VELVETREVOLUTION.US : The RestoreJusticeAtJustice Campaign

Under the Bush administration, the Justice Department was driven by ideology, and prosecutions were often used to settle scores and intimidate the opposition. In fact, the GOP, under the direction of Karl Rove, used the DoJ to target political enemies including Democratic contributors and those who were a threat to GOP electoral gains and big business interests. The Department was used as an arm of the White House to destroy these Democrats. This political profiling resulted in the criminal prosecution of many on the enemies list, including Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and trial lawyer Paul Minor.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder promised to return justice to the Justice Department and free the department from politics. We are now insisting that that promise be fulfilled by righting the wrongs of political profiling and prosecutions under the previous administration. We call on Attorney General Holder to immediately vacate the convictions of Siegelman and Minor, to investigate and identify others who have been politically prosecuted, and to vacate their convictions. Political profiling, like racial profiling, is wrong; when it results in a criminal prosecution, it constitutes prosecutorial misconduct. Our letter to AG Holder, endorsed by organizations representing hundreds of thousands of citizens and signed by many patriotic Americans, makes clear that Mr. Holder must act quickly to restore justice at the Department of Justice.

We ask other organizations to sign on to this campaign by sending an email to RestoreJusticeAtJustice@velvetrevolution.us. Individuals can sign on using the form below. This campaign will include a broad public relations push so we urge everyone to spread the word.

You can make targeted donations to this campaign at with an earmark comment in the box at http://www.velvetrevolution.us/donate.php.

Attorney General Eric Holder April 13, 2009
Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Holder:

Thank you for taking the necessary steps to vacate the conviction of Senator Ted Stevens because of misconduct by federal prosecutors. We now ask that you quickly do the same for all Bush-era politically motivated cases, starting with Don Siegelman and Paul Minor. Such action is necessary to restore public confidence in the rule of law and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), and to rectify a vast and manifest injustice. You must act soon, because the victims of such prosecutions are now suffering—some of them cruelly. It is unacceptable that any one of them should have to endure imprisonment, financial ruin, and even loss of family while courts ponder whether trial error occurred.

It is well established that the previous DOJ was controlled by partisans who misused their authority by targeting Democrats and others with viewpoints different from their own. As a result, people have been variously wronged, either by (1) rejection for employment at DOJ, (2) dismissal from positions there, or (3) trumped-up and/or partisan-targeted criminal prosecution. Under your leadership, the DOJ has moved toward ending such abuse. With your investigations of the hiring practices at DOJ and the US Attorney firings, you have begun to take concrete steps to deal with Points (1) and (2). As to Point (3), however, not enough has been done. Other than early, still-cursory DOJ investigations of problems with the prosecution of Don Siegelman and Paul Minor, your office has announced no action or intention to redress well-documented instances of selective criminal prosecutions carried out by the Bush administration.

A preponderance of evidence makes clear that zealous partisans in both the Bush White House and DOJ used their positions to protect and/or empower pro-Bush Republicans, while targeting those who disagreed—primarily Democrats—as enemies. Certain politicians, such as Gov. Siegelman, were targeted for threatening hoped-for GOP electoral gains, while certain jurists and attorneys, such as Oliver Diaz and Paul Minor, were punished for obstructing the intentions of the party's allies in big business.

As Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMelle recently reported in an article urging the release of Paul Minor, a study by University of Missouri Professors Donald Shields and John Cragan shows that "eighty percent of the Bush DOJ's political investigations targeted Democrats -- 5.6 Democrats for every Republican investigated by U.S. Attorneys for political misconduct. Shields noted in Congressional testimony that ‘such selective investigation and prosecution rates’ represent a clear bias in the severely disproportionate ‘political profiling’ of Democrats under Bush.”

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld most charges against Gov. Siegelman, with everyone involved deliberately ignoring the huge elephant in that courtroom—i.e., that post-trial revelations, deemed inadmissible by the appellate judges, pointed to profound political corruption as well as prosecutorial abuse. The governor should not have to wait months or years for a court to address these issues when you have the authority to do so at once.

And then there is Paul Minor, an attorney now in federal prison for a “crime” related to the funding of Democratic candidates and causes. Minor’s wife is dying of cancer in a hospital in Baton Rouge. Last month, he was given a three-hour pass to spend a moment with her (under supervision), but she had no chance to talk to him because she had been given her pain medication and lay fast asleep throughout his visit. Why should this man have to spend another hour away from his wife’s bedside, awaiting the decision of a court, when the flagrant partisan intent behind his prosecution should move the DOJ to withdraw charges, just as you did in Sen. Stevens' case? **

Selective prosecution for political advantage is a prosecutorial abuse at least as troubling as the wrongs in Sen. Stevens' case and, arguably, far more dangerous. We therefore ask that you immediately order the dismissal of charges against Don Siegelman and Paul Minor, and move quickly to investigate and identify other cases mounted by the Bush Administration for political advantage and, where appropriate, vacate them immediately. Only through such righteous action, which is wholly in your power, can we be sure that justice will, at last, be done, and that America's courts may once again deserve the public's confidence.

Sincerely,

Brad Friedman
Co-Founder, VelvetRevolution.us

** On the evening of April 13, 2009, Sylvia Minor died without her husband by her side after the DOJ opposed both bail pending appeal and a compassionate bedside furlough.

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