Siegelman: Rove needs to testify about my case.
By on Apr 7th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Siegelman: Rove needs to testify about my case.
Last night, CBS’s 60 Minutes followed-up on the case of Don Siegelman, who was released from prison recently after an appeals court said his conviction “raised substantial questions of law or fact.” The former Alabama governor said that Karl Rove had “accomplished his goal” of ending his political career. “What we need is Karl Rove to get himself over to the Judiciary Committee and put his hand on the Bible and take an oath and give testimony,” Siegelman said Sunday. “And he can either tell the truth or take the Fifth, either one will satisfy me.” Watch it:
In response to Siegelman, Rove told 60 Minutes, “I never talked to the Department of Justice about Siegelman. I never talked to anyone in the White House about Siegelman.”
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Well, let's get Rove on a waterboard and find out what he did or didn't say.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:52 amRove under oath? That will be the %&*#() day.
"Executive privilege" & "national security" you know.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:56 amthen just put your hand on a bible and swear under oath you had nothing to do with it, Karly boy...
or would be find out that "I didnt talk..." really means " I sent an email instead"
April 7th, 2008 at 9:57 amisnt it ironic that so many members of the supposed "party of god" are so terrified of putting thier hand on the bible?
would make a great campaign ad in some areas...
April 7th, 2008 at 9:58 amI guess, for some people, talking about it and denying it in the media is the same as testifying under oath. Just watch, Rove will now be saying that he's responded to the allegations and will make no further statements.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:11 amExcellent comment ChocolateJ! my thoughts exactly...to me this administration is the most hypocritical ever because they have talked so much about their compassion while acting the least "Christ-like" of any administration I've known. Rove is just an ugly personification of all that is wrong with present-day politics.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:14 amturd blossom needs to be put on trial for TREASON...
April 7th, 2008 at 10:18 amI doubt there is much that has happened in the last 7+ years that didn't have Traitor Karl's fingerprints all over it.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:25 amRove said to 60 Minutes that he never talked to anyone in the WH about Siegelman, so there is no basis for a claim of executive privilege, since the topic of his questioning would not involve the WH.
Rove refuses to appear before any committees? Subpoena time for Karl, & ENFORCE THE G.D. SUBPOENA THIS TIME, Leahy, Conyers, & Co.
Like you never did yet for the fired US Attorney scandal testimony (Miers, Bolton, Rove). Grow a pair & get Rove under oath- he's laughing & flippng you the bird again.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:32 amIn #10 that should be Josh Bolten, not John Bolton, who's a different BushCo a-hole.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:34 am# The_Right_Stuff Says:
April 7th, 2008 at 10:30 am
The above post by ThinkProgress may make it sound to some that the conviction of Don Siegelman has been reversed, or at least is likely to be reversed. All that has happened is that Don Siegelman has been tried and convicted by a jury of his peers, has appealed that conviction, but has had his sentence stayed by order of the appellate court pending the disposition of his appeal. Under applicable law, if an appeal is not frivolous (i.e. it raises “substantial issues of law or fact” — a relatively low standard to meet) and the defendant does not pose a subtantial flight risk, he generally must be granted a stay pending appeal upon posting an appropriate bond. The likelihood of a reversal remains relatively low statically speaking.
But when the TRUTH comes out, Rove will be in SHACKLES, and he SAID SO HIMSELF.
Because this POLITICALLY-DRIVEN PROSECUTION will get Siegelmans case THROWN OUT.
MURDERER and WAR CRIMINAL Bush the COXUCKER punk TRAITOR to the USA is NEXT.
And when he DIES and GOES TO HELL with his MASTER Satan and TRAITOR Ronnie Reagan, REAL Americans like ME will REJOICE.
As will the REST OF THE WORLD!
April 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am>Under applicable law, if an appeal is not frivolous (i.e. it >raises “substantial issues of law or fact”)
sorry pal, but "substanial" and "non-frivolous" are not interchangeable terms.
i know next to nothing about appelate mechanics beyond the basics, but i've heard a few appelate attorneys say that appeal bonds are a fairly rare occurence and the granting of one is a good sign for the defendant.
again, we'll see where this goes, I think its unprecedented to see the republican political party actually making official public statements about a case which they are claiming has nothing to do with politics,
April 7th, 2008 at 10:42 am>forcing Siegelman to accept half a million dollars in bribes
do you think anytime anyone gives money to a government official its a bribe, idiot?
no ones saying he didnt take money. the point, i beleive, is whether anything was done because the money was given than wouldnt be done otherwise.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:45 amDemocrats are slow learners. When Rove says, "I never talked to the Department of Justice about Siegelman. I never talked to anyone in the White House about Siegelman.", one needs to recall Rove’s saying, "I never said … her name." about Valerie Plame. What that means is that he never said "Valerie Plame." That didn’t mean he hadn’t said "Wilson’s wife." Rove didn’t say, "I never spoke to anyone about Governor Siegelman or his case." While it may seem a trivial point, it is not at all. It’s Karl’s M.O. through and through. In fact, it may well be a clue. Having eliminated the DoJ and the White House, who else could Rove have spoken to as an intermediary?
