Legal Schnauzer

Inside the Ugly World of Alice Martin and the Bush Justice Department

2008-10-10T09:45:00.006-05:00

If I were granted one early Christmas wish for 2008, it would be this: That all Americans read "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," the superb article written by Lynda Edwards in the October issue of the Journal of the American Bar Association (ABA).

What would happen if, between now and November 4, all Americans read, and grasped the importance of, the article:

* Democrat Barack Obama would be elected president in a landslide; and

* An Obama administration, in conjunction with Congress, would move quickly and decisively to ensure that the criminals who infiltrated our Justice Department over the past eight years are held accountable.

For the sake of our country, both of those things desperately need to happen. And Edwards' story is the kind of behind-the-scenes reporting that shows just how bad things have really been in the Bush DOJ.

(By the way, many Democrats are filled with angst that an Obama administration would let Bush criminals off the hook. In a recent op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal, famed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz actually endorses the idea of a "get out of jail free" card for corrupt Bushies. For a well-reasoned counter to Dershowitz' nonsense, check out Lawrence Velvel's blog.)

Not surprisingly for those of us who live in or near Birmingham, Edwards' poster child for corruption is Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

Edwards' story is about a man, Alex Latifi, who sees his flourishing business intentionally ruined by federal officials, largely because he is a Democrat of Iranian descent.

It's a grim, ugly story. But Edwards still manages to find moments of hilarity. You have the star government witness who stole more than $12,000 from Latifi and admitted to altering and sabotaging company files and computer records. And my favorite is the DOJ official, who when asked for comment, tells Edwards she should not be writing about the case because "it's weird! It's an anomaly! It's a weird anomaly!"

Regular readers know I've had my own unfortunate encounters with Alice Martin, and my research indicates she or people close to her are behind my termination at UAB. (Much more on that coming soon.) So a number of scenes from the ABA Journal story cut close to the bone here at Legal Schnauzer:

*Consider this quote from Martin: "If KBR or Halliburton committed an illegal act in my jurisdiction in Alabama, I would have prosecuted them." This implies that Martin pursues cases regardless of the political implications. I've written numerous posts based on firsthand experience, including this one, that show this statement is pure, unadulterated rubbish.

* And get this gem from Martin: "This is actually more painful than a root canal because at least the dentist gives you Novocain. I don't know Jill Simpson, I have never met Karl Rove or been in the same building with him, to my knowledge. When I ran for elective office, I got some names of consultants from Bill Canary. I couldn't afford Bill."

And who did our gal Alice wind up with as a campaign manager when she ran for a seat on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in 2000? Why, none other than Dax Swatek, one of Canary's right-hand compadres and a central character in our Legal Schnauzer story because his father, Bill Swatek, filed the bogus lawsuit in Shelby County that started my "road to legal perdition."

And get this: I wrote in detail about the Alice Martin/Dax Swatek connection on this post, dated February 18, 2008.

Notice the first comment on that post: "Nut case yours is comong (sic)."

Obviously, this individual has a slight problem with grammar and spelling. It's also obvious that he's not happy with the content of my post, and he intends to do something about it. In short, he shows signs of being a sociopath.

And here's an interesting note: According to testimony at my UAB grievance hearing, my former boss (Pam Powell) initiated an investigation of my computer usage at work on Jan. 21. (An investigation, by the way, that showed I had never once used my computer to work on my blog.)

Less than a month after that, a helpful correspondent tells me mine "is coming." Sounds like somebody knew something was up, doesn't it? And gee, given that the post in question was about Dax Swatek and his ties to Alice Martin, I wonder who my "helpful correspondent" might have been.

Is there reason to believe that Alice Martin and Dax Swatek had something to do with my termination at UAB? Is there reason to believe they enlisted the help of one or more influential people at UAB to get the dirty deed done? Do I have some evidence that suggests the identity of said influential people? Will Legal Schnauzer readers find out who those folks are and what really went down with my firing?

The answer to all of these questions is, to quote Sarah Palin, "You betcha."

Will Financial Crimes of the Bush Era Be Uncovered?

2008-10-09T10:30:00.016-05:00

The nation's attention has been riveted in recent days on an economic crisis that largely was caused by the deregulation favored by George W. Bush and other conservatives.

But the Bush administration has visited another kind of financial calamity upon Americans, one that has mostly floated under the media radar--at least until now.

While grotesque greed and mismanagement created the need for the recent $700 billion bailout, another kind of mess has occurred on the Bush watch. We are talking about criminal behavior by financial kingpins, and some of it has been actively covered up by the Bush administration.

Is there reason to think these financial crimes might someday come to light? Perhaps. And the first clue might come with an obscure news story that made the rounds yesterday.

It's a story that, in a roundabout way, even has connections to my termination at UAB. More on that in a bit.

But first, here are the basics: Associated Press reported that Charles "Chuck" Rosenberg, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, is stepping down after two years in his post. Rosenberg informed President Bush of his decision in a letter dated September 30, and the U.S. attorney's last day will be October 22.

Why would Rosenberg step down with just a little more than two months left in the Bush administration? That remains a mystery; Rosenberg doesn't even mention that he wants to "spend time with his family."

But let me take a crack at explaining what might be going on and why it could be important.

Who is Chuck Rosenberg? He played a central role in dropping an investigation of a massive fraud case, one of the worst financial crimes of the past eight years. David Maguire, the veteran federal prosecutor who uncovered the case, described crimes that were "far worse" than those of Arthur Andersen, the accounting giant that collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal.

And the case involved big names and even bigger money. At the heart of the investigation was General Reinsurance, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment empire overseen by billionaire Warren Buffett. Joining Buffett on the Berkshire Hathaway board of directors is Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

General Reinsurance, known as "Gen Re," had become entangled in a mess that could become a headache for the world's two richest men. But evidence suggests the Bush administration did not want that to happen. And Chuck Rosenberg is the guy it chose to make the problem go away.

What was at stake in the Gen Re investigation and why did the Bush administration want to shut it down? Marisa Taylor, a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers, has written an excellent account of the case. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has looked into the matter, and Corporate Crime Reporter has a strong overview of that angle.

Here are the basics of the case: It starts with Reciprocal of America (ROA), an insurer based in Richmond, Virginia. ROA was supposed to avoid insolvency by socking away vast surpluses collected from policyholders' premiums and passing risk to giant reinsurance firms such as Gen Re.

But ROA did not accumulate the surplus required by law. And regulators discovered the company was $450 million in the hole.

How did this happen? ROA's surplus began to erode in the late 1990s when medical-malpractice awards shot up. Under duress, company executives asked Gen Re to assume millions more in risk.

Gen Re agreed to the deal but treated it as a "side" or "unenforceable" transaction. Prosecutors allege that the two companies conspired to falsely inflate ROA's surplus and hide its losses from regulators.

What was the fallout? More than 80,000 lawyers, doctors, and hospitals lost their malpractice coverage. Many of them faced bankruptcy.

How did the Bush administration ensure that the Gen Re case would be covered up? Follow this game of musical chairs:

* Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney who had overseen the case, was "promoted" in November 2005 to become deputy attorney general under Alberto Gonzalez;

* The Bush administration brought Rosenberg from Texas (where else?) to replace McNulty;

* Rosenberg pulled Maguire off the case and replaced him with Michael Gill, who was imported from--guess where?--Texas;

* Gill pulled the plug on the Gen Re investigation.

What does Rosenberg's resignation mean? That remains unclear. But it could signal that, in the wake of our worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, federal officials might begin to take a closer look at financial crimes. It might even mean that someone is prepared to take a closer look at the reinsurance industry in general and the Gen Re case in particular.

How could this have any connection to my termination at UAB? More on that coming soon.

Being a Democrat Made Alabama Businessman a Target

2008-10-08T17:40:00.007-05:00

Notes from prosecutors in the Bush Justice Department indicate an Alabama defense contractor was targeted because he is a Democrat.

Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, launched a four-year investigation of Axion Corp and its owner, Alex Latifi, in 2003. Latifi eventually was acquitted on charges that he violated federal arms-export laws. But while preparing for trial, his lawyers were stunned by the first entry in the lead investigator's official notebook.

"It said Latifi was a Democrat and gave $30,000 to a Democratic politician's charity for abused children," said Jim Barger, an associate at the Birmingham law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.

The revelation comes in "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," an investigative report by Lynda Edwards in the October issue of the Journal of the American Bar Association (ABA).

We noted in a previous post that the ABA Journal article shows that Martin and her prosecution team wanted to ruin Latifi's business, even if he was innocent of the charges against him.

Edwards goes behind the scenes to show how a prosecutor in the Bush Justice Department carries out a politically motivated prosecution. How insanely sloppy and bogus was Alice Martin's case? Consider:

* The prosecution's chief witness, former Axion secretary Elizabeth Lemay, had been fired from the company in February 2004 for stealing $12,730. She admitted on the witness stand that she had altered and sabotaged company files and computer records;

* The court received letters on behalf of another scheduled witness--from her husband, her doctor, and a psychologist--saying she was too mentally unstable to testify;

* A government attorney for an agency that helped search for evidence against Latifi was barred from the courtroom for threatening and bizarre behavior toward the defense;

* The fundamental charge against Latifi was that he had sent a classified drawing to a Chinese supplier. But at trial, a government witness was asked to examine the drawing in question and determine if he saw any noteworthy stampings. "On the bottom left," he replied, "it does say 'unclassified.'"

In other words, prosecutors charged Latifi with sending a classified document to a foreign supplier, but they never noticed that their own exhibit showed the document was clearly marked "unclassified."

That's not the only moment of black comedy in Edwards' story. When she contacted Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd, he said, "You should not be writing about this case! It's weird! It's an anomaly! It's a weird anomaly!"

The aftermath of the Latifi case might not be so amusing for Alice Martin & Co. A federal judge has awarded Latifi $364,000 in legal fees. Latifi has sued to obtain Martin's e-mails, memos, and phone records regarding the case. And the U.S. Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating charges that the Latifi case was an improper and abusive prosecution.

Will Alabama Republicans Steal More Elections?

2008-10-07T16:02:00.005-05:00

Evidently it was not enough that Republicans apparently stole the 2002 gubernatorial election in Alabama. That's the one where votes for Democratic incumbent Don Siegelman mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night in Baldwin County, giving Republican challenger Bob Riley a narrow "victory."

Evidently it's not enough that GOP plans to take over the Alabama Legislature in 2010 include prosecutions of state legislators that appear to be politically motivated. Democrat Sue Schmitz recently saw a hung jury in such a case brought by U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.

Now we learn that Governor Riley's office apparently is trying to purge rolls of likely Democratic voters.

A 2005 opinion from the Alabama attorney general named 28 felonies--which add up to about 70 crimes if each of the degrees of the offenses is counted--that have by statute or appellate decision been defined as crimes of moral turpitude, which strip someone of his voting rights.

Riley, who serves as court-appointed chief of Alabama elections, in 2007 created a list of more than 400 felonies that would lead to loss of voting rights. Riley's list includes everything from terrorism and homicide to starting a brush fire and drug possession. The governor's office gave its list to Election Systems & Software, a company hired to create a voter-registration database for the state.

Griffin Sikes Jr., legal director for the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts (AOC), said the governor had no legal authority to classify so many crimes as crimes of moral turpitude. Sikes said the governor's office had assured him for months that the shorter list was being used, but he recently discovered that was not the case.

Polls show John McCain with a wide lead over Barack Obama in Alabama, so the presidential race is not likely to be affected by the controversy. But several "down ticket" races--Congressional races and state appellate court races--could be affected.

"I think a lot of damage has been done to a lot of people," said Joe Turnham, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party. "We have less than three weeks now to find the people who have been disenfranchised and get them back on the rolls."

So Much for Ethics in the Bush Justice Department

2008-10-06T15:04:00.001-05:00

Prosecutors in the Bush Justice Department wanted to ruin an Alabama defense contractor's business, even if he was not guilty of criminal charges against him, according to a new report in the Journal of the American Bar Association (ABA).

Reporter Lynda Edwards writes about "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," in the October issue of the ABA Journal.

The story focuses on Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama who launched a four-year investigation of Huntsville-based Axion Corp. and owner Alex Latifi. The case involved allegations that Latifi violated federal arms-export laws by falsifying a report and sending a classified drawing of a Black Hawk helicopter part to a Chinese supplier.

Latifi was acquitted of all charges after a seven-day trial in October 2007, but his once-thriving business was in tatters. That, Edwards reports, was the goal of prosecutors all along.

Attorneys for Latifi report grossly unethical behavior by prosecutors during the case. Lead defense counsel Henry Frohsin recounts asking prosecutors if they would drop a related charge if handwriting experts declared the signature a forgery. According to Frohsin and his associates, a member of the prosecution team replied, "We don't care if Latifi is innocent. Our goal is to put him out of business."

The ABA Journal originally attributed the quote to Martin. In a correction on its Web site, the Journal says the quote should have been attributed to Assistant U.S. Attorney David Estes.

Martin, however, made little effort to deny that the comment captured prosecutors' mindset during the Latifi case. Reports Edwards:

When asked later by telephone (about the) statement, there is utter silence for a long moment.

"If you know someone is a bank robber," Martin said carefully, "then you want to put him out of the business of robbing banks, no matter what."

How did Martin and her team "know" Latifi was a "bank robber?" What kind of evidence did they have to support that conclusion? Edwards summarizes:

The trial was potholed with crazy. The government's key informant was a fired company secretary convicted of stealing from Axion and forging Latifi's signature. She said on the witness stand she sabotaged Axion records. The judge excluded a top government fraud attorney from court for bizarre conduct. The drawing at issue was marked both "unclassified" and "uncontrolled." China owns Black Hawk helicopters and can examine the part anytime it wants.

So why did Martin bring the case?

Some observers say it has to do with race and international politics. Latifi is a naturalized citizen born in Iran. The Bush administration had labeled Iran part of its "axis of evil," and that might have helped make Latifi a target.

