May 24 2006
Hastert Stumbles and Bumbles
The Republicans have set up their circular firing squad and are firing away in an effort to look as imperialistic and bombastic as possible. Not to mention uniformed:
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told President Bush yesterday that he is concerned the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) congressional office over the weekend was a direct violation of the Constitution.
Hastert raised concerns that the FBI’s unannounced seizure of congressional documents during a raid of Jefferson’s Rayburn office Saturday night violated the separation of powers between the two branches of government as they are defined by the Constitution.
Unannounced (emphasis mine)? They Congressional lawyers knew of the request for documents, made copies and then all of a sudden decided not to turn them over at the last minute. The FBI was forced to get a warrant – from a judge – and get the information the old fashioned way. So I don’t know who is misreporting this, but the facts are this was not unannounced.
So now we have Rep leaders in Congress defending a man who has been taking bribes for votes and influence. And their excuse is the other two branches of government cannot hold them accountable to our laws. That’s it for me. I could care less who wins in 2006 since many are power hungry and corrupt (I can think of a few exceptions, like Curt Weldon).
Ed Morrissey agrees. Here is my previous post on this insanity which recalls the Contract With America which stated Congress should be governed by the same laws as the rest of us.
Crosspatch, I agree that something more is going on. And I think you are right on target with the repubs “thou protests too much”…
It is out of Hastert’s character to dis the President in this way…
I think this is REAL big and we shall we who gets snagged…
by the G-rope….
Uh,oh.
Saw this link on instapundit:
Seems what he might be wanting to nip in the bud is FBI searches of congressional offices.
You know, we have a primary process. We have the ability to kick those bastards out without changing parties. I think it is time we used it. Probably already too late in some areas but other states have yet to hold their primary elections. Get out and vote the bastards our, every last one of them. I would be quite happy to vote mine out on his ear just to make a point but I would want to do it in the primary, not the general election.
Granmary,
Get your own blog and do your own analysis. I agree with Terrye, your mind is so shutdown there is not point in debating a brick wall. You are not going to get what you want and most of us will. How you deal with that is up to you.
But Immigration policy differences are not the same thing as corruption and bribes and Congress saying they are not bound by the laws of this land. I am not for deporting congressman who take bribes, I am for them losing the next election.
Can’t find the link, but the FBI had served a subpeona on Representative Jefferson back in September of 2005. He notified the House leadership and administration, and they arrranged for the House Counsel to copy and review the records under subpeona.
Then for whatever reason, they refused to turn the records over to the FBI. Last Thursday, the FBI went to Judge Hogan, a Federal judge, to request a search warrant to get those records that had been supeonaed eight months ago!
WTF???
You and I couldn’t hold out against a subpeona for eight months, why the h–l should a member of Congress be allowed to do so?
Is this the new standard? The laws of the land do not apply to the members of Congress?
Lost in all of this, is the fact that $90,000 in cash was seized in the search. What was that, his life savings, he didn’t trust banks?
Okay, it seems the story about Speaker Hastert being under investigation was bogus:
And according to Hugh Hewitt Reuters is backing that up:
How about we all chip in (should be about $.06 (six cents) each at most), and send Speaker Hastert a copy of the book, “When Corruption Was King” by Cooley (Pat Cooley, I think).
Cooley’s book details Hastert’s home area, Illinois judiciary corruption cases, in which “separation of powers” issues were also not constued to be get-out-of-jail-free technicalities.
And yes, I’m being facetious. I’m aware that most of those particulars were circuit and county, not federal judges. But the point stands. Not only do we not have nobility in the House and Senate, we also do not have effective measures in either body to identify and weed out the crooks and miscreants in their memberships.
They won’t even remove security risks from their intelligence committees.
Terrye, We gave border reform a chance in 1986. The amnesty was given, but the enforcement never happened. Maybe you have heard of Ed Meese, cabinet member of the Reagan administration? He had an op-ed today that completely validated everything I have said. This Senate Bill is the 1986 Bill all over again, except with a few more perks for illegal aliens. I would think that someone who had been there in 1986 would know a little more than you do about this. As for AJ, On the subject of illegal immigration, you chastised republicans who said that they were sitting this election out. Now, on the Hastert/ Jefferson matter, you are threatening to sit this election out. When someone dares to point out your inconsistency, you resort to name-calling & insults. However, as I seem to be unwelcome to comment here, I will simply reply to your statement that most of you will get your way. That may indeed happen. It won’t surprise me at all, especially since you & Terrye [ moderates, right?] seem to be singing the same tune: ” Freedom of speech for me, but not thee.” Kos Kidz turn up in the most unexpected places! I will now take my leave of you, I was raised to know that one never wears out one’s welcome.
Oh, hey boys and girls. If you follow that link in my posting back there a ways where I copied the first two paragraphs of the ABC story from “The Blotter”, you will notice that the text is now COMPLETELY different. ABC news is now “standing behind” an article that they went back and replaced with a different article. The original first paragraph was:
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI, which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from high level government sources.
or at least it was when I cut/pasted that text here. Now the same link says something COMPLETELY different:
Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.
So it has morphed from “is under investigation by the FBI” to “investigation now includes” which might mean something completely different. Includes might mean the Speakers name is “mentioned” or it might mean the Speaker is cooperating with the investigation. That is MUCH different than “under investigation by the FBI”.
Of course the bigger story is news media dishonesty of publishing an article and then going back and COMPLETELY changing the text to a completely different article and saying they “stand behind it”. Well hell yeah … if they keep modifying the article, it is easy to stand behind! You can make it say whatever you want from hour to hour to reflect the reality of the moment. That is dishonest and that is what I fear as we move from a print to an electronic media. Our journalism trade has lost all integrity. They can not be trusted to stand behind anything because they will simply modify what they “said”. It sucks when they can go back and modify history. I suppose from now on I need to post entire stories or at least archive them myself because I can’t trust even our major networks to rewrite a story without so much as a footnote at a later time.
Here is the original article in it’s entirety as it first appeared at the URL I gave:
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigtaion by the FBI, which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from high level official sources.
Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbysists who are now cooperating with the government.
Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.
The other tribes were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who reportedly has provided details of his dealings with Hastert as part of his plea agreement with the government.
The letter was written shortly after a fund-raiser for Hastert at a restaurant owned by Abramoff. Abramoff and his clients contributed more than $26,000 at the time.
The day Abramoff was indicted, Hastert denied any unlawful connection and said he would donate to charity any campaign contribution he had received from Abramoff and his clients.
A spokesman for Speaker Hastert told ABC News, “We are not aware of this. The Speaker has a long history and a well-documented record of opposing Indian Reservation shopping for casino gaming purposes.”
This week, Hastert has been outspoken in his criticism of the FBI for its raid on the office of anotehr congressman under investigation, Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana.
“My opinion is that they toook the worng path, Hastert said of the FBI. “They need to back up, and we need to go from there.”
Now ABC says they “stand behind the story” but if you go to the URL, you will find that it is now a completely different story that they are standing behind.
Just an observation here.
Count the comments and the heartfelt expressions.
Means more to me than any poll.
Sentiment is building..only hope true adult reasoned logic pervails to support the most realistic solutions..not pie in the sky feel good focus group inspired corn meal mush.
ABC successfully changed the subject from “Corrupt congressman caught taking $100,000 has office raided” to “Republican speaker may or may not be under investigation”. Brilliant.
Looks like the Deputy AG issued a second statement that shoots down ABC’s modified article too (found on wizbang):