Monday, August 10, 2009

Are Holder's GOP Ties Subverting Justice in Political Prosecutions?

Attorney General Eric Holder has shown little or no inclination to intervene in apparent Bush-era political prosecutions involving Democrats, such as Don Siegelman in Alabama and Paul Minor in Mississippi.

So far, Holder has intervened in federal prosecutions involving Republicans, most notably the case of former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK).

Why does Holder seem content to let the Siegelman and Minor cases languish? Alabama attorney and Siegelman-case whistleblower Jill Simpson says she might have the answer.

Simpson, a former opposition researcher for the Republican Party in Alabama, is skilled at tracking down information. She learned that Holder, before being named Barack Obama's attorney general, worked for a Washington, D.C., law firm called Covington & Burling. And what did Simpson discover about that august firm?


The tip I got was that the firm had a very important client. His name was George W Bush. And they represented a very important organization . . . called the Republican National Committee. I was in shock when I checked it--and it was true.

My favorite research item I ran across is when they were protecting the RNC from having to turn over Karl Rove's e-mails that were run on the RNC servers. It shocked me. Plus I found it mighty interesting that AG Eric Holder never enlightened anyone about his conflicts of coming from a big Washington, D.C., law firm that represented the National Republic Committee and George W. Bush in the 2000 election contest.

Simpson notes that Holder's favorable treatment of Republicans hardly stops with the Stevens case. She lists the Tobin phone-jamming case in New Hampshire, the Kott case in Alaska, and the Abramoff/Feeney case in Florida as examples of the Holder DOJ killing GOPers with kindness. What does Simpson make of it?


It has long been reported that the expenses in those cases were picked up by the RNC. That same RNC paid AG Holder's law firm, and that law firm paid AG Holder more than $2 million last year.

Shame on AG Holder. He had an ethical duty to tell the citizens of America he had a conflict in investigating all of these cases and all the torture cases--and instead he tried to ignore it or hide it instead of doing the right thing and getting out of the cases.

Is Simpson willing to let bygones be bygones. Oh, no. She says Holder should be forced to step down:


(Holder) has ignored to date all the Democrats in this country who . . . have proof that they were politically targeted by the RNC and Karl Rove. And he has not done the right thing and asked President Obama to appoint a special counsel--all along knowing he has a conflict because of his firm's representation of the RNC.

Since Holder has done all this, he should be immediately removed from this position of power. Innocent men are in jail, and he has played games.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been wondering about these cases for many months, having (naively) expected that these cases would be addressed rather immediately.

Anonymous said...

It's beginning to look like Ralph Nader might have been correct when he claimed there wasn't a nickel's worth of difference between the two major parties.

Was that an airborne swine???

Janine Nichols said...

This is VERY distressing, but it's the first thing I've read that makes any sense of the AG's actions, or lack thereof. Why didn't facts enumerated here emerge during Holder's confirmation hearings? Am I supposed to believe that the careful Obama, who took months to select a puppy, didn't know?

I'm shocked to find myself calling for Holder's resignation 200 days in, but life's full of rude awakenings.

DoubtingDot said...

Have any of you ever even considered the possibility that Siegleman and Paul Minor are guilty as sin or do you have too much agenda to try and push that it is all political prosecution? I mean give the readers a break occasionally and stop your continual bantering about this as if you have all the knowledge and you are the judges and jury. It's tiresome.

daelv said...

I am absolutely APPALLED.
JUst like Kerry taking election advice from from a Republican Law firm in Cincinatti. Gad, how NAIVE are these Democrats????

What do they think?

I say out with Holder, this is an aggegious error of justice.

Where is the petition?

Colinjames said...

Dear DoubtingDot:

Have you been following these cases for the last few years? Do you have any idea how much evidence of corruption and misconduct there is in this awful affair? If not, here's some reading material for you:

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/The_Permanent_Republican_Majority_1125.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/The_permanent_Republican_majority_Daughter_of_1127.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/The_Permanent_Republican_Majority_Part_III_1216.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/How_Bush_US_attorney_riddled_with_0401.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Diaz_placeholder_0408.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Breakins_plague_Justice_Department_whistleblowers_0430.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Justice_for_Sale_How_Big_Tobacco_0828.html

Justice Hunter said...

Thanks for the article. It may help to explain another Holder mystery. In March, Senator John Kerry called on Holder to intervene in a matter where an illegally appointed immigration judge refused to grant asylum to a gay man who had been brutally raped (http://kerry.senate.gov/cfm/record.cfm?id=310065). Judge Francis Cramer said the man's testimony was "credible" and his fear "genuine," but ruled rape is not "physical harm" and denied the petition.

Four months later, Holder is still ignoring Kerry's request, while allowing the illegally appointed judge (a GOP fundraiser with no immigration experience) to stay in his job (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001229_pf.html.