Bullying CBS Didn’t Work Out So Well This Time, Did It Turdblossom?
I noted that the two most important bits of 60 Minutes’ Siegelman piece that magically didn’t show when they were scheduled in Northern Alabama pertained to Bill Canary’s invocation of "his girls" and Karl Rove’s past work with Dana Jill Simpson on oppo research.
Karl Rove took to Fox today, channeling his best good ol’ boy, to defend his honor [my transcription throughout].
Ah did not ask her or anyone to dig up dirty photographs of the Governor.
[snip]
But she has never worked on any campaign in Alabama I’ve ever work on and I’ve never asked her to do a darn thing.
I found his answer to this question very interesting.
Did CBS News or 60 Minutes ever call you for comment? [inaudible]
Well, they called me five months ago about this and uh, my sense was it was an off the record conversation and I want to honor that but it seemed to me they were looking at the story. When they decided to go with the story CBS I would a thought would have called back and said "we decided to go with the story, would like to be, you know, would you like to have a comment?"and the first I heard about it is when they put out the news release on Thursday.
[snip]
They didn’t bother to call me after five months and the first I heard about it is when I read it on the AP news wire.
There are two things that are interesting about this. First, as a friend of the blog noted in an email, five months ago was maybe a month after Karl took time off to spend time with his son who had gone away to school.
And this "off the record" conversation that Karl tried to honor sure sounds a lot more like Karl Rove, trying once again to convince 60 Minutes to spike an embarrassing story than it sounds like an interview (otherwise, why would Karl have to protect its off the record status?).
I guess it sucks to be Karl Rove, slowly waking up to the fact that a guy who, before he was canned, managed to take a President from 50% approval ratings to 25% approval ratings doesn’t carry the same weight with CBS as a guy supporting a somewhat-popular guy at a time when the country remained jingoistic. It’s not so easy to convince CBS to spike a story as it was in 2004, huh Karl?
In fact, Karl, you might want to get used to the fact that most private citizens don’t have the media call and ask permission before they publish a story about you.
Update: Dan Abrams will interview Dana Jill Simpson tonight. I wonder whether they asked Karl for permission to do so?
bullying the House Democrats ain’t working either
what’s up with these people
are they trying to give george a hissy fit ???
How about just driving him back to alcohol? Oh yeah, you wouldn’t be able to tell if he was slurring his words during a big speech… sorry, forgot.
I beg to differ
let’s hear it
if ya beg to differ, then you gotta differ, you can’t beg to differ then just pass, what’s up with that ???
(wink)
I do wonder what ex-dictators of “free” democracies and their minions do to withstand the withdrawal from unfettered power…
Sure, it sucks to be Karl Rove, but as far as I’m concerned it could suck a LOT more to be Karl Rove. Lots of room for improvement in the suck department for Karl Rove.
In other news, the Siegelman called for a Special Counsel, based on the facts revealed last night.
Yeah Mukas will be getting right on that…..
I know that Siegelman’s attorneys feel that a call for SC is part of their ancillary pressure, but it’s going nowhere with Mukasey. Mukasey is there to keep a firewall around the discovery of lawbreaking behavior by his unitary exec.
I would expect no meaningful investigation whatsoever of this, not even a customary milquetoast investigation by OPR. Ain’t gonna happen.
However, on the litigation front, the ball is in the Eleventh Circuit’s court now, specifically the appeals bond motion after a fiasco of sorts in delay and stupid brief writing on the part of the district court judge and his law clerk. The Eleventh Circuit has issued an order that briefs be filed on the appeals bond from the parties, and then supplemental briefs be filed. Judges Susan Black (GHW Bush appointee) and Stanley Marcus have the decision and I feel optimistic that Governor Siegelman will get an appeals bond. The last brief by defense was filed 2/19.
I have not been able to find the link for the briefs on the appeals bond. I do have links for the memoranda opinions and the Eleventh Circuit order issued November 7, 2007 though. I also feel optimistic that Siegelman has a good chance for a remand or reversal on the appeal of the conviction.
I’ve contexted Siegelman’s appeal and the standard for appeal bond with the precedent always argued in the Eleventh Circuit Siegelman Appeal Situation Currently.
The Eleventh Circuit order is here.
