DEMS IN DENVER

A Man On A Mission In Denver

By Tom Baxter
Southern Political Report

DENVER

(8/28/08) This is a town full of Democrats who can’t wait for November to come and for the Bush Administration to be history. But for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, there’s some unfinished business to be addressed before then.

Siegelman has been making the rounds here at the Democratic National Convention, asking delegates to put pressure on Congressional Democrats not to let former White House advisor Karl Rove off the hook before the election.

The House Judiciary Committee last month passed a contempt citation against Rove after he failed to appear at a congressional hearing investigating his involvement in Siegelman’s prosecution on corruption charges. To have any effect, that motion must be approved by a Congressional vote.

“The danger is when that Congress reconvenes, they will be anxious to leave and go back home and campaign,” Siegelman said Wednesday.

“My guess is they’re going to adjourn in September. If they don’t vote then, the Democrats, as magninamous as they have been in the past, will put this issue aside, will say let bygones be bygones. Lets get on with this agenda to heal the wounds of this past administration. And Karl Rove will be given his getaway pass, thumbing his nose at our Constitution, Congress and the American people,” he said.

Siegelman, who was sentenced to seven years in the case, was released from prison on bond in March by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found “substantial questions” about the way his prosecution was handled.

Siegelman has insisted that Rove urged on his prosecution as part of a pattern of “using the Department of Justice as a political weapon to strike out at those people he considered to be enemies of this administration.”

The Alabama Democrat has spoken to several groups here, including the Colorado convention delegation and the Progressive Democrats of America, urging them to step up the pressure to vote on the citation.

His fear is that a new Obama Administration will be no more anxious to pursue action on the charges against the Bush Justice Department than Jimmy Carter was to revisit Watergate, or Bill Clinton the Iran-Contra Affair.

“If Congress passes the contempt citation, it will put pressure on all of his right-wing extremist accomplices who have conspired with him. If Congress lets him off, none of these other people will feel any pressure to come forward with the truth,” he said.

Needless to say, it’s not common practice for a public official out on bond to be pleading his case at a national convention.

“My attorneys have consistently said, sit down and be quiet, don’t speak out. But this is not about me. It’s about our country and the future of our democracy,” Siegelman said.

“If we were subpoenaed, we would have to show up. But if they don’t hold Rove in contempt they in effect will be creating two standards of justice, one for the powerful people in the White House and another standard for you and me and everybody else in America,” he said.