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Moon Slams Balch & Bingham’s Document Scam Head On
Josh Moon of the Alabama Political Reporter slammed Balch & Bingham head on: Here’s what we know for certain: The Balch & Bingham law firm was producing documents on behalf of half the elected people in Alabama, and all of those documents were fighting the evil EPA, which had the gall to want to come into Alabama and stop poor black people from dying from pollution cancer. I’m not exaggerating this. We know these things to be true. We know it because most of our elected officials are idiots, and because Balch was producing so many pre-written letters it made…
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Week 2: Winners and Losers
Winners: Burt Newsome: The incredible testimony about the handing-off of a confidential GASP presentation and the web of agents through the halls of political power show to what lengths Balch will go to adhere to its mindset of “ruining a rival,” be it GASP, the EPA, or Newsome. Steven McKinney: His defense attorney brilliantly separated him from Robinson and all the testimony by witnesses appear to have almost exclusively discussed Gilbert’s actions. GASP: Again a winner! The small public charity shook the political power structure to their knees, and agents and stooges spit out cookie-cut letters from ghost-writer extraordinaire Joel Gilbert.…
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Day 8: LeFleur Becomes Wilted Flower; Balch Web of Agents Exposed
Lance LeFleur, the Director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) became le fleur fanée on the witness stand today. As AL.com John Archibald tweeted about testimony from the witness stand from the courthouse today: Lance LeFleur, who Glenn described as “timid” when confronted with what big business wanted from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, is timidly answering questions on the stand. LeFleur timidly says he didn’t know Scott Phillips, on the board that appoints him, was working for Balch & Bingham. LeFleur said he did not know Def. Joel Gilbert wrote the letter Gov. Bentley sent to…
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Star Chamber: What Money Can Buy
Hard evidence hurts. What the folks at Balch & Bingham cannot seem to grasp is that while on its face the contributions to the Oliver Robinson Foundation were legal, the alleged “official acts” by then-State Representative Oliver Robinson (dispatching letters on state letterhead written by Gilbert, meeting with the EPA, coached and then appearing before the AEMC, etc.) make them alleged bribes. As our friends at the U.S. Department of Justice clarified: If the connection is causally direct – if money was given essentially to purchase or ensure an official act, as a “quid pro quo” then the crime is…
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Day 7: Balch Allies Corrupted AEMC; Gilbert Left to Hang
With this afternoon headlines about the resignation of embattled EPA Director Scott Pruitt, the focus in the federal courtroom in Birmingham at about the same time was on the Regional EPA Administrator Trey Glenn (pictured) who used to be head of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission (AEMC) between 2005-2009. Glenn admitted under oath that he (as a third-party consultant to Balch & Bingham) took a confidential presentation submitted to the AEMC by GASP, the health and environmental public charity, and handed it over to indicted Balch partner Joel Gilbert. Gilbert, knowing in advance what GASP was going to present, allegedly drafted up…
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BanBalch.com becomes Hot Read at Balch
Our sources at Balch & Bingham tell us that Balch this morning has been searching and reading through our blog posts for hours now. We also learned that last Sunday evening a Balch partner was in the office in Biringham allegedly reviewing our news posts about the criminal trial and Star Chamber. Sunday night overtime to read a blog or is there more to the story? While Gilbert and McKinney may be convicted, Balch can easily fire them and hire new associates. The bigger concern we are told is the Newsome Conspiracy Case in which Balch allegedly tried to squash a…
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Birmingham NAACP Head Sold Out for Cash
When we were working with the African-American communities in South Dallas, a Civil Rights activist told us to be wary of the bogus leaders that greet you “hand out, palm up.” In a July 4th column, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist John Archibald writes: [Two Balch & Bingham partners and a Drummond executive] are charged with paying a black lawmaker to convince black people in poor and unhealthy north Birmingham areas to resist federal efforts to clean the damn place up. It was an effort, testimony has confirmed, in which Drummond coal company, and other companies that could have been forced to…
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Day 6: Evidence Sealed; Robinson Sings; Boiler-Plate Letters Shown
[Update below.] We learned this morning that documents of evidence in the Balch Bribery Criminal Trial were sealed, according to Kyle Whitmire of AL.com. This comes hours after our post about the possible missing billing records for the drafting of a letter of intimidation from indicted Balch partner Joel Gilbert who sent it to GASP, the health and environmental public charity. Today, Oliver Robinson, the bought-and-paid-for politician who faces up to a 100 years in prison, is testifying and is singing like a sad canary. Robinson testified that Joel Gilbert demanded 100 letters signed from the neighborhood, and Robinson was…
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Star Chamber: Andy2K Hip-Hops with Judge Smitherman
We now understand why Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr. hasn’t made any further stupid mistakes now that the veil of the secretive Star Chamber was ripped wide-open. He was replaced by Andy Campbell of the boutique law firm Campbell Guinn to defend Balch & Bingham earlier this year. And what did Andy do? According to the Newsome’s Writ of Mandamus, Andy Campell donated $2,000 directly to Judge Smitherman’s campaign in February, one of the bigger donations to the Queen of the Star Chamber. Unbelievable. Steve Feaga, the Chief Compliance Officer at Balch and based in Montgomery, surely looks like he was…
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Evidence Tampering or We Just Can’t Find It?
