Posted on 09/16/2005 4:31:57 AM PDT by Libloather
Jefferson downplays stop at his New Orleans house
By WILL SENTELL
wsentell@theadvocate.com
Capitol news bureau
During a National Guard-led tour of his hurricane-ravished district, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson asked to stop at his New Orleans home, a guard spokesman said Wednesday.
Lt. Col. Pete Schneider, public affairs officer for the Louisiana National Guard, told news reporters that the guard was assisting Jefferson in his check of damage Sept. 2, four days after Hurricane Katrina struck.
Guardsmen were getting around the Democrat's congressional district in a truck designed to navigate the high waters that crippled the New Orleans area for days during post-hurricane flooding.
Residents were banned from visiting their homes because of high waters and other dangers.
Schneider was asked about the issue during a briefing at the Office of Emergency Preparedness. The tour was first described Tuesday on the ABC News program "Nightline."
"He asked to be taken to his residence," Schneider said of Jefferson, who represents the state's 2nd Congressional District.
Jefferson downplayed the episode and said that, like anyone, he wanted to check on the condition of his home and neighborhood in Uptown New Orleans.
"If I could have done it by myself, I would have done that," Jefferson said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
National Guard officials said conditions were too dangerous for him to travel without an escort because of snipers and other problems, he said.
Asked if he received a privilege not available to most, Jefferson said, "If you were an elected or appointed official, you would have been escorted around town."
Schneider said Jefferson entered his New Orleans residence and took out some unspecified items. Jefferson said he removed a computer and some bags for his children, who attend schools in New York and Boston.
Schneider said that during the stop at the Jefferson residence, the National Guard truck got stuck. One guardsmen then signaled a nearby military helicopter, which dispatched a diver for what was initially thought to be a rescue mission at the Jefferson home.
Schneider noted that the guard has provided assistance getting around the New Orleans area to a wide range of officials, including President Bush. He said he was not aware of any other requests by officials to visit their homes.
Asked if Jefferson's request was unusual, Schneider said, "You would have to ask Congressman Jefferson's office."
Jefferson said he and others tried to wave away a helicopter rescue diver -- he thinks it was a U. S. Coast Guard operation -- but was unable to do so. He said a third-story door on his home was kicked down in the confusion on whether a rescue was needed.
Federal agents recently raided Jefferson's New Orleans and Washington homes and his car and cited an ongoing criminal investigation. Federal officials have not provided details. Jefferson has declined comment on the probe.
RUSH: Now, we're updating this saga from yesterday to today because there seems to be some information today that is at variance with the report from yesterday. Let's go back to yesterday's report. We're at this point in the story where Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), has been inside his home here for about an hour after never really intending to go. Well, I guess he intended to go there. He just didn't tell the National Guard at first that's where he wanted to go, but regardless, he's in there, and he comes out of there with three suitcases, a laptop computer, and a box the size of a small freezer, according to National Guard witnesses. About this time they discovered the five ton truck that had delivered Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), to his home on Marengo Street in the fashionably affluent uptown section of New Orleans was stuck, and a helicopter was then seen, a rescue helicopter flying overhead. This is the divergence now where the stories go in different directions. According to the ABC report yesterday, the soldiers signaled the helicopters in the air for aid. Military sources say a Coast Guard chopper pilot saw the signal and flew to the home of Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA). The chopper was already carrying four rescued New Orleans residents at the time. A rescue diver descended from the helicopter but Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), decided against going up in the helicopter with the rescue diver. The pilot sent the diver down again. When the diver went back up without Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), the pilot said go back down there. But Jefferson twice, the second time, again declined to go up to the helicopter. After spending approximately 45 minutes hovering over the home of Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), the helicopter went on to rescue three additional New Orleans residents before it ran low on fuel and was forced to end its mission.
The National Guard spokesman said, "Forty-five minutes could be an eternity to somebody that's drowning, to somebody sitting on a roof, and it needs to be used, its primary purpose during an emergency," not hovering over Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA)'s house while he decides when he wants to be rescued. Because remember the truck is stuck, but he doesn't want to get on the chopper because he can't carry with him the three suitcases, the laptop, and the box that looked like a freezer. All right, that's yesterday's story. Here is today's version in the Associated Press. "A Coast Guard helicopter rescuing people stranded on rooftops also spotted the group at the congressman's house and sent a rescue swimmer down to investigate. Jefferson said he and the guardsmen tried to wave the helicopter off, but the pilot apparently didn't see him and the swimmer ended up kicking in a door and entering his house through a balcony." You see where these stories have taken different paths now. "Cmdr. Brendan McPherson, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, said the helicopter pilot responded to a distress signal from the National Guardsmen outside Jefferson's house before lowering the rescue swimmer. At the time, water was waist-deep around the house and the guardsmen were standing on the front porch. 'It was clear to them that they were being signaled, as they had been in many other cases when someone was in distress,' McPherson said. An Air National Guardsman who had hitched a ride on the truck carrying Jefferson from the Superdome was airlifted from Jefferson's home by the helicopter, McPherson said, but Jefferson declined the Coast Guard offer of help. Three other people also were rescued from the congressman's neighborhood before the helicopter returned to Mobile, Ala., he said. Lt. Col. Pete Schneider, a Louisiana Guard spokesman, said Jefferson was the only official who requested a tour of the city via ground transportation. 'Congressman Jefferson wanted to tour his district and was put in a high water vehicle for that purpose,' he said."
