BFEE Judge who Railroaded Gov. Don Siegelman Relieved of Docket for (allegedly) Beating Ex-Wife

[Octafish]

23. More for the Pen: William Pryor, Leura Canary, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff...

One of the people handling the Just-Us happened to be on the other end of the microscope, but got, eh, off...

William “Bill” Holcombe Pryor

Former Alabama Attorney General and a Federal Judge on the United
States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

William Pryor was a ferociously partisan figure and one of the
most controversial judicial nominees in recent memory; he
previously served as Alabama’s attorney general.

Sometimes in the game of judicial politics, presidents will
nominate a so-called "stealth candidate" - a little-known lawyer
or judge with no public record on controversial legal issues who
can slip under the Senate's radar to confirmation.

As a nominee to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Alabama
Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. would be the opposite - a
B-52 candidate, if you will - who has spent his career flying high,
carpet-bombing the landscape with conservative views on
federalism, abortion, church-state separation and a host of
crime and punishment issues.

Born in Mobile, Alabama he was raised a devout Roman
Catholic. He attended McGill -Toolen Catholic High School in
Mobile and earned his B.A. from Northeast Louisiana University
in 1984 and his J.D. from Tulane University School of Law in
1987, where he served as editor in chief of the Tulane Law
Review. Pryor served as a law clerk to Judge John Minor
Wisdom of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit from 1987 to 1988. Pryor worked as a private attorney
from 1988-95, serving as adjunct professor at the Cumberland
School of Law at Samford University from 1989-95. Pryor
currently teaches federal jurisdiction at the University of
Alabama School of Law.

From 1995-97, he served as Alabama deputy attorney general
and became Alabama attorney general in 1997. He was, at that
time, the youngest state attorney general in the United States.
Pryor was elected in 1998 and reelected in 2002. In his
reelection, Pryor garnered nearly 59 percent of the votes, the
highest percentage of any statewide candidate.

In 2007 Time Magazine Investigations revealed previously
unknown sworn testimony that landfill developer Lanny Young
admitted to making donations totaling between $12,000 and
$15,000 to Pryor's campaign for state attorney general. This
was illegal at the time, so Young named four people who "all
wrote checks to Pryor's campaign and were reimbursed by
Young for their contributions." Lanny confessed that If I was
there, "I would write them out or just sign them, and they would
fill in who it was to or whatever." According to Young, a top
official on Pryor's campaign "would call and say, 'I need money
for this, this or this,'" and Young would take care of the request.
("I do not have a recollection of the amounts that you describe
as having been contributed by Lanny Young or his associates to
my campaign," Pryor wrote in an e-mail to TIME.)

Among the illegal actions alleged in the Siegelman indictment
that Bill Pryor initiated was Siegelman's acceptance from Young
of thousands of dollars' worth of free T shirts and hundreds of
specially embossed coffee mugs to give away as Christmas
presents. The freebies were popular, said Young. "I had got
them coffee cups and stuff before and shirts, and I had the
same thing for Bill ." Young estimated the value of the
mugs at $13,000 to $15,00.

Despite his own blatant violations of contribution law, Pryor used
his position to initiate a criminal investigation of Siegelman within
weeks of Siegelman’s inauguration as governor. During this time
Leura Canary worked for Pryor ('99 -'01). Throughout the
history of the Siegelman investigation and prosecution, Pryor
figures right at the center of it ultimately, after concluding that
there was an insufficient basis under Alabama law to act,
lobbying the Justice Department to bring a case. Throughout
this period, Pryor consulted with and involved senior Alabama
GOP figures in the matter. Pryor is also a friend and confidant of
Karl Rove, whom he hired to manage his election campaign, and
who played a key role in his ascendancy to the federal bench.

Pryor, who was notoriously eager to get a position on the federal
bench and whose nomination proved the most controversial
single judicial appointment ever made by George W. Bush, had
another key political advisor to whom he turned for support: Karl
Rove. Pryor was nominated to the Eleventh Circuit by
President George W. Bush on April 9, 2003 to fill a seat vacated
by Judge Emmett Ripley Cox, who assumed Senior status. After
his nomination stalled in the Senate due to Democratic
opposition, he was installed as judge via recess appointment on
February 20, 2004 during the Congress's recess period,
bypassing the U.S. Senate confirmation process. Pryor resigned
as attorney general that same day and took his judicial oath for
a term lasting until the end of 2006 when the next Congressional
session would begin.