Recall that this was the case where a lawyer, Dana Jill Simpson, overheard this [from Wikipedia]:
So, just for example, Bill Canary was not in the White House or the DoJ…
April 7th, 2008 at 10:45 am>can anyone recall a Republican convicted in the past few >years not blaming a Democrat for a politically motivated >witch hunt ?
Libby comes to mind. Fitzy was an apolitical guy, only the most rabid of nutballs could bring themselves to call him a democratic hack..
April 7th, 2008 at 10:51 amUnder applicable law, if an appeal is not frivolous (i.e. it raises “substantial issues of law or fact” — a relatively low standard to meet) and the defendant does not pose a subtantial flight risk, he generally must be granted a stay pending appeal upon posting an appropriate bond.-trooll talkin'
kinda makes you wonder why he was shackled immediately after his bogus trial
April 7th, 2008 at 10:52 amand spent months (?) in prison...
and why the court transcripts were not released...
>In the law, raising a “substantial issue of law or fact” is >an exceedingly low standard to meet both in civil and >criminal cases.
Ok mr legal mind, where in the spectrum of "reasonable suspicion", "probable cause", "predonderence of the evidence", "clear and convincing", and "beyond a reasonable doubt", does "substantial" fall..?
April 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am*
April 7th, 2008 at 10:55 amfaiz - the "released from prison" link doesn't work...
*
troolls:
v. rail·road·ed, rail·road·ing, rail·roads
v. tr.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:58 amTo transport by railroad.
To supply (an area) with railroads.
Informal
To rush or push (something) through quickly in order to prevent careful consideration and possible criticism or obstruction: railroad a special-interest bill through Congress.
To convict (an accused person) without a fair trial or on trumped-up charges.
>Back to square one again, or has this sunk in yet ?
I guess we'll see where the case leads. Keep up your mental wankery all you want if it makes you feel better.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:58 am>The going to prison after being sentenced to prison is >mysterious to nobody but yourself.
Let me guess, not providing the defense attorneys with a transcript for appelate purposes is par for the course also, right?
April 7th, 2008 at 10:59 amPoor Governor...
Please get a dose of reality... What makes you think that Rove would be truthful with his hand on the Bible. After all this is the man who engineered two election wins selling "The Bible"(!)
April 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am>raising a “substantial issue of law or fact” is an >exceedingly low standard
actually, raising an issue of fact at an appelate level is by no means a "low standard".. in fact, appelate courts are supposed to defer to the lower courts judgement when it comes to questions of fact, and are no supposed to question the trial courts judgement unless there is no evidence to support the fact issue in question..
alternatively questions of law are reviewed de novo, so whether the issues raised was "of law" vs "of fact" (or both)
April 7th, 2008 at 11:04 amis pretty important..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Siegelman
"In short, Siegelman was accused of trading government favors for campaign donations when he was governor from 1999 to 2003 and lieutenant governor from 1995 to 1999, and Scrushy was accused of arranging $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's campaign for a state lottery in exchange for a seat on a state hospital regulatory board."
My understanding of the defense claims was not that his campaign didnt take the money, but that it wasnt taken in exchange for any favors and didnt play any role in his decisions to appoint the guy to the hospital board. If I'm wrong abotu this does anyone have any links to the defense's arguments?
April 7th, 2008 at 11:09 amMaybe you trolls should do some reading on this story because what you're spewing is showing your ignorance of the fact. Siegelman was not convicted of taking a bribe for himself. The money in question was given to a government program. The governor of Illinois, a Republican, was convicted of major crimes, one that led to the death of seven children, and he was given about 6 months to report to prison. Get over yourselves.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:09 amObviously Rove would have no trouble with lying because his hand was on the bible. But he won't do it because he knows he'd get busted for perjury. The man doesn't have any regard for the truth, winning is the only thing that matters to him.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:12 am>The going to prison after being sentenced to prison is >mysterious to nobody but yourself.
Tell that to Scooter Libby..
April 7th, 2008 at 11:12 am>The standard to get a stay pending appeal is a low standard.
Like I said, where on the spectrum does it fall? What is your basis for calling it "low"?
April 7th, 2008 at 11:16 amwhere in the spectrum of “reasonable suspicion”, “probable cause”, “predonderence of the evidence”, “clear and convincing”, and “beyond a reasonable doubt”, does “substantial” fall..
