Questions Mount about Dem Governor Prosecution

Ex-Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL) is again questioning the motives and impartiality of the prosecutors who want to put him away for 30 years. And the prosecutors keep giving him good reason to.

Siegelman’s sentencing hearing, which has extended into its second day today, has provoked his latest assertions.

His lawyers have also raised objections to prosecutors supporting their call for an extraordinarily tough sentence by using evidence connected to charges on which Siegelman was acquitted. Siegelman was charged with 32 counts, but acquitted of 25. According to the New York Times, Siegelman’s lawyers have had it:

“The government is asking that he be penalized for every single thing he was charged with, whether he was acquitted or not,” said Susan James, a Siegelman lawyer. “The government drastically lost the case,” she said. “We strongly object to the court considering acquitted conduct.”

This is not the first time Siegelman has called his prosecution biased. He has long maintained that the investigation was based on a Republican vendetta. He’s pointed to an affidavit signed by Republican lawyer Dana Jill Simpson to support his claim.

As we’ve detailed before, Simpson says she heard Bill Canary, a state GOP operative, say Karl Rove had promised to get the Justice Department on Siegelman. Canary also allegedly said he’d get his “girls” on Siegelman, referring to two of the US attorneys in the state.

One of those US attorneys is Canary’s wife. After launching an investigation, she was forced to recuse herself from the case after objections from Siegelman’s lawyers. The head prosecutor on Siegelman’s case now, Acting US Attorney Louis V. Franklin, has claimed he has had complete independence from Canary. He even goes so far as to say he was solely responsible for Siegelman’s case.

But there is reason to think he protests too much.

Franklin released a statement after Simpson’s affidavit surfaced saying he was completely independent of Canary. But some of his statements didn’t jibe:

“I can, however, state with absolute certainty that the entire story is misleading because Karl Rove had no role whatsoever in bringing about the investigation or prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman. It is intellectually dishonest to even suggest that Mr. Rove influenced or had any input into the decision to investigate or prosecute Don Siegelman” Franklin said. “That decision was made by me, Louis V. Franklin, Sr., as the Acting US attorney in the case, in conjunction with the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.”

According to Franklin’s own statement, there was another assistant US attorney who handled the case for months before he started, making it hard to reconcile his claim that the “decision to investigate or prosecute Don Siegelman” was his own.

Franklin also said in his three-page statement that he had never even taken a look at the affidavit, making his claim that its author must be “intellectually dishonest,” a possibly unfair conclusion.

And Franklin used much stronger language to clear Rove, than Rove did himself. When one reporter got the chance to question the White House strategist on having a hand in the prosecution, he skirted answering by saying he knew nothing of the call. No one has accused Rove of being on the call described by Simpson, just that his name was mentioned. The White House has given an official “no comment” on the issue.