By Andrew Kreig / Project Director

A federal appeals court in Atlanta May 10 reversed two bribery convictions of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and businessman Richard Scrushy but upheld the rest of their 2006 corruption convictions in what our Project has long denounced as the nation’s most notorious political frame-up. The ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sending the case back to the district court for resentencing is yet another reason for the public to demand a thorough investigation of the case.

We and others, including CBS 60 Minutes, have published many exposes describing massive irregularities in the politically orchestrated prosecution of Alabama’s leading Democrat under the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration has continued the prosecution and cover-up, despite evidence that the trial judge hated Siegelman and benefitted from $300 million in Bush federal contracts to a closely held company the judge controls as its top shareholder. Imprisoning Scrushy has also proven to be a bonanza for well-connected lawyers from both parties able to prosper from some $500 million in damage awards in a civil fraud settlement by insurers of his former company, HealthSouth, while he’s been imprisoned on a seven-year term imposed in 2007.

Our project has called for public protests unless the Senate Judiciary Committee rigorously examines the case as part of its confirmation hearing for the Obama administration’s nominee to become U.S. attorney for Alabama’s middle district, based in the state capital of Montgomery.

By Andrew Kreig / Project Director

Janny Scott, an award-winning New York Times reporter, took a leave of absence in 2008 to research and write A Singular Woman, the recently published biography of President Obama’s late mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Based on the author’s nearly 200 interviews and unique access to many personal records held by Dunham-Obama friends and family, the book fills in many gaps of what is popularly known. Dunham died at age 52 after marriage to Barack Obama, Sr., of Kenya and Lolo Soetoro of Indonesia, each of whom she met as fellow students at the University of Hawaii’s East-West Center.

The author, at left, clearly has made vital contributions towards greater understanding of the president’s family. This is a first-of its kind book that doubtless will be much-cited and otherwise of historical importance. But in the end, A Singular Woman is a flawed and highly deferential account that leaves many mysteries remaining. Also, the book illustrates the limitations of biography that is based in significant part on the author’s currying access to the powerful.