Siegelman, the In-Justice Department, and another torture cover-up

Prosecutors at the Justice Department who were responsible for former Alaska senator Ted Stevens' trial are now themselves being investigated for criminal misconduct.  The question now is why the Justice Department is trying to prevent a similar investigation into the very fishy prosecution of former Alabama governor, Don Siegelman. 

Scott Horton, who's been on top of this case for years, compares it to the Stevens trial and asks why Eric Holder's Department of Justice is trying to impede any probe into prosecutors of  Don Siegelman who appear to have been politically motivated and operating as lackeys of Bush adviser, Karl Rove.

... In a federal court in Alabama, former Governor Don E. Siegelman seeks a new trial, making virtually identical accusations against Public Integrity prosecutors. He also argues that witnesses were improperly pressured and exculpatory evidence was withheld. His evidence is far more powerful than anything yet presented in the Stevens case. His accusations were recently bolstered when a member of the prosecution team came forward, furnishing a sworn statement corroborating them on the basis of first-hand observations from inside the prosecution effort. Yesterday, the government filed its opposition to the Siegelman motion, submitting papers in the name of William M. Welch II, who as head of the Public Integrity Section is a target in the Stevens investigation. The government insists that the case remain before Mark Fuller, a federal judge that they struggled for years to get the case before. The recently retired chief federal district court judge in Alabama’s northern district, U.W. Clemon, described the prosecutors’ efforts at judicial forum shopping in the Siegelman case as “extraordinary” and “like nothing I have ever seen before” in remarks he delivered in the National Press Club on June 26, which can be viewed here. Judge Clemon disclosed that he had appealed directly to Attorney General Eric Holder to intervene in the case, review the serious misconduct allegations against the prosecution team, and take appropriate action. Clemon advises me that Holder responded to his letter promising to look into the matter, but there is no evidence yet of any action on the part of the attorney general.

But whereas the Stevens case was under the supervision of a judge who looked skeptically into prosecutors’ conduct, the prosecutors in the Siegelman case seem to have found just the judge they wanted. At the time that the public integrity prosecutors were maneuvering to get their case before Judge Fuller, prosecutor Welch had a 36-page affidavit by an attorney laying out detailed claims of misconduct against Fuller for Welch to investigate, a fact which was unknown to Siegelman and his attorneys. In its papers, the government vehemently objects to a new judge, opposes an evidentiary hearing, and also suggests that both the district court and court of appeals considered the defense’s claims of jury tampering and jury misconduct to be harmless. The arguments are clearly designed to head off any serious investigation of the prosecutorial misconduct accusations, particularly the sort of investigation which has now been launched in the Stevens case.

In another post, Horton sees another attempt on the part of the Obama administration to cover up instances of torture and suggests Hillary Clinton may have been party to obstruction of justice.

And speaking of Karl Rove, he may have competition in Rahm Emanuel.  "A cynic studying the latest batch of nominees might conclude that the price of an ambassadorship has soared from roughly $200,000 under the Rovian regime to $500,000 under Rahm Emanuel. Under Barack Obama, the process of political payoff through ambassadorial appointments has matched and appears poised to exceed the already extremely abusive system that Karl Rove put in place under the Bush Administration."