GOP Lawyer Deposed on Alabama Case (Siegelman)

[seafan]

GOP Lawyer Deposed on Alabama Case

September 15, 2007
AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican lawyer who says Karl Rove may have been involved in the prosecution of former Democratic Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman emerged without comment Friday from four hours of questioning at the House Judiciary Committee.

Jill Simpson was called to the Capitol to provide sworn testimony about her claim that she heard discussions in 2002 suggesting that Rove, a former top White House political adviser, may have played a role in the corruption case against Siegelman. At the time of the alleged conversation, Simpson was a campaign worker for Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who defeated Siegelman in that year's gubernatorial race.

"We answered their questions," Simpson's attorney Priscilla Duncan told reporters after the deposition, declining to elaborate.

Siegelman, elected governor in 1998, was convicted last year on federal bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud charges following a lengthy investigation. He recently began serving a prison sentence of more than seven years.

Siegelman was convicted along with former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in a high-profile government corruption case. In the key charge, Siegelman was accused of appointing Scrushy to an influential hospital regulatory board in exchange for Scrushy arranging $500,000 in contributions to Siegelman's campaign for a state lottery.

In an affidavit made public in May, Simpson said she heard a Republican operative during a 2002 telephone conference call say he had spoken with Rove, referred to in the document as "Karl," and had been assured the Justice Department was pursuing Siegelman.

As part of a broader investigation into political influence at the Justice Department, the Judiciary Committee recently asked the department to turn over its documents involving the case. More than forty former state attorneys general also have asked Congress to investigate.

.....

A Judiciary Committee spokeswoman said it could be weeks before the parties involved decide whether to release a transcript of Friday's interview, conducted by Democratic and Republican attorneys for the committee.

[seafan]

1. Here is a good resource for a quick overview of this very serious case:

Three (3) Easy Options for getting up to speed on the Don Siegelman Case

[Pirate Smile]

3. Wow - who created that website?

[seafan]

5. Found it in my research.... don't know the creator. It really gets people up to speed on this case.

I think we are going to be hearing about Gov. Siegelman's case more and more as time goes on. This is the MotherOfAll cases of the engineered political corruption of the DOJ by the GOP.

[Pirate Smile]

6. I'm listening to the radio interview now. I already know most of the basics but

it is still just unbelievable.

Why doesn't 60 Minutes do a segment on this?

We should bombard them with this information. It seems like a perfect story for them and it would propel it into the news. I know that should happen when the House holds Hearings but that could be a while and I don't think most people have a clue about this travesty.

[seafan]

10. I don't think most people know about this at all. Dan Rather could unleash all hell on this.

How about KO's Countdown? He has a long and admirable record of getting the concise points of a story across to viewers. He's also incredibly talented at it.


Somehow, we HAVE to push hard enough to break this story out into the open, because it may be MONTHS before that Republican whistle-blower's transcript emerges from Judiciary, as stated in the OP article.


We cannot allow these criminals to waltz away from their wars and endless corruption of the laws in this country before we can expose what they have done.

We have to strike now while the iron is hot.

[sonias]

9. I agree that this is one of the earliest dirty DOJ tricks Rove pulled

I hope we do get to the bottom of this.

Sonia

[L. Coyote]

4. Links to research/compilation threads in General Discussion and Research Resources

I tuned in to this thanks to a DU post about the Time magazine article, and started these research/compilation threads:

Jun-01-07 Abramoff and Kark Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor and Campaign Finances
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1023111

Jul-01-07 GO TO JAIL NOW: Former AL Dem Governor gets 7 years despite ROVE frame-up claim.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1224046

Aug-31-07 Political Prisoner Don Seigelman: Obstruction Of Justice Accusation Unclear = TPM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1704777

Sep-09-07 Political Prisoner Don Seigelman: Republican Lawyer Set To Speak With House Judiciary Under Oath
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1770148

Sep-10-07 ****** Official Thread Siegelman = "KARL ROVE WAS DEEPLY INVOLVED" *******
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1777924

===========================
I only recently discovered the leading journalist covering this, Scott Horton at Harpers.
Scott Horton's Siegelman articles: http://www.harpers.org/search?q=Don+Siegelman
(Given all the research above, only recently discovering Scott Horton says something
about site blocking on the Internet today, but that is another story.)

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Sept. 10, 2007.
Scott Horton on the strange case of the railroaded governor, Don Siegelman.
Listen to Podcast: http://atlanticfreepress.com/loudblog/index.php?id=131
Download MP3: http://atlanticfreepress.com/loudblog/get.php?web=AFP-2007-09-11-30686.mp3

TPMmuckraker has a great Don Siegelman Archive: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/don_siegelman /

Democracy NOW Aug. 24th, 2007: Political Prosecution? Justice Dept Holds onto Docs in Case of Jailed Alabama Governor Siegelman
WATCH / LISTEN http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/24/1322201

[seafan]

7. Much appreciated, L. Coyote. I really want to see that transcript from Jill Simpson. n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. Here's another background thread, based on a recent NY Times article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3509161
thread title (9-10-07): N.Y. Times, "The Strange Case of an Imprisoned Alabama Governor"

K & R - this needs to be more widely known and followed. Thanks for posting.

