The GOP spent millions of dollars-- state and federal dollars--to remove Gov. Don Siegelman from Alabama politics, and did it with the help of Karl Rove. They wanted Siegelman out of politics because he is honest, can't be bought, won't be part of corrupt government, and is popular with blacks and whites alike. From the courtroom they took him away in shackles, to jail, without even a chance to say goodbye to his family.

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In the continuing quest for a permanent Republican majority, a coterie of Republican heavyweights, including Karl Rove, sent a state governor to jail for seven years, thereby preventing him from talking to the press as he is repeatedly moved from prison to prison. 

 

This is a synopsis of a report filed by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane at http://RawStory.com

  

For most Americans, the very concept of political prisoners is remote and exotic, a practice that is associated with third-world dictatorships but is foreign to the American tradition.  The idea that a prominent politician -- a former state governor -- could be tried on charges that many observers consider to be trumped-up, then convicted in a trial that involved numerous questionable procedures, and then hauled off to prison in shackles immediately upon sentencing, would be almost unbelievable. 

 

But there is such a politician: Don Siegelman, Democratic governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003.  Starting just a few weeks after he took office, Siegelman was targeted by an investigation launched by his political opponents, and then escalated from the state to the federal level by Bush Administration appointees in 2001. 

 

Siegelman was ultimately charged with 32 counts of bribery and other crimes in 2005, just as he began to attempt a political comeback.  He was convicted the following year on seven of those charges.  Last summer, Siegelman was sentenced to seven years in prison and immediately whisked off to a series of out-of-state jails, not even being allowed to remain free on bond while his appeal was under way. 

 

Shortly before the sentencing, however, suspicions expressed by Alabama observers that there was something "fishy" about the case (as Scott Horton of Harper's Magazine put it) began to reach the national stage.  What initially appeared to be merely a whiff of possible political corruption became something much stronger, with allegations that Karl Rove and the Bush Justice Department had been operating behind the scenes.  And yet, despite these suspicions and the attempts of a few journalists to bring them to greater notice, Siegelman's case remains virtually unknown to most of America. 

 

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/The_Permanent_Republican_Majority_1125.html

 

The case in a nutshell:

 

Governor Siegelman was a popular Democratic politician in a largely Republican state and was the only person in Alabama history to hold all of the state's highest posts.  He served as Attorney General, Secretary of State, Lieutenant Governor and finally as Governor from 1999 to 2003. 

 

On Election Day in November 2002, when the polls had closed and the votes were being counted, it seemed increasingly apparent that Governor Siegelman had been victorious in his re-election bid against Republican challenger Bob Riley.  But then, just as in the infamous Florida election of 2000, something strange happened in the tallying of the votes. 

 

As CNN reported at the time, there appeared to be two different sets of numbers coming through for one particular Alabama county:

 

“The confusion stems from two sets of numbers reported by one heavily Republican district,” the network stated. 

 

“Figures originally reported by Baldwin County showed Siegelman got about 19,000 votes there, making him the state's winner by about two-tenths of 1 percent,” its reporter added.  “But hours after polls closed, Baldwin County officials said the first number was wrong, and Siegelman had received just less than 13,000.  Those figures would make Riley the statewide winner by about 3,000 votes.”

 

"Sometime after midnight, after the poll watchers were sent home, a small group there decided to recount the votes a third time," Siegelman told a news conference at the time.  "No watchers legally entitled to be present were notified -- and a different total was thereby established."

 

The following morning, Alabama saw a new governor declaring victory in the election.  But the story didn’t end there.  It was only the beginning of a case that would turn the politics of dirty tricks into something far more sinister. 

 

See a timeline of the case:

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/timeline_don_siegelman_1126.htm

  

It's important to understand that Siegelman was tried on charges that many observers consider to be trumped-up, and was convicted in a trial that involved numerous questionable procedures -- on top of charges of jury tampering.  Since being jailed, he has repeatedly been transferred from one federal prison to another, and steps were taken to keep the press from knowing exactly which prison he was in. 

 

It’s also important to know that another former Governor of Alabama was convicted of corruption charges a few years ago in a case where he personally benefited from his action (as Gov. Siegelman did not), and the man was sentenced to probation.  Significantly that case was handled by the same lead prosecutor who handled the Siegelman case.  Therefore, the sentence sought by the prosecutor in Governor Siegelman’s case was excessively disproportionate, and the sentence imposed -- 7 years, 4 months -- was extraordinarily, even absurdly, harsh.

