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Says if he is Guilty, Governors Like Rick Perry of Texas Could be Jailed Too
See the related story and a longer video at this story link:
Siegelman Says if he is Guilty, Texas Governor Rick Perry Could be Executed
We Will See
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The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson
SOUTHSIDE BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — They say it is a small world, but what do “they” know? I say the cliche is even more true today with modern social networking technology like Facebook.
I was just chatting with a blonde from Germany over my second cup of coffee in the Hippie Tree House, upstairs in the Hippie House on Birmingham’s Southside.
I crashed last night on the new couch in Hippie Stew’s place, and felt right at home. Maybe that’s because I was born five blocks from here in the old South Highlands Hospital, the first hospital Richard Scrushy purchased to create the outpatient and sports medicine empire known as HealthSouth.
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman outside the federal courthouse in Montgomery
by Glynn Wilson
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman says if he is guilty of bribery and corruption for being the fourth governor to appoint HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy to a hospital regulatory board — in his case allegedly in exchange for contributions to an education lottery campaign — then Texas Governor Rick Perry could be “executed” for what he has done in that state.
Mr. Siegelman made the comment after a hearing on Wednesday requesting more information from the federal government to form the basis of an evidence gathering proceeding that could lead to a new trial for himself and Scrushy.
“If they can put me in prison for nine months for being the fourth governor to reappoint Richard Scrushy, they ought to be able to execute Rick Perry for what he did in Texas,” Siegelman said (see video below).
“There is a standard of justice that should apply across the board and I think the United States Supreme Court will see that and will apply the rule of law in this case,” Siegelman said, talking to the media in front of the federal courthouse in Montgomery after a three hour hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles S. Coody. “Rick Perry would be in prison today if this were the standard.”
by Glynn Wilson
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| Glynn Wilson |
| Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in front of the federal courthouse in Montgomery on a break from his sentencing hearing in June, 2007. |
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman will be back in federal court in Montgomery again Wednesday, this time making an oral argument before a different federal judge asking for a chance to be heard on issues related to “selective prosecution” and “government misconduct” in the handling of his case.
In an exclusive interview Tuesday morning, Siegelman, a Democrat, told me his attorneys will be making an argument that former U.S. Attorney Leura Canary — the wife of Bill Canary, head of the conservative Business Council of Alabama — had a partisan conflict of interest in bringing the alleged bribery and corruption case against him.
They will be revealing documentary evidence that Ms. Canary never actually recused herself from the case, he said, an issue we have reported on extensively in the past. She recused herself on the pages of the Birmingham News, but never actually filed a formal recusal document with the court, and e-mail messages show she was involved in directing the prosecution team even after she claimed to recuse herself.
Evidence will also be presented about judicial misconduct on the part of Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller, who handled the case against Siegelman. Because of that, Siegelman said, Fuller will not be hearing the evidence on Wednesday. Instead, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles S. Coody will be presiding.
Guest Column
by Andrew Kreig
Thanksgiving is an apt time for those of us enjoying family and freedom to reflect about those being prosecuted in the United States primarily for political purposes.
Let’s examine the Justice Department’s crusades against former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Republican, and former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, his state’s leading Democrat.
They are among those in the nation’s two million under lock-and-key who are punished far out of proportion to any offense. Victims include Siegelman’s Alabama co-defendant Richard Scrushy, a Republican businessman and father of nine imprisoned on a seven-year term solely because he donated to Siegelman’s favorite non-profit in 1999 and 2000.
Recent developments in the Kerik and Siegelman/Scrushy cases last week underscore the Obama administration’s shameful efforts to torment defendants, their families and whistleblowers at vast taxpayer expense, thereby extending and covering up previous abuses.
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman appears on Fox News today discussing HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy…
The governor got in a couple of good points saying that Scrushy would be a free man today if he had agreed to testify against Siegelman.
“He could have thrown me under the bus any time he wanted to and walked out of that courtroom a free man. Richard Scrushy is in prison today for something he absolutely did not do.”
by Joan Brunwasser
Welcome back for the second half of my interview with The Locust Fork News-Journal‘s editor and publisher, Glynn Wilson. So, Glynn, if, according to you, it takes a huge investment of time and energy to understand a story, that explains why the mainstream press has not done its job on many important stories. You, on the other hand, are eminently qualified to discuss the Siegelman/DoJ case. So, if Rip Van Winkle approached you and said, “Ever since I woke up, I keep hearing the name Siegelman. What’s up with this guy?” could you walk him through it so he would grasp why the Siegelman case is so significant?
Hmmm. Well, as you know from researching the case yourself, it is a complicated deal. It’s hard to boil it down to a sound bite for TV, but this is what I can say.
Like any politician, Don Siegelman is certainly no perfect human being. This may be hard for people who live in so-called blue states to grasp, but just identifying yourself as a Democrat in a red state like Alabama invites irrational attacks from the right. And in what I like to call “the Bush years,” they really didn’t care about the Constitution or the abstract concept called “the rule of law.”
People who believe the Bible fundamentally and get their news from Fox and Rush Limbaugh and conservative Big Mule rags like The Birmingham News don’t care about facts or the truth. Many of them still believe George Bush was “the man.” They didn’t get the OpEdNews memo.
Here’s what you need to keep in mind.
When Bob Riley stole the election from Siegelman in 2002 in the closest race in Alabama political history, (according to whistle-blower Jill Simpson, a Republican operative with close ties to the Rileys at the time) the Rileys threatened to use the legal system to investigate Siegelman if he ever ran again. So when he announced in 2004 that he would run again in 2006, the Karl Rove-Bill Canary political machine kicked into high gear to go after him. Canary’s wife, Laura Canary, the U.S. Attorney in Montgomery, then launched the investigation of Siegelman.
Even though the career prosecutors in the Department of Justice could not really find enough evidence to bring charges, and told attorney Doug Jones nothing was likely to result from the case, a “top down” review of the case was ordered from Washington after Rove, Bush’s political adviser, had communications with people in the DoJ. That we know, even though the Birmingham News editorial page editors continue to deny it.
I have been asked numerous times by average people not on the hard right or left how it could be possible that the courts could be so corrupted in a case like Siegelman’s that politics would trump truth and justice. It is perhaps hard to fathom, but just ask Paul Minor in Mississippi or any of the U.S. attorneys who were fired on orders from the White House for not being politically loyal enough. Rove was a student of Machiavelli, who wrote and told King Henry VIII that kings either rule by love or fear. Bush was not the kind of man who inspired love, so he had to rule by fear by demanding absolute loyalty.
The point of prosecuting Siegelman was not about the law. It was about politics from the start.
Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson
After spending a good part of the day Tuesday studying the U.S. attorneys response to the motion for a new trial filed in federal court by former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy, I re-watched The Other Boleyn Girl film on Encore last night.
As many long-time readers will remember, we spent a good bit of time and space back during the Bush years showing parallels between American democracy then and European monarchy in the days of Henry VIII as well as King George III.
So what’s the lesson for today?
There is a great and telling line in the film that should help readers understand where we are today in American law.
Elizabeth Boleyn, the mother of Mary and Ann Boleyn, is arguing with her husband Thomas about sending Ann off to exile in the French court, while offering up Mary as a mistress to King Henry. She is trying to convince her husband that the family’s rise to wealth and power by courting the king will end badly, but he is too greedy to listen.
When Thomas downplays her assertion that the head of the previous resident of their new palace is now resting on the end of a stake, he counters by saying yes, but “he committed treason.”
“What is treason,” Elizabeth asks, “but whatever the king and his lawyers say it is?”
Harper’s No Comment
