Funny how Congress suddenly finds a sinister, deeper meaning in "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" when it's their hides that are on the line:
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) expressed alarm at the raid. "The actions of the Justice Department in seeking and executing this warrant raise important Constitutional issues that go well beyond the specifics of this case," he said in a lengthy statement released last night.
"Insofar as I am aware, since the founding of our Republic 219 years ago, the Justice Department has never found it necessary to do what it did Saturday night, crossing this Separation of Powers line, in order to successfully prosecute corruption by Members of Congress," he said. "Nothing I have learned in the last 48 hours leads me to believe that there was any necessity to change the precedent established over those 219 years."
And what part of the US Constitution are they referring to, as the basis for their whining about having a "separation of powers" issue? Article I, Section 6. Here it is, reproduced in full for the casual reader:
Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.
Now, unless breach of the peace is to be interpretted as running around like a lunatic, a reasonable person could find grounds to say that the Founders intended for it to be a clause against misdemeanors, felonies and treason. That's reasonable enough. The President can only have members of Congress arrested when there are acual legal charges to bring them up on. I see nothing, absolutely nothing about Jefferson's case that warrants the kid gloves that he and other members of Congress want the FBI to use. They would never exercise that sort of restraint with a normal American citizen, so why is Congress special?
With the sort of corruption that goes on daily, that you can easily find by reading up on Porkbusters, this move comes as a great relief to the American people. We need more FBI strong-arm raids on Congress, not fewer. Congress needs to not only feel the heat for its culture of corruption, but needs to get a taste of the power that it so nonchalantly allows to be wielded against ordinary Americans.
It's impossible to call the United States a nation of laws, not men, if we allow Congress to be effectively above the law. They won't police their own members because too many of them have something to hide. If they weren't such a gathering of villainy and thievery, this might actually cause them to start discussing much needed reforms on police powers and to oppose programs like the NSA phone call analysis program and data retention laws. As always, that'd be a very big if.
ah, one of my favorite subjects, the absolute corruption of our elected representatives...as we have discussed, there are likely precious few in D.C. that have nothing to hide...I believe that each and every one (with perhaps the exception of Dr. Paul) is on the take and/or has compromising photos/videos in the hands of manipulators...funny how this representative had $90K stuffed in a freezer and yet maintains his innocence...I am sure the race card will be played soon enough as we all know that black crime is only a response to the oppression by whitey...the eye opening part of this story, as you have pointed out, is the comments from those on the "other side" of the aisle, seemingly trying to protect one of their own...hopefully this episode will further wake people up to the truth that there are no differences between the parties...they are all the same...
It is a lot more proof for the argument that it's two wings of the same bird of prey, or as Vox puts it, two uniforms, one team. Our ruling class just happens to be a lot better than the Mexican ruling class at being semi-enlightened and balanced in how they pursue their interests, often against the interests of the public. They've managed to create the illusion of a pluralistic democratic state, when in reality the practical effect of the Republicratic majority is the same as Mexico's PRI (Revolutionary Institutional Party, if memory serves).
I have little doubt, though, that the Democrats will want to stand by this guy when the grand jury hands down an indictment and the US Attorney starts to legally tear this guy apart. They're smart enough to know when to throw one of their own to the wolves.
Darn good post we need more raids in congress not fewer.
Not only do we need more raids, we need to bring in the heavily artillery like they do with the drug raids on potential meth labs. Even better. They should be executed without any prior intelligence gathering, and just to be thorough, like they do with the War on Drugs, they should bust every single office in Congress in the office chance that they might have a lobbyist there.