April 7th, 2008 at 11:17 amUNDER OATH. Sell tickets to watch the little piggie perjor himself.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:19 amlike i said, i dont claim to be any kind of expert on apellate issues, but its always been my understanding that a lawsuit or appeal merely being "non-frivilous" only meant you couldnt be sanctioned for filing it. in fact, my understanding of the legal term "non-frivilous" is that the
April 7th, 2008 at 11:27 amsuit or appeal has "a basis" in law and fact. Last I checked, "a basis" and "substantial basis" are not equivalent terms..
shayne - do YOU get the feeling that blago should be looking closely at this story? ... i sure hope his lawyers are paying attention...
i'm starting to smell the rove on all the harrassment directed at blagojevich...
...
oh, and, for anyone who wonders, that illinois repug governer who was "convicted of major crimes" is GEORGE RYAN... just to be clear...
April 7th, 2008 at 11:33 am>none of which seem to be helping anyone’s mind but your own.
speak for yourself troll. I merely pointed out that its ironic that Rove has risen to power by manipulating the bible and yet we see the guy fighting tooth and nail to avoid actually having to touch one. Then some guy comes on saying that "non-frivilous" and "substantial" are equivalent terms and I took issue with that.
And if my assumptions about the defense's assertions are incorrect then please post a link to some info about what they actually are, because I'm reasonably sure that the appelate court didnt set Seiealman free because his lawyers filed a brief that said "well judge, k-k-k-arl set him up"
April 7th, 2008 at 11:42 amHa, drunken, self-serving, arrogant, ignorant, deceptive posts like yours begs that very same question.
I'm flagging these lying trolls in this thread.
They know crimes were committed to put this man in jail and now the truth is coming out so he is out of jail so all your jailhouse lawyer crap is just that......
April 7th, 2008 at 11:51 amGrant) Woods is one of the 52 former state attorneys-general, of both parties, who’ve asked Congress to investigate the Siegelman case.
“I personally believe that what happened here is that they targeted Don Siegelman because they could not beat him fair and square. This was a Republican state and he was the one Democrat they could never get rid of,” Woods says.
Now a Republican lawyer from Alabama, Jill Simpson, has come forward to claim that the Siegelman prosecution was part of a five-year secret campaign to ruin the governor. Simpson told 60 Minutes she did what’s called “opposition research” for the Republican party. She says during a meeting in 2001, Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political advisor, asked her to try to catch Siegelman cheating on his wife. [..]
She says she spied on Siegelman for months but saw nothing. Even though she was working as a Republican campaign operative, Simpson says she wanted to talk to 60 Minutes because Siegelman’s prison sentence bothers her conscience.
Simpson says she wasn’t surprised that Rove made this request. Asked why not, she tells Pelley, “I had had other requests for intelligence before.”
“From Karl Rove?” Pelley asks.
“Yes,” Simpson says.
To make matters worse the first part of the segment was blacked out in Alabama, the part about Rove and Top Republicans. The station ran a trailer saying they were having technical problems. When Scott Horton of Harpers contacted CBS News in NY and was told that "there is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties.
Will the sensorship never end...Rove is the one that needs to go to jail not Siegelman.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:53 am>so all your jailhouse lawyer crap is just that
lol. hey.. as I future jailhouse lawyer that offends me.
most legal writings and filings look concise, succint and to the point compared to kilos convoluted, cryptic obtuse prose.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:56 amTestify??? He means lie, doesn't he?
April 7th, 2008 at 11:58 amReally Katy, it seems like a lot of negatives regarding Blago are flying beneath the radar. A lot word of mouth smearing that I never hear on the news but that my uninformed family members seem to hear about.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:04 pmKilo, I'm interested in what Chocolate Jesus has to say and he's making perfect sense to me. You on the other hand, not so much on either count.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pmoooh! do tell, shayne... no, nevermind... nothing unsubstantiated please...
i'm sure he's no saint...
i gotta go outside and play in the garden... fresh air...
later, all...
April 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pmThe_Right_Stuff Says:
April 7th, 2008 at 10:50 am
15. The use of terms in the law is not always the same as in common English usage. In the law, raising a “substantial issue of law or fact” is an exceedingly low standard to meet both in civil and criminal cases.
Yeah
It's like 1/16th of a step above being a Repbulican or one of their imbecilic backers........
April 7th, 2008 at 12:14 pmSorry Katy there's never anything substantiated. They just all hate him at a level that's really hard to understand. And they blame him for everything, even things that are supposed to be handled by the federal government.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:16 pmKilo Says:
April 7th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Chocolate Jesus Says:
April 7th, 2008 at 10:58 am
>Back to square one again, or has this sunk in yet ?
