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Our Opinions All during his indictment, subsequent trial and conviction, former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman kept saying it was all a sham and an effort to "get him" by the Republicans. He is keeping up the protest, via his lawyers, from some federal prison deep in Louisiana. We paid little attention to his allegations initially but the more we hear, the more we wonder. Jill Simpson, a Rainesville lawyer, signed an affidavit saying she overheard a telephone conservation that linked White House counselor Karl Rove to a plot to use the U.S. Justice Department to go after Siegelman when Siegelman, the incumbent governor, was battling Republican Bob Riley for the governor's job. Simpson testified behind closed doors to investigators for the House Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago. The committee is looking into allegations of misconduct by the justice department, including the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. All of this would have seemed like movie plot conspriracy theories at one time. However, Rove, who has since resigned his White House counselor job is nothing more than a political henchman. Ditto for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who has also resigned amid accusatins of using his position for political purposes. What runs up a flag is the request by Siegelman attorneys for copies of any documents relating to the recusal of Leura Canary, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, from the Siegelman prosecution because of husband Bill Carnary's association with Rover and the GOP. Siegelman's lawyers were initially told by the U.S. Justice Department that no documents existed. Siegelman's side appealed and, lo and behold, the justice department "found" 516 pages of information relating to Canary's recusal. However, the justice department said it would release only two pages of the document- the press release announcing Canary's recusal. It was not disclosed why the other 514 pages were not released. The New York Times, in an editorial about who the next attorney general should be, references the political currents that too often influenced justice department decisions. "...Congress is investigating whether Georgia Thompson, a Wisconsin civil servant, and Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama, were sent to jail to help Republicans win governorships in those states." The withheld 514 pages of U.S. Justice Department documents must contain some interesting information for them to be withheld from the public. Finding out what's in them is important to seeing if politics did enter into the Siegelman conviction. It is important to determine if Siegelman was railroading and if he should remain in that faraway Louisiana prison or be set free, as all political prisoners should be.
The House Judiciary Committee can probably subpoena the 514 pages and promptly should.
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