At the heart of the Siegelman scandal in Alabama is the question of selective justice. In 2002, a lobbyist/landfill developer told the U.S. Attorney’s office that he used illegal campaign contributions to bribe some of the biggest names in Alabama Republican politics, including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a Bush-appointed federal judge William Pryor Jr. He also identified Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D).
The U.S. Attorney’s office proceeded to ignore every piece of evidence against Sessions and Pryor, and prosecute Siegelman with everything prosecutors could come up with. One person involved in the prosecution said they left the Republicans alone on purpose because they had Rs after their name: “Sessions and Pryor were on the home team.”
Given what we’ve learned over the course of the year about the politicization of U.S. Attorneys’ offices, and the pressure to prosecute Dems and look the other way for Republicans, the next question, of course, is what drove the process in Alabama. Republican lawyer Dana Jill Simpson, answering questions under oath from House investigators, implicated Karl Rove in the mess.
Digby has more.
