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Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Let Me Get This Straight [John Podhoretz]
There is every reason to believe that a member of the House of Representatives was using his physical office on Capitol Hill to hide evidence of massive bribe-taking bribe-taking that has been caught on tape, by the way. That Congressman is a figure in the Democratic party. The Republican party has been reeling from bribery and corruption scandals of its own. So the Speaker of the House, the leader of Republicans in the House, actually complains to the president that the raid on the Democratic congressman's office is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers. In so doing, he reinforces the image that Congress, which almost never polices itself, cares less abou corruption than it does about its prerogatives. It also steps on the very important political story that might help diffuse the image of specifically Republican corruption. I don't know how to put this any other way, and I'm sorry if it sounds insulting, but: Whether you consider him the leader of an institution whose standing among the public is at historically low levels and in need of drastic moral renovation or a leading partisan official whose team is in pretty bad shape and could use a bit of a boost, Denny Hastert is a blithering idiot.
Posted at 10:01 AM
Officials Defend Raid on Lawmaker's Office
Amid Uproar on Capitol Hill, Gonzales Says Jefferson Search Was Done Carefully
By Dan Eggen and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; A04
Justice Department and FBI officials yesterday vigorously defended a weekend raid on the Capitol Hill office of Democratic Rep. William J. Jefferson (La.), arguing that the unprecedented tactic was necessary because Jefferson and his attorneys had refused to comply with a subpoena for documents issued more nine months ago in a bribery investigation.
At the same time, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other administration officials sought to quell a growing uproar among Republican and Democratic lawmakers, many of whom view the Saturday night search in the Rayburn House Office Building as a clear violation of constitutional language and case law protecting lawmakers from intimidation by the executive branch.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) complained directly to President Bush yesterday about the FBI raid, while House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) predicted a constitutional showdown before the Supreme Court.
"My opinion is that they took the wrong path," Hastert told reporters after his meeting with Bush in the White House. "They need to back up, and we need to go from there."
According to one Justice Department official, the White House is sympathetic to Hastert's complaint and is pressing Justice Department officials to figure out a way to placate Congress. White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "We are hoping that there's a way to balance the constitutional concerns of the House of Representatives with the law enforcement obligations of the executive branch."
Jefferson, an eight-term House member, has not been charged, and he has denied any wrongdoing. Two of his associates have pleaded guilty to bribery-related charges in federal court in Alexandria.
About 15 FBI agents entered Jefferson's office in the Rayburn Building about 7:15 p.m. Saturday and left about 1 p.m. Sunday. Authorities said it was the first time the FBI had raided the office of a sitting congressman.
The FBI agents confiscated a boxful of documents and made copies of computer hard drives, according to a Justice Department source.
Gonzales and other officials said the search was conducted carefully to avoid trampling on the constitutional privileges accorded to members of Congress -- including the use of a "filter team" of FBI agents and prosecutors not connected to the case who vetted documents to be sure nothing unrelated to the investigation or out of bounds was taken. Gonzales and the White House also said the administration had embarked on private talks with lawmakers about the issue.
"We believe, of course, that we've been very careful, very thorough in our pursuit of criminal wrongdoing, and that's what's going on here," Gonzales said. "We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the Department of Justice is doing its job in investigating criminal wrongdoing, and we have an obligation to the American people to pursue the evidence where it exists."
Several law enforcement sources said yesterday, however, that a search of Jefferson's Rayburn office had been discussed by federal prosecutors and FBI agents as early as last summer, but that the idea was overruled by Justice Department lawyers. FBI agents conducted in August searches of Jefferson's New Orleans home and his Washington apartment, where they found $90,000 in alleged bribe money stuffed inside a freezer, according to an affidavit filed in connection with the Saturday search.
Jefferson's press secretary, Melanie Roussell, declined to comment and directed calls to Jefferson's attorney, Robert P. Trout. Trout did not return several phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment.
In a news conference Monday, Jefferson repeated his denial of any wrongdoing and vowed to seek reelection in November. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) worked through intermediaries last night to try to persuade Jefferson to temporarily step aside as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, according to Democratic aides.
