Did a GOP CONSPIRACY Target BOTH Don Siegelman and Gray Davis?

[Segami]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IE_FIZpyniI/TdSUsg-YXFI/AAAAAAAAAg8/9fq_K3CtcfQ/s200/Gray+Davis.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tJCfPHUimM8/TdSU96F0BBI/AAAAAAAAAhE/_mQy-8-tOtQ/s200/Don+Siegelman.jpg




:smoke: :smoke:




" The same Republican plot that sparked the Don Siegelman prosecution might also have led to the downfall of former California Governor Gray Davis. Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama, raised the issue in interviews after last week's ruling from the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld most of his convictions from a 2006 corruption trial.



We have reported that the Eleventh Circuit ignored U.S. Supreme Court precedent by holding that a campaign-related transaction between Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy amounted to bribery, even though no "explicit agreement" was involved. McCormick v. Unites States is the binding case on a charge of bribery in the campaign context, and that requires that prosecutors prove that an "explicit agreement" existed. Mark Fuller, the Bush-appointed judge who oversaw the Siegelman trial, did not hold prosecutors to such a standard, and the Eleventh Circuit essentially said, "Ah, that's OK . . . close enough."



Davis' opponents spent some $66 million to stage a recall election in 2003, and Davis wound up being removed from office. He was replaced by Republican and film star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been in the news lately for events that have nothing to do with politics. Why would Republicans target both Siegelman and Davis in 2002-03? Siegelman told Peter B. Collins that it all had to do with presidential politics. "Al Gore had decided he was not going to seek the nomination in 2004, and Gray Davis was the leading Democratic candidate for president at that time," Siegelman said. "I was a friend of Gray Davis, and I was thinking about entering presidential primaries in the South,to challenge George W. Bush.



"An interesting parallel is that one of Karl Rove's best friends, Grover Norquist, was at work in California to do in Gray Davis--and also was at work in Alabama to cause me trouble." Both Siegelman and Davis had been involved in litigation against the tobacco industry, which also might have helped make them targets for Rove and his allies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Rove and others who were planning Bush's 2004 re-election campaign apparently were concerned about facing popular Democratic governors from the West and the South. After Davis and Siegelman went down, Bush wound up facing U.S. Senator John Kerry, of Massachusetts.



cont'


http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/05/did-gop-conspiracy-target-both-don.html



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[xxqqqzme]

1. norquist still controls the rethugs in the CA

legislature. A friend, on his way to Sacramento to do some lobbying on behalf of after school programs, wanted to know information and/or questions to ask. I suggested he ask 'how norquist controls the state when he's never been elected to any office and doesn't even live here?'

[rfranklin]

2. Seems likely...

and the explanation that Rovian strategy was behind seems very believable.

[sharp_stick]

3. It's the Illuminatti

held together by the New World Order and Opus Dei. I'm telling you, Grover's just a patsy playing a part. ;-) :tinfoilhat:

[asjr]

5. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Siegelman

try to go to the SCOTUS with his case and they said no to taking it on?"

[sharp_stick]

23. Now that is kind of creepy

I forgot about the religious persuasion of some of our high court justices.

[blm]

4. They WERE targeted so Rove could control vote NUMBERS reported. Neither were potential prez primary

candidates so the implication that either of them would have fared better than Kerry is pretty absurd. However Rove CONTROLLING ultimate vote totals in certain states was all about guaranteeing that Bush would be the perceived winner of both electoral and popular votes. To guarantee the popular vote in Bush's column, Rove needed GOP in control of the reporting of the vote totals in a hugely populated state like California.

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. Davis had nothing to do with elections. They are run by the Secretary of State

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Did Schwarzenegger replace the CA SOS when he took office?

Or did he maintain the Democratic state machinery of his predecessor?

[tishaLA]

15. Secretaries of State are elected officials

(in CA, at least)

[blm]

12. And wherever GOPs political machine CAN interfere it will, whether they control SoS office or not.

.

[Art_from_Ark]

28. Remember California SoS Kevin Shelley?

"Shelley was generally credited with good work on his handling of the 2003 recall election and on his handling of the controversy over the verifiability of electronic voting machines. He was the first state election official to decertify DRE voting machine systems already in use, to require all DRE voting machine systems to contain an accessible paper copy of a person's vote, and to adopt standards and security measures for such systems. He also initiated an investigation into electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions), and at the conclusion of the investigation, requested that then-State Attorney General Bill Lockyer investigate Diebold for criminal fraud.<2>

"But after that, he became embroiled in a number of scandals. A number of former staffers and other associates came forward and accused Shelley of abusive behavior toward his underlings.<3> Other accusations surfaced charging that Shelley received allegedly laundered campaign funds during his race for Secretary of State.<3> Shelley maintained that he did not know that the funds were illicitly transferred to his campaign treasury. (After an investigation, then-state Attorney General Bill Lockyer publicly exonerated Shelley, saying he was innocent of any wrongdoing in connection with the case.)<4> On October 29, 2004, Shelley replaced three of his top aides, including his trusted assistant state secretary of communications, with veteran civil servants, in an effort to bring more accountability to his office.<5>