Many Democrats criticized him for his extreme right-wing views
and reputation as a conservative who lacked the temperament
to avoid being an "activist" judge. Pryor's nomination was
prevented from being put to a vote in the U.S. Senate by
Democrats who had filibustered his nomination.

On May 23, 2005 Senator John McCain announced an
agreement between seven Republican and seven Democratic U.
S. Senators, the Gang of 14, to ensure an up-or-down vote on
Pryor and several other stalled Bush nominees, including
Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. On June 9, 2005, he
was confirmed to the Eleventh Circuit by a vote of (53-45). He
received his commission on June 10, 2005 and on June 20,
2005, he was sworn in to his new lifetime judicial position at the
age of 43.

In his political campaigns, Pryor spoke ceaselessly about the
“corruption” of the Democratic administration in Alabama, and
made no bones about his desire to maneuver prosecutorial
resources to accomplish a political mission. And working at his
side on this project, as an assistant, was Leura Canary–until
President Bush picked her to be the U.S. Attorney in
Montgomery.

And William Pryor’s other main political advisor throughout this
period was Leura’s husband, Bill Canary.

Harper's 7/13/07
Harper's 9/14/07
Wikipedia
TIME/CNN 10/4/07
SourceWatch.org William Pryor
.........................................................................................

SOURCE:

http://donsiegelman.org/Pages/topics/Players/Attorneys/attorneys_Bill_Pryor.html

There's not much justice when the law works for just-us.

Abramoff and Karl Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor and Campaign Finances

Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor

By ADAM ZAGORIN/WASHINGTON
Friday, Jun. 01, 2007

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1627427,00.html?xid=rss-nation

In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A long time Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys. ..............

========================
From June 3, 2005 by the Boston Globe
Gambling, GOP Politics Intertwine
Casino Payments Seen as Influential
by Michael Kranish - http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0603-08.htm


WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush gave the nation's gambling industry plenty of reason to fear his presidency. .... He wooed religious conservatives by boasting in a presidential debate about his ''strong antigambling record."

But as president, Bush has not spoken out against gambling. .... as Republican lobbyists and activist groups collected tens of millions of dollars from Indian tribes seeking to preserve their casinos. Now those payments are the focus of Senate and Justice Department investigations.

... White House ... annual sessions over a four-year period that were arranged by antitax crusader Grover Norquist ... After Bush dropped his antigambling rhetoric, lobbyists touted their access, and fund-raising from Indian tribes grew exponentially.

...Norquist('s) ... organization received $1.5 million from tribes and fought a tax on Indian casinos; lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a top Bush fund-raiser who earned millions of dollars in fees as a consultant to gaming tribes; and Ralph Reed ... allegedly used some money from Indian gaming tribes to fund his efforts to close down rival casinos and lotteries

.........Bush worked closely with religious conservatives, especially Reed....

..... Tiguas poured tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign of the Democrat running against Bush in 1998 .... Bush redoubled his earlier efforts to shut down the Tigua casino. ... special appropriation ... for the state's attorney general, John Cornyn, now a US senator, to take legal action against the tribe.....

Abramoff, who helped arrange for the rival tribes to give the money to Reed's group, turned around and offered his services to the Tiguas -- for $4.2 million in fees split between himself and a partner

..... Abramoff and his partner in Indian gaming consulting would receive more than $60 million in fees from six different tribes seeking to advance their gambling interests ... Abramoff also told the tribes to give money ... the tribes gave $3 million, two-thirds of it to Republicans

.... Abramoff and Norquist .. worked (for) ... candidate ... following year, Abramoff and Norquist came to Washington together to lead the Republican Party's national effort to recruit college students. Reed soon joined ...


In 1999, Don Siegelman, the Democratic governor of Alabama, proposed a lottery that would have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into public schools and even provided free college education for most Alabama high school graduates.

Reed, rallying religious conservatives, set out to try to defeat it ... quickly raised $1.15 million .... money came from Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist ... got the funds from an Indian gaming tribe ...At the time Reed raised the money, he was working for Abramoff ... and Abramoff represented the Mississippi tribe.

Siegelman ..."'I don't know how they can sleep at night taking money from the Indian casinos to deny Alabama schoolchildren...."

.... Abramoff, meanwhile, appears to be the central focus ....Bush has not spoken on the matter.

Money trumps peace and justice.