Gov. Don Siegelman returns to prison today. Meanwhile, the real crooks run free.

[Octafish]

Siegelman made the mistake of being an honest Democrat in an age of warmongers. The scum of the earth "money trumps peace" crowd.

The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller

by Scott Horton
Harpers

EXCERPT...

The recusal motion rested upon details about Fuller’s personal business interests. On February 22, 2007, defense attorneys obtained information that Judge Fuller held a controlling 43.75% interest in government contractor Doss Aviation, Inc. After investigating these claims for over a month, the attorneys filed a motion for Fuller’s recusal on April 18, 2007. The motion stated that Fuller’s total stake in Doss Aviation was worth between $1-5 million, and that Fuller’s income from his stock for 2004 was between $100,001 and $1 million dollars.

In other words, Judge Fuller likely made more from his business income, derived from U.S. Government contracts, than as a judge. Fuller is shown on one filing as President of the principal business, Doss Aviation, and his address is shown as One Church Street, Montgomery, Alabama, the address of the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse, in which his chambers are located.

CONTINUED...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000762

Doss Aviation is huge. And it's still just the tip of the dirty BFEE iceberg.

[CanonRay]

1. President Obama: Please pardon this man!

Maybe we should start a thread?

[Octafish]

2. Please do, CanonRay. Prison can be deadly for the innocent.

A nice overview from the UK, of course:

Former governor Don Siegelman lobbies for presidential pardon at DNC

The former Alabama governor was perhaps the highest profile victim of Karl Rove's political machine, sentenced to six years for bribery. Now his last hope for freedom is a presidential pardon

Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 September 2012 13.16 EDT

EXCERPT...

While he was still in office, he was investigated by Alabama's attorney general, Bill Pryor, who was connected politically and socially with Rove. The investigation – which resulted in no charges – was used against him in his 2002 bid for re-election, which became nail-bitingly close. Siegelman lost that race after 7,000 votes were unexpectedly switched in the dead of night in a rural county controlled by the Republicans, and Pryor refused to permit a hand recount to counter widespread suspicions of vote-tampering.

Days after the election, the son of Siegelman's Republican challenger was overheard on a conference call describing Siegelman as a cockroach who would "never die". According to a Republican operative who later turned whistleblower, Bill Canary, the campaign manager for the new governor and another figure close to Rove, promised that his wife, Leura Canary, recently named a federal prosecutor, would take care of the problem. (Bill Canary denied this at the time and said he never sought to influence public officials. Rove has not denied contacts with the Justice Department over the Siegleman case.)

Leura Canary mounted an initial trial against Siegelman in 2004, on charges relating to alleged Medicaid fraud. That collapsed within a day and the outraged judge dismissed the case "with prejudice", meaning that similar charges could not be brought again.

But Leura Canary kept digging, and brought new charges on the eve of the 2006 governor's race, this time accusing Siegelman of extracting a campaign contribution from a healthcare company executive in exchange for a promise to appoint him to a state hospital oversight board. The charge hinged on a fuzzy area of federal law, because such arrangements are deemed illegal only if they hinge on an explicit quid pro quo, something that is almost impossible to prove. Under the American system, campaign donors win government appointments all the time and it is considered business as usual.

One snag in the Siegelman prosecution was that the bribery allegation fell outside the statute of limitations, because the alleged offense had taken place more than five years earlier. Canary got around that by filing additional federal racketeering charges, on which the statute of limitations runs to 10 years. The racketeering part of the indictment was subsequently thrown out, but it served its purpose because the rest of the indictment was allowed to move to trial.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/05/democratic-convention-siegelman-pardon?newsfeed=true

The fact US attorney Leura Canaray kept her job for three years under Obama DoJ -- and then-Solicitor General Kagan who reviewed the case for Holder now sits on the Supreme Court -- makes me think the good governor does not have a chance for a pardon, I will still try.

http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-please-pardon-my-dad

[ryan_cats]

4. I'm sorry to say I knew nothing of this

I'm sorry to say I knew nothing of this. I read the article and just what did he do? The statute of limitations was over so she went federal, WTH???

I still have no idea of what they are accusing him of and why he's doing time. It says 6 years for bribery but to who? Did someone roll over on him or did they make the charges up from whole cloth as they're wont to do?

The original post said he's returned to jail. Why was he in jail before???

I read the book, Blow which the movie with Johnny Depp is loosely based on and George Jung said he's rather do time in Mexico than here. I shudder to think what that implies for this poor guy.

