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Don Siegelman was elected governor of Alabama twice but inaugurated once, as he puts it. In part two of our series going through the documentary “Atticus v. The Architect: The Political Assassination of Don Siegelman,” filmmaker Steve Wimberly returns with Governor Siegelman and host Nick Collado to cover the stretch of the film about who Siegelman was before the prosecution began. Steve talks about what didn’t make it into the film. The first cut ran four to four and a half hours, and the finished documentary runs about an hour and forty-one minutes after roughly a year of editing with Kurtis Watkins. The Governor tells the stories behind his rise: the lessons his mother and father taught him growing up in Mobile, how the war in Vietnam pulled him into national politics through Allard Lowenstein and the Dump Johnson movement, and his years at Georgetown, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and Oxford. He describes becoming executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party, and the day Big Jim Folsom told him to think about becoming a Southern Baptist before running for office in Alabama. They go through how he came to hold all four statewide offices (Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor), and what each job taught him about how government actually works. That includes expanding voter registration, single-member districts, and a budget fight in the state Senate over children’s health insurance. He also explains why early learning, free childcare, and free college were the reasons he wanted to be governor. Steve says this segment sets up everything that follows. Next time, the series picks up where Siegelman starts to be targeted. “Atticus v. The Architect” is available to rent on Amazon. This is Episode 14 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 #MeAndTheGov #AtticusVsTheArchitect #SteveWimberly #AlabamaPolitics #AlabamaHistory #AllardLowenstein #BigJimFolsom #PoliticalDocumentary #Documentary #Podcast

On election night 2002, Don Siegelman was declared the winner of the Alabama governor’s race. By morning, the numbers had changed. In the first of a multi-part breakdown of the documentary “Atticus v. The Architect,” filmmaker Steve Wimberly joins Governor Siegelman and host Nick Collado to go through what happened in Baldwin County. Steve explains how the county’s computer produced three different sets of results in a single night. The first showed a Libertarian candidate with roughly 13,000 votes. The second put Siegelman over the top. The third reduced only Siegelman’s total and left every other number unchanged. Governor Siegelman recalls being woken at 4 a.m. by his security detail, his call to the probate judge for a hand recount, and the news that the Attorney General had seized the ballots and the tabulation equipment, as the Governor tells it. He also explains the legal trap that certification created, and why he says it left his campaign in checkmate. They connect the dots laid out in the film: the Attorney General’s ties to Karl Rove, the prosecutor whose husband was working for his opponent, Jack Abramoff and the Choctaw casino money, the Kiplinger Letter that made Siegelman a possible 2004 Democratic contender, and Dan Gans’s biography at the Alexander Strategy Group, which Nick found through Internet archives. They close with whether an election could be stolen again, from Professor James Gundlach’s study to the risks of electronic voting without a paper trail. “Atticus v. The Architect” is available on Amazon. This is Episode 13 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.

Scott Horton, a lawyer and Harper’s Magazine writer, kept the Siegelman case alive in print when almost no national outlet would touch it. Governor Siegelman credits his reporting with helping drive the wave of editorials that followed, and says the New York Times alone ran 17. In this episode, Horton joins Governor Siegelman and host Nick Collado to explain why he called the Governor “America’s most prominent political prisoner.” He says he first learned of the case not from Siegelman, whom he hadn’t met, but from people inside the Justice Department who were alarmed at what they were seeing. Horton lays out his thesis: that Karl Rove was the common thread in politically charged prosecutions of Democrats in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. He says the goal was to remove promising candidates and cut off their campaign money. He describes what he says he learned from interviews inside the U.S. Attorney’s office and from staff of Justice Department official David Margolis. He also explains why he believes U.S. Attorney Leura Canary’s “recusal” existed in name only. He and the Governor also cover the bribery charge, which Horton calls “worse than thin,” Judge Mark Fuller and Doss Aviation, the Governor’s account of retired FBI agents hired to build the case, and Rove’s 2009 congressional interview and its Christmas cards. Horton compares the guardrails that once kept politics out of federal prosecutions with what he sees at the Justice Department today. This is Episode 11 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. #ScottHorton #DonSiegelman #MeAndTheGov #HarpersMagazine #KarlRove #PoliticalProsecution #PoliticalPrisoner #JusticeDepartment #DavidMargolis #LeuraCanary #AlabamaPolitics #InvestigativeJournalism #Podcast #TrueCrime

