Most people picture prosecutorial misconduct as one rogue lawyer hiding one document. Professor Bennett Gershman, a former New York prosecutor and author of the treatise Prosecutorial Misconduct, says that when it’s deliberate and coordinated, it looks like what happened to Governor Don Siegelman. In 2014 he called it “one of the most egregiously bad faith prosecutions by the Justice Department ever.”

In this episode, Professor Gershman, Governor Siegelman, and host Nick Collado go through how a case like this comes together: the key witness, the conflicts of interest, the judge, and the jury.

Gershman says he has never seen a witness handled the way Nick Bailey was, citing 71 interviews with prosecutors. He also says he learned during his research that prosecutors asked for a life sentence over a campaign contribution to a ballot initiative. The Governor adds his account of the jury’s questions, the judge’s instructions, and the jurors’ messages during deliberations. He also covers Judge Mark Fuller’s history, the 911 call, and the federal judiciary’s findings before Fuller resigned.

Then they take on the bigger question: why prosecutors are almost never held accountable. Gershman explains absolute immunity, why prosecutors are rarely prosecuted or disciplined, and why he separates deliberate misconduct from honest mistakes. He still sees signs of change: federal judges who say they no longer trust prosecutors, grand juries refusing to indict, and a new prosecutor conduct commission in New York. The Governor describes his request for the records of Bailey’s interviews, and says the Obama and Biden administrations refused to turn them over. Gershman also draws comparisons to prosecutions in the news today.

The episode closes with the Governor thanking Gershman for writing in his defense, including a request that President Obama pardon him.

This is Episode [#] of Me and the Gov, a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Governor Jim Doyle on the Woman Who Went to Prison Instead of Him | Me and The Gov Episode 10

In 2006, Georgia Thompson — a career Wisconsin civil servant Governor Jim Doyle had never even met — was convicted and sent to federal prison over a $1 million travel contract. No bribe. No kickback. No money ever changed hands. She served four months before a federal appeals court took the almost unheard-of step of ordering her released the same day, live from the bench, calling the case against her "beyond thin."

In this episode, former Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle joins Governor Don Siegelman and host Nick Collado to walk through what actually happened — including the real courtroom audio from her hearing, and the actual Republican-aligned attack ad that ran statewide against Doyle off her conviction. Doyle reveals that after Thompson was convicted, prosecutors approached her again and offered to keep her out of prison if she'd simply change her sworn testimony. She refused, and went to prison anyway.

The two governors trace the same names through both of their cases — David Margolis, the DOJ official who approved the charging decision against Thompson and was separately deeply involved in Siegelman's own prosecution, and Jack Abramoff, who Siegelman says laundered $20 million in casino money specifically to defeat both of them in the same election cycle.

The episode also plays a clip from former Republican Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, who says on camera that Siegelman was targeted because Republicans "couldn't beat him fair and square" — and closes with Doyle's own raw reaction, recorded the day Thompson walked free.

This is Episode 10 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#JimDoyle #DonSiegelman #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #GeorgiaThompson #PoliticalCorruption #WisconsinPolitics #KarlRove #DavidMargolis #JackAbramoff #PoliticalScandal #TrueCrime

"I Was Working for the Sith Lords": A Fired U.S. Attorney Tells His Story | Me and The Gov Episode 9

In 2001, David Iglesias was everything the Republican Party said it wanted in a future leader — a Navy JAG officer, an evangelical, a combat veteran, personally sponsored by his own senator. By 2006, he was fired by phone, on a script, the same week as six other U.S. Attorneys across the country.

In this episode, Captain David Iglesias joins Governor Don Siegelman and host Nick Collado to go through his book "In Justice" — including playing his actual 2007 Senate testimony describing the phone call that ended his career: Senator Pete Domenici personally calling him at home, asking if corruption indictments against Democrats would be filed before the election, then hanging up when Iglesias said no. Five weeks later, he was gone.

Iglesias and Siegelman trace the same fingerprints across both of their cases — Karl Rove's own business partner's wife appointed as the prosecutor in Alabama, Rove personally "agitated" over Iglesias in New Mexico, and the revelation that New Jersey's Chris Christie was actually removed from an early firing list right as Iglesias's name was added. They also connect the pattern to a third case in Wisconsin, and to Rove's own history of political dirty tricks going back to Texas.

