In case you thought the clamor, such that it is, for accountability for U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller has waned, it hasn't. At least according to some behind-the-scenes, bi-partisan budgeting measures in the GOP-controlled U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which is now quietly preparing for the possibility of impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush's 2002 lifetime-appointee to the Alabama federal bench.

Fuller was arrested last August on charges related to physically abusing his wife in an Atlanta hotel room after she called 911 asking for help and an ambulance as the dispatcher heard what sounded like the Judge beating her. Here's a portion of Kelli Fuller's chilling phone call...

As Ken Hare of Montgomery's NBC affiliate WSFA summarized last week, when police responded to the 911 call at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta, Fuller's wife had "visible lacerations to her mouth and forehead," according to the police report. She told police the Judge "threw her to the ground and kicked her" in response to confronting him about an alleged affair with his court clerk. (Her own affair with Judge Fuller, ironically, began during his previous marriage, while she served as his court bailiff.) The police report says Kelli Fuller "stated she was dragged around the room and Mr. Fuller hit her in the mouth several times with his hands."

Despite the startling claims, supported by both evidence found by police in the hotel room, the audio of the 911 call excerpted above and eerily similar assertions made in court documents by Fuller's previous wife during their 2012 divorce, the state court in Atlanta allowed Fuller to enter a minimal pretrial diversion program which, once successfully completed, will completely expunge his criminal record --- as if his arrest on domestic battery charges never even happened.

While Fuller may get off the hook for criminal charges, his $200,000/year lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary is another matter. Unless he resigns or retires, the only way that a federal judge can be forced off the federal bench is through an act of Congress. And it is that act, the rare impeachment of a sitting federal judge, which the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has now budgeted for in its new session...

The bi-partisan leadership of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, seeking an update on their investigation into the August domestic battery charges and prosecution against Alabama federal Judge Mark Fuller.

Judiciary Committee chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and ranking Democrat John Conyers (D-MI) sent the letter on Monday to the circuit's Chief Judge Ed Carnes and to Judge Gerald Tjoflat who is heading the Special Committee convened by the 11th Circuit to investigate the wife-beating incident by the George W. Bush-appointed federal jurist.

The letter from the House Judiciary Committee raises the possibility of impeachment of Fuller. The missive follows a vow by Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell (D) to seek articles of impeachment against Fuller in the U.S. House, as well as calls by the rest of the state's Congressional contingent who have stated that the U.S. District Court Judge should resign his lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

Fuller was arrested on the night of August 9th, after his wife made a disturbing 911 call from an Atlanta hotel room requesting an ambulance, while telling the operator that the judge was "beating on her". (The audio of the call, in which she is heard being struck, is posted at the end of this article.) Police found Fuller's wife Kelli bloodied and bruised along with other signs of violence in their Ritz-Carlton hotel room. He has been allowed by the state court to enter a pretrial diversion program and will have all charges dismissed, as if the incident never happened, once he successfully completes a program of once-a-week visits with a domestic abuse counselor.

Whether or not charges against Fuller are dropped by the state judge, the U.S. Congress may impeach and remove him from his $200,000/year lifetime appointment.

The letter (posted in full below) says "The allegations against Judge Fuller raise serious, substantial and troubling questions that have been the focus of constant attention and close monitoring by the Committee on the Judiciary since August 2014 when reports first appeared of his arrest for a violation of state criminal law"...

It's been a very busy few weeks here of late, just trying to keep up with all of the roller coaster court rulings (here's the latest, and its not good), thanks to GOP voter suppression laws around the country. (Your donations to our efforts in that regard help a great deal --- thank you and please!)

So, with a very few minutes pause in the voter suppression action on Friday morning, we were finally able to catch you all up with the latest in the Judge Mark Fuller wife-beating case on Friday.

Naturally, no sooner did we do so, when a few more noteworthy events happened in the case...

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Recently, the attorney for U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller (Middle District of Alabama) described the incident where the federal judge was arrested and charged for beating his second wife bloody in an Atlanta hotel room in early August as overblown.

This week, his attorney went further in describing allegations that Fuller similarly beat his first wife as little more than "nonsense" and "gossip".

Also this week, Fuller's most famous "victim", former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D), has finally spoken out about the entire sordid business.

Fuller's Alabama attorney Barry Ragsdale says that it was only after the release of a video showing an NFL superstar knocking out his then-fiancée in a hotel elevator in Atlantic City that people began to care in the least about a federal judge who, according to the police, repeatedly struck and kicked his second wife Kelli and dragged her around the hotel room by her hair.

