Elena Kagan, Willing Accomplice

[defendandprotect]

Elena Kagan, Willing Accomplice in the Siegelman Affair

Under pressure, the Obama Justice Department investigated the Siegelman case. Justice chose to let members of the prosecution team, political appointees form the previous administration, conduct the review. Those accused of perpetrating a massive injustice behaved predictably. They exonerated themselves.

Then, when Siegelman appealed his case to the Supreme Court in 2009, President Obama's Attorney General dispatched Solicitor General Elena Kagan to argue against the appeal in November.


Before accepting the case, Elena Kagan knew or should have known: that the U.S. Attorney who began the Siegelman investigation was closely tied to Karl Rove; that Siegelman never benefited personally from the contribution to an education funding initiative; that the case was so outrageous, forty-four attorneys general petitioned Congress; and, that the presiding judge in the case owned a major interest in a defense firm that received a $178 million federal contract between Siegelman's indictment and trial, a massive conflict of interest.

Most revealing, before her argument against the former governor's appeal, Kagan knew or should have known the following. After two charges had been dropped in a 2009 appeal, Justice Department attorneys recommended a twenty year sentence instead of the seven years already rendered. Fewer offenses for sentencing meant thirteen additional years by the strange logic of federal justice.

Kagan knew or should have known all this and more. That didn't stop her from arguing that Don Siegelman should be kept in jail.

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/06/22/kaganaccomplice


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Did anyone here know about this connection to the Siegelmann case?

Think the Hearings start next week --

[Nite Owl]

1. Haven't heard anything about this

but it does need explanation. I sent the article to Rachel Maddow as she did a lot of reporting on this case, maybe she can do some sort of follow up and and explantion.

[defendandprotect]

3. Siegelmann case is heartbreaking and really expected it to be overturned ...

Why wouldn't it be --

the political corruption in Alabama is mind-boggling enough -- but Karl Rove's

obvious involvement ... Wow!!

[skeptical cynic]

2. I don't think anyone is expecting a liberal justice to be appointed

by this administration.

[DonCoquixote]

7. what was Sotomayor

chopped liver?

They can and will appoint people who will turn the court more towards the left, as Sonia has.

[skeptical cynic]

8. I love this "Sonia" stuff

Palin lovers in Alaska call her "Sarah." Like they're buddies or something.

Sotomayor is relatively liberal. But, as someone in another post pointed out, Nixon would be relatively liberal today.

"More towards the left" = far enough to the left?

I'll take what I can get, but this is not a liberal President, not a liberal Administration, and not a liberal Congress.

A Nobel Peace Prize obviously does not a peace activist make.

[DonCoquixote]

19. far versus more

Sonia Sotomayor has views that are liberal enough by anyone. She took on the ultimate oligarchy toy, baseball, and has stated that she disbelieve in corporate personhood, a step many liberals did not even take until the SCOTUS showed how low it could sink. Does someone have to pass a litmus test to be liberal enough, and if so, what?

[skeptical cynic]

22. I hope I am wrong

Only time will tell.

I do acknowledge that we're much better off with Obama making the appointments than the alternative. I'm just one of those far left "retards" who is enjoying watching the police cars burn in Toronto. Things are moving fast enough for me, and I don't believe the change we need is possible by working withing the system. Civil dissobedience, not SCOTUS appointments, will make the difference.

Fortunately, on a global scale, I think that change is coming.

[LWolf]

11. Why wouldn't we?

After all, that was the talking point of last resort during the '08 GE:

If you don't like anything else about Obama's policies, remember the Supreme Court nominations are hugh!!!!!

[skeptical cynic]

12. I just don't expect anything more liberal than the left side of

Centrist.

I hope I'm surprised, but I doubt I will be.

[LWolf]

13. I don't even expect that.

I expect center-right and farther right, the whole way.

I didn't, obviously, actually think that last ditch talking point was viable. :(

[skeptical cynic]

14. Yours is the most likely scenario

I struggle with labels like Democrat/Republican, Conservative/Progressive, Left/Right, Liberal/Fascist...

Too many mislabel themselves; too many play one against another; the definitions morph over time. The 2004 Green Party Platform reads like what I thought the Democrats were when I registered to vote in 1974. The Democratic Party ceased to be my party when Clinton proved to be a neoliberal. Obama justifying war in a speech accepted the Nobel Peace Prize was the ultimate in cognitive dissonance for me.

There will be no more human progress with the steady stream of corporate puppets offered by the two mainstream parties at the state and national levels.

I expect things to grow progressively worse until, as another DUer puts it, we've crossed a "threshold of suffering" that the masses refuse to accept. Until then, we'll be engaged in violent agreement about non-issues stradding the political center.

[inna]

4. no i didn't know anything about this, but nothing will surprise me at this point.

kr

[sabrina 1]

5. No, I did not know about this. That is very disturbing

information. Not that there's anything we can do about it that I know of. But it is a travesty of justice what happened to Siegelman and it's hard to understand how any real lawyer, let alone one who aspires to be a SC justice, would actually argue to keep an innocent man who was the victim of a political prosecution orchestrated by Bush's treasonous operative Karl Rove, in jail.

The news just keeps getting worse. I wonder how long before we have apologists for this also, and how long before Siegelman is tossed under the infamous bus ....

[madrchsod]

6. so she will be a conservative supreme court justice.....

oh well that kind`a sucks.

[defendandprotect]

16. Kagan looks corporate . . .

if she willingly helped cover up Rove's complicity in the Siegelmann case

then we are talking about much more --

Is this her "reward"?



We've been hearing that Kagan had this dream of one day being a Judge on the

Supreme Court --

that's nice ... but I'd say it's kinda important how you get there and what

you hope to do when you do get there!!

[amborin]

9. K&R not good news

[Octafish]

10. DUer ensho brought it up in April.

Plot Thickens On Siegelman Prosecution and Air Force Tanker Deal

Other good DUers brought up Ms. Kagan's role in the Siegelman affair before then, as well.

[defendandprotect]

15. Thank you -- evidently a lot of us missed it ....

and now the new Air Force/MIC complications ---

and I note that someone is questioning whether this was Kagan's "reward" -- ???

Thing that drives me nuts is how few here are even interested in this angle --

and the tremendous injustice of it all re Siegelmann alone --

When I heard of the DOJ verdict, I didn't know that Kagan was involved. Would have

meant little then. But it's an outrageous verdict --

Supreme Court next? Little hope there, either for Siegelmann --

Leahy was talking about the Supreme Court the other day --

the subject was actually the campaign finance decision but he moved into a frank

discussion of the SC -- the fact that there are 310,000,000 million Americans and

9 Supreme Court justices making decisions effecting us all!!

From the first days of the government there was underrepresentation in the USHR --

founders were complaining -- and there still is -- we have something like 1/10th the

representation the British have, for instance . . .

last time I worked out the numbers.

[joe black]

21. DOJ

Broke their god damn neck to drop charges againt that fuckwad Ted Stevens though.

[sabrina 1]

17. Thanks, I missed that also.

[defendandprotect]

18. HEARINGS on Kagan start today . . . 1 pm . . . C-span 3 --

And just want to mention as Sen. Leahy made clear the other day --

NINE justices represent 310 million Americans!!

How's that working out for us?

[MinM]

20. Jonathan Turley on Kagan SCOTUS Nomination: Obama is Moving the Court to the Right

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x464024

Elena Kagan: Willing Accomplice in Don Siegelman's Prosecution
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x464024#479458

K & R