Scott Horton Discusses Siegelman Case Bombshells - Key Witness Recanted, Prosecution Coercion

Hissyspit

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Tue Jul-14-09 09:15 PM
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Scott Horton Discusses Siegelman Case Bombshells - Key Witness Recanted, Prosecution Coercion

Edited on Tue Jul-14-09 09:26 PM by Hissyspit

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Scott-Horton-Shines-the-Sp-by-Joan-Brunwasser-090714-327.html

Promoted to Headline (H3) on 7/14/09:
Scott Horton Shines the Spotlight on the DoJ, Exclusive Interview

by Joan Brunwasser

Welcome to OpEdNews, Scott. You've been following the goings-on in the Department of Justice pretty closely for quite a while. In your new article "Torture Prosecution Turnaround?" you examine the role of political advisors Axelrod and Emanuel in actively discouraging any criminal investigation into Bush's torture policy. Should the public be encouraged by AG Holder's reaction to their pragmatic assessment of the situation?

This will be the true test of Eric Holder. Is he the same Eric Holder who signed off on a more-than-doubtful pardon for Marc Rich because that's what the Clinton White House wanted, even as sources close to Rich were making large payments to the Clinton Library? No doubt about it. That Eric Holder would not appoint a special prosecutor. He'd let the whole affair die.

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You've spent a lot of time writing about what happened to Don Siegelman (former Alabama governor, railroaded by Karl Rove). What was it about that case that caught your attention?

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The worst aspect of the case was the astonishing collusion between Karl Rove, the two highly politicized U.S. Attorneys, the Republican Party in Alabama, and two Alabama newspapers, which were an integral part of the scheme from the get-go. Indeed, I noticed when Chief Judge U.W. Clemon spoke about his experience in handling part of the case and watching the way it was orchestrated, he was also careful to document the more-than-curious role that a certain newspaper played in it. The paper knew what the prosecutors were doing at every step and had full access to all their data, and presented grossly distorted and dishonest accounts of what was going on. Since I'm a Sovietologist and have studied and written about criminal justice matters in the former Soviet Union, none of this was particularly new to me, but seeing that it was going on inside the United States - that was astonishing.

Astonishing and very disturbing. Where does that leave us? When can we expect justice for Siegelman, Minor and the many others caught up in Rove's net of political prosecutions?

The Siegelman case demonstrates the one-two punch of the corrupt Republican justice regime. Not only was the Justice Department turned into a crude political strike machine under the management of Karl Rove - it was pursuing seven Democrats for every Republican (and prosecutors who brought cases against Republicans were, often enough, summarily fired). The case was also maneuvered before a handpicked judge who may well have been in on the scheme to start with. Chief Judge U.W. Clemon gave an amazing twenty-minute presentation in Washington on June 26 in which he reviewed all the tricks and machinations the Justice Department entered into to get the case before their chosen judge. The level of corrupt dealings involving prosecutors is breathtaking, and the failure of the Holder Justice Department to do anything to remedy this situation is distressing.

Now, Siegelman has filed his motion for a new trial, and deep in the papers lies another bombshell thus far unremarked upon by the media: the key witness (Nick Bailey) upon whose testimony Siegelman was convicted has recanted. He says he was pressured into giving false testimony by two prosecutors who managed the case. He also accuses them of having suppressed exculpatory materials. That's bad enough.

But get this: a member of the prosecution team (Tamara Grimes) has now come forward and acknowledged that his claims are completely correct. She details how he was threatened and coerced to give false evidence and how the prosecutors working on the case traded jokes a bout it. This is a serious felony, and the prosecutors involved should forfeit their law degrees and be marched off to jail. But that would require a Justice Department that actually enforces the criminal law, and at the moment there is no justice, at least not in the federal prosecutors office in Montgomery, or in their hand-picked judges.

You're right. That is a bombshell. And so in-your-face. Anything the public can do to get the Obama administration to do the right thing?

The first point would be a simple one: when a president is appointed, he appoints his own U.S. attorneys. But in the Middle District of Alabama, the post ruled over by a prosecutor who happens to be the wife of Karl Rove's best friend, and who happens to have brought the most politically charges prosecutions in recent American history, the U.S. attorney seems to think she's there to stay. And she has Jeff Sessions, the Neoconfederate guard dog, watching out for her.

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Hon. Rahm Emanuel
Chief of Staff to President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
phone: 202-456-1111
fax: 202-456-2461
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
phone: 202.514.2001
fax: (202) 307-6777
E-mail: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

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Scott Horton is a law professor and writer on legal and national security affairs for Harper's Magazine and The American Lawyer, among other publications.