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Title: Siegelman speaks: Rove must testify
Source: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com
URL Source: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/artic ... 0080419/news/79035213&tc=yahoo
Published: Apr 19, 2008
Author: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com
Post Date: 2008-04-19 12:59:24 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 57
Comments: 1

BIRMINGHAM | Former Gov. Don Siegelman said Thursday that he wants former White House adviser Karl Rove to testify before Congress, whether 'he lies under oath, tells the truth or pleads the Fifth.'

Siegelman was freed on bond March 28 after serving nine months in federal prison for bribery and obstruction of justice. He said that while his primary concern is winning his appeal, there are bigger issues involved in his prosecution by the U.S. District Attorney's Office in Montgomery.

'This is not about Don Siegelman, and it's not about the Alabama case,' he said in his first interview with an Alabama newspaper since being released from a federal prison in Oakdale, La. 'This is about America, it is about finding out who hijacked the Department of Justice and used it as a political tool to win elections.'

Siegelman, who had just returned from two days in Washington conferring with U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he is willing to testify before Congress about his case 'or anything else they want me to do.'

The interview in a makeshift office in downtown Birmingham came as Democrats on the committee issued a 40-page report Thursday saying they strongly suspect the former Alabama governor was the victim of a politically-motivated prosecution and asking for an independent probe of the Justice Department.

'I tried to make clear to Congressman Conyers that, to me, above everything else, [my case is about] making it clear to anyone who might think that they can get away with this in the future that they won't be able to,' Siegelman said. Siegelman has maintained that he was targeted by political operatives, particularly Rove, the President George W. Bush's former chief political advisor.

'So they've got to find out who is responsible, hold them responsible and make a clear and unequivocal statement that Congress and people of this country are not going to tolerate people taking over the Department of Justice and using it as a political tool,' he said.

Shortly after his release, as Siegelman was appearing via satellite connection on an MSNBC talk show, Rove's attorneys released a statement indicating that Rove would be willing to testify before the Judiciary Committee.

But after the release of the report Thursday, which also called on Rove to testify about the Siegelman case and whether he or his staff pressured prosecutors to pursue Siegelman, Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin seemed to equivocate, telling The Associated Press that Rove's appearance before any congressional committee depends on whether Congress and the White House could resolve their differences over executive privilege.

'Sending an invitation to Mr. Rove isn't in any way going to enhance the resolution of those discussions,' Luskin told AP.

Siegelman, however, remained optimistic that Rove will eventually testify about his case and others included in the report by the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the firing of several U.S. attorneys under then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The criminal case

But while Siegelman, who was elected governor in 1998 and defeated in his bid for a second term in 2002, said he is working with his attorneys to have his June 29, 2006, conviction and sentence of more than seven years in federal prison overturned on appeal.

The case against Siegelman centered around a contribution by Richard Scrushy, the founder of HealthSouth, to an organization Siegelman had set up to lobby for a state lottery, and the sale of a motorcycle to aid Nick Bailey, one of the key government witnesses in the case against the former governor.

Scrushy, who was appointed to a hospital regulatory board by Siegelman after his contribution, was convicted of bribery in the case and sentenced to more than six years. Bailey, who made a plea deal, was sentenced to 18 months.

Both Siegelman and Vince Kilbourn, one of his attorneys, stressed that the larger questions surrounding his case will not play a role in their next legal step, which will be to get a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to rule on their appeal.

'We have not filed the appeal yet and have until the 23rd of May to do so,' Siegelman said. 'But you have to remember, that on an appeal, only what happened in the courtroom is relevant and you have to find errors to have action taken. I could get thrown back in Oakdale, I could get a new trial, I could get a new trial on one issue or not the other, or the court could reverse the conviction and I would be a free man.'

The appeal

Kilbourn said several issues that could be included in the appeal.

'We think there were some problems with Judge [Mark] Fuller's instructions to the jury about what constitutes a bribe — that there has to be a quid pro quo involved and there was never any testimony that there was,' he said. 'There were also several issues we tried to bring up in the case that the judge would not let us do that we think bear looking at.'

Kilbourn said he is encouraged by the terse, four-page order from the panel of judges from the same circuit that will hear the appeal for Siegelman's vindication.

