"You have been found guilty of being a Democrat..."

In case you haven't seen it, this Harper's story is a must-read:

In the last two weeks, two sources, one of them inside of the Justice Department, have told me that a scheme was hatched in the upper echelons of the Bush Administration shortly after it took office in 2001 or early in 2002. The project identified John Edwards and Hillary Clinton as likely Democratic challengers to President Bush, and identified prominent trial lawyers around the United States as the likely financial vehicle for Edward’s rise. It directed that their campaign finance records be fly-specked, and that offenses not be treated as administrative matters but rather as serious criminal offenses.

The scheme contemplated among other things that raids be staged on the law offices involved, and that the records seized not be limited to campaign finance—there was an acute interest in all politically oriented documents, in order to seize valuable intelligence on strategic planning from the enemy camp.

The author of this piece, Scott Horton, believes that similar tactics made life miserable for Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, who was convicted on rather flimsy corruption charges in 2006. You may recall that lawyer Jill Simpson (a Republican) swore in an affidavit that the she had overheard Republican campaign consultant Bill Canary say that "Karl" would make sure that the Justice Department targeted Siegelman. (I hope you've already seen this Josh Marshall video on the case.)