Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Don Siegelman's book, "Stealing Our Democracy," promises an inside look at perhaps the most notorious political prosecution in U.S. history -- and it's set for release in June from New South Books of Montgomery




Don Siegelman's book about the political prosecution that sent him to federal prison for roughly six years is set for release in June. Siegelman, the most recent Democrat to serve as governor of Alabama (199 to 2003), wrote most of the book while incarcerated at a facility in Oakdale, Louisiana.

Titled Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation, the book is being published by Montgomery-based New South books. It now is available for pre-order via Amazon, New South Books, and other outlets, with a release date of June 16, 2020.

Stealing Our Democracy comes on the heels of Atticus v. the Architect, a 2017 documentary about the Siegelman case (directed by Steve Wimberly). "The Architect" is a reference to Karl Rove, Republican consultant and senior policy advisor and deputy chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration.

Here is a summary of the Siegelman book:

In a searing political memoir, former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman explodes the myth of an impartial U.S. justice system. He should know. Arguably the most successful and promising politician in modern Alabama history, his three-decade career in public service ran afoul of Republican opponents who used the federal judicial system to take him out of contention in Alabama and nationally. Siegelman ultimately was sentenced to 88 months in federal prison and served five years, with long stretches in solitary confinement during which he was a literal political prisoner, cut off from interviews and outside contact. Stealing Our Democracy reveals how Siegelman’s enemies (including politicized prosecutors and a corrupt judge) stripped him of his freedom, his career, and his law license, and deprived him of his family and friends. His is an intensely personal account of how our system can fail and be abused for political greed. And if it could happen to him, he writes, it can happen to any of us, particularly in an era when Donald Trump is abusing his power and using the Department of Justice as a political weapon to defend himself and to destroy those who oppose him. Siegelman draws on his experience as a public servant and an inmate to show why the nation’s prisons must be reformed along with our system of indictment, prosecution, and sentencing. Finally, Stealing Our Democracy offers a blueprint for voters in 2020 of what must be done to preserve democracy.

In the video below, Siegelman discusses his plans to write a book with Bill Britt, editor of Alabama Political Reporter.



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