I might add that if there were a remand, instead of a reversal which is terribly rare but could happen here, that it’s axiomatic in this case that Siegelman’s two attorneys are going to do everything they can to get the Eleventh Circuit to recuse Fuller off the case. I don’t often see a defendant in prison a few months launch a website denouncing the judge as a crook, but in this case it seems appropriate and Seigelman has not just burned a bridge with Judge Fuller–he’s blown it to bits. Fuller is not going to help them at all at this point, and neither is DOJ.
I don’t believe there is a chance of the proverbial ice cube in hell that we are going to see a SC from Mukasey ever on this or anything else.
“…it could suck a LOT more to be Karl Rove. Lots of room for improvement in the suck department for Karl Rove.”
My fave comment of yours ever
Fat-assed two-faced lying little weasel.
I hope this is just the beginning.
While Alberto is out giving speeches for (somewhat) Big Bucks, what kind of income is Rove pulling? Maybe he can get a job as greeter at Walmart. He might get higher up in the employment ladder, I note he has quite a few of the qualities I’ve noticed in people working at my local office supply big-box store…
Wouldn’t some of this be easy to check viaphone records if they had ever spoken. You could also check (ha ha) e-mail records.
That’s what happened the first time Simpson testified. After she gave her deposition, ROb Riley insisted he didn’t know her. SHe came to Congress loaded with phone and billing records proving him to be a liar.
Let’s hope she can do the same with Karl’s claims.
How about dragging Riley in front of congress? He shouldn’t have executive privilege?
Watched Simpson on Abrahms.
Synopsis:
Play Rover’s spew from Faux.
A: What do you have to say to his denying the veracity of your statement?
Simpson: If that’s so, he should go up to Congress and testify to it under oath. He should have absolutely no problem with that.
A: What do you say to his denying you ever met/talked with/ participated in Republican politics?
Simpson: I have records otherwise.
Also, Luskin costs serious gelt to continue trotting out to spin, spin, spin the media for Rover. Gotta wonder where that’s coming from, particularly if Rover hasn’t yet sold the rights to this fiction.
Rove was already very wealthy. He can pay for Gold Bars.
two things:
1) Karl Rove has offspring? Egads!
2) I’m sure bad prosecutions happen more than anyone wants to think about, especially when the defendants are black, but this one smells SO bad, the transgressions SO beyond the pale, it makes you want to scream.
A message from the presnit:
I think george is serious about this one:
The idea that the TurdBlossom would invoke “off the record” to protect anything or anyone besides his sorry ass is beyond ludicrous. If the researcher who contacted him had done anything to piss him off, he’d be spinning it for all it’s worth–without asking permission of CBS.
FunnyD
When I heard this –
Ah did not ask her or anyone to dig up dirty photographs of the Governor. –
I thought it was a clever non-denial denial: No, he didn’t ask anyone to dig up dirty photographs; he asked Simpson to create dirty photographs by taking some of Siegelman. And a lot of the rest of what he said was similarly dodgy.
But this is quite categorical:
I’ve never asked her to do a darn thing.
I suppose maybe he didn’t ask, but I think that is too much of a stretch of an interpretation. So I think that’s a denial.
Heh heh Yes, and he is oh so credible….
Yeah, me too. Compeltely consistent with Riley having asked her to produce pictures–however she did so–of Siegelman in a compromised situation.
The only reason Bush won’t just dismiss Karl as a low- life tool after his presidency is that Karl knows too much. He’ll show respect. Karl will demand it.
—-
In fact, Karl, you might want to get used to the fact that most private citizens don’t have the media call and ask permission before they publish a story about you.
—-
Karl, did Robert Novak call Valerie Plame before you helped him out her covert identity? Fair game, right?
He who lives by media manipulation shall be bitten in the ass by this disgusting unethical behavior. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
– Tom
Fair game indeed. And I suspect we’ll be seeing more of Fair Game going forward.
Well, if you’re talking about the movie, I suggest this guy for the plum role of Rover. Kidman is fine for Valerie…
Naaa bmaz, it’s a role made for Phillip Seymour Hoffman
I just HAVE to ask, since we are discussing Republican jokes — did anyone else receive their 2008 GOP Census Document yet? I changed my registration last year, but obviously the GOP has not realized it yet.
The one that says, “Our Republican nominee for President of the United States will need your input before he does battle with the Democrat machine.” Personally, I am more concerned about the permanent majority the Republicans are trying to put in place to snoop into the affairs of my personal life.