"It got caught up in the Ray Rice and NFL scandals, and it's gotten lumped into a category of domestic violence that I don't think it belongs in," Ragsdale said in his attempt to marginalize the incident on behalf of his client, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. "There was not a beating, kicking or slapping in this instance," he says.

Really? Is that the case? Well, aside from the wife, the police and the evidence at the scene suggesting otherwise, let's review the audio from Kelli Fuller's 911 call again to help determine if Ragsdale's claim is credible.

Since the audio, as we originally posted it here last month, was buried inside of a longer video segment from Chris Hayes' MSNBC show, we've taken the liberty to pull out just the audio from the call itself, as played on MSNBC, to put it into its own standalone video for easy reference. Here ya go...

Really, Mr. Ragsdale? No "beating, kicking or slapping in this instance"? The 911 audio evidence strongly suggests otherwise, as did the lacerations and bruises reportedly found on Kelli Fuller's face and legs, the hair found on the floor in the room, and the blood discovered in the bathroom when police responded at the Ritz-Carlton.

We wonder if Fuller, a 2002 George W. Bush lifetime appointee to the federal bench (unless he resigns or is impeached by Congress) with a record for failing to recuse himself when presiding over trials of political opponents, would be impressed with the audio evidence from the 911 call and the testimony of police if it was presented in his court room.

In any event, Ragsdale went on to describe the reaction from the public and the calls for the federal Judge's resignation and/or impeachment from the entire Alabama Congressional delegation (including both of the state's U.S. Senators and all five Congressmen and women), the state's Governor, senior federal judges, and all sorts of newspapers from Alabama (here, here and here) to Washington D.C. as merely "overblown"...

On this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacific Radio...

• Latest developments in the case of Alabama's wife-beating, lifetime-appointed, Republican U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller (pictured above on left): Calls for accountability gain traction, CREDO posts petition for impeachment, horrifying 911 audio and disturbing 2012 documents concerning domestic abuse of previous wife (and children!)

• Bizarre twist in the 2012 GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal: Yet another arrest, and Nathan Sproul (pictured above on right), the highly-place, now-discredited GOP operative who headed up the firm at the center of the scandal, threatens The BRAD BLOG with legal action after our 2012 reporting was confirmed by a two-year Florida law enforcement investigation!

• Also, a hint as to why we were excused from jury duty last week; why we don't cover "O, Mighty ISIS"; breaking news in a longtime Scott Walker (R-WI) recall investigation; and his supporters now threatening Democratic voters; and, as usual, Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report on Climate Week 2014...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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Well, it took long enough for Washington Post's editorial board to take notice of wife-beating U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller, but at least they finally have...

The paper then details the police response to the horrifying 911 call from Fuller's wife Kelli after the Judge reportedly "threw her to the ground, pulled her by the hair, kicked her and hit her in the face" (the actual 911 call is more horrifying still), leaving her bloodied inside their Ritz-Carlton hotel room in Atlanta on August 9th, and the disturbing similarities to the case of the NFL's Ray Rice, who was also allowed off the hook by the court system after beating up his then-fiancee/now-wife, as "first time offenders". (Even though Judge Fuller's previous wife alleged similar physical abuse during their divorce trial).

And then...

[A version of this article now cross-published by Salon...]

Over the last 48 hours or so, during which time I've been largely off the grid on jury duty, the story of wife-beating U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller has finally taken off in the corporate media, as well as among a number of the elected officials who would be responsible for impeaching the 2002 George W. Bush lifetime-appointee to the federal bench.

I couldn't be happier to finally be playing catch-up on this story for a change, as calls for accountability for the federal judge from Alabama's Middle District have now become a "virtual chorus" over these last few days. The state's Governor, as well as both of Alabama's U.S. Senators and its entire Congressional delegation, save for one member (Rep. Mike Rogers), have now called for Fuller's resignation and/or impeachment.

His resignation, however, and arguably his impeachment, would be far too generous for Fuller, as I'll discuss below, given previous allegations --- by his first wife --- that mirror what we now know about him, concerning drug and alcohol abuse, as well as physical abuse of both the first wife and their children...

On Tuesday night's All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, at the end of a segment on the NFL's growing domestic violence controversies, he finally delved into the outrageous case we've been reporting in great detail since early August, when Alabama's federal U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller was arrested and charged with beating his wife bloody in an Atlanta hotel room.

Hayes plays audio from a portion of the 911 call from Fuller's wife, including the segment in which it sounds as if she is being repeatedly struck, as later cited by the 911 dispatcher. "Please help me. He's beating on me," she is heard crying afterward.

Hayes' brief segment on the Fuller wife-beating case --- with a promise to cover the story more in the future --- begins just after the 4:00 minute mark in the video below...

