Attorney General Eric Holder ties to the Republican National C'tee via Law Firm Covington & Burling

[Magda Hassan]

Monday, August 10, 2009

Are Holder's GOP Ties Subverting Justice in Political Prosecutions?

Attorney General Eric Holder has shown little or no inclination to intervene in apparent Bush-era political prosecutions involving Democrats, such as Don Siegelman in Alabama and Paul Minor in Mississippi.

So far, Holder has intervened in federal prosecutions involving Republicans, most notably the case of former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK).

Why does Holder seem content to let the Siegelman and Minor cases languish? Alabama attorney and Siegelman-case whistleblower Jill Simpson says she might have the answer.

Simpson, a former opposition researcher for the Republican Party in Alabama, is skilled at tracking down information. She learned that Holder, before being named Barack Obama's attorney general, worked for a Washington, D.C., law firm called Covington & Burling. And what did Simpson discover about that august firm?

The tip I got was that the firm had a very important client. His name was George W Bush. And they represented a very important organization . . . called the Republican National Committee. I was in shock when I checked it--and it was true.

My favorite research item I ran across is when they were protecting the RNC from having to turn over Karl Rove's e-mails that were run on the RNC servers. It shocked me. Plus I found it mighty interesting that AG Eric Holder never enlightened anyone about his conflicts of coming from a big Washington, D.C., law firm that represented the National Republic Committee and George W. Bush in the 2000 election contest.

Simpson notes that Holder's favorable treatment of Republicans hardly stops with the Stevens case. She lists the Tobin phone-jamming case in New Hampshire, the Kott case in Alaska, and the Abramoff/Feeney case in Florida as examples of the Holder DOJ killing GOPers with kindness. What does Simpson make of it?

It has long been reported that the expenses in those cases were picked up by the RNC. That same RNC paid AG Holder's law firm, and that law firm paid AG Holder more than $2 million last year.

Shame on AG Holder. He had an ethical duty to tell the citizens of America he had a conflict in investigating all of these cases and all the torture cases--and instead he tried to ignore it or hide it instead of doing the right thing and getting out of the cases.

Is Simpson willing to let bygones be bygones. Oh, no. She says Holder should be forced to step down:

(Holder) has ignored to date all the Democrats in this country who . . . have proof that they were politically targeted by the RNC and Karl Rove. And he has not done the right thing and asked President Obama to appoint a special counsel--all along knowing he has a conflict because of his firm's representation of the RNC.

Since Holder has done all this, he should be immediately removed from this position of power. Innocent men are in jail, and he has played games.

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2009/...stice.html