Other observers note the case might have been driven by Martin's ambition for higher office. Edwards quotes Wendy Wysong, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who prosecuted arms-export cases while at the U.S. Commerce Department. "She says in 2004 the obscure field of law became the hot, starmaking field for U.S. attorneys," Edwards writes.

Whatever the motivations behind the prosecution, it has turned into a mess for the government. U.S. District Judge Inge Johnson called the prosecution's case "sloppy" and awarded almost $364,000 in legal fees under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act.

More funds could be coming Latifi's way. He has sued to obtain Martin's e-mails, memos, and phone records regarding the case. He is suing under the Hyde Amendment, which allows exonerated defendants to seek compensation from federal officials if the prosecution was "vexatious, frivolous or in bad faith."

Finally, defense lawyers have filed a complaint against Martin with the U.S. Office of Professional Responsibility, claiming she brought a political and baseless prosecution against Latifi.

Why Are Newspapers Struggling?

2008-10-05T16:05:00.001-05:00

I recently attended a retirement party for a friend who worked at The Birmingham News.

My friend worked at the paper for 43 years, so he was pretty much ready to retire. But he wound up leaving the paper a bit earlier than he had planned. That's because the News offered a buyout package to certain employees. My understanding is that about 85 employees received the offers, and my friend couldn't afford to pass it up.

I enjoyed the retirement party, and it gave me an opportunity to get my first gander at the inside of the News' swanky new digs in downtown Birmingham. I saw only a portion of the first floor, but the building looks like a huge improvement on the old building where I spent 11 years toiling for the late, great Birmingham Post-Herald.

As I ate my cake and drank my punch, I wondered: Why is this newspaper in such a less-than-stellar financial position that it is offering buyouts to veteran employees?

The News is our fair city's only daily newspaper, so it pretty much enjoys a monopoly on the market.

When numerous newspapers folded back in the 1970s and '80s, the explanation was that TV news had made afternoon papers obsolete and only a handful of cities were big enough to be "two-newspaper towns."

Now it seems that some cities aren't big enough to have even one thriving newspaper. So you have to ask: Why is that?

Newspaper types have been wringing their hands at professional gatherings for years, trying to figure out what ails their industry.

Many articles have been written about the problems facing newspapers, and one of the best ones I've seen recently, titled "The Demise of the Washington News Bureau," is written by John McQuaid at American Prospect.

McQuaid notes that Newhouse News Service recently announced that it would shut down after Election Day. This hits close to home here in Birmingham because Newhouse's Advance Publications is owner of The Birmingham News.

And Newhouse is not alone in tightening its national belt. McQuaid reports that newspapers in San Francisco, San Diego, Des Moines, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Toledo, Houston, Salt Lake City, Montana, Wyoming, and Maine have all cut back or eliminated Washington coverage in the past two years. Even the Chicago Tribune is considering cuts at its Washington bureau.

This is a disturbing scenario. At a time when we need more watchdogs in Washington we are getting fewer.

I'm sure there are multiple reasons for the gradual implosion of the newspaper industry. But one reason stands out in my mind, particularly here in Birmingham.

The one thing that a major newspaper can do better than any other form of media outlet is to report. And I'm talking about serious reporting--investigative, hard-hitting, fearless, insightful--without regard to political oxes that might be gored.

This is an area where The Birmingham News, in spite of its recent Pulitzer Prize, has come up short.

Yes, the News won journalism's biggest prize for its reporting on the Alabama two-year colleges scandal. But consider the stories the paper has either ignored or given only passing attention:

* The abusive practices of federal prosecutors in Birmingham (Alice Martin) and Montgomery (Leura Canary);

* The apparent railroad job and wrongful conviction of former Governor Don Siegelman;

* The connections between the Siegelman case and a similar case in neighboring Mississippi involving attorney Paul Minor;

* The dirty-money trail that helped funnel $13 million from Jack Abramoff to Governor Bob Riley's campaign;

* The stain gambling interests have placed on the Republican party in Alabama and throughout the Deep South;

* Efforts by GOP presidential nominee John McCain to hide the Abramoff-Riley connection;

* The deleterious effect Karl Rove has had on Alabama government, particularly in our state courts which he helped shape in the 1990s.

* The grotesque corruption in Shelby County, which is just south of Birmingham and represents our state's area of most rapid growth. This should be an area of enlightenment, but it is run like a banana republic--or worse.

We're just getting warmed up with this list. But serious reporting on these kinds of topics would make The Birmingham News an indispensable read. But by failing to address these and other important subjects, the News has made itself dispensable. And its recent buyout of veteran employees reflects that.

I have personal experience with the News' approach to reporting. Hannah Wolfson, the newspaper's UAB beat reporter, contacted me several weeks ago about my termination at the university after 19 years of service.

My impression is that Ms. Wolfson recognized it as an important story and wanted to treat it that way. And it's not an important story necessarily because it involves me. But it is important for at least the following reasons:

* UAB receives more than $400 million a year in federal research funding, and part of its grant proposals is a requirement to abide by federal law and avoid discriminatory practices. My case is just one example of UAB failing to live up to its obligations.

* I've become aware of several other instances of unlawful behavior by UAB toward its employees, and one of them has international implications. In fact, it is apparent that the university's human-resources problems go way beyond my case.

You will be reading about these other cases here at Legal Schnauzer. But you probably won't be reading about them, or my case, in The Birmingham News.

Why? My guess is that some editor up the line torpedoed Ms. Wolfson's story idea, probably because it would have cast an unfavorable light on some of the paper's favored Republicans.

As leaders of our community's only daily newspaper, editors of the News have that kind of power. But when they wonder why their bottom line isn't so hot, they should look in the mirror.

And when they wonder where their readers have gone, they might look at Web sites like Harper's.org, Raw Story, and Locust Fork World News & Journal. That's where real Alabama news, important stories The Birmingham News ignores, is being reported.

Will The Birmingham News Remain Clueless to the End?

2008-10-04T10:38:00.008-05:00

The answer to our title question apparently is yes. But maybe there is hope for Alabama's largest newspaper.

The News opines today about the Justice Department report issued this week showing political considerations played a role in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. The firings were "weird," the News determines. No, it seems clear, the firings were corrupt. But our local metro daily doesn't want to go there.

Where else does The News not want to go? To "Don Siegelman Has Been Right All Along Land."

The News acknowledges--and it appears to pain them--that the report raises questions not only about the unlawful treatment of some prosecutors but also about the treatment of those who were prosecuted. That would include Siegelman, Alabama's former Democratic governor who was prosecuted and convicted in a case that was dripping with conflicts of interest and political motivations from those in the Bush Justice Department:

Consider: If some U.S. attorneys were fired for not prosecuting people that suited Republican interests, were other U.S. attorneys able to keep their jobs by prosecuting the "right people"?

There were U.S. attorneys who were considered "mediocre" who didn't end up on the firing list, apparently because they had political favor. That begs the question: What kind of cases did they bring that kept them in good standing with the party? Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman would certainly love to argue that U.S. Attorney Leura Canary kept her job in Montgomery by prosecuting him.

Were some U.S. attorneys able to keep their jobs by prosecuting the "right people?" The News, laughably, seems to be pondering this question for the first time today. Where have you been folks?