The attorney general's comments followed a series of sharply worded complaints from Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and Hastert, who said in a lengthy statement issued late Monday that the search raised "important Constitutional issues that go well beyond the specifics of this case." Boehner yesterday referred to the search as the "Justice Department's invasion of the legislative branch."
"I have got to believe, at the end of the day, it is going to end up across the street at the Supreme Court," Boehner said. "I don't see anything short of that."
Democrats, whose attempts to focus attention on scandals involving prominent Republicans have been undermined by the expanding Jefferson case, have treaded cautiously for fear of seeming to support Jefferson's alleged wrongdoing. But, yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) told reporters that though he believes "strongly in the separation of powers . . . from the little bit that I know about it now, I'm not going to beat up on the FBI."
The FBI is investigating allegations that Jefferson took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for using his congressional influence to promote high-tech business ventures in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana.
Two people -- Brett Pfeffer and Vernon L. Jackson -- have pleaded guilty to bribing the congressman to promote iGate Inc., a Louisville-based company that was marketing Internet and cable television technology in Africa. Pfeffer worked for Lori Mody, a Northern Virginia woman who invested $3.5 million in the company, owned by Jackson.
Kathianne said:Of course he is from Illinois:
It's not just GOP in Il, if only:onthefence said:Of course. What is it about Illinois being a breeding ground for corrupt Republicans. llinois won't be a GOP state for long time. Hell, I had to leave the state to get an education that didn't have a liberal slant. WIU, EIU, Northwestern, U of I, and SIU are all liberal breeding grounds. NIU is quickly heading that direction. It seems the only Republicans left in Illinois are either stupid or corrupt. It's sad.
Kathianne said:
Well since you don't care, no sense in correcting you. IL politics, either party=corruptiononthefence said:Okay, I should have said Politicians in Illinois. I simply don't care about the Illinois Democratic Party. The Illinois GOP has always had the moral high ground over the likes of Jacobs and Madigan. We seemed to lose this when Ryan beat Poshard in '98.
onthefence said:Of course. What is it about Illinois being a breeding ground for corrupt Republicans. llinois won't be a GOP state for long time. Hell, I had to leave the state to get an education that didn't have a liberal slant. WIU, EIU, Northwestern, U of I, and SIU are all liberal breeding grounds. NIU is quickly heading that direction. It seems the only Republicans left in Illinois are either stupid or corrupt. It's sad.
Avatar4321 said:Since when has Illinois been a GOP state?
May 25, 2006 | 1:51 PM ET
Apparently, executing a duly-issued search warrant on a Congressional office is some sort of outrage. That's what Congressional leaders are saying, but it's hard to see why. Congress members are immune under the Speech and Debate Clause only for things they say as part of their legislative duties; they're also immune from arrest for most crimes while Congress is in session. There's nothing in the Constitution about immunity from search, and it's not clear why there should be. (More on that here.)
Congress has certainly been happy to approve sweeping searches of other Americans, leading one wag to summarize the Congressional position this way:
WARRANTS: Not good enough for us, too good for you.
This is bipartisan idiocy, but the Republicans are coming off worse because (1) they control the leadership, and Speaker Dennis Hastert has been the point man on this; and (2) as James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal noted, it flies in the face of their promises:
Hastert and Boehner's objections are bound to rub many Republican constitutents the wrong way. After all, the first plank of the Contract With America was a promise to "require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress." Something like this makes it harder to argue that the GOP deserves to maintain its majority.
Yes, it does. I think Congress needs to be looked at more closely, not less, which is why I support making the Freedom of Information Act apply to Congress. Congress exempted itself from FOIA, naturally, but there's no good reason why the activities of our elected representatives should be less transparent than the activities of unelected bureaucrats.
Congress needs to be reminded that the Constitution also prohibits the establishment of "Titles of Nobility." By trying to put themselves above laws that apply to everyone else, Congress seems to have forgotten that.