'After a thorough review of this complex and protracted record, we conclude that Siegelman has satisfied the criteria set out in the statute [providing guidelines for freedom during the appeal process], and has specifically met his burden of showing that his appeal raises substantial questions of law or fact' as set out in other federal statutes, the order said.

Louis Franklin, the chief prosecutor in the case, told the AP at the time of Siegelman's release from prison that he was 'very disappointed' in the ruling.

But contacted Friday, Franklin said he had been instructed not to comment.

'I can't comment on it — I would love to — but I just can't at this point,' he said. 'There was a comment that the attorney general [Michael Mukassey] made which basically said that we would fight this case in court and not in the media and I just feel compelled to follow this directive.'

Kilbourn said it is rare that motions for release on bond pending appeal are granted in the federal system after a judge concludes that the person convicted should be in jail.

But law professor Pam Bucy, an authority on federal procedure at the University of Alabama Law School, said Siegelman's release may have resulted from the extraordinary way in which he was led out of the Montgomery courtroom in shackles immediately upon sentencing.

'Bond appeal motions are granted, on occasion, but not very often,' she said. 'But what was more unusual was that he was locked up immediately on sentencing. That only happens a very small percentage of the time in white collar cases like this, maybe 1 percent or 2 percent of the time.'

In fact, Bucy said, in a case such as Siegelman's 'they usually don't send you to prison at all — they let you remain out on bond until the appeal is resolved, which may be why the appeal court ruled on the motion to release him.'

Siegelman, himself a lawyer, said he was shocked when he was taken out of the courtroom without being allowed to speak to his wife and children.

'Even drug dealers usually are given some time before they have to report to serve their sentence,' he said. 'What happened to me is usually reserved for somebody who has a propensity for violence or is a risk for escape.'

So why does he think he was immediately incarcerated?

'I'll have to let the public make the determination on that,' he said.

Siegelman said after he left the courtroom he was moved to several federal facilities before settling in at Oakdale, La.

'From Montgomery, I went straight to Atlanta to a maximum security prison, where I was kept for not quite three weeks,' he said. 'Then several of us were taken by plane to New York, then to Michigan and to Oklahoma City, where I stayed for six days.

'I thought I was eventually going to the federal prison in Texarkana, which is where I told my wife I was going,' he said. 'But I ended up in Oakdale. It was almost a month before I got there and I was in prison, all total, nine months to the day.'

Asked about his experiences in prison, Siegelman was uncharacteristically reticent.

'I don't know that I really want to talk about it,' he said at first.

'But I will talk about in a general sense and I'll say this: I think people never fully appreciate freedom until it is taken away.'

Reach Tommy Stevenson at tommy.stevenson@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0194.

Poster Comment:

What was the purpose in moving him from prison to prison? To make it difficult for the media to reach him?

Siegelman Speaks Out, Claims Karl Rove Behind Prosecution
posted 11 days ago by robin

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Rove in State of Panic

Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2008-04-19 21:20.

By Mark Crispin Miller

I emailed Scott Horton, to ask him what he makes of Rove's letter--which, I said, "seems to me to be the outburst of a very anxious man."

Here is Scott's reply:

Rove has been described to me by several of my GOP sources in Alabama as being in a state of panic. He has been pressing senior Alabama GOP figures to speak out for him and to attack me and Jill Simpson, as well as CBS and MSNBC. But they're keeping quiet, which shows more political smarts than Rove, frankly. Of course Rove has a simple objective here. He wants to know all the underlying evidence that has been accumulated to make a case against him and he's desperate to know it before he speaks any more about it. Which is precisely why CBS, MSNBC and others will keep things close to the vest.

But just to show you how ridiculous his tantrum is. He asks how I "know" he was involved in strategizing and fundraising. Of course he wants the names of my sources in Alabama so he can have them pressured and pilloried. But his involvement is established just by looking at the White House website. The key fundraising event of the campaign was the July 15, 2002 fundraiser for Riley in Birmingham - it brought in $4 million. It was arranged by Karl Rove, working closely with Bill Canary. President Bush was the featured draw. How can he deny he was involved in fundraising and strategizing? The very effort is absurd.

The evidence linking him to the use of the Siegelman case as a technique is of course thinner. That's because this is a felony, and those involved in it are not going to speak voluntarily. Which is why his denial should be under oath and subject to crossexamination, just as Jill Simpson's was.

robin  posted on  2008-04-20   15:34:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

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