Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Congressman William Jefferson Steps Down

2 comments
Pelosi must be very busy cleaning the egg off of her face for promoting Jefferson after promising the "most ethical" congress in history. The Louisiana congressman has requested a temporary leave as a member of the House Small Business Committee. This comes just one day after being indicted by a federal grand jury for corruption.

CNN:

Jefferson asked to step down, pending the "successful conclusion" of the "legal matter," in a letter to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Nancy Pelosi of California.

"In doing so, I, of course, express no admission of guilt or culpability in that or any other matter that may be pending in any court or before the House of Representatives," Jefferson wrote.

We don't expect you to admit guilt congressman ... we expect you to be found guilty.

Federal prosecutors Monday alleged that Jefferson took more than $500,000 in bribes and sought millions more, using a network of family companies to conceal the money.

The 95-page, 16-count indictment came nearly two years after federal agents reported finding $90,000 in a freezer in Jefferson's Washington home. It accuses him of racketeering, money laundering, obstruction of justice and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

"Mr. Jefferson corruptly traded on his good office and on the Congress, where he served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, to enrich himself and his family through a pervasive pattern of fraud, bribery, and corruption that spanned many years and two continents," said Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney in Alexandria, Virginia, where the charges were brought.

After Monday's announcement, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he would push to have the indictment referred to the House ethics committee, which launched an investigation of Jefferson last year.

Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, also said he plans to demand the panel recommend within 30 days whether Jefferson should be forced to leave Congress.

I hope Boehner's efforts to remove Jefferson prove to be successful, and Democrats should be the first in line to get Jefferson out of Congress.

John Doolittle, and Rick Renzi have made similar decisions to step down pending investigations that mirror Reid's land deals. Democrats clamored for action to be taken against those two, and let's not forget about Mark Foley who stepped down for improper emails. Foley violated ethics rules, but did NOT brake any laws. He still resigned from Congress because his fellow Republicans didn't want behavior like that around.

Given the long history of hypocrisy from the Democrats in Congress ... can not expect them to take the same stance with Jefferson. Especially since they've been supporting the guy throughout this whole investigation even though his aide has plead guilty in the matter.

Comments

2 comments to "Congressman William Jefferson Steps Down"

Anonymous said...
3:16 PM

I fail to see why Pelosi would be "cleaning egg off her face" regarding Jefferson and his indictment. She put him in a do nothing position where he couldn't fuck anything up further until the investigation was over. Lo and behold, an indictment came down and he's stepped down from the committee. His next step should be stepping down from Congress period.

Pelosi isn't the one who should be cleaning egg off, Jefferson is. Sadly, hordes of Republicans will rally around this and chant about how they're not corrupt, it's the Democrats all along. Me, I think everyone is corrupt and we should exile the whole lot of Congresspeople.

Host said...
7:23 PM

While I agree with some of your comments we have to remember that she gave him an appointment to his current position, AND she recommended him for a prominent Homeland Security position. Luckily, the second didn't go through.

Pelosi did all of this AFTER he was caught on tape taking money from the FBI. She is well deserving of criticism here for her conduct. Had she not known he was under investigation it would have been forgivable, but that was not the case.

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