And the paper doesn't want to mention that the entire Justice Department scandal, to a great extent, has its roots in Alabama, not only because of biased and unqualified U.S. attorneys Leura Canary in Montgomery and Alice Martin in Birmingham but because of Karl Rove's deep connections to Alabama, which started with his campaign efforts in state-court races in the 1990s.

Finally, the News would have us believe that Siegelman is fighting a lonely battle to show that Canary kept her job in Montgomery because of her willingness to bring a bogus case against him. In fact, Siegelman hasn't been lonely at all. Harper's magazine, The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and Time magazine are just a few of the media outlets that have reported extensively on the issue. And the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has spent considerable effort investigating the case, issuing a subpoena for Rove to testify about his possible role in the Siegelman prosecution--a subpoena with which Rove steadily has refused to comply.

Will the News get off its collective duff and start investigating a story that is right under its nose? We won't hold our breath. But today's editorial indicates the blinders might be loosening just a little:

It's true, U.S. attorneys are political appointees and can be fired at will. But their job is to serve the public's interest, not a political party's interest. If they can be fired because they don't prosecute people of the opposite party, or because they prosecute people of their own party, how can the public really trust that cases are being brought or are being dropped for the right reasons?

"For department officials to recommend the removal of U.S. attorneys even in part because they do or do not have political support undermines the public's confidence that Department of Justice prosecutive decisions are based on the facts and the law and not on political considerations," the report said.

Simply put, U.S. attorneys can't play favorites with the cases that come into their offices and expect to have any credibility with the public. The same rule applies to the Justice Department.

Are scales beginning to fall from a few eyes down on Fourth Avenue North in Birmingham?

Alabama Governor Leads Effort to Purge Voters

2008-10-02T10:28:00.005-05:00

We learned yesterday that Alabama is one of 19 states where secret voter purges are under way, in apparent efforts to suppress likely Democratic voters.

Today we learn who is responsible for the voter purge in Alabama--the office of Republican Governor Bob Riley.

The Alabama Administrative Office of Courts (AOC) has determined that eligible voters are being wrongly denied the right to cast a ballot in the coming election because of the way the Riley administration defines a crime of "moral turpitude."

The AOC sent a memo earlier this week to probate judges, sheriffs and circuit clerks saying that people who should be allowed to vote have been stricken from the voter rolls based on information from the Riley administration over which felony convictions bar people from voting.

AOC officials said the memo was designed to help identify citizens who have been wrongly denied the right to vote over the past 18 months and notify them that they are eligible to vote on November 4.

"You're not talking about a few hundred people," said Joe Turnham, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party. "You're probably talking about thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of voters that were legally entitled to vote that have been purged or denied their ability to register."

One man was blocked from voting because he was convicted years ago of having too much unopened beer in his car while driving through a dry county.

Riley's office claims that 480 of the state's 575 felony crimes involve moral turpitude. The AOC, however, lists only 70 crimes that should bar someone from voting.

Rove's Fingerprints Are At The Scene of the Crime

2008-10-02T09:41:00.006-05:00

Karl Rove was at the heart of plans to fire U.S. attorneys, according to an analysis of this week's report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Zachary Roth, of TPM Muckraker, says the report shows that the plan to dump U.S. attorneys originated at the Bush White House:

Still, a close examination of the report makes clear that, although on a day-to-day basis the plan was put into effect by mid-level DOJ political appointees -- enabled by a shocking lack of oversight from top department officials, principally former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- the impetus for the move came straight from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Many of the individual pieces of information have been previously reported, as DOJ provided emails and internal documents to Congress for its 2007 investigation. But the OIG report provides a far clearer sense of the longer-term trajectory of the plan, and the consistent interest in it from (Harriet) Miers and (Karl) Rove, than we've yet been offered.

How intimately was Rove involved? Consider this passage from Roth's piece:

In January 2005, (Kyle) Sampson received an email from a Miers deputy, which said: "Karl Rove stopped by "to ask ... 'how we planned to proceed regarding US Attorneys, whether we are going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc.' " [Quotation marks rendered as in the report]. A few days later, Sampson replied: "If Karl [Rove] thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I."

The report makes it clear that Karl Rove was deeply interested in activities at the Justice Department. Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has said Rove's interest went beyond the fired U.S. attorneys to actually ensuring that political prosecutions were carried out.

Is Siegelman on the right track? The OIG report does not provide conclusive evidence on that question. But it does provide important clues that indicate Siegelman is indeed on the right track.

There can no longer be any doubt that Rove was involved in Justice Department affairs. The report shows that certain U.S. attorneys were not favored. And it shows that certain U.S. attorneys--including Leura Canary and Alice Martin of Alabama, whose names were highlighted--were favored. Were they favored because they were willing to go after Don Siegelman with weak cases?

That is one of many questions that will be hanging in the air when the U.S. House Judiciary Committee meets tomorrow to discuss the OIG report.

Bits and Pieces for $100, Alex

2008-10-01T15:22:00.012-05:00

Montgomery Advertiser Finally Sees a Ray of Light on Siegelman Case
Is it possible the scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of the leaders at one of Alabama's major newspapers?

The Montgomery Advertiser, in the wake of this week's report about the removal of nine U.S. attorneys around the nation, has decided that partisan decision making might really be a problem in the Bush Justice Department.

Heck, the Advertiser has decided, maybe former Governor Don Siegelman has a point about political prosecutions carried out by "loyal Bushies" at Justice:

It is unlikely that the Justice Department report will have any direct impact on Siegelman's appeal of his conviction, which is scheduled to be heard by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta in early December.

But as evidence of political meddling in the operations of the Justice Department by the Bush White House mount, Siegelman's claims of being targeted for political reasons start to sound more plausible.

Until now, folks at the Advertiser apparently thought:

* 60 Minutes produced a major investigative piece on the Siegelman case just for grins;

* Scott Horton, legal affairs contributor at Harper's magazine and law professor at Columbia University, wrote numerous posts and longer pieces about the Siegelman case because he had nothing better to do;

* Craig Unger is working on a major Siegelman piece for Vanity Fair because . . . gosh, they needed something to fill up pages; and

* Republican whistleblower Jill Simpson came forward with revelations about GOP plans to railroad Siegelman because she just knew it would help her law practice in north Alabama.

Pro-Palin Witness Reverses Course
Jason Leopold, of The Public Record and Consortium News, continues to be a go-to source on the Sarah Palin story.

Leopold's latest piece says a key Troopergate witness has backed off an earlier defense of Palin and now says the governor's associates applied pressure to deny worker's compensation benefits to her ex-brother-in-law.

Murlene Wilkes, owner of Harbor Adjustment Service in Anchorage, says she received multiple phone calls and personal visits from the Palin inner circle in an effort to deny benefits for trooper Mike Wooten.

Palin Might Give Biden All He Can Handle
Many observers seem to be assuming that Joe Biden will mop the floor with Sarah Palin in tomorrow night's vice presidential debate. But someone who knows firsthand what it is like to debate Palin says we might be in for a surprise.

