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Next: U.S. Congressional Hearings
Having allegedly manipulated the legislative and executive branches of Alabama’s state government in the North Birmingham Bribery Case, Balch & Bingham’s alleged manipulation of the Alabama judicial branch in the Newsome Conspiracy Case is now also in the cross-hairs. The mugshots of Balch stooges Scott Phillips and Trey Glenn posted by AL.com are more symbolic than that of two paid consultants. They symbolize that the fight for justice and inherent goodness are not over. Actually, this is the start of the next, new beginning. As the Associated Press reported yesterday: “Trey Glenn should have never made it through any serious vetting process,” said…
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Keystone Cops and Alabama Power
The profound (if not stupidly obvious) link between Alabama Power, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Southern Company, and the Newsome Conspiracy Case was confirmed last night by investigators. What has Balch & Bingham brought upon Southern Company? Abuse under the color of authority? Trampling of Civil Rights and civil liberties? Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning knows what we are talking about. We gave him the details on October 25. Our Balch & Bingham sources told us that Balch, allegedly briefed about the link, was so flustered by the revelation last week they were searching for any public mention of the individuals…
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Balch Stooges Indicted
And Balch & Bingham thought it was all behind them. Pulitzer prize-winning journalist John Archibald writes: Trey Glenn, the head of the EPA for the Southeast region and a shill for polluters from way back, was just charged with crimes for his role in the toxic north Birmingham bribery scandal. And Scott Phillips, a former member of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission who took a contract from Balch & Bingham to help discourage cleanup of north Birmingham and prevent EPA expansion into Tarrant, was charged on the same day for related crimes. Phillips and Glenn were charged last week —…
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Balch Boasts of New Hires, Except Irving Jones, Jr.
As an insider told us: you can measure when you are beating Balch & Bingham not by their correcting a wrong but how much money and resources Balch and their unknown allies waste to allegedly avoid or attempt to derail the truth. AstroTurf efforts. A paid digital campaign. Public relations fluff. Orchestrated sabotages. Paid-in-full stooges and actors. Yesterday, Balch launched another salvo on the heels of their Chicken Legs Palooza public relations fluff. Trying to counter the reality that a dozen (known publicly) money-making partners have left the firm, the firm dispatched a news release that six new associates have…
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Was Southern Company Duped, Too?
[This post was originally published on April 20, 2018. As the link between Alabama Power and the Newsome Conspiracy Case solidifies with additional evidence, Balch & Bingham appears to have abused their close relationship with Southern Company’s subsidiary Alabama Power. Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning (pictured left) and Alabama Power CEO Mark Crosswhite (pictured right) must hold Balch accountable including partner Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr. (pictured center).] When a Drummond Coal company’s executive was indicted along with two Balch & Bingham partners for suppressing poor African-Americans from having their toxic property tested by the EPA in a $360,000 bribery scheme,…
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UPDATE: Gilbert May or May Not Go to Prison while Awaiting Appeal
[UPDATE: This post originally appeared yesterday. AL.com found that court records were wrong writing, “An entry in the federal court docket…indicates Gilbert had been granted the bond, but that was entered in error, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Gilbert’s attorneys.” Changes to our original post are in purple.] With election night coverage obscuring so much of the news, no one picked up that Balch-made millionaire and ex-partner Joel I. Gilbert was in federal court Tuesday night at 5:30 p.m. Gilbert and Drummond Coal Company executive David Roberson have asked to remain free on bond while they await a ruling…
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Balch’s Mess at the U.S. Department of Justice
From protests across the country demanding that Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III not be fired to revelations from The Wall Street Journal that Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker was “a paid advisory-board member of an invention-promotion company shut down by federal regulators last year as an alleged scam,” controversy has engulfed the U.S. Department of Justice after Jeff Sessions was fired on Wednesday. But an even bigger mess has rattled the U.S. Department of Justice. Jeffrey H. Wood, the former Balch & Bingham lobbyist, who we victoriously blocked as a nominee for the Assistant Attorney General of the…
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How the Newsome Conspiracy Case Helped Bring Down Jeff Sessions
