http://www.opednews.com/articles/Historic-Siegelman-Case-Sh-by-Andrew-Kreig-111102-317.html
Siegelman Showdown Nov. 2 Now Hurts Obama, Not Rove
/By //Andrew Kreig <http://www.opednews.com/author/author35217.html>
/
A legal showdown of historic proportion unfolded Nov. 2 in an Alabama
federal court. Squared off in Courtroom B4 beginning at 10 a.m. in
Montgomery were the Obama Justice Department and its most important
domestic defendant, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, once the leading
Democrat in his state.
Siegelman wants the government to provide documents proving that Middle
District U.S. Attorney Leura Canary really withdrew from the case, as
she claimed. The government contends he is not entitled to confidential
government documents. After five years Siegelman has finally won a
hearing on a request for documents that are central to the 2006
convictions on corruption charges. Middle District U.S. Magistrate-Judge
Charles S. Coody presides, sitting under the authority of the district's
Chief Judge Mark E. Fuller.
Beyond that, Siegelman is in the rare position of having witnesses step
forward with evidence that his prosecutors and trial judge framed him.
Meanwhile, Siegelman has been tried and sentenced to a lengthy prison
term in what our Justice Integrity Project, among others, has described
as the nation's most notorious political prosecution in decades.
The more novel and important focus of my column today is how this case
exemplifies others around the nation whereby the Obama administration
fails to protect our nation's precious legacy of due process. Already,
this disgraceful pattern has deeply damaged Obama's reputation and
re-election chances.
You don't believe that? I can understand. I repeatedly encounter in
Washington and elsewhere well-informed professionals in journalism, law
or politics who have barely, if ever, heard of Siegelman and his ordeal.
Many of them are immersed in mainstream political punditry, typified by
the chatter on Sunday morning news talk shows. Their lack of awareness
of the dark and dirty secrets in political prosecutions doesn't surprise
me.
The Washington Post has never published an in-depth story on the
Siegelman case despite what must be many scores of thousands of citizen
protests to the White House, DOJ and news organizations. The important
but far-from-definitive reporting by the New York Times and CBS News in
2007-2008 has long since disappeared. Most other news organizations
spend scant resources to report on Alabama. So, the mainstream media
rely on skimpy wire service summaries of local news reports and official
documents.
Beyond that, busy professionals tend to assume that Democrats in an
Obama administration along with the inherent fairness of our legal
system would correct any partisan irregularities. Sadly, that's wrong,
as OEN readers see here on a regular basis.
Support for Siegelman primarily developed among progressive blogs in
2007 because of corruption allegations that tied the prosecution to Karl
Rove's political pressures on the Justice Department to advance
Republican goals. That two-party drama climaxed in February 2008 in a
CBS /60 Minutes /report. But CBS omitted sworn documentation of recusal
battles and government contract deals that involve both parties. With
the current and more complex storyline, the mainstream media have lost
interest.
Even so, scandal revelations about Obama DOJ malfeasance resonate with
new and largely/sub rosa /blog and activist audiences across the
political spectrum. This is because a crime case has inherent drama when
it includes mind-boggling legal irregularities, plus high-level
political and corporate intrigue. Moreover, this coincides with more
pervasive public discontent with jobs, savings, foreclosure, tax,
student debt and war woes, plus more generalized fears -- whether of Big
Government or big corporations, and whether visible in Occupy Wall
Street or Tea Party protests.
Illustrating this are several powerful perspectives published below for
the first time. That you must go to here to see this kind of information
discredits Congress, the courts and the mainstream media. Oversight
bodies could easily invite these civic-spirited experts to share their
views in high-visibility hearings that the media would cover. But that
doesn't fit the format of two-party shadow-boxing that distracts the
public from the real wheeler-dealers.
Here's a better way to understand what's going on:
Political strategists at the top of the Obama administration apparently
have decided to let Republicans in several of the Deep South states do
pretty much what they want in the criminal justice system in major
political cases, according to Bill Barnes, Alabama's most recent
Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. He believes Obama officials have
written off his and other red states in his region, and hope to wheedle
concessions from powerful Republican senators on matters elsewhere.
This is shocking if true -- and stupid as well. Someone's due process
rights in Alabama, especially the right not to be framed and unjustly
imprisoned, is not a possession of the Obama strategy team to barter
away -- any more than it was the right of the Bush White House to purge
nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 for political reasons, thereby leaving in
place "loyal Bushie" prosecutors who would imprison opponents for
trumped-up reasons.