Governor Siegelman reveals new detail about David Margolis, the DOJ official who cleared the conflict of interest in his prosecution, fired the whistleblower who came forward, and was quoted telling an inspector that if the public knew how Siegelman's case was really handled, it would be a "huge embarrassment" for the Justice Department.

This is Episode 9 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#DonSiegelman #DavidIglesias #KarlRove #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #USAttorneys #PoliticalCorruption #DavidMargolis #AlabamaPolitics #NewMexico #PoliticalScandal #TrueCrime

Devil in Disguise | Me and The Gov Episode 8

For the first time in this series, we bring on a guest who isn't Governor Siegelman himself. Tommy Gallion is a lifelong Republican, a senior Montgomery attorney, and one of the most connected political figures in Alabama history — with no track record of helping Siegelman, until now.

Gallion reveals, in his own words, that he was personally invited to a meeting where Karl Rove was expected to attend to discuss indicting Governor Siegelman during the middle of a political campaign. He said no. Weeks later, he picked up the newspaper and read that Siegelman had been indicted.

Gallion also goes back to 1994, describing a separate encounter where Rove pushed a different Republican candidate to go dirty on his opponent — and the smear campaign, run through University of Alabama law students, that followed in a different race that same year.

We put Rove's own sworn congressional testimony up against Gallion's account, ask him point blank why he believes Siegelman and Richard Scrushy were targeted, and close with new details about the meeting itself — including exactly where it was held.

This is Episode 8 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#DonSiegelman #KarlRove #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #TommyGallion #PoliticalCorruption #AlabamaPolitics #Congress #PoliticalScandal #TrueCrime #DevilInDisguise

Alabama Executed Jeffery Lee. His Own Jury Voted for Life. | Me and The Gov Episode 7

On September 17, 2026, Alabama executed Jeffery Lee — known to guards and fellow inmates as "J-Love" for the calm he brought to death row. His jury voted for life without parole. A judge, running for reelection, overrode that verdict and sentenced him to death anyway.

In this episode, Governor Don Siegelman and host Nick Collado go through exactly how that's still legal in one state in the country. Of the 155 people on Alabama's death row, 108 got there through non-unanimous jury verdicts and 25 through judicial override — a practice every other state in America has abandoned. Siegelman traces both practices back to an 1870 shift in the law, made only after formerly enslaved Black citizens gained the right to serve on juries and could no longer be counted on to vote for execution.

The numbers are stark: the Equal Justice Initiative found judicial override rates jump from 7% in non-election years to over 30% when judges are running for reelection. Of the 17 Black defendants sentenced to death by override in Alabama, every single one was sentenced by a judge running for reelection — and 16 of those judges were white.

Siegelman also reveals something personal: as Alabama's Attorney General, he was constitutionally required to set execution dates. Looking back, knowing what he knows now, he says he would have refused. He and former Republican Governor Robert Bentley once co-wrote a Washington Post op-ed calling for commutation of every sentence handed down through this exact process.

The conversation widens into the legal architecture that makes all of this possible — from a 1976 Supreme Court decision shielding prosecutors from civil liability even when they knowingly present false evidence, to a 2010 Obama-era Supreme Court argument that Americans have no constitutional right not to be framed, which Siegelman ties directly to the explosion of U.S. mass incarceration.

This is Episode 7 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#DonSiegelman #JefferyLee #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #JudicialOverride #DeathPenalty #AlabamaPolitics #CriminalJusticeReform #EqualJusticeInitiative #WrongfulConviction #TrueCrime #JimCrow

Karl Rove Said They Just Exchanged Christmas Cards. The Record Says Otherwise. | Me and The Gov Episode 6

This entire episode lives inside one exchange from Karl Rove's actual July 30, 2009 congressional interview. Governor Don Siegelman and host Nick Collado read the exchange almost word for word — because paraphrasing it undersells just how small Rove makes the relationship sound.

Asked about Bill Canary, the man at the center of the phone call that first connected Rove to Siegelman's prosecution, Rove's answer: a dozen calls over eight years, no specific memories, and "we did exchange Christmas cards." Asked about Canary's wife, Leura Canary — the U.S. Attorney who oversaw the case — Rove said he "literally couldn't tell you" if he'd ever spoken to her in person. Asked about Rob Riley, the son of Siegelman's 2002 opponent: "I have no idea."

