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Alabama’s Watergate
Project on Government Oversight today published an investigative report on Alabama’s Watergate. Adam Zagorin and Nick Schwellenbach write: Whether or not Attorney General Jeff Sessions survives in office, it won’t silence the hubbub in his home state of Alabama over a major bribery scandal that highlights Sessions’ conflicts of interest and could lead law enforcement to examine the role of his hand-picked successor, Senator Luther Strange, in the controversy. The mess, which some commentators have started calling “Alabama’s Watergate,” stems from the recent admission by a state lawmaker, Oliver Robinson, that he accepted $360,000 in bribes. According to a Justice…
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Under FBI Scrutiny, Balch Acknowledges “Billing Error” in Mississippi
Michael Rejebian summarized it best in an article in the Clarion-Ledger posted yesterday, July 24th: “A billing error? We asked about this three years ago,” Rejebian said Friday. “So it begs the question: How many other ‘billing errors’ haven’t they found?” Balch & Bingham is in the middle of an FBI investigation. As the Clarion-Ledger reported in early July, “The probe looks at contracts granted by DEQ [Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality] in an attempt to determine whether Fisher [the former DEQ director] personally benefited from them…. Under Fisher, private contractor and attorney Amy Whitten reaped nearly $2 million in…
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Gagging on their Own Lies and Loss of Control
Balch & Bingham appears to be suffering from a loss of control as scandal appears to engulf the prestigious firm. On Friday July 21st, there was a flurry of activity in the Burt Newsome conspiracy case according to an alert by Alacourt.com. The most interesting document is Balch & Bingham’s motion to amend the protective order from May. As readers may recall, the brilliant and esteemed lawyers at Balch lied about us in that open court filing last May 9th. Appearing to attempt to impose a universal gag order on the media, social media, and the public in general, the…
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Uncategorized
Special Counsel and (205) 410-1494
While Balch attorneys were foolishly attempting to claim the single phone number that connects the alleged co-conspirators in the Burt Newsome case was from a telemarketer, we had been in touch via phone and email with the Office of the Special Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice following up on our correspondence from late May about Balch’s Russian sanctions website scrub. We let Mueller’s office know about Balch & Bingham’s latest troubles: the $360,000 Alabama bribery scheme; the FBI investigation in Mississippi; and of course Burt Newsome’s smoking gun: the single phone number that connects all the…
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Victory! CDLU Squashes Balch Nominee for Assistant U.S. Attorney General
In a blow to the embattled law firm Balch & Bingham, the Trump Administration has quietly decided to nominate Jeffrey Bossert Clark instead of Jeffrey H. Wood, a former lobbyist and partner at Balch, as Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division. The decision was made days after the CDLU sent dispatches to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary calling on them to block the Wood nomination, writing, “We have asked Mr. Wood to resign in his acting capacity because blatant economic racism and environmental injustice cannot be tolerated. Anyone involved in an alleged conspiracy to…
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Balch Slaps Newsome’s Wife with Subpoena
While the acting U.S. Attorney in North Alabama makes it a “priority” to investigate an unnamed Balch & Bingham partner in the $360,000 Alabama bribery scandal and the FBI scrutinizes Balch invoices in Mississippi, Balch has decided to slap the wife of the victim of an alleged conspiracy with a subpoena. As we have noted, Burt Newsome was wrongly targeted, falsely arrested, and defamed. Now his wife, a mother of four young children, is being targeted. Why would Balch want to drag Newsome’s wife into their manure lagoon? Have they lost their minds? Because of us: the CDLU. Our organization…
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Mississippi FBI Investigation
We have consistently asked, what is Balch hiding? And the same is true in Mississippi. When we began our effort to have Balch & Bingham change their alleged unscrupulous and unprofessional conduct in the Burt Newsome case, who would have thought a $360,000 bribery scandal, a Russian sanctions website scrub, and interest from the Special Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice would escalate our fight into a national matter? Now comes a new FBI investigation that involves Balch out of Mississippi. The Sun-Herald reports: “Two Mississippi women — a state agency director and a private contractor — called the shots…
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Balch’s Telemarketers
Does Balch & Bingham really think defendants would be talking to a telemarketer near or after midnight or at 1 in the morning? In one of the most absurd and ridiculous comments made at a court hearing in the Burt Newsome case, lawyers from Balch & Bingham suggested the single phone number that connects all the co-conspirators in the alleged conspiracy to target, arrest, and defame Burt Newsome was in fact from telemarketers. For heaven’s sake, some of these calls were for 18 or 19 minutes! Do we really think Balch’s partner was purchasing a set of non-stick frying pans…
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We Were Wrong
Balch & Bingham’s manure lagoon is beginning to crack open. Since we began this effort to have Balch end alleged unscrupulous behavior and conduct a top-to-bottom review, we believed that Balch & Bingham’s alleged involvement in the Burt Newsome case may have been limited to professional misconduct and defamation, when a partner at Balch regularly emailed Newsome’s clients including sending them Newsome’s embarrassing mugshot from the false arrest. But we were wrong. Phone records in a new amended complaint appear to show how Balch’s partner may have been heavily involved in the conspiracy: the alleged set up and confrontation with…
