Criminal Prosecutions and Elections

Part of me doesn't want to believe that this is true. I don't want to believe that people were prosecuted on trumped up charges just to win elections, but there are too many "coincidences" that raise red flags. Somehow, despite all the attempts to thwart investigation, we need to doggedly pursue this until we get to the bottom of it all. And if it is true - as looks likely given the evidence - those responsible need to be held accountable and face the rule of law they profess to hold so dear:

The United States Attorneys Scandal Comes to Mississippi, by Adam Cohen, Editorial, NY Times: Paul Minor is ... a wealthy trial lawyer and a mainstay of Mississippi’s embattled Democratic Party. Mr. Minor has contributed $500,000 to Democrats over the years, including more than $100,000 to John Edwards... He fought hard to stop the Mississippi Supreme Court from being taken over by pro-business Republicans.

Mr. Minor’s political activity may have cost him dearly. He is serving an 11-year sentence, convicted of a crime that does not look much like a crime at all. The case is one of several new ones coming to light that suggest that the department’s use of criminal prosecutions to help Republicans win elections may go farther than anyone realizes.

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold hearings shortly on whether the Justice Department engaged in selective prosecution in two other cases: when it went after Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who is serving more than seven years in prison on dubious charges, and Georgia Thompson, a Wisconsin civil servant who was freed after serving four months on baseless corruption charges. ... The ... prosecutions came from the politicized Bush Justice Department.

 

Mississippi’s loose campaign finance laws allow lawyers and companies to contribute heavily to the judges they appear before. That is terrible for justice, since the courts are teeming with perfectly legal conflicts of interest. It also creates an ideal climate for partisan selective prosecution. Since everyone is making contributions and nurturing friendships that look questionable, a prosecutor can haul any lawyer and judge he doesn’t like before a grand jury and charge corruption.

The Justice Department indicted Justice Diaz and Mr. Minor on an array of unconvincing bribery and fraud charges. Justice Diaz was acquitted of all of them. The federal prosecutors then brought tax evasion charges against him. Justice Diaz was acquitted again and still sits on the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Mr. Minor was not as lucky. He beat many of the charges in the first trial, but the jury failed to reach a verdict on others. Federal prosecutors went after him again, and this time Mr. Minor was convicted on vague allegations of trying to get “an unfair advantage” from judges — the very thing Mississippi’s lax campaign finance laws are set up to allow.

The case fits a familiar pattern. The corruption Mr. Minor was charged with was disturbingly vague... Mr. Minor’s prosecution, like the others in this scandal, gave a big boost to the Republican Party. The case intimidated trial lawyers into stopping their political activity. “The disappearance of the trial-lawyer money all but wiped out the Democratic Party in Mississippi,” Stephanie Mencimer reports in her book, “Blocking the Courthouse Door.”

There also appears to have been pro-Republican favoritism. Mr. Minor’s lawyers say prosecutors were not interested in going after similar activity by trial lawyers who contributed to Republicans. Time magazine recently reported that in Alabama, one of the main witnesses against Mr. Siegelman also told prosecutors of possible corruption involving Jeff Sessions, a Republican senator from Alabama, but they did not pursue it.

And there is the matter of timing. The prosecution of Mr. Minor and Justice Diaz came just as Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, was running for re-election against Republican Haley Barbour. The Republicans spent heavily to tie Mr. Musgrove to Mr. Minor, and Mr. Musgrove was defeated.

In Wisconsin, Ms. Thompson’s trial coincided perfectly with Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s re-election campaign, and Republicans tried to link Doyle to Thompson. Mr. Siegelman’s prosecution looks like it was timed to prevent him from becoming governor again. It may be that all three of these cases were simply attempts to use the Justice Department to get Republican governors elected.

Ms. Thompson was fortunate to get a good federal appeals court panel, which ordered her released. Mr. Minor and Mr. Siegelman may not be so lucky. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and many other key players in the United States attorneys scandal are gone, but Congress has a lot more work to do in uncovering the damage they have done to the justice system.

Comments

says...

'Tis but southern politics writ large so needing be exposed. In this case, Rove/Bush Texas style politics so needing be exposed.

