Letters to the Editor 12-17-2003
Published 12:00 am Monday, December 29, 2003
Pryor is becoming Joe McCarthy
Dear Editor:
Congratulations to State Senator Roger Bedford and probably, State Representative Mike Millican, for their success in overcomong charges brought by the Attorney General's office. They are the latest additions to a growing list of public officials who have survived
and overcome Attorney General Bill Pryor's publicity campaign of "politics by criminal indictment."
Mr. Pryor's use of individuals guilty of criminal conduct and eager to lessen their sentences through the plea bargain route is a set-up for framing any innocent public official who has had contact with them. It happened here in Coviington County to me and I was nowhere around the culprit when he did his dirty deed. The late U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy would be proud of Mr. Pryor's methods. After all, Joe ruined a lot of innocent people with slander in the flagrant abuse of his office.
According to news reports on Bedford, "Assistant Attorney General John Gibbs, who prosecuted the case, said the entire matter was handled by veteran state merit system employees and no politics was involved." How outrageously hypocritical can this man get? The statement alone defies logic and reality and Gibbs, who has been a state employee since 1978, knows it!
As a state employee for more than 22 years, and a charter member of our political fund raising SEA-PAC, and after my personal experience with Gibbs, I am convinced that Gibbs knows that politics can be the biggest factor in an employee's career advancement, regardless of the merit system rules which can easily be circumvented by agency heads. Ask any state employee!
Whom do Pryor and Gibbs thinlk they're kidding? Often, it's a naive grand jury unaware of the deceit and treachery of political hacks out for headlines and public persona. Most often, it' members of the general public who think a public offical is guilty if they're indicted. Either way, deceiving a grand jury and basing a case on perjury and salnder ought to be punished.
Witht he help of supporters of Judge Roy Moore and a majority of the Alabama v oters,
and SEA-PAC, seeing Bill Pryor as the Joe McCarthy type that he really is, January 19, 2007 will be Bill Pryor's last day and put an end to his "politics by indictment."
David A. Harrell
Mayor of Gantt.