Corbett Caught Selling Get out of Jail Free Cards?

Oliver Hall is Ralph Nader's lawyer and he uncovered a damaging piece of information that Attorney General Tom Corbett would like to keep quiet.

It could smash Corbett's Pennsylvania "Idol" image as it puts a sour taste in the mouths of voters who will question not only Corbett's honesty and commitment to the law, it will make them wonder who else he is willing to throw under the bus to pad his own pockets. He has already has a history as being a money magnet for special interests including casinos interests and the most powerful Teachers union.

Click Here To Read Hall's Piece In The Corporate Crime Reporter

After reading YOU will likely question if you can trust TOM CORBETT as your next Governor?

Did the party boss Robert Gleason and the Republican party machine blow it once again and bet on the wrong Pretty faced horse. Last time Republicans endorsed the popular and clueless Lynn Swann. This time they endorsed the arrogant Corbett over the peoples favorite Sam Rohrer because Sam bucked the bosses and took the lead to dethrone his own parties Speaker of the House John Perzel, who is now up on 185 charges of misusing taxpayer money. Once again Sam Rohrer beat Corbett to the punch.

The DIRT!

Ralph Nader, to qualify for the 2004 Presidential ballot had to obtain 25,000 legitimate signatures on a petition in Pennsylvania. He obtained 51,000. The Pennsylvania Democratic party was concerned that Nader would steal votes from their Kerry /Edwards ticket in a close race. They enlisted the service of the Pittsburgh-based Reed Smith legal firm to work over time with state employees to help them challenge and disqualify enough votes to keep Nader off off the ballot.

A Pennsylvania court backed Reed Smith eventually invalidating 30,000 of those signatures keeping Nader off the ballot. The court also ruled Ralph Nader to reimbursed Reed Smith $81,000 for related court costs. Nader hired Hall to fight it. That was 6 years ago. On April 21, 2010 they are to finally meet in court and Reed Smith made an effort to attached Naders bank accounts.

In a Shocking and surprise move Attorney General Tom Corbett was slapped with a request to recuse himself from investigating Reed Smith in the Bonusgate trial. "Bonusgate" was a result of Democrats being changed with paying bonuses to state workers for these disqualification efforts out of taxpayer money.

Oliver Stone made this request pointing out that Tom Corbett had filed a grand jury presentment that implicated the Democrat's “law firm” in its participation in the conduct under investigation in Bonusgate. Reed Smith claimed it had done the campaign work probono. Corbett sure hadn't ever brought up charges agasint them. In fact did anyone recall any investigation?

WHAT HAPPENED?

Hall pointed out damaging testimony from a number of witnesses in the Bonusgate trial who pointed to Reed Smith for being much more involved. He also showed evidence the firm was awarded over $136,000 in bonuses for this same time period that they claimed to be doing probono work. With such testimony on the record WHY wasn't our Attorney General diving further into this investigation?

Oliver Hall called for Corbett to RECUSE himself from investigating the Pittsburgh firm of Reed Smith and in doing so stated the following:

"We discovered that in August 2008, not six weeks after Corbett filed this grand jury presentment implicating an unnamed law firm in this criminal conspiracy that Corbett had accepted at least $15,900 in campaign contributions to his re-election campaign as Attorney General from Reed Smith and from the litigators at Reed Smith,” Hall stated.

“This is an unacceptable conflict of interest.”

“More to the point, Corbett himself has pledged that in his twin roles as Attorney General and now as a candidate for Governor, that he would not accept campaign contributions from parties who he may be investigating.”

“And that’s exactly what he did here. We asked that Corbett return the campaign contributions. He refused.”

“And we put out a press release. To this day, to my knowledge, he has not returned the campaign contributions – despite his pledge not to take money from people he should be investigating.”

“Here you have an Attorney General running for Governor, benefitting from a reputation as a crusader against this massive criminal conspiracy involving political corruption in the state legislature,” Hall says.

“He’s prosecuting these mid and low level state employees – who by all accounts were simply following the orders of their supervisors – often unwillingly and at pain of losing their jobs. And they were doing it apparently in consultation with legal counsel.”

“And yet these mid and low level state employees are now facing jail time. Whereas the attorneys who they were working with have gotten away without as so much as a slap on the wrist.”

A Reed Smith Spokesman offered the following:

"Reed Smith did indeed help coordinate the Nader challenge and contributed hundreds of hours to the effort. Reed Smith has no knowledge of any bonuses paid to legislative staffers and had on the contrary been assured that any such volunteers had been working on their own time.

Reed Smith successfully uncovered what President Judge James G. Colins of the Commonwealth Court called ‘the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court.' Mr. Nader’s accusations of misconduct against these lawyers now, six years after the fact, are wholly without merit."

Oliver Hall was ready for them and responded with:

"Read Justice Thomas Saylor’s dissent –which the majority simply ignored,” “He notes that the record contains ‘no evidence’ of any fraudulent conduct by anyone associated with the Nader/Camejo campaign.”

“Judge Colins’ own factual findings indicate that only a tiny handful of the signatures – 1.3 percent of the total – were counted as so-called forgeries – resulting from pranks or sabotage by signers.”

TOM CORBETT needs to explain:

1) Why wasn't testimony pointing to Reed Hall investigated?

2) Do you understand the term "Quid Pro Quo" > Explain how that did not occur here when after YOU accepted their campaign donation YOU stopped investigating this Bonusgate involved Pittsburgh legal firm ? Friends of yours?

3) Do you include yourself in the mix when you state you will clean up corruption in Harrisburg?

4) Why do you continue to avoid a real debate with the peoples choice for Governor. SAM ROHRER?