The politicization of the Justice Department and the use of law to screw opponents has probably happened before. However, not to this extent, and not lately. Aaron Burr probably got a raw deal, for example; I suppose that you could say that the Purple Shamrock, Mayor Curley of Boston, got railroaded. Hoffa was guilty of everything they accused him of and more, but there was a strong political tinge to his prosecution by Bobby Kennedy. There have been many others, of course -- hell, ask Oliver Stone, he'll roll out a dozen or so.
But, the fracas over Governor Seligman's conviction is interesting. He took a donation and appointed a guy to a board. Duh...how do people get appointed to ambassadorships? The tough ones go to the careerists at State or Defense depending on how screwed up things are, but campaign contributors get the cushy ones. Boards, advisor-ships, and so on are chosen based on the qualifications of the members and, of course, their interest as known by the appointing authority. How does the appointing authority get to know? Why, they tell them, along with the red envelope ( a traditional Chinese approach to bribe giving that's cleaner than what we do) full of loot.
Of course, the guy he appointed was Richard Scushy, the hero of HealthSouth who is the poster child for effective and successful corporate corruption. Still, at the time he appointed the guy, everyone thought he was just a business genius. It would be like condemning 41 for appointing Ken Lay to a board in 1991 because of the rampant corruption at ENRON that came to light beginning in 2001.
Anyway, there are smoking guns all over the place...with fingerprints, pictures and old fashioned glasses covered in lipstick. This could be an interesting one, if Congress really digs into it.
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