Even though he had spoken with the ambassador from Russia twice, Jeff Sessions never, ever has disclosed or discussed his relationship with Black Hall Aerospace or Balch & Bingham. We met Alabama attorney Burt Newsome for the first time almost two-years ago at a charity event. When we heard the incredible conspiracy tale of a wrongful arrest and the alleged attempt to steal his business, we were in disbelief. We reached out to Balch & Bingham in January of 2017 with emails and phone calls in an attempt to resolve the situation quietly and behind closed doors. Like Newsome, we…
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Sessions Ousted by Trump; Balch’s Investment Goes Belly-Up
When President Donald J. Trump was elected, media reports suggested Balch & Bingham was a big winner, going to make a windfall, and have the inside track to multi-million dollars in legal fees and lobbying efforts because of their close ties to then-U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions who was the first major elected official to endorse candidate Trump in 2016. Instead of growing with power and influence these past two-years, Balch appears to have plummeted in shame and disgrace. Sessions’ Department of Justice successfully prosecuted and convicted Balch partner Joel I. Gilbert on six criminal counts including bribery and money laundering.…
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Winds of Change
[UPDATE: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked to resign as of 1:45 p.m. CST. He was ousted by the President. Read more here.] Although many speculate that Balch & Bingham’s top connection in Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be replaced, other moves are coming that could impact the embattled law firm. Congressman Adam Schiff will become the new Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and declared this morning that he will enforce oversight that the current Congress “abdicated.” Just up the the Golden State Freeway from CDLU’s home office in East Los Angeles, we visited with…
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Balch & Bingham Doesn’t Give a Damn; Re-hires Irving Jones, Jr.
“Lord have mercy!” declared one of the residents in North Birmingham when we told her the news. On Monday, our sources at Balch & Bingham gave us a heads up that Balch & Bingham had re-hired Irving Jones, Jr. the attorney who helped ghost-write letters for convicted felon and Balch-made millionaire Joel I. Gilbert. Jones also infiltrated GASP meetings and monitored the environmental group’s social media feeds. We wrote about his court testimony as reported by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist John Archibald: Gilbert also asked Jones to draft a confidentiality agreement relating to Oliver Robinson. Four days before Oliver Robinson was to speak to…
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Living Well: Smitherman’s Bags of Cash
With the headline “Lawmakers raise millions while running unopposed,” Kyle Whitmire of AL.com reports: Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, raised $240,161, with about $110,000 coming after no one qualified to run against him. Under Alabama law, officials can use leftover campaign funds for any expenses reasonably related to the office. So what’s reasonable? That’s largely subject to interpretation and lawmakers often have imaginations as big as their campaign accounts. Plane tickets, car leases, new tires for a truck, dinners in Montgomery, dinners out of state, cell phones, laptops — the list is long. The point of all this is, special interest…
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Is Ruining a Rival Ruining Balch?
[This post originally appeared exactly one year ago today on November 1, 2017. A Catch-22, any move made by Judge Smitherman or Balch on the 44 retaliatory orders will only solidify Newsome’s civil RICO suit. Now, today, Balch partners need to address the strategic failure of “ruining a rival.”] Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr., a Balch & Bingham partner who filed the amended motion for summary judgment in the Newsome Conspiracy Case, declared that Balch was justified in interfering in Newsome’s business and livelihood because the Alabama Supreme Court allowed “ruining a rival” in a 1961 decision. But that is untrue.…
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Another Open Letter to Balch & Bingham Employees
This communication is for all employees at Balch & Bingham, but specifically for those outside the bubble of Birmingham, from Jacksonville to Jackson, from Atlanta to Mobile. How many more half-truths will you tolerate? We discovered in February that ex-partner and Balch-made millionaire Joel I. Gilbert was still on the payroll. Even though Gilbert had been removed from the firm’s website and placed on “indefinite leave,” the harsh words from Balch management when the indictments were handed down appear to have been all a facade. Gilbert was not handed a pink slip until that Friday evening in July when he…
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Future of Southern Company, Recusals and the RICO Suit
Never did Drummond Coal Company imagine that their executive, David Roberson, would be indicted, tried, convicted, and thrown in prison for two and a half years after receiving the best legal advice from Balch & Bingham. With the Vogtle Nuclear Plant billion-dollar cost overruns and Kemper Natural Gas Plant debacle in Mississippi, Southern Company surely does not need to be in the middle of a civil RICO case. And Tom Fanning, CEO of Southern Company, and Mark Crosswhite CEO of its subsidiary Alabama Power, are smart enough to get ahead of this debacle caused by Balch & Bingham’s foolishness. In…
