another. in fact, his faction w@@@ @ @ @r my first three months on the bench i had enjoyed him from failing to include the big party candidate on the statewide ballot. in the mid-1990s, he called several press conferences and raked me over the coals after i enjoyed him under title 7 for enforcing a state law that barred consideration of anyone who was ever convicted of a crime. publicly, our relationship was less then a mutual admiration society. privately, we did not know each other. [laughter]

in response to that media campaign, i took judicial notice that my daughter was only judicial te at the law firm notice that my daughter was only an associate at the law firm at one time, never was a partner, and wasn't even there when the governor was indicted, the ex-governor was indicted, and that in any event, it was the attorney general, bill frey, who had hired the former law firm, not don siegelman. pointed out that since their graduation from yale and columbia law school, she's on her own, more or less. i pointed out that i tried numerous criminal and civil

cases since my sister's conviction without objection from the government, and so i proceeded on in the case. i denied dr. bobo's motion for double jeopardy, i mean motion to dismiss based on double jeopardy grounds, and the government then filed a motion to disqualify mr. siegelman's lawyers. and i granted the motion. no theless, the united states attorney, with the wreckless impermada of the highest levels of the justice department filed a motion asking me to disqualify myself.

of course dinid the motion and the justice department rushed to the 11th circuit to have me removed from the case, but the panel of two democratic appointees and one republican denied the requested mandamus petition. in the meantime the united states attorneys office rather blatantly attempted to poison the jury pool. on a friday afternoon, mr. siegelman filed a motion requesting the sealing of any other bad acts evidenced under rule 404-b that the government was expected to offer at trial. on monday morning, with the very purpose of preventing the court from ruling on the motion, the

government currently files highly prejudicial material, some of which was used in the subsequent trial in the miller district, and it filed these materials as a matter of public record. and so the "birmingham news" and other media had a field day, many of the jurors who were ultimately summoned at the trial had been exposed to those obviously inadmissible accusations. now, of course, i did my duty and sanctioned the united states attorneys who filed those motion s. the principle culprit was later promoted to head up promoted to head up the public corruption section of the united states attorneys office in the northern district.

we then proceeded to select a jury, truly representing a fair cross section of the community which i had to sequester. most unusual. one of the few times that we've had a sequestered jury in the northern district of alabama, precisely to avoid additional inflammatory publicity during the trial. well, in our system of laws where there are -- where there is a conspiracy charge, you know conspiracy is one of the favorite mechanisms of prosecutors, because once you show the existence of a conspiracy, all kinds of hearsay evidence can come into play. and so the law says that the judge has to have a hearing to

determine whether there is the requisite predicate for a conspiracy charge. now, most judges allow the evidence to end and they say before the case goes to the jury, they will make the requisite determination. well, i decided i would have the hearing before the case started. and the government put on three or four witnesses, each of which testified in effect that there was no conspiracy. one of the principal witnesses against mr. siegelman in the subsequent trial in montgomery in the miller district was questioned by me. and he said emphatically that to

his knowledge there was no conspiracy of which don siegelman was a knowing member. now, i followed the law and held that the government had failed to prove the first elm of a conspiracy charge, namely the existence of the conspiracy. and although unnecessary to reach the second element, it like wise failed to prove that mr. siegelman knowingly became a member of any conspiracy. so i announced my decision and to my utter amazement in view of the remaining substantive charges against mr. siegelman and mr. henry, the government moved to dismiss the case in its

entirety. and i granted the motion and dismissed it with prejudice. pare parenthetically, dr. bobos case had been severed because he wanted to appeal my failure to dismiss the charges against him on double jeopardy grounds and i didn't want to unduly delay the trial of the case. 11th circuit upheld my decision against him and there was a subsequent appeal by the government of my exclusion of evidence based on an alleged violation of the competitived y by -- bid law, but despite the fact that i was right, i should

be removed from the trial of the bobo case. so dr. bobo went to trial before another judge and the jury found him not guilty on all charges. and i rather expected mr. siegelman to file a motion under the hyde amendment for attorneys fees. but he still had, i guess, political ambitions and so the motion wasn't filed. there were rumors at the time the case was dismissed that mr. siegelman would be pursued in the miller district. well, this past sunday, the "birmingham news" ran an article on the then united states attorneys stepping down from her position. she was reported as having said

that she wanted to win the case in the northern district, but losing it didn't cause too much heart ache because she knew that another fellow indictment out of alabama's middle district was waiting. on mr. siegel. she's quoted, i trusted that the mill district would have a more balanced venue on their indictment, which i knew was under seal. she was either cloir voi yant or had some inside information because the indictment in the mill district didn't come down for another seven months.

