Posted on 05/25/2006 12:16:25 PM PDT by tsmith130
That's about it. Said they should be sealed until the confusion is worked out.
Many of you still very primitive in the arts of politics and you let your emotions control your brains. Hating President Bush is going to consume many of you the same way it has consumed liberals.
sinkspur has nothing to do with this...
You have made some very childish, mean posts on this thread...and I value this thread too much to have your type of comments to go unnoticed.
And you were nasty in your remarks to sinkspur, you were not debating a difference of opinion, which is what this forum IS supposed to be about.
Hey, there's a couple different levels goin' on with that one. But it's good advice...
I for one would love to catch the Dems on a 'third-rate burglary'.
Since when did a POTUS have the power to order the sealing of records? I thought the judicial branch had that power.
Thanks for posting that article; I'd read that agents not involved in the bribery case would go through the legislative material to make sure there wasn't some breach but I couldn't remember that they were called the Filter Team (an unfortunate name, imo).
RIGHT ON RATTRAP!!! :-)
Yes, but Peach....look who is getting the bad PR, it is President Bush...not Hastert, Boehner, Frist or especially Pelosi and Jefferson!
I was FURIOUS with Hastert and the rest yesterday...and up until I saw this thread...now I am wondering why President Bush even tries to do the right thing anymore.
HE is getting 10 times more vitriol than any of the Congressweinies..
Could it be Jefferson has something on Hastert?
IMHO (OK, not so Humble) President Bush does the right thing, it is just he is bad a marketing himself... he waits until all the democrats and arm chair quarterbacks tell the world what President Bush did and why, not what he actually did or why.
'If Jefferson was a Republican ...'
this would be on the front pages of every newspaper and magazine every day!
On this thread, it is the president who is getting the bad press. In the real world, it is Republicans in general and Hastert and Boehner specifically.
Everyone I've talked with about this thinks they have something to hide, given their defense of the clearly guilty democrat, Rep. Jefferson.
And now the president, without a clear explanation, has ordered the search items sealed so his name is linked, in people's minds, with Boehner and Hastert who look REALLY odd complaining that a legal search warrant was served on a Congressman.
They are not above the law and I haven't seen anything published anywhere that leads me to believe the FBI acted illegally.
Because it was unavoidable. The judge who signed the warrant knew they would be and put in "minimalization" procedures to see that they were not used in the case against Jefferson.
Those minimalization procedures were the usual ones used in cases of privilege for doctors and lawyers. They keep the privileged documents from the eyes of the prosecuting team. However the procedures do allow other Executive officers to examine them.
In this case the privilege is a different special constiutional one that is meant to protect the legislature from interference or intimidation by the Executive OR Judiciary. No Executive (or Judicial) officer has a right to those privileged documents.
There has never been an instance of this in our entire history (nor apparently in England either since legislative Privilege was established after much bloodshed).
I have gathered this is the first time and although I know you won't agree with me, I think it's well past time that a Congressional office was searched by the FBI.
How in the world was the Abscam scandal, the banking scandal, and too many more to list, handled without searching Congressional offices?
The constitution does not protect the legislatures records from criminal proceedings. It is not even mentioned anywhere
But the law allowing prosecutors to got to court and subpoena documents has existed from day one in our law and in the English common law it was based on.
It was nearly 9 months ago that the judge in this case issued a subpoena to the House for the documents relevant to the case.
Neither the house or Congressman Jefferson even bothered to respond. After nearly 9 months of being stonewalled, the judge issued a search warrant.
When the FBI searched the congressmans office, they were acting as agents of the COURT. Not agents of GEorge Bush.
There are two ways search warrants are issued. In the first a prosecutor presents a statement listing probable cause that a crime has been committed and evidence that the site contains material necessary for determining and or proving the commission of a crime.
Thee second way is when a prosecutor has asked for a subpoena for records held by a potential defendant. If the potential defendent does not comply with the subpoena the search warrant is a slam dunk.
The real first in this case is a congressman who has refused to respond to a subpoena for documents.
>>>Bush is not satisfied with his low poll numbers and wants to see if he can hit the single digits.
Conspiracy enthusiasts will certainly give this a workout. I can see why Bush did it: to persuade Jefferson to resign peacefully. It might even have been suggested by the Democrats. But this was a bad decision on Bush's part. He should have stood firm on the use of FBI raid on any Conbressman videotaped taking $100,000 in bribes.
The only thing Bush will get out of this is a lower poll number -- assuming Hastert was not involved and there are no follow on repercussions. By leaving thou-protesteth-too-much Hastert's complicity open, he opens the door for conspiracy theorists to cry "cover up."
Yup. Exactly and well put.
Puleeeeeeze.
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