Sunday’s 60 Minutes - Stolen election - imprisonment of popular governor
Mark your calendar to watch 60 Minutes this Sunday, February 24, if you’re at all interested in the issue of the politicization of the Justice Department of which the U.S. Attorney firing scandal was just a small part and of which the case of Don Siegelman is an even smaller part. It may be small now but it is about to get much bigger if there is any such thing as justice in this country anymore! This story should genuinely shock your socks off if it provides unassailable documentation for even some of the issues in the little-know case of the theft of the 2002 Alabama Governors election from Siegelman, the former Democratic Governor of Alabama, followed by his prosecution and conviction on what some called trumpted up charges.
CBS has been under considerable pressure from the Bush White House and various Republican allies to kill this story but has taken its time to produce what it’s calling a “signature piece”, one that will run longer than their usual segments. And, you can imagine after the firestorm stirred up by the 60 Minutes piece about President Bush’s Texas Air National Guard record, they have been very careful to get this story right.
Hopefully CBS will set this up by detailing how the Republicans stole the 2002 Alabama Governors election from Don Siegelman in one of the most blatant heists of an election in U.S. history (with an operative supplied by Karl Rove as I remember) and then turned around and went after Siegelman on trumpted up charges that resulted in him receiving seven years in a Federal prison. All this was aided and abetted by a Republican Secretary of State that certified the election before it could be challenged despite egregious irregularities, two Republican Federal prosecutors in Alabama that pressed bogus charges against Siegelman while working hand in hand with the Justice Department in Washington and Karl Rove in the White House, and a local Republican judge that was part of one of the most egregious travesties of justice ever.
Grab the popcorn, this story has everything you could want in a political potboiler including a very brave Republican lawyer, Jill Simpson, who blew the whistle on this caper. For messing with the system,, her house was burned down and her car was run off the road. Siegleman’s house has been broken into and his lawyer’s office was ransacked. They don’t play nice in Alabama politics.
All this went down without much attention from the press with the a few excellent exceptions such as Vanity Fair, The New York Times, DemocracyNow!, The Nation, and The Raw Story blog. The Justice Department under the new AG has yet to raise a finger to investigate and even the lame Democrats in control of the investigative machinery have been slow to pay attention to this for some reason. I guess they have too many cases of Bush Administration corruption to pursue and too much stonewalling by them to overcome.
If ever a case cried out for investigation, this is it. Hopefully, the attention caused by the CBS piece will raise awareness about this case and eventually result in justice for Siegleman and charges where appropriate and, hopefully, build a fire under the Democrats to press forward on the stalled investigations into the many crimes of the Justice Department under former AG Gonzales.
And, it will be curious to watch the public reaction – if any. One predictable reaction, I’m sure, will be howls of “liberal bias” hurled at CBS from the reich-wing echo chamber.
To read more on this story go to http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5471
February 24th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Report: Rove wanted dirt on Alabama gov.
Ex-Republican Operative Says Bush Adviser Karl Rove Pushed for Dirt on Alabama’s Governor
BEN EVANS
AP News
Feb 21, 2008 20:00 EST
A former Republican campaign worker claims that President Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, asked her to find evidence that the Democratic governor of Alabama at the time was cheating on his wife, according to an upcoming broadcast of “60 Minutes.”
Jill Simpson, who has long alleged that Rove may have influenced the corruption prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman, makes the claim against Rove in a broadcast scheduled to be aired Sunday, according to a statement from CBS.
Simpson testified to congressional investigators last year that she overheard conversations among Republicans in 2002 indicating that Rove was involved in the Justice Department’s prosecution of Siegelman. She has never before said that Rove pressed her for evidence of marital infidelity in spite of testifying to congressional lawyers last year, submitting a sworn affidavit and speaking extensively with reporters.
Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, denied the allegation.
“Mr. Rove never made such a request to her or anyone else,” Luskin said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “Had ‘60 Minutes’ taken the trouble to contact Mr. Rove before circulating this falsehood, he would have told them the same thing.”
According to the CBS statement, Simpson says Rove approached her at a 2001 meeting, when Siegelman was still governor.
“Karl Rove asked you to take pictures of Siegelman?” reporter Scott Pelley asks.
“Yes,” Simpson replies.
“In a compromising sexual position with one of his aides,” Pelley says.
“Yes, if I could,” she responds.
Simpson said she is speaking out because Siegelman’s seven-year sentence on corruption charges bothers her, the release said. She said she found no evidence of an affair.
Siegelman, who was elected in 1998 and narrowly lost re-election in 2002, was convicted last year on federal bribery and corruption charges. The prosecution stemmed from his appointment of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to an influential hospital regulatory board in exchange for Scrushy arranging contributions to Siegelman’s campaign for a state lottery.
The Justice Department — as well as the career prosecutors who handled the case — have insisted that politics played no role in the case, emphasizing that Siegelman was convicted by a jury.
Democrats on Capitol Hill, however, have been looking into the case as part of a broader investigation into political meddling by the White House at the Justice Department. Also, more than 40 former attorneys general have asked for a congressional investigation into the case.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/02/report_rove_wanted_dirt_on_ala.php