Governor Siegelman pushes back on every answer, laying out a documented decades-long partnership between Rove and Canary dating back to 1992 — including a joint operation to remake the Alabama Supreme Court in the 1990s, a whisper campaign using University of Alabama law students, and a halted vote recount that later reporting has called a direct template for the 2000 Bush v. Gore fight in Florida.

Before any of that, they set the scene: the year-long fight just to get Rove in a room at all — subpoenaed twice, held in contempt, before finally striking a deal that let him skip the oath entirely. And who was actually sitting in that room, including a separate personal attorney for former President George W. Bush himself.

The episode also digs into David Margolis, the career Justice Department official who admitted to Congress "I was too passive" — the same official who fired a DOJ whistleblower and cleared the case of any conflict of interest, despite the prosecuting U.S. Attorney's own husband working to defeat Siegelman politically.

It closes with the actual George Stephanopoulos interview where Rove is confronted on camera and, in Stephanopoulos's own words, still refuses to give a direct denial.

This is Episode 6 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

#DonSiegelman #KarlRove #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #BillCanary #DavidMargolis #PoliticalCorruption #USAttorneys #GeorgeWBush #AlabamaPolitics #Congress #PoliticalScandal #TrueCrime #RobRiley

Eight months after his release on appeal, Governor Don Siegelman watched Karl Rove spend two years fighting a congressional subpoena — until Rove finally cut a deal. In this episode, Siegelman and host Nick Collado break down what actually happened, using transcripts Siegelman tracked down himself.

Nancy Pelosi announced in March 2009 that Rove would testify "under penalty of perjury." The actual transcripts tell a different story: no oath was ever administered, no cameras were allowed, and Rove's lawyer secured questions in advance. When committee counsel finally invokes a federal statute to press him on Alabama, Rove's attorney objects that it's "1950s-style rhetoric" — and Rove himself doesn't deny involvement. He says he has no recollection.

Siegelman also revisits his history with Judge Mark Fuller, the man who presided over his original trial — a rivalry going back to a state congressional race, Fuller's opposition to Siegelman's lottery initiative, and a state audit that found Fuller had attempted to overpay a state employee by $300,000, resulting in newspapers calling him a thief before he ever took the federal bench. Siegelman connects this history to a no-bid federal aviation contract for Fuller's company — worth as much as $3 billion over a decade — awarded shortly after Siegelman's conviction.

Along the way: a cameo appearance from novelist John Grisham, and a Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of bribery that should have overturned Siegelman's case — and didn't.

This is Episode 5 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series.

#DonSiegelman #KarlRove #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #JudgeFuller #PoliticalCorruption #NancyPelosi #DossAviation #JohnGrisham #AlabamaPolitics #WrongfulConviction

Eight months into an 88-month federal sentence, Governor Don Siegelman got word that CBS's 60 Minutes had built a national segment around his case. In this episode, Siegelman and host Nick Collado watch it together — pausing throughout to break down what's actually being said, moment by moment.

The segment, "Did Ex-Alabama Governor Get a Raw Deal?", reported that 52 former state attorneys general — Republicans and Democrats alike — had asked Congress to investigate whether Siegelman's prosecution was pursued for politics rather than a crime. It exposed that the U.S. Attorney who initially handled the case was married to the campaign manager for Siegelman's opponent. And it revealed that the prosecution's star witness, Nick Bailey, had told CBS he'd been interviewed more than 70 times and made to rewrite his testimony — while the "smoking gun" check at the center of his story turned out to have been cut days after the meeting he claimed to have seen it in.

Siegelman reacts in real time to Jill Simpson's claims about a phone call plotting his re-indictment, to a former Arizona Attorney General's on-camera assessment that the case should never have gone to trial, and to seeing his own prison mop bucket on national television.

This is Episode 4 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.

🎙️ Subscribe for the full series.

#DonSiegelman #60Minutes #KarlRove #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #WrongfulConviction #PoliticalCorruption #NickBailey #JillSimpson #AtticusVsTheArchitect