Hastert Grabs Bush’s Lifesaver
Dennis Hastert has taken the gift that President Bush gave him and grabbed the lifesaver that Captain Ed refered to. Here’s a portion of Hastert’s op-ed in Friday’s USA Today:
If the information we have read about the behavior of Rep. William Jefferson, (D-LA), seems as obvious to a jury as it does to me, he deserves to be vigorously prosecuted. I do not want to do anything that will interfere with that prosecution.
The issue that has concerned me, as Speaker, since Saturday night is not if the FBI should be able to search a member of Congress’ office, but rather how to do it within the boundaries of the Constitution.
On Thursday, President Bush recognized that serious constitutional issues needed to be resolved. He wisely directed the Department of Justice to send the documents (taken from Jefferson’s office last weekend) to the Solicitor General’s office for safekeeping for 45 days. This was a meaningful step. The president also encouraged the Justice Department to meet with us.
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and I directed the lawyers for the House to develop reasonable protocols and procedures that will make it possible for the FBI to go into congressional offices to constitutionally-execute a search warrant.
Hastert is wise to have grabbed the lifesaver that Bush tossed him by having the DoJ seal the evidence seized from Jefferson’s office for the next 45 days. Peoples’ first impression, which they held incorrectly, was that Congress saw itself above the law. I didn’t think that at any point. My complaint in all this was that Hastert was standing on shaky constitutional ground. I understood that he simply saw this as a turf war, not whether William Jefferson should’ve been prosecuted.
This op-ed is a good first step in dispatching this issue from the front pages of America’s biggest papers. I suspect that this will be forgotten by the middle fo next week.
Technorati Tags: William Jefferson, Nancy Pelosi, Dennis Hastert, President Bush
Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog
May 25th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: The Constitution, House of Representatives, Pelosi, Corruption | [...]
May 25th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Bipartisan Furor Over FBI Raid
Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert demanded the return of documents seized by the FBI in a raid
May 25th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
So if a Congressman has a pile of skeletons, he would be wise to store them in the closet in his office, offlimits to law enforcement. Right.
May 25th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
I don’t think so. Here’s what the Constitution says on the matter:
I’d say that hiding funds gained by extorsion or bribery fall into the felony exception.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
The problem is we know Jefferson was hiding money. If the search is deemed illegal, and Jefferson is never punished, what kind of message will that send to us? Maybe Pelosi is on Jefferson’s side because she has some clams in her fridge.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Even if the evidence taken from Jefferson’s office is thrown out, Jefferson’s still toast. Aside from the office evidence, they’ve got him on tape admitting to the bribery, they’ve got the marked cash from his freezer. There’s no way he won’t be spending a ton of time in prison with all that. PERIOD.
May 26th, 2006 at 8:52 am
When are you going to offer a personal apology for your despicable slander of John Murtha?
Because he was telling the truth about Haditha, and you called him a traitor for it.
Simple decency and honesty test for you. Apologize and you have some credibility as a human being.
May 26th, 2006 at 9:47 am
When are you going to offer a personal apology for your despicable slander of John Murtha?
Not only will I not apologize to him; I will do everything possible to get him ‘fired’ this November.
When he played judge, jury and executioner, he was trying to drive a wedge between the Bush Administration and Arab countrie like Jordan, Kuwait, Afghanistan & the UAE.
He also put our troops in harm’s way. A fellow Minnesota blogger has a son in Iraq right now. His son says that Murtha’s statements have the military over there fuming and demoralized.
When Murtha stops lying “Our military is living hand to mouth”, “Our people are the main targets in a civil war” and “Eighty percent of the Iraqi people want us to leave” leap to mind. Such lies are being shot down left and right.
During last night’s Bush-Blair joint press conference, Blair said that he talked to Iraqi government leaders. “Not one of them said they wanted us out of there right now.” And he asked them directly about that.
Furthermore, how do foreigners become the primary targets in a civil war? I’m telling you that Murtha’s statement could only make sense to a moonbat liberal.
In closing, get an effing life.