Most notorious among those remaining was Alabama's Canary, whom Obama
retained until late last spring. Yet I've documented how the Obama DOJ
sabotaged its own probes of Bush administration wrongdoing, and I've
quoted a top Obama transition executive, law school dean Christopher
Edley, Jr., as saying they feared GOP reprisals especially if they
investigated security issues.
Let's now go beyond the injustice factor. There's a high probability
that any deal would be corrupt on the part of Democrats if it had to be
done so secretly. But even if a deal were simple wheeler-dealing, what
kind of idiots would think Republicans would fulfill their part of any
such deal?
At issue on Nov. 2 is whether Canary recused herself from Siegelman's
decade-long prosecution. Siegelman want the case thrown out if the
government won't produce its evidence. Canary is shown below at left
early in her tenure that began in 2001.
Leura Canary
Her husband, William Canary, now reportedly estranged, is a longtime
Karl Rove ally and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama. Also, he was
campaign manager in 2002 for a Siegelman opponent, and was fingered in
sworn testimony as conspiring with fellow Republicans to frame Siegelman
to keep him out of politics.
Meanwhile, the DOJ convicted Siegelman and co-defendant businessman
Richard Scrushy, and won long prison terms.
*Author's note:* Right here I'm going to skip the case's background,
fascinating and diabolical though it is. But it's an oft-told story
here. For those who want what's missing (including official denials)
about 1,000 words of background are on the Justice Integrity Project
site <http://www.justiice-integrity.org/>.
Here's why the hearing Nov. 2 is important and at this point hurts
President Obama more than Rove. Former Siegelman aide Chip Hill puts it
this way:
/We contend that: A) Leura Canary should never have been involved due to
the fact that she had a //prima facie //conflict on the day she took
office. At that time, her husband was working for Lt. Gov. Steve
Windom, an announced opponent of Siegelman's in the 2002 race for
Governor; and B) Even after her "phantom" recusal she continued to be
involved in the case. Prosecutors have repeatedly misrepresented facts
to the congress and the court about this fact. Their contention that she
had no involvement whatsoever is disproven with their own documents./
/At every juncture in this case, the government has failed to fully
disclose as prescribed by law. When confronted, they are always handy
with an explanation in attempt to qualify their malfeasance. Don't lose
sight of this core issue: We are having to go to court to get the
information they are required by law to provide Governor Siegelman./
/Let that sink in for a minute. If [Former Alaska Sen.] Ted Steven's
case was dropped due to failures to disclose on the part of the
government, then this case should have been tossed years ago./
Barnes, the 2010 Democratic Senate nominee, shared his opinion with me
on-the-record last July. I've been saving it for an appropriate occasion.
Now is the time to share another of my political interviews from July.
This was with Luther "Stan" Pate IV, a construction tycoon based in
Tuscaloosa who is one of the founders of the modern Republican Party
that is now in ascendancy in the bulk of the state's major offices. We
spoke for an hour on-the-record. Pate provided a perspective that is
complementary in several important respects to that of Barnes.
He believes that Siegelman was framed on the main charges against him,
that his opponent Bob Riley and his cronies received some $27 million in
highly questionable and largely secret campaign donations and now-lost
investments (as I have repeatedly reported). Also, Pate believes the
Obama administration was cowardly and wrong-headed in appointing as
Canary's successor as U.S. Attorney George Beck, who represented the
main witness against Siegelman, a former aide named Nick Bailey.
"You're just about the most worthless lawyer I've ever seen in my life,"
Pate recalled telling Beck on one occasion. Pate was furious that Beck
had let his client Bailey be brow-beaten by federal prosecutors in up to
70 pre-trial interrogation sessions, almost none reported to the defense
as required by law. Pate felt sorry for Bailey, and says he paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bailey, a small-time, junior
politico with no resources. Thus Pate was funding Beck's legal
representation. Bailey -- according to a Pate affidavit that prompted me
to call him for an interview -- was frightened of prosecution threats of
a 10-year sentence for other crimes.
Pate's comments are particularly striking to me since our Justice
Integrity Project had undertaken a campaign against Beck's nomination,
including a four-part series last spring. Our position was that Beck's
role in the Siegelman case disqualified him for serious consideration to
be U.S. attorney -- unless authorities simply wanted him to preside over
a cover-up.
Nonetheless, Beck's support by both of Alabama's Republican senators,
the Alabama Democratic Party and the Obama White House prompted the
Senate to confirm him without even requiring his presence at a hearing
with questions.