 

There are numerous apparently legitimate (and arguably compelling) appealable issues in this case, as confirmed by a number of legal scholars.  There have been allegations of jury misconduct and the possible introduction of extrinsic evidence into the jury deliberation process, and these allegations have never been fully investigated.  For this reason, and because Governor Siegelman is not in any way a flight risk, the denial of a bond pending appeal was entirely inappropriate.

  

How Karl Rove helped remove the Democratic governor of Alabama

 

Siegelman’s prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys eager to demonstrate their loyalty to the Bush administration.  How do we know this?  A longtime Republican lawyer in Alabama has testified, under oath, that she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Karl Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys. 

 

This G.O.P. operative who made this allegation re: Rove was Dana Jill Simpson, a lifelong Republican and lawyer who practices in Alabama.  She made the charges in a May 21st affidavit, obtained by TIME, in which she describes a conference call on November 18, 2002, which involved a group of senior aides to Republican candidate Bob Riley, who had just narrowly defeated Siegelman in a bitterly contested election for governor.  Though Republican Riley, a former Congressman, initially found himself behind by several thousand votes, he had pulled ahead at the last minute when disputed ballots were tallied in his favor during a late-night “recount” by Republicans behind locked doors, with no Democratic election officials or members of the press present.  After the abrupt vote turnaround, Siegelman sought a mutually verified recount, which never took place.  The Simpson affidavit says the conference call focused on how the Riley campaign could get Siegelman to withdraw his challenge. 

 

According to Simpson's statement, William Canary, a senior G.O.P. political operative and Riley adviser, who was on the conference call, said "not to worry about Don Siegelman" because "'his girls' would take care of" the governor.  Canary then made clear that "his girls" was a reference to his wife, Leura Canary, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and Alice Martin, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. 

 

Canary reassured the others in on the conference call — including Riley's son, Rob, and Terry Butts, another Riley lawyer and former justice on the Alabama Supreme Court — that he had the help of a powerful pal in Washington.  Canary said "not to worry — that he had already gotten it worked out with Karl, and Karl had spoken with the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice was already pursuing Don Siegelman," the Simpson affidavit says.  Both U.S. attorney offices subsequently indicted Siegelman on a variety of charges.  http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1627427,00.html

 

It is clear then that Gov. Siegelman was singled out to be persecuted by Karl Rove.  Ninety-percent of the charges leveled against him were thrown out before the trial.  He was found innocent of over a dozen others in the trial. 

  

In summary and conclusion:

 

Don Siegelman was a highly popular Democratic Governor of Alabama and was the only person to ever have served Alabama by being elected to its four highest offices. 

 

What horrific crime did he commit?  He was convicted of appointing someone to a state board – a man who had been appointed to that same board by three previous governors.  And according to Thom Hartmann it was a non-paying position! http://www.jewlicious.com/?p=3721

 

In order for GOP candidates to win back top Alabama offices, they recruited the help of Karl Rove and his buddy Bill Canary. 

 

In 2001 BushCo appointed Leura Canary as U.S. Attorney in Montgomery, Alabama.  Leura is the wife of Bill Canary.  A loyal BushCo operative, she saw to it that Siegelman would be jailed and thus removed from office. 

 

The G.O.P. spent millions of dollars -- state and federal dollars -- to remove Don Siegelman from Alabama politics, and they did it with the help of Karl Rove.  The G.O.P. wanted Siegelman out of politics because he is honest, can't be bought, won't be part of corrupt government, and is popular with blacks and whites alike.  From the courtroom they took him away in shackles, to jail, and he was not even allowed to say good-bye to his wife and children.  They wanted to set an example that would deter democrats from running for high ranking Alabama offices. 

 

The likelihood is that the Karl Rove gang is still chuckling about the success of this operation.  Fortunately, Rove had the cooperation of the three biggest Alabama newspapers, which have strong GOP affiliations, and everything they have printed about Gov. Siegelman is deliberately worded to sound negative.

Authors Bio:

Several years after receiving my M.A. in social science (interdisciplinary studies) I was an instructor at S.F. State University for a year, but then went back to designing automated machinery, and then tech writing, in Silicon Valley. I've always been more interested in political economics and what's going on behind the scenes in politics, than in mechanical engineering, and because of that I've rarely worked more than 8 months a year, devoting much of the rest of the year to reading and writing about that which interests me most.