Robert Mueller

Ali (Akbar) Alexander at Grindr gay-sex app

A Trump-supporting far right-wing blogger, and the News Club bunch of idiots, have been caught trying to set up Special Counsel Robert Mueller in a phony #MeToo deal. For years Roger Shuler and I have been telling folks how nutty this right-wing National Bloggers Club is, and they run with the Bannon and Rove-Norquist crowds. Now the dumb asses are caught trying to set Mueller up. They always brag to each other about what they do and are easy to catch -- and Mueller has got them. I certainly hope Mueller yanks the National Bloggers Club's chain and destroys them.

The NBC, as we call them, came to my attention when they harassed and told false stories about Siegelman activists. The NBC is a vicious group. What is such a hoot is that is how I first learned about crazy Steve Bannon's bunch. I started getting a master's degree in philosophy and religion, and the nuts in the National Bloggers Club started following me around in D.C. and California. The idiots were making a film for Andrew Breitbart and were trying to falsely claim I was a ring leader in Anonymous, as they were friends of mine, and that I was dating a guy who they believed was in Anonymous. The dimwits offered me all kinds of things to say I was part of it, through him.

Tripp Vickers

If Mueller pulls the thread, I suspect he will find it leads to Bannon and the NBC, which  Bannon inherited from Breitbart. . . . This NBC group and their associates target folks in false campaigns. Around 2011 is when they started a blogger war with left-wing progressive bloggers and writers. I know, as I was a target of theirs. They try to destroy people. 

In winter of 2016, I went to the FBI as I had proof of what they had done to me and was told the bureau was not interested. I said, "Look, you have no idea how dangerous they are," and now they have targeted Mueller. What a hoot. The Alabama FBI should have listened but I guess they are too far up Jeff Sessions' butt. Sessions works with the NBC and Bannon to target Sessions' enemies. 

That is when I figured out if the FBI won't do anything, I am still going to start daily writing about these folks, and as you know, Jim and I outed their Project Alamo election- theft operation in December 2016. 

This bunch is closely tied to Jeff Sessions, as Bannon is an operative who adores Sessions; we found that out in our bloggers war. Now the FBI is investigating the NBC-connected folks we wrote about, as progressives demanded it, and now they are getting their own taste of what we have been dealing with, as the same bunch of thugs tried to set up former FBI chief Mueller.

Joseph Siegelman

Siegelman hammered the point that Marshall could be the latest state official booted from office -- preceded by former Gov. Robert Bentley, Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard and Chief Justice Roy Moore -- if elected to a full term next month.

Marshall took office in February 2017 after being appointed by Bentley following Bentley's appointment of Luther Strange to the U.S. Senate.

"We are on the verge of potentially losing our attorney general," Siegelman said. "And I don't know how our state recovers from that."

Asked by AL.com following the press conference to expand on that assertion, Siegelman said, "The law is clear. If the violation takes place, then it's criminal if done intentionally. I am not attorney general. I'm in no position to act on a violation. The ethics commission is. The district attorney in Montgomery County is. If they want to take up this issue, they can.

"Under the law, if my opponent took this money knowing it was illegal or should have known it was illegal, then he can be prosecuted. If that happens, he would be removed from office and we would lose our attorney general."

Apart from filing a report to Congress and addressing [Roger] Stone’s fate, Mueller may have some other postelection surprises up his sleeve. The week before Christmas, Michael Flynn, Trump’s first and shortest-serving national security adviser, will go before a federal judge to be sentenced for lying to the FBI about the extent of his dealings with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. When Flynn pleaded guilty last December, the special counsel included a clause in his plea agreement promising to ask the court for leniency at sentencing. The catch: In the course of his cooperation, Flynn must provide “substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.” If Flynn truly sang for federal prosecutors, Mueller’s holiday gift to the president may just be another indictment of a person close to him.

“Don’t be fooled by word games,” Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown Law, told us via email. “There is no legal term ‘collusion.’ The legal term for collusion is the crime of conspiracy. If you agree to kill someone and take a step toward that (hired the killer, or encouraged the killer, met with the killer) you are guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.

“So, if you agree to defraud the U.S. or disrupt the elections (even if it’s not with the Russians) and you take a step forward (any step….meetings, payments etc.), that’s conspiracy,” Nourse said.

Steve Marshall and Robert Bentley

Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions

Now-former Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reportedly eyeing a return to politics in the Yellowhammer State.

After Sessions announced his forced resignation Wednesday, two people familiar with his thinking told Politico that he is considering a run for his old seat as Alabama’s junior senator.

The seat is up for another election in 2020.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions is considering running for his old Alabama Senate seat in 2020, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

Sessions was fired as attorney general Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections. President Donald Trump had publicly savaged Sessions throughout his tenure, and his dismissal had long been expected.