[juandos]

The fact of the matter is scratch any election fraud over the last forty plus years and you'll come up with a dim-witted Dem behind it...

Dim-witted Dems tried to steal the Presidential election in 2000 is probably the best example that most people know...

The real problem here is that the NEW YORK SWINE has been heavily invested is seeing that LIBTARDS and other similer types of human excrement that make up the party of the Seditious & Sleazy win...

So far the NEW YORK SWINE has a pretty miserable track record and one of the ways it shows up is in the loss of readership...

[Peter Schaeffer]

A quick check online, tells a quite different story.

Paul Minor bribed judges and was convicted for it. So were they. Anyone with a trace of familiarity with the role of trial lawyers in Mississippi wouldn't be the least bit surprised by these charges. Trial lawyers have enjoyed the “best justice money can buy for years” in Mississippi. Any number of them have crossed the line into criminality.

"The jury heard evidence that, in November 1998, Minor guaranteed a $25,000 line of credit for Teel at a Biloxi bank while Teel was a candidate for a judgeship in chancery court of Harrison County. The line of credit purported to be for campaign expenses. After Teel was elected, Minor, in an effort to conceal the fact that he was paying off the loan himself, used cash and an intermediary to disguise the true source of the loan payments. Thereafter, then-Judge Teel was assigned to a civil case in chancery court in which Minor’s firm represented a local bank in a bad faith declination of coverage suit against the bank’s insurance provider. The case was to be tried without a jury. In 2001, as the case proceeded, Teel made favorable rulings for Minor’s client on issues of discovery and summary judgment."

"Around that time, then-Judge Teel and two other chancery court judges became the subject of a state criminal investigation for misappropriation of funds. Among the efforts Minor made to assist the judges under investigation was a meeting Minor arranged between the judges and the then-Attorney General of Mississippi. Minor provided transportation to the meeting via his private jet and also hired a public relations firm to assist the judges. After Teel was indicted on state charges, Minor paid a portion of the legal expenses for Teel’s defense. Teel was ultimately acquitted. Within weeks of the meeting with the Attorney General, Teel presided over a settlement conference in the lawsuit between Minor and the attorneys for the bank’s insurance provider. During the negotiation, Teel made statements to the parties indicating his belief in the strength of the plaintiff’s case and insinuated that, were the defendants to push the case to trial, Teel would be inclined to award punitive damages to the plaintiff. The insurance provider promptly agreed to settle the case for $1.5 million dollars. None of the attorneys representing the insurance provider were made aware of the financial relationship between Teel and Minor.

The jury also heard evidence that, in November 1998, Minor guaranteed a $40,000 loan for Whitfield at a Biloxi bank while Whitfield was a candidate for re-election to the Circuit Court of Harrison County. The loan purported to be for campaign expenses. After Whitfield was elected, Minor guaranteed an additional loan for then-Judge Whitfield for $100,000, purportedly for the down payment on a house. Minor, in an effort to conceal the fact that he was actually paying off the loans himself, used cash and an intermediary to disguise the true source of the loan payments."

I guess we have a new version of public morality here. It is OK to bribe judges as long as you are a trial lawyer and a Democrat.

[Walter Olson]

Having followed the Paul Minor case (at a distance) for some time, I'm not as impressed as you are by Adam Cohen's arguments. I explain why here:

http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/004386.php

[Mark Thoma]

Just so everyone's clear, that's the Manhattan Institute talking (they sponsor Point of Law). That they are not impressed is not at all impressive.

This one has really brought out the trolls so far. Wonder why they are so worried?

And remember too, Minor is but one of the suspicious cases.

[anne]

Dear Mark Thoma,

Thank you so much for such remarkable courage. I am so grateful to you.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the subject, recognizes that the Mississippi judicial system has been a cesspool of corruption and malfeasance for some time now. Massively fraudulent silicosis and asbestosis litigation was pursued on large scale. See Silicosis: Industrial disaster needed to support 'phantom epidemic' for an article on the subject. Of course, it has been highly profitable for trial lawyers and the Democratic party.

Now the Federal government does something about it and those who enjoyed the fruits of the crimes are upset. Why is this surprising?

[Jean]

Yeah, the trolls are too concerned for words. Thanks, MT for the sunshine.

