They Did What !

All people in this country must be able to trust that criminal prosecutions are based on an unbiased prosecutor’s estimation of the strength of the evidence and the application of the law, and not on someone’s political portfolio. Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers

On October 23, 2007 a House Judiciary Subcommittee held a hearing on "Allegations of Selective Prosecution: The Erosion of Public Confidence in Our Federal Justice System.”

• A Republican former Attorney General of the United States described his deep concern that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has misused its prosecutorial power for political reasons.
• A former U.S. attorney recounted disturbing facts suggesting that DOJ officials may have overridden the judgments of local career prosecutors for political reasons.
• Witnesses described investigators who seem to have targeted individuals to find crimes, rather than investigating crimes which led to the individuals.
• Numerous cases from various states were mentioned where individuals stepped forward to present facts giving rise to fears that justice itself has been compromised - for political reasons.
• There was data from a Ph.D. professor showing a massive disparity in investigations and prosecutions of Democrats over Republicans during the Bush Administration.

Below are just a few examples of the selective prosecutions brought to the attention of the Judiciary Committee.

U.S. V. DONALD SIEGELMAN (M.D. ALA) Forty-four former attorneys general, both Democratic and Republican, petitioned the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to investigate the circumstances surrounding the investigation, prosecution, sentencing and detention of Don Siegleman, former governor of Alabama. A sworn affidavit by a lawyer who worked in the campaign of Siegelman’s opponent in the 2006 gubernatorial contest, stated that the spouse of the federal prosecutor in this case said his wife and another federal prosecutor would “take care of” Mr. Siegleman and that he had talked with a political operative for the White House concerning such assurances. There are disturbing questions about partisanship in the judicial system concerning the involvement of three sitting federal judges. One of these concerns the federal judge who heard the case. He was, at the same time, a federal contractor dependent on the administration for those contracts, an obvious conflict of interests. This same judge previously accused Siegleman of being responsible for an investigation into his accounting practices when he was district attorney resulting in an embarrassing situation for him. Evidence has emerged that Karl Rove was in direct contact with the head of the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ and explicitly encouraged him to go after Mr. Siegleman.

PROSECUTION OF GEORGIA STATE SENATOR CHARLES WALKER, SR. This case reeks of political motivation with racial undertones. The U.S. Attorney who started the investigation, seemingly at the behest of Walker’s political opponent, was himself investigated and found to have abused his office resulting in his resignation. The judge whose nomination had been opposed by Walker, was known to have belonged to clubs that discriminated on a racial basis. His interference with jury selection resulted in four jurors who knew they had been stricken being reinstated therefore creating a racial biased jury.

U.S. V. THOMPSON, CASE NO. 06-CR-20 (EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN) State procurement section chief Georgia Thompson’s prosecution was a flimsy case that was overturned on appeal. But before she was cleared, Thompson’s defense cost her all her life savings, her job and her home. In addition to thin evidence, the timing and location of her prosecution is suspect. Ms. Thompson was brought to trial in the Eastern District of Wisconsin (Milwaukee) although she lived and worked in state government in the Western District (Madison). The ongoing investigation was announced in the fall of 2005, She was indicted in January 2006, the trial began that summer and Thompson was sentenced in September before the gubernatorial election in November. During that entire period, millions of dollars of Republican ads ran depicting Ms. Thompson as a symbol of corruption in the incumbent Democratic governor’s administration.

UNITED STATES V. FIEGER, DOCKET NO. 07-20414 (E.D. MICH) : Geoffrey Fieger was targeted by the DOJ based on his financial support to the John Edwards 2004 presidential campaign. With the express approval of AG Alberto Gonzales, nearly 100 federal agents raided the Michigan law office of Fieger, Fieger, Kenney and Johnson. Simultaneously federal agents appeared at the homes of nearly all the employees of the Fieger firm. Convening a 2 year grand jury, federal prosecutors, trashed First Amendment protections, compelling individuals, under threat of the DOJ, to reveal for whom they voted in the presidential election as well as their history of donations to political candidates. One charge against Mr. Fieger was making contributions “in the name of another” because he gave bonuses to his employees who voluntarily made contributions to John Edwards in their own names and with their own funds. With this theory, the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department has free reign to charge almost any employer or corporate employee with a crime. Or to put it simply, you are vulnerable if you receive a bonus from your employer and also make political contributions.

PROSECUTION OF OLIVER E. DIAZ, JR. PRESIDING JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT OF MISSISSIPPI A federal prosecutor decided to look into the financial activities of a specific citizen, Paul Minor, in an attempt to see if those transactions could be construed as a federal offense. This U.S, Attorney had personal and political motivations to see that Minor and his co-defendants were convicted. Minor was an attorney who had successfully represented clients suing the family business of the prosecutor. Minor was also one of the largest donors to John Edwards and the largest single donor to Democratic candidates in Mississippi including Judge Diaz in his campaign for the Mississippi Supreme Court. As a judge on the Court of Appeals, Diaz had ruled against this same federal prosecutor in several cases. Diaz was indicted, tried and fully acquitted twice. The three other men, including Minor, have been sentenced to lengthy terms in federal prison. They were selected for prosecution based solely on their political activities, charged when others who have done the same things were not. One of those not charged is Trent Lott’s brother-in-law.

RECENT STUDY BY TWO UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS Authors: Donald C. Shields, Ph.D. (University of Minnesota, 1974) is Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, University of Missouri - St. Louis. John F. Cragan (University of Minnesota, 1972) is Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, Illinois State University.

Study data indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops. This is a politicized ratio that is completely unparalleled by any other Public Integrity Section in recent history.

As Phil Smith wrote in his Report from Birmingham:

“This is ultimately not about Republicans or Democrats, because when the already high price attached to the blood sport of politics and public service has been elevated to an individual’s complete destruction, a ruined career, and imprisonment, everyone loses. Everyone.”

The cases listed above are from documents found on the House Judiciary Committee website.
(Google: house judiciary oversight selective prosecution)