Joint Hearing Of The House Committee On the Judiciary's Subcommittees- Federal Justice System's Selective Prosecution

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Joint Hearing Of The House Committee On the Judiciary's Subcommittees- Federal Justice System's Selective Prosecution

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REP. HANK JOHNSON (D-GA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps the most significant statement about the dangers of political interference with prosecutorial judgments was made by then attorney-general and later Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson who stated that, quote, "With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it. It is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books or putting the investigators to work to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm in which the prosecutor picks someone whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass or selects some group or unpopular person and then looks for an offense that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies."

And having said that, I would like to point out that along with concerns about Governor Siegelman and George Wilson being investigated because of pressure from the White House and from Karl Rove, there are concerns about the prosecution of Georgia State Senator Charles Walker. Senator Walker is -- has a case that's on appeal. His lawyers, Dershowitz, Eiger & Adelson in a October 22nd, 2007 letter, which appears in our packet, have asked the committee to take a look at this case and I just want to talk about the case.

Senator Walker was one of Georgia's most prominent black politicians -- a former state senator who had served in the legislature for 20 years. He made history by -- in 1996 by being elected as Senate majority leader in Georgia, making him the first African-American to become a Senate leader in the country. His efforts in changing the state flag and beating the current governor for the position of Senate majority leader has led many to believe that those events led to his downfall.

During the current governor's campaign for governor -- and he switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party -- the current governor vowed to create an inspector-general's office to investigate corruption and cronyism. To drive the point home, he not only traveled to Senator Walker's hometown of Augusta to introduce this initiative, he held a press conference in front of one of Senator Walker's businesses. Concurrently, the Georgia Republican leadership openly pressed the U.S. attorney to go after prominent Democrats, a fact that was confirmed through a subsequent investigation by the Justice Department. The current governor won the election, Walker was defeated in his bid for reelection, and it was later revealed that the U.S. attorney Richard Thompson was carrying out a political agenda with respect to some of his investigations on Walker and others.

The Office of Professional Responsibility investigation within the Department of Justice found that Thompson was guilty of a number of politically motivated ethical lapses, including his duty to refrain from making public comments on ongoing investigations, his duty to refrain from participating in a manner that directly affected the interest of a personal friend, i.e. the governor, and political ally, and three, his duty to refrain from taking action that would interfere with or affect an election.

The investigation concluded that U.S. Attorney Thompson abused his authority and violated the public trust for the purposes of benefiting a personal and political ally. Thompson later resigned his office as U.S. attorney in disgrace. The investigations of the former officials were dropped but the investigation of Senator Walker continued. Thompson's successor, Lisa Godbey Wood, continued the investigation which resulted in an indictment filed against Walker on 142 counts of mail fraud, tax fraud, and conspiracy, including numerous counts related to his service as a member of the Georgia Assembly.

Several questions with respect to Senator Walker's trial had been raised from the integrity of the judge presiding to the selection of the jury. The judge, U.S. District Court Judge Dudley Bowen, whose nomination Senator Walker had opposed due to allegations that the judge was a member of private clubs which excluded blacks -- the judge had close ties to the Augusta newspaper which was the principal competitor of Senator Walker's newspaper business. And the jury pool was expanded from the largely minority district of Augusta, Georgia to the outlying areas outlining the city which is predominantly white, which it resulted in an expanded jury pool. This issue has ignited a lot of attention. Senator Walker's case is on appeal and I'll yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you.

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