"Shelley announced his resignation on February 4, 2005, to be effective March 1<6> although he did not leave office until March 4.<7> Chief Deputy Secretary of State Cathy Mitchell briefly served as Secretary of State until Bruce McPherson, a Republican, was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.<8> Upon taking office, McPherson reversed Shelley's actions, and on March 10. 2006, McPherson certified the DRE voting machines without verifiable, auditable paper trails.<9>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Shelley

[former9thward]

10. You are saying Rove controls the vote totals in California???

They must be out of tinfoil at stores near you.

[blm]

13. A strong political network can control the REPORTING of those numbers as it did in Ohio and Florida.

.

[former9thward]

16. No it can't.

You are saying the CA Democratic party has no organization and doesn't know what the numbers are??? Just ridiculous.

[blm]

17. Look what happened in Ohio's Warren County. Over 3000 more votes reported than there were voters.

Alot of bad numbers get reported and we only see it when a spotlight gets shone. Was California's Dem party in 2004 more on top of GOP counties than Ohio's Dem party?

[OnTheOtherHand]

18. nonsense

Warren County reported about 94,400 votes for president, 95,500 ballots cast, out of about 125,000 registered voters.

[blm]

19. Pardone, I meant Gahanna in Franklin County, though Warren did have its share of incredulous data.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/917

Warren sticks out in my head because of their lockdown and refusal to allow any media scrutiny of the counting process based on a LIE that it was a homeland security issue.

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. but Gahanna seems to undermine your point

The number from Gahanna was obviously wrong -- and it didn't stand. That doesn't prove that the Ohio counts were correct, but it certainly doesn't indicate that the Republicans were making numbers up at will.

The Warren County lockdown was very odd, but the actual results from Warren County look OK (with due respect to Richard Hayes Phillips).

[blm]

24. You're wrong...Gahanna PROVES my actual point as the officials only gave the CORRECT count after it

a Dem activist looked into the numbers later that week. You want to think rainbows and roses that GOP officials in Gahanna didn't KNOW that over 3000 more votes were IMPOSSIBLE on election night when they reported them, go right ahead. I don't. I am quite certain they'd cheat every which way there is to cheat, and especially when they know they control most of the election process.

[OnTheOtherHand]

25. "GOP officials in Gahanna"?

How on earth were "GOP officials in Gahanna" supposed to prevent anyone from detecting thousands of extra votes in a precinct? I'm not even sure that rises to the level of paranoia.

[blm]

26. OK... Roses and rainbows it is, then. In YOUR world an extra 3000 votes for Bush show up

in an impossible scenario and no GOP official was involved. Guess you forgot the part where Gahanna didn't uncover or reveal the bogus number THEMSELVES - the only way it came to light was due to further scrutiny by a Dem activist.

[OnTheOtherHand]

27. insult me all you like, but there's a factual problem here

The vote counts from each precinct are a matter of public record. There is no need for "Gahanna" to "uncover or reveal" anything "THEMSELVES." ("Gahanna" doesn't even run the election. It's the bipartisan county board that posts the results.) Yes, someone has to actually look at the returns, but that isn't very hard. Dialing thousands of extra votes into a precinct-based DRE is one of the dumbest imaginable ways of trying to steal votes. It's logically possible that someone could be that dumb, but in this case the official story makes more sense.

[shanti]

6. oh yes

it always felt like gray davis was set up. my issue with davis is why didn't he go down fighting???? he seemed to just fold and let them take it! :(

[fascisthunter]

7. yes

[Dawson Leery]

9. Likely

[onenote]

14. Gray Davis was never "the leading Democratic candidate for president"

And the suggestion that he was is laughable. I'm not saying he didn't have presidential ambitions. But he was never a leading candidate. By the time Gore announced (in December 2002) that he wasn't going to run, Kerry had already entered the race. In contrast, Davis had just won a narrow reelection as California governor with less than 50 percent of the vote. If you check the polls from the end of 2002 into early 2003, Davis' name almost never appears as a possible contender for the nomination and, in those few instances where it does, he was getting 1 percent, if anything.
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04dem2.htm

[WhiteTara]

21. I thought Gray was removed because he was going after

Enron and that set the dogs loose. He had a 9 billion dollar lawsuit pending against them.

[dynasaw]

22. and don't forget scumbag Darrell Issa

currently U.S. representative for California's 49th congressional district.

Issa has a criminal record involving theft and possession of illegal weapons and was the major contributor to the 2003 recall election of Governor Gray Davis,.