Saturday, May 31, 2008

More Bipartisan Pressure is Heaped on Bushies

We noted in a post yesterday that one of the biggest misconceptions about the Bush Justice Department scandal is that it is being driven by partisan liberals.

In fact, the first known victims of the Bush DOJ were Republicans--nine U.S. attorneys who were fired apparently for refusing to practice political prosecution. In fact, the effort to get to the bottom of the Bush DOJ swamp has been bipartisan in nature from the outset. And in fact, the single most heroic figure in the whole story, north Alabama attorney and whistleblower Jill Simpson, is a Republican.

More news comes today of a bipartisan effort to get at the truth. Adam Nossiter, of The New York Times, reports that 54 former state attorneys general have filed a brief supporting the appeal of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

Robert Abrams, a former New York attorney general, wrote the brief. He says the document is unprecedented in bringing together a large number of former state top judicial officers, both Democrats and Republicans, to express a "strong feeling" that an injustice had been done to Siegelman.

The brief was filed in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The brief states: "Completely absent from the trial record is any evidence that Gov. Siegelman and Mr. (Richard) Scrushy entered into an explicit agreement whereby Mr. Scrushy's appointment to the CON board was conditioned upon Mr. Scrushy making the political contributions in question."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Who was the little old man who said Scrushy didn't even want the CON job? I think I saw it on the CBS website when they aired the unused interviews online.