[ken melvin]

Peter,

Bit like pretending Jefferson was equivalent a dozen republicans, no?

[ken melvin]

From TPM:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004438.php

[kthomas]

Troll smackdown time. Burn baby!!! Feel that gloriously painful sunshine.

The next President is going to be a Democrat. And I'd be suprised if the Dems did not get a super majority in both houses. Maybe you Repubs can move to France....oh wait.

Why? you ask. Just read the post, trolls.

[Patricia Shannon]

Peter Schaeffer

Certainly, government corruption is wrong. Also wrong is selective prosecution and degree of penalties, for political gain.

[lonesome moderate]

Peter Schaeffer: Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the subject, recognizes that the Mississippi judicial system has been a cesspool of corruption and malfeasance for some time now.

I can't argue with that, but has it really only been Democrats who are guilty? This seems strange in an overwhelmingly Republican state.

[robertdfeinman]

Ideologues have no room for human imperfection in their worldview. The leaders that they admire (and follow) are motivated by only the noblest of ideals. They are also above self-serving actions and corruption.

This leads to some interesting mental gymnastics when such evidence becomes irrefutable. We can see it now in the positions that many neo-cons are now taking to distance themselves from the lost war in Iraq. They will blame the implementation or the lack of "true" adherence to the vision, but not the ideals of the movement.

A similar case can be seen with the cases of pedophilia in the priesthood. Those who commit such crimes are not "true Christians".

Idealist followers cannot accommodate feet of clay in their heroes. It's a psychological thing.

[Peter Schaeffer]

lonesome moderate,

Valid questions. However, Republican dominance in Mississippi is relatively recent. A quick check of Wikipedia shows that only two Republican governors have been elected in the last 140 years (Fordice 1992, Barbour 2004).

[ken melvin]

Peter,

Today's Mississippi Republican was 1960's southern democrat/dixiecrat. Somewhat analogously, today's Mississipi democrats is more like a 1960's northern republican than they are the southern democrats of old.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/opinion/16mon4.html?ex=1334376000&en=d12c36936998aac3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

April 16, 2007

A Woman Wrongly Convicted and a U.S. Attorney Who Kept His Job
By ADAM COHEN

Madison, Wis.

Opponents of Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin spent $4 million on ads last year trying to link the Democratic incumbent to a state employee who was sent to jail on corruption charges. The effort failed, and Mr. Doyle was re-elected — and now the state employee has been found to have been wrongly convicted. The entire affair is raising serious questions about why a United States attorney put an innocent woman in jail.

The conviction of Georgia Thompson has become part of the furor over the firing of eight United States attorneys in what seems like a political purge. While the main focus of that scandal is on why the attorneys were fired, the Thompson case raises questions about why other prosecutors kept their jobs.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which heard Ms. Thompson's case this month, did not discuss whether her prosecution was political — but it did make clear that it was wrong. And in an extraordinary move, it ordered her released immediately, without waiting to write a decision. "Your evidence is beyond thin," Judge Diane Wood told the prosecutor. "I'm not sure what your actual theory in this case is."

Members of Congress should ask whether it was by coincidence or design that Steven Biskupic, the United States attorney in Milwaukee, turned a flimsy case into a campaign issue that nearly helped Republicans win a pivotal governor's race.

There was good reason for the appeals court to be shocked. Ms. Thompson, a 56-year-old single woman, seems to have lost her home and spent four months in prison simply for doing her job. Ms. Thompson, who spent years in the travel industry before becoming a state employee, was responsible for putting the state's travel account up for competitive bid. Mr. Biskupic claimed that she awarded the contract to an agency called Adelman Travel because its C.E.O. contributed to Mr. Doyle's campaign.

To charge her, Mr. Biskupic had to look past a mountain of evidence of innocence. Ms. Thompson was not a Doyle partisan. She was a civil servant, hired by a Republican governor, with no identifiable interest in politics. She was only one member of a seven-person committee that evaluated the bidders. She was not even aware of the Adelman campaign contributions. She also had a good explanation for her choice: of the 10 travel agencies that competed, Adelman submitted the lowest-cost bid.