Pate's own motives and views deserve a much longer treatment than I can
provide now, except for these highlights: He, like many of the important
voices on Siegelman's behalf, is a Republican who didn't support him
during his political career but is now offended by a corrupt legal and
political system operated by both parties.
Pate is famous in Alabama for renting an airplane during the 2010 Rose
Bowl during the University of Alabama appearance so that then-Governor
Bob Riley, present with friends and family, could see the seven-foot
banner, "Impeach Corrupt Alabama Governor Bob Riley." In a news article,
/Stan Pate says he's behind banner ad urging Gov. Bob Riley's
impeachment/
<http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/01/stan_pate_says_hes_behind_bann.html>,
Pate is quoted as saying, "This guy has been in office almost eight
years and he's one of the most corrupt governors in my life. I hope he
sees that banner and takes every word of it to heart because I mean
every word in it."
As well known to readers here, courageous Republican whistleblowers who
have spoken up on Siegelman's behalf include Dana Jill Simpson, a
lawyer. She swore she heard William Canary tell her and other Republican
insiders on a 2002 conference call that he was working with "my girls"
[who presumably included his wife and fellow Republican Northern
District U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, who unsuccessfully prosecuted
Siegelman in 2004] to take care of Siegelman.
Simpson swore also that she heard that Fuller "hated" Siegelman and
would "hang" him at a time in early 2005 when Siegelman thought he was
out of legal jeopardy because the first Bush prosecution under Martin
collapsed. Simpson also documented how Fuller controlled Doss Aviation
Inc. as its largest shareholder while the company greatly ramped up its
earnings with $300 million in Bush contracts from 2006 to 2009.
"It's amazing to me that Obama can claim he's protecting human rights
around the world," Simpson told me this week in an exclusive interview,
"and he's ignoring the plight of Democrats railroaded to prison right in
his own country."
She continued: "I think I know why in this case. Fuller and his company
are part of the military-industrial complex. As we've seen with many
documents, Doss is training Air Force pilots and refueling Air Force
planes, including the President's Air Force One. The government ought to
be releasing not simply the records about Leura Canary -- but all the
records on Doss Aviation and Fuller. If you look at the Doss Aviation
website
<https://www.dossaviation.com/page.asp?id=88&name=OPTARSS%20II%20Win>,
you'll see that the company bragged last spring about advancing towards
$5 billion in new government business over the next five years. I guess
President Obama likes Fuller's company pretty well."
Tamarah Grimes
Also, the Obama Justice Department in June 2009 fired its top in-house
paralegal for the Siegelman trial, Tamarah Grimes, above, after she
complained to Bush and then Obama authorities about trial and office
procedures. She documented Leura Canary's supervisory role after
supposed recusal. Grimes is a Republican whom OEN's Joan Brunwasser and
I interviewed extensively in 2009 following her 10-page letter to Obama
Attorney Gen. Eric Holder outlining irregularities in her office,
including vast waste in the Siegelman prosecution.
Alabama-based OEN contributor Roger Shuler has written hundreds of
columns about the case. One was a thorough treatment of the recusal
issue last April in /The Siegelman Case: Ten Years of Injustice -- and
Counting/
<http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/04/siegelman-case-ten-years-of-injustice.html>.
That column included the full text of Siegelman's February 2006 request
under the Freedom of Information Act for relevant DOJ documents so he
could prepare for trial later, with hopes he could be acquitted that
year before Alabama's 2006 gubernatorial re-election.
As I wrote last wrote in September, the bipartisan disgrace continues in
what appears to be a court-enabled "kleptocracy" in Alabama and Washington.
Beyond what arises from this week's hearing, what will happen next
November? Most people still don't know about the Siegelman case and most
never will. But my own observation is that important opinion leaders are
aware of it, as are many involved in what OEN Publisher Rob Kall calls
"/The "Occupied Territories/
<http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-OWS-Occupied-Territor-by-Rob-Kall-111025-223.html>"
cross the country stemming from the Occupy Wall Street movement.
This movement spreading to Occupied Territories is not an appendage of
the Democratic Party. The Obama DOJ's persecution of Siegelman helps
explains why.
/An appendix of sources is on the Justice Integrity Project's site
<http://justice-integrity.org/>. /
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News
From Underground" newsgroup. If you'd like to donate to News From Underground,
please visit http://markcrispinmiller.com/donate - we appreciate your ongoing support.
Ways to unsubscribe, 1) send a blank email to [email protected]. PLEASE NOTE: you must unsubscribe using the SAME email with which you subscribed; 2) go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page.
For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com
