Don Siegelman Disagrees With Obama On Investigating Bush

During his press conference on Monday evening, President Obama pledged to look forwards rather than backwards when it came to investigating the misdeeds of the Bush administration. It was a carefully crafted answer, designed to neither anger nor encourage individuals either side of this contentious issue. For possible victims of legal and political injustice during the Bush years, however, it wasn't nearly enough.

Don Siegelman, the former Governor of Alabama arrested on trumped up bribery charges allegedly linked to Karl Rove, wrote the Huffington Post on Tuesday to offer his opinion of Obama's answer.

Today, with a new President, everything seems brighter, more vibrant. There is a sense of hope, a new optimism... we can see change for the better coming....piercing the dark, pain of the past eight years.

I appreciate the president's desire to fix the problems created by the Bush Administration saying in part: "...let's get it right moving forward."

However, if those who have abused their power are allowed to get away with it, then it is more likely to happen again. We have seen our American Democracy threatened, our constitutional rights abused and our system of Justice subverted. We know the Bush Administration led us into war under false pretenses, used illegal wiretaps and torture to get information and used the Department of Justice as a political weapon to win elections.

For the country to safely move forward we must repair the damage done to the foundations of our democracy. That starts with digging until we get the truth as Chairman John Conyers has been doing and as Senator Leahy is now proposing and holding accountable those who have abused their power.

Restoring justice and preserving our democracy requires nothing less and that would in itself be a great legacy for our new President.

Siegelman was pivoting off of a speech given on Monday by Senator Patrick Leahy, who pushed the creation of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush years. On Monday, Obama said he had not read Leahy's proposal and, as such, couldn't render an opinion on it. His aides have said they would provide an answer to the Huffington Post when one is formulated.

The president did say that people -- presumably Bush officials included -- "should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen," implicitly suggesting that if illegality is proven it would be brought to court. But, he added, "Generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards. I want to pull everybody together, including, by the way, the -- all the members of the intelligence community who have done things the right way and have been working hard to protect America and I think sometimes are painted with a broad brush without adequate information."

Comments

[6465billy]

May I remind ALL you Liberals that Don Siegelman is a convicted felon. He has NO Rights and certainly should NOT be giving any advise to the President. He needs to serve his time and shut the heck up.

[rjcrane]

I need to address several misguided comments in this section. 1. Our laws and treaty obligations mandate that we investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes such as torture, which doesn't really require a lot of investigation to prove did happen. And those who refuse to do this even by omission could be charged with obstruction of justice, another serious crime. 2. The "just obeying orders" defense didn't even work at Nuremburg and shouldn't be allowed now even for lower level people that carried out these acts. 3. Only Third World countries with nascent legal systems would want to rely on a Truth Commission to investigate these crimes. 4. Holder and the Obama Admin just sent a terrible message in using State's Secrets as a defense in an attempt to derail the cases of five foreign nationals who were renditioned and tortured.

Sam Stein said that Obama would chose to prosecute "if illegality were proven." Bad choice of words. Only a trial can do that and even a trial doesn't prove illegality. A conviction only means there was enough evidence beyond any doubt to convict. So after a person is convicted one could claim they broke the law and that's why they were convicted.

It's really a shame Sam Stein didn't ask Obama a much better question. One let's say like this: Will you investigate with intent to prosecute anyone who committed war crimes during the Bush Administration and if not, why not?

RJ Crane, topplebush.com

[rshrink]

Good post! Thanks for your efforts and we can only hope that getting this kind of information out will help us all get the word out to representatives, senators and the president.

[Alonzo]

I agree with Omama that generally speaking I'm more interested in the past than the future. I also agree with the guy with the broom at the circus who follows the elephants around.

[rshrink]

First it is President Obama, secondly, he is more interested in the future than the past and thirdly, I think following elephants around with a broom would be about the best thing you could do.

[miltonista]

you're a parrot.

look at the newspaper in your cage.

it's not accurate.