After Sessions left the Senate in 2017, his vacated seat was won by Democrat Doug Jones in a special election upset. Jones is up for a full term in 2020, and he is widely viewed as the most vulnerable incumbent senator facing reelection given Alabama’s conservative tilt. Republicans are certain to contest the seat aggressively as they look to protect their majority. 

Former Republican Sen. Luther Strange, who was temporarily appointed to Sessions’ former seat, took to Twitter on Wednesday evening to encourage a comeback bid. 

“Jeff Sessions for Senate in 2020!” Strange wrote.

Sessions, who spent two decades in the Senate, is practically a household name in his home state, and speculation has been simmering for weeks within Alabama political circles that he might seek a return. Yet, party officials stress that the 71-year-old Sessions wouldn’t necessarily face a clear path should he wage a comeback. Trump’s relentless attacks on the former attorney general, they say, have taken a toll on his popularity in the state.

And others are certain to be interested in running. GOP Rep. Bradley Byrne is widely talked about as a potential contender.

Doug Jones

Kay Ivey and Walt Maddox

Robert Mercer

Billionaire Robert Mercer gave money to a PAC advised by a self-proclaimed “interpreter of energy.”

The spiritualist in question is Ali Alexander, formerly known as Ali Akbar, a GOP political operative with a notorious reputation that allegedly includes fraud.

“On the eve of the 2016 election, Robert Mercer donated $60,000 to a PAC Alexander advises,” reported Politico . . . “Alexander, who identifies himself as black and Arab, brings a more new-age approach to the culture wars, calling himself an ‘interpreter of energy for this period.’”

Ali Akbar mugshots

How did Ali Akbar rise to a prominent role in the Republican media galaxy, despite his criminal record? That also is hard to figure, given the GOP's stance as the supposed "law and order" party.

According to a report at the progressive Web site Breitbart Unmasked, (BU) Akbar was convicted in 2007 of theft of property and in 2008 of credit-card abuse. Both charges, in Texas, were felonies.

Borrowing from public records, BU describes the theft case as follows:

Five MP3 Players, Twenty CD’s, Three Camcorders, Two DVD Players, One Back Massager (How ghetto is this thief?) One Clock, Four Shirts, Two Belts (WTF?) and a Piece of Luggage, which had the value of over 1500.00 USD but less than 20,000.00 USD. This theft was obtained pursuant to one scheme or a continuing course of criminal conduct which began on or about November 1st 2006, and continued until on or about November 29th 2006. In other words, he was stealing from this person more than once, and over a course of time that lasted almost a full month before it came to an end.

That's quite a crime spree--and the ugliness doesn't end there. BU reports that Akbar also was charged with burglary of a vehicle, but that charge was dropped in a plea bargain that resolved his theft and credit-card cases.

We've presented evidence that members of a right-wing bloggers club might have been involved in, or at least had knowledge of, my unlawful incarceration. Would it be a surprise if members of the group, called the National Bloggers Club (NBC), engaged in such underhanded activity? Given that the club president has a history of engaging in underhanded activity--including some that might be described as downright sleazy--the answer probably is no.

Ali Akbar at the Grindr gay-sex app.

Threatening baseless lawsuits is pretty underhanded in itself. But that is a mere blip on the radar compared to the other shady stuff in Akbar's background, which includes trolling for gay sex online--plus multiple criminal convictions, including felonies.

Let's start with the online trolling because that's what prompted Simpson to take a closer look at Akbar. She obtained a copy of an ad Akbar placed at Grindr, a geo-social networking application "geared toward gay, bisexual, and bi-curious men." According to Simpson's letter, Akbar's ad stated that he "was looking for bisexual sex with men who were Republican, political, and loved to discuss politics and philosophy and just wanted to hang out and chill with them."

Trey Glenn

Can this be happening? Really? Charges against powerful Alabamians who admittedly worked to protect the interests of powerful friends while demeaning low-income residents who must live and die with their choices?

I never dreamed they’d face the music in Alabama. I thought for sure judgment would come for Phillips and Glenn only at the Pearly Gates, where St. Peter would decide whether to send them toward a brownfield down below.

“As an accomplished environmental engineer from Alabama, Trey Glenn is well-prepared for this new role and challenge as the EPA Region 4 administrator. Having served as the director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, he understands the value and importance of state authority and control.”

“His experience as director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management places him in a unique position to be prepared to work with these southern states. We are also especially glad to know someone with in-depth knowledge of Alabama will be overseeing our region.”

As we wrote in August, Phillips was given the boot by the Birmingham-Jefferson County Port Authority after Balch partner Joel I. Gilbert was convicted on all six federal counts.

During the criminal trial, Glenn admitted handing off confidential work product of public charity and environmental group GASP to Balch-made millionaire Gilbert during day 7 of the criminal trial.

And we are told this is only the beginning!

Environmental organizations throughout Alabama have joined together in asking Governor Kay Ivey to hold the Alabama Environmental Management Commission (EMC) accountable for actions revealed during the recent bribery and corruption trial in Birmingham. That investigation resulted in one Alabama lawmaker pleading guilty to bribery and half-dozen guilty verdicts against a partner in a prestigious law firm and the Vice President of Drummond Company.

