Siegelman: Americans need Karl Rove to testify Joe Byrne

Published: Wednesday February 18, 2009





Print This Email This This article has been retracted by the editors due to insertion of opinion in a news article. Allegations that former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was involved in pushing for a prosecution in Alabama have not been proven.



Don Siegelman has a right to hear Karl Rove testify on his activity during the Bush administration. If it wasn't for him, Siegelman wouldn't have spent the last decade fighting unfounded allegations and politically-motivated prosecution.



Siegelman had everything you need in the political world - popularity, a governor's chair and a clean track record - until he found himself on the wrong end of Rove's agenda. Siegelman had made enemies during his time as the Lieutenant Governor of Alabama, working on lawsuits against the tobacco industry in his state. Rove and veteran GOP operative Bill Canary were employed as strategists for the tobacco lobby and also by the campaign to re-elect William Pryor, another tobacco industry lobbyist, as Alabama's attorney general. Pryor quickly opened an investigation into the newly-elected Governor Siegelman. When Bill Canary's wife was appointed by the White House as US attorney general in 2001, a federal investigation of Siegelman picked up where Pryor left off. The result of that four year investigation was 32 convictions of bribery and other crimes. Siegelman was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison and was immediately whisked off to a series of out-of-state jails, not even being allowed to remain free on bond while his appeal was under way.



Shortly before the sentencing, however, suspicions expressed by Alabama observers that there was something "fishy" about the case -- as Scott Horton of Harper's Magazine would later put it -- began to reach the national stage. What initially appeared to be merely a whiff of possible political corruption became something stronger, with allegations that Karl Rove and the Bush Justice Department had been operating behind the scenes. Raw Story published a four-part article on the Siegelman case in November 2007, which was nominated for an investigative journalism award by the Online News Association, and which can be found here .



Karl Rove has been subpoenaed and is due to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Monday in connection with the firing of nine US attorneys and the Don Siegelman case. However, the Obama administration is advising Congress not to force a Rove testimony, John Byrne reported yesterday. Obama is sensitive to protecting the institution of the presidency, and doesn't want to risk diluting his own executive privilege by negating the Bush decision. Obama's lawyers believe they can reach a settlement with Rove.



In an e-mail sent to RAW STORY today, Don Siegelman expressed his support for John Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee in their investigation of the backstage activity of the Bush administration. ï¿½There should be no deal offered to Karl Rove, no grant of executive privilege, no immunity, and no accommodation,ï¿½ Spiegelman said. ï¿½What the American people want and need to begin the process of restoring justice is for Karl Rove to be brought before the committee, placed under oath, and forced to answer the tough questions about his abuse of power and the use of the Department of Justice as a political weapon.ï¿½



One of Obama's most popular campaign promises was to expose the secrets of the Bush administration and reform the way the executive branch interacted with the judicial branch. In 2007, while in the Senate, Obama rebuked Bush's White House as "the most secretive in modern history," which aimed "to hide its abuse of our justice system."



Responding to a Bush claim of executive privilege, he said , "By continuing to act as the most secretive White House in modern history, the Bush Administration has once again placed itself above the law in order to hide its abuse of our justice system from the American people. On the first day of an Obama Administration, we will launch the most sweeping ethics reform in history to shed sunlight on the decisions made by government and put the interests of the American people at the center of every decision that's made."



Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told Raw Story last week that no agreement had been reached between the Obama and Bush teams. Although Rove has clearly stated that he will not show for the hearing, the House Judiciary Committee hearing is still set for next Monday.





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