While Ms. Thompson did her job conscientiously, that is less clear of Mr. Biskupic. The decision to award the contract — the supposed crime — occurred in Madison, in the jurisdiction of Wisconsin's other United States attorney. But for reasons that are hard to understand, the Milwaukee-based Mr. Biskupic swept in and took the case.

While he was investigating, in the fall of 2005, Mr. Biskupic informed the media. Justice Department guidelines say federal prosecutors can publicly discuss investigations before an indictment only under extraordinary circumstances. This case hardly met that test.

The prosecution proceeded on a schedule that worked out perfectly for the Republican candidate for governor. Mr. Biskupic announced Ms. Thompson's indictment in January 2006. She went to trial that summer, and was sentenced in late September, weeks before the election. Mr. Biskupic insisted in July, as he vowed to continue the investigation, that "the review is not going to be tied to the political calendar."

But the Thompson case was "the No. 1 issue" in the governor's race, says the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman, Joe Wineke. In a barrage of commercials, Mr. Doyle's opponents created an organizational chart that linked Ms. Thompson — misleadingly called a "Doyle aide" — to the governor. Ms. Thompson appeared in an unflattering picture, stamped "guilty," and in another ad, her name was put on a graphic of jail-cell doors slamming shut....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/opinion/10mon4.html?hp

September 10, 2007

The Strange Case of an Imprisoned Alabama Governor
By ADAM COHEN

Alberto Gonzales is out as attorney general, but there is still a lot of questionable Justice Department activity for Congress to sort through. The imprisonment of Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor of Alabama, should be at the top of the list. Jill Simpson, an Alabama lawyer and Republican operative, is heading to Washington this week to tell Congressional investigators that she heard prominent Republicans plotting to use the United States attorneys' offices to remove Mr. Siegelman as a political threat. The case should be the focus of a probing Congressional hearing this fall.

Mr. Siegelman was a major frustration to Alabama Republicans. The state is bright red, but Mr. Siegelman managed to win the governorship in 1998 with 57 percent of the vote. He was defeated for re-election in 2002 under suspicious circumstances. In the initial returns, Mr. Siegelman appeared to have won by a razor-thin margin. But a late-night change in the tallies in Republican Baldwin County gave the current governor, Bob Riley, a victory of a little more than 3,000 votes out of 1.3 million cast.

Mr. Siegelman has charged that the votes were intentionally shifted by a Republican operative. James Gundlach, an Auburn University professor, did a statistical analysis of the returns and found that the final numbers were clearly the result of intentional manipulation. Mr. Siegelman wanted to take back the governorship in 2006, but his indictment made it impossible.

If Ms. Simpson is telling the truth, she provides important support for Mr. Siegelman's claim that his prosecution was political. In a sworn affidavit, she says she was on a phone call in November 2002 with Governor Riley's son, Rob Riley, and Bill Canary, a Republican political operative whose wife, Leura Canary, is the United States attorney for Montgomery. According to Ms. Simpson, they were discussing the political threat Mr. Siegelman posed, and Mr. Canary said his "girls" — his wife and Alice Martin, the United States Attorney in Birmingham — would take care of Mr. Siegelman. Ms. Simpson said Mr. Canary also said the case had been discussed with Karl Rove.

Ms. Martin's office prosecuted Mr. Siegelman, but the case fell apart after a federal judge cast doubt on the charges. Ms. Canary's office then convicted him of charges for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

In addition to the phone call, which has been reported, Ms. Simpson says she will tell House investigators about a second conversation with Rob Riley. In late January or early February of 2005, she says, in his Birmingham office, Mr. Riley told her that Mr. Siegelman would be re-indicted in Montgomery. He was indicted by Ms. Canary's office in May 2005, and tried in May 2006, one month before the Democratic primary for governor. Mr. Riley denies that the conversation occurred.

There are other red flags, besides Ms. Simpson's testimony. Mr. Siegelman was convicted of appointing the businessman Richard Scrushy to a state hospital board in exchange for a contribution to a campaign for a state lottery to fund education. Elected officials, from the president down, appoint people who contribute directly to their campaigns without facing criminal charges.

Decisions about whether to bring this sort of public corruption case are extremely sensitive. A prosecutor must examine an official's state of mind and decide if he intended the appointment to be in exchange for the contribution, or if he simply ended up appointing a contributor. The extraordinary sensitivity of these cases — and their ability to change the political balance of power in the country — makes it is critical that prosecutors be nonpolitical and above reproach. In the current Justice Department, they have not been.

Mr. Siegelman's case has disturbing parallels to the prosecution of Georgia Thompson, the Wisconsin civil servant wrongly convicted by the Justice Department of awarding a state contract to a Democratic contributor....

[James Killus]

Of course the nature of Mr. Minor's behavior was that he was not anonymous, so he was identified as a political player and targeted as such.

Which gives one a bit more insight into all our anonymous new posters, doesn't it? Soon you'll be back in your caves our little troglyditic friends, where the light won't hurt your eyes so much and you can mutter amongst yourselves what a bunch of manly men you are. And tough. Ye gods are you guys tough.

On topic: one need only cite Bush v Gore as an example of the way that the Conservative Movement respects the rule of law.

[Deoxy]

Yes, Bush s Gore is a GREAT example. In it, SCOTUS told Florida to follow its own law. Funny how following the law is, I don't know, the right thing to do, legally speaking...

BOTH parties play dirty tricks. I am of the opinion that, in my lifetime and based on what I have been able to find out, the Democrats have been guilty of more of them, but that's only a matter of degree. Politics has always been nasty and dirty, and will continue to be so.

In other shocking news, the sun rose this morning...

[Peter Schaeffer]

This is almost funny. Siegelman takes $500,000 in bribes from Scrushy, but really the government is at fault. Never mind that three defendants (“Lanny” Young, Nick Bailey, William Curtis Kirsch) pleaded guilty in this case and testified against Siegelman and Scrushy.

How about considering who exactly Scrushy is? Scrushy is of course the hero of Health South who got off the first time by claiming that was the “victim” of “racial discrimination” (he is white). A quote should illuminate this case.

“Siegelman is also charged with extortion for allegedly demanding payments from individuals under the threat of harming their business interests with the State of Alabama. Specifically, the indictment alleges that Siegelman demanded $100,000 and accepted $40,000 from one individual under the threat of harming that person’s business with the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT). Siegelman also allegedly demanded $250,000 from another individual under the same threat. The indictment also alleges that Siegelman, Hamrick and others established a criminal enterprise in which official actions were exchanged for bribes. Specifically, the indictment alleges that then-HealthSouth Chief Executive Officer Richard M. Scrushy made two disguised payments totaling $500,000 to Siegelman in exchange for Siegelman’s appointment of Scrushy to Alabama’s Certificate of Need Review Board. Scrushy - initially named in a sealed indictment filed on May 17, 2005 - is charged with bribery and mail fraud. Gary Mack Roberts, the former Director of ALDOT, is charged in the indictment with honest services mail and wire fraud for his alleged role in influencing ALDOT actions on behalf of Siegelman.”

[anne]

There is always an answer however stilted and meaningless, there is always an answer always a way of distorting and deceiving. Mississippi, Wisconsin, Alabama, New Jersey, New Mexico and on. Always an answer, even when there is no answer distortion and deception will suffice for an answer.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/opinion/09mon1.html?ex=1333771200&en=24985510dc151c0e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

April 9, 2007

Another Layer of Scandal

As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?

Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state's Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.

The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle's opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson's "corruption" to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. "It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin," Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic's office.

Ms. Thompson's case is not the only one raising questions about whether prosecutors tried last year to tilt close elections toward the Republicans. New Jersey's federal prosecutor conducted an investigation of weak-looking allegations against Senator Robert Menendez that was used in Republican ads.

Congress should look into both cases to determine whether partisan politics played a role — and whether they were coordinated with anyone at the Justice Department or the White House.

The list of things to investigate keeps growing. A federal agency that protects the rights of military employees is now investigating the firing of David Iglesias, the New Mexico United States attorney. Justice Department officials said he was fired in part because he was out of the office due to his commitments as a Navy military reservist. If so, the firing may have been illegal....

[Patricia Shannon]

I posted this on the wrong place previously:

We could go forever posting examples of Republican and Democratic political misdoings. Power attacts corruption.

