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The reason why Justice hasn’t acted on Siegelman?

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I’ve posted here before about Governor Don Siegelman‘s case, and have been dumbfounded, mystified, and all other such forehead-slapping reactions, as to why the U.S. Department of Justice hasn’t acted on his case.

Justice was something approximating timely in the aftermath of the flawed case against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. There have been many people of no small journalistic, political, and judicial weight who have documented and assessed prosecutorial misconduct in Gov. Siegelman’s case, and called for Justice to do something about it.

But not a peep from Justice.

I’ve been on the list to get email updates on the Siegelman case for a long time, and the latest one has that one little piece of information that starts dispersing the fog around the matter of Justice’s inaction: the involvement of someone very close to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Summarizing the content of the Siegelman email, and the other articles to which it links, would’ve been pretty much like re-inventing the wheel, so I asked Gov. Siegelman if I could reproduce it in its entirety.  The answer was yes, so here it is.

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Tamarah Grimes…had come forward about misconduct in the Siegelman prosecution and wound up losing her job. A second, unnamed whistleblower fears a similar fate, or worse, if he comes forward.

Dear Deborah,

Scott Horton, Legal Affairs writer for Harper’s Magazine, exposes further misconduct in the Siegelman case quoting one member of the prosecution as saying that he would not come forward to expose government misconduct because:

–”you don’t understand, these people would kill me if they have to to keep the lid on this.” And Main Justice? “They’d be happy to learn that I was dead.”

Horton says the person responsible for subverting justice is David Margolas, Deputy Attorney General and the right hand man to Eric Holder. (Who is David Margolas? See Scott Horton’s speech below, 4th page, 3rd full paragraph.)

Please read this article and Horton’s speech linked in The Legal Schnauzer. It is chilling!

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INSIDER ON SIEGELMAN PROSECUTION TEAM FEARS FOR HIS LIFE

A member of the team that prosecuted former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman says he witnessed rampant misconduct in the case but is afraid to come forward out of fear for his life.

Scott Horton, legal-affairs contributor for Harper’s Magazine, made the revelation in a speech last week to the Rotary Club of New York and the American Constitution Society.

Horton says that one Justice Department whistleblower–Tamarah Grimes, of Montgomery–had come forward about misconduct in the Siegelman prosecution and wound up losing her job. A second, unnamed whistleblower fears a similar fate, or worse, if he comes forward.

Horton says he has interviewed both prosecution insiders, and they corroborate statements by key witness Nick Bailey that he was heavily coached and threatened with being outed as a homosexual. Says Horton:

As I note, two members of the prosecution team were appalled by the misconduct that drove the case against Siegelman. One of them filed internal complaints inside the Justice Department. The result? Her name is Tamara Grimes. She was persecuted, hounded, and finally dismissed from her position–in direct violation of the federal whistleblower protection statute.

And what about the second member of the team?

(He) tells me he will not step forward because he knows he would face the same fate. He even indicated the fear of a mob type–”you don’t understand, these people would kill me if they have to to keep the lid on this.” And Main Justice? “They’d be happy to learn that I was dead.”

Horton goes on to summarize the Justice Department’s disgraceful handling of the Siegelman case:

So today, even though the Siegelman case has been torn to shreds in the public and 104 state attorneys general, led by Grant Woods, the national co-chair of the McCain for President campaign, have formally complained about the Justice Department’s gross and abusive handling the case, the Justice Department admits no wrong. It’s even issued a series of brazenly false public statements in an attempt to cover its tracks.

The Siegelman prosecution hardly is an isolated instance of abuse. Horton discusses other justice-related matters, and the full speech can be viewed here.

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