I guess we’ll see where the case leads. Keep up your mental wankery all you want if it makes you feel better.
I’m trying to think of a different motivation for all your many, varied posts here on this matter, none of which seem to be helping anyone’s mind but your own.
Many cases are very murky ; you rarely see clear-cut cases of guilt or innocence when more than 2 people are involved.
In Siegelman's case , a disreputable individual gave testimony that supposedly was the clinching argument against him ; that same individual was also coached repeatedly , with written notes both by him and his "coaches".
Those notes should have been shared with the defendent's lawyers (which they were not) , which is a breach on legal grounds.
Stop trying to defend your effeminate hero , Turd Blossom , and look instead for the TRUTH , you retarded monkey dick.........
April 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pmKilo Says:
I take it you are referring to Rove pressuring the prosecution to take place, rather than forcing Siegelman to accept half a million dollars in bribes in which both parties have been convicted in Federal court.
I take it you never bothered to watch the 60 minutes segment on Siegelman. If you had, you would see that 1) the original judge threw out the case as "baseless" and then the Republicans went "judge shopping" and found one that would prosecute. From there there were many things that happened that caused what may prove to be a case of judicial misconduct. Yes a jury of his peers did find him guilty, but it was based on testimony that is very suspicious.
I'm betting that Siegelman will get a new trial and will be found not guilty. But, the damage has already been done. Rove & company got what they wanted which was a Republican in Siegelman's job.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pm21. Because the trial court judge found that he had no substantial issue of law or fact to raise on appeal. The appellate court disagreed, although it took several months to do so.
Of course the trial judge found that he had no "substantial issue of law". Considering the fact that this judge was specifically picked because he was willing to prosecute Seigelman after another judge had refused, I doubt that he would have, in the end, admitted that he was wrong to prosecute.
Thank goodness for the appellate court judge who looked at the case and saw it for the BS that it is.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:36 pmShayne Says:
Kilo, I’m interested in what Chocolate Jesus has to say and he’s making perfect sense to me. You on the other hand, not so much on either count.
I'm glad it is not me. Nothing Kilo says makes any sense to me. That's why I generally skip past it's posts. Why waste your time reading gibberish and then making yourself crazy trying to understand the gibberish.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:38 pmBilbo, I asked Kilo if English was his second language last week but apparently he didn't understand the question since he never answered. And as we all know, he has an "answer" for everything.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:42 pmShayne Says:
April 7th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Bilbo, I asked Kilo if English was his second language last week but apparently he didn’t understand the question since he never answered. And as we all know, he has an “answer” for everything.
I doubt it would matter, Shayne. There are plenty of people here, and at TheZoo, who's first language is not English, and they are perfectly understandable.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:44 pmLike the pigboy would have any problem lying under oath. Come on, already.
Kilo is merely a Rovette, working his way through a poli-sci degree, with dreams of making it big by sucking up to people like Rove and Bush. Yet another faux-intellectual with the scruples of a used car salesman.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:49 pmUnfortunately, Karl Rove will not be compelled to testify before the Judiciary Committee (or anywhere else) until we have a real Attorney General. The Abu Gonzales clone who currently occupies the AG's office is under the impression that his job is to cover for the chimp administration, not to enforce the law.
So, we'll see no progress on any real investigation until we have a president, instead of a chimp, in the White House.
April 7th, 2008 at 1:23 pmWell Zooey, I was giving Kilo the "benefit of the doubt". /snark
April 7th, 2008 at 2:06 pmRove needs to testify about this case, Valerie Plame's case, Iraq invasion's case and the 2000 election fraud case! He should testify, but from his cell!
April 7th, 2008 at 2:08 pmApril 7th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Rove told 60 Minutes, “I never talked to the Department of Justice about Siegelman. I never talked to anyone in the White House about Siegelman.”
Fine, Tubby. Now, go tell that to the House Committee under oath and not to 60 minutes, media, newspapers, or GQ magazine!
April 7th, 2008 at 3:52 pmWell, it seems we have a consensus on the troll's posts: They make little or no sense. I kept thinking it was just me who couldn't make sense of them. Pheeww!
(I guess that's the downside of talking to the mentally unbalanced: You end up questioning your own sanity)
As for Siegelman, I don't know all the details of his conviction, but Rove's denial has no credibility with me. That man would sell his own mother if he thought doing that would give him some political advantage.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:38 pmKilo Says:
April 8th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Skid mark
We here are nothing like you Chimpy nut hugging bags of crap ; we do not need to back-slap each other and feel a necessity to agree with each other in print constantly.
Think of it as more of a silent , mutual agreement that above-average intellects possess............Sorry that that excludes your ignorant and stupid ass............
April 8th, 2008 at 9:00 am