These organizations want to make it clear that ADEM Director Lance LeFleur is not the only one that needs to be held accountable for the inappropriate actions of the state agency and it’s governing commission, all of which was revealed during the trial. The EMC should be as accountable to the people of Alabama as they are to the regulated industries they oversee. . . .

North Birmingham Superfund cleanup

While three men will likely go to prison as a result of the investigation and trial, as I’ve written before, that number should probably be closer to a dozen. Everyone from Luther Strange to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has this stench on them.

But, the man in charge of the investigation, US Attorney Jay Town serves at the pleasure of AG Sessions. (Trump, of course, fired Sessions last week, so Town might be on shaky ground.) Town was also a political advisor to Strange. So it should come as no surprise that he has announced no more charges are expected and the investigation is complete.

So with the trial concluded and most escaping retribution, it is back to business as usual in Alabama.

Luther Strange

Former Sen. Luther Strange, the Alabama Republican who filled Jeff Sessions' seat when he became U.S. attorney general, suggested Alabamians elect Sessions back to the Senate just before news broke Wednesday afternoon that Sessions had resigned from the Trump administration.

“Jeff Sessions for Senate in 2020!” Strange tweeted, about two hours before Sessions resigned as attorney general at the request of President Trump.

It had been rumored for some time that Trump would push for Sessions' ouster from his position leading the Department of Justice. Trump often vented about his frustrations with Sessions after the attorney general recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.

Strange was defeated in the Republican primary by Roy Moore, who lost in a special election last year to Democrat Doug Jones. The Democratic senator is up for re-election in 2020.

Sessions made no mention of what his future holds in his resignation to the president.

Sessions served as a senator from 1997 to 2017, resigning from that position to be attorney general.

Jeff Sessions and Jae Proctor

On February 10, 2017, approximately four weeks after the court’s dismissal order was entered, Luther Strange, a party-defendant in this action before its dismissal, was sworn in as Alabama’s newest United States Senator. One of Senator Strange’s initial hires is a young staffer who worked on Senator Jeff Sessions’ staff (until then Senator Sessions’ appointment as the 84th Attorney General of the United States) and who is related to the undersigned. Based upon these events, which occurred after the court’s dismissal of this action, it is appropriate for the undersigned to RECUSE.

What about the curious timing of Jake Proctor's employment? Consider this:

* Jake Proctor says he went to work as a Senate staffer on Jan. 3, 2017, but Luther Strange was not appointed to the Senate until more than one month later. Was Jake Proctor working for Sessions, even though the latter already had been nominated as Trump's attorney general, and then switched to Strange? Did someone know, well in advance, that Bentley was going to appoint Strange to fill Sessions' seat, and that made Jake Proctor comfortable about getting an early start on the job?

* Judge Proctor claimed in his recusal order that he dismissed "The House Case" before the issue of his son's employment with Strange came up. But if Jake Proctor was working in the Senate on Jan. 3, and his boss was Luther Strange, that isn't true. To be precise, Judge Proctor dismissed our case on Jan. 13, 10 days after his son went to work for somebody in the Senate. The latest version we can find of Sessions' Senate staff directory does not list Jake Proctor -- and one wonders why Sessions would make a new Senate hire when he knew he had been nominated as attorney general. All of that suggests Jake Proctor went to work for Luther Strange on Jan. 3 -- before Strange formally had been announced as Sessions' successor -- and Judge Proctor flat-out lied in a court order.

Either way, a disqualified judge decided our case -- and that isn't a matter of discretion for Proctor; a disqualified judge must step down, and he didn't do it.

Trey Glenn mugshot

In 2006, I did a $16-million bid, for myself and four partners, to clean up a tire dump and caught Trey Glenn who then was head of ADEM [Alabama Department of Environmental Management] doing a bunch of corrupt things. It started with him trying to do a no-bid contract on a multi-million dollar deal. Next, I caught him offering one bidder the opportunity to use prisoners as basically free labor, without caring if they had proper clothing, training, and safety gear to take tires out of a lake, which gave the other bidder an unfair financial advantage. 

Trey said, "Jill, it is black guys at St Clair prison mostly," and he did not give a shit what happened to them. Then I found out he had been working with Luther [Strange], a private attorney to give people on a state tire clean-up committee an unfair advantage in the bidding process.

Bob Riley, after I did not get the tire deal, said I could have the next three or four tire deals if I would agree to set Lowell Barron up on opposition research on the death of Judge Paul Thomas, by getting recorded statements from clerks at the courthouse saying Lowell -- Senate pro tem at the time -- called Paul and asked him to meet him at his house the day of Paul's death, which came after he fell off a mountain. 

