Why No RICO Prosecutions of Republicans?

by Steve

The Bush Administration is denying allegations by former Alabama governor Don Siegelman that his prosecution under the RICO statute and conviction on only seven of 32 counts thrown at him by the Bush Justice Department was purely a Karl Rove political hit job. Siegelman’s attorneys claim to have evidence that Rove used GOP operatives and the Bush-appointed federal prosecutors in Alabama to go after Siegelman, a Democrat, to pave the way for current GOP governor Bob Riley.

Even a former Justice prosecutor thinks the Bush Administration’s case against Siegelman was garbage. But that hasn’t stopped the Alberto Gonzales Justice Department from trying to get a Bush-appointed federal judge to sentence Siegelman to a prison sentence of 30 years on the seven counts they did get convictions on, and are asking the judge to sentence Siegelman even on the 25 counts he was acquitted of. It seems like a gross amount of overkill against a Democrat by a Republican prosecutorial machine for “crimes” that are committed everyday in state capitals and in Washington: rewarding campaign contributors with government appointments.

But if the Bush Administration and the Gonzales Justice department feels that a sentence of 30 years is warranted because a Democratic governor took a large campaign contribution from a health industry donor and then gave that donor a seat on a hospital board, can the media please ask Dana Perino, Tony Snow, and Alberto Gonzales how many GOP governors have been prosecuted for rewarding campaign contributors since 2001? If this is a major issue for the Gonzales Justice Department, when can we expect investigations and RICO prosecutions for all appointments of Bush Rangers and Pioneers to ambassadorships and elsewhere in his administration?

For that matter, why hasn’t the Justice Department investigated Dick Cheney’s rewarding of oil and energy industry campaign contributors through the Energy Task Force and a host of environmental rollbacks the administration has pursued over the last six years, most of which have been stalled or reversed in court? Isn't that and the Abramoff/Norquist/Mitchell Wade/Brent Wilkes/Blackwater culture an example of the biggest RICO scam in our country's history?