but one thing was clear to me from her comment, and that is that she and the other prosecutors were focused on the man and not on the crime. as i said in my recent letter to attorney general holder, the case turned out to be the most up founded criminal case over which i presided in my entire judicial career. completely without legal merit. and i urged the general and the judiciary committee to look into the matter. i'll take up any questions that you have, since i'm now exercising first amendment rights. yes, i have.

i heard from the attorney general last week and he indicated the matter would be investigated. thank you all. oh. [ applause ] >> well, thank you, judge. i'll just say parenthetically, it's necessarily the case that discussions of the law have technicalities. but these technicalities are essential for the purpose of having rules in very complicated situations. so if any of you have been in court, you're getting a very short version of centuries of law here, and the purpose is to have a fair trial.

and thank you so much. well, moving right along, our next speaker, we're going to put the focus a little bit more on what are things from the defendant's point of view. just to take maybe a couple of seconds, cluj clemens mentioned aides to former governor siegelman caught up in this. and ultimately, all charges even after the second trial were dismissed against those aides who were just caught up in the net. and when you think about the obligation to respond to a response that's 100 pages and a ruinous effort on a family who does not have the income on this, it's very important to

think of what the consequences are when people are indicted and found either innocent or guilty. and our next speaker is charles "champ" walker. former congressional candidate in georgia. he's also the son of charge w. walker sr. who i mentioned at the beginning was a state senator from georgia, actually the first african-american state senator majority leader in the united states history. and as you'll hear a little bit more, he's currently serving a ten-year sentence in georgia on corruption charges. and champ, who is a businessman involved in technology. he was independent of this just last week, spe he is going to talk to you about his father's case, give some sense of what that is like, and

also some wider thoughts about what it means for perhaps hundreds of others around the country. i look forward to hearing what you have to say. [applause] >> good morning. first of all, i would like to thank god for just allow me to be here today and to see all of these faces and all of the experts who have used their time to convene and give their thoughts about this great miscarriage of justice within these united states. i would like to especially thank joe simpson -- jill simpson, the whistle-blower in alabama. i sent out an e-mail asking people to call the department of justice and to call chairman conyers about my father's case

so that we could be a part of the hearings. within a day, within two hours, i received an e-mail from jill saying, this is a tragedy. wo hours of sending out an e-blast, i received an e-mail from joe simpson saying this is a tragedy. she made some referrals to a coup of people and the next thing you know three or four days later, i was purchasing a ticket to come up to d.c. to be a part of this selective hearings. as a result, my father's case was included in the letter to the department of justice to be investigated. i must tell you, though, the selective prosecution of democrats is just as indefensible as racial bias. judge clemon can very well tell you that there were marches and

you all know that people were killed for civil rights. these are our leaders. they make laws. they chose the life of servanthood. how can the average american in these united states expect to get a fair trial when the leaders cannot get a fair trial? how ridiculous is it that we have evidence of bias of u.s. attorneys, judges, where you can prove, where you can point to documents out of their own mouths that they had a personal bias. i will talk today about what we need to do as concerned citizens about restoring justice at the department of justice. but it's also a rallying call to every citizen out there to understand how important this particular issue is. this has been a war against

democrats. against democrats. need we say more about the damning statistical revelation that was given by donald shields, the professor at, i believe, it's missouri state university. there's a 1 in 10,000 chance that the department of justice would have gone after democrats more so than republicans. i will tell you that there were 268 democrats, 57 republicans and only 10 independents that were either investigated, prosecuted, some were acquitted. but it went largely enknown, because this is a systemic problem. but the abuse today, we can

point to. and i will highlight later on on the part of my father's case simply because we can point to very clear instances where something should have been done. justice recently, we warned the accuser a week and a half ago of a judge who my father fought back in 199, basically against his nomination to become judge. it was a very open and public debate. my father headed up the only government-funded civil rights organization in the city. the judge obvious didn't remember, but our attorney nathan dershowitz found on the micro fische two articles that this was a coveted position for a judge and a major milestone in his career. still yet he didn't remember this young civil rights warrior came after him.

but when evidence showed up, all of a sudden there was a change. there's some parallels in the siegelman case involving the u.s. attorney, their accuse e, this conflict of interest. whenever you have a u.s. attorney to poison the well, those who would drink from that well no matter who it is, even a new u.s. attorney, if they use that same information, they're poisoned as well. i can't begin to talk about what a judge can do. but i believe from a judge, u.w.clemon has told us. we now that proof that the doj was politicizing republicans with ultraconservative views. we also know that a political pressure was used to coerce u.s.

