By Andrew Kreig Posted by Michael Collins
Justice Integrity Project

A legal showdown of historic proportion unfolds Nov. 2 in an Alabama federal court. Squared off in Courtroom B4 beginning at 10 a.m. in Montgomery were the Obama Justice Department and its most important domestic defendant, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, once the leading Democrat in his state.

Siegelman wants the government to provide documents proving that Middle District U.S. Attorney Leura Canary really withdrew from the case, as she claimed. The government contends he is not entitled to confidential government documents. After five years Siegelman has finally won a hearing on a request for documents that are central to his 2006 convictions on corruption charges. Middle District U.S. Magistrate-Judge Charles S. Coody, sitting under the authority of the district's Chief Judge Mark E. Fuller, presides in the courthouse shown below.

Beyond that, Siegelman is in the rare position of having witnesses step forward with evidence that his prosecutors and trial judge framed him. Meanwhile, Siegelman has been tried and sentenced to a lengthy prison term in what our Justice Integrity Project, among others, has described as the nation's most notorious political prosecution in decades. Some of us have documented this many times, with both sources and official denials in the links below.

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By Andrew Kreig posted by Michael Collins

Four days before Connecticut's Nora Dannehy was appointed to investigate the Bush administration's U.S. attorney firing scandal, a team of lawyers she led was found to have illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case.

This previously unreported fact from Dannehy's past calls into question her entire national investigation. The revelation similarly compromises the pending investigation by her Connecticut colleague, John Durham, who since 2008 has been the nation's special prosecutor for DOJ and CIA decision-making involving torture.

Here's the story, which the Justice Integrity Project I lead just broke in Nieman Watchdog:

In September 2008, the Bush Justice Department appointed Connecticut career federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate allegations that Bush officials in 2006 illegally fired nine U.S. attorneys who wouldn't politicize official corruption investigations.

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By Andrew Kreig
Huffington Post, June 29
Posted by Michael Collins

"As a start in redressing the nation's most notorious political prosecution, the Supreme Court today released its decision vacating federal corruption convictions of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and co-defendant businessman Richard Scrushy

"The court remanded their Alabama convictions to the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta despite arguments last November by Solicitor General Elena Kagan that their convictions should stand."

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Michael Collins

Should Elena Kagan be approved as a justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States?

As it turns out there's a supremely simple method of testing her suitability. Once applied, citizens of any political persuasion will see that her nomination should be rejected outright.

As Solicitor General of the United States, Kagan argued against an appeal to the Supreme Court by former Alabama Governor, Don Siegelman in November, 2009. The Siegelman prosecution is viewed by many as one of the gravest injustices of the modern era, a purely political prosecution initiated by the Gonzales Justice Department.

Forty four former state attorneys general were so concerned that they issued a public petition on Siegelman's behalf in 2007. The petition to the United States House of Representatives urged prompt investigation of the many shady dealings in the Siegelman case, before, during and after his trial. They framed their petition in this simple sentence: "The U.S. justice system should be above reproach." It wasn't.

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