Bush Milwaukee U.S. Attorney Disgraced by Appeals Court for Politicial Prosecution of Innocent Woman [View All]

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

After all the talk about the fired U.S. attorneys, we reported recently on one prosecutor allowed to stay who botched the biggest tax fraud case in American history. Last week, a federal appeals court handed down a "total, humiliating embarrassment" to another prosecutor by vacating a case evidently brought purely for political reasons (but without any evidence).

Steve Biskupic, the U.S. attorney for Milwaukee, indicted and convicted a Wisconsin state purchasing supervisor named Georgia Thompson for improperly awarding a contract to a firm linked to Democratic Governor Jim Doyle's 2006 reelection campaign.

The only problem is that Biskupic never proved that Thompson ever knew about the relationship, which included completely legal donations. Thompson - appointed by Gov. Doyle's Republican predecessor - has never even met Doyle and is not alleged to have sought any personal gain since she was already at the highest civil service pay scale. The winning bid and the runner-up were statistically tied on the seven-member commission's rating scale, but the winner was legitimately chosen because it was $30,000 cheaper and came from in-state.

But an election was coming up, and the allegations proved a great way to attack the Democratic incumbent. Doyle said Republican officials spent "millions of dollars" running ads that turned Thompson into a symbol of corruption in his administration. Caught in the middle was Georgia Thompson, who, her lawyer said, lost "her job, her life savings, her home and her liberty." She was ordered to prison for 18 months by conservative District Judge Rudolf Randa (a member of the Federalist Society) without letting her remain free pending appeal because he had "no real reason to expect her conviction to be reversed."

Full Story: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/201