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Know your BFEE: Siegelman Judge is a big-time War Profiteer
U.S. Judge Mark E. Fuller, the guy who helped railroad Gov. Don Siegelman.
Fuller just happens to be the owner of a company that's made a huge fortune off the Pentagon and War Inc via no-bid crony War on Terror largesse.
The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller
By Scott Horton
Harper's August 6, 2007, 5:14 pm
For the last week, we’ve been examining the role played by Judge Mark Everett Fuller in the trial, conviction, and sentencing of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. Today, we examine a post-trial motion, filed in April 2007, asking Fuller to recuse himself based on his extensive private business interests, which turn very heavily on contracts with the United States Government, including the Department of Justice.
The recusal motion rested upon details about Fuller’s personal business interests. On February 22, 2007, defense attorneys obtained information that Judge Fuller held a controlling 43.75% interest in government contractor Doss Aviation, Inc. After investigating these claims for over a month, the attorneys filed a motion for Fuller’s recusal on April 18, 2007. The motion stated that Fuller’s total stake in Doss Aviation was worth between $1-5 million, and that Fuller’s income from his stock for 2004 was between $100,001 and $1 million dollars.
In other words, Judge Fuller likely made more from his business income, derived from U.S. Government contracts, than as a judge. Fuller is shown on one filing as President of the principal business, Doss Aviation, and his address is shown as One Church Street, Montgomery, Alabama, the address of the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse, in which his chambers are located.
SNIP...
Doss Aviation and its subsidiaries also held contracts with the FBI. This is problematic when one considers that FBI agents were present at Siegelman’s trial, and that Fuller took the extraordinary step of inviting them to sit at counsel’s table throughout trial. Moreover, while the case was pending, Doss Aviation received a $178 million contract from the federal government.
CONTINUED...
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000762
There's a special place for Judge Fuller, and it's not on the bench.
58 replies
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What one darn good reporter says about things:
Political Justice in Alabama: Don Siegelman Goes to Prison
August 12, 2012 | Lou Dubose
EXCERPT...
As a federal judge, Fuller held a substantial equity position—$5 million to $25 million—in Doss Aviation, which provided a variety of services (flight training, avaition fuel, aircraft maintenance, air traffic control) to the Navy, Army, and Air Force. In other words, the judge was also a federal contractor, dependent on procurement decisions made in the Pentagon.
The investigation of Don Siegelman was started by Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, whose campaign had been run by Alabama political consultant Bill Canary. Pryor was subsequently appointed to the federal appellate bench by George W. Bush.
In 2002, Siegelman had been narrowly defeated, after an retabulation of votes, by Republican Congressman Rob Riley. The U.S. attorney who picked up the AG's investigation until she perhaps recused herself herself, was Leura Canary, the wife of Bill Canary. Bill Canary was working on Riley's campaign.
Before Siegelman was convicted in 2007, the same charges against him were dismissed by a federal judge hearing the case before it was assigned to Fuller. A former U.S. attorney who briefly represented Siegelman as a private lawyer told a House subcommittee that Bush Justice Department officials ordered federal prosecutors in Alabama to "review the case from top to bottom"after it was initially dismissed.
CONTINUED...
http://www.washingtonspectator.org/index.php/Blog/entry/political-justice-in-alabama-don-siegleman-goes-to-prison.html
Remember that Twilight Zone gremlin, bobthedrummer-san?
He tried ripping up the engine on the left wing.
and I don't "crap" on your posts. The vast, vast majority of the time, I take no notice of them at all.
bob complained about his alleged mistreatment in his thread, I replied to him, pointing out his use of anti-Semitic sources, and then you jumped in to defend him as a "decade-long contributor to DU", as if that give him a pass, and at the same time attacked.me.
I don't remember that post about Fukushima and why I responded. Looks highly speculative to me, trying to link those disparate elements together. Looks like exactly the kind of post that the Creative Speculation group was designed for.
Sid
I posted about Don Siegelman -- the prosecution of whom Paul Craig Roberts labelled "political" way back from before you told me about VDare or anything else.
And one last thing: You still have yet to post anything critical of the political persecution of Don Siegelman. Not. One. Fucking. Thing.
More likely a shadowy group of men, composed of anywhere from a dozen to 400 did it.
George Herbert Walker Bush. He was in Dallas that day, according to what he told the FBI. Something else to remember, Poppy Bush was nearby when Nixon, Ford and Reagan were -- or almost were -- impeached or otherwise removed from office.
Here's a transcript of the text:
TO: SAC, HOUSTON DATE: 11-22-63
FROM: SA GRAHAM W. KITCHEL
SUBJECT: UNKNOWN SUBJECT;
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY
At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.
BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES PARROTT has been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.
BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt Mrs. FAWLEY, telephone number SU 2-5239, or ARLINE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican Party Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of PARROTT.
BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone number is CA 2-0395.
Which, of course, makes me wonder about this memo, from a week later:
Here's a transcript of the above:
Date: November 29, 1963
To: Director
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Department of State
From: John Edgar Hoover, Director
Subject: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
Our Miami, Florida, Office on November 23, 1963, advised that the Office of Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami advised that the Department of State feels some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in U. S. policy, which is not true.
Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matters in the Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy concerning Cuba, the feeling is that the President's death represents a great loss not only to the U. S. but to all of Latin America. These sources know of no plans for unauthorized action against Cuba.
An informant who has furnished reliable information in the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in Miami has advised that these individuals are afraid that the assassination of the President may result in strong repressive measures being taken against them and, although pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination.
The substance of the foregoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W. T. Forsyth of this Bureau.
# # #
So, yes, I've wondered about who was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy. While I don't know who was responsible, I do know there are people still living who have information about the crime and its perpetrators. Unlike you, zappaman, I've noted such for a long time.
And another one:
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. [1]
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. [5]
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.[3]
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 [Pryor]." Young estimated the value of the
mugs at $13,000 to $15,00. [4]
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. [1]
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. [2] 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.[3]
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.[2]
[1] Harper's 7/13/07
[2] Harper's 9/14/07
[3] Wikipedia
[4] TIME/CNN 10/4/07
[5] SourceWatch.org William Pryor
.........................................................................................
SOURCE:
http://donsiegelman.org/Pages/topics/Players/Attorneys/attorneys_Bill_Pryor.html
Gee. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just happens to be the same body that refused Gov. Siegelman's appeal for a new trial.