I told Bob I would not help him, as I knew Lowell's brother, who had been a client, and I was not getting involved in his and Rob's bullshit about Lowell. Bob said that my partners and I would not get any tire contracts if I did not start helping him get Lowell Barron, who was causing him trouble with his agenda. He then asked if I would at least help find a plaintiff for a lawsuit, in front of a judge named Bush, that they were going to bring against Lowell, supposedly for not filing some election papers right, and I said no which really pissed him off, and he said some ugly things.

I went back to my partners, and we agreed I should report it to an FBI agent I had helped some time back solve a murder case involving a member of a Mexican Gang called La Familia .I called Danny Garnet, an FBI agent in Gadsden, and he came to my office in September of 2006, and I told him what had happened with Bob and Rob at the time Mueller was the head of the FBI -- and the FBI started investigating Trey and Bob. 

Bob Riley

Someone leaked to Bob that I had spoken to the FBI, and he sent thugs to my office to take me to a meeting with him, and I pulled away from one of those thugs and locked myself in a bathroom. I also notified Doc Barron that Bob Riley was trying to get me to help with putting Lowell in jail . . . and that I had said no, as Bob's actions were criminal. I further said, "I am afraid I am going to get hurt."

Due to my meeting with the FBI, from my understanding, that is what kicked off an investigation in 2007 of the very corrupt Trey Glenn, who escaped being indicted then --  and I heard at the time Jeff Sessions intervened for him, to protect Bob Riley and Luther Strange and their corrupt Alabama Gang. 

Many years later, we at the Alabama Resistance heard that Trey was involved in new corrupt deal in Birmingham -- the Superfund scandal -- and once again, Luther's name came up using his public AG office to try to stop a cleanup site in a black district, and we heard Trey was writing the letters and that Sessions was involved as well. These are some deeply corrupt folks, so I am glad to see Trey Glenn is now indicted. I know back then the FBI folks hoped to get Trey and encourage him to tell on Sessions, Strange, and Bob and Rob Riley, and it appears once again this little bunch is in the mix on a clean-up site on which they were trying to stop EPA from doing anything.

Matt Hart

The most feared man in Alabama politics has been fired.

Alabama prosecutor Matt Hart, who until Monday headed up the special prosecutions unit at the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, was unceremoniously fired by AG Steve Marshall. A brief statement from Marshall’s office said Hart resigned and refused to comment otherwise.

However, a source told APR on Monday that Hart was informed of the decision on Monday morning and given the option of resigning instead of being fired. He was then escorted out of the building by security.

The firing of Hart was not necessarily surprising to anyone who paid attention to the recent election and Marshall’s run for AG. As APR reported in numerous stories, Marshall accepted campaign donations from several sources with interests in weakening ethics laws and seeing Hart removed.

Hart’s career spans decades in the state and includes high-profile prosecutions of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

He was a particular thorn in the side of politicians who skirted the ethics laws. He prosecuted and earned a 12-count conviction of former GOP Speaker Mike Hubbard. He negotiated a guilty plea and resignation from former Gov. Robert Bentley. And his special grand jury in Jefferson County was digging through the scheme to undermine an EPA superfund site.

Notice a couple of things from Josh Moon article on Matt Hart. Matt was digging into the Superfund matter, which leads directly to the folks who helped Marshall get those $735,000 in illegal funds from RAGA [Republican Attorneys General Association] to win the attorney general race. Also notice Mike Hubbard's appeal is still up, and with Hart removed, Marshall and Rob [Riley] can let Hubbard go.

Anyone who watched Alabama government in recent years saw this coming.

They saw it when Marshall took tens of thousands in contributions from the company owned by Alabama’s richest man Jimmy Rane – who invested in a Hubbard business. They saw it when Rane, who made no bones about his contempt for Hart, gave hundreds of thousands to Gov. Kay Ivey and was appointed to lead her inaugural committee. He even lent his Great Southern Wood airplane for her campaign use.

They saw it when Marshall took campaign contributions from Hubbard investors, witnesses and supporters, and they saw it when Marshall looked down as Alabama politicians tried to chip away at the very ethics law that put people like Hubbard in court.

I don’t know exactly what happened this week to force Matt Hart out of his job as head of the special prosecutions unit. Hart declined to comment, and Marshall did not respond personally to the question. . . .

But it was no shock.

I predicted in April Marshall would show Hart the door as soon as he was re-elected. He was re-elected less than two weeks ago.

It doesn’t take an investigation to figure it out. The time was right. Marshall has four years to live it down before he comes back up for election.

He’s banking that Alabama will forget.

Trey Glenn mugshot

The mugshots of Balch stooges Scott Phillips and Trey Glenn . . . 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 Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. “Scott Pruitt may be gone, but it’s clear the culture of corruption remains.” Pallone pledged his committee would conduct “vigorous oversight” of EPA once Democrats take control of the House in January.

Pallone could not only drag Glenn before his committee, but Balch Bingham leaders and their lackeys involved in the North Birmingham scandal.

