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Just last week, an Alabama GOP candidate for governor in 2010 and a former member of Bob Riley's cabinet (Bill Johnson), admitted that Riley received millions of dollars in campaign cash from Mississippi gaming interests in 2002, laundered through Jack Abramoff.
This has long been suspected, but we now have a Riley insider fessing up. It means not only did Siegelman probably have votes stolen overnight in Baldwin County in 2002, but his opponent received millions in illegal campaign cash.
In Shuler's article, he refers to a 2007 post by Scott Horton in Harper's.org that drew a parallel between Gov. Riley and former Gov. Siegelman:
"Moreover, let's compare the allegations against Siegelman with Abramoff's funneling of millions in campaign contributions from Native American tribes in Mississippi into the political coffers of Siegelman's opponent--Alabama Governor Bob Riley--going on at just this time. In exchange, Riley was expected to intervene to shut down the gambling aspirations of some of his own Alabama constituents. And Riley did just as he was bade to do. Now that's corruption. And what did the U.S. Attorney in Montgomery, who brought the case against Siegelman, do about that? Well, she seems to have actually been a potential actor in connection with the corruption, having secured appointment to a licensing board which would control the question. And her tight links to Siegelman's political nemesis, Riley, are uncontested. She is in fact the wife of one of Karl Rove's bosom buddies, a leading mover in the Alabama GOP, William Canary."
So, how does this all stack up? Shuler explained to me this way:
The voting controversy [see Shuler's Bob Riley and the Mysterious Votes] and the apparent election-funding scandal are not connected. But when you put them together, they paint a pretty grim picture of what happened to the Siegelman campaign in 2002.
It appears that illegal campaign funds helped Riley make it a close election, and then something funny happened overnight on election night to change numbers and give Riley the victory. When you consider that Don Siegelman then wound up in prison on a bogus federal prosecution, you begin to see what an enormous injustice this is--not only to Siegelman personally, but to all Alabamians. After all, evidence is mounting that we've been under the leadership of an illegitimate governor for almost eight full years now. Sounds an awful lot like what happened on the national stage with the Bush-Gore election in 2000--the main difference being that Gore, thankfully, was never prosecuted for federal "crimes."
And it's ironic that Siegelman was one of the first (maybe the first) governor to support Al Gore's presidential campaign. In fact, Siegelman has said publicly a number of times that he thinks that's one of the reasons he was targeted by Karl Rove.
If
this doesn't sit well with you, speak out. As Gov. Siegelman rightly
points out, selective prosecution can happen to anyone. Next time it
could be you.
***
This is the fax that I recently sent to the White House about their failure to replace US Attorney Leura Canary. The conflicts of interest and prosecutorial misconduct by her and her staff are well-known. A Republican paralegal* working on the case against Gov. Siegelman blew the whistle on Canary and company. If anyone wants to use it as a template or the inspiration to send their own message, I would be most pleased. It's hardly a masterpiece but Gov. Siegelman liked it and it does get the message across. Don't shy away from respectfully expressing strong emotion.
Fax: 202-456-2416
To: President Barak Obama
From: Joan Brunwasser, Election Integrity Editor, OpEdNews
Date: October 29, 2009
Re: Governor Don Siegelman and US Attorney Leura Canary
