Big Cover Story Jackson Free Press On Rove DOJ Corruption In South "From Karl Rove With Love"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/secrets_lies_us_house_targets_political_prosecutions_060408



Secrets & Lies
by Adam Lynch
June 4, 2008

Prosecutions of a Mississippi Supreme Court justice and a wealthy Gulf Coast attorney considered friendly to Democrats are at the center of the most spectacular congressional investigation of political prosecution in the nation’s recent history.

The Jackson Free Press addressed suspicions about the prosecution of Justice Oliver Diaz and attorney Paul Minor last November with a story detailing the U.S. Department of Justice’s preference for Democratic targets. That story later became a small footnote—literally, referenced in a congressional report—in the probe as it unfolds in Washington, D.C.

It is a scandal that points, at least indirectly, to the Oval Office. Now dominated by Democrats, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee is investigating allegations that former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove used the U.S. Department of Justice as a battering ram to break down the Democratic Party in southern states, and compromise party officials all across the nation with investigations and indictments—many of them bogus, or overblown.

In some cases, such as Minor’s, the House is looking at whether the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice pursued accusations comparable to those that landed him in federal prison for 11 years as strongly against Republicans who committed similar transgressions.

The April 17, 2008 congressional report, “Allegations of Selective Prosecution in Our Federal Criminal Justice System,” catalogues numerous allegations of political targeting in Alabama, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan and Georgia. It also notes a strong possibility of the “political interference of Karl Rove.”

The House Judiciary Committee has tried to enlist Rove to contribute to the report, but he thumbed his nose at House members on a recent Sunday news show, saying any subpoenas for him to testify will have to play out in federal court.

The committee wants Rove to appear July 10 to address the White House’s role in the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, as well as other possible political prosecutions such as those of Diaz and Minor.

Rove, a college dropout who helped put Bush into the White House in 2000, accused the committee of wanting “to be able to call presidential aides on its whim” to testify.

The committee also issued congressional subpoenas to Josh Bolten, Bush’s chief of staff, and Harriet Miers, a former counsel who Bush tried to put on the Supreme Court.

- snip -

Disloyalty Oaths

The Rove connection to Siegelman—and later Diaz and Minor—originally sprang from the House Judiciary Committee’s interest in the U.S. Department of Justice scandal surrounding a list of U.S. attorneys targeted for firing. In January 2006, Justice Department Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson began pegging U.S. attorneys to ax. That move was not unexpected. After all, former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales had discussed with Sampson the possibility of replacing all or some of the 93 U.S. attorneys, and the executive office inserted language in the 2005 re-authorization of the U.S. Patriot Act that would make replacing U.S. attorneys even more effortless.

The U.S. Senate later confirmed Gonzales as attorney general in 2005, but White House Counsel Miers was still pushing the mass-firing plan to Sampson in February 2005. In March 2005, Sampson concurred with Gonzales and Miers, e-mailing a list of targets back to Miers. Sampson felt “loyalty to the President and Attorney General” was of considerable importance, and ranked the U.S. attorneys by that loyalty, according to information requests from The Washington Post.

The name of Washington state U.S. Attorney John McKay is of particular interest to the Judiciary Committee. His name was not initially on that list, but appeared on later lists after he blew off Washington state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance’s criticism of McKay’s faltering investigation of the 2004 governor’s race—an investigation that could have changed the 129-vote outcome that delivered Democrat Christine Gregoire into Washington state’s governor’s office.

McKay later admitted in 2007 testimony before Congress that more than one Republican had contacted him. McKay also received a call between 2004 and 2005 from Washington state Rep. Doc Hastings’ chief of staff, Ed Cassidy, asking about the status of a voter fraud case. Cassidy warned that GOP activists were pushing the investigation before McKay abruptly shut down the conversation with a warning that he could not discuss the status of investigations. In September, McKay’s name later popped up on a following list of “ We Now Should Consider Pushing Out,” compiled by Sampson.

Unreleased government records obtained by The Washington Post show that the Justice Department listed 26 U.S. attorneys as candidates for firing, including nine who were actually pushed out in 2006. The name of Mississippi U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton was on the original list of 26. Unlike nine others who were fired, Lampton still holds his job, and some Democrats question how he managed to keep it.

- snip -

“Why have juries if all you need to do is overturn them?” asked attorney Alex Alton, who represented the plaintiffs in that case.

A Weak Case Finds Help

The prosecution’s case against Diaz was woefully weak. Proof of the alleged bribe must be made clear to a jury, but Diaz had not presided over any of Minor’s cases. Even Lampton admitted to the press in 2005 that the first indictment against Diaz was going to be difficult to sustain before a jury.

Lampton no longer comments to the Jackson Free Press regarding the Minor-Diaz issue, but told the JFP last year that the bribery case was not the one he had wanted to pursue against Diaz. “The Justice Department and I strongly disagreed on how to prosecute that case. The Justice Department got their way, and I believe there was sufficient evidence to convict him, but maybe not for what he was charged,” Lampton said.

With no quid pro quo to weigh in on, a jury found the case against Diaz insufficient and acquitted him in August 2005, and could reach no verdict on the other defendants.

Three days later, however, Lampton was ready with a follow-up, shaking out a second indictment for tax evasion against Diaz and his wife. He also said he would retry the cases against the other judges.

- snip -

Not So Minor Pain

Diaz was found not guilty in the 2003 bribery indictment, but Teel, Whitfied and Minor were up for a retrial because the jury had not reached a decision in their case.