BJ Feng says...
Krugman is the one charging someone with character assassination? Krugman? Give me a break! This is like Hitler calling someone else a racist. You only have to read Krugman's previous columns on the GOP Southern Strategy where he implies all Southern White Republicans are racists and you get my point.

I have lived in the South since 1960. At that time, all Southern White Democrats were racist, or at least talked racist, because otherwise they couldn't get elected. In recent years, the racists have switched to the Republican party. Nowadays, it's not acceptable to be blatant about racism, but everybody here knows the code words (eg., "states rights"). Maybe some Republicans are really nice people, but it reminds me of a lady I knew several years ago. She said her parents are really nice people, and she couldn't understand why the fact that they are in the Klu Klux Klan made people think otherwise. And she was perfectly serious! If you choose to join an organization, it doesn't make sense to expect people not to assume you share their predominant ideas and goals.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/opinion/19mon4.html?ex=1331956800&en=ffab854496251b4b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

March 19, 2007

It Wasn't Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law.
By ADAM COHEN

The Bush administration has done a terrible job of explaining its decision to fire eight United States attorneys. Story after story has proved to be untrue: that the prosecutors who were fired were poor performers; that the White House was not involved in the purge. But the administration has been strangely successful in pushing its message that the scandal is at worst a political misdeed, not a criminal matter.

It is true, as the White House keeps saying, that United States attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the president," which means he can dismiss them whenever he wants. But if the attorneys were fired to interfere with a valid prosecution, or to punish them for not misusing their offices, that may well have been illegal.

In law schools, it is common to give an exam called the "issue spotter," in which students are given a set of facts and asked to identify all the legal issues and possible crimes. The facts about the purge are still emerging. But based on what is known — and with some help from Congressional staff members and Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University — it was not hard to spot that White House and Justice Department officials, and members of Congress, may have violated 18 U.S.C. {sctmark1}{sctmark1} 1501-1520, the federal obstruction of justice statute.

Some crimes that a special prosecutor might one day look at:

1. Misrepresentations to Congress. The relevant provision, 18 U.S.C. {sctmark1} 1505, is very broad. It is illegal to lie to Congress, and also to "impede" it in getting information. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty indicated to Congress that the White House's involvement in firing the United States attorneys was minimal, something that Justice Department e-mail messages suggest to be untrue.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made his own dubious assertion to Congress: "I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons."

The administration appears to be trying to place all of the blame on Mr. Gonzales's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who resigned after reportedly failing to inform top Justice Department officials about the White House's role in the firings. If Mr. Sampson withheld the information from Mr. McNulty, who then misled Congress, Mr. Sampson may have violated {sctmark1} 1505.

But Mr. Sampson's lawyer now says other top Justice Department officials knew of the White House's role. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, said last week that "Kyle Sampson will not be the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy." Congress will be looking for evidence that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. McNulty knew that what they told Congress was false or misleading.

Convictions of this kind are not common, but they happen. Just ask former White House aide David Safavian, who was convicted last year of making false statements to a Senate committee.

2. Calling the Prosecutors. As part of the Sarbanes-Oxley reforms, Congress passed an extremely broad obstruction of justice provision, 18 U.S.C. {sctmark1} 1512 (c), which applies to anyone who corruptly "obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so," including U.S. attorney investigations.

David Iglesias, the New Mexico United States attorney, says Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, called him and asked whether he intended to bring indictments in a corruption case against Democrats before last November's election. Mr. Iglesias said he "felt pressured" by the call. If members of Congress try to get a United States attorney to indict people he wasn't certain he wanted to indict, or try to affect the timing of an indictment, they may be violating the law.

3. Witness Tampering. 18 U.S.C. {sctmark1} 1512 (b) makes it illegal to intimidate Congressional witnesses. Michael Elston, Mr. McNulty's chief of staff, contacted one of the fired attorneys, H. E. Cummins, and suggested, according to Mr. Cummins, that if he kept speaking out, there would be retaliation. Mr. Cummins took the call as a threat, and sent an e-mail message to other fired prosecutors warning them of it. Several of them told Congress that if Mr. Elston had placed a similar call to one of their witnesses in a criminal case, they would have opened an investigation of it.

