by Glynn Wilson

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and the House of Representatives took concrete steps in the first days of the 111th Congress to ensure a continuation of ongoing investigations of the Bush administration, specifically torture of detainees, warrantless wiretapping, and for politicizing the Department of Justice by firing independent prosecutors and wrongly prosecuting Democrats.

The details are just beginning to emerge on the House Judiciary Committee Website, but stories in the Las Vegas Sun, the TPMMuckraker, and Consortium News show that at least some members of Congress are not ready to move on and let bygones by bygones when it comes to potential crimes by Bush administration officials.

Conyers introduced a bill calling for a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties that will establish a “blue ribbon commission” comprised of experts outside government service to investigate the broad range of policies of the Bush years, “undertaken by the Bush administration under claims of unreviewable war powers,” according to the press release.

Also, as part of a routine package of rules governing the opening of the new Congress, the House agreed to continue the lawsuit it brought last year after President George W. Bush’s former officials ignored subpoenas to produce documents and appear before the House Judiciary Committee. The action shows that the coming of a new Congress won’t stop House leaders from continuing their long-running effort to obtain documents and testimony about the U.S. attorney firings from White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, former White House counsel Harriet Miers, and especially former Bush political aide Karl Rove.

Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley of Las Vegas, primarily interested in the case of the firing of Nevada’s former U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden in the U.S. attorneys scandal, said the move by the Democratic-controlled House is an assertion of congressional authority after several years of what scholars see as executive branch overreach by the Bush administration.

“A very fine U.S. attorney from the state of Nevada was unceremoniously removed for no reason –- I would like to know why, I would like it to be made public and I would like those responsible punished,” Berkley said. “By passing this rule we have assured this will be done.”

There is no word from Birmingham Rep. Artur Davis on where he stands on the investigation of the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, although he told me for a story last month: “I’ll let John Conyers decide what to do about that.”

It looks like Montgomery Independent editor and publisher Bob Martin is finally catching up on his post-holiday reading, since an editorial published online today shows that he is now echoing our reporting from last month on a potential Davis candidacy for governor.

Siegelman said in an e-mail response he’s heard nothing from the House Judiciary Committee on the investigation of his case. But he said, “I trust John Conyers. He has been in Congress longer than most.”

Democratic Party activists have feared for the past few months that the new Obama administration might “turn the other cheek,” so to speak, and not take the time and effort to look back at the Bush administration’s legal failures. A wide array of groups, including the “aggressive progressives” at Democrats.com, have kept up the pressure on Conyers and others to hold the administration accountable, especially Karl Rove, who is still in defiance of a Congressional subpoena to testify in Siegelman’s case.

With a New Day Dawning in D.C., Will Rove Escape Justice?

We have messages in to the House Judiciary Committee press office and Davis’s press office. We’ll add more to this story if and when we hear back.

The mainstream, corporate news media in Alabama still shows a serious deficiency in covering this story, although one Associated Press reporter in D.C. has weighed in a few times. Most other political blogs in Alabama also seem to completely ignore this story and its implications, with the exception of Roger Shuler at the Legal Schnauzer blog.

Guest Column
by Roger Shuler

As we await the appointment of new U.S. attorneys by the Barack Obama administration, perhaps we should ask this question: Just how important are these appointments?

The answer is “very.” And Alabama is Exhibit A when it comes to evidence that illustrates the ways corrupt U.S. attorneys can harm the cause of justice.

Experience and research have taught me that federal criminal statutes are very broadly written–frighteningly so. Clarity about federal law usually comes from the case law, and a U.S. attorney must have both the intellectual ability and the moral clarity to accurately determine what is a crime and what is not.

That process has been butchered in Alabama under the George W. Bush Justice Department From Hell.

Consider two cases, both involving Alabama governors:

* We all know about the saga of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. Siegelman accepted a $500,000 donation for his lottery campaign and appointed Scrushy to a hospital-oversight board to which he already had served under three previous governors. Despite law and fact to the contrary, U.S. Attorney Leura Canary determined this activity constituted a crime.

* Current Alabama Governor Bob Riley, a Republican, packed Alabama’s Joint Patriotic Immigration Commission with his own major donors. Four of the appointees gave at least $390,000 to the Riley campaign.

