COMMENT: In FTR #742, we exam­ined a num­ber of highly sus­pi­cious deaths linked to GOP power pol­i­tics in Alabama. Those deaths tracked back to two over­lap­ping investigations:

• The polit­i­cal destruc­tion of for­mer Demo­c­ra­tic Alabama gov­er­nor Don Siegel­man and his replace­ment by the con­sum­mately, lethally cor­rupt admin­is­tra­tion of GOP gov­er­nor Bob Riley.
• The inves­ti­ga­tions into the activ­i­ties of con­victed GOP lob­by­ist Jack Abramoff, who was involved with cor­rupted Native-American gam­bling activ­i­ties in the state.

The storm swirling around Riley and asso­ciates tracks back to the polit­i­cal destruc­tion of Demo­c­ra­tic Alabama gov­er­nor Don Siegel­man, who had con­trol over the records of George W. Bush’s Air National Guard record.

(Recall that Bush had been assigned to an Air National Guard base in Alabama, and appears to have spent his time there pol­i­tick­ing on behalf of GOP can­di­dates. Had this dis­clo­sure got­ten the play it deserved, it would have denied Dubya a sec­ond term.  Siegelman’s destruction–widely attrib­uted to the sin­is­ter, Machi­avel­lian Karl Rove–put the infor­ma­tion in the hands of a trusted GOP hack, Bob Riley. In Fam­ily of Secrets, Russ Baker details the maneu­ver­ing around Bush’s mil­i­tary records and the delib­er­ate destruc­tion of jour­nal­is­tic and polit­i­cal sources pur­su­ing the truth. Baker is inter­viewed about the book in FTR #‘s 711 through 716, 730, 743.)

Now, the blood­let­ting may have claimed the life of Chace William Swa­tek, a promi­nent lawyer in the Alabama GOP fold.

“Alabama Lawyer with Strong Ties to GOP Turns up Dead at Con­struc­tion Site”; Legal Schnau­zer; 2/16/2012.

EXCERPT: An Alabama lawyer with round­about con­nec­tions to our Legal Schnau­zer story was found dead at a Shelby County con­struc­tion site late yes­ter­day morning.

The body of Chace William Swa­tek, 35, was found behind a stack of metal pipes near the Shelby County Ser­vices Build­ing in Pel­ham. Law-enforcement offi­cials say the cause of death is not known, but they do not sus­pect foul play.

Swa­tek had pow­er­ful fam­ily ties to the Alabama Repub­li­can Party. His older brother, Dax, is head of the lobbying/consulting firm Swa­tek Azbell Howe & Ross. Dax Swa­tek was 2006 cam­paign man­ager for for­mer GOP Gov­er­nor Bob Riley–he of the ties to GOP felons Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon–and is a pro­tege of Bill Canary, pres­i­dent of the Busi­ness Coun­cil of Alabama. Canary, of course, is the hus­band of Leura Canary, Bush-era pros­e­cu­tor in the Don Siegel­man case and insti­ga­tor of the fed­eral bingo pros­e­cu­tion, which is being retried at this moment in Mont­gomery. Dax Swa­tek also played a promi­nent early role in the bingo fiasco. . . .