Andrew Halcro, who ran for governor in Alaska as an independent in 2006, has debated Palin some two dozen times. He says she can be a formidable foe, not because she is knowledgeable--she isn't--but because she is a master of "the fine art of the nonanswer."

This can throw a smart, prepared opponent, such as Biden, off his game. Halcro's advice? Biden should speak as if Palin isn't there, treating it as a conversation between himself, the moderator, and the audience.

Voter Purges Are In Full Swing
CBS News is slated to report this evening that voter purges are under way in 19 states, and they appear to be designed to hurt the chances of Democratic candidates.

The story is based on a new report from the bipartisan Brennan Center for Justice. It shows 21,000 voters purged in Louisiana and 10,000 in Mississippi.

And--surprise, surprise--Alabama is among the 19 states where purges reportedly are taking place.

Going After Gonzo
Our friends at the Grievance Project have launched an effort to question whether former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is fit to practice law.

The folks at GP have sent correspondence to Gonzalez' attorney and the media contact for the GonzalezFacts.com Web site, asking for responses to specific allegations of wrongdoing by the former AG.

GP also has prepared complaints regarding the professional misconduct of Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling and other luminaries in the Bush Justice Department.

Will be interesting to see how "loyal Bushies" respond when confronted with facts. Probably not well--or not at all.

I Know All About Naomi Wolf's Police State

2008-10-01T11:37:00.001-05:00

Author Naomi Wolf has written an essay about what might be ahead in a Republican-dominated America, and it is disturbing reading--on multiple levels.

Wolf's primary thesis is that Sarah Palin is more than just John McCain's running mate; she is the designated weak figurehead at the top of a coming police state in America.

Wolf became queasy when she saw Palin embrace lawlessness by defying subpoenas from the Alaska Legislature. Wolf became even more alarmed when she saw Palin use mafia-style tactics against critics.

Suddenly, Wolf realized that Palin, not McCain, was the central figure in the GOP's 2008 ticket:

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protégé Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

We could be headed for what Wolf calls a "Palin-Rove police state." And she offers evidence from her personal life that shows, in some respects, it already is here:

Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.

Some folks might read Wolf's essay and decide she is a nut. But my wife and I sure don't. Consider what Mrs. Schnauzer and I have experienced in the past eight years or so in Alabama, where Karl Rove helped put our state courts in GOP control:

* Our house has been repeatedly vandalized;

* We've had our savings wiped out from having to defend a bogus lawsuit brought by an attorney with family connections to Rove;

* We've seen substantial evidence to suggest that our phone calls were tracked (probably by a device called a pen register), and that information was used to cost my wife multiple employment opportunities over a three-year period;

* We've had our house unlawfully "auctioned" and a bogus "sheriff's deed" placed on our property, meaning we no longer own our house free and clear;

* I've been the victim of a felony assault by a neighbor with a lengthy criminal record, only to see our local authorities insist it was a misdemeanor;

* Our deteriorating financial situation has caused us to be hounded by third-party debt collectors, a particularly charming form of "bottom feeder."

* I've been terminated from my job as an editor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) after 19 years of service. This clearly was done because I write a blog that deals honestly and critically with the Bush Justice Department, particularly its misdeeds in Alabama.

I would call Naomi Wolf a visionary, not a nut. If anything, Wolf is a little bit late to the game. Here in Alabama, the GOP police state has been in action for quite some time.

How Deep Will Special Prosecutor's Inquiry Go?

2008-09-30T11:51:00.007-05:00

Nora Dannehy, the special prosecutor appointed yesterday to investigate the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, is receiving high marks in the press for her integrity and objectivity.

But will Dannehy be allowed to get to the bottom of the criminal activities that permeate the Bush Justice Department?

In a report from Associated Press, even attorneys who have gone against Dannehy have high praise for her approach to criminal investigations. Dannehy helped convict former Connecticut Governor John Rowland, a Republican, and Rowland's defense attorney calls her "the soul of integrity."

Dannehy went after another Republican, former state treasurer Paul Silvester.

"No one will outwork her. No one is going to be smarter than her," said Mike Clark, a retired FBI agent who investigated former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland. "No one will conduct the investigation with more integrity than her."

Wrote the AP:

Dannehy prosecuted Rowland, a once popular three-term governor, after a wide-ranging investigation into contract steering and bribery in his administration. Rowland spent 10 months in prison.

Rowland had nominated Dannehy's brother, Michael, to the Superior Court in 2000.

Dannehy also was the lead prosecutor in the investigation into a bribery and kickback scheme involving former state Treasurer Paul Silvester. He pleaded guilty to his role in the caper, and his testimony was key to other convictions and pleas from associates.

"She won't let the politics get in her way of conducting an investigation," Clark said. "She doesn't care what political party anyone is or where their power base may be coming from."

Dannehy appears to be a solid choice for special prosecutor. But what about this question: How far will her investigation go?

Problems with the Bush Justice Department go way beyond the nine U.S. attorneys who were fired. Several cases point to corruption by Bush DOJ prosecutors who were not fired, particularly Alice Martin and Leura Canary in the Don Siegelman case in Alabama and Dunn Lampton in the Paul Minor case in Mississippi.

Will Dannehy's inquiry include a serious look at these prosecutors? Could someone else wind up handling that aspect of the investigation? Could this aspect of the case be ignored?

Speaking of Siegelman, news comes today that oral arguments in his appeal are expected to be heard in December before the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Is GOP Electoral Scheme About to be Unmasked?

2008-09-30T10:43:00.011-05:00

Evidence has been mounting in recent days that Republican schemes that resulted in stolen presidential elections in 2000 and 2004--and have been planned for 2008--might soon be unearthed.

Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane report at Raw Story that high-level Republican consultant Mike Connell has been subpoenaed in a lawsuit alleging tampering with Ohio election results in 2004.

Connell has refused to testify or produce documents and is seeking to quash the subpoena. The case had been stayed, but it recently received new momentum with the testimony of whistleblower Stephen Spoonamore, a Republican information-technology expert. Attorneys in Ohio who brought the lawsuit are attempting to move forward to ensure the integrity of the 2008 election.

Connell is associated with a firm called GovTech, which was hired by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to set up an official 2004 election Web site at election.sos.state.oh.us.

The plot thickens from there, Raw Story reports:

Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates. This in itself might have raised questions about his involvement in creating Ohio's official state election website.

However, the alternative media group ePlubibus Media further discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains.

"Since early this decade, top Internet 'gurus' in Ohio have been coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for Ohio's live election night results," researchers at ePluribus Media wrote.

A few months after this revelation, when a scandal erupted surrounding the firing of US Attorneys for reasons of White House policy, other researchers found that the gwb43 domain used by members of the White House staff to evade freedom of information laws by sending emails outside of official White House channels was hosted on those same SmarTech servers.

Given that the Bush White House used SmarTech servers to send and receive email, the use of one of those servers in tabulating Ohio's election returns has raised eyebrows. Ohio gave Bush the decisive margin in the Electoral College to secure his reelection in 2004.

Spoonamore provides insight into possible problems with the SmarTech servers:

IT expert Stephen Spoonamore says the SmartTech server could have functioned as a routing point for malicious activity and remains a weakness in electronic voting tabulation.

