Jill Simpson to Capitol Hill Today

[KelleyKramer]

Lawyer to answer questions on origin of Siegelman case

Friday, September 14, 2007
MARY ORNDORFF
Birmingham News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON - Congressional staff members today are scheduled to interview an Alabama woman about whether former Gov. Don Siegelman's prosecution was arranged by politically-motivated Republicans, part of an ongoing investigation into the independence of the U.S. Justice Department.

Jill Simpson, a lawyer from Rainsville, is scheduled to answer questions privately but on the record and under oath about discussions she says Alabama Republicans had about the long-running federal investigation of Siegelman's administration. Simpson's interview on Capitol Hill will be attended by three Democratic staffers and three Republican staffers, and one from each side will be asking her questions, according to her attorney, Priscilla Duncan. No members of Congress are expected to attend, and it will be decided later whether a transcript of the interview will be made public and whether she'll be called to testify in an open hearing.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., started looking into Siegelman's case earlier this summer as part of a broader probe of outgoing U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales' office and whether politics influenced who to prosecute or not prosecute. Siegelman was convicted by a jury in Montgomery in 2006 on seven corruption-related charges, and he is in prison awaiting his appeal.

Simpson in May swore in a written statement that in 2002 she heard Alabama Republicans close to Gov. Bob Riley discuss the federal investigation of Siegelman and say that White House adviser Karl Rove had knowledge of it. "William `Bill' Canary told him not to worry, that he had already gotten it worked out with Karl and Karl had spoken with the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice was already pursuing Don Siegelman," Simpson said in her affidavit about the November 2002 conference call.

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