Georgia Thompson was convicted by right-wing media

According to a local Milwaukee weekly Newspaper, the Shepherd-Express.com, the jury which convicted Georgia Thompson did so based on information that was blared by the media during election year.

April 12, 2007
Thursday’s ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, which immediately freed former state worker Georgia Thompson, was a stunner. Not only did the three federal judges immediately give Thompson her freedom, but they also delivered a smack-down to the Milwaukee office of U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic, calling the evidence in the case “beyond thin.” [Snip]

Why? Because the political climate—in George W. Bush’s America, in Wisconsin and in Milwaukee, in particular, where the case was decided—is so poisoned by political games that the jury sent a message that wasn’t based on the evidence introduced in the courtroom. [Snip]

Last June, just as the race for governor was heating up, Georgia Thompson was convicted of improperly steering a state contract to the Adelman Travel Group, which is run by a politically involved family that has a history of favoring Democrats.

Predictably, almost daily headlines blaring the latest developments in the “travelgate” saga were used in campaign advertisements against Doyle. Mark Green supporters—right-wing WTMJ radio talkers and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel included—plumped up the allegations against Thompson and buried her defense, if it reported her side of the story at all. (In interviews after the verdict, juror Marvin Bizzelle claimed that Doyle had orchestrated the whole matter, even though Biskupic didn’t make that allegation. Gee, wonder where Bizzelle could have gotten that information? And why did he bring that information into deliberations, when jurors are supposed to render a verdict on the evidence brought forth in the courtroom?)

As Thompson’s attorney, Stephen Hurley, noted, the state worker was a civil servant hired during Republican Gov. Scott McCallum’s tenure, making Thompson’s supposed bias toward Doyle seem improbable; she didn’t profit from the contract; no one else was named in connection with her supposed fraud; she didn’t name names or plead to a lesser charge to save herself; and the contract did, indeed, go to the lowest bidder, as is required. So where’s the crime?

But other factors bothered us. Why was Thompson charged with federal crimes? As we noted in a news article last summer, Thompson’s attorney argued that “at best, the evidence demonstrates a violation of the applicable sections of the Wisconsin Administrative Code.”

The article points out that even though the alleged crime would have most appropriately be a crime against state law, and Georgia Thompson was an employee in the state capital, Madison, the Dane County District Attorney who shared in the investigation did not indict her. The Move to have the US attorney in Milwaukee indict and try her is a strong indication of the political nature of the indictment and trial.

Josh Marshall has produced a UTube report on this case that provides a lot of very good background in Republican national politics with Karl Rove and the Department of "Justice". Here it is:



There is more coming in the case of Biscupic's inappropriate indictment (as well as the next inappropriate indictment Biscupic has brought for similar political reasons, that of:

...Dennis Troha for illegally channeling donations to Doyle. Once again, the political target of Biskupic is being tried in the press, on the front pages of the Journal Sentinel, which has already decided that Doyle is corrupt and just needs the right case—or perhaps the right prosecutor—to prove it. [Also from the Shepherd-Express.com.]

We need to support the reporters who are investigating these events, and especially Talking Points Memo which has been ground central for this and the other stories related to the firing of the US attorneys.