Pallone could also subpoena Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning whose subsidiary Alabama Power donated $30,0000 to the Oliver Robinson Foundation and whose then-Balch lobbyist, Jeffrey H. Wood, was on Capitol Hill inquiring about the North Birmingham matter as the bribery scandal was at full-throttle in 2016.

And just wait until Congressman Jerry Nadler as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee comes along to closely examine aspects of the last minute appointment of that ex-Balch lobbyist Jeffrey H. Wood as Principal Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General for ENRD just days before Jeff Sessions was fired.

Congressmen Nadler and Pallone simply won’t tolerate lies, fluff, or sugar-coated testimony.

With U.S. Congressional hearings, the trials of Phillips and Glenn, and possibly one or two civil RICO suits coming in 2019, Balch Bingham is facing even darker days . . .

We returned late Friday from a very insightful and productive trip to New York City and Washington, D.C.

Our high-level sources tell us that with the local Jefferson County indictment of Balch  Bingham stooges Scott Phillips and Trey Glenn, pressure on the U.S. Department of Justice to take a deeper look at the corrupt state of affairs in Alabama has escalated—especially now that Jeff Sessions was ousted.

The reporting to prison of bought-and-paid-for politician and former Alabama State Representative Oliver Robinson is scheduled for next week and shows how a Balch Bingham partner corrupted the legislative branch in Alabama.

Glenn and Phillips show how consultants for Balch Bingham appear to have corrupted and compromised the executive branch and its oversight agencies in Alabama. (And let us not forget the Balch ghost-written letters blindly signed by the Governor, State Attorney General, and others in power at the time.)

Finally, with the creation of a secretive Star Chamber and over $30,000 in campaign contributions funneled to Judge Carole Smitherman and her husband State Senator Rodger Smitherman [in the Burt Newsome conspiracy case], Balch Bingham appears to have allegedly manipulated the judicial branch in Alabama.

Could the Smithermans be indicted next or are they cooperating with investigators as witnesses?

All three branches of government appear to have been manipulated by Balch Bingham,  and no one we met with on the East Coast has overlooked the fact that Balch and Southern Company are sister-wives, joined at the hip.

Yeah, Trey Glenn just resigned. Now it is time for him to plead guilty and start cooperating and telling his whole story on the Alabama Gang. 

I will never forget the piece of shit Glenn telling me he did not give a damn about the St Clair Prison "N words" (which he said, but I won't say it) when I was warning him that Luther Strange and Rob Riley's bunch were planning on using black prisoners getting in the tire swamp to get the tires out without safety gear. That is when he admitted it was his idea and he had offered it to them.

Bob Riley

Oh well, I got rid of Fuller being over Saudi flight stuff, now on to Trey Glenn, and next Jeff Sessions, and Oleg Deripaska on the EADS deal, and then the Rileys, who stole over $30 million from Milton McGregor and his friends. 

Getting rid of the Alabama Crime Family Political Gang is what I have to do to stop this mess we have seen in this country. I might add they were right in the middle of the Mercer Bannon Sessions Cambridge Analytica deal, as well. 

Baron Coleman's deal to punish me for taking out Hubbard, with the stories told of his printing stuff, was a really bad idea as it gave me full time to work on seeing all their crime-family stories were told. Just call me Jill the Alabama Gang Mafia Buster. That is who I really am.

Steve Marshall and Anna Clark Morris

At least one Alabama Democratic Party nominee for U.S. attorney would be no better than her Republican predecessor, according to a source inside the Department of Justice.

A state Democratic Party advisory council this week recommended Anna Clark Morris as U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama. The Middle District, under the George W. Bush administration, was headed by Leura Canary, and her office handled the prosecution of former Democratic governor Don Siegelman.

Morris is an assistant U.S. attorney in the Montgomery-based office, with almost 11 years of experience as a federal prosecutor. She is the daughter of Alexander City trial attorney Larry Morris, a major Democratic Party contributor.

The appointment of Anna Clark Morris would be "disastrous," a Department of Justice source told Legal Schnauzer.

"She currently works in the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's Office, where she is heavily invested in the culture of gossip, support-staff abuses, and maintaining the status quo," the source said. "An appointment of Clark Morris as U.S. attorney would be disastrous -- four more years of the same."

An appointment of Clark Morris would smack of the kind of partisan politics that resulted in Leura Canary's appointment, our source said. Canary was appointed after she and her husband, Business Council of Alabama head Bill Canary, made substantial contributions to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party.

Our source also noted the irony of Democrats pushing Clark Morris to lead an office that prosecuted Siegelman for an alleged "pay to play" scheme involving a political appointment in exchange for campaign support.

A Clark Morris appointment would look like a "classic quid pro quo," the source said, "what federal prosecutors call 'white-collar crime' or 'corruption,' yet when it involves a DOJ insider, it is perfectly fine. Am I missing something here?"

