The U.S. Senate approved by voice vote June 30 a new U.S. attorney for Alabama, thereby extending a series of disgraces blighting the federal justice system in that state and nationally. The Senate voted to approve George Beck, 69, to run the Middle District office in Alabama's capital city of Montgomery. The Senate failed to require that Beck, right, appear at a hearing to answer questions about a host of pending issues.
The most important question is how he could supervise personnel in that office who framed former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman after Beck himself represented the main witness who helped secure convictions. It remains as the nation's most notorious political prosecution of the past decade. In 2008, CBS 60 Minutes reported that DOJ's prosecutors coached and threatened Beck's client Nick Bailey in up to 70 interrogations without required disclosure to the defense. Our Justice Integrity Project's four-part investigative series cited below explains further why Beck's role is especially disturbing.
Is the Senate interested in actually serving the public, making sure that citizens understand how the justice system they fund went so haywire? Apparently not. Writes Kreig:
Confirmation hearings and trials are two of the rare moments when the public has a chance to learn the secrets of powerful figures in law enforcement via cross-examination. But the Senate shirked that process and rubber-stamped Beck. Siegelman's 2006 conviction on corruption charges was enabled by the flagrant bias of a partisan Republican trial judge, Mark E. Fuller. He is the chief federal judge in the district. . . . As the trial and appeal moved forward, Fuller secretly obtained $300 million in Bush contracts for Doss Aviation, Inc., a closely held company the judge controls as by far its largest shareholder. The company primarily refuels Air Force planes and trains Air Force pilots, but also makes uniforms for military and civilian federal personnel. . . .
We and others have published countless stories about scandals associated with the Siegelman prosecution and his trial judge, Fuller. Among my investigative reports was one in 2009 describing sworn testimony that Republicans picked Fuller to frame Siegelman. We reported also that Republicans had a plan to steer a $35 billion Air Force contract for mid-air tanker refueling planes to Europe's EADS, manufacturers of Airbus.
Beck was smack in the middle of the Siegelman fiasco, as lawyer for chief government witness Nick Bailey. Beck surely is aware that the entire process had alarming ties to the military-industrial complex. Writes Kreig:
Now 65, Siegelman is temporarily free on appeal bond, but faces resentencing by his nemesis Fuller. The paramilitary undercurrents in the Siegelman case are especially disturbing. The federal government created a special anti-Siegelman strike force headquartered at an Air Force base and led by an Air Force colonel in the reserves. The prosecution took Bailey there for interrogation, helping foster an unusual climate of fear. That climate is especially powerful if one reads 2009 affidavits by Bailey and his friends describing how federal prosecutors pressured Bailey, in serious legal jeopardy because of crimes unrelated to Siegelman, by offering him leniency as well as threatening to expose his sexual partners if he did not do what they wanted. To be fair to Beck, one can argue that he sought and obtained the best deal possible for his client and has remained silent since for those reasons. But the immense discretion and powers of a U.S. attorney require more vetting on overall notions of justice than mere loyalty to one client.
Why did Obama nominate Beck in the first place? Apparently it's because he's been listening to so-called Democrats such as Birmingham lawyer G. Douglas Jones. Jones perhaps has been Beck's most outspoken supporter, and it's curious that both men have clear ties to Republican elites, as we outlined in a previous post:
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