Uppity Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin—As the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) and U.S. Dept. of Justice remain under legal and political siege, a Vietnam-era veteran filed a brief Monday slamming the two governmental agencies in his bizarre benefits-turned-criminal case.

Keith Roberts’ supplemental brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) (Roberts v. Secretary of the VA (05-2425)), in tone echoing that of the veterans’ class action suit brought Tuesday, describes the “extraordinary rendition of a veteran from a VA administrative dispute directly into Federal District Court on criminal charges ….”

Since March of this year, Roberts has been serving a 48-month sentence (and his family financially shattered) for alleged wire fraud purportedly committed in his benefits application process with the VA, in an criminal-charges case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (appellate brief filed June 29) which Roberts vows to take to the US Supreme Court, if necessary.

The Vietnam-era airman who witnessed the death of a colleague killed in a gruesome C-54 aircraft accident in 1969 at a Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy, and was convicted of fabricating his role at the death scene in seeking VA disability benefits is appealing his conviction.

Keith RobertsKeith Roberts' appeal brief is due June 29 before the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The government brief is due July 30.

Roberts' reply brief is due August 13. Oral arguments are scheduled at the Court's convenience. The case number is: U.S. v. Roberts, E.D. of Wisconsin federal court, docket 05-CR-118. U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, 07-1546.

Despite a mountain of evidence corroborating Roberts’ narrative of events, US Atty Stephen Biskupic’s office was able to convince a jury that Roberts committed wire fraud, using the same federal magistrate to whom wrongly convicted state worker Georgia Thompson's case was assigned.

via MAL Contends

The media and indeed much of America got quite a laugh out of reports that Paris Hilton was sent back to jail in tears and emotional distress.

Hilton “was taken from a courtroom screaming and crying Friday seconds after a judge ordered her returned to jail to serve out her entire 45-day sentence for a parole violation in a reckless driving case.

McClatchy Newspapers ran a piece by Greg Gordon Monday noting that the DoJ had conducted the voter fraud witch hunts in numerous states. Some highlights:

"Aggressive purging of the voter rolls tends to have a disproportionate impact on voters who move frequently, live in cities and have names that are more likely to be incorrectly entered into databases," said Joseph Rich, a former chief of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section who's now an attorney with the liberal-leaning Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

 Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was sentenced to 30 months, and ordered to pay $250,000 in fines.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton (nominated to the position by President George W. Bush in 2001) handed down the sentence minutes ago.

Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, was convicted of perjury and obstructing justice in March, blocking a DoJ investigation into the unauthorized leaking of a CIA covert agent’s identity.

The leaking of the agent’s name, Valerie Plame, was later found to be one component of a conspiracy involving top members of the Bush administration defending its publicly stated, discredited rationales for going to war against Iraq.

The leaking is seen by many as retaliation against a leading war critic, Joseph Wilson, Plame’s husband.

Today’s Capital Times’ piece by Judith Davidoff and David Callender reveals that Biskupic’s push to investigate alleged voter fraud was not limited to Milwaukee but also targeted the high Democratic-voting areas of the city of Madison and Southeastern Wisconsin. 

Biskupic, after publicly finding no evidence of any widespread pattern of fraud or voter irregularities as part of a bipartisan task force, launched the voter fraud investigations and subsequent prosecutions anyway, precisely in accordance with the national Republican program to suppress Democratic turnout.  

Writes Davidoff and Callender: 

 swaltersjournalsentinel [dot] com (Steven Walters) has the latest on US Atty Stephen Biskupic.  

In his Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel blog, Walters notes that new documents written by his DoJ bosses praise Biskupic, begging the question of why Biskupic was placed on the US Atty kill list, and why Biskupic’s office subsequently conducted numerous bogus prosecutions that favored Republican partisans. 

The scene: A frantic race to the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

At stake: Our civil liberties.

Slate tells the story.

If you prefer a straight news version, try The Washington Post or The New York Times.

Madison, Wisconsin—The opinion by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that explained the freeing of the innocent state worker Georgia Thompson is being used by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to provide political cover for US Atty Biskupic. 

The Journal-Sentinel editorial, “Mistakes aren't crimes” (April 24, 2007), seized a slender reed at the end of the 14-page opinion that was also used by Biskupic in his own audacious public relations move after the written opinion was issued April 20.

Reads Biskupic’s statement on the Court’s opinion: “We are studying the decision to determine its impact on other cases. Meanwhile, given the initial rhetoric surrounding the result, we are heartened that the opinion notes the good faith legal difference inherent in the case.”