Marshall did not terminate Hart because he was an ineffective leader or an unsuccessful prosecutor, but because Hart is both those things and more.

Marshall is evil, but he’s also weak, which makes him a dangerous man.

With Hart’s forced resignation, Marshall kept his private campaign promises to his big donors that Hart would be gone after the general election. So, just 13 days after his election as attorney general and four years until the next election, Marshall moved on Hart like a coward who shoots a lawman in the back in a Hollywood Western movie.

Marshall is a spineless little man who withers in the presence of a man like Hart. It’s not just his lack of character and willingness to cut deals to achieve power, but his utter disregard for the justice system he oversees.

While Marshall may have silenced Hart’s voice in the grand jury and at criminal trials, it is doubtful that Hart as a private citizen will remain quiet.

Hart knows what Marshall is up to, as well as the intrigue of the elites who paid for his office.

When disgraced Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Marshall, he intended for the men to clash. It was part of the plan. Bentley did not select Marshall because he was the best candidate to take on the attorney general’s position, but because he had a history of compromised investigations and virtually no record of prosecuting public corruption as a district attorney. But, it was Marshall’s willingness to investigate Hart and Van Davis, who successfully prosecuted former Speaker and convicted felon Mike Hubbard, that caused Bentley and his paramour, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, to green-light his appointment.

When Hart confronted Marshall over his compromise with Bentley, there was little hope that a working relationship would be in the making between the two men.

Marshall is afraid of Hart, but he is also jealous of him. After only a few weeks at the attorney general’s office, staffers noticed how jealous he was of Hart’s success, not only as a winning prosecutor but because of the admiration he enjoyed in the press. Staffers laughed at Marshall’s man-crush on Hart behind his back, saying he should grow a beard and maybe the press would like him, too.

It was Marshall’s jealously and unwillingness to ruffle feathers that separated the men; one wanting to be admired and the other wants to fight crime.

Over the last year, the relationship continued to strain as Hart set his sights on some of Marshall’s influential donors or those close to them.

Marshall can now say to those who put him in power, “Promises made, promises kept.”

But Marshall will do well to remember that actions have consequences, and there is a cost to corrupt acts, even if they are legal. More than one unscrupulous politico has met his fate at the end of a keyboard.

Marshall is saying he will take a hit from the media for firing Hart, but not a single elected official will say a word against him, according to those in the attorney general’s office.

Marshall believes that four years is long enough for people to forget he axed one of the state’s most successful prosecutors in the middle of multiple investigations to benefit his political donors.

But not everyone forgets, and there is a lot more to know about Marshall and what he has to hide.

Facebook initially hired Definers to monitor news about the social network. It expanded its relationship with the firm in October 2017 when scrutiny of Facebook was increasing over how Russian agents had used the site to sow discord before the 2016 United States election.

Definers began doing some general communications work, such as running conference calls for Facebook. It also undertook more covert efforts to spread the blame for the rise of the Russian disinformation, pointing fingers at other companies like Google.

A key part of Definers’ strategy was NTK Network, a website that appeared to be a run-of-the-mill news aggregator with a right-wing slant. In fact, many of NTK Network’s stories were written by employees at Definers and America Rising, a sister firm, to criticize rivals of their clients, according to one former employee not allowed to speak about it publicly. The three outfits share some staff and offices in Arlington, Va.

In the final months of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, Russian agents escalated a yearlong effort to hack and harass his Democratic opponents, culminating in the release of thousands of emails stolen from prominent Democrats and party officials.

Facebook had said nothing publicly about any problems on its own platform. But in the spring of 2016, a company expert on Russian cyberwarfare spotted something worrisome. He reached out to his boss, Mr. Stamos.

Mr. Stamos’s team discovered that Russian hackers appeared to be probing Facebook accounts for people connected to the presidential campaigns, said two employees. Months later, as Mr. Trump battled Hillary Clinton in the general election, the team also found Facebook accounts linked to Russian hackers who were messaging journalists to share information from the stolen emails.

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg

Then Donald J. Trump ran for president. He described Muslim immigrants and refugees as a danger to America, and in December 2015 posted a statement on Facebook calling for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the United States. Mr. Trump’s call to arms — widely condemned by Democrats and some prominent Republicans — was shared more than 15,000 times on Facebook, an illustration of the site’s power to spread racist sentiment. . . .

In the end, Mr. Trump’s statement and account remained on the site. When Mr. Trump won election the next fall, giving Republicans control of the White House as well as Congress, Mr. [Joel] Kaplan was empowered to plan accordingly. The company hired a former aide to Mr. Trump’s new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, along with lobbying firms linked to Republican lawmakers who had jurisdiction over internet companies.

A former aide to Alabama Senator turned U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been hired by Facebook.

Axios reported Sandra Luff, who served as Sessions' Legislative Director while he was in the Senate, will be Director of Executive Branch Public Policy at the social media company. She also worked with Trump's transition team.