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

Episode 3: "You Don't Have a Right Not to Be Framed" | Me and the Gov How does a rising Democratic star with national ambitions end up in federal prison? In this episode, Governor Don Siegelman connects the dots — from a first indictment so weak the federal judge who dismissed it called it "the most unfounded criminal case" in his 29 years on the bench, to a second indictment built on the testimony of a government witness interviewed more than 70 times until his story finally matched what prosecutors needed. Siegelman lays out, in detail: the check that a key witness swore existed — and that never did; a Department of Justice whistleblower's sworn account of that witness being pressured to "remember" something he didn't; sworn testimony from a Republican attorney about a meeting with Karl Rove to discuss timing an indictment around Siegelman's re-election campaign; and the U.S. Attorney overseeing his prosecution — whose own husband was running his opponent's campaign. Then Siegelman goes further; into a legal doctrine most Americans have never heard of. In 2010, during the Obama administration, the Solicitor General's office argued to the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens do not have a constitutional right not to be framed by prosecutors — a real argument, in a real case, over two men who spent 25 years in prison for a murder they didn't commit before the truth came out. This episode isn't about one man's case. It's about a legal shield that protects prosecutors no matter which party is in power — and why, according to Siegelman, it could happen to any American. Topics covered in this episode: The first indictment, dismissed with prejudice by a federal judgeThe second indictment and the witness interviewed over 70 timesA DOJ whistleblower's account of witness coachingTommy Gallion's testimony about a meeting with Karl RoveAbsolute prosecutorial immunity and the 1976 Supreme Court precedent behind itThe Pottawattamie County, Iowa wrongful conviction caseThe Solicitor General's 2010 Supreme Court argument on prosecutorial immunityThis is Episode 3 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 #ProsecutorialMisconduct #KarlRove #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #WrongfulConviction #PoliticalCorruption #GrandJury #AtticusVsTheArchitect

In 2002, Governor Don Siegelman won re-election. Every major network called it. He went to bed a winner — and by four the next morning, he was told they were trying to steal the election. Over 6,000 of his votes had vanished overnight. In this episode, Siegelman plays his own concession speech from 17 days after the election and walks through, point by point, the evidence behind one of the most brazen instances of election manipulation in modern American history. The ballots and voting equipment were seized before a recount could happen and were never recovered. Karl Rove's own deputy was reportedly on the phone with a county probate judge the night the results changed. And an independent Auburn University study later found the vote count had actually been altered twice — the first pass added votes to his opponent's column but forgot to subtract them from Siegelman's, so the initial results still showed him winning, forcing a second manipulation that subtracted roughly 6,300 of his votes and, oddly, never touched a single down-ballot race. Siegelman also details the money trail — an estimated $20 million in casino money funneled into Alabama to defeat both his campaign and a education lottery referendum that would have funded free early learning and college tuition for the state's children — and the strange, decades-later footnote that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. devoted a full chapter of his book Billionaires and Ballot Bandits to this exact story, years before later going on to serve in the Trump administration. Topics covered in this episode: Election night 2002 and the vanished votesSiegelman's 17-days-later concession speech, in fullThe seized ballots and illegal certificationThe Auburn University study on electronic ballot manipulationKarl Rove's political network and the money trail through Alabama churchesThis is Episode 2 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 #StolenElection #KarlRove #AlabamaPolitics #MeAndTheGov #Podcast #ElectionFraud #PoliticalCorruption #AtticusVsTheArchitect

The Stolen Election & Trial of Governor Don Siegelman.  He was the only person in Alabama history elected to all four top statewide offices — Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor. A progressive Democrat in the Deep South, once called a dark horse for the Democratic presidential nomination. Then came the 2002 election. Governor Don Siegelman sits down with Nick Collado for the full, first-person account of what happened: winning on election night, waking to find over 6,000 votes had vanished, and watching the ballots get seized before they could ever be recounted. This episode traces the evidence trail back to Karl Rove — the U.S. Attorney's personal ties to his opponent's campaign, the federal judge with an axe to grind, and the bribery charge built on a non-paying board appointment with no financial benefit at all. We also watch the trailer for the documentary Atticus vs. the Architect, which covers the Siegelman case in depth and is available to stream on Amazon Prime. Topics covered in this episode: The 2002 Alabama governor's race and the disputed election night vote count Karl Rove, Billy Canary, and the political operatives connected to the case U.S. Attorney Leura Canary's conflict of interest Judge Mark Fuller and the jury instructions at trial The Richard Scrushy bribery charge and the implied quid pro quo standard Life after conviction, prison, and the fight to clear his name This is Episode 1 of Me and the Gov — a series of in-depth conversations with former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, hosted by Nick Collado.