Siegelman Slams Rove

Posted by Eli , Firedoglake at 7:49 AM on March 29, 2008.

Don Siegelman is a free man! Pending appeal, anyway. And that YouTube is just the tip of the iceberg - NYT has more:

In a telephone interview shortly after he walked out of a federal prison in Oakdale, La., Mr. Siegelman said there had been "abuse of power" in his case, and repeatedly cited the influence of Karl Rove, the former White House political director.

"His fingerprints are smeared all over the case," Mr. Siegelman said, a day after a federal appeals court ordered him released on bond and said there were legitimate questions about his case.

(...)

The former governor, a Democrat, said he would "press" to have Mr. Rove answer questions about his possible involvement in the case before Congress, which has already held a hearing on Mr. Siegelman. On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee signaled its intention to have Mr. Siegelman testify about the nature of his prosecution.

How many lives does Karl Rove have left? He wriggled free of prosecution for outing Valerie Plame, and the clock's running out on the US Attorney firings/coverup investigation - could this be the one that finally brings him down?

Also, as Scott Horton points out, there's complicity and stonewalling all over the Obstruction Of Justice Department, including Chuck's BFF Mukasey:

Committee investigators express concern about the Justice Department's continuous obstruction of efforts to investigate political influence in the Siegelman case and a group of others in which prosecutors have adopted unprecedented theories in an effort to take down prominent Democrats. In the Siegelman case, Justice Department officials have refused to provide evidence under oath, claiming privilege, they have answered written queries with misleading and openly false statements, and they have refused to turn over documents requested by the Committee. Attorney General Mukasey has been repeatedly asked by members of both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee to examine the extraordinary evidence of misconduct by the U.S. Attorney's offices in Montgomery and Birmingham, and he has declined to do so....

Congressional investigations are not just about the satisfaction of taking Republican scalps. They are about demonstrating that the laws of this country still matter, and that there are consequences for breaking them. As long as the Republicans are allowed to operate in a culture of impunity, to use the law as both sword and shield, American democracy is in jeopardy.

Which is why it's so vitally important that the investigations keep going, past "exposure" and all the way to "prosecution" (preferably by Fitz). When our next president is sworn in, the Democrats must not simply breathe a sigh of relief and declare that "our long national nightmare is over" - they must finish.



(h/t Muck & Christy)

Tagged as: democrats, republicans, rove, corruption, alabama, siegelman