"Sandy's experience and understanding of the political landscape will make her an invaluable asset to our team. We are excited to have her aboard,"Facebook's vice president of U.S. public policy Greg Maurer said in a statement.

The move appears to be the latest efforts by Facebook to reach out to the Trump administration.

Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy

It’s what some political scientists call negative partisanship. Research shows that, increasingly, Americans on one side of the political divide don’t just disagree with those on the other. They see them as threats to the country’s well-being. Their anger at the opposing party and its leaders is more pervasive. Their disagreement with its prescriptions is strict. They’re not as keen to associate with its adherents. And their unbalanced information diets and narrow ideological enclaves insulate them from its reasoning.

Forget I’m O.K., you’re O.K. This is: I have problems, you’re repulsive.

The ethos extends to the assessment and defense of Trump’s behavior. He may be an odd fit for a tribe that includes usually judgmental religious conservatives and once exuberant free traders, but he’s now their chief, and whatever his flaws, his detractors’ are worse. If they’re agitated, they’re ipso facto overreacting. Regardless, show no weakness. Admit no wrong.

Alleged Kentucky shooter Gregory Bush

More in Common, a research organization based in Europe and the United States, released a report called “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape.” It builds on the group’s prior work in France, Germany, and Italy—an effort to understand and counteract rising populism and fragmentation in the Western democracies. Throughout the past year, the report’s four authors surveyed eight thousand randomly chosen Americans, asking questions about “core beliefs”: moral values, attitudes toward parenting and personal responsibility, perceptions of threats, approaches to group identity. . . .

More in Common found that “tribal membership predicts differences in Americans’ views on various political issues better than demographic, ideological, and partisan groupings.” In other words, whether or not you think creativity is more important than good behavior in children is a better indicator of your political views than is your gender, your race, your income, or your party affiliation.“Once we have the seven segments, their views on issues are highly correlated,” Tim Dixon, an Australian political activist and a founder of More in Common, told me. He added, “We have too much opinion research and not enough value research.”

When we think of tribalism, we tend to focus on the primal pull of race, religion, or ethnicity. But partisan political loyalties can become tribal too. When they do, they can be as destructive as any other allegiance. The Founders understood this. In 1780, John Adams wrote that the “greatest political evil” to be feared under a democratic constitution was the emergence of “two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.” George Washington, in his farewell address, described the “spirit of party” as democracy’s “worst enemy.” It “agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one party against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. . . .”

Alleged mail bomber Cesar Sayoc

Americans on both the left and the right now view their political opponents not as fellow Americans with differing views, but as enemies to be vanquished. And they have come to view the Constitution not as an aspirational statement of shared principles and a bulwark against tribalism, but as a cudgel with which to attack those enemies.

The Mike Hubbard trial, on the surface, was about 23 charges of Alabama Ethics Law violations -- with a Lee County jury finding Hubbard guilty on 12 counts. But from a big-picture view, it was about the kind of mindset that has come to hold back many areas of the Deep South, not to mention other states where Southern thinking tends to hold sway. We are thinking of Great Plains or Midwest states, such as Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah.

What is this mindset all about? We have broken it into two parts -- one called "The New Confederacy," and the other called "Conservative Tribalism." Both were on display in the Mike Hubbard trial.

"The New Confederacy" includes individuals who tend to self-identify as "patriots," even though they reject fundamental tenets of the U.S. Constitution. These modern-day confederates tend to especially reject the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of due process and equal protection, which became part of America's constitutional landscape after the Civil War.

From 1866 to 1868, Southern states bitterly opposed ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Hubbard trial showed that many Southerners, especially elites, still despise the principles of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Consider Hubbard's lawyer, Bill Baxley. He described several of the counts against his client as "mumbo-jumbo" or "gobbledygook." Baxley made little or no attempt to dispute the prosecution's version of the facts. Instead, he argued there was no crime -- essentially claiming the law does not apply to Mike Hubbard.

Alleged Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers

Bill Pryor, as a drummer at Northeast Louisiana University

Shane Rogers in the NLU Marching Band

I was in a band fraternity -- Kappa Kappa Psi -- when Bill discovered I was seeing someone else, and he decided to out me to the rest of the band. Back then, outing was rotten thing to do because people were pretty much in closet. In fact, I would say that outing me, alone, was a form of sexual harassment. I was ostracized in the fraternity, and it pretty much ended my time in that organization.

Bill has a self loathing outlook, with his anti-gay opinions in court and in his public statements. That is so old school and disgusting to us all.

I don't have a lot of dirty stories about Bill; I never had any sexual interaction with him. He's got a wife and kids, which is pretty shocking. That is him in Bad Puppy. He was known as gay -- he was in percussion, a drummer -- and he had a mouth on him, saying things, about politics and other subjects, that he shouldn't have been saying. We worked together in work-study, so we got to know each other pretty well.

