RSS Feed
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Time Magazine looks at Don Siegelman case
This week's article quotes statements from portions of the documents requested by the House Judiciary Committee probe into the Siegelman prosecution, which were withheld by the Department of Justice. Time reports that the documents involve transcripts of lobbyist and landfill developer Clayton "Lanny" Young's discussions with prosecutors and investigators at the U. S. Attorney's office in Montgomery in 2001 and 2002. It was Young, a former crony of Siegelman, who cooperated with federal officials in the successful prosecution of the former governor. The Time story, however, paints a picture that, if true, would make Young an equal opportunity contributor. The magazine says that the documents it has seen show that Young tells prosecutors that he also contributed huge amounts to U. S. Sen. Jeff Sessions when he was either the state's attorney general or seeking that position and to U. S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor when he was seeking to be attorney general in 1998. Time reports that "in November 2001 Young announced that five years earlier he 'personally provided Sessions with cash campaign contributions' according to an FBI memo of the interview." The FBI memo also reveals that Young said on one occasion he "personally provided Sessions with $5,000 to $7,000 using two intermediaries," one of them a worker in the Session campaign. On another occasion the FBI records show that Young talked about providing $10,000 to $15,000 to Sessions and that he had his secretaries and friends write checks to the Sessions campaign and then reimbursed them. A spokesman for Sessions told the magazine that the Sessions campaign only has records of a $1,000 contribution from Young for the 1996 election cycle. Young, according to the FBI report, also told prosecutors that during Pryor's 1998 campaign for attorney general he contributed money through other individuals and named four people. According to Young, a top official on Pryor's campaign "would call and say, 'I need money for this, this or this' and he would take care of the request. According to the memos Young told investigators that he had given them an example of five checks totaling $25,000. Then there were the coffee mugs for Siegelman and Pryor… Young estimated the value of the mugs at $13,000 to $15,000. "I've still got a case of Pryor's cups if y'all want to come and get them." An investigator replied that they didn't "want to touch them right now." Pryor told Time in an e-mail that he does "not have a recollection of the amounts that you describe as having been contributed by Lanny Young or his associates to my campaign." The question then arises according to the Time story…of the possibility that Young never made the contributions, but was merely boasting. But Young, with his attorney present at the interviews, surely knew that lying to prosecutors is a felony and that if he had lied, it would diminish his credibility as a key witness. Amazing stuff…stay tuned. UAB gets $11.5 million for breast cancer study Also on the front of Time this week is a cover story about the spread of breast cancer around the world. In Alabama it has been reported this week that the University of Alabama/Birmingham (UAB) is getting $11.5 million in federal funding to keep its breast cancer research program alive. According to The Birmingham News the funds will be awarded over five years and secures a key program at the medical center that had been threatened by a budget shortfall linked to federal spending in Iraq.
Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. E-mail: bob@montgomeryindependent.com
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