According to Spoonamore's Sept. 17 affidavit, the "computer placement, in the middle of the network, is a defined type of attack." Spoonamore describes this as a "Man in the Middle Attack" or MIM.

"It is a common problem in the banking settlement space," he writes. "A criminal gang will introduce a computer into the outgoing electronic systems of a major retail mall, or smaller branch office of a bank. They will capture the legitimate transactions and then add fraudulent charges to the system for their benefit."

"Any time all information is directed to a single computer for consolidation, it is possible, and in fact likely, that single computer will exploit the information for some purpose," he adds. "In the case of Ohio 2004, the only purpose I can conceive for sending all county vote tabulations to a GOP managed Man-in-the-Middle site in Chattanooga before sending the results onward to the Sec. of State, would be to hack the vote at the MIM."

Mark Crispin Miller, a national elections-security expert, reports on an extensive interview with Spoonamore at Velvet Revolution.

How important is this interview? Spoonamore reveals that Republican hackers have plans to ensure that John McCain gets 51.2 percent of the vote and a three electoral-vote victory in November.

Will Special Prosecutor Get to the Bottom of Bush DOJ Sewer?

2008-09-29T14:36:00.007-05:00

Is Nora Dannehy the woman to unearth all the sludge that has collected in the cesspool of the Bush Justice Department?

Her appointment today as special prosecutor to pursue possible criminal charges in the controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys appears to be a step in the right direction. And a look at her background gives us reason to be hopeful.

Dannehy is a career prosecutor from Connecticut, and her appointment comes after today's release of the U.S. Inspector General's report on the U.S. attorneys firings. Dannehy has a history of going after wrongdoers on both sides of the political aisle.

Glynn Wilson, of Locust Fork World News & Journal, has an excellent overview of today's events.

Wilson includes this nugget about the role of Karl Rove in the U.S. attorneys purge:

According to the report, and in contrast to what Karl Rove told has said in public while defying a Congressional subpoena to testify under oath, he and other White House officials were involved with the Justice Department investigations and played an active role in crafting the release of information on the firings to the public.

In a March 2007 meeting mentioned on page 84 of the report, called by Deputy White House Counsel William Kelley and attended by Karl Rove, Sampson, Paul McNulty, and others:

According to several witnesses, Rove came in to the meeting for only a few minutes and then left. Battle said Rove spoke at the meeting but he could not recall what he said. McNulty said that he could not specifically recall either, but thought Rove said something to the effect that Moschella’s testimony should explain why the U.S. Attorneys were removed. None of the witnesses said they could recall specifically what Rove said at the meeting, although all agree that the discussion generally centered on what Moschella should say about the reasons for each U.S. Attorney’s removal.

This clearly shows involvement by the Rove in crafting public relations messages at the Justice Department in direct contradiction to what he has said in public for the past year since he abruptly resigned his White House position last August.

Particularly interesting is this section about Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat, responded to the report by repeating a warning he has been making publicly since last summer.

“Since last summer, my committee has warned that the Bush administration fired US attorneys for political reasons and tried to cover it up by misleading Congress, and today’s report confirms our very worst suspicions,” Conyers said. “This scheme — which the report makes clear was hatched in the White House — was a fundamental betrayal of the American people and the men and women of the Department of Justice and it will be a long time before we can fully repair the damage.”

The report also makes clear, he said, that a number of central questions remain unanswered, “largely because of White House stonewalling.”

“So it is all the more important that we continue our effort to obtain White House documents and testimony,” he said.

As for Dannehy, she was appointed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a Bush appointee who has mostly stonewalled the Justice Department investigation. That might lead one to conclude that Dannehy will be a political puppet, more interested in covering up than exposing wrongdoing.

But an article in the Waterbury (CT) Observer indicates it might be too soon to come to that conclusion. Dannehy led the prosecution of former Connecticut Governor John Rowland, whom George W. Bush once called "the future of the Republican Party."

The Great Unanswered Question About McCain and Gambling

2008-09-29T13:30:00.007-05:00

For all of the excellent investigative reporting that went into The New York Times' piece on John McCain and gambling, a major question on the subject remains unanswered.

Why did McCain hide an e-mail that proved Alabama Governor Bob Riley had direct connections to Jack Abramoff's influence-peddling scheme and what does that say about a potential McCain presidency?

While we are at it, let's consider another question: How did McCain's actions affect Alabama politics over the past six years or so?

The McCain/Riley question arose back in February, thanks to some serious digging by Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein.

The mainstream media has mostly ignored the question of why McCain would protect one of his stalwart Republican buddies. And the Times' piece, unfortunately, did not address the Riley question either.

But the Times might have indirectly shined some light on the subject. In investigating the Abramoff affair while head of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, McCain appears to have turned the inquiry into a personal vendetta, the Times reports. Republicans such as Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, whom McCain partially blamed for costing him the South Carolina primary in 2000, took serious heat from the committee. Riley, who has been a consistent McCain supporter, had his questionable connections swept under the table.

That kind of vindictiveness and "selective prosecution" indicates a John McCain presidency might be just as bad as the George W. Bush presidency has been.

And imagine the impact McCain's coverup has had on Alabama politics. If Riley's ties to Abramoff had been reported prior to the 2002 Riley/Don Siegelman gubernatorial race, Riley's chances of winning would have been hampered. And that almost certainly would have thrown a wrench into GOP plans to target Siegelman for a federal prosecution.

As for the broader issue of McCain and gambling, the Democratic National Committee plans to take full advantage of the Times' expose. The following DNC ad will be hitting the airwaves today:

Will the McCain-Riley story develop legs? It certainly would make a strong followup by The New York Times. Perhaps Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC will tackle the subject. They have addressed it once before, starting at the 3:18 mark on the following video clip:

A Tale of Two Bloggers: A Postmortem

2008-09-29T10:15:00.004-05:00

We recently noted that writing a progressive blog while working at a public university in Alabama can be hazardous to your career health.

Regular readers know it already has been damaging to my career; I was fired at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) on May 19, not because of any misconduct or violations of UAB policy but because I write a blog that apparently upset someone in Alabama's conservative hierarchy.

And as noted in our previous post, I was not the first progressive blogger in my office to encounter tierra infirma while working at UAB. Doug Gillett, my friend and former coworker, had a blog-related problem with university administrators back in 2004.

We have shown numerous differences between Doug's case and my situation, particularly in UAB's handling of the two matters.

Let's recap the Doug Gillett case and see what we learn from it:

* UAB exhibits an astonishing double standard when it comes to dealing with employees on blog-related matters. Doug is a good guy and a friend, and I wholeheartedly supported the decision that allowed him to keep his job. But he clearly violated UAB policy and probably violated state law. I didn't come close to violating anything. Doug still works at UAB; I got fired.

* UAB displays an appalling fondness for age discrimination. Doug was 25ish when his issue arose; I was 51. Doug received unspecified discipline; I got fired.

* The Birmingham News, not surprisingly, exhibits horrendous news judgment in Doug's case. It devotes two stories and an editorial to what most rational people would consider a non-story. This is more coverage than the News gave to a story about blatant research fraud at UAB. In fact, we will soon show you the research-fraud coverage and allow you to compare it to coverage of the Gillett case.

