ANDREW KREIG : SIEGELMAN FRAME - UP REQUIRES OBAMA RESPONSE TO ONGOING OUTRAGES ~ THE 5TH ESTATE ASIA

Sunday, January 17, 2016

ANDREW KREIG : SIEGELMAN FRAME - UP REQUIRES OBAMA RESPONSE TO ONGOING OUTRAGES

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Ongoing travesty of the Siegleman case a testimonial to widespread corruption in the U.S. judicial system and a damning indictment on Alabama and the "mainstream media"

JUSTICE INTEGRITY PROJECT
By Andrew Kreig
12/29/2015

The return to solitary confinement of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman for 57 days this fall underscores President Obama's duty to provide clemency to a victim of America's most disgraceful recent political prosecution.

At a minimum, Obama should commute the remainder of Siegelman's sentence, now scheduled to extend until mid-2017.

Far better, the president should issue a full pardon to the former governor and his co-defendant Richard Scrushy, the founder and former CEO of HealthSouth Inc. Update: High court won't hear appeal from former Alabama governor, Jan. 11, 2016.

Scrushy and Siegelmen were convicted of corruption charges in a 2006 federal trial.

Scrushy has completed his sentence but is at least as much of a civil rights victim as Siegelman, Alabama's governor from 1999 to 2003 and its last Democrat in that office.

Scrushy, a Republican, has consistently argued that his company's donation to defray costs of a 1998 state referendum proposal was a routine expense for his billion-dollar company and that he was imprisoned only because he refused to take a prosecutors' plea deal to perjure himself to implicate Siegelman.

Siegelman at left in prison with fellow inmate Charles Cloud on Dec. 11 following his release from "The Hole"

Alabama Attorney Gen. William Pryor, a Republican, began investigating Siegelman immediately upon the Democrat's assumption of office in 1999. Pryor's crusade was joined by the Bush administration after it took office in 2001. Their massive investigation ultimately ended Siegelman's viability as a statewide candidate or potential presidential contender. For nearly a decade, Pryor has been a federal judge on the Atlanta-based appellate court hearing Siegelman and Scrushy appeals.

Beginning immediately after Siegelman's sentencing in June 2007, he has been a repeated victim of solitary confinement for no apparent reason aside from the demonstrated animosity trial judge Mark Fuller, Bureau of Prisons personnel with unknown motives, and indifference at best by a politically timid Obama White House.

Read the rest of Andrew Kreig's report HERE.

Andrew Kreig

Andrew Kreig, Esq.

Andrew Kreig is Justice Integrity Project Executive Director and co-founder with over two decades experience as an attorney and non-profit executive in Washington, DC. An author and longtime investigative reporter, his primary focus since 2008 has been exploring allegations of official corruption and other misconduct in federal agencies. He has been a consultant and volunteer leader in advising several non-profit groups fostering cutting-edge applications within the communications industries.

As president and CEO of the Wireless Communications Association International (WCAI) from 1996 until 2008, Kreig led its worldwide advocacy that helped create the broadband wireless industry. Previously, he was WCAI vice president and general counsel, an associate at Latham & Watkins, law clerk to a federal judge, author of the book Spiked about the newspaper business and a longtime reporter for the Hartford Courant.

Listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World from the mid-1990s and currently, he holds law degrees from the University of Chicago School of Law and from Yale Law School. Reared in New York City, his undergraduate degree in history is from Cornell University, where he was a student newspaper editor, rowing team member, and Golden Gloves boxer.