National media bury Wisconsin story backing up charges that Bush has Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 18:23:05 -0400

National media bury Wisconsin story backing up charges that Bush has politicized U.S. attorney offices

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704110010

An April 11 article in The Washington Post on the House Judiciary Committee's decision to subpoena hundreds of Justice Department documents related to the U.S. attorney firings noted that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has "joined other members in demanding records and additional information about a federal public corruption case" in Wisconsin. Regarding the case, the Post reported only that a federal appeals court in Chicago ordered a former state employee to be "released after overturning her conviction." The article did not report that Georgia Thompson -- who was not identified by name -- was convicted on charges brought by a Bush-appointed U.S. attorney just before the 2006 election, that Wisconsin Republicans used her conviction to attack Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) during the campaign, that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit took the highly unusual action of ordering the defendant released during oral argument because of the lack of evidence to support the conviction, and that Feingold and five other senators have requested information about the case to investigate whether "politics may have played an inappropriate role" in the prosecution.

An April 11 Los Angeles Times article reported that the senators were looking to see if "politics may have played an inappropriate role" in the case, but also left out the fact that Republicans had used Thompson's conviction to attack Doyle.

Several other national media outlets have ignored the Thompson case altogether, despite its relevance to congressional allegations that the Bush administration has attempted to use the U.S. attorney function for political and electoral advantage. A Media Matters for America review* found that USA Today and The Wall Street Journal have not covered the story, nor have the national network broadcast news programs on CBS, NBC, and ABC. As Media Matters has previously noted, the broadcast networks' evening news programs -- ABC's World News with Charles Gibson, the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams -- were all slow to report on the U.S. attorney scandal.

On April 5, Thompson was released from prison after a federal appeals court overturned her conviction on corruption charges brought by Bush-appointed U.S. attorney Steven Biskupic. The Associated Press reported that Thompson was convicted of "steering a contract in 2005 to book state travel to Adelman Travel Group, a company whose chief executive donated to the re-election campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle," and added that these charges were cited by Republicans "in television ads" during the governor's race "to question the ethics of Doyle." The appeals court took the extraordinary step of ordering Thompson released immediately after hearing oral argument in the case, with one of the appeals court judges commenting that Biskupic's "evidence is beyond thin."

Democrats have called for investigations into Thompson's prosecution and have connected the case to the ongoing investigation of the Bush administration's dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. Following the appellate court's order, several senators -- including Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) -- have sought to investigate the proceedings in Wisconsin, and all have signed a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales seeking answers:

We are concerned whether or not politics may have played a role in a case brought by Stephen Biskupic, the United States Attorney based in Milwaukee, against Georgia Thompson, formerly an official in the administration of Wisconsin's Democratic governor. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was reportedly so troubled by the insufficiency of the evidence against Ms. Thompson that it made the unusual decision to issue an order reversing Ms. Thompson's conviction and releasing her from custody immediately after oral arguments in her appeal.

An April 9 editorial in The New York Times also questioned Thompson's conviction and further likened the events to the U.S. attorney scandal: "As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin," adding, "It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?"

Yet, in reporting on the senators' request, neither the Post nor the Los Angeles Times detailed the possible political motivations at play in Thompson's prosecution. Also, despite the relevance to Congress' current investigation into the U.S. attorney firings, most of the national media have completely ignored the story. A Media Matters review has found that aside from The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, the only national coverage has been provided by The New York Times and the Associated Press:

* A Nexis search of The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times, and NBC News, ABC News, and CBS News transcripts for terms "(Wisconsin w/50 state employee) or (Georgia w/5 Thompson) and (appeal w/5 court)" yielded these results. In addition, a Factiva search of The Wall Street Journal for terms "(Wisconsin w/50 state employee) or (Georgia w/5 Thompson) and (appeal w/5 court)" contributed to these results.

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