Posted on 05/28/2006 6:35:29 AM PDT by MNJohnnie
WASHINGTON — The constitutional showdown that followed the FBI's search of a congressman's office came down to this: The House threatened budgetary retaliation against the Justice Department. Justice officials raised the prospect of resigning.
That scenario, as described Saturday by a senior administration official, set the stage for President Bush's intervention into the fight over the FBI's search of the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., an eight-term lawmaker being investigated on bribery allegations.
During contentious conversations between the Department of Justice and the House, top law enforcement officials indicated that they'd rather quit than return documents FBI agents, armed with a warrant, seized in an overnight search of Jefferson's office, the administration official said.
Until last Saturday night, no such warrant had ever been used to search a lawmaker's office in the 219-year history of the Congress. FBI agents carted away records in their pursuit of evidence that Jefferson accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for helping set up business deals in Africa.
After the raid, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill, lodged a protest directly with Bush, demanding that the FBI return the materials. Bush struck a compromise Thursday, ordering that the documents be sealed for 45 days until congressional leaders and the Justice Department agree on what to do with them.
(Story continues below)
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Are you perhaps mistaking his reticence to prosecute that which he cannot get enough evidence to win a conviction?
Clarification added at no extra charge.
One little piece of RUMINT (rumor) is that the Good Congressman from Louisian was merely the funnel for all that, if you'll pardon the expression, cold cash, some $90,000 of which was found in his freezer. The actual (intended) recipients may be getting a bit on the nervous side.
Hmm 45 days sequestration... that gets us to mid July, when Congressional campaigns will be in full roar, or maybe full fizzle this year. :)
Not in the least.
Oh they have demonstrated they know very well how to cut funding... for the military, for the Border Patrol, for the INS, and other Constitutional responsibilities of the Federal Government. It's the vote buying appropriations, cheese subsidies, bridges to nowhere, and various unconstitutional "entitlements" that they can't seem to find the means to reduce.
They weren't threatening, they were promising. The very next paragraph after your quote reads:
You didn't have them (the law enforcement officials) marching up and threatening insubordination," said the official, who is familiar with discussions between the House and Justice Department. "It was more like `Well, if that happens, than this will happen."'
Of course submitting one's resignation is not insubordination anyway. It's standing on one's principals. Insubordination is failure to follow the lead of one's supperiors, while continuing to hold one's position in an organization.
Thanks, I was hoping so.
Best to you.
It was a false alarm - construction workers operating some equipment in an underground carpark are believed to have caused the bangs - but it prompted wags to suggest the gunfire was actually the Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, shooting himself in the foot.
................."In more than 219 years, the Justice Department has never found it necessary to use a search warrant to obtain documents from a congressional office. These issues have always been resolved without the necessity of a search warrant."
If it is the first reason I am LOL!
If it is the second reason, note what I said in my previous posting.
"They did not scream separation of powers when the FBI got warrants and raided judges offices before.So there has been a president set."
I knew it had been said the congressional offices had not been searched in 219 years but in listening to Britt Hume (I think it was) this morning he told about the FBI searching Judges offices before, so there goes the separation of powers argument.
WE have no King. Move to England.
I would stay home rather than vote for a crook.
The Position of all three Branches, the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary is summed in the Supreme Court Gravel ruling:"In sum, the Speech or Debate Clause prohibits inquiry only into those things generally said or done in the House or the Senate in the performance of official duties and into the motivation for those acts. "
In fact Hastert's critics here are actually slamming Gonzalez because the Justice Department agrees privileged documents were searched!
At issue is only the procedure for searching through privileged documents to find the ones that aren't. The warrant included minimalization procedures to limit the examination of privileged documents of course. Hastert thinks they weren't sufficient.
Examples of un-controversial protocols Hastert will (IMHO) ask for:
That only the FBI comprise the filter team.
That only the AG can request a search warrant.
That the Seargent at Arms and/or the chief House Consul be present during the search.
He may also ask that an Appelate level judge have to issue the warrant
More controversially, he'll probably ask that the Consul have power to object (and some procedure to resolve that objection) during the search.
It's all about the details.
And it was an other Democrat, Senator Daniel Baugh Brewster of Maryland, who got caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
The only difference was that he was a former Senator by the time the indictment was handed down, but I don't think that fact makes the precedent inapplicable to this case.
That was a nice rant, why on earth was it directed towards me?
If ANY republican is found to be a crook after this, then Hastert will be seen as attempting to cover it up. And I suspect that there are a few more Republican crooks. Cunningham was just one. There are others. You can count on it.
I think you are on to something here. It is highly unlikely if it was ALL for him he would keep it around frozen. He would have laundered it to some overseas account.
He needed to have it handy to dole out as needed.
Thank you.
Influence pedaling is legal, taking and/or offering bribes is not. The NRA pedals the influence (that is the votes), of it's millions of members and many more millions who follow it's lead, all the time. That's a kind of influence pedaling is perfectly legal and even ethical.
Your protocols sound reasonable, it's the what constitutes 'privileged documents' argument I'm suspicious of, where are you going to draw the line there?
I am not criticizing Gonzales because of anything to do with the case that is the topic of this thread. I was responding to the general claim that he is a principled law enforcement officer. He is not. He ignores or enforces the law selectively.
Gonzales systematically ignores tax evasion, document fraud, unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, racketeering, and smuggling, even conspiracy to abet acts of terrorism...
...whenever it involves illegal immigration.
He is unprincipled. QED.
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