The Victims

• Don Siegelman
• Paul. S. Minor
• Wes Teel
• Oliver Diaz
• Roger Shuler
• John Whitfield

The Villains

• Karl Rove
• Department of Justice
• Bush Administration

The Patterns

• Pattern One: Win at any cost
• Pattern Two

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• Scott Horton / Harper's Magazine
• Larisa Alexandrovna / at-Largely
• Jackson Free Press

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In a letter dated December 12, 2008 Hiram C. Eastland, attorney for Paul Minor, asked House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether the selective prosecution of Paul Minor by Bush Justice Department attorneys was politically motivated. Although the committee directed the Justice Departments Office of Professional Responsibility and its Inspector General’s Office to investigate whether Minor was selectively prosecuted more than eight months ago, “no specific response regarding Paul Minor has been forthcoming.”

The letter closes “. . . justice and fairness demands that a truly independent investigation be undertaken by a special prosecutor with the necessary tools to ensure that the thoughtful objectives of your Committee are accomplished. The public’s confidence that America’s criminal justice system does not in any way tolerate taking political prisoners, Democrat or Republican, and the public’s confidence in the Justice Department’s prosecutive decisions will only be restored when all parties having a role in Paul Minor and other political defendants’ political prosecutions across the country are fully investigated, held accountable and brought to justice.”

You can read the full letter here.

John Byrne and Larisa Alexandrovna have a new story posted at Raw Story as part of their investigative series on the political prosecutions of Governor Siegelman, Paul Minor and others.

“Alabama Governor Don Siegelman had it all — popularity, a governor’s chair and a seemingly normal politician’s life — until he found himself on the other end of a US Attorney appointed by President George W. Bush.

Siegelman, who was convicted of corruption charges in 2006, was released on bail last April pending appeal after media reports — including those of Raw Story — revealed myriad irregularities surrounding his prosecution.

Among the relevations: the husband of the US Attorney who prosecuted Siegelman was a close associate of former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and worked as campaign manager for one of Siegelman’s gubernatorial opponents. An Alabama Republican whistleblower said that Siegelman was deliberately targeted and fingered Rove, asserting that he’d said he’d push the Justice Department to end Siegelman’s political career.”

Read the full story here.

The House Judiciary Committee issued a report on abuses of power by the Bush Administration called “Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush.” The report is a comprehensive exploration of all the ways in which the Bush administration abused its powers.

The report covers abuses that are familiar: secret domestic wire-tapping, torture, extraordinary rendition, and so on. But it also highlights - putting first and foremost - a section called “Politicization of the Justice Department.” It explores in detail the way in which the Bush administration used a department with enormous powers, which is supposed to administer the law impartially, for partisan purposes. 

The report points to the prosecutions of Governor Siegelman, Georgia Thompson, and Cyril Wecht, as well as Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz and Paul Minor and says, “Each of these matters presented at best a questionable exercise of prosecutorial discretion, and they often involved charges that appear to have elevated routine political fund-raising or similarly mundane conduct into aggressive federal criminal charges.”

It is difficult to argue, in light of the extensive, detailed evidence compiled in the report, that the Bush administration was not engaged in political prosecutions. Congress has subpoenaed extensive information in connection with these matters and is still awaiting many answers. The report seems designed to remind people that Congress is still demanding a great deal of information about these prosecutions and that once the new administration comes in, a great deal of that was previously hidden will likely be released.

You can read the full report here.

A story in the New York Times, based on an internal investigation conducted by the Justice Department, reported that a former Justice Department official carried out a partisan campaign to ensure that only conservative Republicans worked at the Justice Department. Bradley Schlozman was in charge of hiring for the Civil Rights Division of the Bush Administration Justice Department. In his own emails, voice mails and other internal documents, he talked about ”reshaping the political makeup of the Civil Rights Division and doing away with ‘pinko’ and ‘crazy lib’ lawyers and others he did not consider ‘real Americans.’”

Mr. Schlozman’s bias was clear. “When a colleague reported that he had been given an office next to a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal affairs group, Mr. Schlozman responded in an e-mail message: ‘Just between you and me, we hired another member of ‘the team’ yesterday. And still another ideological comrade will be starting in one month. So we are making progress.’”

According to the Times: “The report found that Mr. Schlozman had selected conservative lawyers for prime assignments and transferred three lawyers out of the Civil Rights Division because they were seen as liberals who were opposed to his political agenda. All three later brought federal discrimination claims and returned to the division after Mr. Schlozman left. The transfers, the report found, violated federal civil service law and ‘constituted misconduct.’”

When Justice Department officials are chosen for ideological reasons, it should not be surprising if partisan prosecutions result.

Read the entire story here.

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