* Alabama's largest newspaper considers it more important that a UAB employee writes a few blog posts and comments on work time than that state judges are blatantly violating their oaths to uphold the law and costing taxpayers millions in the process. Is it little wonder that many Americans consider our state a backwater?

* The Birmingham News reports an interesting statement from Jim Sumner, head of the Alabama Ethics Commission:

Sumner said it would be unenforceable and undesirable to squelch all political speech among state employees during work hours.

"We have to strike a balance," Sumner said. "If it is on a limited basis, that is one thing."

It would be undesirable to squelch all political speech among state employees during work hours? Someone sure forgot to tell UAB President Carol Garrison. UAB's own investigation showed I had not engaged in political speech or activity on work hours, and I still got fired. And audiotaped statements by a UAB HR representative show that I clearly was fired because I write a blog dealing with the Don Siegelman case--even though I did it on my own time. What kind of balance is UAB trying to strike?

In the end, why does Doug Gillett still work at UAB and I do not? It's pretty simple, I think:

* Doug was in his mid 20s at the time his non-issue arose, and under our supervisor Pam Powell, that is a favored age class. I was 51 when my non-issue arose, and that made me expendable in Pam Powell World. Powell's preference for younger people has been obvious for most of my 12 years in the UAB Publications Office, and Powell's superiors have let it go on. In fact, they evidently have encouraged it.

* Doug wrote mainly about his opinions on his blog, and elsewhere. I wrote a lot about new facts, true citizen journalism. It's one thing to criticize Republican poo-bahs in Alabama; it's quite another to expose them for the slimeballs they are. When you do the latter, as I have done, they will try to shut you up--even if they have to break the law to do it.

How very Rovian.

And isn't it interesting that UAB, and the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, have placed themselves square in the middle of what someday should be known as the worst political scandal in American history?

John McCain's Troubling Ties to the Gambling Industry

2008-09-28T19:32:00.009-05:00

The modern Republican party has built its electoral strategy, to a significant extent, on appeals to "Christian" voters who supposedly oppose all forms of gambling.

So imagine the rich irony in today's New York Times article about GOP presidential nominee John McCain and his long personal and professional associations with the gaming industry.

This is another chapter in the evolving story about Republican hypocrisy on gambling. It's a story we are intimately familiar with in the Deep South, particularly here in Alabama.

The Times reporters do not go into this, but Republican corruption in the South is drenched in gambling connections. The prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, the best known case of politics driving a criminal investigation, has gambling at its core.

Republicans opposed Siegelman's education lottery out of fear it would provide competition for Indian gaming operations in Mississippi. And Jack Abramoff helped funnel some $13 million to Siegelman's opponent, Bob Riley.

And who went out of their way to hide an e-mail showing Riley's direct ties to the Abramoff operation? Why, none other than John McCain.

Those of us in Alabama already know about Republicans and their sleazy ties to gambling. But what do we learn specifically about McCain from today's Times piece and the investigative work of reporters Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr.?

* He has gambled at least once a month for most of his adult life, and weekend betting marathons in Las Vegas have been regular events;

* Only six members of Congress have received more financial support from the gaming industry than McCain--and five of those are from the gambling-rich states of Nevada and New Jersey;

* Mr. "Fiscal Responsibility" McCain, has voted twice for casino tax breaks that have cost the government $326 million over 12 years;

* Sig Rogich, a Las Vegas GOP kingmaker, raised some $2 million for McCain;

* Several McCain associates benefited financially from the Abramoff investigation. John Weaver, McCain's chief political strategist, made $100,000 over four months in 2005 for serving as a consultant to a tribe caught in the inquiry.

All of this does not come as a surprise to us here at Legal Schnauzer. The marriage between Republican greed and big gaming dollars has infected Alabama politics for years.

In fact, as I have researched events behind my unlawful termination at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), I have come across a number of people with ties to gaming and the Alabama Republican Party.

Evidence is building that people with connections to gambling had something to do with my firing at UAB.

We will be presenting that evidence over the next few weeks here at Legal Schnauzer.

An Inside Look at the Dirty Work of Federal Prosecutors in the Age of Bush

2008-09-25T14:45:00.002-05:00

An objective reader might take issue with the two posts we've written in recent days showing that former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman was wrongly convicted. You can check out the two posts here:

Here's Proof Don Siegelman Was Wrongly Convicted

How Did Siegelman Bribery Charge Ever Get To Court?

A constructive critic might say: "Hey, you draw entirely from the Siegelman appeal, but you do not include information from the prosecution's response."

That's a point well taken. And there are two reasons for the lack of response from the prosecution side. One, I don't have a copy of their response. But more importantly, I don't think I would trust it if I did have a copy.

I've seen the Bush Justice Department at work enough to know that even career prosecutors seem to be more interested in pushing a political agenda than in seeing to it that justice is done.

In the Siegelman case, for example, we know that U.S. Attorney Leura Canary had multiple conflicts of interest, but prosecutors who answer to her continued to handle the case. And there is no clear evidence that Canary ever actually recused herself.

I have not seen a transcript from the Siegelman case. But I have seen a transcript from the Paul Minor case in Mississippi, and that gives me reason to question prosecutors who serve in the Bush Justice Department.

Throughout the Minor transcript, you can see prosecutors arguing points regarding bribery, honest-services mail fraud, and expert testimony that they almost have to know are not grounded in the law.

I don't have the first day of law school, but I was able to gain a reasonable grasp of federal law on the two primary issues in the Minor case--bribery and honest-services mail fraud. I summarized the law in the following posts:

Bribery: A Primer

Mail Fraud: A Primer

In both offenses, an essential element is that the defendant must have acted in a corrupt manner. On bribery, federal law says an official must be induced to "violate his or her lawful duty." (U.S. v. Mariano, 983 F. 2d 1150.) On mail fraud, federal law requires that conduct "actually deprives the public" of an official's honest services. (U.S. v. Walker, 400 F. 3d 1282.)

In other words, the decisions that state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield made in underlying cases involving Paul Minor's clients were crucial. If those decisions were supported by the facts and the law, then Teel and Whitfield did not act corruptly and Minor had no corrupt intent in providing loan guarantees to the judges, which were allowed by state law.

Federal prosecutors, however, argued just the opposite.

The defense sought to enter testimony from two expert witnesses who would show that Teel and Whitfield had ruled correctly based on the law and facts before them. But federal prosecutors argued for excluding the expert testimony. Here is how prosecutor David Fulcher put it:

"Starting point, your Honor, is this witness' testimony is irrelevant . . . for a variety of reasons. The first and foremost is that the rightness or wrongness of a particular judge's decision based on the law is irrelevant."

You can almost imagine Minor defense attorney Brad Pigott throwing up his hands in exasperation:

"If Mr. Fulcher's version . . . were the law, then no criminal defendant in any case in which state of mind is an issue could put on any circumstantial evidence of having a noncriminal state of mind and might as well not show up for trial."

Pigott even went on to state that the court's jury instructions when the case was tried in 2005--and ended with an acquittal for Oliver Diaz and no unanimous verdicts for Minor, Teel, and Whitfield--ran counter to Fulcher's assertions.