attorneys across the country to indict democrats. we know that most of the investigations were launched during the election cycle. we know that heavily democratic-leaning states were targeted. we know that major fundraisers of the democratic party were targeted. look at paul minor, david rosen. we know that democratic victims were high ranking, highly popular and considered a threat. we know that at least nine u.s. attorneys were fired because they did not pursue investigation on democrats. again, must we present super extraordinary circumstances or evidence to the department of justice to start these investigations immediately? well, today we have decided to take the show on the road and to rally the troops. those of you all who are members of the media, please recognize that one of the things that we

found in the shields report was that most of these investigations occurred up under the national radar. in cities where there were perhaps only one beat reporter. so therefore, many people in the nation never heard of what happened. and certainly they can not make the national connection. but as you know, i ran for congress in 2002 and i found that quickly that all politics is local. when i ran for office, bush, cheney, dennis hastert, rumsfeld, all came to my state to fight. all politics is local. the gentleman who beat me in the democratic district became president of the freshman class. there's certainly a level of

reward involving those in the political system. now, i will highlight this case because of the numerous and inconceivable outcomes and rulings that defy any logic, and more so any rule of law. and again, i'm talking about my father's case. sure, it's dare to my heart, but there's some very concise and clear things that we must understand. it's inconceivable to me that we would wait. the department of justice would not move immediately. first of all, as in the siegelman case, there was no crime. there was no crime. what started off as a political search for corruption and kwid pro quo ended up being an investigation of my father's personal businesses. how did it get started? my father beat out the current

governor of georgia sonny purdue, his friend for the senate majority position. he switched parties, and it is documented, because my father became senate majority leader. he held a press conference in front of our businesses and stated that my father was the poster child of cronieism and corruption and was the best friend of the governor then roy barnes. he ran for election. his friend then conducted an investigation on the current governor back then, roy barnes and three other top-ranking democrats. during that time, an investigation was launched at the department of professional responsibility where they had concluded that he had abused his power for helping a political friend and ally by sending out

press releases to help the governor. they let him resign. no action was taken. my father's case ironically went forward. now, how could that possibly happen? but it did. now today, the same governor who said he would create an inspector general's office out of his own mouth appointed a disgraced u.s. attorney richard thompson as administrative judge for the ethics commission in the state of georgia. how bold. can we make a link there can we connect the dots? of course we can. have we not presented extraordinary circumstances and evidence of conflicts of

interest? have we not proven there were personal motives who had agendas that went after siegelman, paul minor. were they not a threat to the establishment? of course they were. in my father's case, what turned out to be a motive of gambling turned out to be incorrect. they said he was going to atlantic city and he lost a significant amount of money and therefore he had to steal from a charity he had created and that we needed money. during the first day of the court proceedings, the government abandoned its theories because they checked his losses but not his winnings. the judge allowed testimony to be submitted to the jury even though it was recanted during the trial and the record proves it was false. one of my father's colleagues senator nady ne thomas stated my father held up a very important bill with grady hospital, a

federal-funded hospital. when she came to trial, she said it never occurred. she thought it had occurred. she looked up on the internet. he was never even a part of it. still yet, he was charged, and it went to the jury. perjured testimony documented. there were 142 count which is altogether represented five charges. listen to the charges. 98% of the things the initial article in the "atlanta constitution" which the government said prompted the investigation never made it through the grand jury. they said he stole proceeds from hot dogs, peanuts and popcorn and snicker bar sales from a charity football game. this represented 30-something counts. but the jury acquitted him on tax evasion charges. they couldn't find the money.

failure to file a timely financial disclosure, even though the state ethics commission had resolved him by giving him an ethics fine. it was a $25 fine. this represented 20-something counts. they said he overstated the readership and circulation of our local minority newspaper. not one newspaper in the united states of america has been charged with such. most matters of that nature are handled in civil court. he sent two $25 money orders to his nephews that were in prison. i can't tell you how many counts they charged him for that. most of the counts came from bills that crossed state lines that they considered mail fraud. now, let me tell you a little bit about the conflict of interest with the judge, because in the siegelman's case, we see the prosecutor, we see the judge, and we see people in the doj taking their side. there's a web of conspiracy, but

it is real. but who's listening? today you're here to take back to your family, friends and the media. you're here with the facts armed to be this agent of change that we so desperately need today. judge bowen, of course, recused himself based upon the fact that my father came after him. but during the trial, he refused to allow the defense to raise the issue of prosecutorial misconduct or selective prosecution. sound familiar? same in the siegelman case. he sequestered the jury over the memorial day weekend. you can't do that. people want to go home. the judges can tell you what that will do. he allowed perjured testimony. he did not sanitize the indictment after the government abandoned several of its theories. he wanted to poison the well. he denied every single motion the defense counsel made. now, during the jury trial,