[Octafish]

7. Here's an excellent summary...

http://donsiegelman.org/Pages/MAIN/QUICK_START.html

Many DUers have tried to keep this story front and center:

Know your BFEE: Bush and His Crooks with Badges Sent an Innocent Man to Jail

Thanks for caring, ryan_cats. Wish more were like you.

[sabrina 1]

17. Thank you for keeping this story alive. We should not stop until this innocent man is

free and the real crooks are behind bars.

We should be relentless in calling Congress, the WH, the DOJ and keeping petitions going online and anything else that can be done to correct this horrible injustice.

Maybe it should become an online project where all Liberal and anyone else who wants to see justice done, write about it at least once a week and spread it as far as possible until they simply can't ignore it anymore.

[Octafish]

20. Thank you, sabrina1! Absolutely agree we should not stop until Justice is restored.

Anyone who goes along with Siegelman returning to prison might as well vote for Karl Rove. Among their law breaking, these criminals and traitors stole the presidential election in 2000; failed to defend the United States before September 11, 2001; lied America into two illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous wars; looted the Treasury and banks; and enriched their cronies through perma-war, bailout, and welfare for the wealthy. Until they and their enablers are behind bars, we're not done.

This guy's a puke, but one of the old school that believes in Justice and stuff like Democracy:

The Party of Hate

Republicans Cross the Rubicon

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch SEPTEMBER 05, 2012

Control is the operative word. We have seen for a number of years now that the Republican Party is power-addicted. Remember when the Bush administration fired the US Attorneys who refused the order to indict only Democrats? Remember the Republican Party’s transparent frame-up of popular Alabama Democratic governor Don Siegelman? Evidence indicates that the Republican operative Karl Rove took advantage of a Republican federal judge, vulnerable according to news reports to corruption charges, and a compliant Republican US attorney in Alabama to railroad Governor Siegelman. The message to Democrats was: if you get elected in our Southern Territory, we will get you.

But never fear, we have “freedom and democracy.” George W. Bush told us so himself.

The weak, chicken-hearted Obama administration has not commuted Siegelman’s outrageous sentence. The inability of the Democrats to stand up for their own members and their own principles is the best indication we have that Republican tyranny will prevail.

It didn’t take Caesar George W. Bush 10 minutes to wipe out the prison sentence of vice president Dick Cheney’s chief aid for revealing the identity of a CIA operative, a felony under US law. But the Obama Justice (sic) Department supports Karl Rove’s destruction of one of its most popular governors.

It was the German left-wing’s weak opposition to the National Socialists that gave the world Hitler.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/05/republicans-cross-the-rubicon/

Wish more were like you, too. Let's go ahead with your idea. Peace and Prosperity for ALL. Ripples, as RFK said...

[sabrina 1]

21. Thank you, I've seen that many Republicans have joined in the effort to end this

political prosecution. The last thing Rove wants if for us to keep talking about it, meaning that is exactly what we ought to do. Keep talking about, and keep attaching HIS name to the crime. He had the audacity to attack Siegelman's daughter at the DNC and to 'warn' her to tell her father NOT to make money off his name.

That made me wonder if that is not exactly what we should be doing. Raising money for Siegelman by using Karl Rove's name, if Siegelman needs it.


Thank you for the link, there actually are some decent Republicans, like the ones who refused to go after Democrats on the orders of the criminal, Karl Rove.

[red dog 1]

13. Maybe we should all sign the change.org petition

The petition is also at http://www.DonSiegelman.org

[sabrina 1]

18. I have signed that but thanks for posting it again.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. K & R

[Octafish]

5. On the Siegelman Scandal, Rove Offers a Very Suspicious Non-Denial Denial

—By David Corn
Mother Jones, Mon May. 26, 2008 8:42 AM PDT

On Sunday, Karl Rove gave students of spin a prime example of a non-denial denial. He was a guest on ABC News' This Week and after discussing the presidential campaign, he was asked by host George Stephanopoulos about the Don Siegelman controversy. Siegelman is the former Democratic Alabama governor who was convicted and imprisoned for corruption and who charges that the Justice Department prosecution against him was part of a secret campaign mounted by Rove and other Republicans. Last week, the House judiciary committee subpoenaed Rove in connection with the Siegelman case and the firings of U.S. attorneys.

EXCERPT...

t's pretty damn obvious: Rove would not say, "I did not contact the Justice Department about the Siegelman case." Confronted with this simple question, he first said that others supposedly on that particular phone call have denied the call took place. Pressed by Stephanopoulos, he then twice said that he learned about the Siegelman investigation and indictment from newspaper reports.

Why would Rove not state that he had not contacted the Justice Department and egged it on to prosecute Siegelman? Two explanations come to mind. (A) He did do something like that. Or, (B) he doesn't remember whether he made such a call but he knows it's the type of call he might have made. So rather than plainly deny he contacted the Justice Department, Rove parries the question with a shifty formulation. Stephanopoulos did call him on this, noting Rove was not actually denying the accusation. [font color="red"]But Stephanopoulos was too polite to say, "Excuse me, Mr. Rove, this is BS. Did you or did you not communicate with the Justice Department at all about the Siegelman matter at any time?"[/font color] No doubt, though, the House judiciary committee's investigators paid close attention to how Rove handled the question, and his non-answer ought to motivate them to dig further.

SOURCE: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2008/05/siegelman-scandal-rove-offers-very-suspicious-non-denial-denial

The congressional investigators, for some reason, must not have been motivated.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Don Siegelman interviewed this morning by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/11/former_alabama_gov_don_siegelman_speaks

[Octafish]

8. Thank you, no_hypocrisy. It's on the monitor now...

Amy Goodman is one of the few real reporters around anymore.

Scott Horton has carried a lot of water on this story, too:

http://www.harpers.org/subjects/DonSiegelman

The Legal Schnauzer also (and lost his job because of it):

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2012/09/karl-rove-acts-like-jackass-to-don.html

Thank you for caring about Justice, no_hypocrisy! Mighty democratic sentiment.

[Octafish]

10. Excellent question, AnotherMcIntosh.

100-percent of DUers surveyed agree:

Gov. Don Siegelman got a raw deal.



Here's a hint: Warmongers walk. Peaceniks pay.

My guess why so few know the story:

Wanna know why Media ignore war criminals? CIA calls the shots.

[Octafish]

15. One of my most favorite of subjects...

...almost got a master's degree in it.

Three Things Every American Should Know About Corporate McPravda

The professional communication class is led by liars, some are very well paid liars. Conversely, there is no money in telling the truth these days. That is most tragic news for democracy.

[red dog 1]

12. Here is a link to the petition to President Obama to grant Siegelman a pardon

Last edited Tue Sep 11, 2012, 10:35 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-please-restore-justice-and-pardon-my-dad

Petition is also at http://www.donsiegelman.org

[Octafish]

14. Thank you, red dog 1! Here's background on why we should give a damn about Gov. Siegelman...

Siegelman Prosecution Has Roots in Iran-Contra Scandal

Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer

The roots of the Don Siegelman prosecution can be traced to the Iran-Contra scandal and the assassination of a federal judge in the 1980s, according to a new report from a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist.

The Siegelman case also has connections to a lawsuit styled Avirgan v. Hull, which was dismissed in curious fashion--an action that might have been a forerunner to the rampant judicial corruption we see today, especially in the Deep South.

Siegelman trial judge Mark Fuller long has been involved in efforts to cover up massive CIA drug- and gun-smuggling operations that are tied, in part, to Iran-Contra, according to the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR). Fuller also has been involved in a cover up involving the 1989 mail-bomb assassination of federal judge Robert S. Vance in Birmingham.

How did Fuller become connected to such nefarious activities? His hometown of Enterprise, Alabama, is home to a prime airfield that has been used in the smuggling operations, Madsen reports.

Where does Siegelman fit into this picture, and how did he become the target of a bogus prosecution that was driven by the Bush family and their affiliates? Siegelman was our state's attorney general from 1987 to 1991, and WMR reports that he became aware of Fuller's ties to Doss Aviation and the use of south Alabama airfields for suspicious flights to Central and South America. To make Siegelman even more of a target, he and Robert Vance had once been law partners--and Siegelman considered Vance to be one of his primary mentors.

CONTINUED...

http://open.salon.com/blog/rogershuler/2012/08/14/siegelman_prosecution_has_roots_in_iran-contra_scandal

PS: Hope DUers and all readers can see why Gov. Siegelman matters so much to our country and deserves the support of ALL Americans. Why more Democrats don't stand up on his behalf is almost a mystery.

[LongTomH]

19. The roots of corruption go deep in our government and society.

Getting rid of those roots will take decades, at least.

[red dog 1]

23. Thanks for this info

I had no idea that this "clown", Judge Mark Fuller, was involved in Iran-Contra as well...........It seems to me that there is ample evidence to remove him from the bench......I wonder why the Justice department hasn't investigated him?

[HiPointDem]

22. kr