Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer
Alabama lawyer G. Douglas Jones helped rake in more than $50 million in attorney fees from a lawsuit against individuals and entities connected to HealthSouth Corporation. Lawyers from California and New York were involved in the case, but Jones served as co-liaison counsel here in Birmingham, home to HealthSouth headquarters.
Jones was a leading advocate of the Obama administration's recent decision to nominate George Beck as U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, sources tell Legal Schnauzer. The Beck nomination was roundly criticized in a recent four-part series by Andrew Kreig, executive director of the Justice Integrity Project (JIP). Kreig calls the nomination "Obama's Alabama Snafu," and you can read all four parts of his piece through links at the end of this post.
Are the HealthSouth settlements and the Beck nomination connected? Did Jones' access to cold, hard cash help make him a "kingmaker" with the Obama administration? Do Democrats such as Doug Jones act with progressive ideals in mind? Is George Beck the best candidate to replace Leura Canary, the abominable George W. Bush appointee who helped ramrod the Don Siegelman/Richard Scrushy prosecution?
Sources tell us that the answers to those questions are yes, yes, no, and not by a long shot.
To top it off, Jones' public statements about the Beck nomination reflect significant foot shuffling and dissembling. Could that be because George Beck represented chief government witness Nick Bailey in the Siegelman/Scrushy case and reportedly allowed prosecutors to browbeat and coach his client? Could it be because Beck comes from the Montgomery law firm of Capel and Howard, which has strong ties to GOP strategist Karl Rove and Bill Canary, who is president of the Business Council of Alabama, husband of Leura Canary, and confidant of U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief Tom Donahue?
This scenario becomes particularly troubling when you consider that the other co-liaison counsel in the HealthSouth case--Jones' chief local assistant--was Rob Riley, the son of former Republican Governor Bob Riley. Why did Doug Jones need Rob Riley on the lawsuit team? Probably because Riley had inside information about former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. And that information probably came from Riley's involvement in a Republican conspiracy to conduct a political prosecution against Siegelman and Scrushy, a scheme that Alabama attorney and whistleblower Dana Jill Simpson revealed to the world.
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