Atlanta Police say that when they responded to desperate 911 call from the Ritz-Carlton on the night of August 9, the wife's face and legs were bloodied and bruised, and that it appeared she had been dragged around the room by her hair. The room smelled of alcohol, but Judge Fuller appeared to otherwise be unscathed.

Several weeks after his arrest, Fuller took a plea deal in exchange for a pre-trial diversion program that will allow him to avoid prosecution and have his record entirely expunged after completion of once-a-week domestic violence counseling for 24 weeks. That, despite indications two year ago that he had also beaten his previous wife and had both drug and alcohol problems.

Unless he resigns or is impeached by the U.S. Congress, the George W. Bush-appointee to the federal bench in the Middle District of Alabama will continue to serve out his lifetime appointment for $200,000/year.

Two Congresswoman from Alabama, a Republican and a Democrat, have now called for accountability in the case of Fuller. They are the first members of Congress to speak out on the matter, despite outrage expressed from a number of elected officials in both the House and Senate over the NFL/Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal...

On Monday's Politics Nation with Al Sharpton on MSNBC, during a segment on the NFL/Ray Rice domestic violence scandal, the issue of the wife-beating U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller finally made it on to air, thanks to MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor who was joining Sharpton along with CBS Sports Radio reporter Dana Jacobson to discuss the latest in the NFL case.

Fuller, as The BRAD BLOG has been fairly relentlessly covering over the past month, was arrested for beating his wife bloody in a hotel room in August, before being allowed to take a plea deal allowing him off the hook with a pre-trial diversionary program that would expunge his record entirely, and leave him to continue his life-time appointment to the federal bench in the Middle District of Alabama. Fuller, a George W. Bush appointee, can only be removed from his $200,000/year job via impeachment by the U.S. Congress.

While the Rice case has been covered extensively over the past week by both the corporate media and elected officials, following the public release of a video showing the NFL star knocking out his wife in a hotel elevator, the Fuller matter has received very little coverage. As we reported last week, it's also received very little outrage from elected officials in Congress who might otherwise have brought articles of impeachment by now, had their been video tape of Fuller's bloodied wife pleading for an ambulance and help from police at Atlanta's Ritz-Carlton hotel in early August.

Following a segment concerning the 16 female U.S. Senators who wrote to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell last week to demand a "zero tolerance policy" for domestic abusers in the league, Taylor noted the irony of the Senators failing to call for the impeachment of Fuller, despite the fact that, unlike in the NFL, those elected officials actually have direct control over the removal of federal jurists from the bench.

Beginning at around the 7:10 mark in the video posted below, in response to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D)'s appearance on Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS explaining the Senators' demand for accountability from Goodell, Taylor broached the topic of Fuller...

Note to Jacobson: The "NFL is in the spotlight right now", because you folks in the corporate media have finally helped put them there. That's fine, and certainly long overdue. But you can also help put a member of the federal bench who sits in judgment of others, and who arguably beat his wife far more viciously than Rice did, and who also appears to be a repeated wife abuser, in that same spotlight.

As a Twitter user aptly commented tonight in response to the MSNBC segment this afternoon, "#MarkFuller is more of a threat to society than Ray Rice ever will be."

True. In any event, thanks to Taylor for finally bringing this issue to MSNBC viewers. Perhaps it'll catch on. It damned well should.

Here's the complete video from the 9/15/2014 episode of Politics Nation with Al Sharpton. Much more of our coverage of this case is linked below it...

UPDATE 9/17/2014: MSNBC's Chris Hayes plays portion of 911 call from Fuller's wife, in which she is heard being repeatedly struck. Full story now here...

Recently related stories at The BRAD BLOG:

• 8/11/2014: "Federal Judge in Don Siegelman Case Arrested, Charged with Abusing Wife in Atlanta Hotel"
• 8/25/2014: "Federal Judge Who Was Arrested for Beating His Wife (and Who Sentenced Don Siegelman) Is Now Hoping to Avoid Prosecution Altogether"
• 9/5/2014: "BREAKING: Federal Judge Who Presided Over Siegelman Case and Who Recently Beat His Own Wife Bloody Strikes Deal to Avoid Prosecution"
• 9/10/2014: "NFL's Ray Rice Loses Job for Knocking Out Wife, Federal Judge Mark Fuller Keeps Lifetime Appointment After Beating Wife Bloody"
• 9/15/2014: "Republican Senior Federal Judge, Domestic Abuse Experts Call for Accountability for Wife-Beating U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller"

Last week, we wrote about the disturbing similarities (and differences) in the wife-beating cases of the NFL's Ray Rice, who knocked out his then-fiancée/now-wife in an Atlantic City hotel elevator in mid-February, and that of Alabama's U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller, who beat his wife bloody in an Atlantic City hotel room in early August.

