Harper's magazine remains the best watchdog of the U.S. Dept of Justice corruption.

From Scott Horton's column today blasting U.S. Atty Biskupic:

Compensating the Victims

The Bush Justice Department has engaged in a number of blatantly political prosecutions. One was already ascertained in an internal probe. My understanding is that a pending Inspector General investigation has reached the same conclusion in another case in which it confirmed Karl Rove’s intervention and involvement, and that it is looking at several more. And one of them was ascertained by a Court of Appeals decision, by a unanimous, all-Republican panel of the Seventh Circuit, which in fact labeled a prosecution, which produced a conviction and was before them on appeal, with a stinging one-word rebuke. They called it “preposterous.”

The Appeals judges ordered the immediate release of the prisoner after hearing the case, not even waiting for the issuance of an opinion. This was the case of Georgia Thompson, a Wisconsin civil servant, who was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney in Milwaukee with the evident purpose of helping the Republican candidate for governor get a leg up during the election. Moreover, the U.S. Attorney had previously been on Karl Rove’s list of prosecutors to fire, and after this and some other highly suspect cases, his name disappeared off the list. The facts speak for themselves, a lawyer might say.

Why should Wisconsin citizens get stuck with the $200,000 tab paid to an innocent Wisconsin woman who was the victim of a political prosecution by the United States Dept of Justice?

State Representative Pedro Colon (D-Milwaukee) says the federal government should foot the bill, not Wisconsin taxpayers.

United States Attorney Stephen Biskupic was excoriated by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last year in an extraordinary decision that freed the innocent state worker, Georgia Thompson.

From the Associated Press:

MADISON,Wis. (AP) -- A lawmaker wants the state to force the federal government to reimburse an employee who was wrongly convicted in federal court.

This is no misunderstanding.

The VA and DoJ know what they did.

The VA and DoJ indicted and convicted an innocent Wisconsin Navy veteran who blew the whistle, in arguably obnoxious tones of voice, on the VA engaging in one instance of fraud, and the VA's general bureaucratic stall-and-let-the-veterans-die-before-collecting-on-their-claims-policy.

Now comes the latest exculpatory evidence on U.S. Navy Airman Keith Roberts (1968–71), a Wisconsin citizen who became a political and legal VA target because he would not keep his mouth shut.

- Lee Rayburn for a full hour discussing the Keith Roberts obscenity - [Give the radio show's file some time to load, hour-long show.]

Madison, Wisconsin — Navy Airman Keith Roberts (1969-71) sits in a federal penitentiary in Minnesota, serving a 48-month sentence since March, awaiting news from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit of his appeal for his conviction on federal wire fraud.

Madison, Wisconsin — Navy Airman Keith Roberts (1969-71) sits in a federal penitentiary in Minnesota, serving a 48-month sentence since March, awaiting news from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit of his appeal for his conviction on federal wire fraud.

The honorably discharged veteran’s criminal conviction is based upon the U.S. Dept of Justice’s assertions, made through the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Stephen Biskupic, that Roberts lied about his relationship with and his actions pertaining to a fellow Navy airman who was crushed to death by a C-54 transport aircraft in a Feb. 1969 accident at a Naval airbase in Naples, Italy.

Updated: John Edwards fundraiser acquitted on all counts, DOJ political prosecution goes up in flames