Compare that with the Justice Department's mind-boggling spending to lay a groundwork for investigating Siegelman. DoJ's reports show that it spent some $532,000 simply for one outside paralegal under contract from the private sector to organize a million documents at a special prosecution center that DoJ created at the Air Force base to house its team arrayed against Siegelman. That team included seven FBI agents, three IRS agents, three state investigators, three state prosecutors and four federal prosecutors led by an Air Force colonel.
For that matter, consider DoJ's monumental efforts just to pursue charges against the paralegal Grimes for her "crime" of denying she'd done anything wrong after she reported misconduct during what are supposed to be safe-haven federal whistleblower channels.
More generally, any in-depth reexamination of the Siegelman/Scrushy prosecution risks opening a Pandora's Box of the disputed prosecutions of hundreds of other Democrats affecting local offices and policies in dramatic fashion. Additionally, Republicans and libertarians are likely to be interested in the strong evidence that Republicans (including Sen. Stevens) were targeted also for what can only be described as political purposes, which I'll detail in one of my next articles.
That's why, in my view, the Justice Department has consistently denied a need for a hearing for Siegelman and Scrushy, much less the requests for a new judge and new trial that are clearly merited. DoJ's treatment of its paralegal Grimes contrasts so sharply with its retention of Canary and others as to illustrate also the powerful self-protection mechanisms of a bureaucracy, even when it involves protecting members of "the other" political party.
This bureaucratic self-protection is illustrated also, of course, by DoJ's Public Integrity Section-led recent arguments that no evidence exists for a hearing in the Siegelman case -- and that Siegelman deserves an additional 20 years in prison.
For context, 20 years is in the range of the term that a Mafia killer might receive from federal charges involving premeditated murder.
Nearly two decades ago, I served as law clerk to the U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf of Boston early in his eminent career presiding over such cases. One was the now-famous federal prosecution of New England's Mafia leadership, including Vinnie "The Animal" Ferrara, a hit man convicted of 23 killings.
Wolf, now chief federal judge in Massachusetts and formerly a noted crime-fighter in the state before his appointment to the bench by President Reagan, wrote the attorney general this April following Holder's invitation for chief judges to keep him informed if federal attorneys fail to perform their duties honorably and ably.
Wolf noted that he reluctantly freed La Cosa Nostra Capo Ferrara early from prison because of repeated government misconduct, including DoJ's failure to disclosure exculpatory material to the defense and to discipline its attorneys. Wolf further noted that the government misconduct in Boston mob-related cases apparently resulted in murder of witnesses and "raises serious questions about whether judges should continue to rely upon the Department to investigate and sanction misconduct by federal prosecutors."
Retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon
Several other chief judges this spring wrote similar letters to Holder. One was retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of Alabama's Birmingham-based district, who wrote Holder that Siegelman's first prosecution in 2004 was "the most unfounded" he'd witnessed in nearly 30 years on the federal bench. Clemon, a Democrat and federal judge of historic stature, urged Holder carefully to review the second prosecution, especially because prosecutors altered normal procedures by removing the case from the northern district to bring it into Fuller's district.
Up to now in my reporting on the justice system, I've refrained under the law clerk's version of omerta from mentioning my former judge's important contribution to this debate even though obviously I've had nothing to do with his recent letter.
But it's clearly relevant now since Siegelman's filing today cited the letter independently. In citing the Mafia case as an example of "gross and malicious misconduct," Siegelman noted that legal scholars agree that cross-examination in a hearing "is beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth."
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