The Strange Case of an Imprisoned Alabama Governor

Alberto Gonzales is out as attorney general, but there is still a lot of questionable Justice Department activity for Congress to sort through. The imprisonment of Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor of Alabama, should be at the top of the list. Jill Simpson, an Alabama lawyer and Republican operative, is heading to Washington this week to tell Congressional investigators that she heard prominent Republicans plotting to use the United States attorneys’ offices to remove Mr. Siegelman as a political threat. The case should be the focus of a probing Congressional hearing this fall.

Mr.Siegelman was a major frustration to Alabama Republicans. The state is bright red, but Mr. Siegelman managed to win the governorship in 1998 with 57 percent of the vote. He was defeated for re-election in 2002 under suspicious circumstances. In the initial returns, Mr. Siegelman appeared to have won by a razor-thin margin. But a late-night change in the tallies in Republican Baldwin County gave the current governor, Bob Riley, a victory of a little more than 3,000 votes out of 1.3 million cast.

Mr.Siegelman has charged that the votes were intentionally shifted by a Republican operative. James Gundlach, an Auburn University professor, did a statistical analysis of the returns and found that the final numbers were clearly the result of intentional manipulation. Mr. Siegelman wanted to take back the governorship in 2006, but his indictment made it impossible.

If Ms. Simpson is telling the truth, she provides important support for Mr. Siegelman’s claim that his prosecution was political. In a sworn affidavit, she says she was on a phone call in November 2002 with Governor Riley’s son, Rob Riley, and Bill Canary, a Republican political operative whose wife, Leura Canary, is the United States attorney for Montgomery. According to Ms. Simpson, they were discussing the political threat Mr. Siegelman posed, and Mr. Canary said his “girls” — his wife and Alice Martin, the United States Attorney in Birmingham — would take care of Mr. Siegelman. Ms. Simpson said Mr. Canary also said the case had been discussed with Karl Rove.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/opinion/10mon4.html

If our representatives don't wake up soon, our democracy will be lost for a very long time.

Thanks for the reminder, Cal.

He was locked up on trumped-up charges because he was more
likely to be ELECTED than someone who had the power to lock
him up on trumped-up charges.

It's the American Way. At the present time.

And it will remain the American Way until we care enough
to change our ways.

House panel looks at role of politics
Friday, September 07, 2007

WASHINGTON - The congressional investigation into whether former Gov. Don Siegelman was prosecuted for political reasons advanced Thursday when an Alabama woman at the heart of the case agreed to be interviewed privately and under oath next week in Washington.

Rainsville Jill Simpson will answer questions from two staff members of the House Judiciary Committee next Friday, according to her attorney, Priscilla Duncan.

Simpson's written statement in May that she overheard Alabama Republicans in 2002 discuss White House knowledge of a federal investigation into Siegelman's administration prompted Democrats to question whether the case had been orchestrated by Republicans with political motives.


http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1189154766315880.xml&coll=2
Republican Lawyer Set To Speak With House Panel About Siegelman
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004099.php
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003659.php

hmmmmmmm....

Mr. Siegelman’s case has disturbing parallels to the prosecution of Georgia Thompson, the Wisconsin civil servant wrongly convicted by the Justice Department of awarding a state contract to a Democratic contributor. Prosecutors tried to get Ms. Thompson, who spent four months in jail before being freed by an appeals court, to testify against Jim Doyle, the state’s Democratic governor.

Ms. Thompson refused — because, she made clear, there was no crime to implicate him in. But her trial was during his re-election campaign, and her conviction was used in anti-Doyle attack ads. It’s too early to say that her case and Mr. Siegelman’s were brought simply to elect Republican governors, but there is certainly evidence that they may have been.

The Bush administration insists that the United States attorney scandal is a non-scandal. But the Siegelman and Thompson cases are a reminder that when the power of the state to imprison people is put in the wrong hands, lives can be ruined and democracy can be threatened. Since the Justice Department refuses to appoint an independent prosecutor to examine whether these and other cases were politicized, Congress must provide the scrutiny.

to make sure our democracy is a thing of myths and fables. :nuke:

The turnover happened in the wee hours of the morning with no oversight. The judge declared that if anyone tried to re-open the ballots and count them that they would be thrown in jail.

Everyone knows that Riley stole the election, but no one could prove it. I've mentioned in other threads, but I'll mention it here too: I saw Siegelman about 4 months before his sentencing and shortly after all of the Gonzo justice dept. stuff was coming out. He said to me, "You watch. They will discover that Rove's hands were all over this thing."

He was right.

Not that they'll bother. They're counting on the whole thing falling down the memory hole.

Jesus, the list of Bush/Cheney dictatorship crimes just keeps growing, doesn't it?

Many are talking about this case "falling down the memory hole". I guess what folks don't realize is that this case has been ignored for several years now, so the "memory hole" has been home for news on Don Siegelman. Until now.

Not one single national media outlet was interested in the misdeeds of Siegelman - real or imagined - in all the years he was under scrutiny for financial misdeeds and corruption. Not one single national Democratic Party leader spoke up for Siegelman in all that time.

But all of a sudden this is some sort of conspiracy?

:shrug:

I am a proud and politically active liberal born and raised in Alabama, and yet I find myself in the minority here on this issue. I'm surprised that I might actually be in the minority here among Alabama DU'ers, given the facts of the case, but I can live with that and I trust my long-time Alabama DU friends can, too. We can agree to disagree.

Don Seigelman is a crook. He was not good for Alabama. To be fair, neither were any of the governors - Democrat OR Republican - who served before him for decades prior. We have a long and embarrassing history of cronyism in this state that transcends party lines. I challenge any Alabama DUer to present evidence to the contrary.

It just seems obvious to me. A Bush Administration judge enters a case at the 11th hour and makes the same ruling any other judge should have made given the evidence and the long history here, and all of a sudden this is a travesty and an injustice?

It's bait. That's what it is. And far too many people are falling for it. They've picked a Democratic public official who was going down on his own, publicized their involvement in the final nail in his coffin and are sitting back and savoring our knee-jerk outrage.

You think I'm wrong? Do some research. Siegelman made very derogatory comments about women in office when he ran against Lucy Baxley last time around - don't you guys here in Alabama remember that? Doesn't anyone remember when he was convicted - CONVICTED - of rigging public bids on medicaid contracts in 2004? Where was the outrage then?

:shrug:

Please research this case in depth before you pass judgement. I think that defending Siegelman is EXACTLY what the powers that be WANT us to do.

I'm not falling for it.

x(

I fucking hate the MSM. Jesus Christ. This is what we've come to. Mainstream press is so goddamn lazy that they gut their reporting to the point of worthlessness, leaving it up to opinion writers to actually inform the public.

of Georgia Thomson's case.