Updates on America’s Most Prominent Political Prisoner, Gov. Don Siegelman

[L. Coyote]

Updates on America’s Most Prominent Political Prisoner
Scott Horton - Nov 27, 2007 - http://harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001784

Raw Story Looks at Siegelman

Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane at The Raw Story (http://rawstory.com/news/2007/The_Permanent_Republican_Majority_1125.html)
launch their series looking into the prosecution and imprisonment of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. The opening piece
takes a look at the Siegelman case from the perspective of Republican electoral politics, and it opens with this salvo:

For most Americans, the very concept of political prisoners is remote and exotic, a practice that is associated with
third-world dictatorships but is foreign to the American tradition. The idea that a prominent politician — a former state
governor — could be tried on charges that many observers consider to be trumped-up, convicted in a trial that involved
numerous questionable procedures, and then hauled off to prison in shackles immediately upon sentencing would be almost
unbelievable.

.....

... Raw Story also presents a well-researched chronology of the Siegelman case. http://rawstory.com/news/2007/timeline_don_siegelman_1126.htm

More installments in this series coming, but the opener is very impressive.

Alabamians Believe Siegelman a Victim of Political Prosecution
The view taken by Raw Story, that Don Siegelman is a political prisoner, may have emerged as the view of the people of Alabama. In any event, a new Rasmussen poll shows 56% of Alabamians surveyed believed that politics played a role in the prosecution ........

.........

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Past thread: Political Prisoner Don Seigelman: TIME COVER STORY to be Political Prosecutions in Alabama
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1982675

[Frances]

1. Will Siegelman ever be free?

[L. Coyote]

2. The story is making it to major media. Let's hope the impact is positive.

[blm]

10. Where was the party MACHINE we were all paying up for all these years? Why didn't DNC

and big name Dems like Clinton take up for Siegelman when his race was stolen in 2002 and he was being railroaded soon after?

WHERE THE EFF WAS THAT MACHINE?

[Cha]

5. Maybe, if we ever get

an honest Attorney General?

[L. Coyote]

3. 56% in Alabama believe it is likely politics motivated Siegelman prosecution

56% in Alabama believe it is likely politics motivated Siegelman prosecution
Sunday, December 02, 2007 - http://www.al.com/news/independent/index.ssf?/base/news/1196633703293430.xml&coll=4


In a survey of likely Alabama voters 56 percent believe it is somewhat likely or very likely that the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman was politically motivated. The poll was conducted by a respected national polling firm, Rasmussen Reports.

Thirty five percent thought it was not very or not at all likely. Ten percent were not sure. Five hundred likely voters in the state were asked this and other questions. Ten percent said the outcome of the Alabama/Auburn football game was more important that who becomes President. The margin of Sampling Error was +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. The poll was published on Nov. 14.

[Cha]

4. Sorry, I can't rec'd this cause

it's over 24 hours but thanks for keeping us updated on Don Seligman, Coyote!

[flashl]

6. Thanks for the update. n/t

[L. Coyote]

7. General Clark Excoriates DoJ Over Siegelman Case = "stench of corruption"

General Clark Excoriates Justice Department Over Siegelman Case
Scott Horton - Dec 2, 2007 - http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001813

Delivering the keynote speech at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner of the Alabama Democratic Party in Birmingham last night, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark tore into the Bush Justice Department’s prosecution of former Governor Don E. Siegelman. As reported in the Locust Fork Journal, Clark called former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman “a great American” and an “honest man” who was “unjustly confined” by a rogue Justice Department “politicized” by a corrupt Republican administration.

Clark’s remarks drew a standing ovation from a partisan crowd. He called President Bush the “worst president ever,” but reserved his sharpest comments for the Justice Department, which he described as an instrument of partisan persecution.

“We’re seeing a 20 year campaign to polarize and partisanize this country and take away the basic fundamentals that we fought so hard to put in place,” he noted. “It’s the use of executive power to put in wiretaps and other spying on the American people to take away our fundamental liberties… It’s the wholesale politicization of the Department of Justice,” he said. “It’s a stench of corruption that has run from the White House, through Jack Abramoff.”

...........

[L. Coyote]

8. FBI Director Robert Mueller comments on Siegelman, "I won't have anything more to say"

.........

Mueller also was asked about reports that the federal investigation that led to the conviction of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat, began with political operatives in the White House.

"We investigate objectively, independently, and provide the results of our investigations and often cooperatively with the appropriate U.S. attorney's office," he said. "That particular case has gone to trial and been concluded. I won't have anything more to say about that particular case."

http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071205/APN/712050830&template=apart

===============
Protesteth too much???

[L. Coyote]

9. Siegelman's daughter sends letter asking for help for her dad

Siegelman's daughter sends letter asking for help for her dad
By Kate Brumback - AP - http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071208/APN/712080677&template=apart


Dana Siegelman, who in the past has shied away from the spotlight focused on her father, is raising her profile a bit in a bid to help her dad.

The 22-year-old daughter of former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman recently sent a letter to more than 1,000 people asking them to join her in urging members of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee to continue their work. The committee is investigating whether politics played a role in the prosecution of her father.

"Please join me in encouraging this committee to fight for the truth, to seek justice with all its power, and to rekindle the hope that we ought to have in our government," she wrote in the letter.

While the recent college graduate looks more like her father, she has generally followed her mother Lori's lead in avoiding the public eye .........