Siegelman Asks For Our Help in Demanding Congress Hold Rove in Contempt


Guest Blogged by Steve Heller of VelvetRevolution.us

"We won't know the truth until Congress digs it out, and that's why it is so incredibly important that anybody that reads your blog...gets on the phone, gets on their computer, or writes Congress and tells them to hold Karl Rove in contempt if he does not show up to testify on July 10th." - Don Siegelman
The torment and imprisonment of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, allegedly via the hands of Karl Rove and his political hitmen operatives, has been extensively covered by The BRAD BLOG.

Over the weekend, Velvet Revolution.us (co-founded by The BRAD BLOG) sat down with him for an exclusive video-taped interview in Alabama. The entire interview will be posted soon, but we have posted two excerpts on YouTube. Both are embedded below.

Siegelman wants you to let Congress know that Rove must face the consequences of his actions. So do we.

Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before Congress tomorrow, July 10th, regarding the politicization of the Justice Department. The House Judiciary Committee wants to question Rove about his knowledge of the persecution prosecution of former Alabama Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman and the U.S. Attorney firing scandal.

But Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has informed the Judiciary Committee that Rove will not attend the hearing.

Luskin has offered to make Rove available to the committee behind closed doors and not under oath. Luskin also insists that there be no transcript of the questioning and that Rove would not respond to written questions from the panel.

The Judiciary Committee has rejected that so-called "compromise."

We join Siegelman's request, as stated in his interview, in asking you to please contact the House Judiciary Committee and your House Representative to politely but firmly insist that they hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress.

You can call the House Judiciary Committee at 202-225-3951 and you can email them via this page.

You can call your House Rep. at 202-224-3121. More contact info for your specific Representative can be found here.


More

let's all help him..............

Thanks for posting this. Here's the link through which you can email the judiciary committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov/members.cfm

I think it's fair for Rove to name his conditions. After all, we are only talking about corrupting the Department of Justice.

No use contacting my representative. I wish I had a congressman with balls, but I've got a Republican: John Doolittle. This man votes with the majority of the Repub. every time. The next person who would be on the congressional committee would be Dan Lungren. This man was pictured standing behind the president while Bush signed the new FISA law the other day. Then there's Diane Feinstein. Need I say more? I need to move to Florida where Wexler would be my congressman.

I can dig that.

Mine is one of the worst scum I have ever seen. David Davis -R


In fact, I despise this slimeball Davis so much that TN420 has received 116 solicited pledges from local Democrats to cross and vote for Phil Roe, Davis' opposition, in the Repig primary.
We're going to do everything we can to remove him.

But you can email the members of the judiciary committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov/members.cfm

Siegelman was on Hartmann this week. Have a listen............

http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/...-_Thom_Hartmann

I already contacted the Judiciary committee. Thanks for the link to the interview, I missed it the other day. I think he should be made to appear, I think he should be sworn in and if he refuses to do so it will then be on the record. I think they should then hold him in contempt and continue to investigate. Maybe get finished and be prepared for trial next summer.

It is becoming a monthly thing to email my representatives. I just emailed the White House, this time it was full of nasty words, I had fun.

I just emailed Finstien and told her, if you and your coworkers can't do your job, and do something about this Rove crap, I am sure we can find you and all of your friends a nice government job in the food services.

Lol, I'd pay to see that.

As much as I'd love to see the criminal put in schakles & carried away, a letter to my rep is 99% a waste of time. My house rep is a repub, a retiring repub. He won't do a darn thing. My senators? Doubtful...

And this session will be over soon, come fall there will be lots of focus on all of the elections.

This administration thinks they are above the law.

Alabama blogger fired from job for writing about Don Siegelman

This is an amazing story.

This guy has been all over the Siegelman story, and also specifically.. corrupt DOJ prosecutor US attorney Alice Martin.

Two stories listed below, one from Rawstory and another one from the original blogger....

