The New York Times editorial this morning calls for an aggressive investigation into the DOJ's partisan prosecutions, singling out the innocent Wisconsin state worker Georgia Thompson (prosecuted by US Atty Steven Biskupic) among three cases cited.

Wisconsin has been in the national news quite a bit these last few years; few would have believed it would be for corruption and the diminishing integrity of public office for political gain.

I would like to hear what Steven Biskupic has to say about the DoJ's politicalization. Is he for it? Does he dispute that it is taking place?

One part of the Justice Department mess that requires more scrutiny is the growing evidence that the department may have singled out people for criminal prosecution to help Republicans win elections. The House Judiciary Committee has begun investigating several cases that raise serious questions. The panel should determine what role politics played in all of them. ...

Madison's Lee Rayburn filled in as guest host on Air America this week and ran a nationally broadcast, hour-long segment on Keith Roberts, the Vietnam-era veteran jailed for seeking VA benefits related to his PTSD disability.

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McClatchy Newspapers ran a piece by Greg Gordon Monday noting that the DoJ had conducted the voter fraud witch hunts in numerous states. Some highlights:

 “Former lawyers in the Civil Rights Division, however, said the voter fraud campaign is a partisan effort to disqualify legitimate voters, as occurred in Florida before the 2000 presidential election.” 

"Aggressive purging of the voter rolls tends to have a disproportionate impact on voters who move frequently, live in cities and have names that are more likely to be incorrectly entered into databases," said Joseph Rich, a former chief of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section who's now an attorney with the liberal-leaning Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

 swalters [at] journalsentinel [dot] com has the latest on US Atty Stephen Biskupic.  

In his Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel blog, Walters notes that new documents written by his DoJ bosses praise Biskupic, begging the question of why Biskupic was placed on the US Atty kill list, and why Biskupic’s office subsequently conducted numerous bogus prosecutions that favored Republican partisans. 

- via MAL Contends
Madison, Wisconsin—An official Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) document contradicts the U.S. prosecutor’s narrative of alleged events that led to the conviction of a Wisconsin Vietnam-era veteran on federal wire fraud charges in 2006.

Jim Henning

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The document, a VA “Statement in Support of Claim,” written by the late Jim Henning, a Shawano County (Wisconsin) Veteran’s Service Officer, argues for an earlier retroactive date for disability benefits for Airman Keith Roberts (1968-74), who was diagnosed by several medical professionals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after witnessing a fellow airman being crushed to death in the wheel well of a C-54 airplane at a U.S. base in Naples, Italy in 1969.

Henning was known as a passionate and highly ethical advocate for veterans.

- via MAL Contends
The US House Committee on the Judiciary last week held an oversight hearing featuring Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Wisconsin citizens got a chance to see the newest member of the committee in action, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison).

Baldwin was aggressive in her questioning of Gonzales, while Gonzales was typically evasive, inane and insincere.

What stood out was the focus of Baldwin’s questions—US Atty Stephen Biskupic, and Gonzales’ spirited defense of Biskupic.

Baldwin opened by citing an April 16, 2007 editorial in the New York Times by Adam Cohen , and quoting passages about Biskupic’s specious and discredited prosecution of Georgia Thompson.

Madison, Wisconsin—The opinion by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that explained the freeing of the innocent state worker Georgia Thompson is being used by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to provide political cover for US Atty Biskupic. 

The Journal-Sentinel editorial, “Mistakes aren't crimes” (April 24, 2007), seized a slender reed at the end of the 14-page opinion that was also used by Biskupic in his own audacious public relations move after the written opinion was issued April 20.

Reads Biskupic’s statement on the Court’s opinion: “We are studying the decision to determine its impact on other cases. Meanwhile, given the initial rhetoric surrounding the result, we are heartened that the opinion notes the good faith legal difference inherent in the case.”

by MAL Contends

Madison, Wisconsin—The life of Robert Houghwout Jackson (1892-1954) is many things.

Scholar and jurist, public servant, humanity’s chief advocate at Nuremberg (1945-46), US Supreme Court Justice (1941–1954), and Brown v. Board of Education’s champion (his Brown opinion drafts were more confrontational and scholarly, reflecting the man’s moral outrage and intellect), Jackson’s like is difficult to locate among contemporary jurists.

As the Bush administration has turned the Department of Justice into a political operation of the White House, and liberal district attorneys around the country (including Wisconsin, see Brian Blanchard, for example) engage in frenzied quests to prove their tough-on-crime bone fides in furtherance of political careers, Jackson, as the US Attorney General (1940-41), speaks to us today with urgency.