Not much of a diary entry here.
But, via Notorious J.M.M., I just read a very interesting editorial published yesterday in a Milwaukee paper.
The subject of the editorial is the activities of Wisconsin U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic in the matter of a criminal prosecution of a member of Gov. Jim Doyle's staff on trumped up -- and later overturned -- fraud charges.
Here's how it starts:
Thursday’s ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, which immediately freed former state worker Georgia Thompson, was a stunner. Not only did the three federal judges immediately give Thompson her freedom, but they also delivered a smack-down to the Milwaukee office of U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic, calling the evidence in the case "beyond thin."
Here's where it goes:
The case was curious from the beginning. As Thompson’s attorney, Stephen Hurley, noted, the state worker was a civil servant hired during Republican Gov. Scott McCallum’s tenure, making Thompson’s supposed bias toward Doyle seem improbable; she didn’t profit from the contract; no one else was named in connection with her supposed fraud; she didn’t name names or plead to a lesser charge to save herself; and the contract did, indeed, go to the lowest bidder, as is required. So where’s the crime?
And here is what the editorial concludes:
Feeling the political pressure, Biskupic first tried to find the massive voter fraud that the Republican Party and the Journal Sentinel, along with their talk-radio friends, screamed was rampant in the city of Milwaukee. They even provided hundreds of names of "illegal voters" that Biskupic attempted to track down. After spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars, he found that there was no rampant voter fraud.
So Biskupic, in an attempt to satisfy his bosses, then went after Georgia Thompson. To destroy an innocent woman’s life was no problem for Biskupic if it could be used to help defeat Gov. Doyle. Once Georgia Thompson was charged, the Republican Party, the Journal Sentinel and the right-wing talk-show hosts used this indictment to try to make Doyle look corrupt.
Not much of diary, I know, but I am posting this, because anyone seeking to understand what the U.S. Attorney scandal is all about really needs to read this article, because it is here that all connections are made.
Going forward, I think our narrative is:
- The White House politicized the office of U.S. Attorney
- The White House tried to force U.S. Attorneys to create investigations and prosecutions that were politically motivated
- These investigations and prosecutions were designed to interfere with the course of the 2006 elections
- Biskupic and perhaps others agreed to do the White House's dirty work
- Iglesias and perhaps others refused
- The lives on innocent people were damaged or destroyed by this effort
- An innocent state worker was sent to prison on fake charges created by this effort
- Finally, the careers of those U.S. Attorneys who refused to cooperate were upturned in the cover-up
A tangent to all of this are the efforts by the White House to destroy millions of pages of records that may have had information about this and other matters.