[FEARTHETRUTH]

By the way, Does anyone know what happened to Karl Rove on Feb 2nd? Did he honor the congressional subpoena? If not whatever happened to him, or does our congress still lack a backbone? I will be pi ssed if this ev il "thing" is still walking around a free man after defying congress a second time. WTF!!

[rshrink]

From Politico: "
The John Conyers-Karl Rove showdown has been delayed.

Conyers, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, agreed on Friday to postpone the deadline on the Rove subpoena for three weeks, giving the Obama administration time to decide how it wants to handle the issue of executive privilege and congressional subpoenas.

The Michigan Democrat wanted to question Rove about “politicization” of the Justice Department under former President Bush, and wants to investigate what Rove knew about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in late 2006.

But before he left office, Bush, acting through former White House Counsel Fred Fielding, decided not to respond to any congressional subpoenas. Bush, citing executive privilege, asserted an “absolute immunity” claim in responding to such subpoenas, meaning senior Bush aides were directed not to even appear when subpoenaed.

Obama and his legal advisors have rejected that view as an overbroad reading of the president’s authority, but they have yet to fully formulate their own response to the question.

Conyers had demanded that Rove comply with the subpoena by next Tuesday, Feb. 2, but the deadline has been extended to Feb. 23, according to sources close to the issue."

[stargazer13]

Obama has to walk a fine line

I my self wish for accountability and am very upset that it has taken so long

war crimes should have never been committed by the United States of America !!

nor should they have been able to get away with it for so long

which speaks volumes about our top law enforcement agencies

and in the end i believe the good ol boy network must go the way of the wind

[miltonista]

Do you not care about the war crimes and crimes against humanity that saddam was involved in?

I only wish free people had this much anger and outrage at the people on this planet actually committing these crimes against humanity on a regular basis... Instead they direct their outrage at a guy who's trying to bring social justice to oppressed people in the middle east. Go figure.

The left has persuaded you to think that the US is the aggressor - which is so far from the truth, it is amazing that people still think this in this era.

The good ol boy network was the Oil For Food Programme... go look up that scandal and see if anything going on in the US compares to that debacle.

[rshrink]

Too bad you don't consider all of the facts. We armed Saddam to help him fight the Iranians. He owed his power to the US. We didn't go over there because of what he did to the Kurds. We went to protect the oil interests. Experts warned of destabilization and we had people in Iraq looking out for our interests already, so there was no need to do what was done. They cherry picked intelligence, which even many CIA people explained. Why do you think Valerie Plames husband was upset. He tried to tell Bush that the aluminum tubes were not designed to do anything to develop nuclear bombs and Bush still went to his state of the union address and talked about the alum. tubes. So, Cheney retaliates by outing his wife. These facts are not unimportant. You don't understand that the neocons don't care about America and Democracy. They care about their bottom line. They could care less about human rights, except their own. I realize you will ignore everything I have said and come back with some irrelevant comment, so have at it.

[laughingchimp]

Congratulations on asking the question! When I heard him call out "Huffington Post" I nearly fell of my chair. It's no accident that the only difficult question came from outside print media. Obama should not be allowed to get away with saying that ignoring past wrongdoing means looking "to the future". How about looking ahead to the next Republican administration. If there aren't prosecutions all of the same people will be breaking all of the same laws again - this time knowing they can count on getting away with it. Immunity for lawlessness is not a future I want to look forward to.

[keepemhonest]

RIGHT ON!!

[PhilipTaylor]

I prefer REAL LEGAL Investigation and if the FACTS show up then Prosecute!

Give the Justice Department at least six months to a year to see what they find, before you give a whole bunch of CR00KS a free ride!

[miltonista]

there will be no investigations of bush.

because obama would not want investigations of his administration once he leaves in 2012.

investigating past administrations is stalin-istic... let's leave that bad habit to the socialists.

[PhilipTaylor]

You sound like you or the Bush Administration have something to hide!

It is just to see it they broke any LAWS, Violated any Trusts, committed any WAR Crimes, Rigged Elections, L1ED to Congress/A­mericans/U­nited Nations/the World!

You know minor misdemeanors so they do not happen again in 8 to 12 years!