It goes on to ask, “If the Democrats once again try to block President Bush’s conservative nominees to the Supreme Court or other federal courts, should we do all we can to stop them?” My response is that I have nothing against blocking any of his nominees, especially if he goes out of office as planned.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid must be scaring someone. “What if Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid stand in our way as we work to win the War on Terror at home and abroad?” I am more concerned about who is going to protect US from the GOP…
I award a prize to this survey for its first question: “Should Republicans do everything they can to prevent liberal Democrats from repealing the USA Patriot Act and other important laws that help our intelligence agencies protect America?”
To be totally honest, though, I think that the GOP wanted some frank answers despite some of the leading questions. Question #3 was “Will you join the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today?” It offered some suggested contribution amounts, but when you get down to the bottom of that section, it does have a space to check off “No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years.”
So, to provide proper guidance to the RNC, that is what I checked… I know, I am bad — but it sure was fun!
Update?
Last I heard, Rove was trying to sell his autobiography for $3 million. How’d that turn out? Has he settled for what his book is likely to actually bring in, like about $3 each?
in response to marksb @ 4
But how do you really feel marksb? I mean, how do you truly feel about Rove?!?!
Where is the Israeli lobby on this one?
I dunno, but I’d look on McCain’s bus, thats where the rest of them are….
According to the WaPo:
WTF? I am really starting to understand why the Democratic mascot is a jackass. If these political genius governors give a tinker’s damn about their party and their country, why don’t they apprise themselves of what a duplicitous, self serving, unprincipled catastrophe McCain has been all of his life and get that word out instead of building up the false facade of St. McGluehorse???
I note the author of the WaPost piece, cherry picking the responses to somehow say that McLies is a formidable candidate and, in spite of indications to the contrary, this will be the media’s wet dream: a horserace that sells advertising…
…is named Dan Balz.
Ya just can’t make this shit up.
I had precisely the same thought. It’s as if there’s something on the Democratic DNA that makes people fearful.
I’m pasting this link to the “North Fork News” here to keep this information available to posters who haven’t seen it yet. It’s a 7/07 5-part piece on Jill Simpson and the origins of the scandal.
http://blog.locustfork.net/ind…..s-simpson/
It includes information that didn’t get prominent billing in the case, like
– the judge who oversaw Siegelman’s “conviction” (after the first judge threw the case out) is a major stockholder in a company that received a $170 million contract to supply uniforms etc to iraq WHILE THE CASE WAS IN PROGRESS.
– Siegelman is unable to appeal his convictions BECAUSE HE HAS BEEN DENIED ACCESS TO A TRANSCRIPT OF HIS TRIAL.
– Siegelman appears to have lost by a very narrow margin in 2002 AFTER a Republican operative showed up with a laptop at 3 AM and ADJUSTED VOTE TALLIES from digital voting machines and a “recount” showed a 6000 vote margin that put the Republican over the top.
– Prior to this Jill Simpson was involved in a scheme to photograph supposed Siegelman operatives at a KKK rally, an apparent Rove-directed set-up.
This is not the case at all. The Democratic party of Alabama website is not written by attorneys knowledgable on how appellate law works in the federal system. I have explained the appeals situation in great detail with links
here–Siegelman’s appeal bond is at CA 11 and his transcript is on the way
In brief–the court reporter in the district court,Jimmy Dickens died; he was replaced and the new reporter wrote Chief Judge Lanier Anderson asking for more time to complete the transcript due to her other duties. He gave her an extention to March 31, 2008. If you’ve never seen a trial transcript, I can tell you that a trial transcript from a two week trial fills a couple boxes on average. This was a two month trial. Of course the length depends on the number of witnesses and the arguemnts over FRE and the lattitude a judge gives the attorneys to argue and make statements.
Siegelman’s freedom has nothing to do with his trial transcription being finished. I wonder from his website if he knows that, but his lawyers are very experienced and hopefully they explained it to him and his family.
Now to the appeal itself–his attorneys have to write the first appellate brief to start the clock in the Eleventh Circuit. In the Eleventh Circuit, 17.5% of appeals make the cut to oral argument. They are screened by a staff of scores of attorneys who are not law clerks. The ones that don’t get oral argument are decided and 1-3 sentence per curiam opinions are issued. This is tragic but it’s a result of a glut of cases since the crack laws have overwhelemed the appellate pipeline. I have explained this in great detail in the link.
