Rove and the other Republicans named have disputed Simpson's accounts. But none of them have provided sworn public testimony under cross-examination, as she is willing to do.
Any future public testimony would build on more than 150 pages of her existing 2007 House testimony where Republicans badgered her and Democrats urged her to avoid discussing some of her most explosive testimony unless directly asked. Rove has denied wrongdoing in the Siegelman case in his 2010 book Courage and Consequence and in his carefully negotiated House Judiciary Committee testimony that I have described as a whitewash, as have other commentators.
Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan elected in 1964, issued detailed reports about political prosecutions during the Bush years and blustered for years about how he wanted to question Rove under oath about the evidence. But Obama's "look forward" policies of justice have seemed to tie the chairman's hands, much like the imprisonment of his wife Monica on federal bribery charges.
As a result, the craven mindset of the Democratic Committee majority and its staff was illustrated by a staffer's attempt to curry favor with the witness Rove by disparaging Simpson to him, as Rove describes in his book.
Rove further states that his chief interrogator, California Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, "was clearly not prepared." That is no surprise to close observers of the case. The committee has never interviewed key witnesses to develop a tight framework of questions for Rove and others regarding the Siegelman case and similar political prosecutions across the nation.
The Supreme Court in June vacated Siegelman's convictions under the disputed "honest services" counts, despite the Obama DoJ's arguments by then-Solicitor General Kagan that the court should affirm his convictions. The DoJ had argued that not one reasonable person in the entire United States would think Fuller should have to recuse himself under the relevant legal standard for appearance of bias. The DoJ argued also the former governor, now 64, should receive 20 years additional prison time. Scrushy, portrayed below with one of his nine children, remains serving his seven-year term. All of his offenses, and most of Siegelman's, were for Scrushy's donations to the non-profit Alabama Education Foundation at Siegelman's request to advocate for a lottery to fund more school spending.
Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy and son (courtesy Scrushy family)
Siegelman, still free on bond, faces an important hearing Jan. 19 before a Republican-dominated federal appeals court that has consistently rejected his and Scrushy's arguments.
Threats
As for Simpson, she and two other sources have told me that the FBI passed on to her a threat on her life regarding her work. The FBI called her home to advise her on protective measures after hearing of the threat, which was passed on by a well-intentioned law enforcement source in Alabama whom I have interviewed.
Despites such vicissitudes, she says the Justice Department's own hostility at its highest levels to accountability and an informed public represents main threat to whistleblowers and justice -- and ultimately to our nation's democracy. Her statement in full is:
"Whistleblowers have known for a long time that the Obama administration doesn't respect the desire of whistleblowers to bring truth to our nation's shores. The Obama Administration would rather hide the lies our government tells our citizens and prosecute the whistleblowers. It is easier, they think, than admitting the truth. The fact is that that our government has been lying to us about wars and other foreign affairs. I guess this is Obama's way of "looking forward." He wants to ignore the lies our government and its officials told the citizens for the last 10 years.
He won't prosecute the people who illegally tortured people and politically prosecuted folks all over our country. Now it appears his administration prefers to prosecute the truth-telling whistleblowers who show the lies of the White House and Pentagon. This says something about our current government when admitted water-boarding torturers are protected and truth tellers like Assange are prosecuted for exposing the lies of our government.
We are getting dangerously close to becoming a Dictator Democracy where even our thoughts can get us in trouble -- and anything we do to bring truth to our citizens can get us thrown in jail. All whistleblowers in our country are in danger as the U.S. government starts to shut out the truth from the people by serving secret subpoenas on the WikiLeaks accounts.
This is only the first step to shutting down the First Amendment rights of journalists to protect their sources from a government that is already caught lying to its citizens on the materials released by Assange and his WikiLeaks crew.
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