Alabama US Attorney denies any involvement in university editor's termination

This 'case is definitely about the first amendment,' says Harper's journalist

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Alabama_blog...tions_0709.html

AND


Blog About Siegelman, Lose Your Job

Getting elected and running for office as a Democrat in Alabama cost former Governor Don Siegelman his freedom. Writing about the Siegelman story has cost me my job.

in Karl Rove's Alabama, you can get fired at a public university for doing your job


At the time of my termination, I did not have so much as an oral warning in my personnel file about the issues UAB claims led to my firing.

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2008/07...e-your-job.html

If you haven't heard of this case, or aren't 100% clear on its details, you owe it to yourself as an American, as a voter, or just as an educated, capable adult human being with any amount of political awareness, to make yourself familiar with this travesty. CBS will only go so far in helping you do it.

This really demonstrates the lengths to which Bush-Cheney's hyper-politicized Department of Justice can go. If they can railroad the actual governor of a state into prison and have pretty much nobody really sit up and take notice, what does that say about the extent of the damage to the country? Not just the DOJ (which is a goner), but about the supposed watchdogs of the media, who've been in large part either cowed into silence, or distracted by an endless stream of shiny objects?

Simpson spoke to Pelley because, she says, Siegelman’s seven-year sentence for bribery bothers her. She recalls what Rove, then President Bush’s senior political adviser, asked her to do at a 2001 meeting in this exchange from Sunday’s report.

"Karl Rove asked you to take pictures of Siegelman?" asks Pelley.

"Yes," replies Simpson.

"In a compromising, sexual position with one of his aides," clarifies Pelley.

"Yes, if I could," says Simpson.

Simpson says she found no evidence of infidelity despite months of observation. She tells Pelley that Rove, who had been a top Republican strategist in Alabama, had made requests for information from her before in her capacity as an "opposition researcher" for Republicans running for office.


Kagro X reviewed the key elements back in February, and Scott Horton of Harper's has a wealth of detail. Basically, Siegelman was the one Democrat in Alabama whom Republicans could never defeat at the ballot box, so Karl Rove used every means at his disposal to ruin Siegelman, from attempting to secure photos of marital infidelity (he committed none) to, ultimately, turning the Department of Justice into a political wing of the Bush-Cheney Administration bent on destroying Democrats by pressing trumped-up corruption charges against him.

http://www.harpers.org/subjects/DonSiegelman

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/22/122547/094

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/2...1368/307/518357

Thinks? Try proven...

The hit list of folks trying to uphold the law is mind-boggeling. And It will continue to grow each and every day that the Congress remains cover for the King Bush administration. Just a few names come to mind right now--
Bunnington, Edmonds, were at the beggining, then we went tru the Plame gate affairand who even knows the nameless that were murdered over that ..........what about news commentators that got the shaft for not pandering to the daily propaganda, Rather, Donnahue, and we will probably never know all those names....

Rove, DeLay, Cheney, Bush, Wolfie, and Rummie have a long trail of bodies to speak for. and we are likely to never hear their stories in this sordid kabal, yet every day we get to watch someone like Joe Scarbourgh talk smak on the TV, right there in our 'basement'.

From "Talking Points Memo"

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility reached out for the first time to the Don Siegelman camp on Monday, asking in a letter to Siegelman's attorney for "information and documents that would assist" them in investigation the allegations that the "selective and politically motivated" prosecution of the former Alabama governor.
Talking Points Memo Link

Until the Justice Department is totally cleaned out, I wouldn't give them a damn thing!! Please Governor Siegelman...don't be fooled again!

Whitewash or stonewall? Siegelman prosecutor being investigated for misconduct...Alabama Prosecutor Being Investigated- TPM Link

I don't trust this Gonzolez/Mukasey justice department as far as I can spit... this is either a stall for the longest investigation in history, or this will be a complete whitewash! We can't let this story die.... It's also the one good thing that Dan Abram's show "Verdict" is doing!!!