"The court's position on that occasion is our position now," Pigott said. "It is circumstantial evidence of the state of mind, whether or not there was a criminal state of mind of the judge. And of course, it's relevant to our client (Paul Minor) because if the judge did not have a criminal state of mind in ruling on these Minor Law Firm cases, then that's probative that nobody was seeking a criminal state of mind. The logic is obvious, and it was set forth in detail by this court."

U.S. Judge Henry Wingate, however, changed his earlier ruling and went along with Fulcher. Essentially, the Minor defendants were not allowed to put on a defense. Wingate, a Ronald Reagan appointee, is the very embodiment of corruption in the Age of Rove.

Folks who claim that Siegelman and the Minor defendants were correctly convicted often cite the fact that career prosecutors played key roles in the cases. The point seems to be that these nonpolitical appointees must be playing it straight, that they have no political agenda.

But career prosecutors answer to political appointees--Leura Canary in the Middle District of Alabama and Dunn Lampton in the Southern District of Mississippi. And if career prosecutors want to keep their careers on track, it stands to reason that they need to please their bosses.

David Fulcher, by arguing for a jury instruction that he had to know was unlawful, apparently was more interested in career advancement than in the cause of justice.

And that is just one of many examples throughout the Minor transcript of career prosecutors making arguments that clearly are not based in the law. And I can only assume that they knew their arguments were unlawful.

As for the Siegelman appeal, we have shown the following:

* U.S. Judge Mark Fuller, who would rival Henry Wingate in the corruption category, gave an unlawful jury instruction on bribery;

* Evidence clearly did not show a specific quid pro quo, meaning Siegelman should be granted a judgment in his favor, not just a new trial;

* The honest-services mail fraud convictions cannot possibly stand because codefendant Richard Scrushy was qualified to serve on a health-care board, one he had served on under three previous governors. That means the public could not have been deprived of Siegelman's honest services;

* Perhaps most alarmingly, the alleged bribery offenses fell outside the five-year statute of limitations and never should have gone to court in the first place.

Americans are rightly concerned about our unfolding financial crisis. But those concerns should not cause us to lose sight of what has taken place in our justice system over the past eight years.

Our federal judges and U.S. attorneys are appointed through political processes, and that means our justice system is vulnerable to corruption. Don Siegelman has said that Karl Rove figured out that if you control U.S. attorneys and the majority of federal judges, you can wreak all kinds of havoc in the lives of your political opponents.

Siegelman was right on target about that, and we have seen that scenario unfold over the past eight years.

Our goal at Legal Schnauzer has been to show you details on how that has happened: judges improperly excluding expert witnesses; prosecutors making arguments that are not supported in law; judges giving bogus jury instructions.

Those are the "tools of the trade" in a justice system that loyal Bushies have torn asunder.

Our "Long Road Out of Eden"

2008-09-25T14:05:00.000-05:00

As the George W. Bush administration winds to a merciful conclusion, I've been searching for a cultural touchstone to mark the era (or perhaps "error" is a better word).

Movies about 9/11 and the Iraq War already have been made, and Oliver Stone's W will be released soon. A number of excellent nonfiction books have been produced about various aspects of the Bush administration, and many more surely will be on the way. Even a work of fiction, Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife, was recently released to strong reviews.

But I was looking for something that captures the "feel" of the entire nation during these past eight years. And for that, I turned to music.

Folks who lived through the '60s and '70s can testify to music's unique ability to capture a time and place. And a current double CD captures the Bush era in a compelling and memorable way--almost like an oral history with a rock-and-roll beat.

The CD is not produced by what you might call a "current" band. In fact, these four guys are best known for their work from the '70s. But Long Road Out of Eden proves that the Eagles are still relevant, some 28 years after they released their previous studio album.

All four of the Eagles--Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmitt--are at or very near 60. But at the risk of sounding like an old fart from the '70s--which is exactly what I am, come to think of it--I'm not aware of any "modern" act that can touch them.

From 1971 to 1980 the Eagles released six seminal studio albums, including Hotel California, which ranks in the top 10 on most any list of all-time great records. They took a 28-year "vacation" from the studio before releasing Long Road Out of Eden late last year. It missed the deadline for last year's Grammys, but should be a nominee for Album of the Year this time around.

Through 20 songs on two disks, the Eagles are in fine form. You probably won't hear many songs from the CD on the radio, but large chunks of Eden rank with the best work the Eagles have ever done--and that's saying something. Releasing an album of this quality, some 36 years after their debut (featuring the classic Take It Easy), cements a special place in rock-and-roll history for the Eagles. Only the Rolling Stones, I believe, can claim to have made relevant pop/rock music for such a long period of time.

Here's what has always impressed me about the Eagles. All four current members--Frey and Henley are the remaining originals--are "triple threats." They play instruments, sing lead, and write. The same can be said of the three former members--Randy Meisner, Bernie Leadon, and Don Felder. Meisner and Leadon helped solidify the band's country-rock sound in the early days. And Felder's edgy guitar work helped launch the band to super-group status. Felder might be the least known Eagle. And yet, he wrote the basic track to Hotel California, featuring one of the most memorable guitar intros in music history.

If you are heavily into vocals, no one does harmonies like the Eagles. Eden is filled with lush harmonies, particularly on the more pop-oriented disk one. The guys turn serious on disk two, and that's where they begin to capture the Age of Rove.

The centerpiece of the CD is the title track, which opens disk two. Henley is the band's chief lyricist, and he has done some of his best work on this album. Waiting in the Weeds, from disk one, is a Henley classic about the need for patience and deliberation in a hurry-up world.

The title track is an epic 10-minute piece that brilliantly creates a sense of place:

Moon shining down through the palms
Shadows moving on the sand
Somebody whispering the 23rd Psalm
Dusty rifle in his trembling hands

The scene shifts "over the ocean" to an America that is "far away and fast asleep." While some Americans put their lives on the line in faraway places, the rest of us are "having lunch at the Petroleum Club," filling our consumptive needs with "barbecued brisket" and "pecan pie."

This world features "freeways flickering, cell phones chiming a tune." And it is run by "captains of the old order, clinging to the reins, assuring us these aches inside are only growing pains."

In the third scene, Henley appraises modern America--and it isn't a pretty picture:

Weaving down the American highway
Through the litter and the wreckage and the cultural junk
Bloated with entitlement, loaded on propaganda
Now we're driving dazed and drunk

In the end, Henley decides, we are awash in information, but we don't know what to do with it:

Behold the bitten apple
The power of the tools
But all the knowledge in the world
Is of no use to fools

This passage, with its reference to the Mac logo that symbolizes our supposed ingenuity, is painful to read--and devastatingly on target.

The complete lyrics to Long Road out of Eden are available here. The CD is splendid from start to finish, and we will take a look at other tracks that examine the social and political undercurrents of the past eight years.

Here is a video of the entire 10-minute title track. Below that is a video from a live performance at Madison Square Garden. The performance video is not the greatest, and it does not include the entire song. But it gives a feel for how Eden is presented in the live setting: