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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGeorge Will, Of All People, Stands Up for Justice in the Don Siegelman Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-it-bribery-or-just-politics/2012/02/09/gIQA4hy34Q_story.htmlIs it bribery, or just politics?
"Siegelman, a Democrat, was elected Alabamas governor in 1998 and was defeated in 2002. In 2006, he and a prominent Alabama businessman Richard Scrushy, former chief executive of HealthSouth were convicted of bribery. Here is why:
As governor, Siegelman advanced a ballot referendum to create a state lottery with revenue dedicated to education. After Scrushy raised and contributed $250,000 to the lottery campaign, Siegelman appointed him as three previous governors had done to a health-care-related state board, three members of which are required by law to be health-care professionals and all members of which serve without pay.
The lottery referendum lost, leaving the Democratic Party with a campaign debt. Siegelman and a wealthy Alabamian guaranteed a loan to pay it off, but Siegelman and others raised sufficient money including another $250,000 from Scrushy through his company to retire it. Note that half of the contributions involving Scrushy came after his appointment to the board.
PLEASE READ THE REST.
Copyright law prohibits me from posting the guts of the article.
Please, PLEASE click and read.
Carl Rove was behind the trumped up charges against Siegelman.
It was a political assassination of the most popular Democratic politician in Alabama.
The Federal prosecutor was the wife of the head of the Alabama Republican party and a Bush appointee.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-it-bribery-or-just-politics/2012/02/09/gIQA4hy34Q_story.html
annabanana
(52,791 posts)see him get this support (from WHEREVER). He was so badly railroaded by Rove's boys & girls down there. The thing is, if they start to pull the loose threads on this shameful sweater, the DOJ might be forced into "looking back"
Lordy lord would I like to see Rove get his, finally.
trof
(54,256 posts)But I ain't holding my breath.
trof
(54,256 posts)I guess it's OK to post this in it's entirety.
A respected conservative columnist and commentator for the Washington Post hopes that the Supreme Court will hear my case . Please read.
Don Siegelman
Governor of Alabama 1999-2003
205-260-3965
Is It Bribery of Just Politics?
By George F. Will
Washington Post
February 10, 2012
All elected officials, and those who help finance elections in the expectation that certain promises will be kept and everyone who cares about the rule of law should hope the Supreme Court agrees to hear Don Siegelmans appeal of his conviction. Until the court clarifies what constitutes quid pro quo political corruption, Americans engage in politics at their peril because prosecutors have dangerous discretion to criminalize politics.
Siegelman, a Democrat, was elected Alabamas governor in 1998 and was defeated in 2002. In 2006, he and a prominent Alabama businessman Richard Scrushy, former chief executive of HealthSouth were convicted of bribery. Here is why:
As governor, Siegelman advanced a ballot referendum to create a state lottery with revenue dedicated to education. After Scrushy raised and contributed $250,000 to the lottery campaign, Siegelman appointed him as three previous governors had done to a health-care-related state board, three members of which are required by law to be health-care professionals and all members of which serve without pay.
The lottery referendum lost, leaving the Democratic Party with a campaign debt. Siegelman and a wealthy Alabamian guaranteed a loan to pay it off, but Siegelman and others raised sufficient money including another $250,000 from Scrushy through his company to retire it. Note that half of the contributions involving Scrushy came after his appointment to the board.
Now, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, before Scrushys first contribution, he hoped to ingratiate himself with the governor, that he hoped to be reappointed to the board and that Siegelman appointed him at least partly because of gratitude. But was this bribery?
A jury said yes, and Siegelman was sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released after nine months, pending his appeal, which turns on the contention that due process is denied when the law does not give due notice of proscribed behavior. It is this due notice that circumscribes prosecutorial discretion.
Siegelman argues that political contributions enjoy First Amendment protection, and seeking them is not optional for a politician in Americas privately funded democracy. Furthermore, elected officials must undertake official acts; some will be pleasing or otherwise beneficial to contributors. (See Solyndra.) Often this is nothing more than keeping campaign promises: People contribute because they endorse a candidates agenda.
One circuit court (Judge Sonia Sotomayor writing) has held that to establish bribery involving political contributions requires proof of an explicit quid pro quo, meaning an express promise. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary defines explicit as stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.
Another circuit court, however, has held that explicit does not mean an express or actually and clearly stated promise that an official action will be controlled by a contribution. Rather, explicit quid pro quo can mean only a state of mind inferred from perhaps suspicious circumstances.
But if bribery can be discerned in a somehow implicit connection between a contribution and an official action, prosecutorial discretion will be vast. And there will be the political temptation to ascribe unspoken but criminal mental states to elected officials. The Supreme Court can circumscribe this dangerous discretion by affirming the principle that the quid pro quo standard for bribery requires proof, not a mere inference, of an actual communication. In the laws current, contradictory condition, the line is blurry between the exercise of constitutional rights and the commission of a crime.
Politics in a democracy is transactional. Candidates routinely solicit the support of interest groups, from unions to business organizations to environmental and other advocacy factions. (If you vote for me, I will do X for you.) And many such groups solicit the solicitousness of candidates. (If we support you, will you do Y for us?)
It is not uncommon for wealthy individuals to support presidential candidates lavishly, if not for the purpose of becoming ambassadors, then with the hope that the president-elect will show gratitude for their generosity. The Washington Post of Jan. 19, 2011, reported (Embassy openings for open wallets) that President Obamas political appointees, as opposed to career diplomats, had received 30.05 percent of ambassadorial posts, just below the 30.47 average of the previous five presidents.
In 2009, a bipartisan amicus brief by 91 former state attorneys general urged the Supreme Court to use Siegelmans case to enunciate a clear standard for establishing quid pro quo bribery. Todays confusion and the resulting prosecutorial discretion chill the exercise of constitutional rights of political participation and can imprison people unjustly.
georgewill@washpost.com
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©2012 Friends of Don Siegelman | 1827 1st Ave North, Birmingham, AL 35203
Warpy
(111,270 posts)He's as wrongheaded as they come about the economy and foreign policy, but he does care about the country more than party or party dogma and he does have a sense of justice.
Siegelman got a raw deal and anyone who has kept up with the case knows it. Will is just honest enough to admit it.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)after a campaign donation it can be considered bribery, it's really all over for conservatives.
They absolutely exist for quid pro quo from the 1% and campaign donations are the fuel for everything they do.
It happened back in the day when Republicans thought they had a "Permanent Majority" and could use the most politicized DOJ in history to hold Democrats to an entirely different standard. Now some of them realize that under the rules that prosecuted Sieligman and Scrushy, there isn't a safe Republican anywhere.