Sunday, February 24, 2008

Karl Rove And The U.S. Justice Department

This, from "60 Minutes", linked from Wake Up Call, Missouri is a story of how the former Democratic governor of Alabama was convicted of bribery and is currently serving a 7 year prison term in a federal prison in Louisianna. The main charge against Siegelman was that he gave a position on a state board to businessman Richard Scrushy, in return for a substantial contribution from Scrushy to a campaign to bring a lottery to Alabama. Siegelman was a proponent of the lottery.

The 60 Minutes story looks at two issues with the case, (1) Was Siegelman targeted by the Justice Department for political reasons; and, (2) Was Siegelman guilty. Karl Rove, who played an integral role in the Siegelman case, has refused to discuss his role and the White House and Justice Department have not cooperated with an investigation by Congress. The Siegelman case is just one part of a series of allegations regarding the Bush administration's use of the Justice Department for political purposes.

Here is an Alabama Blog that has a lot of postings about the Siegelman affair: The Legal Schnauzer.

Bus Riders: do you think this could happen, has happened, in Missouri? From little acorns do mighty trees grow?

2 comments:

Rick Fischer said...

Jim,
Great link to the Alabama blog. As to your question, yes this does happen in Missouri on both the state and federal level. "Its political" is the first and most effective defense of every politician and it works. Someday I hope to be able to write about some of the cases.

Jason said...

In today's political environment I would say it would be more likely you'd get struck by lightning three times walking to the mailbox and live than it would be for this not to have happened in Missouri. It's just the nature of the beast.