How are Riley’s actions different from Siegelman’s actions? Answer: They aren’t. So why was Siegelman investigated and prosecuted, while Teflon Bob Riley never drew scrutiny from law enforcement? Answer: That’s what happens when you appoint political hacks as federal prosecutors.

It’s clear that Siegelman and Scrushy did not commit a crime, and I would suggest that Riley probably did not commit a crime with his appointments to the immigration commission.

But I would further suggest that it’s time for someone to look past Riley’s Teflon coating and examine some of his other activities, particularly his associations with corrupt GOP politicos Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon and the ties that Riley and his associates have to the gambling industry.

For good measure, and hitting close to home, it might be time for someone to look into connections that Riley associates have to my unlawful termination at UAB and the broader corruption of Alabama higher education.

Will Alabama’s new U.S. attorneys, appointed by an Obama administration, be up to the task? I would suggest that citizens should do more than just hope on that issue. We should do everything we can to hold their feet to the fire.

Originally published on Shuler’s Legal Schnauzer blog.

Also, we are told this story out today in the New York Times regional newspapers is due for a correction–the part where Leura Canary is applying to stay on.

Obama to Fill Federal Posts in Alabama

And we would add that folks might want to put a little pressure on the committees making the recommendations, including the state party panel and the Davis panel. You can bet corporate pressure is involved.

by Glynn Wilson

The voting machines are not even locked away in the closet yet from the presidential election of 2008 and candidates are already lining up at the trough to get into the horse race of 2010 in Alabama.

Glynn Wilson

Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham

Media critics have long complained about the coverage of politics since the press often uses sports metaphors, specifically the sport of horse racing. The academic complaint is that by keeping up with the status of the winners and losers, the press tends to ignore the real issues that should be of concern to voters.

The problem with politics today, especially local politics, is that people don’t vote for candidates on the basis of where they stand on the real issues anyway. And on key economic and social issues, there aren’t many candidates for public office in any event who disagree.

Everybody is for jobs and education and against abortion, it seems, and of course you have to be married with children. Otherwise, how could you ever produce a winning TV ad?

People vote for people on the basis of whether they like them or not, which is often based on how they look and whether they share the same religion, apparently, especially in a place like Alabama, despite our historical role in erecting the wall separating church and state.

Politics is not about qualifications, either. George W. Bush proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And since you know blogs, they have to be fed, not so unlike a daily newspaper — or a horse — it’s time for our first “article” on the 2010 Alabama governor’s race.

Now the first horse out of the gate is obviously Artur Davis, the Birmingham Congressman with little name recognition in the rest of the state.

Davis glommed onto Barack Obama early on in the presidential race, using as his platform what’s left of the old New South Coalition machine put together by former Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington. And since Obama won in a landslide in November, Davis is now in an enviable position vis a vis the new administration in Washington.

Glynn Wilson

Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham

He has not hesitated to start flaunting his new influence with the Alabama Democratic Party, basically dressing down state party chairman Joe Turnham in public recently for presuming to start a series of meetings to advise the new president on possible political appointments in the new administration from Alabama.

Davis, Turnham Differ on Process for Appointments

That was not the smoothest move on the part of Davis, who showed that perhaps he has the ego of a Harvard lawyer and does not share Obama’s savvy when it comes to finessing his potential rivals. I mean the guy is not even so nice to his friends.

Democratic Party officials and operatives are looking at the polls from Alabama in the presidential race and wondering how in the world Davis thinks he has any chance at all anyway, considering something like 80 percent of white voters in Alabama did not vote for the black guy. They voted for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket in numbers only rivaled in places such as Oklahoma.

Davis made an appearance this past weekend at a trial lawyers retreat hosted by billionaire attorney Jere Beasley, we’re told, and got a standing ovation. So there’s some indication Davis is trying to wrap up the support of the trial lawyers early on.

But we’re also told that the Jefferson County Democratic Party, which could act as a base for Davis in his race, is virtually non-existent at this point. No money. No organization. So it is unclear what base Davis expects to have in this Old South state.

Davis also does not seem to share Obama’s technological proficiency. While there have been a number of stories out of late about how Obama will be the first president in the White House to use e-mail on a Blackberry to communicate, Davis and his entire staff seem almost incapable of returning phone calls, much less answering questions of Web journalists via e-mail.

They just don’t seem to get it.

So Democrats are looking at other options.