[seafan]

8. Thank you, Nothing Without Hope. Gov. Siegelman was railroaded by Rove & Co.

The DOJ is now the corrupt arm of the GOP political assassination squad.

[L. Coyote]

11. This goes back to 2002, when Rs rigged the razor-close election in the dark of the night

by switching exactly 6,000 votes. Rs did a recount in Baldwin county, in the wee morning hours after the Dem poll workers had gone home, and they switched the election results from Siegelman winning to Riley winning.

This is the critical aspect of this story, in my view. It demonstrates what the Rs have been up to, and impacts how we view the 100,000 purged voters in Florida in 2000, the voter caging in Florida in 2004, the vote-switching and the long litany of irregularities in Ohio in 2004, the mal-distribution under-voting in New Mexico in 2004 and elsewhere, the illegal Diebold patches in Georgia in 2002, and many more election malfeasance issues that point to a broad conspiracy to influence election outcomes by any means, legal or illegal. Those efforts, focused on close races and battleground states, will be re-examined in the new light of this case.

Siegelman had to be railroaded in 2006 to prevent his ascending to the power that could allow an investigation of the 2002 election rigging. This is akin to the RFK assassination, in that if RFK had become President, the JFK assassination would have be investigated in a new light, based on what Bobby knew as AG and chief investigator in his own right of his brother's killing. This story blows things wide open on the election fraud front. That truth is why Siegelman is a political prisoner.

[seafan]

12. The changing of the guards: Bay Minette, election night, Alabama, 2002

Chilling.


The changing of the guards: Bay Minette, election night

By Steve McConnell
Staff Reporter
Gulf Coast Newspapers

Friday, July 20, 2007

Nearly five years later, the specter of the 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election lives on.

Republican Bob Riley edged out a narrow victory over incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman, but a midnight vote recount in Baldwin County, giving Riley the edge, stirred a firestorm controversy that still receives national attention to this day.   

A recent New York Times editorial called into question “suspicious vote tabulations” that may have occurred at the Sheriff’s department in Bay Minette – the county seat - shortly after 11 p.m., the eve of election day, Nov. 5, 2002.
And, Time Magazine published an article entitled “Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor” by Adam Zagorin which touched on a controversial computer glitch: “Though Republican Riley…initially found himself behind by several thousand votes, he had pulled ahead at the last minute when disputed ballots were tallied in his favor.”

Glynn Wilson, a former Christian Science Monitor correspondent who now publishes and writes for his news site locustfork.net, posted a piece in June stating that Dan Gans - Riley’s chief of staff during the would-be governor’s time as a U.S. Representative for Alabama’s 3rd District – electronically changed the results, giving a razor thin edge to Riley, who went on to win the state by 3,120 votes.
An unidentified source, according to his report “How the 2002 Election Was Stolen in Bay Minette,” reported that Gans was at the county courthouse and that he was “interested” in the final vote results.
Gans, who was assisting Riley’s gubernatorial campaign at the time and then went on to serve as his Montgomery chief of staff, later left the governor’s office to join the Alexander Strategy Group, a top Washington lobbying firm that disbanded in 2006 due to ties with incarcerated lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Harper’s Magazine columnist Scott Horton also claimed that Gans “is a Republican ‘voting technology expert’ who played a mysterious role in the 2002 gubernatorial election.”
Horton’s column “Abramoff and ‘Justice’ in the Heart of Dixie,” published June 9, went on to say that Gans “was in Republican controlled Bay Minette, Alabama, when 6,000 votes inexplicably shifted from Siegelman’s column to Riley’s due to a ‘computer glitch.’”

.....

What were exactly the chain of events which continues to irk Democrats, Siegelman supporters, election analysts and the national press when the power of the highest office in Alabama shifted in the middle of the night from incumbent Don Siegelman to Bob Riley?
On the eve of the election, the Siegelman camp believed the governor had secured enough votes in Baldwin County to win the election, but evidently a “glitch,” according to probate court officials, caused Siegelman to lose 6,334 votes from his tally.
Riley, due to the “glitch,” barely edged out the Democratic governor, who was considered a threat by Republican officials.

The following morning a recount seemed reasonable and evident to the Siegelman campaign as two men laid claim to the governorship.
But, the recount was denied by then Attorney General William “Bill” Holcombe Pryor, who was appointed Feb. 20, 2004 - during a congressional recess - to the federal-bench, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush.

Siegelman conceded November 18, and Riley was sworn in as governor January 21, 2003 at the state capital in Montgomery.

