What the Justice Department is Hiding

Beginning in the summer of 2006, after the conviction was obtained, information emerged in the public domain that lent credence to Siegelman’s charges that the case was the result of a politically motivated conspiracy and quickly caused the prosecutors’ case to unravel. The judge who tried the case, George W. Bush-appointee Mark Fuller, was revealed to have held a longstanding grudge against Siegelman and been active in Republican campaigns against him—facts Fuller failed to disclose.

Fuller issued a notably harsh sentence against Siegelman and ordered him to be taken from the courtroom in manacles. A Republican political operative with close ties to Rove, Jill Simpson, disclosed in a May 2007 affidavit that she had been present during a telephone conference at which Canary’s husband, Karl Rove protégé William Canary, stated that he had spoken with “Karl,” that “Karl” had spoken with Justice, and that “his girls” would “take care of” Siegelman. An exposé by CBS 60 Minutes later charged that the prosecution had relied on false evidence and that exculpatory documents had been suppressed—what would amount to potentially criminal conduct by the prosecutors.

Fifty-two former state attorneys general—led by former Republican Arizona attorney general and McCain for President national co-chair Grant Wood—petitioned Congress demanding that it investigate troubling irregularities in the case. The House Judiciary Committee convened a series of hearings, but the Justice Department and the White House stonewalled requests for documents and demands that the prosecutors submit to questioning. Then the Court of Appeals intervened with a dramatic and extraordinary order setting Siegelman free.

In the weeks that followed, the U.S. attorney’s efforts to defend the case were steadily eroded, as evidence surfaced that career prosecutors had recommended against a prosecution of Siegelman but had been overruled by political appointees. Rove first agreed to testify about the matter, but refused to appear when he was subpoenaed to testify. The New York Times’s Charlie Savage reported this week that the Bush White House was eagerly looking for reasons to block probes of its meddling in the Siegelman matter after Bush leaves office on January 20.

Now a member of the Siegelman prosecution team has leveled serious charges against her colleagues, specifically challenging the truthfulness of Canary’s claims to have taken herself out of the decision-making process surrounding the Siegelman case. In a series of complaints filed with the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Office of Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel, Tamarah T. Grimes suggests that Leura Canary’s “recusal” from the Siegelman case was a sham and that she continued to direct the case. 

Grimes is a Department of Justice staffer working in the Montgomery, Alabama office. The Daily Beast and TIME magazine secured copies of some of Grimes’s submissions, including sensitive internal Justice Department communications that can be viewed here.

Canary, attaching a Siegelman campaign missive to one email, noted that Siegelman claimed that the prosecution is politically motivated and that 67 percent of Alabamans agree with him. Canary suggested that her subordinates obtain a gag order against Siegelman to bar him from making any references to the political nature of the charges brought against him. The communication suggested that Canary’s motivation is, just as Siegelman alleges, political in nature. More significantly, it demonstrates that Canary continued to drive the case notwithstanding her “recusal.”

In fact, the prosecutors sought a gag order against Siegelman and persuaded the judge, a former member of the Executive Committee of the Alabama G.O.P., to ratchet Siegelman’s sentence upwards because he claimed he was a victim of a political prosecution led by Republicans. (Recent polling suggests that Alabamans believe by overwhelming margins that Siegelman was a victim of a political prosecution, and newspaper editorial boards across the state called for his release.)

In another email, Canary’s first assistant referred to Canary making staffing decisions surrounding the prosecution of the Siegelman case long after her “recusal.” These allegations are backed up by the fact that Canary repeatedly appeared at news conferences concerning the Siegelman prosecution and granted at least three press interviews to discuss it—all after she said she had removed herself from the case.