We learned recently that many of the emails that convicted felon and Balch-made millionaire Joel I. Gilbert wrote giving updates on the bribery/AstroTurf scheme in North Birmingham were sent to Alabama Power executives.

David Roberson, who was convicted of participating in the bribery scheme, was simply cc’d. (See the exhibit from the criminal trial below.)

So was Balch & Bingham’s siamese twin, sister-wife Alabama Power really calling the shots as a major backer of the money laundering entity Alliance for Jobs and the Economy (AJE)?

What would be the motive for Alabama Power to be allegedly involved in this corrupt campaign to suppress poor African-Americand from testing their toxic property and squash the tiny environmental group GASP?

Was Mark A. Crosswhite, the CEO of Alabama Power, and his peers concerned that Alabama Power’s polluting but money-making Miller Steam Plant would be the next target of GASP?

We have never understood why Alabama Power never took the witness stand in the bribery trial during the summer of 2018 even though all the other major contributors to AJE did.

According to a report this April in The Washington Post, “Balch & Bingham…has insisted that Gilbert, as a partner, acted alone and would not have raised any flags as he deposited $360,000 into the Robinson foundation account because the money went out at a moderate pace over many  months. Roberson later said that 21 Balch & Bingham attorneys ‘played at least some part’ in the
anti-EPA campaign built on Robinson’s efforts.”

Why weren’t the other 20 Balch & Bingham attorneys investigated?

Then late last year, we learned that Jeffrey Bowers, a Lieutenant with the Columbiana Police Department in Alabama and the son of a retired Alabama Power executive was involved in the alleged “staged arrest” of a competitor of Balch & Bingham, Burt Newsome, a sole-practitioner attorney who services and represents banks.

Clearly an apparent abuse under the color of law, why has there not been an active probe?

Is Alabama Power untouchable? What secret deal did Crosswhite allegedly have with the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Jay E. Town?

More than that, did Crosswhite indeed have a secret meeting with Town and attorney Mike Cole in a downtown hotel in Birmingham?

Is there hard evidence of or witnesses to that alleged secret meeting?

Check in with us in 2020 to learn more.

This is our last post of the year. We wish you, our dear readers, a blessed and Merry Christmas and all the best in the coming new year.