WASHINGTON - President Bush stepped into a confrontation between the Justice Department and Congress on Thursday, ordering that documents seized in an
FBI raid on a lawmaker's office be sealed for 45 days.
His spokesman also labeled as "false, false, false" charges that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' department had tried to intimidate Republican House Speaker
Dennis Hastert.
In an effort to defuse an intensifying, election-year dispute between the Republican-led Congress and his administration, Bush, facing growing complaints from lawmakers in both parties that he has abused presidential powers, called for a cooling-off period.
"Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries," he said in a statement. "Yet after days of discussions, it is clear these differences will require more time to be worked out."
Republican officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Vice President
Dick Cheney had become involved as the administration worked to ease the anger of the speaker, who has enormous control over the president's legislative agenda.
Bush granted one of Hastert's demands, directing the FBI to surrender documents and computerized records taken last weekend from the office of Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La. He ordered Solicitor General Paul Clement, who has a separate office in the Justice Department, to take custody of them.
The president said no one is above the law and that he continued to support the investigation of Jefferson. The eight-term congressman is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars to facilitate a telephone investment deal in Africa.
"Those who violate the law — including a member of Congress — should and will be held to account," the president said. "This investigation will go forward and justice will be served."
First, I can the political spin-control working here, where the president becomes the fatherly moderator in this little tuff-a-tuff between House Speaker Hastert, and the FBI. The president is certainly trying to cite a moderate tone by sealing these FBI records for a period of time until this "constitutional crisis" becomes resolved. And this little PR-spin game works to both the Bush administration's and Republican Party's advantage, since the records were seized from the congressional office of a Democratic congressman William Jefferson. So in one sense, the Republicans in Congress can say they are trying to avert a constitutional crisis of an out-of-control Justice Department trying to tear down this "culture of corruption" that exists in Congress. That's all the political spin.
There is more. There has to be more here. What gets me here is that this whole "constitutional crisis" seems to be manufactured over a third-rate bribery scam of a Democratic congressman, who really doesn't have a clue as to how to be crooked. I'm not saying that William Jefferson is innocent--there is probably enough evidence to put him away without having the FBI search his congressional office. I mean, the FBI has him on videotape taking bribes, and they searched Jefferson's house and found $90,000 in cash stashed in his freezer. And I will say that I'm not surprised for the FBI getting a search warrant to search Jefferson's congressional office. If the circumstances of this case involved an "Average Joe," you can bet that the FBI would be searching both the home and the office of such an "Average Joe." Instead, we've got the FBI (which is part of the executive branch) securing a search warrant from the judiciary branch to search an office of the congressional branch. And I still have to wonder why did the FBI search this Democratic congressman's office, and not any of the offices of Republican congressmen who are involved in their own scandals--such as Duke Cunningham, or Tom DeLay?
There is more twists here than you can imagine. According to this LA Times story, both Dennis Hastert and and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) demanded that the FBI confiscated items not only be returned to Jefferson, but "that the FBI agents involved in the search be taken off the case." And now according to this ABC News Update on the Hastert story, senior law enforcement officials are saying that Hastert is under investigation within the Abramoff probe. According to ABC News:
The investigation of HastertÂ’s relationship with Abramoff is in the early stages, according to these officials, and could eventually conclude that AbramoffÂ’s information was unfounded.
Officials said the next logical investigative step would be for the FBI to seek a wide range of documents from the members of Congress named by Abramoff, including letters and business documents.
A spokesman for Hastert said the office had received no subpoenas or requests for documents.
What will happen if the FBI serves a search warrant to Hastert's office for documents relating to the Abramoff scandal? And it is not just Dennis Hastert that is involved in the Abramoff scandal. There are quite a few Republican senators and representatives whose names have been connected with Abramoff. And don't forget that President Bush's name has also been connected to the Abramoff probe. So are the Republicans trying to jump on this bandwagon to stop the FBI from searching and investigating a two-bit bribery scam by a Democratic congressman in order to stymie any serious investigation into their own allegations of corruption? Is Dennis Hastert using this William Jefferson scandal as a means to stop the feds from investigating his own criminal activities in the Abramoff scandal?
Hence, my confusion, and suspicions, regarding this story.
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