I have to wonder, how many innocent people are sitting in jail right now because of a USA who wanted to keep his/her job?

Biskupic responds here:
http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=4/14/2007&id=22017

Until the recent controversy surrounding the firings of eight United State Attorneys around the country, it was never communicated to me that my job could be in jeopardy or that I was considered to be disloyal to President Bush's agenda.

Interesting use of the passive voice, "it was never communicated to me", don't you think?

http://www.law.com/jsp/dc/PubArticleDC.jsp?id=1176122643390

this interview needs more pub!

the head of information and privacy from the DOJ for the past 25 years, and was with the DOJ since Nixon, tells just how politicized this AG is, and how awful he has been for morale and the DOJ's functioning.... it's amazing! his interview elucidates just how the DOJ could F up this entire endeavor

"According to her attorney, the prosecution and conviction cost Thompson over $300,000, including lost pay, her savings, her condo, and her pension, which she cashed in to pay for her legal defense."
They ruined this lady's life! They dragged her through the mud and paraded her in front of the media like a feather in their cap in an attempt to score points with voters. People need to look at what that appellate court said in overturning this disgrace- it's almost unheard of. How the hell did this lady get convicted in the first place?!

I've seen a number of commenters on different sites asking how this woman got convicted in the first place.

The answer is, believing in guilty until proven innocent is quaint and naive. Most people believe that anyone brought to task by a prosecution like that is guilty. Especially given people's general animosity towards politics, that should be no surprise.

What is surprising is that the trial judge thought that this was strong enough to go to trial and then after didn't grant a JNOV. Someone should look into the trial judge too. Who appointed him/her, Fed Soc'y member, etc.

I have the general impression that people think Courts of Appeal reverse convictions all the time. They do not. They order new trials with some frequency. Reversing, entering a different judgment, and releasing the Defendant like that is very, very rare.

Remember--the 7th Cir. is not saying that the trial judge applied the wrong legal standard. They are saying that no reasonable jury should/could have found Thompson guilty on those facts. This is a very difficult standard to meet on appeal, because Courts of Appeal like to leave fact-finding up to the trial courts. They are generally there only for mistakes of law.

This is rare, it is shocking, and I think this is the smoking gun.

More from Biskupic's response:

"I am a career prosecutor, selected as United States Attorney through a bipartisan commission. My numerous public corruption cases include prosecutions of Democrats and Republicans. Our records show that since 2002 when I became United States Attorney, I have brought at least 12 cases against individuals who donated money to Republican candidates or who were aligned with the Republican Party."

This is just laughable, and I'm hopeful that someone will shortly look into who these 12 purported Republicans are. I know who is most assuredly NOT on the list: U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, who Biskupic refuses to investigate.

The very fact Biskupic released this statement today (early on a Saturday) indicates that he realizes he's in some serious trouble.

They did the same to Valerie Wilson except she didn't go to jail. But if they could have sent her to jail, I'm sure they would have. This is not justice. It's criminal. And all of this shows the arrogance of this administration. They believe they are above the law. They can destroy documents that are, by law, to be preserved. They don't care. They feel no one can do anything to them anyway. They are, after all, the executive branch. This is not what was intended for our government. Actually the legislative branch was intended to be the higher branch. After all, it's the branch that represents the people. Somewhere along the line politics has gotten it all wrong. And now this country is in a mess. Sickening....just sickening.

AND Cheney is calling the shots.

Well I think we can draw one fact or the other from this. Looking at the "beyond thin" evidence in this prosecution. 1.) Something other than justice was motivating this U.S. Attorney to prosecute this case. 2.) He is the stupidist fucking lawyer on earth. Sorry one of three facts maybe, 3.) Both 1 and 2 above.

What is very, very, scary about this whole thing is that not one (to my knowledge) of these corrupt SOBs has felt shameful enough to come out of the woodwork and try to turn over a new leaf. Not one at least that I am aware of. That in and of itself is really unsettling to me. It tells me that there is a huge group of brain washed people out there that are willing to subvert our government at all costs.

Biskupic is now saying "It ain't me, Babe" to McGlatchy. Hope he has better luck with Sen Leahy , when he gets the call to DC. Somehow he may be singing the Georgia blues with Karl and the Turd Blossoms.

Is the statement by Biskupic the first time we know for a fact that Patrick Fitzgerald was rated "mediocre" on the purge list?

Who showed Biskupic the unredacted version that we haven't seen? Was whatever privilege that might have been asserted for the redactions waived when they showed it to Biskupic?

"Until the recent controversy surrounding the firings of eight United State Attorneys around the country, it was never communicated to me that my job could be in jeopardy or that I was considered to be disloyal to President Bush's agenda."

Right, and these things didn't happen to the fired 8, as well. His whole response is a non-denial.

RICO is applicable.

Patrick Fitzgerald was able to bring a RICO conviction against the "Citizens for George Ryan, Sr.", the state fund-raising committee that supported Republican George Ryan's campaign for Secretary of State of Illinois, later to become the Governor of Illinois.

http://www.ipsn.org/indictments/warner_ryan.htm

Fitzgerald indicted over 80 republicans in the "Licenses for Bribes" scandal, and every single one either plead guilty, or was convicted. From the bribe-taking staff that gave the Commercial Driver's License test all the way to the Governor of Illinois, if Fitzgerald indicted them, they were found guilty.