The obvious first choice will be Jim Folsom Jr., who made his comeback in Alabama politics two years ago by winning his old job back as Lt. Governor without mounting much of a campaign at all. He has the name recognition and should probably be considered the front runner, even before the first polls have been taken.

The Associated Press went ahead and did their first story on Folsom this week.

Folsom Considering Run for Governor, Again

There are some potential problems with a Folsom candidacy, chief among them his obvious Old South name and his lack of creativity for bringing Alabama into the twenty-first century. He doesn’t do e-mail or return phone calls either.

Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks has also been mentioned, but we understand he may have some personal problems that could derail his candidacy.

Glynn Wilson

Charles Barkley at an Obama fundraiser in Birmingham last year

Then there’s always former Auburn and NBA basketball star Charles Barkley to consider, although he has apparently pushed his ambitions back to 2014.

And let’s face it. Since Alabama tends to be a conservative, red state, the Republicans might be more interesting to watch anyway, if you are a horse race handicapper intent on picking a winner.

Bradley Byrne, the head of Alabama’s beleaguered two-year college system, could get the nod as Gov. Bob Riley’s heir apparent. Birmingham attorney Luther Strange has been mentioned, although he might be more likely to run for Attorney General to replace Troy King. Troy University Chancellor Jack Hawkins may also jump into the race, as well as “Yella Man” Jimmy Rane, state Treasurer Kay Ivey and Tim James, according to stories in Alabama’s Newhouse newspapers.

And then there’s Attorney General Troy King himself, although we suspect he has developed a certain kind of infamy that may knock him out of any race he decides to enter.

The hottest rumor out of Montgomery right now is that Davis is running for governor not to win it, but to develop name recognition around the state for a future run at the U.S. Senate. And there’s also an indication that Davis will pick up the support of his old friend Bill Canary at the Business Council of Alabama in the primary. There appears to be a cynical strategy afoot to get a black man on the Democratic ticket so a Republican victory in the general election would be a virtual certainty.

When I heard this news I almost booked a one-way ticket to Portland, Oregon. As photographer Spider Martin used to say, “Alabama God-Damn.”

If that is the plan, I don’t want any part of it. Maybe the best thing to happen is this.

When the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta gets around to tossing out the conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, maybe he should get back into politics and run for governor, again.

Glynn Wilson

Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman

After surveying the landscape of my poor home state after moving back here in recent years, it has become quite obvious why Siegelman had the loyal following of many people here. He is the best candidate the Democrats have ever had for governor in this state’s history, with the possible exception of George C. Wallace. But that was another time. There was no Republican Party to speak of here then.

I wasn’t here during Siegelman’s one term as governor, so I can’t vouch for how effective he was as an administrator once he won the office he had vied for his entire adult life. But perhaps having been humbled by nine months in a federal prison and tens of thousands of dollars of debt for legal fees, maybe he can mount a comeback and be better at it.

I know one thing from my dealings with him over the past few months. He can cook a pizza and talk on the phone and send an e-mail message all at the same time. If I could find a single other politician in Alabama who could match those multi-tasking skills, I might support them myself editorially.

So if you want to have a chance of obtaining our endorsement to be governor of Alabama, prove you have what it takes. Start by sending me an e-mail message.

If none of them can manage that, maybe we should just opt for a celebrity like Barkley. I don’t have any idea what kind of an administrator he would make. But I suspect he would be an effective communicator, and a lot of fun to boot. And he may be the only Democrat who could win.

by Glynn Wilson

With a new day dawning in Washington, D.C., due to the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in American history, who looks determined to govern like Lincoln and make changes in that corrupt town, is it possible that Bush administration officials will totally escape the long arm of justice for their roles in high crimes and misdemeanors more damaging than any corruption in our history?

While former Bush political adviser Karl Rove is still in defiance of a Congressional subpoena to testify under oath and still faces an investigation for destroying e-mails and other documents, obstruction of justice and other civil and criminal infractions for his role in turning the Bush Justice Department into a political arm of the White House, the Washington Post company actually pays him money to write a column for Newsweek magazine advising the Republican Party on how to get itself out of the political wilderness.

There is something very wrong with this picture. It stands journalism ethics on its head to see a political operative of Rove’s mendacity allowed such a prominent voice in a news publication. Perhaps the magazine should suspend the column until we know whether Rove is going to end up behind bars himself, or simply escape justice.