We can’t find it. We just can’t find it! Kyle Whitmire of AL.com challenged us all to review the billing statements of Balch & Bingham that he posted on Scribd. Starting on page 29 of the first batch, we looked at billing statements from November and December 2014. Why? On December 1, 2014, indicted Balch & Bingham partner Joel Gilbert dispatched a letter of intimidation to GASP, the health and environmental public charity that they tried to undercut by allegedly buying a politician for $360,000. It appears that Gilbert may have been on vacation the week of Thanksgiving, because his…
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Day 5: Balch Ghost Writers and Bad Legal Advice
Casper does look a little bit like Joel Gilbert, but at least Casper is smiling. Casper didn’t earn $365 an hour to suppress African-Americans from testing their toxic property in North Birmingham. Today in the criminal trial it was a tough day for defendant Gilbert as it was revealed according to courthouse reports that Balch had ghost written numerous letters against the North Birmingham EPA clean-up site. Politicians lining up to sign the ghost letters included then-U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, then-Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, U.S. Congressman Gary Palmer, and numerous other local politicians and board…
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Star Chamber: Judge Smitherman Violates Her Own Order
Corruption breeds stupidity. So what can campaign contributions buy you? Bias? Favoritism? Court orders that are way out of order? In the massive Writ of Mandamus calling on Judge Carole Smitherman to be recused and her 44 retaliatory orders be stricken, Burt Newsome provides indisputable evidence of courtroom bias, flagrant injustice, and judicial sloppiness that even justices of the Alabama Supreme Court will roll their eyes when they read it. In one of her retaliatory orders, Smitherman throws out two of the most critical affidavits showing that the single phone number connecting the alleged co-conspirators was indeed a pre-paid cell…
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Must Read: Lessons Learned in London
A Sunday must read for all Balch & Bingham partners and those following the Oliver Robinson Bribery Trial. Even though this deals with financial fraud, buying a politician covertly is a similar white-collar crime. Thanks to Politico.com for sharing. “How to get away with financial fraud,” by Dan Davies in The Guardian: “Most white-collar crime works by manipulating institutional psychology. That means creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds. One point that comes up again and again, when looking at famous and large-scale frauds, is that…
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Week 1: Winners and Losers
Winners: Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr.: He hasn’t done anything stupid yet to continue the injustice of the Star Chamber that only hurts Balch and Bingham partners. David Roberson: He is secondary in the testimony and Roberson’s former assistant testified she would gladly work for him again. Kyle Whitmire: His real-time reporting and tweets confirm what we hear. Kudos to AL.com reporters. GASP: The tiny health and environmental public charity irritated the powerful, and Robinson was used to ask GASP carefully drafted questions and record his meeting with them. Losers: Joel I. Gilbert: The testimony from co-workers and clients, and invoice manipulation…
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Day 4: Alabama Power Exposed; Balch Clients Grilled
Alabama Power has the right to tackle government overreach, environmental extremism, and even cleanup efforts. In September, we broke news that Mike Thompson, the fundraising chairman of Luther Strange’s U.S. Senate campaign was listed as a director of the Alliance for Jobs and the Economy (AJE), a tax-exempt entity created in 2015 whose purpose was to funnel $360,000 in bribes to a corrupt politician, former Alabama State Representative Oliver Robinson, according to court filings of the U.S. Department of Justice. On Friday, Thompson, CEO of Thompson Tractor, was grilled on the stand along with other members involved with the AJE. Kyle Whitmire of AL.com tweets: Thompson says he never…
