It All Depends On Whose Ox Is Getting Gored

Pass the popcorn.

Search of lawmaker's office angers congressional leaders
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune

TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2006

WASHINGTON Republican leaders said Tuesday that the FBI search of the Capitol Hill office of a Louisiana Democrat - who the FBI says was taped elsewhere accepting a $100,000 bribe - was an unacceptable breach of precedent and congressional prerogatives. The unusually sharp protests placed the White House and the Justice Department on the defensive. "We are hoping that there's a way to balance the constitutional concerns of the House of Representatives with the law enforcement obligations of the executive branch," said the White House spokesman, Tony Snow. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said talks with lawmakers were under way to allay their concerns. He expressed respect for the Congress "as a co-equal branch of government." The case against Representative William Jefferson appears unusually strong, even without any evidence found in the extensive weekend search. The FBI said in an affidavit that not only did it have videotape of him accepting the $100,000 meant to secure his support in helping a technology company win contracts but that $90,000 was found last summer in a freezer in his home. Awkwardly for the White House, the issue placed it at odds with Republicans who in the past have often defended its muscular assertions of executive- branch powers. So, while few Democrats defended Jefferson's actions, several Republicans expressed outrage over the search. They included the House speaker, Dennis Hastert of Illinois, and an earlier speaker, Newt Gingrich. Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the House majority leader, spoke of an "invasion of the legislative branch" and suggested that the matter might reach the Supreme Court. Lawmakers said the search was an unwarranted breach of the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. Hastert said he knew of no "necessity to change the precedent established over those 219 years." Congressional Democrats fear the Jefferson case will undermine their election-year effort to portray Republicans as a party of corruption, and few had much to say about the Jefferson case. The FBI has grown demonstrably more aggressive in pursuit of corrupt public officials; more than 1,000 have been convicted in the past two years, with the 2005 figure one-fourth higher than the 2004 number, the bureau said. Its recent targets have included prominent Republicans, including Representative Randy Cunningham of California, who is serving a prison sentence for bribery, and the former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Still, the search of Jefferson's office raised a different issue. "The case against Mr. Jefferson is pretty bad - it's pretty serious," said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who heads the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. She said of the office search: "I think that'll prove to be pretty impolitic." What made it stand out, she said, was that the FBI had not searched Cunningham's office, even though in supposed contrast to Jefferson, he used it in connection with illegal activities - even writing out a "bribe menu" on congressional stationery. "That looks really bad," said Sloan, "that you decided for the first time in history to do it with a black Democrat, even though you decided not to do it with a white Republican."