From reading between the headlines and talking to sources in Washington, I find it is now pretty clear there is an intellectual power struggle going on in the Democratic Party over whether to investigate the crimes of the Bush administration or simply “turn the other cheek” and move on to tackle the major problems facing the country and the world once Barack Obama is sworn in as the new president on January 20.

It looks like a major global warming initiative is at the top of Obama’s agenda after the inauguration that could include a bailout of sorts for the U.S. automobile industry, with caveats that General Motors, Ford, and the rest retool their manufacturing plants to make far more efficient vehicles that run on alternative energy sources such natural gas and a couple of different types of batteries.

While the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a new 60-page report this week that includes a resolution holding Rove in contempt, it is not clear whether this has any chance of even making it to the floor of the current lame-duck session in the Senate for a vote — or whether there will be the political will to bring it back up after the new Congress is sworn in next year. [See pdf version of the report here]

The report cites a host of evidence showing that White House and Justice Department officials focused on the political impact of federal prosecutions and pushed for partisan investigations, and that Rove and others at the White House were involved in the firing of federal prosecutors who did not toe the Bush-GOP line. It also suggests that the reasons for the firings were contrived as part of a cover-up, especially on the part of former Bush yes-man Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has now been indicted in Texas in another case.

The U.S. Justice Department itself already found in an internal report that the White House engineered the firings and that inappropriate political concerns played a role in several of those cases.

But will Rove ever be brought to justice, especially for his role in the investigation of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, who was knocked out of the 2006 race for governor by his indictment and spent nine months in prison as a result of a corrupt political investigation?

According to Erica J. Chabot, press secretary to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont has made it clear that he is not willing to “close the door” next year on the work the committee has done on the investigations under this Congress.

“This is not something the chairman has taken lightly,” she said of the U.S. attorney firings, the Siegelman case, and the investigation of Rove.

“But we have to wait and see what that next Congress is going to look like, what the committee is going to look like, where the priorities fall into place in those first few months,” she said. “Obviously, there are going to be a lot of things that need the committee’s attention right away, like an attorney general nominee. That certainly doesn’t move anything off the priority list, but it just might shuffle the order they show up on that list.”

She said it does not have to be a “one-or-the-other” situation.

“There’s a way to have that forward-looking attitude while examining what did happen and determining whether other courses of action need to happen in the next Congress,” she said. “I think there’s a way to do both. I think right now it’s just a little too early to tell what the 111th Congress or Senate Judiciary Committee is going to do.”

She simply said she didn’t know whether there is a possibility of a full-floor vote on the Rove contempt citation in the current Congress, although a prominent Washington, D.C.-based reporter for one of the most influential newspapers in the country told me it would be “dead on arrival” in this Congress and would be “filibustered to death.”

Even if this Congress were to find the time before the holiday recess at the end of the year to take it up, President George W. Bush would then have an opportunity to pardon Rove, much as he commuted the sentence of former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted for his role in leaking the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame-Wilson to the press after a special prosecutor’s investigation.

It is not even clear at this juncture when Congress will recess for the holidays, Ms. Chabot said. That will depend on the business that has to be done over the next few weeks.

“That’s a question I wish I knew the answer to so I could make some travel plans,” she said, laughing.

Attempts to reach the press secretaries for the House Judiciary Committee and Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis were unsuccessful for this story, perhaps since it looks like Davis is in a fight with state party officials in Montgomery over the future of the Alabama Democratic Party. We’ll have more to report on that later.

Meanwhile, GOP whistle-blower Jill Simpson, the North Alabama lawyer who is largely responsible for the Congressional investigation into the Siegelman case, did have some strong feelings about the investigation when reached at her law office in Rainsville.

“Karl Rove is in complete defiance of Congress and the rule of law by refusing to appear and to turn over all the documents in this case,” she said. “He has withheld evidence and defied Congressional subpoenas. They must get to the bottom of what went wrong at the Department of Justice in order to correct it.”

There is no way they can reach a final conclusion in the case, she said, “until they look in all the drawers and roll up all the carpet and get to the bottom of the facts in this case.”

She also pointed out that the members of the House and Senate “owe a duty to the citizens who have sent them to Washington to uphold the Constitution and show that no man is above the law.”

“King Karl is not above the law,” she said. “They can’t let this go.”