A reporter from the Huntsville Times caught up with White House political strategist Karl Rove last Thursday while President Bush was in Alabama for a photo op at a problematic nuclear power plant. The reporter asked Rove about the allegations made by a Republican lawyer Jill Simpon in an affidavit reported on at length below.

Rove’s response (with a smile, according to the TPM Muckraker) to “such an explosive accusation?”

“I know nothing about any phone call,” Rove said. At which point a White House press aide stepped up and said, “What he meant to say was that he has no comment.”

Huntsville Times story

If you are keeping up with the story on the Siegelman-Scrushy sentencing scheduled for this week, you may as well read Dana Beyerle’s story from the Sunday Florence Times-Daily.

Siegelman, Scrushy Sentencing Will Go On This Week as Scheduled

Attorney Scott Horton has written a scathing column about the Bush Justice Department, the Siegelman case and Jill Simpson’s affidavit at the Harper’s magazine Website, under the blog entitled No Comment. Turns out he spent some time in Alabama and visited Monroeville with his grandfather, and admires Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, especially Atticus Finch.

Excerpts:

Atticus Finch is the best-named character in the whole of American literature. His character is defined by a love of justice.
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…troubling still is the conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in a prosecution in Montgomery….
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My conclusion: I have no idea whether in the end of the day, Mr. Siegelman is guilty or innocent of corruption. But that the prosecution was corruptly conceived and pursued and that the court proceedings were corrupted, almost from the outset: that is already extremely clear. This is not a prosecution of a political figure for corruption. It is a political vendetta, conceived, developed and pursued for a corrupt purpose.
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The Siegelman prosecution was commenced as the result of a plan hatched between senior figures in the Alabama Republican Party and Karl Rove.
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The response to Simpson’s affidavit has been a series of brusque dismissive statements - all of them unsworn - from others who figured in the discussion and the federal prosecutor in the Siegelman case, who has now made a series of demonstrably false statements concerning the matter.
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…those who have dismissed Simpson are in for a very rude surprise. Her affidavit stands up on every point, and there is substantial evidence which will corroborate its details.
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…these facts make abundantly apparent that in the mind of the federal prosecutors there is one standard to be applied for a Democrat, and an entirely different standard for a Republican. That’s corrupt.
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The Siegelman prosecution will in all likelihood soon be exposed for what it is: one of the blackest moments in Alabama justice since the trial of the Scottsboro Boys.

Scott Horton: Justice in Alabama

U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller cleared the way Friday for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to be sentenced Tuesday by turning down remaining motions asking for a new trial based on claims that jurors discussed the case through e-mails during last year’s two-month trial.

AP: Judge Fuller Denies Final Motions, Clears Way for Siegelman Sentencing