I'm surprised he's an appellate-court judge. Not only is he not the right person for the job, with all of his prejudices, but I've never seen someone so conservative and cruel. We wrote Bill off as a pure radical; he was always glorifying Reagan. His views are so far right -- he was Republican this and Republican that. 

This guy's evil. I've had no contact with him since college. From opinions and statements of last 20 years, I can see it's only gotten worse. How can he be a judge of others when he's so prejudiced in one direction. That goes beyond homosexuality or anything like that. He will try to get as high as he can. He's one of those power grabbers. You can't make judicial decisions in the right way when you are so far on the fringe.

I never thought twice about him being successful in anything. People would walk the other way when he was coming toward them because they did not want to deal with that kind of aggressiveness. I'm 53 now, and I've never seen anyone so radical in entire life.

He's gotten higher than he ever should have. I find it hard to believe Bill could be impartial in anything. And others who know him can't believe he's a judge. He's just very aggressive, very evil.

Donald Watkins

Ironically, while federal prosecutors in Alabama elected to prosecute me on flimsy allegations, they forgave former Governor Robert Bentley for his many acts of public corruption in spending vast sums of tax dollars, campaign money, and dark money romancing his lover, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. As the Alabama public knows, I am the journalist who broke the “sex for power” scandal between Bentley and Ms. Mason that resulted in the governor’s resignation.

Legal Schnauzer broke the story of Bentley's affair with "adviser" Rebekah Caldwell Mason -- and its associated financial and legal implications -- roughly seven months before the mainstream media (MSM) began to take it seriously. The first story on the Bentley scandal, anywhere in any form of media, was published here at Legal Schnauzer on Aug. 31, 2015.

We were way ahead of everybody in naming Rebekah Mason as a central figure in the scandal. Our guess is the MSM never would have touched the story if we hadn't broken it and followed up with key details. In fact, al.com (especially "reporters" John Archibald and Chuck Dean) spent months attacking my journalism on the story. They were more interested in sweeping the story under their GOP-tinted rug than actually pursuing it. . . .

Archibald, of course, was happy to go on The Rachel Maddow Show in spring 2017 and take credit for "breaking" the story, even though he was seven months late to the party.

Speaking of taking credit for the work of others, we have lawyer/businessman/Facebook"journalist" Donald Watkins, who repeatedly has taken credit for breaking the Bentley-Mason story. His most recent effort to falsely claim credit for breaking the story came three days ago. Much of Watkins' early reporting on the Bentley scandal focused on hints that the governor was having a homosexual affair with his security chief.

Watkins didn't even have the gender issue correct, and never mentioned Mason's name until well after we had broken it. Yet, just three days ago, he took credit for breaking the story. Perhaps that kind of fundamental dishonesty is the reason Watkins is up to his neck in federal investigations. (Given that many state and federal prosecutors are utterly lacking in integrity, it's also possible Watkins is being targeted because his skin is black and is seen as a threat to Alabama's conservative establishment.)

Jamal Khashoggi

Mugshot of U.S. journalist Roger Shuler

[We shouldn't] minimize the issue of judicial reform to women only, even though it is important. . . . Since the time of King Abdulaziz, they have refused codifying the laws. And they think codifying the laws is secular. . . . This is what I mean by reform, by true reform of the judiciary, is to codify the law, introduce due process in the court system and make judges [obey] --what is the word? --a codified law…. This is the reform that is needed.

In the 2000s, [Khashoggi] was twice fired from his post as editor-in-chief of the Saudi Al-Watan daily newspaper, which under his leadership ran stories, editorials and cartoons critical of extremists.

Yet he didn’t stay long without a job. In between, he served as an adviser to the Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former long-serving intelligence chief, and stayed on as the prince’s media aide after he was appointed the Saudi envoy to the U.S.

“I got fired from my job twice because I was pushing for reform in Saudi Arabia,” Khashoggi said in a March appearance on Qatari-run Al Jazeera’s “Upfront” program as he explained the worsening environment for journalists under Prince Mohammed. “It wasn’t that easy but people were not being put in jails. There was a breathing space.”

Khashoggi also criticised Prince Mohammed's lack of 'proper advisers'.

'He is moving toward a Saudi Arabia according to him, a Saudi Arabia according to Mohammed bin Salman only,' said Khashoggi, who was himself a contributor to the Washington Post newspaper.

Khashoggi described two of the prince's aides, including the since-dismissed media adviser Saud al-Qahtani, as 'very thuggish'.

'People fear them. You challenge them, you might end up in prison, and that has happened,' he said.

Rob Riley and his daddy, former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley

Riley said in a telephone interview he has a right to seek injunctive relief in a defamation case and there is legal precedent for doing so. He said someone who decides "to make up a lie, destroy someone's reputation, that's not journalism."

Riley told CPJ: "Shuler has a history of making up things and writing things that are outlandish lies...I am going to pursue every avenue possible to me in the courts to defend my name, my family and my business...He has no proof this is true. He has just decided to be a cyber-bully and make stuff up and I've had enough."