Today and for the unforeseeable future, Siegelman will remain in prison due to a lengthy and controversial federal investigation; although, his prosecution – now being deemed a “persecution” in some circles - was referred to House Judicial Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), by U.S. Representative Artur Davis, (D-AL), as a possible example of selective prosecution by the Department of Justice.

Siegelman was sentenced June 28 to more than seven years in prison mainly on charges that he appointed HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a state hospital regulatory board – an appointment he served with three previous governors – in exchange for Scrushy’s $500,000 donation to a Siegelman campaign supporting a state lottery to fund education.

Scrushy was sentenced to six years and 10 months.

While the election seems at best a distant memory for the history books perhaps, the Bay Minette debacle certainly turned the tides of power, disavowing Siegelman of the governor’s office as federal investigations into his political career swelled.

.....

(Much more. This is A MUST READ.)

[L. Coyote]

13. Needed: An online Culture of Corruption wiki! -- Abramoff and “Justice” in the Heart of Dixie

Abramoff and “Justice” in the Heart of Dixie
Scott Horton - June 9, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/06/hbc-90000257

.....

My instincts tell me that this story was been peddled by Toby Roth - he may well have called a “marker” to get it run - and it aims to discredit the evidence for Karl Rove’s involvement by linking the sources to a failed contract bid. This is mighty thin gruel. But it all goes downhill from there. And you really have to read the story to its end. As in the Sherlock Holmes tale of “Silver Blaze” the really fascinating thing about the Birmingham News story consists of the facts which are strangely missing. ......

.... the third man who together with Canary and Rove drove the transformational campaign profiled in the Atlantic’s groundbreaking story was Toby Roth. That’s a fact. It’s not mentioned.

Where exactly did Toby Roth go when he left Governor Riley’s service? Roth is one of an entire platoon of Riley staffers who departed in order to take up work for Indian gaming interests. Others are: Michael Scanlon, Dan Gans, Dax Swatek, Twinkle Andress. Roth went to work with former Trent Lott chief-of-staff John Lundy at a Jackson, Mississippi-based lobbying firm named Capitol Resources. Among the firm’s principal clients are the casinos owned and operated by the Mississippi Choctaw Indian, whom they represented jointly with Jack Abramoff.

Considering the fact that the Siegelman prosecution springs out of allegations of Siegelman’s involvement supporting a gambling initiative, that’s a very curious fact, especially when juxtaposed with Jack Abramoff and what we know about Mr. Abramoff’s practice of trying to suppress one gambling interest supposedly to benefit another and stirring up the “yahoos”

.............. MUST READ

=====================
Of course, Abramoff's "yahoos" are the honorable Native Americans whose money he diverted, to the tune of $30 million, to try to defeat Siegleman's election bid in 2002.

RE Needed: An online Culture of Corruption wiki! - I've been doing intense research on the Culture of Corruption for many months now, and new characters keep popping up.
I'm starting to feel like a taxonomist on a new planet. :rofl:

[seafan]

14. We also need an investigation into Rove's 2002 FL Panhandle beach property financing.

In November, 2002 Rove purchased beach front property in Rosemary Beach, FL, for $165,000. According to the information below, he took out a mortgage on it for $100,000, which also included a $1Million line of credit on 11-23-2002. The Bank of Birmingham, Alabama issued the mortgage.


The following is from TPMmuckraker in March, 2007:

I can add to questions about Karl Rove's finances which I posted about at the TPM Cafe.

In November 2002, the Roves bought property in Rosemary Beach for $165,000 from the Rosemary Beach Land Company. Rosemary Beach is in Walton County, Florida.

According to the records of the Walton County Clerk of the Court, Karl and Darby Rove took a mortgage on the property for $100,000 with a $1,000,000 line of credit on 11/23/2002.

The mortgagor was The Bank of Birmingham, Alabama.

The Roves satisfied the mortgage on 2/3/2003.

Why did the Roves bother to take out a mortgage for three months? I'm curious, too, if the Roves ever drew down on the $1 million line of credit.

I would not be surprised in the least if the Bank of Birmingham wrote off the mortgage or someone else paid it. Nor would I be surprised if Rove borrowed money under the line of credit that he never intends to repay himself.

Bankers can be just as crooked as the next person and Karl Rove has a lot of long time connections in Alabama where he conducted some really nasty campaigns.
Posted by: Mrs Panstreppon
Date: March 23, 2007 9:48 PM

The reason I brought this up is the timing of this mortgage/million dollar line of credit on this FL beach property. It was late November of 2002, during the time Governor Siegelman's election had just been robbed in Alabama; now we know was engineered by Rove/GOP, along with the corrupted DOJ.

It would be very interesting to know, as Mrs. Panstreppon points out, whether that million dollar line of credit attached to Rove's beach property was used to pay off individuals connected with that stolen election.


I hope investigators are checking that out.