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Republican Lawyer Interview with House Judiciary Panel Released
Dana Jill Simpson wasn't just worried about Rove's involvement in Gov. Don Siegelman's (D-AL) case. She also testified that she heard about a behind-the-scenes arrangement to ensure which judge would get the case -- a judge sure to "hang" Siegelman.
Simpson said that Gov. Bob Riley's (R) son, Rob Riley, told her in a 2005 conversation -- one where Riley also said that Rove was pushing to have the Justice Department investigate Siegelman -- that Judge Mark Fuller would get the case because Fuller, an active Republican, had a beef with Siegelman over an audit.
We've posted the portion of the interview where Simpson discusses Fuller here.
Q And did he talk to you about Mark Fuller's politics or political work?[Simpson] He did.
Q What did you talk about in that regard?[Simpson] I asked him -- he made a statement that Fuller would hang Don Siegelman. And I asked him how he knew that, if he got him in his court. And he said that Fuller was -- had been on the Executive Republican Committee at Alabama -- in Alabama before he been a judge and he also told me about a backlogging case, which is what you call the salary spike. He called it the "backlogging."
...
Q And did [Riley] say any more about what Don Siegelman had to do with those audits that put Mark Fuller out?
[Simpson] He said that Don Siegelman had caused Fuller to get audited. That's what Fuller thought. He hated him for that.
Fuller also contracts which the federal government, which Simpson said played a part in her decision to sign her original affidavit raising questions about the origins of Siegelman's case.





I'm glad that Dana Jill Simpson is testifying and all, but I have to wonder why? She has got to know her political life as she has known it is now over, and maybe her legal life as well. So, why the John Dean act?
October 10, 2007 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a good question. For a while, I was convinced that Simpson was a set up, that we'd get fairly deep into this and suddenly it would turn out that Simpson had an illegal nanny and a million ancient parking tickets and her credibility would be shot and the whole case would fold. I still think that's a possibility but people who I trust--say, Scott Horton--have poked her with a stick and say that she's real. With any luck, it's not just a John Dean act. I do wonder, however, why she would do this on sketchy evidence. Unless she has been holding back some hard evidence, it's basically just her word against the word of a bunch of corrupt GOPers, worth hearing and probably true but not worth much in court on its own. It's going to take more than Simpson to bring down the Alabama GOP.
October 10, 2007 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink