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SCOTT HORTON?Prosecutorial Obstruction of Justice in the Siegelman Case |
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Contributed by Scott Horton
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A retired senior Justice Department career prosecutor writes that, with the disclosure that the two most senior career prosecutors on the Siegelman case believed there was no basis to bring criminal charges against the former Alabama governor, the riddle surrounding Leura Canary?s decision to withhold roughly 600 pages of documents relating to the case from Congressional scrutiny comes a bit closer to solution. ?Franklin would have been required to put together a pros[ecution] memo justifying why he thought a case could be made. At best this case was extremely weak and invited the appearance of selective prosecution, since it focused on a practice that is absolutely ubiquitous in the political world?appointing major donors to honorary positions?and is rarely if ever prosecuted. And in the Siegelman case, there was the added obstacle that there is really no basis to say that Siegelman secured any personal gain from the donation, which is usually the evil we?re going after.? . . .
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