This time around, the prosecution took no chances. Helped along by Republican-appointed presiding Judge Henry Wingate, the prosecution succeeded in ruling out the need to prove bribery in a bribery trial. Wingate had overseen the first trial that found Teel and Whitfied innocent, but Diaz said Wingate “abdicated his role” as a moderator and “changed many of his rulings” from the first trial.

“A ‘quid pro quo’ is a basic requirement in any bribery trial, and Wingate’s ruling on this issue sealed the case for the prosecution,” Diaz wrote in a 2007 letter to the House Judiciary Committee. “This was clearly an error, and one is left to wonder why the judge changed his rulings.”

Wingate also allowed instructions that the jury could find the defendants guilty “even (if the defendant judges’) rulings were legal and correct, that the official conduct would have been done anyway, that the official conduct sought to be influenced was lawful and required by law, and that the official conduct was desirable and beneficial to the public welfare,” Diaz wrote.

“Because they could not show that the rulings were not correct, prosecutors argued that the simple existence of the loans with rulings by the judges equated to federal bribery,” Diaz said in his letter. “With vague charges by prosecutors and rulings like these from the trial judge, it is no surprise that the second jury was able to convict.”

Diaz voiced suspicion of “political persecution” that sent “three innocent men ... to lengthy terms in federal prison.”

“They were selected for prosecution based solely on their political activities. They were subjected to vague charges of corruption which were impossible to defend against ... . They have been vilified, demoralized and financially bankrupted.”

Last year, Lampton denied that the trial was a witch hunt. “It was absolutely not political. The jury heard all the evidence and convicted Minor, and I feel real comfortable about that,” Lampton told the Jackson Free Press.

- snip -

Minor was acquitted in that case of attempted extortion, but he was convicted of mail fraud in September 2007, and was immediately shackled and led to jail—rare treatment for most white-collar crimes, especially considering laws addressing Minor’s transgressions did not exist in Mississippi at the time of their occurrence.

- snip -

Slimy Trail to Alabama

Minor’s fate is worse than former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. Siegelman, a popular politician who has occupied more than one political post in his home state, made the mistake of being a Democrat in Alabama under Rove’s U.S. Department of Justice, but currently is out of jail on bond.

Rove invaded Alabama during the 1990s, riding an anti-regulation wave against “activist judges,” similar to the wash engulfing Mississippi via the U.S. Chamber at the turn of the century. The political change had caught on in Rove’s home state of Texas, where Republicans now dominate the Legislature and statewide offices, and worked well in Alabama with the help of Republican consultant William Canary.

Like Diaz and Minor, federal authorities hit Siegelman with a bribery indictment, one that sentenced him to more than seven years in prison in 2006. Unlike Minor, however, Siegelman’s lawyers got him out on appeal, convincing a federal appeals court that the prosecution’s case had big holes.

- snip -

But what of the moral crime of using the nation’s resources to beat the country’s political system down to a one-party system? A 2007 academic study published by University of Missouri communications professor Donald Shields suggests the U.S. Department of Justice had a strong preference for hunting Democrats. The report found that of 375 investigations released to the public, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, but an incredible 298 involved Democrats.

If the Republican-led Justice Department was systematically disemboweling Democrats, what would be the crime? That’s a question that Kilborn said he can’t readily answer, but one that he believes the U.S. Supreme Court should find an answer very quickly.

“There will probably be four Supreme Court nominees coming up, and if Democrats take the presidency, there could be a shift in the court,” Kilborn said. “And this issue, they will find, will cut very clearly across party lines.

MUCH MORE

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

1. "an incredible 298 involved Democrats"

OMG :wow:

that really is incredible.

[DemoTex]

2. Rove, like Lester Maddox, is autodidact ("Rove, a college dropout ..")

Lester Maddox, former Georgia governor and famous racist restaurateur (The Pick-Rick near Georgia Tech), was smart as a whip and dumb as a post at the same time. Maddox passed out ax handles to white patrons at his fried-chicken restaurant when racial integration was mandated by the law of the land. Drum-sticks, he called the ax handles. But it ended there. No blood shed .. but it started a petty political career that ended up in an almost Bu$h-esque ascendancy to the Georgia governor's mansion (read that history .. just like 2000!). From then on it was buffoonery (backward bicycle riding at the 1969 Peach Bowl) and milquetoast government.

Rove is the dangerous autodidact. He has passed out no ax handles, but his Robespierre-ian finger-snaps have left trails of blood. He has fried no chicken, but he has roosted with the top Chicken-hawks in government. Rove has never been elected to public office, but he has .. as the undisputed seat of the Bu$h Shadow Government .. served as all three branches during his tenure in Washington.

It is the dilettante (sometimes synonymous with poorly-educated) Rove's dalliance (nay!, conspiratorial interference!) in the Judicial's role that offends so badly in the cases cited here. Especially Siegelman's. That shall be Rove's un-doing. Sooner or later.

Maddox died quietly in a nursing home in the trendy Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody on June 25, 2003. When the truth outs, Karl Rove should hope for such luck .. or start stocking bitter pills.

[DemoTex]

3. Kick this MoFo! More important than Hillary tonight.

:kick:

[lala_rawraw]

4. brilliant, accurate, excellent!!

I called him to tell him it was exceptional and needed. Now tomorrow;)

[bleever]

5. June is busting out all over!

They had me at "Disloyalty Oaths".

K&R>>>>>>>>>>

[DemReadingDU]

6. morning kick

[malaise]

7. This is a superb article

Thanks. K & R

[Hissyspit]

8. kick again n/t

[Hissyspit]

9. .