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

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

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Unreal!

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"Is there anything ELSE? Am I missing something?"

Honorable mention from the same judge:

"If your point is that she's not sticking to the criteria in the statute, you would be prosecuting her also if she had a crush on the Adelman representative because he looks like Brad Pitt. If your point is that there is somehow something politically fishy about this and she's trying to do a political favor through a very indirect route for the Governor, it strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin so I'm not sure what your actual theory of this case is."

"If she has a silly reason, she likes somebody's hairdo or whatever, then she doesn't wind up in federal prison but if she has a desire to do something political pleasing to her superior, whether she's right or not being another issue, then she winds up in federal prison?"

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The methodical and systematic way the judges dismantled the (very thin) prosecution argument was a thing of beauty.

I am assuming that also means that the judges on this court are appointed by the president, right? If so, that means a majority of the judges were appointed by Republicans.

That ought to nail Karl.

http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/070405USDOJThompson.pdf

Commends Thompson's lawyers!

They must have been good, loyal bushies, toeing the line and following orders direct from Rover.

The RWing spin that this US Attorneys investigation is a witch hunt won't succeed. It is obvious that this is about perverting America's Justice System.

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all three judges sound as if they feel like they had just dropped down the rabbit hole and knew it.

"Because they flunked highschool math doesn't mean a federal crime was committed." This was in response to some quibbling over the number of 'points' the bidders actually received; it sounded as if the prosecution extended the evaluation score to a larger number of decimal points to try to prove that the bidder coming in first was actually second.

I hope that she can sue them for malicious prosecution.

BTW, if I heard correctly, the statute number she was prosecuted under was '666'.

It just makes my damn blood boil. She went to prison for pete's sake. She lost her job, her home, her life savings...all so Karl could manipulate the vote in Wisconsin.

I'm wondering if Schumer and Leahy are aware of this case?

K&R

I think there's a reasonable possibility they are aware. Assuming they weren't devoting all their time to Imus or Anna Nicole or something.

all the loyal Busheviks need to be looked at...

She sent her minions after me but could never get an indictment. You have to break the law first and calling Junior an asshole is not against the law.

Sounds like the federal prosecutor and the judge conspired to send her to prison pending her appeal--which they knew she was likely to win---in order to twist her arm to get her to make a false statement implicating the Democratic governor or his aids so that the RNC could use it in the campaign.

A case that bogus--even nitwit Federalists had to know that it was going to go down in flames on appeal. I think the judge and the prosecutor both ought to be investigated.

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Lest we forget.