4. Firing the Attorneys. United States attorneys can be fired whenever a president wants, but not, as {sctmark1} 1512 (c) puts it, to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding.

Let's take the case of Carol Lam, United States attorney in San Diego....

[James Killus]

Oooh, another anonymous warrior, and one who has clearly never read any court decision, much less Bush v Gore.

So, Deoxy, I don't think that I can render the phrase "substantive due process" into words of one syllable, so that you'd understand it. But I will note that the ultimate authority on Florida law is the Florida Supreme Court, which the SCOTUS overruled, based on an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that several of the members of the Court (those in the majority in Bush v Gore) had criticized as being a pernicious legal doctrine. The decision was also stipulated as not setting precedent, as clear a case of "nyah, nyah, nyah, we're doing this because we want to and because we can nyah, nyah, nyah," as has ever been found in American jurispridence.

says...

Peter - thank you for throwing some reality on this topic.

Professor Thoma and crew should really stop being so tribal.

[bakho]

It is really sad that the DoJ has been so politicized that many Americans question their truthfulness.

[James Killus]

Tribal?

Cool. I always wanted to be tribal.

[gordon]

Maybe it's time for the US to adopt the Athenian system of selection for public office by lot.

[anne]

From Mississippi to Alabama to Wisconsin to New Jersey to New Mexico to California, for months we have found judicial problem on problem, Republican judicial problems. Scandal over US Attorneys dismissed by the Republican Justice Department for seemingly not doing the bidding of Republicans or scandal over those not dismissed and seemingly doing the bidding of Republicans. We will be years uncovering these unique Justice Department scandals described in article after article so far last year.

[anne]

Thinking like Mark Thoma....

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/iokiyar-and-iaciyad/

October 11, 2007

IOKIYAR and IACIYAD
By Paul Krugman

For years, progressives have responded to news of GOP scandals unpunished, abuses of power unchecked, and outrageous remarks ignored by the media with the acronym IOKIYAR - It’s OK if you’re a Republican.

But I think we need a complementary acronym: IACIYAD - it’s a crime if you’re a Democrat.

Adam Cohen of the Times’s editorial page has written several pieces on cases in which Democrats have been railroaded into jail on charges that either don’t stand up, or don’t sound like a crime. The most dramatic example is former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, “who is serving more than seven years in prison on dubious charges.” Cohen’s latest is here. *

IACIYAD is a sort of double-entendre: it could mean that the same action that draws no punishment if you’re a Republican is a crime if a Democrat does it — in fact, the informant who provoked the charges against Siegelman also implicated Republicans, but they were never investigated. Or it could mean that just being a Democrat is a crime — and it’s clear that some people in the GOP would like that to be the case.

This stuff is truly scary; it’s the sort of thing you didn’t think could happen in America. But it has been happening; one shudders to think where we’d be if the political tide hadn’t turned against the Bushies.

Or as a constitutional lawyer once said to me, “If Bush wasn’t such a screwup, the Republic would already be over.”

* http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/11thu3.html

[anne]

Looking to a history of commentary by New York Times constiututional specialist Adam Cohen, we have case after case stretching months and years that raise the question of continual legal abuse through this Administration. The questions in Mississippi are recurring and intimidating questions, are we need to be aware of this. I have merely pointed to evident specific problems in Mississippi, Wisconsin, Alabama, and general problems beyond. The Wisconsin legal abuse involved the astonishing ruining and jailing of an entirely innocent woman for months before a court rescue. This is what legal intimidation is at the worst.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Anyone heard of Duke Cunningham? A Republican. Prosecuted for his crimes. Guilty. Sent to jail.

By the Bush administration, no less.

[S Brennan]

Peter,

I'm glad you brought Duke Cunningham up. DOJ replaced the prosecutor in attempt to derail the case.

Clearly you must think you are talking to a very ignorant crowd if you are bringing up Duke Cunningham.

So Peter since you bring it up:

Why was "Duke" Cunningham prosecutor Carol Lam fired?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801263.html

The U.S. attorney in San Diego notified the Justice Department of search warrants in a Republican bribery scandal last May 10, one day before the attorney general's chief of staff warned the White House of a "real problem" with her, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

The prosecutor, Carol S. Lam, was dismissed seven months later as part of an effort by the Justice Department and the White House to fire eight U.S. attorneys.

