emptywheel quotes from the part of Horton's post that deals with the witness "coaching"--a term that badly trivializes apparent prosecutorial that sounds much more like systematic tampering to me. But see what you think (emphasis added):
Back on February 24, CBS News's Sixty Minutes aired a story on the prosecution of the Siegelman case that contained two bombshells. CBS interviewed Nick Bailey, the former Siegelman aide whose testimony literally sent Siegelman to prison. Bailey told CBS that he was coached and cajoled by prosecutors with more than seventy interviews during which he acknowledged that he didn't recall key points at which they demanded that he testify. He was also coached to write down testimony in the form the prosecutors wanted it, doing so repeatedly until the story was recounted to their liking. I verified this account by interviewing the two individuals who interviewed Bailey on behalf of CBS News. Subsequently I identified another individual who had spoken with Bailey and received the same account from him.
So "Coaching" or "Tampering"? Not asking for a legal opinion, mind you. Just a plain old ordinary citizen-of-the-realm gut-check. What does that extreme level of micro-managing sound more like to you?
However, Horton's post was framed much more broadly in terms of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey's political stonewalling on the case. It begins:
When Attorney General Michael Mukasey appeared as a nominee before the Senate Judiciary Committee, senators led by New York's Chuck Schumer expressed their concern about the highly suspect prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. The questions have continued through almost every appearance that Mukasey has made before both the House and the Senate. Mukasey has persistently refused to provide answers. First, he suggested that the case is something that he can only look into later, after an appeal is completed. But later, as allegations heated up, Mukasey used a standard dodge in his public statements-advising that an internal investigation is underway and that he will share the results with Congress before he leaves office.
Recent developments, however, cast strong doubt on the bona fides of the purported internal investigation. During yesterday's hearing in the Judiciary Committee, Congressman Artur Davis asked Mukasey to explain why prosecutors handling the case-already the target of numerous credible charges of misconduct-engaged in improper ex parte dealings with the trial judge, Mark Everett Fuller, and conducted a separate investigation into a juror in violation of an unequivocal trial order. As usual, he didn't get much of an answer.
The reality of this case is that it's just one part of a much, much larger pattern--and I'm not just talking about the US Attorneys scandal. That scandal itself is just one aspect of the Bush Administration's multi-faceted corruption of the judicial system.
The problem with the Democrats is that they don't even seem to vaguely grasp the sheer magnitude of what the Republicans have done. They're like parking cops giving out tickets to mass murderers and war criminals.
Siegelman was targeted because Rove and the Republicans couldn't defeat him at the polls. Other US Attorneys were sacked because they wouldn't trump up voter fraud cases. Voter fraud cases were trumped up to legitimate voter suppression of minority voters. And the GOP has been doing minority voter suppression for decades on end.
It's unclear, at present, if this connects directly to the outing of Valerie Plame, or only incidentally, as Rove is implicated in both. And the Plame case is connected to the original fraudulent documents used as one of many deceptive means to take us into an illegal war against Saddam Hussein's regime--a regime that was the sworn enemy of those who attacked us on 9/11.
In short, the big picture here is that there's simply no place where GOP criminality leaves off and "normal" policy begins. It's all shot through with criminal intent. And the enormity of what the Republicans have done is simply too much for the Democrats to want to deal with. It's just too big. The "sensible center's" knee-jerk response would be that it's simply preposterous to think that anything so massive as this sort of systemic lawbreaking could take place. It's just crazy talk. And, of course, the Versailles Dems are petrified of being looked at cross-eyed, much less being called "crazy."
But that's what's going on here: a decades-long criminal conspiracy that inextricably bound up with central aspects of Republican electioneering on the one hand, and governance on the other. And Don Siegelman--former governor though he may be--is just one little man caught up in the machinations of this long-running criminal enterprise.
When, oh when, are the Democrats going to stand up and return fire against this gang of criminals? |
