jefferson

Summary:
Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) has been under FBI investigation for bribery related to preferential contracts for high-tech services in Africa. (It should be mentioned that, as part of this investigation, the FBI maintains that it has captured Jefferson on tape accepting a $100,000 bribe; they also assert that $90,000 of this money was found in Jefferson's home freezer.) The FBI searched his home (with a warrant), and at that time Jefferson was seen by a Justice Department agent to be trying to hide documents in violation of the subpoena. His office was raided on May 20, 2006 by the FBI, who had obtained a warrant from a real, live judge. This was the first time a sitting Congressman had had his office searched in the history of Congress. The FBI took some documents, copied his computer's hard drive, and refused to allow the Sergeant-at-Arms into the office during the search.

Jefferson himself "responded" to the raid by calling a news conference, where he made it clear he would discuss everything except the case itself: "I do want to say... that there are two sides to every story. There are certainly two sides to this story. There will be an appropriate time and forum when that can be explained and explicated. But this is not the time, this is not the forum, and operating on advice of counsel, I will not get into facts." Of course, he did not refrain from commenting on the raid in his office ("an outrageous intrusion").

Both Democrats and Republicans were furious, calling the raid an abuse of the Executive branch and a breach of separation of powers. Their justification is the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution, which states that "[Senators and Representatives] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place." Constitutional scholars are divided on whether an FBI (executive branch) raid on a representative's office is actually in violation of the Constitution. The WP's analysis maintains that the breach was in the spirit, rather than in the letter, of the law: "The issue could turn on whether a court finds that the items seized from Jefferson's office were related to such protected legislative activities as writing, researching and voting on bills. Other things could be fair game for the prosecution."

In response to the raid, Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a joint statement: "Noting that 'no person is above the law, neither the one being investigated nor those conducting the investigation,' Hastert and Pelosi asserted that the Justice Department must cease reviewing the documents and ensure that their contents are not divulged. Once the papers are returned, 'Congressman Jefferson can and should fully cooperate with the Justice Department's efforts, consistent with his constitutional rights.'" In response, President Bush ordered the documents sealed for 45 days, ostensibly to give everyone a chance to chill out.

The Senate, meanwhile, has had a decidedly cooler-headed reaction to the news. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) "weighed in... saying that he was 'okay' with the search and saw no constitutional problems with it."

***

First of all, the Democrats missed a huge opportunity to cement themselves as the real party of morality with the disillusioned centrist voters in a congressional election year. The appropriate reaction from Pelosi, while Republicans were scurrying around in a huff, would have been: "Look, we don't care what party this guy is in; if you take bribes, if you are morally corrupt, if you abuse your office, entrusted to you by the American people, for personal financial gain, then you WILL be found out, you WILL be investigated, and you WILL face the consequences. We stand by Jefferson until he is found guilty, as we should with all those in the justice system, but at the same time we understand that EVERYONE has an obligation to comply fully with the law, and we encourage Jefferson to do so as well."

Instead, we got some sniveling, unintelligible whine about separation of powers because, what, a guy got his office searched? For taking a bribe? When his own people are suffering??? Instead, who got the good moral press? BILL FUCKING FRIST, who is very likely going to be the next Republican Presidential candidate.

I understand, especially in this environment, the need to be particularly cautious about the Executive branch's over-reaching. And, to be honest, I'm plenty ticked that the FBI didn't raid DeLay's office, or Duke Cunningham's, or Scooter Libby's. Then again, none of those guys were dumb enough to be caught on tape, and then to have evidence of that interaction turn up in a search of their house, and on top of that to get caught pilfering documents out of the house, against orders, during a warranted search. And don't even get me started on lawmakers making a fuss about a perfectly legal search - approved by the courts and all - when we're dealing with flagrant violations of privacy in warantless wiretapping and data-mining of domestic phone calls.

The reaction from the Democrats effectively neutralizes, in the minds of most people (who don't, for instance, know what the Speech or Debate clause is or why it would at all matter), the moral high-ground that the Republicans were so hell-bent on conceding with scandal after scandal. Government is a corrupt place, and a Democrat was bound to go under sooner or later. But the party is judged more on their reaction than on the behavior of an errant representative. How can they say, now, that it's the Republicans who are making a mess of the government--when the Democrats have loudly supported their own right to immunity from legal searches? When a condemnation of obvious wrongdoing isn't immediately issued?

This must seem like a trivial issue, but it's just one more example, in a long, long list, of the Democratic party really not having its shit together. Every single time they've had the upper hand, every single opportunity to get back on top, they just fuck it up. I swear it gets harder and harder to be a member of this party.