Congressional Wackiness

This raid of William Jefferson's (D-LA) office is getting even more wacky. Someone suggested to me that perhaps this is a way for congressional republicans to distance themselves from unpopular Bush for the election. This seems a bit much for that.

The House and Senate leaders of both parties were outraged. I saw someone (I think it was Frist) on CNN yesterday saying that the offices need to be private because there were letters from constituents, private papers, maybe even tax returns. Hmm, sounds to me like anyone's home or office and yet the constitution allows a search with a warrant and they had one. Maybe the other members of Congress are concerned with what they have in their office. I think Congress should be more concerned with searches that don't have warrants.

Jefferson was video-taped last August accepting a $100,000 bribe, $90,000 of the same money was found in his freezer. They have two people who have pled guity to bribing him. He was subpoenaed then (9 months ago) and ignored it so they got a warrant to get the documents they wanted. The wikipedia page has more on the other allegations against Jefferson.

What is this guy still doing in Congress? The House Ethics Committee didn't begin an investigation into Jefferson until last week! The best House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) can say is that she'd like him to resign from the Ways and Means Committee that she chairs? Why isn't Jefferson being impeached?

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) was one of the most outspoken against this raid. Then ABC News said federal investigators have Hastert "in the mix" of their Abramoff investigation. Hastert said this was absolutely wrong and demanded a retratction. Even though it's "highly unusual" for the Justice Department to comment in ongoing investigations, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said the story was false. Hastert later accused the administration of leaking this false story to intimidate him for his criticism of the Jefferson raid.

Remember, last year we found out that in 2003 Abramoff hosted a fundraiser for Hastert that raised $69,000 and shortly after that Hastert signed a letter to the Secretary of Interior to block an Indian casino Abramoff's clients wanted blocked. In January of this year Hastert said he'd give all the money to charity. Hey nothing conclusive there, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't investigated in connection with the Abramoff thing, though: "Legal experts have said that campaign contributions alone, even if closely timed to a lawmaker's action, are not likely to become a focus for investigators in the Abramoff case."

Still Hastert said the raid on Jefferson's office was illegal. A Boston Globe article quotes two law professors, one from NYU and one from Harvard, who say the search was legal and compared it to Supreme Court decisions in Watergate and Whitewater in which the president had to hand over papers. In the form of fairness they quoted someone on the other side who would only go as far as saying it "is obviously a wonderful technique for stalling an investigation. Some might call it an obstruction of justice, and some might call it separation of powers." That was John Dean, Nixon's lawyer.

Why is it that this is the topic that brings Hastert and Pelosi (and others) together? They demanded the justice department return the siezed documents! The Justice department refused, but now Bush has directed that the papers be sealed for 45 days so this can be resolved with cooler heads. That seems reasonable but I don't see the congress' side of this at all.

Still what's interesting is how this is playing out. Hastert has been one of the most loyal Republicans to Bush in the Congress, delivering every vote ask for. And he's incensed over this. Jefferson is a corrupt Democratic, that should help the Republicans who seem to have a lock on the corruption charges but no the Republicans are diving in. Bush the uniter? Hah. In addition to dividing the Democrats and the rest of the world against the US, he's now managed to divide the most loyal Republicans against him (and both houses on immigration). Now we hear the FBI will start interviewing House members of both parties to investigate the leaks about NSA surveillance. This will get more fun.