Lawmaker Accused of Hiding $90G in Freezer - Filing: Tape Shows Lawmaker Taking Money

YAHOO NEWS ^ | 21 MAY 2006 | AP

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer. At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa

[kinghorse]

The money? Chicken scratch. Now lets talk about my ethnicity.

Laughable.

[Liz]

Wonder if the FBI checked under his house?

[Liz]

Wonder if the FBI checked under his district Congressional office?

[Albion Wilde]

The hand bone's connected to the FBI bone....

[Capn TrVth]

It all makes so much more sense now...

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1123495&page=1

He had to use the Nat'l Guard to go; "Check his Freezer."

[Libloather]

You put a chair on the roof, next to a satellite dish, and it comes pretty close to so-called vehicles I've seen at a few NASCAR races. (That's NO joke...)

[Liz]

"The Cong's new office----this has a bigger, er, freezer."

[ranlee007]

You're right and I wonder how long it'll take Jesse Jackson to get down there and start fanning the fires of racism.

[nutmeg]

Belated ping on this one...

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[nutmeg]

Thanks for the ping, Howlin!

[Congressman Billybob]

What is happening to Cong. Jefferson (D - La.) is exactly what may happen to Cong. Taylor (R - NC). And if the lightning strikes Taylor, I will be back in the hunt for the Republican nomination in NC's 11th District. (In this District, an indicted incumbent cannot survive -- that may not be an absolute disqualifier in the New Orleans District, alas.)

My next column on Friday will deal with the meaning of the reelection of Mayor Nagin, and the possible reelection of Cong. Jefferson.

P.S. My primary is over, but because of certain legal and ethical problems, the incumbent, Charles Taylor may withdraw/be forced out, and I am in the running to be chosen as the replacement nominee for Congress in the 11th District of NC. For more information, see the article below, and my website. I still need your help.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article: "Avoid These Stocks Like the Plague"

[Congressman Billybob]

Among the "personal items" that Cong. Jefferson pulled out of his home -- taken there by National Guardsmen who were pulled off duties of rescuing people -- were packages of cash from his freezer at his NO home. This guy had stashes everywhere.

John / Billybob

[Congressman Billybob]

No. Members of Congress cannot be impeached. They can only be expelled from the House or Senate by vote of those bodies, after civil investigations by those bodies. The last person expelled from the House was James Trafficant (D - Ohio), who refused to resign after he had been convicted of bribery and malfeasance in office and was shortly scheduled to go to jail.

Impeachment CAN, but does not automatically, bar the person from any future federal office. Judge Alcee Hastings argued against disqualification when he was removed as a federal judge. The House did not disqualify him. And now he is "the formerly-Honorable, Honorable Cong. Alcee Hastings" from Florida.

P.S. My primary is over, but because of certain legal and ethical problems, the incumbent, Charles Taylor may withdraw/be forced out, and I am in the running to be chosen as the replacement nominee for Congress in the 11th District of NC. For more information, see the article below, and my website. I still need your help.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article: "Avoid These Stocks Like the Plague"
John / Billybob

[danamco]

Wait a minute.... A LA politician is taking a bribe???!!! That can't be, we all know how ethical politicians in that state are. /sarc





And, ----then patches kennedy is toooooo late for a vote in Congress at 3 A.M.!!!

[philman_36]

Members of Congress cannot be impeached.
And why is that? Hmmmm...let's see.
What about William Blount?
On February 5, 1798, as the Senate prepared for his trial and still uncertain as to whether or not a senator, or former senator, was even liable for impeachment, it issued the arrest order. The Sergeant at Arms ultimately failed in his first mission, as Blount refused to be taken from Tennessee. A year later, the Senate dismissed the charges for lack of jurisdiction—and possibly for lack of Blount.
Since Black's isn't online...Bouvier's Law Dictionary 1856 Edition
Civil officer...a senator of the United States, it was decided, was not a civil officer, within the meaning of this clause in the constitution. Senate Journals, 10th January, 1799 (who decided this you ask?)
Impeachment...3. The persons liable to impeachment are the president, vice-president, and all civil officers of the United States. Art. 2, s. 4. A question arose upon an impeachment before the senate, in 1799, whether a senator was a civil officer of the United States, within the purview of this section of the constitution, and it was decided by the senate, by a vote of fourteen against eleven, that he was not. Senate Journ., January 10th, 1799; Story on Const. 791; Rawle on Const. 213, 214 Serg. Const. Law, 376. (nothing on the House, only the Senate)
The Senate...covering their own backsides for over 200 years.
If the members of Congress, both the House and Senate, aren't civil officers then I don't know what is.

Good luck on the campaign.

[RFEngineer]

In his Freezer? This was done in comedy decades ago! .....Better check his pajamas, too.

Monty Python Money Song

I've got ninety thousand pounds in my pajamas
I've got forty thousand French francs in my fridge
I've got lots and lots of lira
Now the deutschmark's getting dearer,
And my dollar bills could buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
There is...

...nothing quite as wonderful as money!
There is nothing quite as beautiful as cash!
Some people say it's folly, but I'd rather have the lolly,
With money you can make a splash!

There is nothing quite as wonderful as money!
There is nothing like a newly minted pound!
Everyone must hanker for the butchness of a banker
It's accountancy that makes the world go round!

You can keep your Marxist ways, for it's only just a phase...
Money, money, money makes the world go round!

Money! Money! Money! Money! Money! Money! Money! Money! Money!

[philman_36]

And it's SO vague...Impeachment
Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives has the power to impeach a government official, in effect serving as prosecutor. The Senate then holds the impeachment trial, essentially serving as jury and judge, except in the impeachment of a president when the chief justice presides.

And the main question is...If House and Senate members weren't supposed to be covered by the impeachment article why is there a special provision only in the case of a presidential impeachment?
I find it hard to fathom that impeachment was intended to cover just judges and presidents.

[Congressman Billybob]

Exactly one legislator, a Senator, was impeached almost two centuries ago for public drunkenness. Since then, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the provisions for removal of a Senator or Representative by their respective Houses are the sole means for expulsion, and that impeachment only applies to the Executive and Judicial Branches.

So, whatever you may think the impeachment language might cover (and so thought the Senate, long ago), the issue is now settled, and impeachment applies only as I described. Note that expulsion by either House -- last applied to Rep. James Trafficant (D - Ohio) -- requires a two-thirds vote, the same as is required in the Senate in a civil trial to convict after impeachment (similar to indictment) by the House. So, the burden to remove is about the same, regardless of the method used.

P.S. My primary is over, but because of certain legal and ethical problems, the incumbent, Charles Taylor may withdraw/be forced out, and I am in the running to be chosen as the replacement nominee for Congress in the 11th District of NC. For more information, see the article below, and my website. I still need your help.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article: "Avoid These Stocks Like the Plague"