A Justice spokesman said there was no connection between Lam's firing and her public corruption investigations, and pointed to criticisms of Lam for her record on prosecuting immigration cases.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a television appearance yesterday that Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants" in a criminal investigation of defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who had just quit as the CIA's top administrator amid questions about his ties to disgraced former GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

The next day, May 11, D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, sent an e-mail message to William Kelley in the White House counsel's office saying that Lam should be removed as quickly as possible, according to documents turned over to Congress last week.

"Please call me at your convenience to discuss the following," Sampson wrote, referring to "[t]he real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."

The FBI raided Foggo's home and former CIA office on May 12. He was indicted along with Wilkes on fraud and money-laundering charges on Feb. 13 -- two days before Lam left as U.S. attorney.

The revelation that Lam took a major step in the Foggo probe one day before Sampson's e-mail message was sent to the White House raises further questions about the decision to fire her, Feinstein suggested.

"There were clearly U.S. attorneys that were thorns in the side for one reason or another of the Justice Department," Feinstein said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "And they decided, by strategy, in one fell swoop, to get rid of seven of them on that day, December the 7th."

A Justice spokesman yesterday referred questions about the meaning of the "real problem" e-mail to Sampson's attorney, Bradford Berenson, who declined to comment.

"We have stated numerous times that no U.S. attorney was removed to retaliate against or inappropriately interfere with any public corruption investigation or prosecution," Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in a statement. "This remains the case, and there is no evidence that indicates otherwise."

In recent weeks, Justice officials have repeatedly criticized Lam's record on immigration enforcement, although they had defended her record in a letter to Feinstein last year. Sampson had targeted Lam for firing since the process began in early 2005, documents show.

Lam and six other U.S. attorneys were fired Dec. 7, and another was let go months earlier, with little explanation from Justice Department officials. The dismissals, along with allegations of political interference and shifting explanations from the Bush administration, have led a handful of lawmakers to call for Gonzales's resignation. Sampson quit last week.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030701546.html

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/cunningham/20070509-9999-7m9wilkes.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002565.php

[anne]

S Brennan, thank you.

[Peter Schaeffer]

S. Brennan,

Check out http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20070314-1311-ca-congress-prosecutors-lam.html

“In the e-mails, which date back more than two years, Justice Department chief of staff Kyle Sampson recommended to White House counsel Harriet Miers that Lam be removed, striking her name along with those of at least three other U.S. attorneys he considered “ineffectual managers and prosecutors” who “chafed against Administration initiatives.””

“Lam, who was appointed in 2002, also tightened prosecution guidelines at the border during her tenure, raising the violation requirements in an effort to manage the flood of immigration cases referred to her office.

Later e-mails between Sampson and Bill Mercer, the associate attorney general, indicated concern over the drop in border prosecutions in San Diego.

“Has ODAG (Office of the Deputy Attorney General) ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re immigration enforcement? Has anyone?” Mercer wrote Sampson in May 2006.”

Also check out what TPM MUCKRAKER (http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002754.php) says

“Lam Was on DoJ Hit List before Cunningham Case

By Paul Kiel - March 14, 2007, 12:20PM

In March of 2005, Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff sent White House counsel Harriet Miers a list rating U.S. attorneys.

Certain prosecutors were rated “strong U.S. Attorneys who have produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General," others had not "distinguished themselves either positively or negatively, and others Sampson “recommend[ed] removing" -- those were “weak U.S. Attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives.”

Carol Lam was one of the prosecutors Sampson recommended removing.

This was, of course, a full three months before the Duke Cunningham scandal came to light. The San Diego Union-Tribune broke the story on June 12, 2005.* So does that mean that Lam really was removed for other reasons?”

“*Update: To answer a reader comment below about whether Lam's office was investigating Cunningham before the Union-Tribune broke the story -- the answer is no. Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern, one of the lead prosecutors on the case, told The American Journalism Review that without the Union Tribune's story, "there might not have been a Cunningham case." The Union Tribune's Marcus Stern, he said, "was responsible for the criminal prosecution."”