Despite the allegations in the now-sealed 2012 divorce documents from his first wife, suggesting that he also beat her up (as well as their kids), Fuller, like Rice, is being treated as a first time offender by the court system, and being allowed to enter a pre-trial diversion program to avoid prosecution entirely. Both will avoid prosecution and have their arrest records completely expunged, as if the beatings never happened, upon completion of domestic abuse counseling. Rice has agreed to attend sessions for a year; Fuller has agreed to once-weekly domestic abuse counseling for just 24 weeks.

Rice eventually lost his job after video of his assault was published. Fuller, unless he's impeached by the U.S. Congress or chooses to resign, will keep his $200,000/year lifetime on the U.S. District Court in Alabama's Middle District. He has indicated he intends to continue his job sitting in judgment of others, stating, after the court agreed to the plea deal early this month, that he "look[s] forward to...returning to full, active status" on the federal bench.

We detailed some of the very few calls from media for Fuller to step down or be impeached, as well as the (so far) tepid reaction from elected officials --- the very same ones who have made their "outrage" known about the Rice case --- who are largely ignoring the Fuller case, even though the violence in his case was arguably much worse. According to the Atlanta Police, he struck and kicked his wife repeatedly, dragged around the hotel room by her hair, leaving bruises and blood on her face and legs, and in the hotel bathroom. According to the reported details of the desperate 911 call from his wife, asking for an ambulance, she is heard being struck and repeatedly crying: "Help me, please. Please help me. He's beating on me."

But the outrage about the wrist-slap treatment of a wife-beating federal judge seems to be growing --- very slowly, but growing --- including a scathing denunciation of Fuller by a fellow Republican federal jurist, this one a senior judge from the District of Nevada, who decries the plea deal allowed to Fuller and writes, "Given what happened in that hotel room, no one should trust his judgment in a federal trial courtroom"...

Part 1 of this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio: How the NFL's Ray Rice knocked out his wife in a hotel elevator, lost his job and outraged America --- and how U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller beat his wife bloody in a hotel room, will have his arrest record expunged, gets to keep his lifetime appointment to the federal bench and very few in America seem to give a damn.

Part 2: What would you do about ISIS if you were President? Callers, lots of 'em, share their thoughts. I share a few of mine in kind. Nobody gets a free pass.

Plus, Desi Doyen and the latest Green News Report, and a few more items here and there in what was a very lively show this week. You should listen to it.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

The NFL has been appropriately shamed this week for not taking substantive action immediately in the case of Baltimore Ravens' superstar Ray Rice after he knocked his wife out cold in an Atlantic City hotel elevator earlier this year.

But what about the failure of the Judicial and Congressional branches, so far, to take any action at all in the case of federal U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller after he beat his wife bloody in an Atlanta hotel room last month?

Both Rice and Fuller, as supposedly first-time offenders, were allowed to participate in pre-trial diversion programs to avoid prosecution entirely. Rice agreed to attend domestic abuse counseling for a year. Fuller will have his arrest record expunged after completion of once-weekly domestic abuse counseling for just 24 weeks.

Rice was eventually suspended indefinitely by the NFL.

Fuller enjoys a lifetime appointment as a federal judge --- and can only be removed from his $200,000/year job-for-life if he is impeached and found guilty by Congress.

Fuller, a Republican George W. Bush appointee to the federal bench, sits in judgment of others. For example, rather than recuse himself for blatant conflicts of interest, he sent former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to federal prison for 6.5 years for something that 113 bipartisan former state Attorneys General argue was never a crime before the popular Democratic Governor was charged with it.

America was outraged by the video tape showing Rice knocking out his then-fiancée (now wife) in mid-February.

America hardly even knows about Judge Fuller dragging his wife around the hotel room by her hair and striking her repeatedly in the mouth, leaving blood behind on the bathroom tub in early August, despite a police report and a 911 call during which his wife begs for police and an ambulance and repeatedly says "Help me, please. Please help me. He's beating on me." The 911 dispatcher reportedly says during the call that she can hear the Judge hitting the woman.

But, of course, we have no video of Judge Fuller's violent assault on his wife. We also have no access to the records of Fuller's first wife charging that he beat her as well, because a fellow judge, in an unusual and still-unexplained move in 2012, ordered the divorce records sealed, against the wishes of that first wife.

So where is the outcry over what is going with Fuller?...

