Keep your eyes on the Siegelman case
Why, you may be asking, should you be following the Siegelman case? Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman (photo) is in prison, serving a seven year sentence. In my opinion, it is one of the most important cases because:
1. It is a perfect example of political profiling by the Department of Justice;
2. There’s compelling evidence of voting fraud, which the Department of Justice ignored;
3. Karl Rove is involved. See my June 30 post and Scott Horton’s posts, below.
The best source of information about the Siegelman case is found at Scott Horton’s No Comment. On July 13, he posted a lengthy article, Noel Hillman and the Siegelman Case. Additionally, since June 17, Horton has posted about the Siegelman case (in reverse chronological order) here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
1. Political profiling: Horton provides the detail in his July 13 post. While the Siegelman case was being developed, Noel Hillman was head of the Public Integrity Section (PIN) within the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. “His unit had responsibility for the prosecution of elected and appointed public officials at all levels of government—state, federal and local. It also had responsibility for criminal action involving elections officials….
“It seems reasonably clear that one of Rove’s key levers at Justice throughout this period was the Public Integrity Section (PIN). This is both because PIN had responsibility for prosecuting corrupt politicians and because of its key role in the elections process….”
Horton references the study done by Professors Shields and Cragan, which shows that seven cases were opened against Democrats for every one case against a Republican. since Hillman became head of PIN in 2001. The professors conclude, “the current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling.”
2. Voting fraud: In his July 13 post, Horton devotes a section to "Election Fraud in Baldwin County" (Alabama). Another “cast of characters” is introduced here, but the bottom line is that in 2002 when Siegelman was running for governor, “…6,000 votes inexplicably shifted from Siegelman’s column to Riley’s [the Republican candidate] due to a 'computer glitch.'" When the results were studied, the conclusion was that there should have been a recount. However, the last resort for supporting Siegelman’s request for a recount was the Department of Justice, and Hillman, in charge of the Public Integrity Section which was responsible for the elections process, did nothing.
3. Karl Rove: Well, what more can I say?
(photo: USA Today)
3 comments:
Siegelman has been "disappeared" into the federal prison system. On one of Horton's blogs we learn that even his lawyers don't know where he is.
Can you imagine the horror of this for his family and lawyers.
If this doesn't come to the mainstream press fairly soon, perhaps we should cancel our subscriptions collectively. What good is the press if it doesn't investigate a prosecution gone totally awry?
Janie
"Ex-Governor Siegelman Put In Prison So Bob Riley Can Be Groomed As A GOP Vice Presidential Candidate".
Bush’s justice appointees used the justice system to kidnap Don Siegelman. An order was sent to the prison 600 miles away that he is to be kept under strict watch 24 by 7 not allowing communicating with no one except for limited communications with his wife, children and attorneys.
(a) When Siegelman was Secretary of State and Attorney General, he referred several irregularities of cash flow to state and federal law enforcement which included sham organizations, Contra drug trafficking, tax evasion and money laundering. The results of the investigations found that much were linked to high ranking politicians in Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and sometimes Georgia, and Mississippi. Siegelman is a very smart attorney. He holds two law degrees. He knows more about Alabama's politics than anyone, being the only person in history to have served the top four government offices in Alabama and he has first hand experience of how a White house backed conspiracy works. This is a partial list of the skeletons that they don't want big media to know about:
(a) Voting fraud- Voting machine expert Dan Gans of Riley's staff is very knowledgeable of "Diebold Optical Scan Voting Machines" and of the "ES&S Central Voting Tabular" used in Alabama elections. He is believed to have altered the election totals on election night in the 2002 gubernatorial election.
(b) Millions of dollars of dirty campaign money was used to defeat Siegelman's Education Lottery and to defeat his gubernatorial campaigns. The money came from big business clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, Toby Roth, Rob Riley and William Canary. Several different National GOP associations along with some sham organizations ran by Robin Vanderwall, Preston Gates, Ralph Reed, Glover Norquist and William Canary laundered the money so that it wouldn't be obvious who the donors were.
(c ) The newspaper giant Newhouse/Advance Publications has an arrangement with the GOP and the U.S. attorneys in Alabama to print articles hand fed to them by Alabama GOP operatives and the Bush appointed U.S. attorneys in Alabama to create a corrupt public image of Siegelman, and other top Democratic politicians.
To anonymous, the last commenter,
Thank you for your informed comments. I'm sure you're aware that Scott Horton, who blogs for Harper's magazine at "No Comment" is urging people to contact their Congressional representatives and demand that the hearings on Siegelman's conviction be investigated.
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