for any deposition. Conyers’ panel responded by filing a civil lawsuit against the White House and prevailed in district court last year but the appeals court had yet to address the issue. With an agreement between the Obama White House, the Bush White House and House Judiciary Committee, the current Justice Department avoided having to choose sides in court and risk an appeals court precedent which could undercut executive privilege or Congress's right to investigate alleged government malfeasance. Miers was interviewed by Judiciary Committee staffers in June.

Talk About Stupid

From the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana:

Newton County Prosecutor J. Edward Barce, who is serving as special prosecutor in a case involving a Gary lawyer charged with trafficking with an inmate, let his law license go into inactive status for more than three years. Until four months ago, Barce's license had been on inactive status since Aug. 5, 2005, according to Donald Lundberg, executive secretary of the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission. Barce reactivated his license on Feb. 23, Lundberg said. Barce's license status was one of the reasons cited by Jerome Taylor in seeking the dismissal of the trafficking with an inmate case Barce filed in June 2007 against Taylor's client, Gary attorney Carl Jones.