While Don Siegelman continues to serve out a 6.5 year prison sentence for something that 113 bipartisan former state Attorneys General argue has never ever been a crime until the former Democratic Governor of Alabama was charged with it, the federal U.S. District Court judge who presided over the trial and sentenced him has now struck a deal to avoid his own prosecution all together after having beaten his wife bloody in an Atlanta hotel room last month.

As we reported in an update last week, Judge Mark Fuller --- appointed to a lifetime job on the federal bench by George W. Bush in 2002 --- had reportedly checked into an unspecified "treatment program" in hopes of avoiding prosecution after being charged in August with domestic battery. Police reported at the time that they discovered the federal judge had dragged his wife around the hotel room by her hair, kicked her, and struck her several times in the mouth, leaving her with lacerations on her face, bruises on her legs, and blood found on the bathroom tub.

In court on Friday, Fuller struck a pre-trial deal to avoid prosecution entirely, despite reports that he had also beaten his previous wife as well, according to records from his 2012 divorce. Those records are said to have included accusations of drug abuse, domestic violence and infidelity with his court bailiff. The divorce papers were mysteriously sealed by the court at the time against the wishes of his former wife.

According to AP this afternoon, following the arrest on domestic abuse charges with his new wife, who has similarly charged that Fuller had an affair with his law clerk, it appears that Fuller will, once again, get off the hook...

Alabama's former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman is currently serving a 6.5 year sentence in a federal prison for something that he did not personally profit from, did not know was a crime, and that 113 bi-partisan former state Attorneys General agree had never been a crime before Siegelman was convicted of it.

That's all thanks to a political prosecution orchestrated by Karl Rove, a corrupt federal prosecutor, the corrupt federal prosecutor's husband (who happened to be the Campaign Manager of Siegelman's political opponent) and others, most of whom were close friends and/or clients of Rove.

One of them, Mark Fuller, the Republican federal U.S. District Court judge who sentenced Siegelman to those years in federal prison, refused to recuse himself from the case, despite having a very clear conflict of interest and very specific grudge against Siegelman.

Two weeks ago, Judge Fuller was arrested for beating his wife bloody in an Atlanta hotel. (You can read all of the, literally, bloody details from the police report, as covered them at the time, at that link.)

This week, as it turns out, Fuller may have figured out how to not only avoid any prison time at all, but he may be able to even avoid prosecution entirely...

The federal judge who oversaw the political prosecution of former Democratic Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was arrested over the weekend after allegedly beating his wife in a posh hotel room in Atlanta...

According to Dan Whistenhunt of Decaturish.com, the Atlanta Police report says "The wife explained that she accused Fuller of having an affair with his law clerk. She said Fuller pulled her hair, threw her to the ground and kicked her. She told police that Fuller dragged her around the room and struck her in the mouth several times with his hands."

"Fuller said his wife threw a glass at him. Fuller said he grabbed his wife's hair 'to defend himself," Whistenhunt reports. "'When asked about the lacerations on her mouth, Mr. Fuller stated that he just threw her to the ground and that was it,' the report says."

"Police later discovered blood in the bathroom on the tub. Fuller did not have any marks or bruises, the officer noted. After medical personnel arrived, they noted additional bruises on his wife's legs."

"Fuller has faced allegations of domestic abuse before," Whistenhunt goes on to report. "The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press reported in 2012 that a Montgomery circuit judge sealed Fuller's divorce records. The divorce file is, 'wrought with accusations of domestic violence, drug abuse and the judge's alleged affair with his court bailiff,' according to the Reporters Committee."

When asked for comment this afternoon, Siegelman's daughter Dana described the news as "shocking" and "disturbing", but said the matter "seems to fall in line with the Buddhist philosophy of karma."

The BRAD BLOG has covered the Siegelman case in great detail over the years. The former governor, who is now serving time in a federal correctional institution in Louisiana for what 113 bi-partisan former state Attorneys General agree had never been a crime before his promising political career was derailed by it, has long alleged that Fuller, a George W. Bush appointee to the federal bench, had deep conflicts of interest on the case, and should have recused himself. Siegelman was found guilty on charges of bribery, though he insists, and the evidence shows, he never received any personal enrichment. (See 60 Minutes' 2008 coverage of the outrageous Siegelman prosecution right here.)

There has been a great deal of criticism of Fuller's refusal to recuse himself from the case against Siegelman, who has been described by supporters as "America's political prisoner". His work on the trial has been characterized as a "grudge match" by an extremely partisan judge with deep ties to GOP strategist Karl Rove against a very popular Democrat whose appointee had once investigated him.

Yet, even as efforts to free her father continue, and as Fuller was released from jail late today after posting a $5,000 bond, Dana Siegelman went on to offer a note of sympathy to Fuller's wife, family, and even Fuller himself...