It wiped out the Republican party in Illinois state offices.

I believe that I read that this was the first time that a political entity had been found guilty of RICO violations, but I don't have a link for that.

What are the good people of Wisconsin saying about this mess? Is their Attorney Association saying anything about this at all? Does anybody care or is just looked at as business as usual?

I would think they would be "mad as hell" about what happened in their state. Are they?

Isn't the bigger issue . . . If you are a Democrat or at least not a registered Republican, it is likely that you have a basis for appeal to overturn any Federal conviction during the last six years . . . No matter how much of a scum bag you are.

Thank you Fredo & Turdblossom . . .

"Because he knew he would get good old conservative Randa in the eastern district, that's why."

Gotta love those Federalist Society secret handshakes.

Just following the threads--Omega World Travel a VA company owned by a wife and husband. In VA over the last 7-10 years donated $33,500 combined to political campaigns (I think this is just VA elections) exclusively to republican candidates. Also this article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1574169-1,00.html
describes the company's involvement in a lawsuit regarding spamming. They won the case, probably correctly decided, but the level of their response to a self-employed web professional just seems a bit disproportionate. No evidence of any kind that they might have had something to do with the prosecution of Thompson, but it is sure easy to think about conspiracy when, well, there appears to be a conspiracy.

Former Dem Assistant AG Dan Bach defends Biskupic in a letter to the Capital Times:

Evidence, not politics, spurred Thompson prosecution

"...I participated in several meetings with prosecutors and investigators both before and after the Thompson trial. Having spent more than a dozen years as a federal prosecutor and four more as the state deputy attorney general, I will attest that this case was handled by professional, career prosecutors and investigators in as fair, thoughtful, and apolitical a fashion as any I have witnessed.

In contrast, the one-sided, self-interested criticisms of the decision to prosecute stand apart in their rush to judgment.

As to the appellate decision, I echo the comments of other former prosecutors who pointed out the anomalous nature of the swift pronouncement from the bench. Appellate decisions overturning the considered judgment of a jury and veteran trial judge, based on the strength of the evidence, are exceedingly rare. We await a written decision to better understand the appellate court's reasoning.

In the interim, those relying on an unclear motive to affirm Thompson's innocence are lost in the headlights of television drama -- proof of motive in criminal cases is not required...."

link
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/letters/index.php?ntid=129178&ntpid=7

Speaking of Mafia, it is strange that Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine was struck by a car and is on a ventilator fighting for his life.

Gov. Corzine is a former Democratic Senator who ran for governor about 2 years ago. Gov. Corzine was on his way to meet with Imus and the female basketball team Imus insulted.

Imus has been furious about the Walter Reed scandal and according to article on Free Republic is quoted as saying if the bush adm. wants to hide these boys, he, Imus, would begin revealing things about 911.

You've got to check out this tell-all interview by a senior, veteran Justice Department official on the non-partisan Law.com site:

http://www.law.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/View&c=LawArticle&cid=1176455062969&t=LawArticle

My favorite excerpt proving, from someone who has experienced it all firsthand and really knows, that Republicans are more corrupt than Democrats. Like we needed someone to tell us this after Nixon, Reagan (record smashing 29 convicted criminals in his Administration), Bush Sr. (pardoned Cap Weinberger and five others because their testimony under oath showed Daddy Bush himself was right in the middle of the Iran Contra scandal), and of course Baby Bush (2 convicted criminals so far and counting, and a ton of cronyism and corruption).

Let's not forget the last remaining defense councel for this pathetic administration are, besides Fox News, the chockablock AM radio stations that fill the airwaves with non-stop GOP misinformation.
Burn up their phones. Tell Congress you want the fairness doctrine back. Complain to the FCC.
I'm sorry, but the Don Imus crucifixion reminded me of the Janet Jackson tittie incident. Get the left all over a barrel with something that obscures the real do do.

Did anyone notice that the last few DOJ doc dumps are searchable PDF files?

At least with Adobe Reader 8.0.

A couple of points:

1.) I now have a psychoanalytic theory of the Georgia Thompson prosecution. At trial, Biskupic's theory was that Thompson didn't need direct instruction from her superiors in order to steer the travel contract to the Doyle donor -- that she basically knew that she needed to do it in order to keep her job. This is increasingly sounding like classic "projection" to me (in that Biskupic, at that very time, might have been going through PRECISELY the same thing in his own workplace).

2.) Biskupic has gone far out on a limb in terms of portraying himself as apolitical. At some point, someone is going to do about 30 minutes of digging and figure out that he was engaged in all kinds of a explicitly political activity before became a USA. (For instance, I will bet you five bucks that he gave money to one of the Congressional campaigns of Mark Green, who challenged Doyle for the governorship last year. Biskupic and Green are both Republicans from WI's Fox Valley, and almost certainly have connections.)

Hey, my "projection" argument sure caught on fast. Check out Adam Cohen's piece in the NYT on Monday, 4/16. Makes the same point . . .

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