So a guardsman takes the ride back with the chopper, not the congressman, a rescue diver from the chopper burst open a second floor door of the home of Congressman William Jefferson. The only thing this story does not mention that the ABC story does is that a second truck, a second five-ton truck was dispatched by the National Guard to the home of Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), to bring him and the remaining National Guardsmen back to wherever they were because the first truck remained stuck in the mud near the third-floor step of the fashionable affluent home on Marengo Street in the uptown section of New Orleans where lived Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA). Now, we have one more sound bite with this because the story does go on. Paula Zahn said, "You mentioned a federal investigation. Was there anything in your house that were trying to get out that was critical to this FBI investigation of you?"
JEFFERSON (D-LA): I would doubt that. The thing that I wanted to get out was my daughter's laptop computer and my daughter's suitcase that I took away. The FBI had been in my house as you know for seven, eight hours. Whatever was there, they got it. I'd been living in my house for three weeks after they came. If there was anything in there I could have taken it then. There was no reason to go ahead and retrieve anything related to the investigation. This is all NRCC smear they're putting out which is quite a shame, and they're sending out these notices to all the news media asking them to question me about these things.
RUSH: So this has all been trumped up by the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee is what he's saying here, but they're not. I mean, I haven't gotten anything from them. My sources here are ABC and the Associated Press, and of course Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), himself as heard last night on CNN's Paul Zahn Now. The investigation is a sting operation. He apparently was in cahoots, allegedly in cahoots with the vice president of Nigeria who has a home somewhere outside Baltimore, to set up some sort of telecommunications business, and they raided his house whenever they did, the home of Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), and found a bunch of cash in a freezer, to which I said yesterday, "So what? Doesn't everybody keep their cash in a freezer? Put it in the oven, that's a bad place to put it. Why else do you think it's called 'cold cash'?"
The professional political class (of whom this democrap slug is one) REALLY believes that being elected to office ENTITLES them to special priviledges and getting away with graft. In LA, this attitude is systemic.
Jefferson, Nagin, Blanco, Landrieu (all of them!) need to do 25 years in Angola.
"The thing that I wanted to get out was my daughter's laptop computer and my daughter's suitcase that I took away/"
You know that this crook used his daughters laptop for tracking his illegal activies and stored his files in her suitcase figuring the Feds would leave those items alone. Why go back to a disaster zone to pick up a suitcase? Huh? And what urgent data did she need off her PC, her AOL Messenger contacts?
BTTT
Well, there you have it...the SPECIAL people and the LITTLE people. The only thing I can guess is that special people look differently than little people. Maybe, it's because special people all wear red t-shirts with a big target on the front and back with the wording "I am an appointed official" on it. The little people are too simple minded and don't have the money corruption brings to afford a t-shirt that is a different color, without a target on it, and reads "Don't shoot! I'm a serf."
Ah, yes, Angola the finest and biggest prison in the country! No Camp Cupcake.
Yep! Also, if you get sent there, you do your entire sentence or die in the process.
Did you hear Rush reading this? It was hysterical. Every time he read "William Jefferson" in the story, he would loudly say "DEMOCRAT-LOUISIANA".
DemocRATS also downplayed Clinton's whole presidency. It's kind of a knee-jerk reaction for them. Or may an involuntry function; like breathing. And Bush gets ripped for needing to pee.
I just took a look at his bio and he must have made massive amounts of money as a lawyer to just afford the educational expenses for his kids or they are the smartest group of kids in the world. Everyone has gone to Harvard, Boston U or Brown. 5 kids X 5 private colleges is a number I couldn't contemplate, but I didn't have a piggy bank in my freezer either.
Small time political crook, by LA standards.
E.W. Edwards became a multi-millionaire, as did much of his extended family. He'll STILL be a millionaire when he gets out of the Federal Pen.
The 'Kingfish'.
I lived there while Edwin was Gov. If nothing things were lively. It was always his contention that if you voted for his opponent you would never know how big a thief you were voting for. On the other hand if you voted for him you knew.
Like I said before...When this story first broke a few days ago...
Lets hear it for the former Congressman!!!
WOO HOO!!!
Uh huh.
My Dad was on a purchasing committee for LSU about 15 years ago. His committee once met with a new business owner trying to get on the list for bid request solicitations. This guy came to the meeting fully prepared to have to bribe his way onto the list, and was genuinely shocked to be put on the list and have ALL of the committee members turn down his offer of a bribe.
He said that this meeting was the 25th such meeting he had attended, and the first 24 had all expected/taken the bribes.
It's damned sad that a State with so many good things going for it has people so stupid that they keep electing such dirtbags to lead them. I hate such slugs more than I do Islamic radicals.
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