However, this story became even more twisted when a long time Alabama Republican attorney who had handled opposition research for Bob Riley's 2002 campaign against Siegelman came forward with some astonishing allegations. Dana Jill Simpson had spent the 2002 election cycle digging into Don Siegelman's background. In 2007, Simpson filed an affidavit in which she alleged direct White House involvement in the 2002 Alabama election. According to Simpson's affidavit, Siegelman had conceded the election and did not push for a recount because Riley's team had threatened him with prosecution if he did not withdraw from the race. In addition, Simpson also revealed an alleged conference call that took place on November 17, 2002 between herself, Bill Canary, Rob Riley-Governor Bob Riley's son-and other members of the Riley campaign:

"Rob Riley told her in early 2005 that his father and a Republican operative met with Rove months earlier to discuss Siegelman's prosecution. Simpson said Rob Riley told her Rove spoke to Bob Riley and William Canary. 'He proceeds to tell me that Bill Canary and Bob Riley had had a conversation with Karl Rove again, and that they had this time gone over and seen whoever was the head of the department' at Justice overseeing the Siegelman prosecution, Simpson testified."

Before Simpson testified before the House Judiciary Committee, her house was burned down and her car was run off the road. Simpson was not the only one to have had experienced such bizarre misfortune. Dana Siegelman, Don Siegelman's daughter, said that her family's home was twice broken into during the trial and that Siegelman's attorney had had his office broken into as well.

read it all

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/92158

In a classic non-denial denial, Karl Rove makes it clear that he did talk to people about Siegelman's prosecution--even while he denies that he spoke to anyone in DOJ about it.

Rove has submitted answers to questions that Lamar Smith decided to ask him about Siegelman, in lieu of actually showing up before Congress and answering questions that someone without an interest in covering up Republican politicized prosecutions might ask.

We can talk about these documents in more detail in comments (and I'll post a timeline in a follow-up post). But here's the most important part of the question and answers. Smith repeatedly asks Rove whether or not he ever communicated with:

read this

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/07/...bout-siegelman/

and this (pdf)

Karl Rove's answers to questions from the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee -

http://static1.firedoglake.com/28/files//2...e-questions.pdf

Karl Rove has been accused of threatening a primary witness in for the plaintiffs in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell. Check out Brad Blog as well as ePluribusMediafor a backgrounder on the new "IT Forest Gump" genious computer Guru who has handled IT business for the Republicans since they lost New Hampshire in 2000.


The attorney spearheading the case, Arnebeck, at 10:30 AM this morning sent the following email to: to Attorney General Mukassey requesting witness protection for Mike Connell who has now turned witness in this intriguing case.....

Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 10:51 AM
To: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Subject: Report of Rove threats against witness Michael Connell

Dear Attorney General Mukasey:

We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to "take the fall" for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations.This appears to be in response to our designation of Rove as the principal perpetrator in the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim with respect to which we issued document hold notices last Thursday to you and to the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform. See: www.bradblog.com/?p=6189 and www.archive.org/d...tionFraudInOhioCourtCase.

I have informed court chambers and am in the process of informing the Ohio Attorney General's and US Attorney's offices in Columbus for the purpose, among other things, of seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness.

Concurrently herewith, I am informing Mr. Conyers and Mr. Kucinich in connection with their Congressional oversight responsibilities related to these matters.

Because of the serious engagement in this matter that began in 2000 of the Ohio Statehouse Press Corps, 60 Minutes, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, C-Span and Jim VandeHei, and the public's right to know of gross attempts to subvert the rule of law, I am forwarding this information to them, as well.

Cliff Arnebeck, Attorney
###-###-####
Cell ###-###-####

cc: Robert Fitrakis, Esq.
Henry Eckhart, Esq

Lots to read here -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/24/23...5286/690/556620

July 25,2008 Interview

http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/...-_Thom_Hartmann

An ongoing lawsuit in Montgomery, Alabama, might pull back the curtain on Republican corruption in the Deep South, providing insights on the Jack Abramoff money trail and activities that led to the Don Siegelman prosecution.

Insurance executive John Goff filed a lawsuit in March 2007 against Gov. Bob Riley, former Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, Insurance Commissioner Walter Bell, and others, alleging they conspired to destroy Goff's workers compensation business.

The Montgomery Independent reports that depositions have been scheduled over the past two weeks, through today:

more -

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2008/09...t-on.html#links