Common Cause Blog

Court rules that the raid on Jefferson's office was illegal

A federal appeals court ruled today that the FBI's raid on Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) congressional office last year was unconstitutional. The court has ordered the DoJ to return all privileged documents to Jefferson for vetting, but allowed them to keep the other documents.

The nitty gritty:

Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The three-judge panel unanimously ruled that the search itself was constitutional but that FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business.

The constitutional issue is the "speech and debate" clause, which guarantees Congress the ability to operate independently of the executive. It's unclear how or whether this development will affect the government's case against Jefferson, as none of the seized material was used in his recent indictment on corruption charges.

Hey, Senate: Git-R-Dun on Ethics Reform!

The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, also known as S. 1, or the ethics and lobbying reform bill, is not everything we had hoped it to be. And it's nowhere near what we'd like it to be despite its lofty title and low number.

That's all right.

If the Senate gives its approval to S. 1 this week, as it's expected to do, Congress will finally have produced tighter ethics and lobbying rules after being dragged through the mud of the Abramoff, Foley, Ney and Cunningham scandals of years past. And we'll soon be reminded of why we went to this trouble, when Rep. William Jefferson, D-LA, goes to trial.

Documents fill in some gaps in Jefferson case

The federal government recently unsealed several documents related to their investigation and prosecution of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) on corruption charges. While no major revelations can be found in them, they do fill in some of the gaps.

For instance, they provide some specific details of the government's understanding of the shady Africa-related deals Jefferson sought to profit from. The feds allege that Jefferson partially owns iGate, the company he persuaded the Nigerian government to work with in a deal worth more than $200 million. When the deal started to go south, he intelligently used House stationery to write a letter to the Nigerian Vice President.

More "wha...?"-worthy, however, are the details regarding the money FBI agents found in Jefferson's freezer. According to the documents, Jefferson had $10,000 stuffed in a bag from the "Yes Organic Market," $20,000 simply wrapped up in foil, $20,000 in a Pillsbury Pie Crust box, and (it breaks my vegetarian heart) $20,000 hidden in a Boca Burger box.

Why, Mr. Jefferson? Why did you have to involve the soy burgers in your nefarious schemes?

Ethics Changes Remain Stuck - For Now

People often say that Congress only makes big changes when faced with consensus or crisis. This must be the reason why we have no progress to report today on ethics reforms.

Apparently, there's no consensus to produce an ethics and lobbying reform bill or a revamped House ethics process. And there must not be a crisis -- notwithstanding the recent indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) ongoing federal investigations involving Reps. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) and John Doolittle (R-CA) and the recent news that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) had been hanging out with alleged prostitutes. Nah, just business as usual on the Hill.

But as members have the aroma of jet fumes dancing in their heads -- the month-long August recess is approaching -- there may be a new ethics and lobbying reform bill in the next two weeks.

Playing ostrich

Wow. Just...wow.

Supporters of a Democratic congressman charged with bribery and money laundering harkened to their civil rights days on Wednesday as they denounced the allegations against U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.

The group, including ministers and the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, alleged the 16-count corruption indictment was the work of a Republican White House and Justice Department scheming to target black Democratic leaders and shift attention from legal troubles of Republican congressmen.

What about the two-year investigation that came before the indictment? And hello...the man had $90,000 hidden in his freezer! How do they explain that away?

Tracie Washington, a civil rights lawyer, asked the audience to give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt.

Danatus King, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said, "it's important that all of us keep our eyes on the prize and that prize is one word, and that one word is justice."

Yeah, no kidding.

Jefferson pleads not guilty

Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) has pleaded not guilty to a wide array of criminal charges, and was released on $100,000 bond. His trial isn't scheduled until January, so we have a long time to wait to find out more about:

The charges laid out in the 94-page indictment, including 11 separate bribery counts, and

16 other criminal counts, including racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice, and

The full story behind that frozen $90,000, and

The eight file cabinets of evidence prosecutors have assembled, and

The maximum sentence each of these charges carries, totalling 235 years in prison. Wow.

More importantly, between now and then will Jefferson resign? Will he be censured, pushed out or expelled by his colleagues? Stay tuned for the next episode...

Funniest headline ever

Haha!

Yahoo!'s headline for an AP article: Judge freezes congressman's assets.