What Siegelman’s attorneys could do, is to file their brief if it were even completed before the reporter finishes the transcript and make a motion for leave to send the transcript when it is done due to the unusual circumstance of death and replacement by AOC of the court reporter.
The briefs and reply briefs from Vince Kilborn and McDonald the defense attornies that will follow are important in this case, so it is going to take some time for them to be completed anyway.
Bottom line–transcription is not holding up the appeal here. The appeal bond was delayed though by the stubborn behavior of the trial judge in first refusing to follow the order of the Eleventh Circuit to supplement his opinion on the denial of the 18 U.S.C. § 1343(b)(1)(A) appeal bond motion. In the Eleventh Circuit, what is always argued besides that your client is not a flight risk/risk to community (argued everywhere in trying to spring someone) is meeting the standard of a “substantial question” which has been defined in the Eleventh Circuit as “a ‘close’ question or one that very well could be decided the other way.” This language comes from the precedent on appeal bonds in the Eleventh Circuit United States v. Giancola, 754 F.2d 898 (11th Cir. 1985).
I hope this and the links behind the link here clarify things for you.
But the transcript is not holding up the appeal of the conviction at all. Siegelman’s website gives that impression but that’s not the case.
In any Circuit, the FRAPS (Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure) as tweaked for that circuit as the Circuit’s rules govern the time clock. Here’s the skinny for you.
Siegelman’s attorneys,
I’ll clean this up. I didn’t see the stringer sentences.
This is not the case at all. The Democratic party of Alabama website is not written by attorneys knowledgable on how appellate law works in the federal system. I have explained the appeals situation in great detail with links
here–Siegelman’s appeal bond is at CA 11 and his transcript is on the way.
In brief–the court reporter in the district court,Jimmy Dickens died; he was replaced and the new reporter wrote Chief Judge Lanier Anderson asking for more time to complete the transcript due to her other duties. He gave her an extention to March 31, 2008. If you’ve never seen a trial transcript, I can tell you that a trial transcript from a two week trial fills a couple boxes on average. This was a two month trial. Of course the length depends on the number of witnesses and the arguemnts over FRE and the lattitude a judge gives the attorneys to argue and make statements.
Siegelman’s freedom has nothing to do with his trial transcription being finished. I wonder from his website if he knows that, but his lawyers are very experienced and hopefully they explained it to him and his family.
Now to the appeal itself–his attorneys have to write the first appellate brief to start the clock in the Eleventh Circuit. In the Eleventh Circuit, 17.5% of appeals make the cut to oral argument. They are screened by a staff of scores of attorneys who are not law clerks. The ones that don’t get oral argument are decided and 1-3 sentence per curiam opinions are issued. This is tragic but it’s a result of a glut of cases since the crack laws have overwhelemed the appellate pipeline. I have explained this in great detail in the link.
What Siegelman’s attorneys could do, is to file their brief if it were even completed before the reporter finishes the transcript and make a motion for leave to send the transcript when it is done due to the unusual circumstance of death and replacement by AOC of the court reporter.
In any Circuit, the FRAPS (Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure) as tweaked for that circuit as the Circuit’s rules govern the time clock. Here’s the skinny for you.
But the transcript is not holding up the appeal of the conviction at all. Siegelman’s website gives that impression but that’s not the case. The clock doesn’t start in the Eleventh circuit for a briefing schedule until the defense attorneys file their first brief.
The briefs and reply briefs from Vince Kilborn and McDonald the defense attornies that will follow are important in this case, so it is going to take some time for them to be completed anyway.
Bottom line–transcription is not holding up the appeal here. The appeal bond was delayed though by the stubborn behavior of the trial judge in first refusing to follow the order of the Eleventh Circuit to supplement his opinion on the denial of the 18 U.S.C. § 1343(b)(1)(A) appeal bond motion. In the Eleventh Circuit, what is always argued besides that your client is not a flight risk/risk to community (argued everywhere in trying to spring someone) is meeting the standard of a “substantial question” which has been defined in the Eleventh Circuit as “a ‘close’ question or one that very well could be decided the other way.” This language comes from the precedent on appeal bonds in the Eleventh Circuit United States v. Giancola, 754 F.2d 898 (11th Cir. 1985).
I hope this and the links behind the link here clarify things for you.
Many thanks for the link.