Judiciary Committee to look into Siegelman case

Source: Birmingham News, The Gavel, other

Wednesday, July 18, 2007
KIM CHANDLER
News staff writer

MONTGOMERY - U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. sent a letter Tuesday asking the Justice Department to provide information about the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman and other Democrats.

The letter is the first official sign that the committee is looking at the Siegelman case in a broader investigation of the role of politics in Justice Department prosecutions.

<snip>
excerpt from letter:

July 17, 2007

The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

• The 2006 conviction of Alabama’s former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman for bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud has raised serious concerns. Mr. Siegelman was indicted in 2004, two years after losing the governor’s race by a mere 3,200 votes in the closest governor’s election in Alabama state history. In May, 2007, Jill Simpson, a Republican attorney in Alabama who had worked for Mr. Siegelman’s 2002 Republican opponent, swore in an affidavit that in 2002, a former protégé of Karl Rove told a small group of Republican political operatives that Karl Rove and two U.S. Attorneys in Alabama were working to “take care of” Mr. Siegelman. The Rove protégé, Bill Canary, is married to Leura Canary, who President Bush appointed in 2001 to be the U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Alabama. In 2005, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Alabama indicted Mr. Siegelman (Ms. Canary recused herself from participating in the Siegelman case in 2002). In her affidavit, Ms. Simpson said that Bill Canary told her and two colleagues that “Karl had spoken with the Department of Justice and the Department was already pursuing Don Siegelman.” The phone call that Ms. Simpson was referring to occurred in November, 2002, when Mr. Siegelman was seeking a recount of the vote he had just lost, and when Republican operatives were concerned that Mr. Siegelman could be a significant political threat in future elections.

There have been several reported irregularities in the case against Mr. Siegelman that raise questions about his prosecution. In 2004, charges against Mr. Siegelman were dropped by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Alabama before the case went to trial, and the judge harshly rebuked prosecutors bringing that case. In the RICO case filed in the Middle District of Alabama in 2005, there have been allegations of jury tampering involving two of the jurors who convicted Mr. Siegelman. These and other irregularities prompted 44 former state attorneys general to sign a petition “urging the United States Congress to investigate the circumstances surrounding the investigation, prosecution, sentencing and detention” of Mr. Siegelman.

Read more: http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1184747420311630.xml&coll=2

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Finally.

I've known for weeks that the Democrats will look into this situtation, it's just a matter of when. Hopefully Conyers and Co. can find something out of this situtation because from what I been reading this guy was real dirty, someone you don't want in politics.

2. So...maybe you could tell us WHAT you've been reading about 'this guy' being 'real dirty' and where?
:eyes:

From what i'm been reading he was taking illegal money from people thats all. I don't know how true this is because also from what I been reading that what Siegelman did wasn't really a crime like appointing the guy who ran Healthsouth to a position regarding healthcare in the State, trying to establish some sort of lottery there. I can tell by your avatar that your from 'bama so you most likely know more about Siegelman then me so why don't you explain then.

There's a lot about it there.

he is not "real dirty". He is a politician, yes, but this has been a witch hunt. Don is a stand up guy who had the misfortune of getting caught in Rove's sights.

involved and if a judge dismissed the case and etc. ifs, then the Congress had better investigate. And as to the former guv's reputation, we need specifics on the alleged wrongdoing because we all know about Rove and the Justice Dept and their unabashed political chicanery.

The 'specifics' on whether or not Siegelman did anything wrong or illegal seem to be in short supply.