[miltonista]

well, should we go back and prosecute Clinton on some dereliction of duties? no.

and besides... you've lost all credibility when you go try to tear down an administration that liberated 25 million oppressed people in Iraq and hopefully more to come in Afghanistan. It's like putting Ghandi on trial for collecting salt illegally.

This is a warning to you: You are on the edge of irrelevance... if you want your values to be carried forward, you will want to preserve what little credibility you have and let Bush go.

I have a huge laundry list of 'sins' the left has done over the last 10 years... which make your allegations of bush look like kindergarten misdemeanors. Oil For Food Programme anyone?

[stargazer13]

I disagree we have for to long ignored wrong doing by our elected officials and

have paid to high a price in doing so

Lady Justice this is your time to shine let Lady liberty light the way

[RoloTomassi]

We all know that standard line about being part of the solution or part of the problem....

You are clearly the latter.

[miltonista]

no. I'm the solution.

you're still the problem... I'm trying to persuade you to my point of view.

and i will do it without the gulag.

think

about

that.

the same can not be said of your side.

[rshrink]

People keep talking about "the last two years that the democrats were in control." If you don't know what was going on for the past two years, then you seriously have not been paying attention. Why don't some people get this point. It takes 60 votes to pass anything. They had 51. A simple majority does not give power, especially when it was the Bush Justice Department who would bring charges and they were made powerless by Bush appointed head, Alberto Gonzales. He was put there to look the other way. He is as guilty as Bush and Cheney. On top of that, they had Bush setting an enormous record of vetos, they had the fillibuster, they had Bush doing his alterations on bills. The Democrats did well to get done what they did get done. So, quit asking these lame questions and if you want to do some good, call your legislators and tell them to investigate. (No commisions and no immunity)

[MNmommy]

I agree with you, Don.

[rshrink]

From Raw Story.Com: "Among the relevations: the husband of the US Attorney who prosecuted Siegelman was a close associate of former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and worked as campaign manager for one of Siegelman's gubernatorial opponents. An Alabama Republican whistleblower said that Siegelman was deliberately targeted and fingered Rove, asserting that he'd said he'd push the Justice Department to end Siegelman's political career.

In a statement to Raw Story Monday night, Siegelman expressed hope that Rove's alleged role in his prosecution might be uncovered."

"Chairman Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena of Karl Rove
gives hope to those who want to know the extent of Karl Rove's abuse of
power and his misuse of the Department of Justice as a way to win elections,"

[rshrink]

When you think that Rove was so bold as to think and then act on ruining a mans life, put him in prison, took him away from his family and his career, just to replace him with a republican AND that the press and other government agencies have not made this a top priority, it is mindblowing. This is something you think would happen in an unstable country, but this is what has come to pass here in America. This is just one instance of corruption running rampant in our country for the past eight years. How can we not be appalled and disgusted and in disbelief and how can we not wonder how in the h e l l there could be a thought of not punishing these sociopaths?

[Ghost of Joe Hill]

This kind of corruption has ALWAYS existed in America. Its just harder to hide these days.

[hangdogit]

Who is guilty -- a hit man or the person ordering the hit? Both, of course.

The same idea must be applied to torture -- prosecute the torturers, but also (and especially) those who ordered it. Look at Cheney, Woo, Rove, Rumsfeld and the rest of the gang.

[Ranta]

Pat Leahy on investigating the previous administration.

http://www.cspan.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-A-15284

[GeoLee]

AMEN!

[Artos]

This idea that those in the CIA who did what they were ordered to do and should not be punished for it flies in the face of the argument used to prosecute lower ranking Nazis after WWII. These people were also doing what they were ordered to do and yet they were prosecuted and hung. Did we make a mistake. Should we have to reverse our Judgements and grant pardons to those who we executed. Is it not the same thing or does the Law only apply to ones enemy but never to ones self. Is the law fickle and our use of it situational based on self interest. What kind of example does that send to the world. Maybe we aren't fit to be the Worlds Leader. We certainly don't deserve to be if this is how we interpret the law.